Part 65: Chapter 21 Hard Mode

Chapter 21: No Nomads. No Pegesai. Wyverns Only. Shrine of Seals


Welcome to the Endgame. I'll be playing with my Ilia Route team, who I'll show off now. They've all been fitted with fancy new gear (mostly) for the coming hardships.


Roy is... Roy is Roy.


Rutger on the other hand, is Rutger. He's getting Durandal because yeah.


Since this is A Team, Tate is kicking all kinds of ass, and can go toe to toe with Bern's wyverns.


Ellen is still lopsided as hell, but now she has speed and pretty good magic to back her up. Also since luck is just straight up added into evade, she's dodge as hell.


Lou is prepared fight fliers. His stats are pretty lame actually, but he has good magic utility so he's sticking around.


Miledy is level 11 and has already maxed Strength, Skill and Speed. The defense rests, your honor.


Clarine's offense is only slightly better than fuckin' Roy's, but has high mobility, is dodge as hell and can cart heals around.


Ray is following the Ellen path of Min/Max. He hits like a truck, but he can't dodge shit.


Gonzales is actually kind of under leveled. Still he's doing spectacular.


Zeiss is doing okay, but he's not God-Zeiss. Still I'm throwing him the divine spear for kicks.


He's no B Route Shin, but he's still pretty fantastic. He's also in heaven this chapter, with so many fliers to feather.


Dieck's offense is terrible, but he's quite competent otherwise. He picks up a wyrmslayer this chapter and does well for himself.


Percival weighs in as a jack of all trades. He can hit okay, do decent damage, dodge fairly well, and take a beating when he does get hit. Sturdy and reliable.

And now, since we're allowed a hilarious 18 units, the filler:


Niime can throw physic staves around. Yep.


Astols hear to sell my excess shit and buy some shiny new shit.


Alan is an underleveled Percy. Honestly he just promoted too late.


Lance is seriously lacking in defense, and his offense isn't too good either. Lance is actually kind of shit. Still his A Support with ALan gives him crazy avoid, so he'll tag along.

Tired of looking at stat screens? Too bad!


There are a few sages on the map, all of them with at least 26 magic.


Including this asshole.


...Yeah. These guys one shot a good 1/4 of my team. They do awesome damage to almost anything else they hit, and only a handful of good frontliners can reliably take them down in a single round.


Max Strength? Decent Skill? Killer Weapons? Oh baby.


This would be why I brought some divine weapons along.


Not only could Murdock benchpress a dragon, he could probably take it's breath to the face, laugh, kill it, then benchpress its corpse. Unfortunately he can't outrun it, and that will be his downfall.


Okay, let's do this.


Here's a map I shamelessly stole from the amazing website Fire Emblem WoD, hence it being in Spanish. Basically the gist of it is that unlike previous chapters, this one is a little more complex in that there are "zones" that, once entered, spawn reinforcements for several turns. The moment you step in they start pouring through, and stepping out does not stop them. You want to trigger as few zones as possible on the way to victory.

With that in mind, my failure:

Attempt 1:


I split into two teams: a fast mobile team to go east and hit the secret shop, and a slower foot team to circle round south and carve out a path.


My pincer is not appreciated by Bern.


They send troops.


Good troops.


So good they oneshot my healers.



And that would be about the point I hit the reset button.

Attempt 2:


New plan this time: everybody goes East. No splitting up nonsense: we punch a whole and concentrate our killing power.


Concentrated indeed. (That's my crit, not Bern's)


Shin does his thing.


As does Rutger.


Percy can't quite kill these guys by himself, but he's very reliable at helping weaken or clean up.


Look at all the fucks I give.


Lou also has some fun.


Now that's what I'm talking about.


Tate is treading thin ice with these guys due to her low defenses.


The Lords in particular HURT if they connect.


Then again, so do my guys.


The units we left in the dust on the west side trail after us.


Meanwhile more fliers come in to reinforce.


A lot more fliers. Seriously, 8 new wyverns spawn every turn here for like five turns.


GET OUT THE WAY!


Oh, nevermind: it's just the trainee squad.


The trainee commander however, wants a word.


We deal with both.


Alright, things are lookin-


HOW MANY OF THESE DO YOU HAVE, BERN?


Things are getting intense.


Tate also got a level while I was pouring a glass of water that I missed. Whatever, more green!


Before.


After.


Some heals get thrown around. Now we're in the-





That's... probably the best level Percy's ever gotten, actually.


Get. Out.


What the hell, prepromotes!?




From all sides, they keep coming.


And honestly...


I'm kinda at the end of my rope, here.


And the game is, honestly, not giving much encouragement.


Still, no use complaining. So we plow in.


With mixed results.


Very mixed.


Gonzales actually makes use of his bandit status and goes mountain climbing.


The result is that nothing can hit him, and he's being targeted by all the southward reinforcements. Me like.


Rutger is the linchpin holding the entire frontline together.


He is rewarded for his efforts.


So is Lou.


Reinforcements finally stop popping in from the northeast.


The south, too.


Too late for that Alan, but the thought's nice.


Finally, we have some breathing room.


Breath it in.


Sure.


Dodgin' all day.


Really, Dieck?


The line I tried to draw with my cursor there shows the divider for the boundary where Gale spawns. I ain't crossing shit until we're ready.


Hello, extra stat item.


Astol finally makes his way to the shop.


I already decided a long time ago that, since the main reason behind this hard mode run is pure schadenfreude, I wouldn't abuse the awesome responsibility of this show. I didn't even by a single pair of boots. I did however, buy as many stat items as I could afford. Why?


...Reasons.


Oh, and I picked up some boltings, too.


We line up for the inevitable.


Into the breech!


The two dragons go down.


As does bolting asshole.


Gale promptly arrives on the scene.


I really don't feel like fucking with Gale. So I won't.



Rutger goes around to the side. His mission: assassinate Murdock.


Me like.


A metric ton of reinforcements pop up to stop our advance.


Seriously, what the fuck IntSys? I know somebody is laughing right now, but it isn't me.


Yeah, yeah.


Miledy tries to talk some sense into Gale.


It doesn't work so, Zeiss also tries. It also doesn't work.


But it's alright. It's hard to convey in this screenshot, Gale did not attack us on enemy phase. Nor did any of his reinforcements.

The thing is You actually don't have to kill Gale. If he's talked to by both Miledy and Zeiss, he and his buddies will just circle around Miledy and chill. They won't fight, they won't go for anybody in range. They'll just quietly sit there until you finish the chapter. You don't recruit him, but he doesn't die.

So in conclusion: Artix murder Miledy's boyfriend for no reason. You monster.


Anyway, Gale and his friends are no longer a threat, but the rest of the wyverns are.


Rutger finally reaches the boss. Even with max strength, Murdock is so tanky that Rutger needs to take out Durandal to do decent damage.


Dammit.


Much better.


Welp, that takes care of t-


FUCK.


Okay, now that takes care of that.


Goodbye Murdock: you were a badass.


Rutger maxes speed as a final farewell.


So completes the hardest chapter in the game. At least in my opinion.

Bonus Content!


If you fail to seize the throne in 30 turns, this guy shows up proclaiming to have destroyed the divine weapon. He then pops on to the map with his two druid buddies who for some reason have generic soldier sprites.


The druids have max magic and Fenrir tomes.


Pereth, who's actually the boss for the 21x, is actually not as scary as his two buddies, though he does have Noserfatu, which is annoying.


Next Time: Filler and Bling.

Yodel: Yodel is basically Niime except not. He's good in this chapter because he can hide behind a wall and throw heals around. Otherwise he's a horrid fighter and brittle as talc, so don't put your faith in him. Still, he has utility if only for this chapter.