Part 4: UPDATE 2 part 2
Oh hey, Shion finally got to his target. Which I guess was completely unguarded. Cool.
The unit formerly led by the Wizard I just offed is currently wandering lost in the forest. Leaderless units ignore all orders and flee from all impending battle. That's why Attack Leader is so useful.
Looks like the other units in the area are coming for me, though! HOW SCARY. Let's take a look at that Witch.
Ivory. Her name is Ivory. Really. Nice going, RNG.
Other Ivory's unit is even less of a threat than the first one was.
Witch
Aside from looking like they're dressed for a college Halloween party, witches are as gimmicky as gimmicky gets. They don't actually attack; instead they inflict status ailments. Status ailments only last as long as the battle you're fighting. I'd rather deal damage any day of the week.
Griffin
Roughly equivalent to the Wyrm. Mid-range flying attacker; Large size. Gets two physical attacks in the front; gets two wind-element magic attacks in the back. Neither are particularly strong. I'll never use these either.
Despite the undeniable appeal of an Ivory-v-Ivory battle, I'm sending Swift against her. It's his turn.
Unfortunately only 6 of my 9 soldiers can swarm Other Ivory at once, because she's all the way on the right and the soldiers on the left can't target her.
Luckily this is about the most threatening thing she can do. Those soldiers are Poisoned. Poison is a basic debuff -- attack down, defense down. Thing is, those Soldiers only get one attack per battle anyway. They're done. In other words this debuff accomplishes nothing.
Way to go, Other Ivory!
Other Ivory dealt less damage, so she lost and was driven back, but she's still alive, so she's still on the warpath. Swift is heading north to cut her off.
and here we go
Swift still can't manage to finish her off -- it happens when your unit has so many soldiers in it -- but luckily poisoning the extras still isn't paying off.
That little building speech bubble means she's running for a stronghold to get healed. Swift is going to cut her off again. Meantime that enemy Knight is closing in on Ivory. Hm. Forgot to check him out. I wonder what his name is.
Shion.
His name is Shion.
I'm not even gonna try.
Luckily Other Shion is only a little bit more threatening than Other Ivory was. Since he's in the middle column it should be way easier to take him down. Let's see.
Hm. Guess not. This is the Griffin's back-row attack, by the way. It is not particularly menacing.
Okay. This time it should be pretty easy to wipe her out.
BINGO
For finally beating Other Ivory, Swift receives a Ninja's Garb. This is one of the things we need to make Ninjas. Ninjas aren't very good -- they're roughly equivalent to Fighters -- but I might make a couple for a little while anyway.
Meantime, Other Shion can't be arsed to walk all the way back to Ivory's Stronghold, so he's just attacking Swift. Meh. Good enough.
There's something that's just so viscerally satisfying about an entire row of Soldiers going all Ides of March on someone.
Welp, time to mop up.
Is it too morbid of me to say Griffins have a hilarious death face?
CLUCK CLUCK OUCH
MAYBE IF I WERE A BETTER CHARACTER TYPE THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED
The Iron Claw is another required item for Ninjas. Getting pretty close to completing the set.
Meanwhile Ivory has to chase that Wizard all the way south to those Highlands.
She really doesn't wanna go up there. In order to master her pathfinding algorithm I have to give her multiple destinations.
Since these guys are running away without a leader, their formation is turned backward and the Hellhound is in the back row. It's pretty harmless now. And pretty dead. Knight's still there, though.
Before tracking down the Knight to finish the unit off for good, I tell Ivory to set up Camp to get rid of some of her Fatigue. Units that are Camping gradually lose Fatigue and regain HP, but they can't move or see anything, and if they get attacked, they'll all start the battle Asleep and can't act until they wake up.
Meantime I'm sending Shion to Buchanan. He's too Lawful to liberate the town, but there's a unit there that needs killing and Shion needs some practice.
On his way over he finds an Altar of Resurrection. This thing can be carried around or kept at the HQ, and it will revive one dead character to full HP. Hell of a lot better than some old dirty rags. *cough*IVORY*cough*
Speaking of Ivory, she finally killed that Knight.
This is the last thing we needed to make Ninjas -- anyone who meets the stat requirements can now switch over to that class.
Shion just barely misses out on killing this Berserker.
Oh, right. I found a Berserker. Here, learn something.
Berserker
The basic Chaotic melee unit. A guy with an axe and with very little armor. Good attack, good toughness to make up for the armor thing. Not great on MDef, but hey, he's a frontliner. Put one of these guys in front of your Wizards and Sorceresses in your Chaotic units. Two attacks in the front, one everywhere else.
Well, shit. He's gonna run away now. That's bad.
It's bad because that'll put his Hellhound in the back row where it gets 3 attacks. I'm almost worried.
Luckily I managed to kill off both of them before the thing could hit me more than once. PROBLEM SOLVED. With VIOLENCE.
Well, that's that. Nothing left but to kill the boss.
Ivory's closest -- she had to run that far south to catch that Knight and has been loitering around there ever since.
: "But you won't get any further! I will defeat you, at all costs!"
: "Why do you do this? ...What are you trying to do!?": "It won't do either of us good if I tell you. What are you going to do? You haven't the slightest idea of what we must endure. ...You want to know why we do this? Freedom... Yes, for freedom. That's it... Nothing else! Now, prepare!"
Stabilo is a boss. He cannot be driven off of his headquarters; the mission is over if and only if he dies. That means if I run out of actions and he's still standing, I lose this battle and have to try again.
WELP
Luckily it's child's play to get to him again before he heals up the whole way.
And this time he goes down!
As a reward, I get 8 new soldiers, very little money, and Stabilo's axe.
Anyway these guys are clearly more dangerous than we'd thought. Better get some intel.
: "What are you planning?": "........."Before Freddie can continue his shatteringly competent interrogation, Dio runs in.
: "It sounds like the prince has been attacked!"
I missed Stabilo's laughing animation. He stops laughing immediately after his text finishes displaying. (To be fair, it's really not that funny anyway.)
: "What? You ask what's so funny? Your foolishness just cracks me up!"Man,
s all over the place today.: "What do you mean by that!?"
: "Our true goal is... revolution! We will destroy the royal family and the nobles, and bring changes to this kingdom!! We were ordered to get your attention... I didn't expect they'd dispatch rookies like you, but... it's too late!! We'll raise the flag of revolution on Prince Yumil's grave! Hehehe... Hahahahaha!"
THERE, got it this time.
This sudden plot dump leads Freddie to go out on an introspective walk.
: "...Let's go rescue the prince.": "By ourselves? Are you out of your mind? Where exactly is Prince Yumil? How big is the enemy force? We have no information whatsoever. What are we supposed to do, huh Freddie!? Besides! How are we gonna contact the main regiment?"Man when DIO of all people is telling you to slow down and think it through before doing something rash, you know you've really
uh err I mean Dio is clearly in the wrong here.
Hugo's just always scolding Dio from offscreen. It's his thing.
: "It's too late to join the main regiment. From the size of the decoy, the enemy force shouldn't be that large. Since we're closest, we must rescue the prince. The troops training nearby are also heading this way. Freddie, take command and rescue the prince."
: "???"Dio clearly doesn't remember a certain sepia-toned flashback I could name. (my first time through I didn't either)
: "I'll head for the main regiment and give my report. ...But first, we should go to where Prince Yumil was attacked. It's difficult to devise a decent plan in this kind of situation, but I can at least give you some advice."But he's not going to until next time!
Mission over, good job! Next time, we fulfill a classic fantasy trope and rescue the
Here's a list of my current roster, if you'd like to do some renaming!
UNIT 1:
LEADER: Freddie, Gladiator (NOT RENAMABLE)
Zemekis, Fighter
Chebon, Fighter
Ling Chi, Amazon
Silphie, Amazon
UNIT 2:
LEADER: Shion, Knight
Yeager, Fighter
Marlow, Fighter
(2 Soldiers)
UNIT 3:
LEADER: Swift, Fencer
Elliot, Fighter
(3 Soldiers)
UNIT 4:
LEADER: Dio, Gladiator (NOT RENAMABLE)
Ingram, Fighter
Ferdinando, Fighter
MacPherson, Fighter
Vanessa, Amazon
UNIT 5:
LEADER: Ivory, Dragon Tamer
Marty, Fighter
(3 Soldiers)
MISC:
Eunomos, Wyrm