Part 44: Chapter 17B: The Bishop’s Teachings (feat. Cake Attack)
Chapter 17B: The Bishop’s Teachings (feat. Cake Attack)
...views and express their discontent for the Revolutionaries. Driven away from the palace, Roartz and Arcard fled to Sacae, which was still under Bern's control.
The vast Sacae plains lay in the center of the continent. Before Bern invaded, Sacae was inhabited by various nomadic clans.
The Etrurian army joined the Lycia Alliance Army to form a joint Etruria-Lycia Union Army. The decision was to head for Sacae to get rid of the remaining Revolutionaries, and also attack Bern, who was behind them. Thinking that some Etrurian knights would not approve of being seen as serving under the Lycia Alliance Army, Roy officially named the new Union the Etrurian Army and became its commander.
Roy led the division responsible for entering Sacae. The Sacaean people were wary of outsiders in the first place, but even worse, Brenya, another of the Three Dragon Lords, had gotten the largest clan in Sacae, the Djute, under submission. The warriors of the Djute clan and Brenya's elite troops stood in front of Roy as he set foot on Sacaean soil.
Yes, General Brenya. It has been confirmed.
I see...
Please do not worry, Lord Roartz. You have assisted us, so we will not abandon you. I shall assure that.
Thank you... Then, Lord Arcard, you will be assigned the defense of this land, Talas. Lord Roartz, your post will be the city of Bulgar. Talas!? W-Wait! This is too close to Aquleia. The enemy will be here in no time! Then all you must do is defeat them. This is an ideal post to set up a defense. Since it is so close to Aquleia, the enemy will be sure to attack. We can be most prepared here. Well, that's true...
Bulgar...that is deep in the foreign lands of Sacae. I hear that there is much rebellion among the nomads... Then force them into submission. Is that not your specialty? Well... Rumors say that the enemy commander, Roy, is still a boy. Still, he has prevailed through many scandals and conspiracies to rebuild the Lycia Alliance Army and strengthen it further than ever. Compared to his hardships, yours are close to nothing. Am I wrong? ... Then I must be off. I will be praying for your success. *leaves* ...
Those two are disgraceful cowards who cast away their homeland to save their own skins. We must not assist them any more than necessary. They should be thankful that they are getting the land and troops that they are. ...I like Brenya. Do we have to kill her?
I’m ambivalent about it. I guess that’s an improvement, though.
Meh. I say let her burn. In a game with some moral ambiguity I might feel for her, but as it is she's actively working for a guy who's not exactly on the up and up. Being nice while doing that shouldn't be enough to stop her from being Gonzalesed to death.
Bishop Yodel, thank you for everything. Thanks to the Church, we were able to proceed thus far with ease.
Please. If you had not captured Aquleia, we would be suffering from persecution under Bern. This is nothing in comparison to what you did for us. I am glad that I could be of use to you. Now... May I ask you a very important favor? Yes, anything that I am capable of. If you find out anything else about the Dragons... I understand. If I discover anything new, I will report to you immediately. Thank you! ...Ah, yes, I must tell you something else. The lands around here... They are surrounded by high mountains and valleys. And now that night has fallen... The perfect setting for an ambush... Exactly. Castle Talas up ahead is under Bern's control. All right. I will be careful. Yes, please. Then, may Saint Elimine bless the Etrurian Army!
Right then, here we go. Mages to the east, cavs and nomads to the south, with a few wyverns scattered around.
To think; it wasn’t until Advance Wars that IntSys had the idea to make terrain mess with Fog of War. Think how much more bullshit potential there’d be if you could only see into forests/etc from adjacent tiles!
I want to see what they'd hide in the forests. Swordmasters, Siege tome users, Berserk assholes. Oh man the possibilities would be endless.
Zeiss was going to come, but due to a lack of Elysian Whips, Fa got to come along. After all, why use a wyvern rider when we can just bring a real dragon?
Anyway, first priority is the village in the east, and Miledy is going to haul ass over there. Hugh will be leading the charge east, with Fa, Shin, Saul, and Echidna in reserve, and Astol and Lalum for support. The remainder of the army is heading south, with Bors on point.
So way back when, you guys voted on handing out some stat-ups. Ray and Fir were the winners of our first two Angelic Robes (not that Fir really needs it now).
Oh, and there are enemy thieves. See, by now, bandits are pretty ho-hum and don't really represent much of a threat. So now thieves can destroy villages. And they have 6 movement, and are going to be packing at least 16 or so speed, which means an obnoxious amount of avoid and difficulty doubling for something you really need to kill. If that east village is not saved by turn 5 or 6, you're not going to save it.
I always found this hilarious. “I’m going to use my speed and agility to... destroy the shit out of your village. Because I’m a thief!”
Yay Hugh?
Making Miledy's life difficult is this asshat. Given how far ahead she needs to be, Saul is basically the only hope of healing her up.
My god, can it be? Is that a sage with pants?
IntSys, ever the innovators.
Bolting asshole is hanging out up here. He also has a Physic staff, if you wanted another reason to bash his face in. That said, it's tempting to have Miledy (or whoever) kill him on her way over. Don't - that thief we saw on the first turn takes off for the village immediately, and you don't want to waste time on this guy if you can avoid it.
Our foes in the south are not particularly well armed, for whatever reason. Come on IntSys, this is Chapter 17. Surely we can move beyond iron weapons by now?
Another thing I’ve always thought is that, if they were a bit more... sparing? ...with the numbers, they could’ve made Iron/Steel/Silver weapons an actual choice. I mean, sure, Iron weapons retain some accuracy later on, but for the most part, the late-games are all Silver-or-GTFO affairs.
Well in theory, Silver Weapons are mainly balanced by price and uses. Then they give you 50000 gold just for showing up and that stops being an issue. When money supply is tighter it becomes an actual choice.
Bizzarely, this archer runs out to attack us instead of getting on the Ballista. Not going to complain, I guess.
This isn't the Bolting asshole, but I was planning on feeding him to Fa, and he attacked after Hugh's Elfire tome broke so he got a face full of Aircalibur instead.
Sparse, but functional.
What? The enemy was going to attack our village? I see... I must thank you for informing us. Please take this.
Thanks, asshole. So helpful. Maybe I can make a wall shiver in fear or something.
I heard a noble princess once used it... [Got Tina's Staff]
Tina's staff is the last of the manga references, and it's an E-rank staff that heals [Mag+15] HP. Pretty handy.
Enemy nomad troopers are apparently robots. Seriously, look at that skin.
B-b-but adding realistic skin tones would mean adding a ninth color!
Roy remains surprisingly useful, considering he's only using an Iron Sword, and the nomad is in a forest.
See what I mean?
Ray gets a pretty awesome level off the cavalier.
I don't remember if I've pointed this out yet, but fun fact about nomads: They don't count as mounted units for the purposes of effective damage. They're designated as mounted on the status screen and get all the perks that come with that, but they laugh at your Horseslayers and such. Roy should be doing an extra 10 damage here.
Man, they really hate archers. A bow/Sword using class that's mounted with being treated as mounted, totally doesn't invalidate normal archers.
I also always forget this and have to change my strategy on the fly
Hugh softens up the Bolting asshole for a borderline shit level.
Bolting your way out of this, asshat.
That sure is a Fa level.
This one could go Fa - no wait fuck that one relies on a mispronunciation but that’s probably how people read it anyway shit I’m probably overthinking this
First set of reinforcements is cavaliers from back where we started. Echidna and Fir are standing by to deal with them.
The implications of Fog of War are very strange sometimes. I know there's a guy here, because he tried to shoot Bors with the ballista last turn. The ballista that you can see on the map regardless of how far you are from it. And yet, nothing.
Missed Trick game-mechanics wise; the ability to blindly attack into any obscured space. If it’s a ranged attack and you don’t end the turn with the supposed enemy in visual range, you don’t get to know if it hit or how much damage it did if it did.
In the north, Saul, Hugh, Shin, and Fa are working their way south to the castle. Those thieves are reinforcements that popped up in case you managed to kill off the first one by the Bolting sage.
BORRRRSSSSSSS!
Why can you not hit anything this map?His axe has to strike through interference caused by Fir
Cute. Real cute.
Fuck it, nuclear option go.
And there's the guest of honor tonight.
He hasn't changed from Chp 12, but he's a hell of a lot less menacing now. The Silver Lance hurts, but it's only going to land once unless you're fielding someone really slow, and he has a Javelin to ensure he mostly goes after ranged attackers anyway.
A couple turns after the cavaliers stop, nomads start popping out of the north fortresses. Still nothing to be really concerned about unless you left Astol too close or something.
Bite me, horse boy.
Saul starts off the opening salvo against Arcard.
Divine really is the best tome for Saul, considering its description is "Heaven's Judgement."
If only he could use Judge from FE10...
How do you miss a dragon? Come on, that's just sad Arcard.
Fa never stops being adorable
How is that even a dragon, she's like a giant chicken waddling out of the way
Shin chips down Arcard a little for a very bad level.
This is for everything on the Western Isles, asshole.
...noble! I must not...die...here... Guh!
It's scary to consider that is probably her worst level to date.
Now, with Arcard dead, we wait out the rest of the reinforcements and head over to the arena. I didn't do a lot of training, get everyone up to 20/5 or so if they weren't there already. Thar be level dumps here:
Oh yeah, and Saul got to grind the hell out of his Light rank while everyone trotted their way back to the castle.
I...may have gone a little overboard with him, but he is up to Light-A now. Plus, that's maxed Skill and Speed.
Looks like this all went rather well! Well, except for Hugh, but whatever, I guess.
[insert suggestion that this is possible because I’m not stealing all the +1s anymore]
Or maybe it's just because our standards have lowered enough that even when we only have two levels with more then three +1s, it's still much better then it could have been.
What a pathetic ending for one who became so powerful. Well, last year, I didn't think we would be fighting in Sacae, either. Fate can turn out in the most unlikely ways... And that might be true for Bern as well. ...? Master Roy, what is it that you are holding in your hand? Oh, this? This is the Fire Emblem. Oh... So this tiny gem is... Princess Guinevere wanted me to keep it. It seemed...difficult for her to give it to me... She must have been truly hoping to end the war peacefully until now...where this is no hope left...
It didn't seem likely on the outside. Why not? The enemy is Zephiel, king of Bern! It is said that he murdered his own father, so I didn't think that he would be moved by mere family relations... What!? He killed his own father? Didn't you know, Master Roy? Zephiel took the throne because the former king had died. But because the former king's death was so sudden, there are many rumors going around. And one of them is... ...That King Zephiel assassinated him. ...Does Princess Guinevere know about this? She must know something about it, if not all. ...-----
Bonus:
Klein vs. Arcard
Klein! You would betray me?
You are the one who betrayed Etruria, Lord Arcard!Douglas vs. Arcard
D-Douglas! You had turned to the enemy...!?