Part 23: Update XXI - Fuck This Map

Update XXI - Fuck This Map



Ugh. This one. I'll be straight with you, for my first playthrough, this was my absolute nightmare map. It gave me so much trouble, and definitely led to over a dozen resets.



Amelia gets a defense boost, since that seems to be her weak spot right now. We also pick up some fresh tomes and staves at shops.



Now, let's get to it.





So yeah, I'm gonna say it right away. I'm turtling the FUCK out of this map. There is way too much shit going on for my units to deal with, so we need to absolutely minimize the combat going on. There is no careful playing here - every single unit is homing right in on Mansel.

Oh. I forgot to mention. This is a defend map. You know this already. What you don't know yet, unless you've played this before, is that it goes on for TWENTY turns. Thirteen like in the original wasn't bad enough. And yes, like I said in the image, Riev is nowhere to be found on turn 1. He spawns in at some point. I don't know when. I don't know where. I don't care about either of those things. I have my own solution.

Now, you might say, if you could look at the units' stats: "But McD, those stats aren't that impressive! They're around what vanilla hard mode has! And even vanilla has enemies with silver weapons at this point! Not to mention, you get to bring more units that overall have better stats!"

And yes, that is true. But the problem is with the sheer fucking number of them. Just endless fucking promoted units with top tier weapons. At least vanilla had the courtesy to throw in some unpromoted guys, but hey, we've left unpromoted units behind three fucking chapters ago! I don't really see it as viable to not turtle this chapter. Like, I guess you could go out with strike forces to clean up certain areas while still protecting Mansel, but I feel like that just sets you up for a turn where half a dozen enemies attack you and hey, they all have like 50 hit, so whoops, five hit this time and somebody's dead, better reset!

...I'm sure somebody's just going to come in and post "well I beat this map easy without turtling". I just know it. Well, whatever. I have nothing to prove. Let's go.



Right off the bat, Knoll levels on summoning.



The phantom gets to go and do some Green Unit stuff by standing there and getting attacked.



Everyone else gets inside the throne room. That'll be it for this turn.



On enemy phase, nothing much happens so far. A few green units get attacked and do terrible, but that's about it.



Also there's some druids that just fuck shit up.



Super clutch Great Shield proc though.



Only takes a single move more and he's dead.



And then some units commit suicide on green unit phase too.



Some however avoid that fate by attacking snipers. So they're just going to die next enemy phase.



Also, here's the sage. She has four Purge tomes, and I don't think she doubles, so she can Purge somebody every single turn. Spoilers: We're actually going to burn a Rescue staff use to get her over to the throne room so we can rescue her and stop her from doing that, because I don't actually want her killing units.



The other sages are being incredibly useful by healing like 15 HP.



Next phase, we start making some room by rescuing some units and start moving into position.



And on enemy phase, the first enemies start showing up to our position.



And the green units get slaughtered.



At least Amelia gets faster.



And at the end of the green unit phase, anybody that's not in the throne room or the Purge sage is fucking dead. Good job, guys. Also, there's reinforcements in the fog.



We're now set up completely, and the phantom gets to go out for some diversion.



And then I get to clench so hard my ass could make diamonds out of coal because Franz immediately gets to set himself up with a big old chance of death.



At least he got a level though!



L'Arachel is probably going to be fine for a while.



Franz doesn't die.



And then, we make the play. We starting to take away everybody's weapons and just letting them sit there unarmed, ensuring no Hectoring can happen.



As a result, this enemy phase has one paladin attacking L'Arachel, missing, and that's it.



A torch reveals that shit is getting pretty crowded. This is turn 5.



But this end is pretty secure now.



Ewan gets a bad level killing a wyvern. I guess I'll need to set up this front for maximum turtling as well.



And that's what that looks like now.



And that's an enemy phase turn. Five attacks and hardly any damage. None of the potential ranged attacker slots have ranged attackers in them, which is perfect. We actually don't get any reinforcements because I'm 99% sure that we've hit the unit cap.



Here's where I realize that this girl has enough Purge to be shooting the entire chapter long, and I can't have that, because I'm very happy with the attackers I have now and don't want that to change. The last thing I want is magical units getting involved in attacking my units.



So Ephraim and Duessel make some moves...



...so L'Arachel can use Rescue (fucking barely, Christ)...



...to get the sage here, where she can be picked up.



And then we set up Ross to be the new dodger where L'Arachel was. He's not great though, so L'Arachel goes right back in next turn.



The map looks kinda crowded.



Ewan gets another level by torching. I'm kinda looking around for Riev, but I think he'll actually not spawn because of the unit limit. Not that it matters at this point, we're set for the turtle victory.



So now it's turn 9, and I'm ending turn without doing much of anything. From now on, it's basically just healing for whoever needs it and that's it.



Saleh gets a level from that healing.



As does Lute.



And the situation at the end of turn 20 looks basically the same as the situation at the end of turn 10.



Sorry, not sorry. I have absolutely no qualms over cheesing the fuck out of this hack. It does not hold back, so neither will I.



And of course, we get our last set of sacred weapons.



Next time... fuck me, Sacred Stones is short.

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RESETS:









Ewan just straight Hector'd himself to death. This death came on turn five enemy phase and convinced me very quickly that I had to turtle harder than I was already turtling by reducing the potential attack space for the enemies to the utmost minimum I could think of. Ten spaces.

Resets: 13