Part 76: Chapter LXVII - You are but poor, ignorant fools, to dare challenge someone with such sublime power!
You are but poor, ignorant fools, to dare challenge someone with such sublime power!
Paris didn’t learn “Rejuvenating Water” because he was too fast, so he’s still in, but this time I’ve slowed his union down some more so he won’t act first. Roberto, with his new Remnant weapon is the leader. I have now disabled Gaou’s Hexes, though. Now, to Base 6!
- Battlefield Video: Base 6
Music: Clash of Opposites
Mission: Defeat the command squad and assault their base!
This is just a straightforward assault against wave after wave of enemies. A LOT of enemies. I’ll be looking for commands to boost morale, because even a lot of weak enemies can wear my unions down.
No critical chain, and a blocked attack means that this wasn’t enough to finish this union off.
I screwed up hitting the QTE’s twice, so Dispirit didn’t finish this union off. Pagus’s normal attacks remain useless. Everyone else was marching to different unions.
Come on, let’s bust some heads!
Niiice, this one looks loaded! Roberto gets the option to use the Strength-boosting Red Potion, so why not?
Beautifully done!
I’m not going to complain about Kate getting a second use of Dispirit off on one union. I really want her Hexes to improve.
When you can usually one-shot unions anyway, it’s hard to know if the potions are doing anything at all. They just feel like wasted turns.
You’d better recognize!
They’ve circled us?! This is the second flank attack, and it looks to be a nasty one.
Damnit… uhh…
When you only have three people in your union, it makes it more difficult to finish enemies off. And of course, I have Rush’s Troop in a formation which weakens the leader.
We can already see the effects of Ninja. Rush can now rear assault enemy union E, even though there aren’t two other unions already flanking. It won’t matter much here, since E is nearly dead already, but you get the idea. Paris hasn’t got enough AP to use Rejuvenating Water, but I’ll have Gaou bring Kate’s Pack back anyway, since we’re outnumbered by healthy enemy unions.
They got off a Paralyze Gas before Violet finished them. 5722 is a pretty good number for a normal attack. Gaou revives the mystic union successfully.
I’ll need to help Paris’s Class, because they’re not much good at all silenced and paralyzed.
Comin’ at ya! Paris’s high INT and Rush’s penalty makes for a drastic contrast in the effectiveness of Maledict.
Forgive me… Well, at least I won’t have to worry about curing their status effects. These troops are quite effective.
But we’re keeping pace, at least.
Watch this. Most of that damage was from the shield bash.
Once again, being one unit short of a finishing blow will cost me.
Hang in there!
They are making us work for every meter of ground.
I’m trying to keep up.
But they’re not letting the pressure off. For some reason, Caedmon’s death cry plays here, even though no one here sounds like him.
I’m taking them seriously enough to not deliberately miss the dodge-counters.
Another one down.
Paris has enough AP, so everyone is ordered to break and revive.
Oh no! It’s that… thing… from Total Recall! And it’s got Paris’s head!
All right! Back in action! There we go. And they could really use the healing, too.
This fight is far from over, though.
We have to waste a turn closing in.
You losers aren’t even a challenge!
Wow, does that formation really reduce Rush’s capabilities.
But in fairness, these guys are kinda tough.
Paris’s Maladict III weakens them enough for Irina to finish them off with a basic attack of about 1050 damage.
That leaves only one union left, so this is inflating our turn count.
Four more unions pop out, bringing us up to enemy union S. And no sign of the boss yet.
Torgal finishes them off.
Sometimes the AI makes some really smart choices. Rush’s Troop was in a full-on attack mode, which normally doesn’t include healing, but with the enemy union dead, Rush decided all on his own to heal Roberto’s union. Very helpful.
Aw, yeah!
Four more unions. Some of our unions are so far they have to march to reach them, wasting more time. This fight is starting to drag on, so Rush can go ahead and use his Omnistrike.
Keep it up!
Finally. This is the last wave. We have actually fought so many unions that it’s wrapped all the way back around to B. Twenty-eight unions, and this is just the battle before the boss. If you’re playing along at home, I sure hope you’ve been keeping up with your supplies of healing items.
That did about 15000 damage.
Well done!
Only the boss union left and this fight will finally be over.
Finally, it’s over. 14 turns, 28 unions, 70 enemies. Sheesh. And that was just the opening act. learned:
Spring Squall II!
Revitalize V!
learned 
Rejuvenating Water II!
learned 
Mighty Dragon’s Flight! learned Dragon’s Tail!
With Paris learning Rejuvenating Water in the battle outside, I decided to switch Glenys in for the leader so she could learn it as well. That’s not going to happen because I wasn’t paying attention. Glenys does not actually have the prerequisite of Revitalize II that she needs. - Boss Video: Milton the True Disciple
Music: Slipping Through your Fingers
Ha ha ha! I am Milton, the True Disciple, a loyal servant of the Conqueror. 
My duty is to stop those who are unworthy to step on this path. You are but poor, ignorant fools, to dare challenge someone with such sublime power!
The writing on the wall will be clear as day – once it is written with your blood!
Music: Press to Victory
Mission: Defeat Milton!
So, Milton. He is the only boss who we’ve had the chance to see in action before. It was an ugly fight, thanks to his bullshit instakill attack. First, we want to get rid of the other unions. I send Rush to keep Milton occupied, since Rush as a Ninja is immune to Instakill attacks… or so I thought. Come on, let’s kick some A!
Until we get all his support unions down, Milton will ‘play nice’ and only use Traps to attack us.
Not quite able to finish them off.
Glenys and Violet have no such problems with the Moonset-Dragon Crush combo.
I’ll win this and show you what winning really looks like! The enemy unions ganged up on Rush, but it wasn’t that big a deal.
Enemy union D dodged the first Dispirit, but not this one.
This isn’t even worth my time!
Violet’s really been doing better out of Rush’s shadow. Just two more unions left, and they’re at low HP.
Very nice!
And that’s the last of them. Just Milton. Now, things get hard.
This union combos for 20441 damage.
You do not play around with Milton, so I’m using Beowulf.
Return to the dust from whence you came! So if you remember from the previous encounter, Milton could instakill with his attacks, but could only attack once. Not anymore. Iron Will is Milton’s special move.
RUSH!
Iron Will combines a high-level Miracle with Overdrive. It boosts Milton’s stats and gives him FIVE actions per turn. And his sword still does Instakill with normal attacks.Do you remember me saying that Ninja grants Immunity to Instakill? Well, it does. But what I forgot to look up before was that the Instakill immunity is added once you reach the second rank of Ninja (Expert Ninja). Rush only has the first rank, so no immunity. Oops.
Hmmm… maybe it’s just an extremely high chance of Instakill? Or maybe Irina has some hidden immunity to it?
The only small upside to Iron Will is that the attacks still are blockable and dodgeable. It’s just that with five attacks per round, someone is going to fail, and it’s usually the leaders who go down first.
Don’t lose hope!
Whatever you say, Dave.
FUCK MILTON.
The only bright side is that he doesn’t cast Iron Will each turn. He didn’t this turn, AND missed, which is a thankful reprieve, because it means he’s stuck in deadlock for another turn.
Which is really good because I really have to bring back my dead unions.
Get up, we gotta win this!
The key to victory with Milton is to avoid having more than one union fight him at a time.
No Iron Will this time, either. When playing, though, it FEELS like he casts it every turn. 
Ah, I believe that here is where I try to send everyone to bring Rush back, hoping to trigger Glenys to learn Rejuvenating Water. It’ll take me a few more fights to realize why that ain’t gonna work. 
Wait, somebody took me out?! The first problem is that Glenys’s Group is fast enough to go first. Unfortunately, now that there’s no one to bring back, all my remaining units are going to 
on Milton.
The hell did this happen?
Well, that strategy clearly worked so well last time that I should try it again!!!
Well fought… YAAAAY. (But actually, I managed to get everyone back on their feet this turn anyway.)
With Milton, it’s better to be Raidlocked than to Multi-deadlock, as he can only attack one union at a time that way. And yet, for some dumb reason, I thought it was a Good Idea to have 4 of my unions charge at Milton and only leave one to stand by. Whyyyyyyyyyyy…
A strong one, huh?
That could have gone really badly if he had used Iron Will. Because he didn’t, I’m okay.
The AI is sometimes pretty smart. Blocter’s revive will go to waste as soon as Milton acts, but it means there’s no chance for Darien to botch. Darien’s revive will take care of Glenys, and some of the unions I sent to revive Glenys will in turn revive Rush after Milton kills us.
Goodbye!
Weakling! That’s three direct hits Irina has taken from Milton’s sword without being KO’ed. I don’t know how, but I’m not complaining.
The bastard just keeps attacking even if you block him a couple of times. Blocking means so little even when it does happen.
Maybe one day I’ll learn what the hell I’m doing.
‘Twas barely a challenge! Irina must be Immune to Instakill, because it was the damage that killed her. The damage numbers don’t even show up if it’s an Instakill attack.
Ideally, I’d like all my units alive when Milton dies, but I have no idea when Milton will die. I’ll just engage him with one union and send two others to revive.
This time, you’ll face me!
Thanks, Pagus for that very helpful reassessment. Milton didn’t use Iron Will this time.
Everyone is back on their feet now.
Spoke too soon.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… You are weak. And you are horribly mistaken… to think that you can defy the greatness that is the Conqueror! Argh… Fighting Milton is such a fucking crapshoot who will be alive at the end. So for the only casualty to be Roberto, the bench-warming general? Hell yes, I’ll take that any day of the week, if it means everyone else will gain XP from the fight. This was a great result. learned Nimble Acala’s Wrath V! learned Restore III!
Blocter gets his reward from Milton’s fight. It’s a Blocter-specific accessory, which doesn’t grant him any special move, but it DOES give the awesome “Status Control” effect. That means that any non-KO statuses wear off at the end of the turn, which is pretty helpful.
Because we kept the Old Scabbard from the trading quest Emotions, we get the Serpent Star as a special drop. It’s a Katana, but unfortunately is a Large-sized one, which means that mitra like Rush cannot use it in dual-wielding. Pity. Its arts progression is also Strength, and not Speed, so it will work against Rush’s current arts progress. No, it’s not Milton’s instakill sword. - Video: Unexpected Betrayal
We got ‘em all!
The flow of Remnant power has stopped. All right. Now we can finally enter Koenigsdorf.
Music: Unexpected Betrayal
Augh… uh…
Gaah!
Unh!
What’s going on? Please, stop!
Irina uses Marion’s Blessing and gets control back over her bound Remnants.
The Gae Bolg is… trying to free itself!
I can’t control it!
Rush! Damn! I guess we’ve gotta force them to stop!
Oh no! What’s going to happen? Guess you’ll have to find out next time.
New Arts Summary
learned:- Spring Squall II!
- Revitalize V!
- Nimble Acala’s Wrath V!
learned Rejuvenating Water II! learned Mighty Dragon’s Flight! learned Dragon’s Tail! learned Restore III!
Battlefield Video: Base 6
Boss Video: Milton the True Disciple
Video: Unexpected Betrayal
Finally we are done with the base battles. They’re fun, but probably a lot less interesting to watch coming over the course of three-four weeks. We’ll be seeing some different stuff now that it’s all done, though.
Discussion: Is it kinda scary that Milton’s dying words are basically “haw, you guys still suck compared to the Conqueror”?
BONUS Discussion: What the heck just happened in that final scene?
Next Time: Are you simply choosing not to see the truth?