Part 34: Chapter 9 Part 4: Grutia-Thracia

Chapter 9 Part 4: Grutia-Thracia

Welcome back once again to Let's Play Genealogy of the Holy War. In this update we'll be finishing up our extended stay in Thracia, and dealing with one of the more interesting enemy tactics in the game.





So last time we took Grutia from a rather underwhelming dark bishop and his ballistae.



After doing so, Arion came out of Thracia to meet us in battle.





Three other squads of dragon knights came out of Thracia as well, each preparing to target a different castle. Each group will target Mease, Kapathogia, or Luthecia primarily. While we only have to keep Mease to avoid getting a game over, we should defend all of them because our Tactics rank will be lowered if we lose any castles at all over the course of the game. And it's just more fun to try to defend all three.







Arion's group won't actually move unless we get within their range, so that's one thing at least that we can take at our own pace. Arion himself is pretty damn tough. He beats Altenna in every stat, and gets better bonuses from his holy weapon. He also has Awareness, making him immune to archer crits, and Pursuit and Continue, which coupled with his high Speed makes it so that he'll at least double almost any of our units. His high Defense makes it so that non-crit physical attacks will do about 1 damage, his high Skill and leadership stars make it so that he'll hit just about anything, and his high Strength makes it so that he'll kill just about anything that he hits. Of course, even with all of that, we still have an ace in the hole which will get rid of or severely lessen all of Arion's advantages.





The captain of each squad has a deadly Hero Lance, and commands a fleet of Javelin throwers.



Arion's Dragon Knights have a mixture of Slim Lances and Sleep Swords.



As usual, after taking a castle some new conversations show up, the first of which being between Fin and Altenna.





Please accept my gratitude for watching over him all these years.

Actually, Your Highness, I have an admission to make. The thought of looking for you never crossed my mind as I was convinced that you hadn't survived. And yet you were living just a country away... My negligence is inexcusable.

Fin, you're crying... What's wrong?

I... I'm sorry you have to see me like this. Forgive me...

Wait... I do seem to remember something of you, Fin. I always had to be around you, didn't I... Yes, that was you. I'm sure of it. And I always wanted your attention, didn't I...

Your Highness, I...





The second conversation is between Julia and Celice, so we'll have to help Julia get up to him.







Sir...

What's up?

...Ah, never mind.

Julia, you're acting weird. What's going on?

...I just have a terrible feeling that we'll become separated somehow, never to meet again. I'm... I'm scared, sir.

Julia, there's nothing to worry about. Look, I told you I'd look out for you, didn't I? Have a little trust in me.

I... I do trust you, sir. I'm sorry... I'm always such a burden on you.

We have been on the move for a while, you know. You're just tired, that's all. Once this battle's over, we'll be stopping in the free city of Miletos. You can rest up there. Hey, want to do some shopping while we're there? I'll get you anything you want, Julia. ...as long as it's not too expensive, that is. I'd never hear the end of it from Levin.

Oh, you! Well, that is nice of you... Thanks.

Ahh... now there's a smile.

Sir, would you close your eyes for a moment?

Hm? What for?

I'm going to increase your resistance with the Magic Shield spell.

Hold on! Doesn't using that spell put you at some risk?

I'll be fine... I have so little I can offer you, sir. Please allow me just this once.

Julia...

...May the grace of the gods be with this person.





If you recall from last time, we fought off Grandbell near these villages, so let's have Patty collect our reward.



If you visit this village before Grandbell arrives, you get a different script.

I can't verify this, but word is the empire is sending reinforcements this way. They say Musar is commanding them. Apparently, his father was killed by a Silesian knight among your ranks. He has it in for you all, so you better be on the lookout.

I don't really know who he's talking about, since Musar just has a generic miniboss portrait, but I'd imagine he's supposed to be the son of one of Levin's uncles since the game specifically mentions a Silesian knight. But really I have no idea.



We'll order some nearby units to return to Luthecia to defend it from the oncoming dragons.



Leaf, Delmud, Aless, and Lana should be enough to handle it fairly easily. The only big concern is that nobody there has 1-2 range.



And Nanna will start Returning people to protect Mease and Kapathogia.











So you can see, they pretty much make a beeline for those castles, and they'll probably be there in two or three turns.







So we'll have Nanna send back a few people as quickly as she can.



With Resire, Julia should be able to take on a whole army of Dragon Knights, no problem. And she was saying she has so little to offer the army. Arthur and Lester will head to Kapathogia as quickly as possible.



And Patty visits another village.







We'll have Aless guard the castle so he can regenerate some HP while we wait for the dragons.



Here I have Fee move up to run some interference. This turns out to be a pretty terrible idea, but I get stupidly lucky and everything turns out ok.



Meanwhile the main army advances.





A bunch of dragons throw Javelins at Fee, but she dodges them all.





Fin isn't as fortunate.





Fee's not so lucky with dodging the Captain, but she's durable enough to barely survive his blows, and strong enough to kill him.







I'm pretty nervous about the squad getting close to Kapathogia, and I dunno if Arthur and Lester can make it there in time, so I have Lana warp Leaf over to defend.













Blah blah, more staff work.





I decide to have Oifey and Johan tag team the stray Dragon Knight that attacked Fin.



We charge forward a bit, but we're still not in Arion's range, so we're safe for now.



Oh and another village.





Hate to break it to you, but we're a bit past that at this point.





Fee just barely survives the next wave of Javelins. For some reason I thought she had Prayer at the time, but now I'm realizing that she doesn't, and I just got really lucky again.





Up north, Lester dodges some spears.





And almost all of the dragons suicide into Arthur.



They eventually manage to take him down to dangerously low health, but that just lets Wrath activate so he can kill them even better.



In the end, three remain (one pictured, and two by Lester). I guess I didn't really need to send Leaf over there.



And the northernmost squad approaches Mease. Maybe we can preemptively kill a few next turn.







You may be confused as to why Libro healed Fee so much. It's supposed to heal 10+Mag, which would be I think 24 at this point, but here it brought Fee up to full health. A little known feature of this game is that the last use of a staff heals more than the normal amount. I'm not positive if it's always a full heal, or if it's maybe something like double the normal amount, but the point is it brought Fee to full which was very much needed.









Arthur's Wrath crit destroys the Captain, and Leaf and Lester easily take out the other two dragons.



I figure Tinny's dodgy enough to be able to survive if I put her on a forest here. Can't let Julia have all the fun, can we?





And now we start baiting out Arion's squad, while staying out of the range of Arion himself.



And we'll have Patty visit that last village.



Uh yea, we already killed him.











Naturally the first village that gets attacked has a ring in it. I'll probably give that to Altenna since Resistance is her biggest weak spot. On enemy phase…









You'd think his squad would move after that, but instead the Luthecia-bound squad goes.





And really gives Fee some trouble.



For whatever reason the Mease-bound squad prioritizes Julia even though Tinny would be much easier to hit and kill. I guess the AI thinks that if it can kill Julia, it can take Mease and make us lose.



It is sorely mistaken.





The Captain is the only one with even somewhat-decent hit on Julia. I get lucky again that he misses with one of his Hero hits.



And then Julia kills him and heals back to full. Resire really is a great tome. Can you imagine if we had taken Aura back in Chapter 6?







A few of Arion's dragons attack Celice for 1 damage, but they refuse to fight Altenna for whatever reason.



So let's have a little sibling rivalry and have Altenna and Arion fight.











I may have not thought this through.



Ok so pretend that never happened. Let's go back to Luthecia real quick.





We heal up Fee and have Aless and Delmud switch places, since Aless is more durable at this point.





So we're just gonna do a quick hit and run and have the rest of our units retreat. Now you may recall me mentioning an ace in the hole earlier.



I was, of course, referring to Sety. If you didn't pass down Holsety on Sety or Arthur, Arion becomes a hell of a lot harder to take down. The best strategy I can think of would be to have Arthur and/or Tinny get Wrath crits on him, since Awareness doesn't negate Wrath crits, and have Sety deal some extra damage if needed.





Now Lana will attract some unwanted attention, but she's dodgy enough to basically ensure her survival.









The Sleep Sword knights are great since they have exactly 1 Hit on Sety. Since it's not 0, they'll still attack, but they're not gonna do any damage.



The Slim Lancers are a bit more troublesome, but still not too bad.











Once again, I get incredibly lucky with a dodge.



And Sety defeats Arion.















I really like how Arion's sprite looks there.









And now it's clean up time.











Lakche manages to get up to level 20, making her I think the last of our party, sans the characters who joined this chapter.



Things are pretty easy over here.

















It takes three turns, but there's really no challenge in wiping up the rest of those guys.



Let's end this.





Prince Julius? As in Emperor Alvis' son?

Yep. Your half-brother, Celice.

It's hard to believe we have the same mother...

Yes... Empress Diadora is where he inherited his shaman abilities from. Return and Recover are just a mere thought away for him. But there's more to it than that. Prince Julius' real power comes from...

Who?

...the Dark Lord Loputousu.



And with that, we've finally liberated Thracia. Next stop: Grandbell (with maybe a pit stop through the Miletos district). As always, here's some stats.