Fire Emblem: Matthew's Nightmare Part #5 - Map 3, Part 2: Reinforcement

Part 5: Map 3, Part 2: Reinforcement

Map 3, Part 2: Reinforcement

When we last left off, two Wyvern Riders, two Peg Knights, a Nomad Trooper, and a Barbarian spawned just in time for enemy phase. The fliers are in pairs with one Heavy Spear user and one Axereaver user, with the Heavy Spear Peg Knight sometimes having a Silver Lance instead. Again, Nomad has a brave bow, Barbarian has a hammer and a silver axe.

A barbarian that was already there is first to do something meaningful, but he misses. The other barbarian attacks Erk but that doesn't go well for him. And Hector takes 2 damage from a wind sword.

Also, Oswin ended the turn kinda far to the right!

Nergal has this text versus anyone. If he says it to Matthew, Matthew responds asking why his subconscious is so brutal.

Eclipse count: 1.

Wyverns are still a turn away, but pegs have an immediate presence. The guys in the middle are kind of irrelevant so I reposition everyone away from the center of the field to deal with other stuff.

I kind of want to Short Spear the right peg so Erk can sit on the fort and hit the left one, but this Short Spear is at 3 uses, and I should probably heal Oswin this turn anyway, so... This is fine. Erk brings Oswin back to 49/50 HP.

Matthew's course of action is pretty clear.

Lucius! Hey!
Ah... Matthew?
Yeah, it's me. Glad you remembered!
You seem troubled... Is something the matter?
It's complicated.
Hm? How so?
Well... Serra's trapped me in a demented dream world against my will... And the only way to escape is to defeat her...
By the looks of it, she's made herself overpowered and has an extra cheap weapon to boot... Frankly, I don't even stand a chance.
Oh...
Listen, I could really use a hand, Lucius... With your help, I might stand a chance at taking Serra down.
...
Come on. If you don't want to fight... Will you at least join my side?
...... Very well... Allow me to aid you with my staff.
Thank you.

Although he says that, Lucius' staves are a barrier staff and a restore staff so that won't be too helpful. But, he does have Aura!

Objectively, this is probably not the best way to be attacking him, but seriously screw the guy with the brave bow. Yeah it's not accurate but it has two chances to hit and it'll really hurt Matthew, Erk, or Lucius if it does get through.

It doesn't, though.

Hector moves down to intercept the wyvern riders, and we pass the turn.

Oh boy, what fun surprises are we in for? Well, the barbarians start things off suiciding against our mages and missing, that's not news. What is news, albeit not particularly surprising news,

Is that Hector can take care of himself. Let's just, assume, Hector's taking care of himself in the lower left. Between attacking with wolf beil for accuracy, and when everything else is dead hitting the nearby nomads with his tomahawk, Hector pretty much has the left side of the map covered.

Erk and Oswin are right next to a fort and can make use of terrain to defend for awhile if need be, but as long as the pegs keep missing we can stay in the open and counter kill. For the most part. Random resistance fluctuations mean Erk either does 13 or 14 damage a hit to these 27 HP peg knights, which is slightly problematic. Oswin pretty much has it covered, though!

Eclipse count: 2.

Sonia doesn't give her usual statement. In fact, the AI is rigged to always have her target Lucius with Morph. And Lucius' constitution is through the roof to keep you from rescuing him out of the way.

This appears to do nothing at all, but at the start of our turn...

Now, to activate the TRAP!

Lucius turns into Kenneth.

Kenneth is strong.

But, I mean, Silencer, right? We can dream, right? We already are, after all!

Oh...

Let's not recruit Lucius. It is, in fact, a trap.

Interesting bug, if you have Lucius rescue Matthew, Matthew is removed from the field as Lucius is replaced with Kenneth without being removed from your active party set. Which means when everyone else dies, you don't get a real game over. You can accept Serra's deal and she'll summon Game Over (the wyvern lord) and no one will move. Eventually the unit cap will be full from reinforcements and you'll just see this.

So, anyway.

If Lucius won't attack this guy, Matthew will. Holding the Runesword so I can heal up if the next one hits me - we're pretty far from Erk, and we still have plenty of uses on this Runesword.

Enemy Phase pretty much goes exactly the way it did last time, except that Heavy Spear Wyvern Rider misses Hector, but Erk has much less success dodging.

Nice Axereaver, nerd!

Ow. At least he counterkilled it.

Come on now, guy. What are you doing.

Eclipse count: 2 (again).

Ugh! It's annoying my eyes! But this staff... Will fix that. Hahahaha! The effects take a little time to settle in... But it works like a charm!

No one's in Sonia's range but Matthew.

Nomad Trooper doesn't want to deal with Matthew's counterattack so it goes to hit Hector for 0 damage, like a champ.

... And the Morph Staff has turned Matthew into Wyvern Lord Matthew. Limstella's Morph Staff changes him back. At this point, I could fly over to the vendor and that house, but, it would mean dealing with this guy:

Man, you can't even drop that red gem, why do you even have it? There's no way to get Assassin Matthew over to steal it, either, since Denning doesn't spawn until the mountains block off the area and having Limstella transform us back while in that area will make us stuck with no way out.

This is the same character as last chapter, complete with the Short Spear we had him take. Which is good, because Oswin was running out of uses of his.

Wyvern Matthew is okay, he has better defense, but his speed is worse and his luck is 0, so he has a bad time dodging things, and the brave bow nomad will tear him up. Worse yet, he can't recruit anyone. I mean, he can TALK with all of them, but...

Sir Oswin!
Yes? Who are you?
It's me, Matthew! Don't you recognize my face?
I'm afraid not, soldier... Now I must cut you down.
What? Oh, come on... Can my subconscious really be this dumb?

Hey, Erk!
Pardon? Who are you?
It's me, Matthew! Don't you recgnize my face?
No... I'm afraid not. To me, you're just another enemy I must strike down...
What? Oh, come on... Can my subconscious really be this dumb?

Young Master!
Huh? Who are you?
It's me, Matthew! Don't you recgnize my face?
No, I don't. You trying to cheat death? Come on, battle me already!
What? Oh, come on... Can my subconscious really be this dumb?

Sain! Hey!
Uh... Who are you?
It's me, Matthew! Don't you recgnize my face?
But Matthew wasn't a wyvern rider... You must be an impostor!
What? Oh, come on... Can my subconscious really be this dumb?

The one exception is, of course, Lucius. Lucius you can recruit no problem. Not that that's... Particularly helpful.

Now time for content I'm going to ignore!

Visiting this house sets up a kinda cool event.

Paying attention to your surroundings is key! I hope you've paid attention! If you haven't paid close attention to your surroundings, you may be in for a VERY unpleasant surprise...
Oh, and take these weapons. They might come in handy.

Very strong weapons for Assassin Matthew, Erk, Oswin, and Hector, respectively, and deposited right into the relevant character's inventory. Well, the Regal Blade is given to Wyvern Matthew, but we can hand it to someone else before transforming back.

There's one problem, though. Two problems, really, but one of them is less relevant.

First, doing this prevents you from recruiting Erk and Hector. This doesn't seem like a serious issue, just do it afterwards, but this keep you from handling the actual issue without having to deal with reinforcements. That actual issue being?

... Oh, hi Kishuna...

Magic Seal on Limstella until we kill Kishuna.

With a bonus to defense and evasion from being on a peak.

This page is with +1 strength from levelling. Wyvern Matthew's growths aren't that great and you'll need +2 strength to be able to one-shot Kishuna with a Killer Lance critical to keep him from using the Elixir. That's the most likely scenario, mind, you could also get a crit and then another hit but that's kinda shaky with that 60% hit rate. In practical terms, it will take three turns AT LEAST to take him down, all the while dealing with the wyverns.

And the thing is, these weapons? Outside of a defense boost for Hector from Armads, none of them offer +stats, and with their weight they don't help you avoid attacks on your way to recruit Sain. And because Epic Hax steals HP on hit, they don't meaningfully contribute to beating Serra... In fact, all it amounts to is more turns you have to fend off reinforcements, while you're down a party member since Matthew's off running around giving someone else the Regal Blade and then going to fight Kishuna. It's significantly easier to beat this map if you don't partake in this sidequest.

One thing that's interesting, though, is what the houselady says, about paying close attention to your surroundings. Remember those screenshots of the upper-right corner of each map? Heh. But, we'll get back to that.

Anyway, back to the map. Our luck turned sour last enemy phase, which means we can't press the offense quite to that same extent. Erk returns to the fort and heals up. Oswin step up to give Erk his Elixir, since Erk needs it more. Matthew is going to spend as little time as a Wyvern Lord as possible and offloads his vulnerary, Short Spear, and Killer Lance to Oswin, equipping his Short Spear. Hector breaks out the Tomahawk to have one less Brave Bow in play, so that Matthew can survive the next turn.

This might be rough.

Eesh. Not good luck. But, we're just outside of brave bow range, so we're okay.

Eclipse count: 3.

I just like watching people spin things. It's too bad I don't have an Armads crit gif to show. Maybe in an alternate timeline...

Matthew moves just inside Limstella's range and busts out the ranged weaponry, while Erk does his usual thing and gets a bit better at it. Oswin recovers his HP just a bit.

On the enemy phase,

Nothing of note happens.

Eclipse count: 4.

Allow me to return you to your true form...

Ergh... Here we go again...

Well, that's over with. With just one more Eclipse left, it's time to make our way to Sain.

Oswin levels up, receives healing.

Matthew moves up and tries to keep his avoid as high as possible while the peg knights attack him.

Speed + Luck is honestly the best level, but he still takes both hits.

Eclipse count: 5! It's over.

First off, Erk heals up Matthew. Matthew's gonna need full health for this. Oswin gets on the fort and holds an axe so the hammer barbarians don't have weapon triangle on us.

Alright, preparations. Sain's Hax Resta is a ranged weapon which massively buffs his stats to the extent he won't consider using anything else. He can double Matthew. However, it only has one use, so even though it can do 37 damage to us, as long as we have that much HP, we're okay. Sain has his Surestrike always-hit superweapon, too, but it's so much weaker the AI doesn't even bring it into consideration. Problem is, the other cavaliers and the other paladin can be huge jerks to us...

But at that edge of the forest, only Sain can hit us. There's still the peg knights, but, with Matthew getting higher evasion from the forest,

They like their chances better with an Erk on the field.

Alright! Best-case scenario of two misses... This will make things go much more smoothly. Since we still have the Hax Resta, we can use it against Serra. Without it, the plan would be to have Erk just heal Sain holding the Surestrike every time he gets hit and just wait for Serra to miss twice in a row, since he can three-shot her with it. That's a fine plan, but this way's even better.

Sain! Hey!
Ah, if it isn't Matthew! I didn't recognize you at first. What seems to be the problem?
Look, Sain. You've got to trust me on this. We're all in a dream, and I'm being held hostage here against my will! I need your help to escape.
Of course! I'd gladly help a comrade in arms! What do you need me to do?
We're going to kill Serra.
WHAT?! Matthew, surely you jest! Serra is the loveliest little cleric I know! How could I possibly bring myself to harm even a single hair on her head?! The very thought of it is simply atrocious!
Listen, Sain. Killing Serra here won't affect her at all... Me, on the other hand... Let's just say I'd rather not slave away under Serra's reign for the rest of my life... Is that so much to ask?
... Very well. I... I'll join you... If I must. But I'd rather not fight Serra... It's against my knightly code of honor!

Be that as it may, Sain, you're going to be the one we place our bets on.

First things first, deequip the Hax Resta so we don't make a fool of ourselves. Matthew's now too close to those cavs, so we need to get him out of here. If Sain had hit, we'd have moved Erk to the forest space to heal him before this, of course.

This guy's been stalking up, so get rid of him. Erk moves up one square to block the route of the next wave of reinforcements to Sain, equipping Fimbulvetr because its power will be needed.

Hector was actually getting kinda low on HP, down to 13. The enemies currently nearby can't deal that to him in one turn, but now that we've recruited Sain, the game's changed.

Actually, the reinforcements are now completely different - the familiar waves of physical units are gone, replaced simply by two magic units, an Elfire Sage and a Luna Druid.

The sage is threatening to everyone but Erk, having high power relative to their resistance.

But the Druid's the real problem. Luna is strong and he has a decent chance to instantly kill someone, since no one can take a Luna critical and survive. At this stage of the game, losing one party member isn't so bad, but more than that and times are sad.

Luckily, we don't have to care for that long, with Sain rushing across the field to do his duty.

Now, this might be a kinda logical time to go get the legendary weapons from the house, since wyverns have stopped coming and there's less STUFF to deal with while dropping Kishuna. But then you remember, We already have Sain and none of these weapons can plausibly compare to the Surestrike, so it's still a total waste of time.

Hector switches to Tomahawk so everyone can be holding ranged weapons, except Matthew who is out of range of the spawning Druid. Erk retreats to the fort and heals up since he was getting pretty low.

... Except I switched back to Wolf Beil to make the hit for some reason! I guess I wanted an avoid chance? I dunno what I was thinking! It was a bad call.

Well, Erk at least did HIS job!

And he tries to clean up this mess, too. Matthew and Erk clear out the rest, and Oswin gets into a formation with them.

Sain, meanwhile, steps right up to Serra and equips the Hax Resta, being content to let her make the attack.

It is only at now that I realize that you can keep the Druid reinforcement from spawning by putting someone in the area he teleports in. Other reinforcements in this game will just move around you if you try to block that, and I haven't played the GBA FEs in quite some time, so this was something I just never thought to try! Happened by accident and really makes this part less scary, since the Druid is really the big problem with this set of reinforcements.

But, more importantly. Sain.

You look so dazzlingly gorgeous as always!
Well, well! I see Matthew's projection of Sain is exactly the same as the real one... That won't stop me from getting rid of you though. Time for Sain to disappear!
Ahh!
Sain, what are you waiting for? Attack her!
B-But... But-- I don't want to hurt her! How could I possibly--?!
Oh, for crying out loud... Just do it, Sain! She won't die.
Ahhhh... Forgive me, Serra. Oh, I can't look.