Part 18: Update XVII - Death In The Dunes

Update XVII - Death In The Dunes



Alright, we're back in the preps menu because we bought a lot of promotion items last time, and now we're going to use them. Plus, we got a new unit!







Knoll - Shaman:

STATS:

LV: 16 (+6)
HP: 32 (+10)

MAG: 16 (+3)
SKL: 14 (+5)
SPD: 12 (+4)
LCK: 5 (+5)
DEF: 8 (+6)
RES: 14 (+4)

MOV: 5
CON: 8 (+1)

GROWTHS:

HP: 65% (-5%)

MAG: 60% (+10%)
SKL: 40%
SPD: 35%
LCK: 20%
DEF: 35% (+25%)
RES: 45%

OK, that's a big boost in defense growth, and now he's even more promotion ready than before. I still think I want to give him a level or two, let's see how it goes. And hey, he's got luck now. Not a lot of it, but it counts.





Amelia gets one of the knight crests. I've had good results with Paladin Ame in my first run, so I'll go with it again. She goes fast.





Ewan gets a promotion to Mage Knight, since I wanted to try that class out.

CAPS:

HP: 60

MAG: 24
SKL: 25 (-1)
SPD: 25
LCK: 30
DEF: 24
RES: 25 (-1)

Mage Knight gets A anima and B staves.

Vanguard:

- Terrain avoid bonuses increased by 50%
- Gain 3 damage reduction when wielding a light brand or soul brand
- Gain 5 damage reduction when wielding a peacemaker
- Immune to Paladin's Crusade ability

Dunno how well this will go, but let's find out.





Since Gilliam level capped, I should probably promote him.

CAPS:

HP: 60

STR: 30 (+1)
SKL: 28 (+1)
SPD: 22 (-2)
LCK: 30
DEF: 30
RES: 20 (-5)

Generals get swords, axes and lances at B.

Fortress:

- Level% chance to block all damage (does not work against Lethality)
- Terrain defense bonus x2
- Forest, Fort and Pillar tiles don't cost extra move

So basically, Generals can still not move very fast, but they can just blast through some heavy terrain where others would be slowed down. Also, yeesh, 20 RES cap? 22 SPD cap? That's probably not going to bode well for him. Not sure if Gilliam has any future in the postgame. Or even the lategame for that matter. He was an earlygame savior at times, but I think those times might be at an end soon.







We also hand out some stat boosters.



Now, let's get to the actual chapter.





The map has gotten bigger and gained some enemies as well, of course. Still, I'm not expecting this to cause too much trouble.



The southern crew moves partially north (guys that do desert well) and partially east (guys that don't do desert so well and Cormag).

The northern crew has some people we should look at.







Innes - Sniper:

STATS:

LV: 1
HP: 38 (+7)

STR: 15 (+1)
SKL: 16 (+3)
SPD: 15
LCK: 14
DEF: 12 (+2)
RES: 11 (+2)

MOV: 6
CON: 9

GROWTHS:

HP: 65% (-10%)

STR: 50% (+10%)
SKL: 40%
SPD: 45%
LCK: 50% (+5%)
DEF: 35% (+15%)
RES: 25%

CAPS:

HP: 60

STR: 27 (+2)
SKL: 30
SPD: 25 (-3)
LCK: 30
DEF: 24 (-1)
RES: 23

Snipers get S bows.

Ballistics:

- Level% chance of a guaranteed hit
- +15 hit, +10 crit

So the whole thing with the Sniper is that they're very accurate, which can be helpful in this, as hit rates are sometimes quite garbage. Still, they're an archer and therefore have the archer problems.

Innes seems to have gained some minor buffs overall, but I'm not sure he won't land on the bench soon. At least Gerik has a horse. And the ability to use swords. And Vantage.







Saleh - Sage:

STATS:

LV: 1
HP: 35 (+5)

MAG: 17 (+1)
SKL: 18
SPD: 18 (+4)
LCK: 11
DEF: 10 (+2)
RES: 13

MOV: 6
CON: 8

GROWTHS:

HP: 60% (+10%)

MAG: 35% (+5%)
SKL: 40% (+15%)
SPD: 50% (+10%)
LCK: 40%
DEF: 30%
RES: 35%

Nice growth rate buffs, I suppose. He's a real speedy boy now. Saleh should be a contributor for the rest of the regular story at least. Not sure what the postgame will bring.

Seems like there's no automatic levels for Eirika route characters coming into Ephraim route now. Oh well, they're still plenty helpful right now.



Saleh starts off in style, double critting this bishop carrying Purge.



Tethys can't take out the Bolting sage, but I think the AI prefers to use short range over long range, so he should counterattack on enemy phase.



Things get crowded around Eirika pretty quick.



Tethys picks up a level killing a wyvern.



OK, never mind on that "AI prefers short range" thing. 5% death chance, not great, not terrible. The sage should be gone after this next turn, anyway.



Marisa takes out a knight she was fighting that had 0 hit on her and gets this myrmidon level. If this is all you're going to do, I might as well just promote you now, really.



Gerik snipes a wyvern and picks up a level.



To note while I'm cleaning this area up: Basically every enemy is now carrying silver exclusively.



Hey, Eirika gets to get involved too!



Actually, I just noticed, she got autoleveled to 15. Those levels were: +0 HP, +1 STR, +1 SKL, +3 SPD, +2 LCK, +0 DEF and +1 RES. Kinda garbage, honestly. At least she got strength once?



Tana gets this wonderful level after she and Vanessa help out the main southern group a bit (since they don't need to rush up and take out the siege tome guys anymore).



Cleanup down south continues apace.



Reinforcements are fairly numerous. Two wyverns and a cav at the top, three wyverns, a knight and two cavs at the bottom. These reinforcements repeat for a few turns.



Cormag levels fighting the southern reinforcements.



Rennac gets to start bopping around the desert looking for loot. I could've gotten the list of the locations, but I couldn't be fucked.



Ross picks up a garbage level as we get ready to start luring out Valter's wyvern crew.



Cormag, Garcia and Ross are going to be doing a whole lot of wyvern fighting for a few turns.



Rennac finds the first bit of treasure.



Strength, speed and defense. What more could you ask for?



Garcia levels fighting the lower wyverns.



Still quite a lot of wyverns floating around here, but I guess that'll happen when nine of them spawn in over three turns.



Saleh picks up the village...



...and for some reason, that releases a river. I'm not sure what this does. I guess it gives you an easy route through the desert?



Ewan levels fighting the reinforcements up top. He's already better than Saleh.



Most of the crew moves up now, since Ross, Garcia and Cormag should have that area well in hand. Lute stays behind for now, maybe we need emergency healing.



Ross commences the slaughtering.



Next player phase, L'Arachel levels by healing. Fun healing fact: Right now, L'Arachel with a heal staff heals 5 more HP than Tethys with a mend staff. That Valkyrie healing bonus sure is something.



Ross picks up another level cleaning up more wyverns. I guess more RES is always nice.



The reinforcements switch to three wyverns in the northwest, and three cavs in the southeast. Thankfully, all the cavs have lances, so Ross will just tear them apart.



Rennac picks up the next treasure. No idea where this will go - I'll probably save it for the postgame and use it to boost a fresh unit I haven't trained yet like Neimi or something.





Now, since we're getting close, let's look at Valter. +22 HP, +2 STR, +3 SKL, +4 SPD, +12 LCK, +1 DEF and +3 RES compared to his hard mode counterpart, but he's only carrying a javelin.



Ross kinda just fucks him up, so he'll be doing that for a few turns. I could steal the fili shield from him, but I just can't be arsed.



And Cormag snipes the troubadour so that one won't cause any extra trouble.



Since Ross is busy, Cormag and Garcia get to deal with the cavs.



Ross levels up again fighting Valter. He sure has been busy this chapter.



And then this fort right here spawns a reinforcement wyvern, which is kinda rude. I guess as long as it's not an ambush reinforcement it's fine. Innes can just snipe this guy.



I want to take a stab at killing Valter without having him use his elixir, and Garcia seems like he has a shot.



He gets it.



Cormag moves up to fight the three units near the lower destroyed village and levels.



You know, Saleh, I was talking you up earlier, and this is how you repay me?



I get Amelia into a sticky situation where she faced chance of death, but a quick bit of trading a physic staff around solves that quick.





However, that fear was unfounded, since Amelia couldn't have died even if the warrior hit, and he missed and got murdered in return. Good start for the first promoted level, too.



Oh hey, look, the turn 8 reinforcement crew showed up. They're going to be creeping their way up slowly but surely and are going to be a pain in my ass for a while. Thankfully, Rennac has a bunch of move so he could run away from mounted units, but I elect to instead have him run up to where Tana is and just get rescued. I also rescued Cormag, since there's basically nothing left for him to deal with down there, and that gets him to healing faster.



By this point, we've basically cleared out everything except that reinforcement group down there and Caellach.



And then next enemy phase brings some more reinforcements, of course. Now, since we're getting close to dealing with Caellach, let's look at him.





+20 HP, +2 STR, +7 SKL, +5 SPD, -1 LCK, -1 DEF, -1 RES, and he went from a tomahawk to a hand axe. Not sure why this hack is buffing bosses and downgrading their equipment. Then again, I don't think the vanilla bosses got elixirs, so maybe it's a weird balancing act.



We start doing some chip damage, but since Caellach is on a fort, that's just getting healed back up again, so not an optimal plan here. Killing him will probably have to involve Garm in some capacity.



More of these guys.



Cormag swoops in and prevents the big squad from being a major problem. Since he doesn't take effective damage from the rangers, he should be fine.



Oooh, nice! L'Arachel will fucking love this.



A wyvern getting tinked by a ranger. Ain't it grand?



Oh hey, apparently the ruined villages are treasure locations. Neat!



Garcia fights the remaining reinforcement knights and picks up a very nice level.



Duessel gets to fight Caellach on enemy phase with Garm, and while both miss, I like those odds.



One very annoying thing: Cormag barely doesn't kill the commander, and he has an elixir as well. So he's going to be annoying by healing himself.



Tethys gets a solid level from healing.



Oooh, nice!

Icarus Bow: Sniper only. Rank A. Range 1-2. Weight 9. Might 12. Hit 70. Crit 15. 50 uses.

OK, so there's class weapons in this hack. I don't know if I ever brought it up in an update, so here it is officially: Every class has certain weapons only they can use, and this is one of the sniper weapons. It's pretty great! A 1-2 range bow does make a sniper more interesting, though I still don't think Innes has real long-term potential, since so far I only have one of these and I'd probably need more for the long run.



At this point, I do some dumb shit, like trying to let Marisa of all people do some damage and then rescuing Duessel instead of Marisa, forcming me to scramble a bit.



Thankfully, I have enough Canto-capable units around that this isn't a problem.



Eventually, it gets pretty crowded as I just pile in units trying to get the killing blow on Caellach, and eventually Cormag does him in.



And he gets a level too!



Thankfully, I still have that commander unit to deal with, because that lets Rennac reach the other village and pick up another item.



I try to set up a kill for Marisa on the commander, but L'Arachel crits and takes it instead.





Two more legendary weapons!

Audhulma: Rank E (previously S). Range 1-2. Weight 9. Might 20. Hit 100. Crit 20. 30 uses.
Ragnarok: Rank E (previously S). Range 1-2. Weight 11. Might 20. Hit 100. Crit 20. 30 uses.

Seems like all the legendary weapons have been drastically standardized. Fine by me.



And that's it for this chapter! Next time, shit goes south for me very quickly.