Part 20: Render Unto Caesar (Battle)

Chapter 8: Render Unto Caesar (Battle)

So, last time we reached Port Warren, and it was immediately attacked. Let’s try and fix that.



Two new guys immediately. Honestly considered ending the previous update here because of that, but I am a slave to my own dumb regulations for splitting them.

: Grust has gathered its knights by the fortresses to the north. It’s dangerous for you to stay here. Thankfully, the eastern castle has been left almost entirely unguarded; that’s the place to strike. Please be careful, sire. We’ll be fighting with you all the way.

Well, they won’t, but that’s just my choice. Also, yeah, Radd doesn’t get a single line. Shadow Dragon’s bad about that.




Caesar shows up looking like a slightly worse Ogma. He’s very similar, but he beats him out by a decent chunk in Speed (and Magic, but who cares), suffering a few minor dips elsewhere, coupled with his later joining time.

I think he’s not as good as Ogma, but he’s a pretty solid unit if you raise him up. At least, it looks that way. I’ve never done it, so...I’d like to try doing it on this run.




Radd is hurt pretty hard coming at Level 1. Comparing him to Navarre, he’ll hit harder if trained up, but he’s not quite as quick or accurate. He’s also, I think, significantly harder to get caught up, and I’m not huge on Myrmidons anyway, so I’m not planning on much with Radd. He’s not too bad, though.




Pretty much everyone aside from our two newbies and Wendell run straight north. No sense in making the bad guys wait.




I plan on getting Caesar to an acceptable level in this chapter which just...translates to a shitton of Arena leveling. This is risky, do not try at home, unless you like saving and restarting. Then yeah, go ahead.




Also, shopping! That’s what Radd’s for. I’m just going to these stores in a counterclockwise order, starting from the bottom right. This has nothing I’m really interested in, we’re well stocked on all this stuff.




Two Knights, two Archers, and some of the Cavaliers will charge you immediately. All the Horsemen stay put, though.




So, immediate threat to deal with here is these four cavaliers. The Steel Swords mean they hit decently hard, at least compared to most of the enemies in this chapter.




This is what Wendell’s here for, by the way. Healing up Caesar between Arena bouts.




The second shop has what really matters...a second Wing Spear! You can only buy one of them, but it’s a great refill for Caeda’s cavalier/Knight slaughter factory.




I just put our bulkier units along the perimeter of the Cavalier charge here, eliminating this particularly ballsy one.




Huh. Barst might actually get MVP of this game. He’s doubling the Cavs!




Marth, unfortunately, cannot, but 16 damage out of their 22 HP is nothing to ignore.




Especially when we have an accurate chip damage dealer conveniently right there. This was mostly for some more bow EXP, though, as Draug is hurting for a Steel Bow right about now.




Also...Ridersbane? Good shit.




Thanks to all that, we’re already prepared to intercept the Knights. The one furthest from the team is Roger, so I don’t want to put him in Barst’s hammer range. This is enough to just catch out his buddy.




The next store also happens to have my next purchase, a duplicate Rapier! Like the Wing Spear, limited to one, but it’s nice that you get this. Most Fire Emblems don’t replenish the character locked weapons.




You can guess what happened to that Knight.




And now Roger’s in a pretty perfect spot.




Let’s chat. This is one of the funnier recruitment conversations.




: Ack!

: Peace, I’ve no wish to fight you. My name is Caeda. I hail from Talys.

: Wh-what are you talking to me for?! This is a battlefield!

I love that only Roger reacts this way.

: Might I trouble you by asking your name, good sir?

: M-my name? That’s- It’s Roger… Why?

: Hee hee, forgive me, Roger, it’s just you looked sweet and kind. I just had to stop and talk to you. Tell me: do you believe in love? Oh, listen to me. I’m sure you already have a sweetheart back in Grust.

: What?! No, no! I… mean, er, I’m quite unattached at the moment.

This is what happens when your armies primarily consist of highschoolers.

: Roger, think of the children- the poor women and children who shed tears every day this war drags on. I joined the Archanean League to put an end to it, but I just…just…*Sniff* Oh, Roger, doesn’t it break your heart?

: Aye, miss. There, there. I, too, wish nothing more than for this needless war to end.

: Then...would you consider fighting with us to end it?

: What? Oh heavens, no… I’m sorry, but I could never betray my kingdom.

: Ah, yes, I see. You must have family back in Grust who are counting on you.

: No, not especially. My parents are dead, and it’s not as if I’ve a girl to call my own. But Grust is my home- always has been. I won’t betray her.

: And I cannot convince you to change your mind?

: I’m afraid not, miss.

: All right, sorry to bother you. But I’m glad we had this chance to talk, Roger. You’re every bit the man I thought you were. Goodbye, then...

: Wait-you’re leaving?!

: Well, yes, Roger, I must! Every moment I stay here, I put you at risk. What if your comrades thought you were conspiring with the enemy? No, I must go…

I mean, his comrades aren’t going to last too much longer.

: …You’re very kind, Caeda. Dare I say, we don’t have girls quite like you back in Grust.





And so we have Roger on our side now. Oddly, for a guy who starts as a Knight, Roger’s HP and Defense growths are absolute garbage. His Luck, though, is through the roof, tied for the highest in the game, and his Strength of 35% (before class bonuses) is great as well. He can coast a bit on those Knight tankiness bases, though, and he makes for a pretty solid wall for a while. We have Wolf for that, though.

Roger can get a reclass to be a pretty solid offensive unit, but I’ve never been all that fond of him. By the way, see if you can spot my positioning mistake.



Julian gets the last kill here, since he’s hurting for experience. He also desperately needs weapon levels.




So long as he keeps getting level ups like that, I’m happy to feed him kills.




Oh shit that dude has a bow.




I’ll just block that square!

...it was about three seconds later I realized I picked the wrong square.




Lena, you are not helping.




That’s nice though.




Well, at least Marth gets to chat with our newest recruit.




: Well, at least I was. I’m through fighting against you. Let me join your League.

: Well, certainly. We need all the strong allies we can get. But why the sudden change of heart?

: Well, er… There’s this fetching girl named Caeda who asked me to, and, uh… What can I say? I think I’m in love. Try saying no to a girl who comes racing up to you in the heat of battle just to ask if you believe in love! Whew! I must’ve turned red as a strawberry! Heh heh…

: ……

Agreed.




This is a good store. Blizzard and Thunder are both Rank D tomes, but Blizzard’s a bit more powerful with less accuracy. I think it’s still worth it, because dodge rates are bad in this game. I got one of each anyway.




Thankfully, these Horsemen are so wimpy they can’t OHKO Caeda with their triple damage bows.




I...did sorta pull the whole valley, though. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.




This chapter really is just a workout for Marth and Caeda’s special weapons.




There we go!




...It would help if Abel didn’t miss with the superweapon.




Caeda doesn’t miss. Also she’s almost capped out speed. At level 8. Caeda rules.




That’s about as many walls as I can fit in there, so the rest of the team moves to deal with the Knight/Archer group.




We have some pretty attractive bait. And by attractive, I mean “wearing a giant suit of sheer steel and beef”.




Oh, I’m also still working with Caesar here.




The last shop contains mostly standard stuff. I bought 5 Vulneraries, though, because I really want one of those on pretty much any tanking unit.









Good news, Abel’s learned to hit things again.




Abel! It’s always a roller coaster with this guy.




And Marth wipes up the last of the horse boys.




Looking nice over here...or is it? Don’t forget about those forts.




Here’s Physic in action, by the way. It allows Lena to heal someone from anywhere on the map! Which is some pretty good shit.




Meanwhile, I’m just going full on aggressive here, because I can wipe these guys out in one turn.




Magic, finally!




The Armorslayer’s sort of a miracle maker for dealing with Knights for squishy speedster types like Naborslayer.




Ogma, however, needs no special weapons to kick ass. He’s just Ogma.




Unfortunately, this triggers their pals to appear. Interestingly, this chapter seems to work on getting close to the forts to summon reinforcements, not a turn timer. There’s an invisible line somewhere in each of these little alcoves. Reinforcements are honestly my least favorite part of Fire Emblem on Hard+, because it just causes a lot of deaths that feel unfair since they’re somewhat unpredictable.




So let’s...inch closer and try to summon the others over here.




Meanwhile, the Knight team cleans up these new guys. No more archers will spawn here, by the way, so you’re safe with melee.




Yes, Ogma will continue to be awesome.

(Wow, I hope I didn’t jinx myself there.)




Thankfully, Barst has enough HP that I don’t mind putting him in the Reinforcement attack zone. It helps that it only takes him one hit to kill them, since a double would still give them room to counter.




I did put Wolf in front of him, though, because a double could still potentially kill our blue haired bruiser.




Interestingly, the reinforcements seem to have less defense than the originals, who Ogma was only doing 4 Damage per swipe to.




Oh, he also dodged the second one, and crit him to death. I’ve been strangely lucky on this map, but honestly it’s not too hard, especially if you know how to handle the reinforcements. You can also just rush the boss, but hey, this is free EXP!




Still, that’s enough of that, no more Knights.




...Okay, are you guys coming, or?




...I guess not. Well, might as well…




Aha! You sneaky fucks!




Don’t mess with a horse ass. Or a Ridersbane.




...Unless he whiffs with it again. I’m so conflicted on you, Abel.




Still, I just kept him there, and moved Roger and Marth up to get ready to block a fort. No more reinforcements spawned this turn, so I guess they’re done.




...one sec.



Alright, that should cover it.




Thankfully that Horseman’s a bad shot too.




At the other end of the map, it’s time to roast poor Kannival.




Even he knows he’s fucked.




And now the reinforcements are back? It’s so oddly inconsistent.




Ah well. They weren’t too equipped to handle a Rapier Marth.




I’m sorry I keep having Cord kill EVERY boss, but once they stop making all of them Generals/Knights, maybe I’ll get to switch it up more!




We also get this. This is interesting, it’s a 1-2 Range Sword, the only one of its kind in this game. However, it also attacks with the Magic Stat...which very few sword users have. It struggles to find a good niche until around the 3DS games, when Tricksters and such become a unit.




Also...an empty Lena level? This is the worst Lena I’ve ever had.




I also moved Barst and Wolf off their perches to get a bit more EXP.




Hmm. I’ll take it.




Now that about everything else is done, Caesar’s just finishing his training.




Even Wendell is beating you, Lena. Wendell! He’s older than Jagen!




Oh, here’s a nice tip if you’re Arena grinding, boss abusing, or healing for EXP. Normally the cursor will snap back to Marth at the start of each turn. Turn that off, it makes it go way faster. This works in the GBA games too.




The game disapproves of me spreading that insider info.









And that’s enough of that.









We just took their castle! Why is it...never mind, I won’t question Malledus.

: There are risks there, too- the Pyrathi king Mannu is said to be a descendant of the dragonkin, a Manakete. Still, we’ve no other recourse. We’ll just have to take our chances… Keep your wits about you, sire.




Next time: A really, really bad idea for a detour.

Bonus Content

Pretty much nobody relevant in this chapter has a card, so…here are some I like, partially just for the text.



Fighter of Talys, Bord
”I’m not Cord, I’m Bord!”



Axe User of Talys, Cord
”I’m not Bord, I’m Cord!”



Volunteer Soldier of Talys, Barst
”Bord! Cord! Let’s move!”

Apparently, if you use all three of these cards together, they get a pretty huge attack buff, which I think is entertaining, even though I don’t really know how to play Cipher .