Part 30: UPDATE 25: Brigade of Radiant Cross

Just a heads-up, guys: I'm probably gonna be taking a week off from LPin' because my girlfriend is spending her spring break coming to see me. I'm ALREADY kind of a douche for having to work for some of it, I'm not gonna douche it up further by spending all my free time playing Ogre Battle. I didn't want to bring news like that without having AN UPDATE in tow, though. This should tide you guys over for the next week, right?

Before we get into the thick of this next update:



I was able to promote one AND EXACTLY ONE Siren, and it astonishingly wasn't Panic but Lime. FANCY THAT.



Also I didn't remember to do this until the middle of the upcoming mission when I couldn't actually put it ON anyone, but it turns out that there is some kind of mythical Alpha Whale or something in Zeteginia and its name is Hwail. (Hwale???) And it looks like this suit of armor somehow. Because that totally makes sense.

I've noticed that old people do that sometimes -- any "w" followed by an "h" is pronounced "hw." Like they'd pronounce "white" "hwite" or like "hwat are you talking about?" and stuff like that. Man, old people talk really weird. I was gonna tell a story about old people speaking Hebrew and how they always pronounce the "T" sound as "S" for some reason but then I realized that like one person who posts in the thread would probably get the reference so I decided I'd just awkwardly summarize it in this sentence instead.



ANYWAY we haven't actually claimed any new territory on this side of the map since the first time we saw Ogres. Let's get on that.

Update 25: Brigade of Radiant Cross



 FINALLY a relevant mission name 



God I'm SO GLAD something is HAPPENING at one of these meetings for once

No offense Hugo but you just can't carry these things yourself.

(Also I don't think it's been said before: Winnea is the capital of Palatinus)

: "...What did they say?"

: "They are planning to temporarily annex Palatinus, to protect its people from the activities of the Revolutionary Army. ...Once the kingdom regains stability, the status of independence will be returned to Palatinus."

Ah, the sweet scent of bullshit.

: "Who would believe that? They're just trying to justify their invasion!"

: "It's not necessarily untrue. It is a fact that this kingdom and its people have been upset by our actions. The nobles, who fear that they will lose their social status, and those who are indifferent to what is going on around them... They will gladly accept Lodis as their savior."

: "......But..."

: "Lodis also declared that there will be no peace accord with the Revolutionary Army... This makes contact with the Eastern Orthodox Church even more difficult. Hmm..."

Gotta admire how focused Hugo is. "The major world power is moving in with the explicit purpose of grinding us into dust. They've promised to never make peace until the last Revolutionary soldier is in the ground. Yeah I have NO idea how we're gonna get in touch with this religious group with all that going on."

: "Let's get started..."

oh yeah the briefing



: "We must take control of Guntherhaal."

Another one of those HUGE MAPS. Luckily I'm pretty sure this one doesn't have any explodable bridges.

: "Let me give you a short geography lesson..."



: "Gules Hills is the crossroads between Alba, Capitrium, and Latium. To reach Capitrium, you must pass through Guntherhaal."

Huh. I guess that WAS pretty short. Yeah for some reason the crossroads map is the one immediately north of the one called "Dardunnelles, the Crossroads." yeah i dunno man

: "Our intelligence indicates enemy troops are marching on Fort Bergiga. Enemy troops are also reported in the vicinity of Guntherhaal Station. They're desperate to keep us from the Eastern Orthodox Church."

"There are troops attacking our HQ. There are also some troops defending their HQ. Probably some in between as well. I'm helping! "

: "Things will get hectic here very quickly. We should plan accordingly. Nothing will be easy now that Lodis has mobilized. Be careful."

I dunno man, Lodis DID wait to mobilize until after I had Paladins and Archmages and Pumpkinheads and shit, maybe this won't be so bad!

: "We can only believe in what we are doing and continue forward."



WELL SAID



Basically this map can be divided up into two main "paths" divided by a river. Naturally I'm taking both, and splitting my army accordingly.



No sooner does my conga line get moving, though, than it runs into the Lodisian conga line.



JEEZ dude, we get it, you like templars



Chipp kind of knows what he's doing, and Debitt has converted a Bahamut into an overgrown meatshield. At least he's actually standing BEHIND it. Oh right, Bahamuts.

Bahamut

The fully-evolved Platinum Dragon, and a pretty good source of Virtue damage. Their back-row spell, Divine Ray, doesn't cause status (to my knowledge) but it's still a good counter for Undead due to spreading a lot of Virtue damage around over all enemies.



Team North only finds one Templar, but he seems to be kind of a tough nut to crack. Gonna have to send in Freddie on this one.



oh god a talker

: "By the order of Pope Saldian, you will be executed by us, the Brigade of Radiant Cross! Filarhh, Father of all gods, and our Lord Lodis, grant us your blessings."

How it works: The Brigade of Radiant Cross is basically a Crusader army. The Caliginous Order is a knightly order, meaning it's much smaller and made up of important rich people (Skull and Bones). The Caliginous Order is in charge of the Brigade of Radiant Cross.



So yeah I guess Lodis is the Zeteginean Jesus? And the name of this country is the equivalent of "Holy Jesus Empire"? ...Actually that would be a pretty awesome name for a country.



GAH STOP GUARDING

Fine, let's see how you like a bunch of fire lizards to the face.



DAMMIT FIRE PEDRA

Yeah, the problem with Pedras is that you cannot designate targets for them. If you have Attack Leader up, they will usually make the leader ONE of their targets, but in this particular case the guy on the right got like five salamanders to Gerald's two. Guess this'll take two battles. Eh, worse things happen at sea.



Oh you assholes

Yeah unless you feel like building up a whole lot of fatigue and fighting this invasion force on the other side of it, this neutral stronghold is pretty much going to fall no matter what.



STAY DOWN THIS TIME <>



so yeah fun fact



Turns out I was wrong earlier and casters of different tier magic CAN work together. The result is a smaller version of the tier-2 combo that will hit for normal tier-2 area/splash damage. Nice call, whichever guy it was that pointed that out a while ago!



That wasn't quite enough to kill Heinlein, but it was close enough.



From the front row, of course, Bahamuts hit with boring old elemental breath. In this battle, Asnabel managed to kill the Platinum Dragon on the left and did enough damage to the Bahamut to make Debitt run back to Amdelm and stay there for a while.



Leia had a bit more luck with Chipp.



Oh hey, MORE attackers. Great. Maybe I should have held off a little before splitting my forces.



Flap your wings from side to side
Come on, it's time to go -- Do the Mario!



Vultans 'n' Faeries. Lawful and boring. Meanwhile Estevez is packin' a Griffin and an advanced Griffin. OH BOY I CAN'T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT OPININCI!!!

Opinincus

The advanced Griffin, with a name that is annoying as HELL to type. I always end up with either Opininincus or Opinicus. Anyway Griffins are boring and so are opininci. They do get a target-all attack from the back row, but it doesn't deal good damage or have a chance to cause status, so I remain unimpressed.



Sheen fails to kill Mario due to somehow encountering him at a weird angle and he gets knocked right over to my HQ. How convenient for him!



...sort of.



Meanwhile, while the eastern group is making a stand to defend my HQ, the northern group is making good progress. Meet Woody. I aim to put a snake in his boots.



BAM. Ankiseth could have won this one all by himself.



Right, so the Opinincus' back-row attack is called Wind Storm and as you can see it is roughly equivalent to a Supportive Attack. Not impressed.



(between those two shots, this happened)



After losing that fight, Estevez's Griffins got knocked into precisely the right place to trigger a fight with Dio, who promptly wiped them the fuck out. Man, Dio's getting more action as HQ guard than he usually does as field agent.



And there, THIS should take care of all those flying attackers. One groundbound one left -- if you'll recall that Dragon unit is still hiding out on the Neutral stronghold.



Debitt is facing just the right way for me to show off the Bahamut's back-row attack!



Basically it hits you with a fuckload of orbital lasers which I guess are holy lasers or something? Again, lightish damage, wide spread.



No lie though those two guys didn't last one more battle. Asnabel gets another dirty robe. Awesome!



The remains of Gerald's unit got into so many fights with Guy (happens when you pit Golems against healers) that they pretty much overlapped and for some reason counted as Guy being sideways. I don't really get it either. Have we already seen the HP-boosting expendable item? WELL HERE IT IS AGAIN



Oh LOOK, yet ANOTHER attacking unit. Man I'm like 60 screenshots in and I'M STILL FIGHTING OFF THE HQ ATTACK. I think this guy is actually a repurposed stronghold guard -- notice the lack of Fatigue items.



Over a series of fights from weird angles Sheen was able to polish Cloud off (kinda wish they'd made him a Sword Master ). Note that enemy units don't seem to have the Unity to do combo magic properly even when their formations are right.



Notable spoils from my cleanup efforts included a second Kerykeion and the first non-buyable Greatsword I've seen all goddamn game.



Also non-buyable and Earth-element. I think this is light-tier (meaning Leather Armor type). It's pretty good.



Well, that one Templar is in a really inconvenient place considering we're trying to get to the Northeast. I put Ivory on it and had everyone else move forward.



She found this on the ground. Man it really has been a while since we've found an Altar of Resurrection, hasn't it? More of these the better.



This is how far out of her way Ivory had to go to catch that guy. THE STONE SWORD ISN'T EVEN VERY GOOD.



Meanwhile the North group presses on and finds this big impressive non-mission-critical castle being guarded by a Cataphract with a HIGHLY FAMILIAR NAME.



Despite apparently not being able to pull off combos, Troi's Archmages manage to target Shion with their solo magic. Even if HE has someone behind him, the guy NEXT to him doesn't, and that's good enough for tier 2!



Back to the East for a second -- Colgueff was completely unguarded, as was the last stronghold they found. I guess all the manpower from this area was expended on that giant-ass attack.



You may recall that one of our longest-standing sidequests revolves around trying to find armor with "Dragon" in the name. The Dragon Shield is completely unrelated to that sidequest largely because  the class that unlocks can't even use shields . I think it gives good Fire resistance but is otherwise unremarkable.



Back to the North. Oh hey, I THOUGHT we'd been seeing a remarkable lack of Legions this mission. Let's see what they've got!



C'mon Celine, fill that fifth character slot with SOMEthing. A Fighter, a Witch, I don't care. This makes you just look LAZY.



This is TOTALLY not how you master dragons. I am mentally demoting you to Dragon Apprentice.



Too many Beast Tamers spoil the beast, Cain



Before I deal with them, a brief treasure update: Guy found a Dowsing Rod, which will automagically find you one of the map's hidden items without you having to send a unit there. They have their uses. Katreda found a guaranteed Bloodstained Robe on the ground. Nice.



Anyway I'm so unimpressed with this Legion that I'm going to be ballsy here and order Katreda to take care of all of them herself. Let's see how this goes!



That's one...



That's two...



That's, um, two and a half...



And that's three! Not too bad for a novelty unit

Two notes here: (1) Just reiterating that Pumpkinheads are the coolest thing ever, and (2) that Legion is another one that COULD move but WON'T. After knocking her off the stronghold, Katreda had to run to fight her off in the mountains, but technically speaking I could have just left her there.



While the Northern group is cleaning up their mess, the Eastern group is coming up on the home stretch. The boss unit is visible. For now, let's focus on Baker, though. I have no idea why you'd give your unit so little offense capability, but as long as I can maintain enough offense in the face of all this Witchery to kill one Black Knight I'm golden.



Asnabel is always golden.



More awesome unbuyable armor, found on the ground in the middle of the forest. I am just hitting the goddamn big time this mission.



No sooner do I get close to the HQ than a set of two new Templar units is unveiled! OH NO IT'S A TRAP



Randolph would be doing okay if he himself was in the front. Weinburg's unit appears to actually have a coherent strategy (back row full of decently-protected Dianas); this should be fun.



Hrmnmn. He healed himself after getting Showered and now I can't quite finish him off. You know what this means.



Time to shower him again, but this time I'm using dark malevolent energy instead of squash!



Meanwhile Ivory's back row gets kind of battered under the withering arrow assault, but it's pretty much no thang whatsoever. Not really the best ambush I've ever seen.



Just wanted to show off how huge a douche Baker is for JUST SO HAPPENING to set up camp DIRECTLY ON TOP OF THE BOSS. What an asshole.



More spoils: Troi finds me yet another Altar, while Freddie, who had been sitting around near that town waiting for that Dragon unit to tire itself out, gets more awesome unbuyable armor -- Clothing-tier this time, I believe.



On his way to catch up with everyone else he found one of these things. The Battle Fan isn't equippable by very much at all -- a grand total of one character -- but you want to make sure you have one of them anyway since they're not buyable.



With that I think it's about time to think about blowing this popsicle stand. I think we've heard this guy's name before...



This guy has a  sort of  unique sprite, even though we've never seen him before, so naturally he gets a pretty sizeable monologue.

: "Why must you be so foolish? What made you think you could oppose Lodis and live?"

: "Who are you!? ...No, you can't be...!"

uh katreda please don't bullshit me
you cannot possibly have any idea who this guy is

: "Excuse me for not introducing myself. ...My name is Pruflas. Pruflas Watts, of the Caliginous Order. This is the Brigade of Radiant Cross. I'm sure you've heard of us. Go tell the others, and cower in fear... if you survive, that is."

Spoken like a guy who's never seen a Pumpkinhead before. Look bud, I don't care what kind of crazy boss stats you've got, half HP is half HP.



Pruff Daddy here doesn't quite get Showered to death, but he sure can't take a spear to the face after sampling the best of MY garden.



Solution to EVERY PROBLEM: Drop pumpkins on it until it's not a problem anymore.



aww man, no ellipses

i was hoping they gave this guy a unique portrait and sprite specifically for this one battle

: "That's enough for today. I'm glad to have witnessed your strength with my own eyes."

That's right. Pumpkinheads. Tell your friends.

...no wait, don't tell them actually.



And he teleports away like Baldwin did. I guess that's some sort of Caliginous thing or something?



Our reward is a Heavy Armor. I mean, these things are cool, but you can buy them and I've found several unbuyable armors in this mission already so whatev.



MEANWHILE IN THE CAPITAL



Wow this place looks kind of familiar. Was it always this... colorful?

: "We should go inside."

So yeah I guess Mari was allowed to stay with Yumil even though she has some sort of crazy evil death powers and has a track record of using them to try to free him? Nice judgment there, Baldwin, bet THAT won't come back to bite you.



: "...?"

uh, all she said was that it was cold, buddy, that's not some sort of code for "i'm feeling kinky"

Unless it is. I can't keep up with kids today and their slang.

: "Why... Why am I so powerless!? This would've never happened, if I had power... Am I wrong, Mari?"

"Power" here means "the ability to take a punch in the stomach and not immediately keel over like a little girl"



: "But I'm once again alone. ...What should I do? How... can I walk proudly among them? I want power... beyond that of Ankiseth... and Freddie. I want them to look up to me... No, I want them to be bound to me!"

This is basically Yumil's rendition of "I Just Can't Wait To Be King." Any second now he's gonna start jumping on giraffe heads.

: "......My lord... You..."

yeah she's into it



oh i'm totally sure this isn't bad news



Oh hey, yeah, let's all listen to BALDWIN's advice, that ALWAYS goes well for EVERYONE

: "You are entitled to the power that can only be wielded by the royal family! I'm sure you know the legend... how the Progenitor gained ultimate power. If you wield that power, everyone... including us... will kneel before you."

Look at that face. Would Baldwin lie to you?

: "Lodis...? Kneel before me...?"

sigh never mind he's a lost cause now

: "...You misunderstand us. We subjugate kingdoms solely to maintain order in this world by spreading our ancient teachings. If a land is ruled by a powerless fool, we must step in. And if it's ruled by a sage, we pledge our loyalty to him..."

"Have you guys ever found a sagely ruler before even once?"
"i'm sure we will one day"

: "To lead the people... that is what the powerful are destined to. It's natural for the weak to follow."

don't tell me he's gonna

...power."

oh yeah he's totally kneeling
one knee and everything
seems legit to me!

: "Use your might and wisdom to deliver this corrupt world from evil!"

Yeah last time Baldwin found a weak guy and promised to give him power everything turned out pretty well, right?

: "Stop! Leave me be..."

Luckily he's coming on a little too strong here and Yumil got freaked out. What a brazen solicitation. Take him out to dinner first, Baldwin!

On his way out, Baldwin takes a second to talk to Mari.



: "Woman, how did you gain such power!?"

: "........."

jeez dude it's just tier-2 magic, women in this game are pretty good at that shit anyway



uh so she was what by who now?

: "What are you planning? Don't cross us again! Next time, I will kill you. ...Tell that to Zeda, too."



Back to Yumil now. Sad oboes again.

: "The power of the Progenitor? If that's true... I want it!"



: "......Mari...?"

Man, androgynous JRPG characters couldn't tell a come-on if it punched them in the stomach.

: "...I will help you acquire it, my lord. I will... grant your wish....."



This game IS rated M, but any line that sounds like a cue for a sex scene still means it's time to cut to the world map. Now that we hold the crossroads we're pressing into Capritium to talk to some priests or something! Next up: Fair Heights.

See you guys next weekend!