Part 60: Chapter 4, Part 16: Rigel Fort
Only a couple stops left on Alm's invasion tour of Rigel. Today we're stomping through some random fort.
Right, so a bit of a gimmick map here. Rush up some long corridors while being pelted by ranged attackers, with barons blocking the chokepoints at the end. Strategy is pretty simple - stick to one side with most of the army, and warp certain key people up to the top directly.
The extra bow knight in the middle is the boss, Meular. He's a bit stronger and tougher than the rest of the bow knights but the extra Speed is the real problem as he's fast enough to double-attack many of our units.
Turn 1
Of course Dyute is the first one sent inside the fort. And that's one baron down.
Still kicking ass.
Everyone else enters the gauntlet.
I forgot that bow knights have extra range (up to 5 tiles) and two of them almost got Ryuto, but he had just enough HP and Defense to survive.
The
Cleive draws in the wizards' attacks by virtue of having the lowest Magic Defense around.
That's why I gave him the Magic Shield, to make sure it'd be very unlikely he'd be hit by any of them.
Force doesn't fare as well, but he's got plenty of HP to soak up the damage.
Turn 2
Kind of a mess down south, with four wizards and four bow knights harassing us.
Dyute's got five bow knights and a couple barons all to herself right now. One of those barons is immediately wiped out.
Alm gets sent up to support Dyute and grabs the Angel Ring from her while he's there.
Ryuto gets in a lucky shot of critical lightning to take off most of the boss's HP. The counterattacks leave Ryuto at just 1 HP so Teeta heals him up.
Python chips in with some more damage and also takes two counterattacks.
Unbothered by simple obstacles such as walls, Claire flies in to finish off the boss.
Everyone else lingers at the entrance - going in too far would draw too many of the bow knights back, and it's better if Dyute and Alm keep them distracted since they can handle it.
I left a bow knight in range of Teeta, but she manages fine.
Four of the bow knights stayed up with Dyute, while one came down to shoot at Cleive.
One of the wizards got in a lucky hit on Cleive. The Magic Shield doesn't actually nullify magic, it just sets the hit rate to 10%.
Back in the middle of the arena, Zeke dodges some bands of slime.
Another bow knight joins Dyute's party from the far right, but he misses (as did all but one of Dyute's attackers this turn).
Turn 3
Still kind of a mess down here. Can't get rid of the ranged units fast enough to allow our melee units to charge up the corridors very well.
Meanwhile, another turn, another dead baron.
Alm pulls out his bow and kills off a bow knight with a crit.
And he's reached the HP cap (gold color added for effect).
Force is the first one through the gauntlet on his own legs, thanks to the Quick Ring, and the nearest bow knight feels the pain.
Python gets warped up top as well, but spends his turn grabbing the Angel Ring from Alm rather than actually attacking anyone.
Ryuto and Claire take out another bow knight, leaving only the wizard free in the middle rampart.
Zeke and Matilda are now free to begin their own charge, while on the far left Cleive leads a slower group through the wizards.
One of the wizards decided he liked the recovery tile more than he liked attacking Cleive, so attacked Robin instead. He was able to dodge the attack anyway.
The center wizard stayed put to attack Claire, but with no better luck.
The wizard on the far right decides to be a dick and heal up the enemy army. Fortunately I don't think I'd left too many wounded units around, been going mostly for single-turn kills.
The bow knights continue to chase Dyute around the map, actually bringing her down to 10 HP here. The enemy in the second shot stayed a little too close, however, and died from a pair of fireballs in exchange.
Turn 4
The battle has devolved into something of a free-for-all, no formations anywhere really.
Python scratches up the nearest bow knight in exchange for a modest sum of XP, just enough for a level.
He's actually packing a decent strength behind his arrows now. Still one of our weaker units straight-up but the five-range attack is tactically right up there with Claire's flying and Silk's warping.
Dyute takes a break from baron-killing to clean up a loose bow knight instead.
Zeke and Matilda form up inside the fort. There's two bow knights still on the top-right (only one shown here), and one wounded one left on the top-left side.
Claire has just enough juice to one-round kill the center wizard, completely clearing out that spoke of the fort.
Ryuto warps up to join the others inside the fort, healing Dyute when he arrives.
Robin makes it almost inside the fort, with Cleive still trying to hold the wizards' attention until someone can get over and finally kill them. Gray heads back outside to possibly catch a warp next turn. There's still two wizards and two bow knights on the lower-right side of the map as well.
Cleive keeps doing his anti-magic act during the enemy phase.
Dyute fights off three bow knights this turn, and the extra healing she got is more than enough to keep her upright.
Turn 5
Now that we finally have a concentrated force, we can really take it to these bow knights. Python and Force start out with weakening attacks.
Force even got enough XP for another level. When he's got that Quick Ring on he's quite deadly now.
Ryuto finishes off one bow knight, while Matilda and Zeke take out another, leaving just the one bow knight on the north end of the map. Alm and Dyute juggle some items around.
Claire finally starts tending to the lower-right enemies, taking out a wizard.
On the enemy phase, the last bow knight on the left side comes out after Alm, while the last one on the upper right can't reach Dyute so settles for Ryuto. No real threat from either one at this point.
Cleive continues his wizard-bait act, moving further north to draw them in range of the rest of the army.
Turn 6
Claire starts off the turn by killing yet another wizard. Only the two charmed by Cleive remain.
Dyute wipes out another bow knight with one shot. That's about 130 damage in that crit.
More Speed is kind of wasted on her at this point, but I guess it at least makes her more dodgy. That evasion has come in handy this map with all the bow knights swarming her only to miss most of the time.
Someone finally gives Cleive some relief, as Alm takes care of a wizard here.
Another bow knight falls, this time to Zeke and Python.
Almost everyone is inside the fort now, and for enemies we just have two bow knights chasing Claire around, a wizard chasing Cleive around, and a baron who's still guarding the entrance even after we've already taken over the fort.
The last baron finally moves to face Force one-on-one. That Quick Ring isn't just for double-attacks, though, as it also greatly helps Force's evasion here. Force also counters for 16 total damage in two attacks.
The last wizard gets in a final hit on Cleive, but it's far too late for that to matter.
Turn 7
Cliff finally sees some action, softening up the wizard for Matilda.
As with Dyute, more Speed doesn't really help Matilda much in terms of getting in that second attack anymore, but more evasion doesn't hurt.
Ryuto and Gray magic the baron down to just 2 HP remaining.
Zeke is able to land the final blow on the baron.
Claire is leading the bow knights up to the rest of the army.
One moves up to attack Claire, the other eyes a more fragile target in Ryuto. No one's in any danger here, though.
Turn 8
Zeke and Claire take out one of the remaining bow knights.
Ryuto and Gray once again soften up their target with some magic.
Freeing up Robin to land the final blow.
What do you know, another crappy level for the crappy starting unit. I guess there's a reason we haven't been using him, even with the Angel Ring he kind of sucks.
And the last obstacle between Alm and slaying the king of Rigel has been removed.
Back on the world map, another dragon zombie forms up to block off any retreat. Guess we're only going forward from here.
Next time:
It's the final showdown with King Rudolf.