Part 72: Chapter LXIII - Scary! Here is too scary!
Scary, here is too scary!
Music: The Crumbling Fortress
We’ve conquered the first base, so here we are at Ghor.…
Wait, why are we at Ghor? Oh, right. In one of the bigger dick moves of the game, you have to talk to the Duke of Ghor after your first, third and fifth base battles (you can do the bases in any order, by the way). If you don’t do this, than you miss out on a quest and can kiss your full quest completion goodbye. This got me the first time I played.
Xbox users got an even bigger dick move here because Ghor’s text bubble didn’t have the red outline so you wouldn’t know that he had anything new to say.
Wait, what do you know?!
My emissaries have told me of your stance in our current situation. Oh, okay. They have also informed me of something troubling. 
What is it? The Third Committee was thought to have disbanded after the incident at Nagapur, but apparently some stragglers are trying to pick up where they left off. As if I have the time to deal with this sort of trouble now.
learned 
Lugh’s Revenge! Torgal claimed the Brionac from Snievan, which grants him the Remnant weapon art Lugh’s Revenge, which is exactly like Snievan’s version of that. There are no special conditions, and if he’s the leader of a union, he can trigger it as soon as his morale meter is maxed out. So that’s triggering another party rearrangement.
Two shifts of note: Torgal replaces Emmy as the head of that union, and Emmy joins Irina’s union. This fulfills two goals: Putting Torgal in position to try out his new toy, and giving Irina a possible opportunity to learn the 
Rejuvenating Water Arcana, greatly improving her utility. (If you’ve forgotten the conditions, there need to be 4 Remedies users in a union.) By an odd coincidence, that leaves Rush and Torgal’s unions with exactly the same HP.I also disabled all of Kate’s arts except Dispirit, to encourage her to use that as much as possible.
- Battlefield Video: Base 2
Okay, now we can continue with the assault on Koeningsdorf. I’ll be hitting the bases in numerical order, because that’s the obvious thing to do. Some people might recommend another order, but I’m pretending that I don’t know the reason why. 
Music: Clash of Opposites
Mission: Defeat the command squad and assault their base!
We start out right next to some enemies, but there are others farther back which we’d have to march to. By the way, this video has some lag at times. That was present during recording – I forgot to shut off all extraneous applications for the first video, and I didn’t want to re-record. It’s fixed in the second video.
Darian dispatches one enemy squad…
…but their buddies come by to put the hurt on us.
That would have finished the union if one unit hadn’t dodged.
Boom!
How do you like that?!
Yay!
Better than I expected from you.
Gabriel and Torgal team up to finish this union off.
Yeah, this is our big chance!
Irina heals her union, Emmy finally learns Acala’s Wrath, and then uses it to good effect to finish off the last of the enemies in this wave.
Looks like they’re inviting us in to play! Set ‘em up, I’ll knock ‘em down! We spend Turn 4 closing in on the enemy in the inner courtyard.
Sure, I’ll show that off.
That’s the third union finisher Darien’s delivered this fight.
The enemy gets some mid-turn reinforcements.
Remnant! Obey my command!
And Torgal can pretty much do that ANY TIME his Morale gets maxed. I won’t, because it lowers art XP for everyone else… but I COULD. This makes Torgal a pretty good leader.
Lord David would like to inform you that he is in fact, still a member of the party.
See, these fights do have the potential to hurt me…
It’s just less likely to do so, given how well I’ve learned the game’s systems. I almost reflexively ensure that I have a union ready to heal. Finally, Irina has learned Rejuvenating Water II. Now that I’ve forced her to learn it with the “Four Remedies Users” method, she has the potential to cast it as a Battle Command with only two casters in her union. Not two Remedies casters. Casters as in “knows any mystic art”. Not even “has a mystic art enabled”. Two more units who are mystic-capable.
There’s still more of these guys?! Not for long… 
I didn’t mean to hit that dodge trigger, it was instinct.
And so was that one.
The boss unit, the Tactics Squad makes their way to the battlefield.
The qsiti dodged the first hit from Violet’s Dragon Crush combo, but not the second one.
Okay, now THIS time I’ll try an Omnistrike.
This wasn’t enough to one-shot the boss, though.
Ha ha, sweet! But that’ll do it. learned Rejuvenating Water II!
learned 
Acala’s Wrath! learned:-
Nimble Twin Gimlet!
- Nimble Twin Gimlet II!
- Boss Video: Zuido the Fleshrender
Music: Slipping Through your Fingers
Me is… Z-Zuido! Helper to Mr. Conqueror! Me is gonna k-kill you!
Gaah! Scary! Here is too scary! You guys is scary!
You… you…
Raaaahhhh!
Youse alls gonna bite it right here! They don’t call me the Fleshrender for nothin’! 
Get it, bro?
I ain’t scared of nothin’! Yeah! ‘Cause wese all goin’ to the same place anyhow!
The other side ain’t so bad, I hear.
How’s about we all find out?!Music: Press to Victory
Mission: Defeat Zuido!
We’re facing off against Zuido and his accompanying unions (all Yama). As you might expect, Zuido is all about dealing out major physical damage, and he can take a big pounding as well. His minimum HP is about double what Snievan’s MAX HP can reach.
Come on, let’s do this!
Yama are pretty tough, and coming in groups makes them much tougher.
Seriously, look how huge Zuido is.
This isn’t even worth my time!
The hell are you doing?! What kind of damage is that? I mean yeah it’s a normal attack, but seriously?
Very nice!
And here comes Zuido’s special move, Giant Press.
Don’t die, or anything... It’s simple, but effective.
I’ll win this and show you what winning really looks like!
Niiice, this one looks loaded! Only one group of henchmen left, but this fight is far from over.
Jager misses his attack and his union takes some punishment in return.
Zuido uses a lot of power grip combat arts, even ones for a different weapon type than what he uses.
Are you okay? That wasn’t necessary.
This fight isn’t complicated, you just have to whittle Zuido’s health down while keeping your own up, because his attacks hurt you a lot more than you can hurt him. Rush and Jager will keep their HP up, Irina’s union will break off to finish off the last enemy union deadlocked with Jager, and Torgal and Kate will do full attacks.
Get a load of this!
No chance!
There’s the Katana power grip art. Caedmon’s Silencer won’t do any good obviously, but less obviously, Zuido is also immune or unaffected by paralysis.
Good thing I sent Irina to help out.
Cyclone is a high level Axe-specific power art. The axe is thrown and returns like a boomerang. Torgal dodges this one.
They’re weak over here!
Here I go!
I think this is power grip: Mace.
Zuido sure can take a pounding.
Victory Sweep is a V-shaped attack for the Sword.
Having someone always ordered to heal helps a great deal.
That left Rush with 110 HP. If Zuido had hit just a bit harder, he’d have killed him. Oh, and this is Power Grip: Katana again, but a higher level. The longer the fight goes, the higher level arts he will use.
This is another Axe art. It’s three attacks, one to the left, one to the right, and one straight down.
Interesting… Okay damage for a low-level item art.
There were even more strikes I omitted, but you get the picture. That was the highest-level mace power grip art. Now he’ll cycle back around to the low-level ones.
Finally, Zuido gets knocked down into critical.
But he retaliates.
Now that Irina has learned Rejuvenating Water, she can call it down at full-morale. I made a minor mistake here and forgot to order anyone to bring Torgal’s Squad back.
The usual buff bosses use when they get in trouble.
It’s a pity I forgot to revive the dead union, but I can’t say that I don’t need this Arcana right now.
Alright, back in action!
Get up, we gotta win this!
You losers aren’t even a challenge!
I can take you! This is happening because I ordered ALL unions to revive Torgal’s, and since there’s no one left to revive, that forced a reassessment and triggered the arcana.
It was good timing, though. Zuido will use Giant Press at the end of every turn now that he’s in critical health.
So, I’d better finish him off ASAP. Full attacks for everyone!
Arrrrrggghh… Huh? What’s the deal? This… this ain’t fun at all! It’s cold! Cold cold cold… damnit colds colds cold… somebody do somethin’…
Too… cold…
Gaou claims Zuido’s weapon, the Obsidian (pictured here). It’s a Huge sword, and thus Yama-specific. It does have a weapon art attached, but it’s a lot harder to trigger than That’s two bases down. I’ll hit the towns to make sure I’m topped up on supplies, then head for the next one.
New Arts Summary
learned Lugh’s Revenge! learned:- Rejuvenating Water II!
Cascade Strike!
learned Acala’s Wrath! learned:- Nimble Twin Gimlet!
- Nimble Twin Gimlet II!
Land Mine III!
learned 
Silencer II!
Battlefield Video: Base 2
Boss Video: Zuido the Fleshrender
In theory, with the Obsidian, Gaou can perform the Remnant Weapon Art
Zeal’s Virtue, but the requirements are pretty brutal:- 90 AP
- Gaou is union leader
- Must be out of deadlock
- High or Low union Morale
- More enemy unions than friendly
It’s that last one which is hard (and must be out of deadlock does not help). It is nigh-impossible to have both high union morale AND more enemy unions than friendly AND be out of deadlock. I have tried to get it to trigger, but I just cannot. So fuck it.
You’ll see it in the montage of unique arts (that someone else made) after the LP is over.
Discussion: Who’s next?
Next Time: You seem to enjoy the cries of the weak.