Part 68: Invasion 3

One more challenge before Garon. I don't think I've ever managed to complete Invasion 3 on Lunatic before... Although come to think of it, have I ever even tried? I don't remember.



No more hoarding, Corrin gets the Speedwing to cap speed at 31 and Ophelia gets the Seraph Robe to fix one of her two only bad stats. I considered giving the robe to Corrin, but figured it might mess with VoF strats a bit.



I got some supports this time! Dwyer / Ophelia and Midori / Camilla. Ophelia's a great character for no context quotes.



Yes! Wheat!!! The people of Nohr finally have bread!!! Time to celebrate with a tasty Nohrian sandwich.



...but now I'm not sure I actually want it. I would prefer speed and resistance for the next map so once again I must combine milk and cabbages. It doesn't sound like a nice combo...



Speaking of milk, what happens to all the milk bottles I keep leaving out in memory of Lilith? Either someone cleans them up afterward or this shrine now stinks horribly. Or it's been converted into a cheese cave.



Time to splurge and spend all my DVP on boosting castle battle stats as high as possible. They'll most likely get destroyed very quickly but the boost they provide for the first few turns of battle is nice.



Alright, time to see what this is all about. I'm not actually all that sure myself... I don't see any Maids or Merchants so I'm already feeling more optimistic than last time!



Most noticeable are these three jerks. They all have Certain Blow and Wary Fighter, and they all do an insane amount of damage. Stoneborn are dangerous and can't be taken out on enemy phase unless you trap them, and castle battles tend to get more and more chaotic the longer they go on... Bunching 3 together like these means it'll be difficult to have someone like Ophelia get close to Lightning them without getting overwhelmed.



The Basaras have Seal Speed and the Blacksmiths have Seal Defense. Taking them out in one round shouldn't be tricky though, they're not too bulky or too fast.



The boss is a Paladin paired up with another Paladin. He's got a Levin Sword, a Brave Lance, and loads of skills... He also won't move until turn 5, but thanks to Amaterasu he'll heal all his friends so long as he's alive so it's best he dies now.

His buddy has a Beast Killer but otherwise isn't much of a threat. Certainly nothing compared to the Spendthrift Merchant with an Entrap Maid in his back pocket.



On the left and right are a bunch of mounted units with Lunge. Lunge is a great way to stop you from cheesing the chapter by refusing to move off of the throne, so no wonder so many enemies have it. There's a lot of them but they otherwise are not scary.



Lilith is dead but she still functions the exact same as she always did... Makes her death feel even sillier. Maybe her little fireball spirit evaporates all the milk that's left out for her.



Almost all my units have capped their levels. I'm just doing this chapter for bragging rights and completion's sake. I guess the boss has a nice stat booster? Although most of my best physical attackers have capped their strength too...



Time for the age old strategy of boost the stats of Xander and send him at the enemies.



Unfortunately it takes him 3 hits to take out a single Stoneborn, crits aside... They do however not do enough damage to hurt him at all.



Xander standing in front of this one also cuts its movement just enough to protect Shigure. Nice!



Otherwise taking out the left and right sides is trivially easy. Nobody's getting any EXP for this but it doesn't matter.



All the enemies take a huge chunk of damage from my Dusk Dragon... and then heal up again thanks to the boss's Amaterasu. Maybe I should have taken him out first instead of going for the Stoneborn?



Oops, enemies can destroy buildings so hiding behind them isn't very effective!



Attempt 2, Laslow is Xander's partner instead of Peri, and Azura dances him instead of Shigure rallying him. This is to make sure all the enemies around the boss attack him - on my last attempt he was too bulky to take any damage and they went right past him.



Unfortunately the Stoneborn can now hurt Xander. Thanks to Sol this shouldn't be too much of an issue...



But my main goal this time is to eliminate the boss. A ORKO would have been nice, but my attempts are basically throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks so I'll just see how this goes.



Oh, right, Vegeance! Oops. Xander's defense drops massively once the defensive buildings get destroyed... Maybe I should go for that ORKO.



This required both Peri and replacing Camilla with Percy so I could rally Xander's strength. I've still got Azura instead of Shigure.



Nice, a pretty much perfect outcome. The Levin Sword can't activate offensive skills so there's no risk of Vengeance, but Xander dodged anyway thanks to the Einharjar building boosting his avoid.



Once the defensive building is gone Xander will get attacked by these guys too. They're no threat, they barely do any damage and they don't survive combat to seal his skills. Unfortunately Xander can't double them without a rally or Azura's dance, which is impractical to do in the heat of battle.



A lucky mix of Sol and Dual Guard activations or dodges are needed to not get clobbered by the Basaras, but this map is short enough that I don't mind the risk.

Sorry if it's somewhat hard to parse what's going on, the hardest part of this chapter is just a big group of enemies in an open field, and like the last invasion my strategy here consists of finding out what buffs to give Xander before throwing him at them. It's one of the few cases where a video would be better I think.



Seems like this approach was best anyway. Most of the southern enemies are gone, and all that's left to do is slowly whittle down these Stoneborn.



Cleanup at the left and right is a little tricker than the last invasion. The enemies have no interest in attacking my units unless they can kill them, they either go for the throne or smash random buildings. My super high level units can one round them easily, but there are a lot of them. Dealing with them unfortunately means nobody is free to help against the Stoneborn...



Although I'm not sure who could even approach them in the first place. Ophelia and Elise would both be killed if two of them attacked in the same turn, and their high attack range makes them difficult to get near without taking a hit first.



Predictably this chapter also has reinforcements. Mostly just more of the same, but what's scary about these Stoneborn is that they have Lunge - anybody hit by them is going to get dragged halfway across the map and killed. It's like the Spy Yumi Automatons but worse.

I think the only other map to use the Lunge Stoneborn combo in this game is, for some reason, the EXP grinding DLC. I don't know why they thought it would be appropriate to use there.



Taking one hit drags Xander back to the bottom of the map. This might become a problem if he takes too much damage...



...and now there's more reinforcements. A load of Dark Knights with Lifetaker and Paladin pairs with Lunge. Xander might be dead!



It'll take some luck to survive all this. If I understand their AI they won't attack Xander if they can't kill him, which means I just need him to raise his HP via Sol...



This is actually the best outcome - Xander survives, but the enemies attack him so they get themselves killed against him rather than trying to seize the throne.



At least Peri has levels to gain. I was hoping she could maybe cap her strength, although I don't know what her cap for that actually is.



A mix of Sol, dodges, and dual guards allows Xander to survive and defeat all three Dark Knights. I was fully prepared to reset the map and try a more aggressive approach to rout all the Stoneborn before the reinforcements showed up, but this was a pleasant surprise.



3 Lunge Paladins from either side of the map spawn in. This might get hairy.



The rest of my army can take out the Paladins, but they can't handle the Stoneborn. I want Xander to take them out while my other units hang by the throne to take out the attackers. The Dusk Dragon has whittled them down to killing range...



These Blacksmiths have Tomebreaker, but it doesn't help them.



...or maybe it does help then when Ophelia misses a 92% hit chance.



At this point I should have just reset and came in with a better strategy, but I was too invested. So two physic uses get blown to keep Ophelia alive.



The Stoneborn move forward to attack, allowing Ophelia to finish them off at close range. The Lunge ones are my top priority and they spawned in late enough to not have accumulated too much damage from the Dusk Dragon, Xander couldn't take them out.



I think I have enough units gathered at the throne to take out all the Paladins before they overwhelm me.



It helps that they seem to want to waste time smashing every single obstacle on the way. Who rebuilds all of this?



And then Forrest cleans up the last of the Stoneborn, because only he can earn anything from doing it. Neither of his levels were good.



I had no idea what I was doing and I'm sure my commentary reflected that. I guess I have an Energy Drop now? I'll probably use that on Peri or Xander. It's near the end of the game and I'm feeling a little burned out, it's no surprise the previous Fates LP never managed to reach the end of Revelation.


Next time: Garon, for real