Part 47: Chapter 18B Hard Mode
Right, sorry about the lateness of this update. School starting back up, moving to a new place... yeah, lots of boring stuff. ANYWAY, SUFFERING TIME:Chapter 18B: Fuckin' Nomads Everywhere
The title is, of course, a reference to a wonderful piece of fan art from Artix's last LP.
Right,
The crew as usual, though Zeiss now makes his debute as a fully fledged member of the A Team. He's also going to rock my brave lance: I'm busting out some serious hardware from here on out, because enemies start getting very annoying, very fast.
Tate is also coming along, because I hate myself. She's picking up my spare dracoshield as well.
Miledy and Roy are also picking up some stat boosters. Yeah I know I'm giving the talisman to Miledy after voting for Artix to give it to Gonzales.
Standard Nomad Trooper. These guys pack a punch.
Standard Nomad. They pick up a point of speed, but lose out in everything else.
Standard Myrm. That's actually kind of scary.
Standard Dragon Knight, they will all have capped Strength from this point onward.
Standard Dragon Lord. Put this guy on a throne, and he'd be solid boss material.
Standard Druid. With 24 Magic he'd be a huge threat if not for the fact that he was carrying
Standard-, oh wait, that's the boss. Monke is only notable for having 25 speed, which is moot because his brave weapons both weigh him down by 4, so he actually has 21 speed. Still he's a dodgy motherfucker who always hits twice, so that's annoying. I'll go into more detail about this later. For now, note his elixer.
This guy has a killing edge just to fuck with you.
This guy meanwhile has an elixer, like a few other guys on the map. Kinda wish I brought Astol instead of Tate, but whatever.
Right, enough preliminary stuff: the chapter proper. 18A steps up its game in hard mode, though not in any really tangible, obvious "fuck you" way. Enemies just have bigger numbers again, but their numbers are just big enough to be really annoying. The nomads are incredibly dodgy and hard to hit, the myrms are crit machines, the wyverns are fast moving nukes that can one or two shot a lot of your army, and there's a druid flinging long range, very powerful heals everywhere. It turns the entire battle into a slog, and a lot of things can go south at pretty much any point. This chapter isn't as hard as I remembered it being, but it's still quite the dick. We'll get to more on that later.
Anyway, Gonzales charges south because the proper hard mode strategy for this map is to bunker down and let enemies filter across the two bridges. That of course, would be boring.
This is not boring.
This screen exists so you know I bought about a dozen physic staves.
Zeiss and Miledy fly above Nomad country straight towards their Bern wyvern riding counterparts.
Lou also heads down to support Gonzales, a decision I'll regret a little later.
Oh right, Rutger. Let's talk about Rutger.
I've been holding Rutger back for some time now, due to his high level. I wanted the rest of the army to get some exp. But now the chains are off, and I'm going to let Rutger run full force again. And considering he's already capped strength, well...
Zeiss's first engagement goes about as planned. Yeah, he's doubling Myrms at 20/1.
He also dodges this guy. Magic still stings pretty bad.
This screen repeats about a dozen times.
Lou takes a few bumps from across the river.
He'll be alright, though.
Team Flying continue towards the other wyverns.
Shin meanwhile jumps into the fray.
Wow Alan, you're actually kinda low level. You're also pretty bad. Don't worry, we'll make a man out of you yet.
Percival is still the best Pally I have, and in all this open space he's having no troubles beyond hitting.
A lot of people die.
More magic? Sold.
Seriously, fuck this guy.
One down!
Light magic season begins. Rutger can't do much with that thing, though.
The only notable thing here is that I've never managed to catch the arrow in flight before.
Tate gets a pretty good level! She could use some strength, though.
Here we go.
I missed you Rutger.
This continues for awhile...
And Rutger manages to pull almost every enemy of Gonzales, out in the open, and only take about a 1/3 of his health in damage.
Now THAT'S more like it, Ray. A few more of these levels, and you'll be down right serviceable.
Gonzales crush puny healers.
Shin rides up to start killing the boss.
Now here's where things get annoying.
You see, Monke really isn't that big of a threat. He does little damage even with his brave weapons. Here's the thing: Monke's purpose isn't to kill you like most bosses. His purpose is to stall for time. Artix already called attention to this chapter's asshole gambit: That stepping inside the circle of tents spawns reinforcements every turn. You HAVE to step inside to hit Monke (beyond seige tomes, which will never hit him), and after that all you have to do is take the throne to win, right?
Good luck. Monke is very dodgy, and has high HP. He's still got 21 speed which means only a select few units can double him, many of which are probably fliers of squishy units who'd be ganked by reinforcements. He's also very hard to kill in one turn, so of course he has an elixir to heal all his wounds, which he prioritizes over hurting you. Monke's whole gimmick, so to speak, is that he forces you to dogpile him with weak units, all the while reinforcements are spawning to fuck over those units.
Anway, end of rant. Lance finally kills a guy to prove his worth.
Monke heals his wounds,
And Tate starts getting targeted by the reinforcements.
Zeiss doesn't even have the Delphi Shield. Fucks Given: 0.
And now he cares even less.
Er... worried now.
Well that was closer than I'd have liked.
This too, Shin gets some Ellen heals.
The reinforcements are annoying, but I've moved most of the vulnerable units away.
He's actually a tad slow by my count, but who cares: He has max strength.
Monke chugs another elixir. I think he does this even if he could get a kill. I'm not sure, though.
Alan wants to stay on the team. I say let him.
Ellen meanwhile is being Ellen.
Shin has enough of this elixir shit, and busts out a tactical nuke.
By carrying weapons we're actually capable of lifting!
Sparse, but good.
See above.
Way to ruin the pattern, Miledy.
A fun fact about the reinforcements here: At the start of enemy phase three tents are randomly picked to spawn reinforcements. If those tents are stood on, the reinforcements are prevented even if there are other free tents. So you could get lucky and stand on only three and get no reinforcements, or fail horribly and have the only three tents you're not on spawn reinforcements. It's kind of a crapshot.
A few guys spawn to the south, so I farm them for the exp.
Now then, let's be off.
Tell that to chapter 19 and 20, boy.
Next Time: ...Meh