Fire Emblem: Gaiden Part #40 - Chapter 3, Part 15: Mila's Temple

Part 40: Chapter 3, Part 15: Mila's Temple

Time to wrap up Celica's half of Chapter 3. This update contains two and a half hours of recording but it shouldn't be too long in screenshot form.

Mila's Temple is guarded by Mikhail, supplemented by a small random force of paladins. Celica's army is pretty overpowered at this point, thanks to the Angel Ring, so we shouldn't have too much trouble.

The map is kind of a slog. We have to send the army up the stairs and through the forest to reach the temple entrace - the door is just for show, there's no way to open it. The sniper by the door will attack us from inside, but between our mages and our pegasus knights he'll be easy to take out. The three paladins start at the front of the temple and will charge us first. Then it's just a matter of picking off the mages while protecting our units that don't have much Magic Defense.

Might be the most Celica has said all game.

Mikhail is a pretty creepy-looking shaman. He has the two familiar spells by now, and boasts a 24 magic attack with that Slime spell. His flavor of Messiah will summon 1-8 gargoyles for just 4 HP, which can actually be pretty dangerous at the wrong time with our initial movement hindered by the forest.

The other enemies are all level 1 promoted units and nothing special at this point so let's get started.

Turns 1-2

While the rest of the army charges up the stairs, the pegasus knights are positioned to draw out two of the paladins at the end of the second turn.

The first paladin misses, the second here connects for 5 damage. Catria misses half of her four attacks, though.

Turn 3

Leo starts off the turn by softening up the enemy sniper for 10 damage.

Palla finishes off the weakened paladin from last turn, while Catria flies back to pick up the Angel Ring.

Starting to move through the forest, now.

The sniper goes after Leo but doesn't get much out of it, missing his second attack. Leo also missed on the counterattack.

The second paladin attacks Palla from the forest, so she misses both of her attacks. Not a problem, though - the paladin is now in reach of the rest of the army.

Turn 4

First, another 10 damage to the enemy sniper.

Sonia weakens the nearby paladin further, allowing Catria to get the kill.

And the pegasus knight gets even stronger. She's up to a natural 15% crit rate, now (14 base Luck).

May wraps up the turn by blowing away the sniper.

Palla is positioned to draw out the final paladin. The lead elements of the army are about ready to break out of the forest, finally, too.

She delivers two devastating counterattacks.

Turn 5

And she finishes the job to start the next turn. Less damage here since I put the Angel Ring on her, but she didn't get quite enough for a level.

I was overly cautious about approaching the temple entrance here. Those pillars cost everyone 2 movement - even pegasus knights, something unique to the series I think. Horse-riders such as Atlas (the new cavalier) can't cross those tiles at all so he won't even be able to enter the temple.

I wasn't really cautious enough at the back end of the army, leaving Kamui - with all of two Magic Defense points - in front of the door, exposed to the wizard. Fortunately, the wizard missed and only got one shot.

Turn 6

Palla and Est lead the charge into the wizards. Est has 12 Magic Defense so she'll be fine even if swarmed. Palla is a bit more vulnerable but since she's holding the Angel Ring, the enemy wizards should have about a 25% hit rate.

So of course the first time around she got hit four straight times and then finished off by the sniper.

Not one to be deterred, I use the exact same setup again, with better results on the enemy phase this time.

Also Boey threw some lightning at the wizard by the door just for the hell of it.

Meanwhile, Palla dodges two out of three wizard attacks this time, leaving plenty of HP to fend off the sniper.

Palla and Catria are in Saber-good territory now.

Turn 7

With most of the current front line not in much danger from the wizards, the priority this turn is to get to the sniper while tearing into the wizards as much as possible. To that end, Sonia slices apart the weakened wizard from last turn with Excalibur.

She shores up her one weakness, not that she should be getting hit all that often anyway.

Saber sees his first action as a Myrmidon, blowing away another wizard with a crit.

May singes the sniper with a fireball but is too slow for two attacks. Leo follows up with an attack to bring the sniper down to 7 HP.

Thanks to the pillars slowing down Catria, she can't actually reach the sniper. She settles for wrecking another wizard.

Est could reach the sniper, but would need to get lucky and land both of her attacks in order to kill it - the pillars also grant a 30% evasion bonus. Instead she softens up another wizard.

The floating pointing hand is Jenny topping off Sonia's HP from afar using her new Physic spell.

Catria's not nearly as vulnerable to the swarm tactics as Palla was. Of course there's a few less wizards, too. The sniper and the other wizard forgo attacking in favor of cowering on a pillar.

Turn 8

After setting up a short relay with the Angel Ring (Sonia-Catria-Est), another wizard falls, this time to Est.

Est will be following the more traditional Pegasus Knight leveling guide, it seems. (ie: Lots of Skill/Speed/Luck and not much else.)

Our new myrmidon in action. His XP gains have much improved since promoting.

After Leo misses twice, May lands a pair of lightning bolts and Palla returns to battle to get the kill.

Mikhail and the last wizard continue to sit uselessly inside the temple. And we're through the first hour of video. On a side note, remind me to never ever ever attempt a video LP of a Fire Emblem game.

Turn 9

I put Sonia out in front to draw in the last wizard. Mikhail doesn't seem inclined to move. Or do much of anything, really. In any case, Sonia dodges and then brings the wizard down to 2 HP.

Turn 10

An easy kill for Celica, after getting her the Angel Ring.

She gets a decent level out of it, picking up more Speed. Just Mikhail himself left now.

I wanted to see how much damage Mikhail would actually do even through Sonia's high Magic Defense. Needless to say I backed out of this result.

Instead she stays out of range and pulls off a critical lightning bolt for 24 damage and 29 XP - the highest amount of XP I've seen for a non-kill.

Turn 11

Two more lightning bolts push Mikhail down to just 2 HP, netting her another 20 XP. I could just end the battle here, but where would be the fun in that?

Mikhail takes his first action of the battle, moving one tile north to the recovery tile. He was already magically healing every turn anyway so this move doesn't really buy him anything.

Turns 12+

And finally Mikhail uses his Messiah spell, summoning seven gargoyles for us to play with. It's somewhat of a challenge for me to efficiently kill all the gargoyles each turn before they can act and/or new ones are summoned, while making sure that Jenny doesn't get swarmed. But it wouldn't be very interesting to see 25+ turns of that, so here's a level montage instead:

Sonia gets two levels, both solely containing Speed - one from finishing off Mikhail at the end of the turn limit. When she eventually gets one of the heavier, more powerful spells she'll be pretty unstoppable.

May's single level is a great one - she not only gets more Magic Power, but she gains the powerful Aura spell. It has a high cost - 6 HP, with 10 Weight and just an 80% hit rate - but packs a whopping 13 Might. May's total magic attack when using this spell is now 27, higher than Mikhail's with Slime. Of course, it's so heavy that she'll only attack once with it but situationally useful to have a hammer like this spell.

Aura in action. Can't one-shot a gargoyle but does pretty well for itself. Sonia is still out-damaging May with two shots of Excalibur in a single turn, though.

Saber left behind his leveling magic when he promoted, apparently.

Also I gave him the Dark Sword to play around with, even though his Luck isn't that great, since he has enough Defense and HP to tank the backlash pretty well. "Nulled curse" is a bit of an odd mis-translation, though.

Apparently Kamui picked up the mercenary leveling magic.

Celica's first level was pretty disappointing, but she made up for it with her second - she's pretty well-rounded now.

Boey managed one level while cleaning up leftover gargoyles and somehow pulled off the most stat gains of the game so far.

Leo's level was pretty useless, but he's one of the few units that really benefits from extra Skill since it helps offset the terrible hit rate of bows.