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Lunatic+ playlog/guide/walkthrough - COMPLETED


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Welcome to my Lunatic+ playlog/guide/walkthrough. There are others like it, but this is the only one with a 16-bit animated GIF of a dog. This one has a lot of bulleted lists, so buckle your safety belts.

Purpose of this thread is to document a repeatable (to the extent possible) run of the game, that involves minimal resetting and heartache. It will use the following conditions:

  • Lunatic+, in all of its cheating glory.
  • Semi-Classic, meaning that we play Classic mode, and soft reset if a character unintentionally dies.
  • No Outrealm Gate, although it does make the game easier if you are struggling. I won't judge.
  • Stuff that's fine: Spotpass items, Bonus box, Renown (I will be using up to Large Bullion), Anna shops, and forging.
  • Stuff that I'll avoid: event tiles, Barracks (too random).
  • Turn counts are irrelevant. I'll be tracking them, but just for the lulz. I fully expect to have several 50+ Turn chapters, due to the constraints of training.
  • As for the details, the concept of this run is to complete the game largely with bow-using classes. Why bows? Because of Counter. One of the more hair-pulling aspects of Lunatic+ is the random chance that a map spawns full of enemies with Counter, and your strong units just kill themselves on Enemy Phase. Bows avoid this problem by simply being unable to retaliate at 1-range, making Counter a wasted skill slot for the enemy. The bow-using classes that we'll be seeing here:
    • Archer/Sniper: as the only class that can use Longbows, Archers are included for the ability to fight at 3-range. This allows you to counter enemy Longbow users, as well as kill off dangerous 2-range enemies without retaliation. Offers strong HIT, and Bowfaire.
    • Warrior: really strong, with decent SPD/DEF caps, and Axe access for special occasions where 1-2 range combat is safe. Offers Rally Strength, and Counter (more useful than you might think).
    • Assassin: weak general stats, but very fast, with Sword access. Offers Pass, which is extremely useful for positioning purposes. Lethality is not reliable, but occasionally helps.
    • Bow Knight: highly mobile, Sword secondary, eventually gives Bowbreaker (enemy archers have some of the highest HIT in the game, so this is actually important).
    • Bow Dark Mage: This is not actually a bow-using class, but since Mire also avoids Counter, I'll be training one of these units.
    The basic strategy for the run:
    • Use Player Phase offense to eliminate dangerous threats.
    • Rely on concrete defenses and high avoid to survive Enemy Phase (with the help of terrain, where possible).
    • Bow-users need to fight in groups, adjacent to each other, in order to benefit from added Support bonuses, be in range of things like Charm/Demoiselle, and to keep from getting boxed in (a lone archer can be surrounded, but two adjacent bow-users will always have a target and/or freedom of movement).
    • Units with Pass can operate independently to accomplish objectives (the nice advantage of the skill).
    • Hawkeye enemies, and especially Hawkeye/Luna+ ones, are the most dangerous threats and need to be prioritized.
    With the parameters and the classes laid out, it's time to put together the army. Since this thread doesn't have enough lists yet, let's make another one.

    Female Avatar: the best overall unit in the game because of Veteran and class selection, Avatar is going to be female so that she can marry Chrom and produce the Family of Destruction. FemvatarxChrom ensures three units with Veteran, a four-way support setup, Morgan with Rightful King, etc. Expected class path will be Tactician -> Mercenary -> Bow Knight, ultimately ending with Sniper. DEF asset, SKL flaw.

    Chrom: an overall mediocre unit, especially for this run (Cavalier is not particularly useful) but the need for a unit with Charm means that it's worth giving him training. He can be reclassed to Archer once he reaches Lord level 10, and eventually may promote to Bow Knight to regain Falchion access. Ultimately, if it gets that far, he's make a serviceable Great Knight in the support slot (purely for the base STR).

    Lissa/Maribelle: since avoid-tanking is so important, the army really needs a Demoiselle unit. I'm unsure at the moment which one that I will go with, though I am leaning towards Lissa. Maribelle doesn't require a Second Seal and will hit Demo earlier, but is around for less time and isn't as good of a healer. Lissa also has a more useful son.

    Gregor: starts as a level 10 Mercenary, with class set additions of Myrmidon and Barbarian. This gives Gregor access to all bow classes except Archer/Sniper, plus two strong +Avoid skills.

    Morgan: the most powerful unit in the game, if for no other reason than that his stat caps are better than Avatar's, and he has male regular class access. As Chrom's son, he starts as a level 10 Tactician already primed with Veteran, so there are strong class paths available.

    Lucina: see Morgan, except with a bit less flexibility. She shares the same stat caps, but starts as a Lord and gets Aether (which she already has access to), meaning you'll want to pass her Veteran. Has female class access that probably won't get used, lacks the ability to be a Fighter, but has Parallel Falchion, Charm, and Dual Strike+.

    Frederick: no access to any of the bow-using classes, and his growth rate would exclude him from a permanent spot regardless, but he is invaluable as an early combatant and later support partner.

    Henry: the best drop-in Mire user available. He doesn't have Armsthrift, but has good MAG and can immediately begin Mire-bombing upon recruitment. Henry also has potential for Nosferatu usage in the long-term, if it is needed. His SPD is not a problem unless it results in him getting doubled.

    Alright, let's get this party started.

    [spoiler=PARTY TIME]MMGBQh2.jpg

    [spoiler=Prologue: The Verge of History]

    And so we begin, with Louise the +DEF/-SKL female Avatar. As with all early Lunatic+ chapters, you are going to be something of a slave to the RNG. Not only for hits/misses, but for skill combinations, and stat level-ups (Avatar really needs HP and DEF in a hurry). Hawkeye, Luna+, Pass, and Vantage+ can all appear here; each can present its own difficulties. The last two tend to be fairly benign, although it can make walling or last-hitting a problem in certain circumstances. If the Elthunder mage up top spawns with Luna+, you may want to reset if you're going to use the water trick.

    Keys to this chapter: train Avatar, don't overuse Frederick.

    I like to approach this chapter by having Frederick kill the north Mercenary (OHKO, pray that he doesn't have Vantage+ and Luna+), leaving him in position to weaken the nearby Barbarians on Enemy Phase. Chrom can move all the way to the right and down, to stay in range of only the right-hand Mercenary (he will not be doubled, and you may want to equip his Rapier for a better hit rate).

    This leaves you an easy clean-up on Turn 2 for Avatar (kill one Barbarian on Player Phase, second on Enemy Phase, and remember to Pair up with Lissa), and Chrom with Frederick as the Support has just enough pepper to finish off the Mercenary he injured on the first Turn. With any luck, the mage is in a position where Avatar with Lissa Support can kite him around with Thunder/Vulneraries for a while to farm up some EXP. Otherwise, you'll need Frederick to kill him.

    From here, a useful trick: none of the enemies here can occupy a Water tile. Of your own units, only Chrom and Avatar can move onto water. Therefore, you can pair AvatarxLissa and ChromxFrederick, and have your entire team out of reach of everything except the Elthunder mage. With Lissa giving +2 MAG and +2 RES, Avatar can attract/duel the Mage (use Vulneraries on Player Phase), while ChromxFrederick play rope-a-dope elsewhere to keep the Mercs and Barbs at bay. Once the mage is dead, it's a simple matter to kill off everyone else with Thunder, worry-free.

    For the boss, fight using Avatar with Thunder at 2-range. You need 8 SPD to avoid getting doubled, solved by a Pair with Chrom (you may want to unequip him to milk the EXP a little bit longer). He will have listed crit on Avatar, unless she is bracketed on both sides by Lissa and Frederick (which gives enough Support points for +dodge). Make this last as long as you can. Remember to trade items around as needed before you finish the chapter, because you won't get another chance to re-organize until Ch1 starts.

    When you finally put Garrick out of his misery, that should be a minimum of seven kills (possibly more) plus the boss that you've fed to Avatar, getting to level 6-7 easily. Done correctly, this should set up the rest of the earlygame chapters.

    Turns: 48 (did you think I was kidding when I said I didn't care about Turns?)

    Heroes: Loiuse & Lissa

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS
    Louise      6.85 23 10 8  5  6  8  11 4
    Chrom       1.40 20 7  1  8  8  5  7  1
    Frederick   1.30 28 13 2  12 10 6  14 3
    Lissa       3.38 18 2  7  5  5  8  4  6 
    
    In a few more levels, Louise will basically be a second Frederick.

    [spoiler=Chapter 1: Unwelcome Change]

    This chapter is half the reason why I started with a DEF asset, and spent as much effort training Avatar as I did in Prologue; the map is lousy with physical attackers, and has a Hammer Fighter that can OHKO Frederick even on a Fort. As Louise is slightly above-average on DEF (11 base, +3 in five level-ups), that means with a Frederick support on a Fort, she has effectively 17 DEF. This means that the Archer in this chapter, for example, literally tinks her (has 17 atk).

    Unfortunately, her SPD is the same as it was at base, and she's doubled by the Mercenaries. Under ordinary circumstances (vanilla Lunatic), this wouldn't be a huge problem, however on this mode, with Luna+ they will tear through her defenses. Fortunately, there are only two such Mercs. Fred can handle one without putting himself in danger of the Hammer Fighter, and the misfit group of Chrom/Sully/Virion/Lissa can handle the other one.

    Keys to the chapter: train Avatar, keep Frederick away from the Hammer, and be careful of the boss (you may want to reset if he has Luna+; it can be irritating).

    Since I already took care of item Feng Shui at the end of Prologue, I start by pairing Frederick with Avatar, and killing the left-side Merc (with his +1 MV bonus, you barely make it). Frederick either needs +STR, or Avatar needs 10 STR base in order to OHKO with Silver, but even if he misses by one point it's not a huge deal: the Merc hardly hurts him without Luna+. Alternately, you can stop one spot above the Merc, to attract an extra hit for an Axe Guy. It depends on skill distribution and your ability to safely take risks. Chrom creeps down the right hand side, with Lissa close by, taking care to stay out of range.

    After Enemy Phase, Frederick is probably beat to hell, so you'll want to retreat to the nearby Fort and switch to Avatar. It may or may not be safe to take a kill with Thunder, depending on positioning (don't forget that Bronze Sword gives you WTA here).

    Meanwhile, Sully and Virion have shown up. Sully is doubled and ORKO'ed by the Mercenary nearby, but if you Pair Chrom on top of her, she stop being doubled and is 3HKOed as long as she is on a forest tile. Trade Virion's Elixir to Chrom. Pair Chrom/Sully, sit on a forest and wait with Lance in hand; take care not to attract one of the axes. Keep Lissa nearby to heal, but safely out of range.

    After you (hopefully) survive Enemy Phase, Sully will need to fall back onto another forest and possibly be healed. If it's not safe to do so, that's fine: as long as the Merc doesn't have Luna+, she can take one more round from him. Switch with Chrom if necessary; he doesn't have WTA but can eat a hit.

    The rest is clean-up. Avatar should be able to handle the remaining Risen and the boss with Sword/Thunder on the Fort. Eat Vulneraries to stay healthy. If you get a bad roll on skills, it's fine to fight a running battle through the north/west forest to limit Enemy Phase exposure (this can happen if you have some unlucky Hawkeye/Luna+ enemies). In an emergency, you have Sully/Chrom/Virion/Lissa to draw an enemy over to kill, or Frederick with his Silver for a quick OHKO finisher.

    Louise nearly made it to level 9, and got a couple of good level-ups, so I gave the boss to Chrom.

    Turns: 7 (don't get used to this)

    Heroes: Loiuse & Frederick

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise      8.86 25 12 8  6  8  9  13 5  E Swd, C Tome
    Chrom       2.36 20 8  1  9  9  6  7  1  E Swd
    Frederick   1.55 28 13 2  12 10 6  14 3  D Swd/Axe, B Lnc
    Lissa       3.72 18 2  7  5  5  8  4  6  D Stf
    
    Supports   C - Chrom|Sully, Louise|Lissa/Frederick
    

    [spoiler=Chapter 2: Shepherds]

    Welcome to hell. Even after careful training of an over-leveled high-DEF Avatar, success in this chapter depends not on your strategic abilities or preparation, but how many Luna+ enemies that the game decides to throw at you. This is a chapter where I wish they'd have started the Aegis+/Pavise+ train just a little bit earlier, to give a normal strategy a fighting chance of success. But alas, this is what we've got.

    Keys to the chapter: stretch before you start, so that you don't get a cramp from pushing L+R+Start to soft-reset constantly; get the Elixir to your main combatants (trade, or Pair them with Chrom); prioritize killing Luna+ enemies, especially if they have Hawkeye; keep the squishy people away from the action.

    You have two basic ways to approach this map. Either put Avatar and Fred together, or separate them with different partners. The advantage of the FredxLouise tandem is that with a C support, Fred is giving +5 DEF from Pair-up, meaning that enemies just can't kill you fast enough without Luna+. The advantage of a split, is that while both units will have lower defenses, you have better offense with two Player Phase attacks, are able to fight side-by-side to limit enemy facings, and have more total health to go around. The choice largely depends on how good Avatar turned out.

    In my case, Louise is a giant pile of defense, so I opt to go for the single pair strategy. Chrom hands off the Elixir, and FredxLouise head north past the mountain to attack the Mercenary from afar with Thunder. Meanwhile, everyone else retreats to the left-hand side. A good way to facilitate the escape is to have Sully carry Vaike (or someone else) as far to the left/down as she can, and drop him to her right. This allows Lissa to run up and pair with the dropped unit, and saves a lot of aggravation. It's possible to have a slightly modified version of this if the Axe guy on the Mountain doesn't have Pass, and you block him on the right.

    If you go with a two-pair strategy, note that you have four people that give +2 DEF on Pair-up (Sully, Stahl, Virion, Vaike). Fred cannot quite OHKO the Merc in the forest unless you've been incredibly lucky, but he can weaken for Avatar to finish off (use Avatar to hit with Thunder first if the Merc has Luna+, otherwise Fred takes too much damage). Fred can use Stahl's Sword in this chapter to get WTA against axes, but if the axe guy on the mountain has Hawkeye, you are probably in a lot of trouble. Don't be afraid to use the Elixir if you have to; there won't be another one until Valm in all likelihood, but Concoctions will suffice until then.

    In any case, you'll want to use the defensive tiles to your advantage. There are nearby forests, and you can also sit on the Mountain for Fort-like defenses without the healing. I had Louise fight on a forest, so that the masses of enemies didn't overwhelm my group down in the bottom left.

    It's OK if an enemy leaks out towards your group of squishies. You have a healer, several people who can take at least one hit, and both Mirel and Virion can soften up a target from safety. In my clear of this chapter, I had the scrubs take down two of the starting-zone enemies.

    The second group of enemies past the bridge are much easier; just note who has Luna+, and fight accordingly. Forts make it much easier, since you can actually dodge some of the Luna+ enemies (as long as they don't have Hawkeye).

    It's worth noting that this chapter becomes a lot easier if you are willing to sacrifice units. On Casual mode, I'd advise suiciding as many units as possible in order to buy Fred and Avatar time to work safely (this helps deal with large numbers of Luna+ units). On Classic, you can probably afford to give up one or two units that you weren't intending to use anyway.

    Anyway, Louise was doing well for me again, so I gave the boss kill to Chrom.

    Turns: 13

    Heroes: Louise & Frederick

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise     13.13 27 14 12 7  12 14 17 6  D Swd, C Tome
    Chrom       3.33 21 8  1  10 10 7  8  1  E Swd
    Frederick   1.85 28 13 2  12 10 6  14 3  D Swd/Axe, B Lnc
    Lissa       4.57 18 2  8  6  5  9  4  7  D Stf
    
    Supports   C - Chrom|Sully, Louise|Lissa/Frederick
    
    Louise has effectively surpassed Frederick at this point, for base stats. He still has a weaponry and mobility advantage.

    [spoiler=Chapter 3: Warrior Realm]

    This chapter offers a welcome reprieve from the mindless reset-mashing of Ch2, and now "strategy" replaces "pick a god and pray" as the best way to approach a battle. Chapter 3 adds three new Lunatic+ skills to the possible pool: Aegis+, Pavise+, and Counter. It's also the first time that you'll have the opportunity to train someone else other than the Avatar (incredibly important for upcoming chapters like 5 and 6), and is a good map to showcase some of the tactics that will be necessary going forward. In fact, let's list out a few of them right now; some are map-specific, but others represent things that are important for the rest of the game:

    • The enemies on the bottom floor don't attack unless you end your turn in their range. This means that you can walk up to Kellam, Talk, Pair Up, and walk out of range on Turn 1 without having to deal with combat. This lets you spend as much time as you need to get your crap together. Top-half enemies work similarly.
    • Learn to love the "Remove" command. It will unequip a weapon. This is how we deal with Counter. Note that if you trade afterwards (even if it's not a weapon that's being traded), a unit will automatically re-equip the topmost usable weapon.
    • Enemies with Pass can ruin your day when it comes to setting up choke points, but while they can pass through your units, they still need an empty space to land on at the end. This means that you can make choke points work by clogging up every available spot on the other side of your tanks. This comes in handy on this chapter, which has natural chokes available.
    • While Pair-up is important, you also need to know how to effectively use the Switch and Transfer commands. When you are operating in tight quarters, or need to provide a temporary stat boost, or need to pass someone down a line, there is no substitute. You always move the Support unit, so Switch will get the right person in that slot.
    For this map, we'll be using full deployment. Having ten units (don't forget Kellam and Sumia) out makes it harder to turtle against the right-side enemies, but makes the Player Phase rush of the left hand side considerably easier. If the Knight on the left-hand side has Aegis+, or the Soldier has Counter, you may want to reset to save some aggravation. Your job doesn't become impossible, but it's a lot harder than normal.

    Strong choices for Lead units include Avatar (obviously), Frederick, Sumia (she can double Archers with a Chrom support), Miriel (Lissa support helps her offense), and Virion. Vaike is alright if you need a non-Aegis weapon type, but he'd have a miss chance even if his target had 0 avoid, so it's a chancy pick.

    Start by recruiting Kellam (see above), and setting up your initial groups and placements. If Avatar is strong enough (and the skills allow it), having AvatarxKellam attack the Knight with magic is a strong opening move, since you'll kill the Knight on Enemy Phase and also damage both archers and the soldier. If that's not possible, two to three enemy facings are better than nothing, but keep in mind that the right hand side starts moving immediately, and you only have three turns until they arrive. Clean up the mess with the rest of your units, remembering to not keep primary units Paired together: you need maximum offense. Use scrubs as Support units.

    After the left is clear, the right will be hot on your tail, so quickly cram everyone into the corridor leading to the door. Since you have five unit pairs, you'll need to make a reverse "L" shape, with FrederickxKellam in the left-hand corner (one enemy facing), and AvatarxAnyone at the entrance to the corridor (two enemy facings). Keep in mind that the enemy archer can shoot over Avatar's head; make sure that whoever you put there can take a hit and also potentially retaliate (Miriel with a +2 DEF support works for this unless the archer has Luna; Sully can take one shot if he does).

    Unequip both Fred and Avatar. This is where they tank with their faces, and allow a 2-range unit like Mirel, Virion, or Sully/Sumia (with Kellam's javelin) to plink away and get some kills. Kellam and Sumia come with fresh Vulneraries, in case you are running low. Clean up the archer first if you can, and then the rest is just academic. Get Avatar and Fred involved sooner if there are dangerous Luna+ enemies, remembering to unequip (or trade with another unit after combat if you attacked). If you want want to be manly, crack open the door and kill the Knight outright; that will give you a little breathing room and allow a tighter choke.

    Once both of the bottom sides are dead, take a breather. The hardest part of the chapter is over. When you're healed up (don't be shy about healing, the Knight from the RHS drops a Heal staff), crack the door open and kill the Knight. From here, it's very easy to make a death-zone choke point, since you can sprawl your ten remaining units out behind a face-tanking Avatar that only faces one enemy at a time. Be careful of the archers. Enemy AI is smart enough to move a melee unit out of the way to shoot someone over Avatar's head, so don't get careless and leave anyone exposed. Kite the enemy rather than walling, if there is too much Luna+ to deal with. If you lose, it was because of a strategic mistake. Kill the boss when you are ready, and complete the chapter.

    I chose to train Miriel here, since I'm curious to see if she'll make a decent Troubadour/Laurent. She did such a nice job on the scrubs (gained 7 levels), that I gave her the boss kill.

    Turns: 58

    Heroes: Miriel & Kellam

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise     14.05 27 15 12 8  13 15 18 6  D Swd, C Tome
    Chrom       3.38 21 8  1  10 10 7  8  1  E Swd
    Frederick   2.06 29 14 2  12 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa       8.34 20 3  10 7  7  13 6  7  C Stf
    Miriel      8.49 23 1  8  10 10 11 5  8  C Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick
               C - Chrom|Sully, Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
    
    Wireless features unlocked! Bonus items up to Armads, Renown up to Large Bullion. Anna shop spawned, so I picked up a Second Seal and a Concoction. Also got a healthy stock of STR/DEF Tonics, and replenished some weapons (Thunder broken, Fire down to 4 uses; Miriel trained hardcore).

    [spoiler=Chapter 4: Two Falchions]

    This chapter is fairly short and straightforward. There are only six deployment slots, it's a Rout, and you'll randomly get screwed over by skill distribution. The strength of the enemies, the small size of the map, and the speed at which they come after you, can make certain combinations difficult to deal with.

    Keys to the chapter: kill as quickly as possible, be efficient with offense.

    I chose to deploy Avatar, Kellam, Frederick, Lissa, and my newly-trained Mirel. This gives a pretty good balance of tankiness, recovery, ranged attacks, and damage types. AvatarxChrom was able to double and ORKO the Fighters with the help of a STR tonic, FrederickxKellam can OHKO the mages with Silver and play a running game with Javelins, Miriel was deadly to Knights and strong vs. the Fighters.

    You'll want to watch out for Pavise+ (prevents OHKO) and Vantage+ (forces Fred to take damage) on the mages, Counter (for obvious reasons) on the Fighters, and Aegis+ on the Knights. Also you'll want to be aware of what skills Marth is carrying; depending on your approach, some combinations are worse than others. The Fighter/Mages will move first, then the Knights, then the 1-2 range Fighters, and finally Marth. You don't have a lot of time to take care of the waves, so plan ahead and don't waste any Player Phase opportunities.

    I had to have Louise do most of the combat here, but everyone contributed, even Kellam (had him soak a hit with an Iron Lance equipped while I ran Lissa over to heal Frederick).

    Turns: 7

    Heroes: Louise & Chrom

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise     15.78 27 16 12 8  14 16 18 6  C Swd, C Tome
    Chrom       3.60 21 8  1  10 10 7  8  1  D Swd
    Frederick   2.52 29 14 2  12 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa       8.98 20 3  10 7  7  13 6  7  C Stf
    Miriel      8.96 23 1  8  10 10 11 5  8  C Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick
               C - Chrom|Sully, Louise|Lissa/Chrom, Miriel|Kellam, Frederick|Lissa
    
    Good thing I stocked up on tonics, since the first order of duty after Ch4 was for a Skirmish to spawn right on top of The Longfort.

    [spoiler=Paralogue 1: Sickle to Sword]

    This is a good chapter to catch up on training. Donnel is unsalvageable, naturally, but there are opportunities for Chrom here.

    Keys to the chapter: train Chrom, get Avatar to a point where she can reclass, pick up the Rescue staff, remember to keep a Levin Sword handy, and don't get greedy or careless.

    I chose to deploy Louise, Miriel, Kellam, and Lissa. Chrom and Donnel crash the party.

    The immediate goal is to clear out the starting zone. Frederick can OHKO the nearby thief, possibly with help from a Pair or tonic, so make sure that the thief doesn't have Pavise+ (which is the only reason you might want to reset here). In my case, LouisexChrom can severely injure the nearby Barbarian (with magic or Levin), and if Chrom doesn't finish him off with a Dual Strike, MirelxKellam surely can with Fire/Thunder. Donnel and Lissa can be Paired and moved safely out of the way. The archer will most likely go for Miriel here, which is fine; she can take a hit (Kellam ensures that she will survive even if the archer has Luna+), chunk him a good bit on retaliation, and Lissa heal her back up next Turn.

    This leave you with two archers (one wounded), and four barbarians either close by or incoming. There is plenty of running room to the north to kite them backwards, especially since the further enemies will be slowed down by the forests. This allows you to deal with most combinations of possible skills. Beyond that, a few strategic notes for this chapter:

    • If you happen to get a map where nobody out of those early enemies has Pass, you can set up a choke pretty easily. The ones that blocks the northern wall entrance on a forest is especially useful.
    • Use Frederick mostly to weaken things for other people to kill, but don't be afraid to have him KO something if necessary; there are plenty of enemies on this map.
    • Miriel and Avatar are especially good at baiting archers and other 2-range enemies to attack them through the walls. It's easy to make this safe because of Lissa. Abuse it whenever possible (the archers in the boss room are a good place to start; draw them from the right or the bottom).
    • Some enemies have an aggro radius that is smaller than their attack range. For example, the even though one of the Barbarians in the "pillar room" has a 2-range weapon, he will not move until you are in attack range of his 1-range partner (at which point they will both move to attack).
    • Take care to only attract what enemies that you actually want to fight. They battle in groups, and you don't want to get overwhelmed and force Frederick to have to kill things. Be patient, and peel off loners wherever you can.
    Don't worry too much about the Killer Lance thief; it's not worth taking risks to kill him off for a weapon that's not going to be used (and is available to buy from half a dozen Spotpass teams anyway). If you can get to him safely, that's fine, but the value there is mostly for the EXP, not the weapon. He won't steal Rescue, which is the real treasure here. Carefully wind your way towards the final room, picking off stragglers wherever possible, and finish with the boss.

    I wanted to give the boss to Chrom, but he hits far too hard for that, so it went to Louise instead. I reclassed Miriel to Dark Mage once she hit level 10. Lissa will stay in her base class for now.

    Turns: 52

    Heroes: Miriel & Kellam

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise     17.39 29 17 13 9  14 17 20 7  C Swd, B Tome
    Chrom       6.95 24 9  1  12 11 9  9  1  D Swd
    Frederick   3.05 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa      12.56 22 5  12 9  8  16 6  7  B Stf
    Miriel      3.53 28 2  9  11 12 12 8  12 B Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick
               C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Lissa/Chrom/Miriel, Miriel|Kellam, Frederick|Lissa
    
    I wish I could have gotten Chrom a little bit further along, but I gave him the safest kills that I could. There will be another opportunity to get him some serious training in the next Paralogue. Louise may be able to squeak out one more chapter as a Tactician, we'll see.

    [spoiler=Chapter 5: The Exalt and the King]

    This is one of the many "difficult because you get rushed" chapters. You have to deal with fliers that bypass potential choke points, and reinforcements that pour in from the forts. There are two basic ways to clear it: either you throw caution to the wind and go full-tilt offense, or you sit back and turtle in a corner. We'll be doing the second thing, since it's more reliable, and also makes it very easy to get a lot of solid training (particularly for 2-range attackers like Miriel). It has some complicated movements, but all of them are necessary to get the enemies to move the way that we want.

    Keys to the chapter: bring enough healing for a marathon, set up a stable defensive corner, and eliminate the most dangerous threats before doing anything else.

    As soon as you load the chapter, take a look at the two barbarians closest to you (one below the fort, one against the west cliff); if either of them have Luna+, you may want to restart. Hawkeye is acceptable, if somewhat annoying. Any other skill is perfectly fine. We'll have to endure attacks from them for a long time before we can kill them, so it's important that they not be too dangerous offensively. That's why we have the "stable" requirement: you don't want to be spending actions trying to keep the front alive, while you are having Miriel deal with the Riders.

    We're deploying Avatar, Fred, Kellam, Sumia, Lon'qu, Lissa, and Miriel. Sumia needs to start directly above Chrom.

    First, Pair RickenxMaribelle and use Lissa to Rescue them down the cliff. Secondly, we need to set up a decoy: move Sumia three tiles north, and then three west, onto the cliff. The reason for this, is to divert the mages temporarily so that the melee units get to the corner first (mages hit too hard). Then, it's time to set up our turtle shell (don't dally or try to kill anything). The defensive formation we're going to build will be in the lower right corner, and looks something like this:

    CCCC
      12
     345
    Where C is a cliff, and the bottom + right are the edges of the map. The numbers represent unit pairs:
    • Avatar + Chrom - two enemy facings; one ground, one cliff (i.e. a Wyvern Rider). They are good anti-Rider units in an emergency, which is why they are here.
    • Miriel + Sumia - faces only Wyverns, with Sumia included to ensure doubling.
    • Frederick + Kellam - two facings, both on the ground.
    • Lissa + Lon'qu - able to heal both of the forward positions, not in danger of being attacked by anything but 2-range units. Lon'qu included for defensive purposes (don't want Lissa doubled).
    • Ricken + Maribelle - as long as this formation holds, they are not targetable by any enemy on the map. Maribelle is able to heal Lissa and Miriel, and Ricken is able to help Miriel deal with difficult Wyverns (like ones with Counter, for example).
    Sumia is going to be nearly dead and in a lot of trouble after the first Turn, so move her to the right (there's only one safe tile to land on), and next Turn Pair-Up with Miriel. You can swap Lon'qu and Sumia around with Transfer if Miriel needs the extra +1 SPD for something.

    Frederick and Avatar will want DEF tonics here. Even though Lissa can heal back all of the damage, the extra DEF makes it harder for the enemy to find fatal combinations with their back line attackers. Keep emergency Vulneraries on hand. Don't get careless about healing to full each turn: the enemy will swap out positions for a kill if it can (i.e. sending in a Mage). It's entirely possible that Avatar is tanky enough that she doesn't even need to be unequipped (both enemies attack Fred instead), but use caution if you do that.

    Take your time letting the Wyverns come to you, taking them apart with Miriel, using Elwind when needed. Counter can be dealt with by unequipping Miriel, and killing them at 2-range with Avatar/Chrom (the reason that they were put in this spot in the first place). Remember to trade away Avatar's weapon afterwards. Take care not to allow a situation where Miriel will kill something on Enemy Phase after taking a hit; another Rider will potentially fill in the spot, and she's 2HKO'ed here.

    Once all the Riders are dead (including reinforcements), it's time to slowly unwind the gigantic traffic jam of enemies on the ground. There are a few ways to do this safely, but I prefer to take out the 2-range mages first, since they are the most dangerous. To pull off this maneuver, have Avatar take Sumia from Miriel (needs the +RES), have Miriel kill the enemy to the left of Avatar, move Avatar into the space left open, move Lissa to where Avatar used to be, and then Frederick where Lissa was. Now you look like this:

    CCCC
     142
      35
    If you're smart about clearing a spot (Levin works well for this), mages will keep walking in to blast Avatar or Fred. Keep killing, trading, and healing, until there are nothing but 1-range enemies left (don't forget that one barbarian has a Short Axe), which are simple to finish off.

    Finally, once the enemies that move are all dead, you can move out to clean up the rest. The remaining Wyverns (including the boss) act as a single group, so once you aggro one you will aggro them all. Be prepared for that. The final three enemies -- DM, barbarian, myrm -- don't appear to be linked.

    Miriel cleaned house in this map, mostly due to Chrom being unable to really participate in meaningful combat. I had to use a second Rescue charge to save Miriel from being out of position on the final set of Riders (damn the boss), but c'est la vie.

    Turns: 60

    Heroes: Miriel & Lon'qu

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise     20.00 31 18 14 10 14 20 20 8  C Swd, B Tome
    Chrom       8.15 26 10 1  13 12 11 10 2  C Swd
    Frederick   3.17 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa      18.24 25 7  13 12 10 20 6  11 A Stf
    Miriel      9.31 32 2  12 14 17 13 9  15 A Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick/Chrom
               C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Lissa/Miriel, Miriel|Kellam/Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
    
    Louise is now ready to be reclassed to Merc. I still need Miriel's offense for just a little bit longer, so although I could reclass to Troubadour in the middle of the next map, I'll be holding off until after Ch6 is done (the last truly difficult Lunatic+ map).

    [spoiler=Paralogue 2: The Secret Seller]

    At first glance, this map is daunting: the enemies have high stats, the village is far from your starting position, Anna will get overwhelmed almost immediately, the boss moves, and you start fairly well boxed-in. However, like Ch5, taking advantage of enemy AI and terrain makes this a pretty lucrative training chapter. I started by Second Sealing level 20 Tactician Louise to a level 1 Mercenary.

    Keys to the chapter: bring plenty of Levin Sword uses (buy from Spotpass teams), get to the defensive spot as soon as possible, and pray to the RNG gods that Anna can hold out for a Turn or two.

    Chrom is forced as usual, and we'll be deploying Louise, Sumia, and Lissa. For reasons of logistics, it has to be a skeleton crew, but since the goal here is to train, that won't be a problem. Some tricks and useful maneuvers that we'll be taking advantage of here:

    • As a Lord, Chrom is one of the only non-flier first tier units that can actually traverse Water. It costs him 5 movement (aka, his entire range), but it's still useful here for fording the rivers. Tactician can do it as well, but Avatar is a Mercenary now, and loses the ability to do so.
    • We'll be using a movement trick that I like to call "leapfrogging". Basically what you do is Pair two units together, move them as far as possible, and then Separate them towards your objective. Next turn, you Pair up and repeat. This allows you to get further than normal. If you combine this with the first tip, and drop Chrom on Water, you can get a LOT further than normal.
    • Many enemies on this map won't attack you until either 1) you attack them, 2) you get into their aggro range, or 3) the Village is destroyed. Some don't even respond to being attacked. Every barbarian except the two on the starting bridge, will completely ignore you until the Village is crushed. The same goes for the people linked with the boss. You can actually stand right next to one of them, and they will not attack you (although they do respond to aggression).
    • The group of enemies north of your starting position, which includes the two barbarians on the bridge, are linked together. If you attack or get into range of one, they all start to move.
    • Then there are enemies on this map that I like to refer to as "free agents". The two mages in the center slice will actively move towards Anna, but have no problem diverting to one of your units if they are in range (or if she is dead).
    Take a look at the tiny little four-tile island just to the northwest of the mountain range in the southeast corner of the map. You'll note that nobody except the boss can traverse Water on this map, and two tiles on that island are completely out of range on everyone (not even archers or mages can hit it). So, the strategy becomes clear: get our units there, in a hurry. From there, we can make our stand, Prologue-style.

    You'll want to deploy your units such that Avatar + Sumia can land across the river, as far to the right as possible, in a place where both mages will attack you. Lissa needs to be in a spot where can carry Chrom a couple of tiles (to where Sumia started), and then Switch so that he can ford the river next Turn. Your first movement is going to look something like this:

    [spoiler=This looks insane, but it's actually brilliant.]

    mwjtbTV.jpg?1

    While under ordinary circumstances this would be fatal, in reality everything on the screen except the mages will completely ignore you. Avatar + Sumia can handle both on Enemy Phase with a Levin Sword (Sumia's +RES helps here). If for some reason you can't take two hits, then leave yourself only in range of the bottom mage (the top one will run off to kill Anna). You may want to reset if they have Pavise+, although Chrom with a Dual Strike and an additional Player Phase attack can go a long way, so the decision is up to you. Double Luna+ can also be a pain in the ass. You have options, at any rate.

    Chrom can take his next Turn to walk into the Water and dump Lissa to the right (leaves her juuust out of range of the bridge barbarians). From here, it's all circumstance. If Anna can hold out, you can take your time flying or water-walking people to the island. If she cannot (the more likely circumstance), you'll want to fly Lissa/Sumia over there as soon as possible, and have her burn a Rescue charge on the Avatar/Chrom pair to get them into position. This is possible by Turn 4, easily.

    At any rate, the Village will eventually be destroyed. Once that happens, everyone will start moving, including the boss pack. Victor can walk on Water, so as quickly as possible you want to put Avatar with a Levin Sword (handily countering his Tomahawk perfectly) in a position to kill him. It will probably be a ORKO unless you don't get a DS or he spawns with Pavise+, but you have time. Because of the way that he moves, you have two Enemy Phase + one Player Phase before he'll threaten Lissa (who can always just fly over the Mountain with Sumia if she has to).

    After he is dead, you can kill the rest of the map at your leisure. None of the 1-range enemies can get to you (but watch out for Counter), and none of the 2-range enemies can kill you unless you allow them to by letting them stack up for Enemy Phase, plus Lissa is here for healing. Fortunately, unlike in Ch5, the ranged enemies come at you in a very staggered fashion, and most are lolArchers that can't hurt you badly. Use Sumia as bait to corral the enemies as you please, and don't forget that Chrom can fight on the Water and/or also use the Levin swords. Avatar can stock up a lot of EXP here, thanks to Veteran and an internal level of ten. Get as much as you can, and also try to get Chrom to at least level ten for Charm while you are at it.

    All in all, a breeze once you get on the island.

    Turns: 42

    Heroes: Louise & Chrom

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise      5.16 35 23 14 13 20 21 22 7  B Swd
    Chrom      12.06 29 11 3  16 13 13 11 3  C Swd
    Frederick   3.17 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa      19.79 26 7  14 12 10 21 6  12 A Stf
    Miriel      9.31 32 2  12 14 17 13 9  15 A Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick/Chrom/Lissa
               C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel, Miriel|Kellam/Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
    
    Eight level-ups total, including Charm for Chrom. Not bad. I am hoping that this crew is strong enough for Ch6; we're about to find out. And if not, I kept a save. :P

    [spoiler=Chapter 6: Foreseer]

    Welcome to Chapter 6, AKA the reason that we spent so much time training in the first place. This map is similar to Ch2, in that you're rushed right from the start (by everything, here). Unlike Ch2, we have more than two useful units, can deploy at will, and also have Wireless access.

    Keys to the chapter: assassinate the thieves quickly, help Marth stay alive as long as possible, and keep enemies out of the Emm room.

    Here is where we're going to break the glass on the Bonus Box and Spotpass. For this map, we'll be using Mjölnir. You'll also want to secure a Mire tome (Shadow Dragon -> Gharnef), and make sure to have one or two Physic staves available. I deploy Louise, Lissa, Miriel, Frederick, Vaike, Kellam, Ricken, Maribelle, and Sumia.

    Strictly speaking, Miriel should be strong enough that normal tomes would suffice, but Mjölnir enables both OHKOs (many enemies will just outright die to a 38mt+ hit) and allows you to counter Aegis+ with overwhelming power. My Miriel is a little MAG-screwed, but with a Ricken support (and possible Dust usage), is able to get into reliable kill range here. Her previous training allows her to double, and use A-rank tomes.

    Louise and Frederick will each be killing a thief on Turn 1 Enemy Phase; for this reason, you will probably want to reset if either of the thieves closest to Marth have Pavise+. Fred + Kellam on the right-hand side with a Silver lance can easily stand only in range of the thief and OHKO on counter (add a fighter if they don't have Counter and you feel up to it), and Louise with a STR tonic and Vaike support only needs about 16-17 base STR in order to insta-blick the one in the center (if she kills the fighter at 1-range, the thief will just barely reach her). It's not a problem if the fighter has Pavise+ (have Ricken or Chrom help out first), or Counter (have Lissa heal afterwards).

    With this basic setup, Miriel (with or without Ricken) can finish the deal by killing the LHS fighter. She can handle this entire side for the duration of the map. Dark mages cannot fight her effectively (they will deal damage, but not enough to be dangerous), and she is able to kill the fighters and cavaliers through the wall before they can reach her. Gaius can be recruited on Turn 2 using the same method that we used for Kellam in Ch3 (walk up with Chrom, Talk, Pair Up, run away, Separate).

    The general idea for finishing the rest of this chapter is to have Frederick run interference unequipped, while Miriel blows up the left hand side and Avatar does what she can in the middle (without endangering herself), with Lissa having escaped (on either Sumia or Maribelle's back) into the Emm room for Physic spam. Chrom can participate in the middle with a Panne support, but be careful with him, since he is not that durable. Hopefully Marth doesn't die too early, and is able to kill a couple guys or soak some hits. If Frederick stands next to Marth, this gives Avatar a lot of room for doing work, since enemies are reluctant to attack Avatar over Marth or Fred. It's also possible to turtle up in the room to the left of Marth, especially if Miriel aggressively pushes out the left hand side (which will give Lissa some room to work). Keep in mind that Miriel can probably OHKO a thief with Mire if it becomes necessary, only needing about 18 adjusted MAG for the job (Mire has 10mt, A-rank gives a further +2).

    By the time that Validar gets to you, he should be a non-factor, since everything else will have been cleaned up already. Blow him up, and then give yourself a pat on the back, this is the last legitimately hard chapter in Lunatic+. Everything else can be powered through by over-leveling your units and playing smart.

    I gave the boss kill to Louise. I want her out of Mercenary ASAP. Wish that I could have gotten that last level, but c'est la vie.

    Turns: 9

    Heroes: Louise & Vaike

    
    
               Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
    Louise      8.99 38 23 11 14 21 22 22 7  B Swd
    Chrom      13.00 29 12 3  16 13 14 12 3  B Swd
    Frederick   3.34 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Swd/Axe, A Lnc
    Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
    Miriel     10.55 33 2  12 15 18 13 9  16 A Tome
    
    Supports   B - Louise|Frederick/Chrom/Lissa
               C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel|Kellam/Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
    

Edited by Interceptor
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Continued.

[spoiler=Chapter 7: Incursion]

While surviving on this map isn't difficult because of the mountains and mono-physical enemies, it's annoying to keep healers from getting pegged because of the flying Wyvern Riders. So we'll be approaching this chapter similar to how we did Ch5: turtle up, kill the fliers first.

Keys to the chapter: bring lots of consumables for healing, set up a defensive formation on the mountains, prioritize killing the Wyvern Riders, feed as much EXP to Avatar as possible, watch out for the Rider reinforcements after Cordelia shows up.

I'll be using Rexcalibur on Miriel (buy it from Lucia's team, sell Beaststone if you need money). She's a little bit short of a straight OHKO with Arcwind because of being 3 points MAG-screwed, and I don't want to deploy Ricken for Pair-up bonuses on this chapter because I need a place to hide Cordelia. Plus, this tome will be useful later, so it's a decent investment. So Rexcalibur it is. The OHKO ability makes Counter irrelevant unless you run into the rare Aegis+/Counter enemy (in which case just tank it unequipped and have Avatar help). Elwind is perfectly serviceable here as well, but increases your exposure to random skills, and I am going for maximum reliability.

Your defensive formation will be set up right near the starting spot, and is going to look like this:





PPPPPP
M3PPP
M12P 
MM   
M
Where P is a Peak, M is a mountain, 1 is Chrom, 2 is Avatar, and 3 is Miriel. Pairs are up to you; I choose to use Frederick and Kellam here, wherever they are needed, because there are no enemy mages. It costs 4 movement points for a tier 1 foot unit to move onto a mountain tile, so use the Pair/move/Separate trick to get people into position quickly. If you aren't in place by the end of Turn 2 Player Phase, you did something wrong.

Avatar is basically invincible, particularly once she gets Patience. The axe guys in this chapter have 20 listed HIT or less on Louise here (zero if she has a Sword equipped), and generally can't hurt her when they connect unless they have Luna+. Chrom is less durable, since his natural DEF/avoid is lower and he doesn't get the benefit of his own Charm, but he can get by if you're careful. Use a DEF tonic and Kellam/Frederick for best results.

When Cordelia arrives on the map on Turn 3, she can just barely make it to the tile beneath Chrom; leave him free by giving away his partner (or have Miriel take the partner away) so that she can hide on him immediately. This may require killing a unit first to make room, but both Miriel and Avatar are equal to the task. After you secure Cordelia, I'd suggest adjusting to this layout:





PPPPPP
3MPPP
12MP 
MM   
M
i.e., everyone shifts left. This is a safer way to deal with the forthcoming trio of Wyvern Rider reinforcements that are about to drop where Cordelia just came from (Turn 5 Enemy Phase). Since their skills are un-knowable in advance, you'll have to fight unequipped unless you can OHKO, and that means they'll have decent hit rates against Chrom. Limit his exposure. This means that ground-based enemies get Mountain bonuses, but such is life. Stow Cordelia on Avatar if you wish, so that your lowest DEF units get to use Kellam and Frederick.

From here, basically the routine is to hold out and pick off enemies as you can (trading to protect against Counter, as usual), letting Miriel take care of the Wyvern Riders to the extent possible. There are no skill combinations that will result in guaranteed restarts here, but you'll want to be careful of Hawkeye/Luna+ combo enemies, and prioritize killing them off ASAP if they exist. Use consumables to stay healthy. Everyone is adjacent to Chrom here, so they have Convoy access. Don't be shy about using Panne's Concoction if needed; an enemy here drops another one, and they will be buyable after Ch8. Keep in mind that Miriel can Mire-bomb a distant Counter unit if she has a free action.

Vasto wandered over with the last wave of three Riders, and I just blicked him with Miriel. Fin.

Turns: 9

Heroes: Louise & Frederick





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     11.86 40 25 13 15 23 23 23 7  A Swd
Chrom      13.35 29 12 3  16 13 14 12 3  B Swd
Frederick   3.49 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc
Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
Miriel     12.43 35 3  13 17 19 14 9  16 A Tome

Supports   A - Louise|Chrom
           B - Louise|Frederick/Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
I hope you enjoyed the Miriel Show™ (I know I did), because it's time for her to spend time training staves as a Troubadour, with the eventual aim of Demoiselle and a Valkyrie promotion. Fortunately we don't need her offensive prowess anymore once Avatar promotes to Bow Knight, which will be happening soon after we pick up Ch8's Master Seal.

[spoiler=Paralogue 3: A Strangled Peace]

This chapter is about as standard as they come: turtle up and get some EXP. Forget about saving the Villagers; they are toast. It's a bummer to miss out on the Robe, but this is Sparta Lunatic+.

Keys to the chapter: carve out a defensive position, feed your units, don't forget to pick up the Blessed Bow.

We'll be deploying Avatar, Frederick, Kellam, Lissa, and Miriel. There's no need for fliers or big guns here. First things first, use a Second Seal (if you have one), and reclass Miriel to Troubadour.

[spoiler=For some reason, she keeps the hat.]wARezsi.jpg?1

There are a couple of good spots to dig in on this map; the best is probably the boss area, since it has a choke and good terrain, but we'll be scooting into the upper left corner since Troubadours can't stand on Mountains. To your immediate left are an Archer, Mercenary, and Fighter. If someone stands to the right of the Fighter, you'll also attract a Pegasus Knight (not necessary to draw over, but convenient).

Pegs at this point of the game are basically made of glass. With a Killing Edge, STR tonic, and a B-rank Frederick support, Avatar only needs 18 STR to OHKO, even with WTD, to say nothing of what happens if you use one of the Bonus Box swords. You can't blick the Fighter, but he's easy to finish if Chrom weakens with a Levin first. This leaves only the Merc and Archer to deal with. In the event that you have some Pavise+ to deal with, just take a little longer to clear. Most of the enemies here will be going after the Villagers, so you have a window before you get blocked out. Naturally, if the enemies here on the LHS don't have Counter, Avatar can just (wo)man-mode them by herself.

After you clear a path, just hole up in the corner with Lissa/Fred, Miriel/Kellam, and Avatar/Chrom (we want some Dual Strike EXP) from left to right. Lissa exists here only to heal Miriel in case one of the 2-range units gets saucy. Since you're killing two Archers while establishing initial position, that leaves only three units left that can actually hit Miriel anyway: two Archers from the RHS, and a Short Spear Knight.

Kill whatever comes at you, trading as needed for Counter (Chrom in the Water with Levin also works if you need chip damage for Counter). If you luck out and get an enemy with Hawkeye that can actually hurt Avatar, you can get a couple levels on Miriel while blasting over the head with Levin (switch to Mend once she has D Staves, for more EXP). Clean up the mob, and kill the rest at your leisure (they don't move until you are in range). Don't forget to pick up the Blessed Bow from the village; it's a very important item for this run.

Turns: 40

Heroes: Louise & Chrom





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     16.00 44 25 15 17 25 27 27 9  A Swd
Chrom      14.91 30 12 3  17 13 14 12 3  B Swd
Miriel      4.28 36 2  14 18 22 15 7  18 D Stf
Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
Frederick   3.49 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc

Supports   A - Louise|Chrom/Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
Louise is turning out nicely; she has capped STR, and is about to cap SPD and DEF. Her days as a tier 1 unit are nearly over. I expect that she'll be able to finish her S-rank support with Chrom by the end of the next chapter.

Miriel only needs another 6 levels before she's eligible for Valkyrie training, finally.

[spoiler=Chapter 8: The Grimleal]

Welcome to the desert, and the last chapter of Mercenary Louise. Buy a Bronze Bow before you start (just in case), and make sure that you have enough Levin Sword uses to last for the whole chapter.

Keys to the chapter: Rescue Nowi and Gregor, prioritize killing the mages, and collect all of the freebie items here.

We'll be deploying Avatar, Frederick, Cordelia, Lissa, and Miriel. Fred and Cordelia are here purely so that we can have an 8 MV flying decoy, and Lissa is attending for +MAG support and desert mobility. Normally the desert is a pain in the ass, but here it works in our favor. Reason being: it slows down all of the enemies here except the mages, and we want them dead first anyway.

Start Avatar on the left-most spot, pair Chrom with her, and then move two spaces south. This puts you in range of two mages and a Fighter, which you should be able to easily mop up with a Levin Sword, more or less regardless of enemy skill distribution. Cordelia and Fred can fly off to the right and distract people for a while; that's their sole purpose here. Move Gregor onto Nowi, and get them to a safe spot. Next turn will find Nowi in a lot of trouble, so this is where moving into position with Lissa and Rescuing with Miriel will be necessary.

The movements here are very simple and not really worth detailing. Keep everyone out of the way and have AvatarxChrom rip the place apart. Dual Strike is hilariously useful here. If you need a place to fall back to, there's a one-strip wide spot between the rock and a wall on the left hand side where you can turtle. Pass is basically irrelevant because of the movement penalties. Kill mages with Levin Sword, kill Counter Myrmidons by OHKOing them with a strong sword, and generally just kite everything until you clear the place out. Don't forget to pick up the Rescue staff, Master Seal, and Second Seal from the villages here before you kill the boss.

Louise capped STR/SPD/DEF and actually hit level 20 perfectly on the boss kill. Her stats below are post-promotion to Bow Knight.

Turns: 22

Heroes: Louise & Chrom





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      1.00 54 28 16 21 29 29 29 12 A Swd, E Bow
Chrom      15.77 31 12 3  18 13 15 12 3  A Swd
Miriel      6.53 38 2  15 19 23 16 8  20 D Stf
Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
Frederick   3.49 30 15 2  13 11 6  15 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
Louise is a brick house right now. Paired with Chrom, she has 70 listed avoid, which means 95-100 actual avoid during Enemy Phase between support bonuses, Charm, and Patience. To put that into perspective, the biggest badass Silver Axe Wyvern Rider right now has 33mt and 100 HIT. Whoops.

[spoiler=Chapter 9: Emmeryn]

This chapter is a race against the clock; Wyvern Rider reinforcements show up from behind at the end of Turn 5, and Libra can't handle the Lunatic+ skills for long. Pre-chapter preparations: buy as many SPD/SKL/LCK tonics as you need (in case a Skirmish blocks the shop), give Bow/Levin/Mystletainn to Avatar (strongly forged sword also acceptable), feed her a STR tonic, and hang on to your hat.

Keys to the chapter: Clear enemies efficiently with Avatar, secure OHKOs to avoid Counter, recruit Libra and get him to safety. Reset if the Soldier nearest Libra has Counter.

We're deploying both Sumia/Cordelia, Frederick, and Avatar for this map. Put Avatar and Fred in the lower-right spots, and the pegs in the lower-left ones (Cordelia closer to Chrom). The pegs are needed for flying utility, and Frederick is needed so that Bow Knight Avatar has 9MV, good Dual Strike potential, and massive STR/DEF. The first four Turns are the most critical in this chapter, so I'll be listing them in order.

Turn 1: Pair Fred with Avatar, and kill the Wyvern Rider at 2-range with a Levin Sword. She will wtfpwn the Archer, Mage, second Rider, and both Soldiers on Enemy Phase. Depending on atk and HP numbers, she can likely survive any two of the three 1-range enemies here having Counter. There may be leftovers here afterwards if you get bad skills or don't proc DS, but that's not a problem. Move Sumia up one square, Pair Chrom with Cordelia and move her where Sumia was.

Turn 2: After the murderfest, take Avatar and head directly past the first to attack the mage there from the upper-right with a Bow (NOT the Levin Sword). Levin Sword is too dangerous because of the possibility of Counter. This will kill the Mage, and eliminate two Archers on EP. Move Cordelia south, and drop Chrom either to the left or down, depending on enemy movements (if the archer moved into a range where he can threaten Cordelia, you'll need to drop him down). Sumia should go to an empty nearby space.

Turn 3: Libra recruits himself on Ally Phase. All that's left near Avatar now is Tharja and a bunch of 1-range jerkfaces. Equip Mystletainn (or your strong forge) so that you can OHKO everything. Heal if needed, or otherwise just kill something. On EP, everything should die but Tharja. Pair Libra and Chrom with fliers, and take them to safety. You may want to trade a Rescue staff to Libra. If there are weakened leftover here, kill them.

Turn 4: Fly Chrom over and recruit Tharja. Use Libra with Rescue to get him close enough if needed. Take Avatar and move to the left, getting ready for the reinforcements. The reinforcements are coming at the end of the next Turn, so make sure to block the two forts nearest the boss with units (unless you want to fight a Mage and a Soldier).

From here it's academic. The non-Avatar units can coast past the boss and hide inside the castle, safe from everything. You may want to give Chrom to Avatar so that he gets a little bit of EXP here from DS attacks. Or just have Avatar tank everything on a fort, and peel enemies off one at a time for Chrom to fight with Tharja and Libra's help. Finish off the boss last. Try to get D Bows for Avatar if possible.

I gave the boss to Chrom, since he needed the EXP. Louise housed everything as usual.

Turns: 14

Heroes: Louise & Frederick





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      4.95 57 29 18 21 30 30 30 14 A Swd, D Bow
Chrom      17.02 33 12 3  19 15 15 12 3  A Swd
Miriel      6.53 38 2  15 19 23 16 8  20 D Stf
Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
Frederick   4.00 31 16 2  13 12 7  16 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa

[spoiler=Chapter 10: Renewal]

Is GREGOR TIME! This chapter finds us with competing goals: kill the thieves ASAP to secure their items, but also spend time going slowly in order to train our newest Swordguy. We'll be accomplishing both, by abusing pathing and terrain. Make sure that you have one or two decent Levin Swords for this chapter, and stuff Frederick full of healing items.

Keys to the chapter: Get Avatar next to the boss and your two unit pairs on the double forts ASAP, deal with the Riders first, kill as many thieves as possible, maximize EXP gain for Gregor. Reset if the two northern Riders both have Hawkeye (since Miriel will die). You MAY want to restart if the boss has Hawkeye/Luna+ combined, since that makes him untankable and prevents you from securing all four thieves.

Deployment this chapter will be Louise, Frederick, Gregor (reclass to Myrmidon), Cordelia, and Miriel. Frederick is needed for his Pair bonuses (+MV in particular), Cord is here because we need a flier, and Miriel/Gregor are present for training purposes (plus healing/Rescue in Miriel's case). There are two separate tracks, here.

First track: start Avatar as far left as possible, and Pair Fred onto her. This allow you to run straight through the fort and blast the Master Seal thief at diagonal 2-range, due to 9 MV. On the second Turn, do the same thing with the Seraph Robe thief (kill from upper right diagonal), Turn 3 move as far north as possible (Levin Sword helps here to keep you from being boxed in, but only if safe), and Turn 4 either move to the west or north side of the boss (north preferred due to one less facing, but both work).

[spoiler=NONE SHALL PASS.]IHpBJEo.jpg?1

Once Avatar is in position, you stay here forever (kill thieves with your Bow). If the final landing spot is too dangerous because of high Luna+ concentration, either tank in the bottom left corner (two facings) or sit on a fort (four facings, but auto-heal and defense that isn't ignored by Luna+). Note that if you don't sit next to the boss, the thieves will get away, so only do this if you can afford to give up the items.

Second track: put Chrom on Gregor, move north and Switch; put Miriel on Cordelia, fly onto the mountain Fort, Switch and Rescue the Chrom pair (puts them in the Fort above Miriel). This is your tanking zone. Miriel in my file has 52 listed avoid with a Cordelia support (also gave her SPD/LCK tonics). Add in +20 from the Fort, +5 from Chrom's Charm, +10 from two adjacent units, and Miriel has 87 effective Avoid, which goes up to 90 with a Gregor support instead. All Riders in this chapter have 100 HIT, so she is 10-13% listed; roughly only a 2-4% chance to get hit, and a tiny CoD with two attacks despite being 2HKO'ed. Concoction + Fort healing will erase one attack.

Use Chrom and Gregor to wipe out the Riders efficiently; you will face 3-4 immediately, and more on subsequent Turns as reinforcements come in (one from the South fort on Turns 6 and 7). There will also be a Soldier and a Barbarian with Short weapons that will walk over to play. Enemies will prioritize Miriel due to her godawful DEF, so use Falchion, Killing Edges, Levin Swords etc to wipe out the targets in turn. Keep in mind that Levin is good for avoiding Counter.

Once these guys are all dead, and Turn 7 has come and gone, land on the ground and make your way over to Avatar. The vast majority of the enemies are 1-range, so it's extremely easy to peel them off one at a time to feed to Gregor. The most annoying kind are the Counter/Hawkeye ones; just remember to use Levin Swords judiciously (you DID buy a couple, right?) and don't be shy about healing. Also keep in mind that Avatar can easily snipe some of the more annoying targets with a Bow if they happen to be in range. Kill the boss after everyone else is dead. Take care to not let any thieves escape in the process.

I gave the boss to Gregor, because he was on a roll anyway.

Turns: 43

Heroes: Louise & Frederick





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      7.44 60 30 18 21 31 32 31 15 A Swd, D Bow
Chrom      17.93 33 12 3  19 15 15 12 3  A Swd
Gregor     11.03 39 17 2  23 22 11 11 5  B Swd
Miriel      9.58 41 3  16 21 24 18 10 21 C Stf
Lissa      20.00 27 7  15 12 11 21 6  13 A Stf
Frederick   4.59 31 16 2  13 12 7  16 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
This was, as you can see, a hilariously lucrative training chapter. Gregor gained 10 levels, Miriel is 42 EXP away from a possible promotion to Valkyrie, and Louise picked up Rally SKL and made some good progress on her Bow rank.

[spoiler=Chapter 11: Mad King Gangrel]

This chapter plays out similarly to the last one: train Gregor, obtain treasure. Before starting you'll want to promote Lissa to Sage, keep one Levin Sword handy for giggles, and make sure that Avatar has the Blessed Bow.

Keys to the chapter: get Avatar into tanking position, plug the three northwest forts to stop reinforcements, kill the thief before he can steal the treasure, watch out for magic damage, and don't aggro Gangrel's coterie until you are ready for it.

We'll be deploying Avatar, Gregor, Miriel, Lissa, Cordelia (ferry), and Gaius (chests). On the first Turn, you'll want to pair Chrom with Avatar, and move Avatar/Olivia in such a way that you can stand beneath a nearby fort on the left and kill a Sword-Guy at 2-range with a bow. This leaves the way open for Avatar to park herself right above the treasure chest on the left hand side. The reason for this position is simple: only three enemy facings, and you can shoot the Thief as soon as he steals the Bullion. Stay here and tank (with a Blessed Bow equipped, for 10 HP healing per Turn, as soon as you reach C-rank Bows) until everything on the map is clear except for Gangrel's group.

Meanwhile, run everyone else into the upper left and sit on the three forts, blocking reinforcements. If you are a bad enough dude to save the President kill a Silver Axe Hero, feel free to leave the upper-left fort open to kill him and steal his Speedwing at the end of Turn 4. But since he has 25 SPD, 13/9 DEF/RES, and tons of HP, you'll probably find that you can't safely do it. I personally avoided it, since a Hero with unknowable Lunatic+ skills can really be a handful. In any case, plug those forts until the end of Turn 7.

Once the first cloud is clear, take a deep breath and have Avatar run to the fort immediately north of Gangrel. You'll kill two mages and possibly Gangrel on the first Enemy Phase. Clean up the leftovers, but make sure to get the second chest with Gaius before you kill the final guy.

That's all that there is to it. One trick that you'll find useful: use Lissa's magic attacks to help Gregor land kills safely. She probably won't double, but hits hard with a variety of E-rank tomes, and you can use Olivia to get a second shot. This makes for a great way to deal with Counter enemies: attract someone with an unequipped Gregor, blast them twice with Lissa, and then finish with Gregor for the kill. This gives Gregor the kill EXP, Olivia the Dance EXP, and double-chip EXP plus Tome rank for Lissa. It's a very efficient use of resources even if Gregor doesn't necessarily need the assistance.

Turns: 44

Heroes: Louise & Chrom





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     10.87 63 31 20 23 34 33 31 17 A Swd, C Bow
Chrom      18.42 33 13 3  19 16 16 13 4  A Swd
Gregor     16.35 44 21 2  24 22 12 14 5  A Swd
Miriel     10.94 41 3  17 22 25 19 10 22 B Stf
Lissa       3.12 33 9  20 17 16 22 10 13 A Stf, E Tme
Frederick   4.59 31 16 2  13 12 7  16 4  D Axe, C Swd, A Lnc

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa, Miriel|Kellam
           C - Gregor|Miriel, Chrom|Sully/Lissa, Louise|Miriel/Vaike, Miriel||Frederick, Frederick|Lissa
Miriel now has Demoiselle, and Gregor is 4 levels away from being ready to promote to Assassin. It's also nice to have Lissa as a go-to weakener, since that's a role that I have been sorely missing since Miriel reclassed to Troubadour. Worth noting that Miriel is hugely effective with her triple auras; everyone had 100% HIT at all times, and extremely high crit rates against enemies.

[spoiler=Paralogue 4: Anna the Merchant]

After leaving this chapter on the table for a while, we return to the fray to recruit Anna and finish Gregor's training. The enemies here are all fairly low-level compared to the ones from Ch10 and Ch11, but Lunatic+ skills still make them dangerous.

Keys to the chapter: Rescue Anna, secure the chests that you can get to, and don't get careless.

This will be a skeleton deployment: Avatar, Lissa, Miriel, and Gregor. Chrom is forced, and we'll be recruiting Anna, so this gives us the six units we need for doing what needs to be done.

On the first Turn, use Miriel to Rescue Anna onto a forest tile: this only requires 16 MAG to pull off. Have Chrom recuit her, Pair him with Avatar, and then Pair Anna with Miriel. The LissaxGregor team should head west to fight the enemies there: with the massive MAG boost from Lissa's support, Gregor actually hits fairly hard with a Levin Sword (and you have a fresh one from Gangrel), so try to kill one or two units here if feasible. Avatar can eliminate one of the nearby Myrms, so that Miriel only gets attacked by two units (which she should survive).

Second Turn, have everyone retreat in the bottom left corner, and box Miriel in. From here it's just a matter of skillful Trading to keep Gregor from being killed, healing, and having Avatar snipe dangerous enemies and skill combinations when possible. Once the initial enemies are all dead (the thief will get away with the Arms Scroll; sorry), you can take your time moving across the map, opening chests and feeding kills to Gregor. Remember that the boss group is going to move as a unit.

I got Gregor to level 20 Myrmidon, promoted him in-chapter, and had him finish off the rest of the map with his Bronze Bow. Fin.

Turns: 36

Heroes: Lissa & Gregor





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     12.13 65 32 20 24 35 34 31 18 A Swd, B Bow
Chrom      18.58 33 13 3  19 16 16 13 4  A Swd
Gregor      1.19 53 28 1  30 26 13 16 7  A Swd, E Bow
Miriel     13.83 45 3  18 23 27 21 11 23 B Stf
Lissa       3.42 33 9  20 17 16 22 10 13 A Stf, D Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel
           C - Gregor|Miriel/Lissa, Chrom|Lissa
Built GregorxLissa C and LouisexMiriel B-rank. Note that I've trimmed some of the units and support pairings that aren't really relevant anymore.

[spoiler=Chapter 12: The Seacomers]

Welcome to the jungle Valm arc, we've got fun and games Knights and mounts. This is the first chapter where the bow-user strategy really comes into its own. There's nothing fancy here; just a plain Rout where the enemy comes to you.

Keys to the chapter: Get Cherche to safety, establish a defensive position, train Gregor and Miriel, don't over-use Avatar.

We will be deploying Avatar, Miriel, Gregor, Lissa, Kellam, and Anna. There are two ways to approach the Cherche problem: either fly her over the water with the help of Anna (somewhat tricky), or make her a part of the defensive knot (easy). I'll be taking the harder path, because I don't want to train a unit I won't use. If you choose to go the easy way, un-deploy Kellam/Anna and just pair Cherche with Miriel.

First things first: pair Anna with Cherche, move them to the upper right, as far as you can without entering enemy range. We're using Anna here because she gives +1 MV, and enough SPD to keep Cherche from being doubled by the Paladin. Next turn, unequip her and fly as far to the upper-right as possible. She will take 1-2 attacks here. For the final move, fly all the way north, past the Bow Knight, and chill over the Sea; she has just enough MV to make it. Nothing can reach her there, so just stay for the duration of the chapter.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew gets into a defensive zone. Take careful note of the spot to the northwest of your start: it has a narrow corridor, blocked by large structures that you can't fire over. This is where we'll be making our stand. On Turn 1, put together the Avatar/Chrom, Miriel/Kellam, and Gregor/Lissa pairs. Avatar should kill the Beast Killer Knight immediately above, Gregor should move into the defensive choke and attack the Short Spear Knight from the left with a bow, and Miriel should move to the left of Gregor and Rescue Avatar to her left. Your final setup looks something like this:

lxXP3sH.jpg?1

Basically just sit here and plink away at the map as it comes to you, healing with Miriel as needed. Kellam is here to allow her to take a couple hits to the jaw if necessary. Your best case scenario is if you can maneuver a Hawkeye enemy to stand adjacent to Avatar or Gregor, since that allows Miriel to spam heals all day for more EXP. You can help this happen by killing someone with a 1-range weapon, trading the bow back into position with Miriel, and seeing who steps into the space. This is also a good place to break any remaining Rescue staves, since they are worth a lot of EXP, and become buyable after this chapter's completion.

Watch out for the Beastkillers, incidentally, since they can actually hurt Bow Knight Avatar. Speaking of Avatar, don't over-use her here: at this high level, she is not going to get a lot of EXP even with Veteran, so let Gregor and Miriel go to work.

Turns: 38

Heroes: Lissa & Gregor





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     13.88 65 33 20 24 36 34 31 18 A Swd, B Bow
Chrom      19.13 34 14 3  19 17 17 13 4  A Swd
Gregor      6.84 58 30 1  33 27 13 20 7  A Swd, C Bow
Miriel     18.69 45 3  20 25 27 22 13 26 A Stf
Lissa       4.21 33 9  20 17 16 23 10 13 A Stf, C Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel, Gregor|Miriel
           C - Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Lissa
Five levels for Miriel and Gregor both, plus a level for Lissa/Louise/Chrom, a big chunk of WEXP for the Gregor/Lissa pairing, and tasty Support points. Chrom is reaching the point where he can't really do anything anymore; we'll either need to reclass or promote him soon.

[spoiler=Chapter 13: Of Sacred Blood]

*** MOVE VETERAN TO THE LAST SLOT IN AVATAR'S SKILL LIST BEFORE STARTING ***

With that out of the way: welcome to the latest episode of "protect the squishy throw-in recruit", starring Henry. Even though this is a Kill Boss chapter, we will be Routing for maximum EXP.

Before starting, make sure to stock up on Rescue staves, as many as you need, and buy a Master Seal if required. The game has now started the Bullion Rain™, so there should be plenty of money available. Despite my lack of Despoil, I have over 37,000G on this file, and plenty of garbage that I could sell to raise more funds. Long-term big ticket expenses will include a forged Longbow, and forged Brave Bow, but there's plenty of time before those are necessary.

Keys to the chapter: Pass Veteran to Lucina, Rescue chain your army into the southeast cliff choke, pass Veteran to Lucina, be careful of the multiple Longbow enemies here (including some reinforcement Snipers), and pass Veteran to Lucina.

We'll be deploying Avatar, Gregor, Miriel, Lissa, Cherche (need a flier), and Olivia. The basic strategy here is to quickly Rescue people onto the cliff area and use it as a siege spot for your mages, but the tactics largely break down into ad hoc responses to enemy skills and movements, so I'll just detail the first Turn and the general goals.

Turn 1: pair Miriel/Cherche, Gregor/Lissa, Avatar/Chrom, Olivia/Henry. Fly Miriel over to the east cliff (one square below the Woods), Rescue Olivia. Dance Miriel with Olivia, Rescue Avatar. Have Avatar kill the nearby Myrmidon that's in range (either 1 or 2 range, depending on skills). Meanwhile, have Gregor run into the center Fort in the south, and kill whichever of the two Fighters that he is able. From here, the following guidelines:

  • Keep Olivia and Henry separated.
  • Have Gregor freelance on the lower central Fort long as he can. This is where all the 2-range Axe-Guys warp in, so if you can block it off, it becomes much easier to protect your position on the cliff. If he gets into trouble, just Rescue him up onto the cliff with everyone else and create a normal choke.
  • Avatar should roam as she is able, securing kills; try to block the right-hand Fort on Turn 5, but if you need to retreat, set up your choke point on the Woods near where you first flew Miriel.
  • The most dangerous enemies on the map are Longbow users; they can snipe Olivia and Henry. Prioritize killing them first, whenever possible.
  • Sniper Longbows are the most dangerous units of all, and there are two as reinforcements from the middle-wing Forts on Turn 5 EP. It's highly recommended to block at least one of these forts if possible.
  • Henry with Mire and a light +MAG support or Tonic can 2HKO the normal Archer Longbow users. This is a ORKO if you use Olivia to Dance him for a second shot. He can also clear dangerous enemies for Gregor down in the valley, using the same technique. With a strong MAG support, he is 3HKO on the Snipers.
  • On Turns 6 and 7, watch out for a Tomahawk Warrior in the lower central Fort. He can reach your guys on the cliff, so be sure that Olivia or Henry are not exposed.
Play smart, and this chapter isn't that difficult. If you use Gregor and Avatar properly, there won't be a chance for any 2-range units to get near the cliffs, and you can Mire-bomb and Physic spam all day long.

[spoiler=Where is challenge?]kTWhOWd.jpg?1

Turns: 26

Heroes: Lissa & Gregor





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     15.84 67 33 21 25 37 34 32 19 A Swd, B Bow
Chrom      19.75 34 14 3  19 17 17 13 4  A Swd
Gregor     10.28 62 32 2  35 29 15 21 7  A Swd, B Bow
Miriel      2.49 55 4  25 28 30 23 15 31 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       4.76 33 9  20 17 16 23 10 13 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina     10.00 39 17 9  18 21 21 17 9  C Swd
Olivia      8.50 24 7  3  13 14 9  5  2  D Swd

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel, Gregor|Miriel/Lissa
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina, Louise|Lucina
Added Lucina's stats above, to give a baseline. Henry only has 1 Mire use left, and very nearly got two level-ups in that chapter. I'll compare him with Laurent, and decide who to keep. Miriel promoted to Valkyrie mid-chapter, and I'd like to point out that her non-physical-durability combat stats are a little ridiculous.

[spoiler=Paralogue 12: Disowned by Time]

And now, the long-awaited Morgan recruitment map, where we pick up this playthrough's best character. In this chapter, we're going to make a classic corner turtle, and get Morgan to Sniper ASAP. Before starting make sure that Avatar is passing down Armsthrift, and that you have both a Second and Master Seal, plenty of bows from Rank E/D/C, Mire for Henry, and a Levin Sword for Lucina.

For the lulz, here are Morgan's base Tactician stats in my file:





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Morgan     10.00 38 17 15 17 19 19 16 13 C Swd, C Tme
He is actually pretty good. Thanks, Superior DNA.

Keys to the chapter: Pass Armsthrift to Morgan, set up a defensive corner in the Water, be careful of Griffon Riders and Sages.

We'll be using a heavy deployment on this map: Avatar, Gregor, Miriel, Lissa, Olivia, Henry, Lucina, and Anna. The reason for this particular set of units, is that we need people who can stand on Water (Anna, Olivia, Lucina), because the turtle spot will be in the lower left. Here's what the layout will look like once you are set:





WwwwF
WFFFF
12FFw
345Fw
Where W is a wall, w is Water, F is the floor, and the units are such that:
  • Lucina/Henry. Generally Lucina will equip and heal herself with Falchion, but occasionally you want Levin equipped. Henry is always unequipped; we don't want Dual Strikes.
  • Avatar/Chrom. Just equip a Bow and stand there like a statue. This position is for Convoy access.
  • Olivia/Anna. They are untargetable here, and you can Switch as needed to either Dance or heal someone.
  • Morgan/Miriel. Lissa also an option here. Generally you'll be attacking with Morgan, but sometimes you need to switch to Miriel to either blast a Griffon, or heal someone.
  • Gregor/Lissa. Miriel also an option here. Functions as a wall, and also useful for killing off a tough Griffon if needed.
On Turn 1 you want to Rescue Morgan, recruit him with Chrom, reclass Morgan to Archer, have Avatar/Chrom take out the nearby Myrmidon and mages with a Levin Sword, possibly snipe the right-side Thief with a double shot of Mire from Henry, and generally just get everyone into position. You have three turns until the heavy hitters arrive.

This bears repeating: watch out for the Mages and the promoted enemies. They are no joke. Take them out with Avatar, Gregor, or Miriel preemptively if there is even a chance that they could kill Lucina or Morgan. There's plenty of EXP in here, and for a while Morgan is going to level-up on every kill. Don't use Lucina much here; it's OK to give her a few kills here and there, but we'll train her in another chapter. The most important goal here is to get Morgan to Sniper. He may already be capping multiple stats before you hit level 20, so it's OK to early promote if you wish, although I kept mine going for +LCK.

Final note: there are about 17 enemies that don't aggro until you trigger them. The right-side enemies don't move until you get into range (they are all individuals). The Swordmaster near the middle has a small group that comes with him. The entire top half will trigger all at once as soon as you are in range of any of them (for this reason, I suggest triggering with Avatar, and then running back to the turtle corner). The boss does not move. You can't save Fortify, so just let it go.

Fin.

Turns: 41

Heroes: Louise & Morgan





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     16.49 68 33 21 25 37 35 33 20 A Swd, B Bow
Chrom      19.96 34 14 3  19 17 17 13 4  A Swd
Gregor     11.61 63 33 2  36 29 16 21 7  A Swd, B Bow
Miriel      4.82 55 5  26 28 31 24 15 32 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       5.48 34 9  20 18 17 24 10 13 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina     13.91 41 19 11 19 23 23 19 11 C Swd
Morgan      2.20 58 30 21 33 31 31 32 19 C Bow
Olivia     13.54 28 7  4  18 18 13 7  4  D Swd
Henry      14.67 32 7  15 16 11 12 14 7  C Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel, Gregor|Miriel/Lissa
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Louise|Lucina/Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
Good lord, Morgan is ridiculous. Gregor is sobbing in his beer right now.

[spoiler=Chapter 14: Flames on the Blue]

Morgan had his time in the sun; now it's time to train Lucina. This might blow your mind, but this map's strategy has us turtling in a corner and killing enemies one by one. Give Lucina a Second Seal and a Levin Sword.

Keys to the chapter: train Lucina, collect the treasure before killing the boss.

Deployment: Avatar, Lucina, Miriel, Lissa, Morgan, Anna (for the chests), Gregor. This map can also be six-man cleared. The defensive point is the spot right above the mast on the central ship: if you cram six Paired-up units in there, the one in the center cannot be attacked at 1-range, and the two side positions only have one enemy facing.

I chose to deploy eight units, and spilled out a little bit (two facings on the left side). Lucina/Avatar, Morgan/Chrom, Miriel/Anna, Gregor/Lissa. These pairs are more for building supports than anything else; I swapped Lissa/Miriel for a short time and gave some kills to Gregor in other to build up that support as well.

Nothing fancy here: just turtle up, reclass Lucina to Mercenary, and stuff her full of kills. I didn't quite make it to level 20 and a Bow Knight promotion, but she capped four stats and could be promoted regardless. I'm just holding out for a little more DEF.

Clean up the chests afterwards, and then finish the boss.

Turns: 39

Heroes: Louise & Lucina





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     16.94 68 33 21 25 37 35 33 20 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom      20.00 34 14 3  19 17 18 13 4  A Swd
Gregor     12.58 64 34 2  36 30 17 21 7  A Swd, B Bow
Miriel      5.81 55 5  27 29 32 24 16 32 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       5.76 34 9  20 18 17 24 10 13 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina     18.89 59 27 15 27 28 34 26 13 B Swd
Morgan      4.18 60 30 22 33 31 32 33 19 C Bow
Olivia     13.54 28 7  4  18 18 13 7  4  D Swd
Henry      14.67 32 7  15 16 11 12 14 7  C Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Miriel/Lissa
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Louise|Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
Yes, Chrom hit 20 and only got +LCK. Womp womp. Lucina is now very nearly as tough as Morgan, and Gregor built A supports with both Lissa and Miriel.

[spoiler=Chapter 15: Smoldering Resistance]

Now THIS is more like it: with a full complement of bow-using Lead units (Avatar, Morgan, Gregor, soon-to-be-Lucina), you can roll up your sleeves and power right through this chapter. Put on your party hat and get ready for a real throw-down.

Keys to the chapter: save Say'ri, match up against the beach enemies, visit all four houses, give Walhart's advance force a good what-for.

Deployment: Avatar, Gregor, Morgan, Lucina, Lissa, Miriel, Olivia, Frederick, Cherche. You'll notice here that I've broken up the band a little bit, and given people partners purely for stats. This chapter is very straightforward: send Gregor/Miriel onto the beach (Gregor can deal with the Knights/horses, Miriel can deal with the mages), and have everyone else rush up the ramp and blitz the enemies up there, while Lissa Rescues Say'ri.

No choke points on this map: just have everyone stand shoulder-to-shoulder to maximize Support bonuses. When Gregor/Miriel are done, have Lissa Rescue them over to help with the clean-up. My preferred pairs: Avatar/Frederick, Lucina/Cherche, Morgan/Chrom. I had to take a few turns to get a couple more levels into Lucina before I promoted her to Bow Knight, but you may already have her up to par. In any case, get her into combat ASAP.

Kill the boss after visiting all of the houses. I gave the boss kill to Lucina.

Turns: 10

Heroes: Chrom & Morgan





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     17.88 69 34 21 26 38 36 33 20 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       1.00 39 18 3  21 19 18 16 7  A Swd
Gregor     13.36 65 34 2  37 30 17 21 7  A Swd, B Bow
Miriel      6.79 55 5  27 30 32 25 16 32 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       6.99 35 10 21 18 18 25 10 13 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina      3.66 68 31 15 31 33 36 28 17 B Swd, E Bow
Morgan      6.93 62 31 22 34 33 34 33 19 B Bow
Olivia     14.66 28 7  4  18 19 14 8  5  D Swd
Henry      14.67 32 7  15 16 11 12 14 7  C Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Miriel/Lissa
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina, Chrom|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina, Louise|Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
Chrom promoted to Great Lord. Louise is nearly ready to reclass into her final stop -- Sniper -- but I want to squeeze out those last three levels of stats first. I am expecting Miriel and Gregor to S-rank after the next map.

[spoiler=Chapter 16: Naga's Voice]

And now back to reality. Even though this chapter can be successfully rushed, the promotes and reinforcements can be problematic if you get caught up anywhere, or take too much Luna+/Hawkeye damage. I'll be using a safe strategy that kills two of the three thieves.

Keys to the chapter: kill the thieves you can get to, turtle up on the southeast isle, and kill the remaining land enemies with Longbow before taking on the boss group.

Deployment will be our primary combatants (Avatar, Morgan, Lucina, Gregor) along with a set of utility units (Miriel, Cherche, Cordelia, Olivia, Frederick). Before beginning, make sure to have a fresh Rescue staff handy, Physic, access to some Concoctions, and put Rexcalibur (or whatever your best Wind tome is) on Miriel. Strategy as follows:

  • The designated defensive area is the small strip of land in the southeast. It is surrounded by Lake tiles, which can only be traveled by fliers.
  • On Turn 1, you'll want to have Frederick + Avatar run straight north from the upper-left deployment slot to kill the Speedwing thief from 2-range. This is possible due to Fred's +1 MV Pair-up bonus. It's fine to Rescue Avatar back over on Turn 1 if you like.
  • The rest of your crew should blitz the right-hand side, killing as many units (including the thief) as possible. Put the fliers in a holding pattern over the Lake to the right, out of range of the enemies but in range of unpaired Miriel and Olivia.
  • Next, fly Miriel and Olivia over to the defensive zone. Rescue someone with Miriel, Dance her with Olivia, and then Rescue someone else. Rescue the final pair on the next Turn.
  • Only fliers can reach you here. Pegasus reinforcements are going to show up on Turn 5, including one that spawns right on top of you, so take the time to box in Miriel and get your combat pairs set up.
  • Defend until all of the map's fliers are dead. The Longbow reinforcements may come to bother you; they are easily handled by putting Morgan w/Longbow where they can reach him.
  • For Phase 2, move one or two unit pairs into the tiny choke (barely visible: check the map tiles) located 4 WEST and 2 NORTH of the southeast corner of the map. You can accomplish this by flying in Miriel, having her Rescue a pair, and then using your other flier to trade someone more suitable (like Avatar) to Miriel before the land enemies arrive.
  • Sit there and plink away. Keep in mind that Morgan can stay on the defensive zone, shooting over the Lake and killing things with his Longbow (Dance him with Olivia for maximum effectiveness).
  • My preferred pairs here are Lucina/Chrom, Miriel/Avatar, and Morgan/Gregor. You should be able to keep Cherche and Cordelia floating adjacent to the bottom pair, out of range of everything, for a Support rank boost.
Once you're done with all reinforcements, it's a simple matter to deal with the boss (who does not move) and his five-man group (who can be steamrolled by your army). I gave the boss kill to Gregor, since I want to get him that last bit of distance to Pass ASAP.

Turns: 27

Heroes: Chrom & Lucina





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     19.37 71 34 21 27 40 36 35 20 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       1.45 39 18 3  21 19 18 16 7  A Swd
Gregor     14.24 66 34 2  38 31 18 22 7  A Swd, A Bow
Miriel      9.65 56 6  27 33 35 27 18 35 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       6.99 35 10 21 18 18 25 10 13 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina      9.29 74 32 15 33 38 40 31 18 B Swd, C Bow
Morgan     10.39 66 32 22 38 36 37 36 21 B Bow
Olivia     17.29 30 8  5  21 21 16 10 5  D Swd

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Lissa
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina, Chrom|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina, Louise|Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
Gregor and Miriel finally tie the knot. Olivia is absolutely nowhere near being able to take a hit, but she has Special Dance now. Louise is a mere 63 EXP from her final reclass.

[spoiler=Paralogue 14: Shadow in the Sands]

And now, a quick detour to recruit Laurent and stock up a little bit more EXP before tackling the upcoming army of promoted enemies.

Preparations: buy a couple of Mire tomes for Laurent to use, pass him Armsthrift and Miriel's best skill (Demoiselle in my case), have a Second Seal available, and equip Miriel with your most potent Wind magic (WrecksRexcalibur is good for this).

Deployment: Miriel, Gregor, Avatar, Lucina, and Morgan as primary combatants. Olivia, Henry, Cherche, Cordelia, and Lissa as utility units.

The most difficult part of this chapter is the mad rush to prevent the upper-right village from being smashed. Not only does this cost you items, but also reinforcement EXP. Time constraints prevent setting up any sort of defensive knot, but by this point you have enough power to punch through the enemy units with Player Phase superiority. Here's the general strategy:

  • Pair Gregor with Miriel and visit the lower-left village to recruit Laurent. This puts Miriel in range of exactly two 2-range fliers, which she will obliterate on Enemy Phase. Keep them over in this quadrant of the map. Alternate: Rescue them with Lissa to augment the main force if needed.
  • Run Laurent over to Chrom, access the Convoy, and pull out all necessary Dark Magic tomes and a Second Seal. Promote to Dark Mage immediately.
  • Use fliers to get Lucina and Avatar deep north quickly. Follow with Morgan. These three will spend their time smashing their way toward the upper-right village, leapfrogging and staying close together to make sure that nobody gets boxed in.
  • Lissa, Olivia, Henry, and Laurent will form the back line. Augment Laurent's MAG with Henry and Rally MAG (from Lissa), using Dance to give him extra shots. Focus on wounded units that he can kill, preferably without Aegis+.
  • Lissa should heal units with Physic (using Olivia too if necessary) whenever someone is hurt. The main force should not be wasting actions doing self-healing.
  • High priority targets: fliers of all kinds, Berserkers, anyone with a dangerous Hawkeye/Luna+ combo.
Try to give Laurent as many kills as you can. The more levels he gets, the better he will be with Mire. His bases for me:





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Laurent    10.00 46 11 16 23 20 18 14 15 C Tme
Not bad, really. At base level he doubles and can ORKO a lot of the unpromoted enemies with a Pair-up.

Don't visit the village until you have cleared all non-boss enemies, and are in position to deal with the Enemy Phase reinforcements. Northeast village spawns reinforcements by the boss and in the lower left. Northwest village spawns enemies in the upper right and lower left. Final southeast village spawns reinforcements to the left and right. Reinforcements tend to be Berserkers, Warriors, and Pegs/Falcos.

After all waves are clear, collect the Goddess Staff (2S/1W from boss), and then give Nombry what-for.

Turns: 29

Heroes: Chrom & Morgan





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      1.94 68 34 23 30 40 37 39 21 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       2.22 40 19 3  22 20 19 17 7  A Swd
Gregor     15.71 67 35 3  38 31 19 23 7  A Swd, A Bow
Miriel     10.09 56 6  27 34 36 28 19 35 A Stf, A Tme
Lissa       9.63 37 11 24 21 19 27 10 14 A Stf, C Tme
Lucina     11.28 76 33 15 34 40 41 32 18 B Swd, C Bow
Morgan     13.21 68 34 23 38 36 38 37 22 A Bow
Laurent    13.02 58 15 19 27 22 23 23 20 B Tme
Olivia     20.47 31 9  6  22 22 19 10 6  D Swd

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Lissa
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina, Chrom|Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa/Lucina, Louise|Morgan, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Lucina
Louise reclassed to Sniper (her final class) once hitting level 20, and Laurent is swimming along as a Dark Mage. Gregor has Pass, but he doesn't have enough SPD to reclass yet. Tons of supports built.

[spoiler=Chapter 17: Inexorable Death]

This map is full of promoted units, although they don't all move at once, so there's time to get into a good defensive formation. The goal here is to secure all of the chests while leveling up on the masses of reinforcements.

Preparations: enough Mire for Laurent to siege, and plenty of staff healing (including Physics).

Deployment: Miriel, Gregor, Avatar, Lucina, Morgan, Lissa, Olivia, Laurent, Anna.

Focus the majority of your forces to the left-hand side and middle. Keep a good balance of offense between each one. The general strategy is this:

  • On Turn 1, use Player Phase offense (unpaired if necessary, for maximum damage) to steamroll through the enemies that start to the left and middle.
  • If you deploy a Long-bow user in the middle, it's possible to kill one of the three enemy Longbow users through the wall on Enemy Phase if you position properly.
  • Priority targets here: Longbow Snipers (range) and Valkyries (SPD and hitting RES).
  • The enemies from the right-hand side will come from behind, so deal with them appropriately. Take care not to aggro extra things inside the keep unless you have to.
  • The reinforcements will show up at the end of Turn 8; by that time you want to have a defensive knot set up in the center-left hallway. There are a lot of ways to do this, but I prefer to sandwich Olivia between the double walls so that she's untargetable by anything but Longbows (which are priority targets anyway), and leave Miriel adjacent to two primary fighters to the right of Olivia for maximum sustainability.
  • Make sure to Mire-bomb the lone thief on this map with Laurent. You have plenty of opportunities, even if he has Aegis+ and gets healed by the boss.
Finish the boss last, as usual, after using Anna to take care of the chests here. I had to use a SPD Tonic on Gregor in order to get him doubling against the Heroes here.

Turns: 22

Heroes: Louise & Lucina





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      2.55 69 34 24 30 40 38 39 21 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       2.22 40 19 3  22 20 19 17 7  A Swd
Gregor     17.34 69 36 3  38 32 20 24 7  A Swd, A Bow
Miriel     13.37 57 6  29 36 39 29 19 36 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina     15.34 80 36 15 37 41 43 35 18 B Swd, C Bow
Morgan      2.08 78 41 22 35 37 39 36 23 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     22.83 32 11 6  23 23 20 11 6  D Swd
Lissa      10.40 37 11 25 22 19 28 11 14 A Stf, C Tme
Laurent    17.15 60 18 20 29 25 24 25 21 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Lissa
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina, Chrom|Morgan/Lucina, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Louise|Morgan, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Lucina
Chrom and Lucina built a support level, and I reclassed Morgan to Warrior once he hit level 15 and picked up Bowfaire. Warrior will be his final class. Laurent has a few stats capped, but I'm still going to hold out for a couple more levels before I promote him to Sorcerer.

[spoiler=Chapter 18: Sibling Blades]

This is a straightforward slug fest. There are no reinforcements, lava is everywhere, and promoted enemies hit pretty hard.

Preparations: Fortify staff and plenty of Physics for Miriel.

Deployment: Miriel, Gregor, Avatar, Lucina, Morgan, Lissa, Olivia, Laurent, Anna, Cherche.

I'm including Anna to account for the slim possibility that you can get to the chests before the lava eats them, but in reality there are too many 1-range combatants here to make it very feasible. You might get to one, maybe up to three if you are quick. Cherche is here to give you some flying mobility, and a partner for Avatar.

The most dangerous enemies here are the Griffon Riders, since they have long reach and can bypass your choke points, although it's very helpful that they cannot attack excerpt from solid ground that other units can stand on. Your units are going to take a LOT of damage, often spread out, which is why you want Fortify and Physics on Miriel with Olivia nearby for Dancing.

There is no complicated strategy here: just focus everyone in a pack in the middle (safer for bow users), and grind your way down towards the boss. I chose to keep Laurent with Lucina, since I want to get them built to S-rank ASAP. I made up for the EXP loss a bit by sniping Yen'fay with Mire as I approached him.

Turns: 16

Heroes: Lucina & Laurent





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      3.66 69 35 24 31 40 39 39 21 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       2.95 40 19 3  22 20 19 17 7  A Swd
Gregor     18.82 70 37 3  39 32 21 24 7  A Swd, A Bow
Miriel     17.56 60 7  33 37 41 29 20 37 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina     17.31 80 37 15 38 42 45 36 18 B Swd, B Bow
Morgan      4.34 80 42 23 37 39 41 36 24 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     24.44 34 11 6  24 25 21 12 7  D Swd
Lissa      11.08 37 12 26 22 20 28 11 15 A Stf, C Tme
Laurent    19.93 60 18 20 29 26 26 25 21 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan, Laurent|Lucina/Miriel
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor
A few scattered supports gained here, plus Miriel picked up Dual Support+ during the chapter.

[spoiler=Chapter 19: The Conqueror]

WALHART.

Preparations: Consumable heals on hand for your non-Chrom group.

Deployment: Whoever is being trained.

There's only one way to approach this chapter, and that's to sit on forts and tank the reinforcements until they stop coming. Hopefully you have four strong unit pairs and can sit on both sets of bottom forts, otherwise just use one set. Reinforcements stop after the Turn 8 wave. Don't be lazy about killing people: they won't spawn if there are 50 enemy units on the map, so keep the numbers down to maximize EXP.

I sent Louise/Fred and Gregor/Miriel west, with Morgan/Chrom and Lucina/Laurent going east. Laurent was able to do some Nos-tanking for EXP when Counter density was low. Gregor reclassed into a Warrior (final class), and Laurent promoted to Sorcerer.

Walhart was a complete badass and took two rounds to kill.

Turns: 30

Heroes: Lucina & Laurent





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      5.76 71 36 25 32 40 40 40 22 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       3.57 41 20 3  23 20 19 18 7  A Swd, E Lnc
Gregor      2.24 80 43 3  36 29 21 26 9  E Axe, A Bow
Miriel     18.49 61 7  33 37 41 30 20 38 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina     19.43 80 38 15 40 43 47 36 18 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan      7.15 80 44 24 39 41 43 38 25 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     24.44 34 11 6  24 25 21 12 7  D Swd
Lissa      11.08 37 12 26 22 20 28 11 15 A Stf, C Tme
Laurent     9.18 73 20 26 35 32 30 30 26 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan
           B - Louise|Lissa/Miriel/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan, Laurent|Lucina
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel
Gregor's SPD is in trouble, though Miriel's Pair-Up bonuses really help. He's screwed big time, and I haven't used any stat boosters yet, so I may throw them on if it starts to become a problem.

[spoiler=Chapter 20: The Sword or the Knee]

This map starts with the cap of 50 units already on the map (49 Valm plus one Thief), with an additional eighteen units arriving as reinforcements from the bottom of the map at the end of Turn Four. Math wizards here will note that the practical implications of this, are that you need to kill at least 18 units during the first four Phases if you want to maximize EXP. So that's what I'll be doing here.

Preparations: Mire and Nosferatu tomes for Laurent, sufficient Rescue juice for Miriel and Lissa.

Deployment: Avatar, Lucina, Laurent, Gregor, Miriel, Morgan as primaries. Lissa, Olivia, Anna, Kellam, and Frederick as utility and slot-in Support partners. Yes, Kellam.

The defensive stand on this map is going to be made outside the northwest treasure room, backs to the door. The northeast treasure room is no good for the job: the Thief will make it there by Turn 3, and once the door is opened, your back lines are exposed to enemies with Pass, since there aren't any terrain features here that can slow them down. It's possible to kill him with Mire before he gets there, but that can be tricky depending on enemy skill distribution. The only thing at stake is a Spirit Dust, so just let it go.

Deployment here will involve putting your heavy hitters (and their partners) mostly to the left hand side, with the exception of Lucina and Laurent, who will be doing this:

[spoiler=Come at me, bro.]N4btyTi.jpg?2

Some general points for the chapter:

  • The bottom-row Generals and the Cervantes group will move immediately. Excellus and crew won't move until the reinforcements show up. The Valm units on the wings and in front of the treasure room doors, won't move (ever) unless you get in their range.
  • If you are feeling brave and have the stats, Laurent (with Support Lucina) can Nosferatank the Cervantes group, which helps immensely. This is possible because there are only 2-4 units that will attack you at 1-range (Heroes guaranteed, Warriors maybe), thus avoiding a lot of potential Counter damage. If you DO need to eliminate a Counter enemy or two for safety reasons, Laurent can kill/injure one, and you could also have Avatar or Morgan kill another before being Rescued out of range. Give him lots of tonics and/or a forged Nosferatu if Laurent needs more power here.
  • Everyone else should rush west and kill the four Generals there immediately. Next Turn, make your way north, with the goal of setting up a 3x2 defensive block in front of the treasure room door. Olivia and multiple Rescue staff uses will really help out here.
  • Watch out for the two Longbow users with Excellus. They have a higher effective mt than you might expect, because of the possibility that someone has Rally STR. Protect your squishy targets, and eliminate the Longbows first. Mire is helpful for this, as it Avatar with a Longbow herself. Anna with a little defensive help can take a shot to the face and survive it.
  • Laurent (as well as Lucina) can also make for a good decoy against the Excellus group. They are all individual-aggro prior to Turn 4, so you can draw a few away by standing at the top of a statue with Nosferatu (or just attract the Longbow users one at a time to take them out). It's not wise to try to man-mode them, since the group is largely composed of 1-range enemies, but you can thin out the herd and make it easier to get into the defensive spot. Rescue Laurent out of there once things get hairy (which can happen fairly quickly once the reinforcements catch up).
  • Remember to pick up the chests once you deal with the reinforcements.
  • Don't leave injured enemies if you can help it. The knot of Physic users near Walhart will move to heal wounded units (they will move back afterwards if there are no injuries).
  • Walhart is no freaking joke. His entire crew aggros whenever you are in range of any of them. You need 42 SPD to double him, effective weapons won't work, and he has Aegis+ and Pavise+ guaranteed. I highly recommend sending an extremely strong Pair to fight him (such as Morgan + Avatar or Lucina), try to separate him from his healers, and bank on a tasty crit on the Support partner.
I picked off the Heroes around Walhart with Mire, and sent MorganxLouise to deal with the Conquerer himself. Managed to get a Rout here, which was nice.

Turns: 22

Heroes: Lucina & Laurent





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      6.32 72 36 25 32 40 40 40 22 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       4.24 42 21 3  24 21 20 18 7  A Swd, E Lnc
Gregor      2.81 80 43 3  36 29 21 26 9  E Axe, A Bow
Miriel      1.00 63 7  35 37 43 30 20 38 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina      1.00 80 38 16 41 43 47 36 19 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan     10.91 80 47 24 41 42 45 38 25 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     26.24 36 12 9  26 26 22 12 7  D Swd
Lissa      11.56 37 12 26 22 20 28 11 15 A Stf, C Tme
Laurent    14.62 77 21 30 38 33 33 34 29 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick/Miriel, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan, Laurent|Lucina
           B - Louise|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel
Built a pair of A supports, and reclassed Miriel/Lucina back into their current classes for a few more stat-up opportunities. Getting close to the end, now.

[spoiler=Chapter 21: Five Gemstones]

There are two ways to approach this chapter: either a mad rush to the boss, or a Scorched Earth™ slug-fest. I specifically trained Laurent for the latter, so that's what I will be doing. Pack a lunch.

Preparations: enough uses of Mire such that you can attack 90-100+ times, taking Armsthrift into account. This is not a joke.

Deployment: Avatar, Lucina, Morgan, Miriel, Gregor, Laurent, Anna.

Laurent will spending the entire chapter lobbing Mire hits on the otherwse-untouchable Sorcerers that spawn in the twenty four staircases on the sides of the map. You want to give him as much MAG and crit chance as humanly possible: I suggest a Miriel support (for Dual Support+), as well as using either Focus (+10 crit when alone) or Solidarity (Avatar or Morgan) to boost it further. Roughly 20-30% listed crit should be attainable under ordinary circumstances.

Everyone else will be taking out the normal enemies, plus reinforcements. A good first Turn move is to position Longbow!Avatar above the closed door: she can kill the Mire Sorcerer, and then counter-attack the normal guy on Enemy Phase. The "normal" reinforcements arrive on Turns 5 (left stairs), 6 (right stairs), 7 (bottom stairs), 8 (left stairs again), and 9 (right and bottom stairs). I like to park everyone (except Laurent) in the center chamber, where they can counter-attack ranged enemies through the wall, as well as pick off melee enemies that are running by. You can create a "safe zone" once you carve up a corner of the upper-right portion of the map.

Don't forget to get the treasure chests with Anna, and kill the boss last. The boss DOES move, so stay out of his range until you are ready for him.

Turns: 85 (that right, bitches: full clear)

Heroes: Miriel & Laurent





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise      9.56 74 37 26 34 40 41 40 23 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       5.26 43 21 3  24 22 20 18 8  A Swd, E Lnc
Gregor      3.02 80 44 4  37 30 22 27 9  E Axe, A Bow
Miriel      2.07 63 8  35 37 43 30 21 39 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina      3.89 80 39 17 42 43 49 36 20 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan     13.21 80 49 24 41 42 47 39 25 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     26.24 36 12 9  26 26 22 12 7  D Swd
Lissa      11.56 37 12 26 22 20 28 11 15 A Stf, C Tme
Laurent     2.51 80 22 35 42 34 44 36 31 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel
           A - Louise|Frederick/Miriel, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan, Laurent|Lucina
           B - Louise|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Louise
Lucina and Morgan both have four capped stats. Excellent™. Laurent hit Sorcerer level 20 partway through the chapter, so I just reclassed him back into Sorcerer for more stat gains. If you're wondering why his LCK is so high, it's because I threw my Goddess Icons on him to preserve some Mire uses (nobody else really needs them anyway). He gained 7 levels during the chapter.

[spoiler=Chapter 22: An Ill Presage]

There are only twelve non-boss enemies in this chapter, but they've got legendary weapons or illegal (brave) forges, and in terms of stats... well, they've been hitting the gym. Couple that with the Lunatic+ skills, and we've got something of a heavy lift. It's time to smash the piggy bank, and put your spare change to work. I have over 76k gold on my file (thanks, Armsthrift!), so this won't be a problem.

Preparations: Acquire a Brave Bow (Nergal's team), and forge max mt on it. Then forge max mt on a Nosferatu tome. You don't need bonus HIT or crit on these right now, but if it turns out to be necessary later, you can add to the forges without penalty.

Deployment: Avatar, Lucina, Morgan, Miriel, Gregor, Laurent, Olivia, Lissa. Plus any excess utility that you think you may need.

It's hard to give specific movements for this chapter due to variances in skills and player stats, but here's the general deal:

  • The enemies here are grouped into three teams, and won't aggro you until either 1) you get in range of one of them or 2) during Turn 3 Enemy Phase. Aversa never moves.
  • Doubling is very important here: don't forget about SPD tonics. You need at least 49 SPD to double all of the right-side enemies (because there's an Assassin and a Yewfelle Sniper), and 44 SPD for the left-side ones. The northern group is trickier due to having a Swordmaster with 51 modified SPD (!!!), but Yewfelle can get someone like Lucina or Morgan to 56 SPD for doubling if needed.
  • If someone with a Brave weapon has Luna+, be careful. Those guys will tear people apart.
  • The Bow Knight on the LHS is a huge jerk. Not only does he have absurd reach and a Brave Bow, but he'll have Bowbreaker too. Be careful.
  • Speaking of Bowbreaker, Lucina and Avatar also have this skill, so it's useful to use them as point-(wo)men for the job on Turn 1. Not just for the avoid, but also for the added hit chance.
  • If you set up a good Turn 1 Enemy Phase, with Dual Strikes and forges, the rest of the map is academic. You have two turns to clean up the leftovers before the top group will come to play.
  • Don't forget about your Rally skills.
I used Rally STR (Morgan) and Rally MAG (Lissa) before starting. Each side has a physical and a magical attacker, so it worked out.

First, I sent Laurent + Lucina to the west. With Lucina's MV, you can make it to the only person who will bother to attack you at 1-range: the Gungnir Paladin. Attack with your forged Nosferatu, and there's a high chance that the two of them will clear out the whole LHS by themselves, assuming you have a strong weapon on Lucina. Even if they fail (because of Aegis+ or lack of DS activations), it's an easy clean-up. Next, I sent Louise to the RHS, with the Brave Bow and Miriel as a support. They were able to take down the Yewfelle Sniper and Valflame Valkyrie without a problem, leaving only two enemies for the next Player Phase (which is like shooting fish in a barrel).

The top group was handled by drawing the two mages on the end to their maximum range into the waiting arms of bow-users, and then I just collapsed onto the remaining War Cleric and Swordmaster. The whole business was wrapped up by Turn 4 Player Phase, and then it was just a matter of running up to assassinate Aversa, who gets turned into road pizza by all the Bows in this army.

Turns: 5

Heroes: Louise & Miriel





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     10.38 75 38 27 34 40 42 41 24 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       5.32 43 21 3  24 22 20 18 8  A Swd, E Lnc
Gregor      3.02 80 44 4  37 30 22 27 9  E Axe, A Bow
Miriel      2.38 63 8  35 37 43 30 21 39 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina      4.23 80 40 17 42 43 49 37 21 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan     13.37 80 49 24 41 42 47 39 25 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     26.64 36 12 9  26 26 22 12 7  D Swd
Laurent     4.43 80 22 35 42 35 45 37 32 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel, Laurent|Lucina
           A - Louise|Frederick/Miriel, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan
           B - Louise|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Louise
Laurent and Lucina, S-rank! Fun fact: Laurent has 100% Vengeance activation with Lucina Pair-up. <3

[spoiler=Chapter 23: Invisible Ties]

LAURENT

Preparations: Reclass Lissa to a Falcon Knight, and make sure to have sufficient Rescue/Physic uses for two healers.

Deployment: Laurent, Lucina, Miriel, Gregor, Lissa, Morgan, Olivia.

The enemy layout here favors Laurent in the same way that Cervantes and crew did in Ch20: a high number of units that will attack from 2-range (Assassins, Sorcerers, Zerks/Generals with 1-2 range weapons), and thus are not a Counter threat. It's a perfect environment for Nosferatu tanking, although the placement is very particular (there are pockets of 1-range enemies, and reinforcements can be problematic). You'll need to use Avatar, Morgan, and Gregor to do some surgery.

Start by running Avatar and Chrom towards Validar; we want to kill him and drop the Barrier as soon as possible, so that Rescue staves are usable again. Pair Lucina and Laurent (with capped SKL and SKL tonics, they now have a 94% Dual Strike chance with Laurent as the Lead unit), and attack the Silver Lance General from the lower right. This will leave LxL in range of two Assassins, two Sorcerers, a Tomahawk Zerker, and a Hero, all of which they will obliterate like a fist of an angry god. Have Morgan kill the Sorcerer on the bottom edge of the map, and everyone else should retreat outside of enemy range.

Next Turn, bring down the Barrier. At this point, LxL should maneuver such that 1) no more than one 1-range Counter enemy can get to them, and 2) be in range of as many other enemies as possible. Laurent can easily kill any target, so if there are two Counter enemies, just kill one. Meanwhile, use the rest of your army to stick-and-move down bottom: kill someone, perhaps using Dance as well, and Rescue people back to safety. All of the enemies crammed down bottom have 1-range, which is perfect for the bow-users. Loop Avatar into the fray once you are able. Keep Basilio and Flavia far out of range of anything.

Reinforcements arrive via stairs: Turn 4 right side, Turn 5 both sides, Turn 6 both sides. Block the stairs if you don't want to fight them. There are no more reinforcements after Turn 6, so just take out Validar. He is a pain in the ass because of his skill set (Dragonskin, Vengeance, Renewal, two Lunatic+ skills), but he will not move, so just take your time chipping away at his health bar and watch out for counterattacks.

Turns: 8

Heroes: Lucina & Laurent





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     10.82 75 38 27 34 40 42 41 24 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       5.44 43 21 3  24 22 20 18 8  A Swd, E Lnc
Gregor      3.28 80 44 4  37 30 22 27 9  E Axe, A Bow
Miriel      3.61 64 8  36 37 44 30 21 39 A Stf, A Tme
Lucina      5.42 80 41 17 42 43 49 37 21 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan     14.47 80 49 25 41 42 48 39 26 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     27.31 37 12 9  27 27 23 12 7  D Swd
Laurent     8.52 80 24 38 42 37 45 39 34 A Tme

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel, Laurent|Lucina
           A - Louise|Frederick/Miriel, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan
           B - Louise|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina, Lucina|Morgan
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Louise
Lucina and Morgan both have capped all of their important offensive parameters; they don't need to level up anymore. Louise is short two points of STR and then she's done. Laurent is far off of his caps, so he'll probably continue to see the majority of whatever combat is left before Grima.

[spoiler=Chapter 24: Awakening]

There are too many fliers and 1-range enemies to repeat the Nosferatu strategy from the last chapter, so this will be a standard clear.

Preparations: Put defensive tonics on your primary combatants (DEF, RES, HP), and make sure that everyone has Elixirs. These enemies really hurt.

Deployment: Avatar, Laurent, Lucina, Morgan, Miriel.

The defensive zone for this map is the center of the bottom edge of the map: a three-tile-wide forested area protected on the top by a wall. Getting into position here will give you only two 1-range enemy facings, plus whoever can shoot over the wall. It's important to limit facings here, because some of the Wyvern Lords have 60+ mt. Taking Luna+ into account, it only takes a couple of those guys to really ruin someone's day.

The enemies have a clear mobility advantage here, so it's important to get into position quickly. Morgan with Lucina's +MV bonus can just barely make it to one of the starting bottom Paladins (kill him), and LaurentxMiriel can sneak in below him to Rescue AvatarxChrom, who can just make it far enough to kill the Valkyrie on the bottom edge to the right. After Enemy Phase, a Wyvern Lord will have moved next to Avatar, so kill him with Morgan from the left, slide Avatar all the way to the right (healing if necessary, otherwise just shoot something), and finally Miriel moves to take Avatar's place and dump Laurent to her right (purpose of this is to clog up space and prevent a Pass enemy from sneaking in).

Next Turn, rejoin Laurent and Miriel, move Morgan to close up the hole, and now your defensive position is set. Just sit here and fire away, healing as needed. Use Laurent to preemptively kill dangerous Hawkeye/Luna+ enemies from afar with Mire. All of the enemies will eventually make their way to you, boss included, so there is no need to move. Combat gets pretty easy once they run out of guys with 1-2 range weapons.

Turns: 14

Heroes: Louise & Chrom





           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS Wlvl
Louise     13.41 77 39 27 36 40 45 41 27 A Swd, A Bow
Chrom       6.25 44 21 3  24 23 20 19 8  A Swd, E Lnc
Miriel      4.19 64 8  37 38 44 30 21 39 A Stf, A Tme
Laurent    10.11 80 26 39 42 38 45 41 34 A Tme
Lucina      5.81 80 41 17 42 43 49 37 21 A Swd, A Bow
Morgan     16.21 80 49 25 41 42 48 40 26 A Bow, E Axe
Olivia     27.31 37 12 9  27 27 23 12 7  D Swd

Supports   S - Louise|Chrom, Gregor|Miriel, Laurent|Lucina
           A - Louise|Frederick/Miriel, Gregor|Lissa, Chrom|Morgan, Lucina|Morgan
           B - Louise|Lissa/Lucina/Morgan, Chrom|Lucina
           C - Chrom|Lissa, Laurent|Gregor/Miriel/Louise
Morgan and Lucina built to A-rank, just in time for Endgame. These can be considered the FINAL STATS for my team, as I am done leveling up.

[spoiler=Chapter 25: To Slay a God]

The only characters that matter going forward are Morgan and Lucina, so I am skipping this chapter. If you need extra EXP, a useful clearing technique is to send your unit left or right to the mountains, which allows you to fight only fliers for a while.

Preparations: Feed Lucina a SPD Tonic and give her your forged Brave Bow.

Deployment: Lucina, Lissa, Miriel, Olivia, Anna.

Lucina with a Brave Bow will paste Aversa like a booger under a chair. This team exists solely to get her there (Lucina is the easiest to make this work, since she has high SPD and a +MV Pair bonus). On your first and only Turn (note that this can be done in fewer steps, this is just a RNG-proof version):

  • Use Miriel to Rescue the Lissa/Lucina Pair as far north as possible.
  • Anna Rescues Olivia north.
  • Lissa moves 11 squares south of Aversa, Rescues Olivia.
  • Olivia Dances Lissa.
  • Fly north, Switch to Lucina, and hit Aversa for 4x59 damage. Note that it doesn't even matter if Aversa has Aegis+, she still dies on the third hit.
Take that, bitch.

Turns: 1

Heroes: None

[spoiler=Endgame: Grima]

It's on like Michelle Kwan.

Preparations: Put offensive tonics on Lucina and Morgan (STR, SKL, LCK), and MAG on Laurent. Blow the dust off of the Parallel Falchion and equip Lucina with it. Give Morgan your Brave Bow.

Deployment: Lucina, Morgan, Miriel, Lissa, Olivia, Anna, Avatar, Laurent, Basilio.

On Turn 1, use Laurent + Olivia to kill off one of the five guys blocking Grima (pick one without Aegis+) with Mire. You'll need 39 MAG for a Berserker, and 45 MAG for a General. One less with Special Dance. Get to that MAG target with whatever means are needed (Dusts, Rally MAG, Pair-up, whatever). Move everyone else as far north as possible, un-paired, staying out of enemy range. Make sure to get Morgan and Lucina (Paired) towards the top. End Turn.

Turn 2, hit the Morgan/Lucina pair with a Rally STR. Run them through the hole that Laurent made, and attack Grima with Morgan using a Brave Bow. He will do 13x4 damage, with 16 damage Dual Strikes from Lucina. Math nerds will note that this is an overkill ORKO on Grima, and Lucina can miss a proc or whiff a hit and still get the curb stomp. If you fail to kill Grima, just Rescue Olivia up there and Dance for the kill shot.

FIN. Roll credits.

Turns: 2

Heroes: Lucina & Morgan

Final Retrospective

Edited by Interceptor
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I'm no expert at Lunatic+... at all... but I'll definitely watch your playthrough for pointers.

The fact that you're training Cordelia as a Dark Mage is definitely something - good luck with that by the way. She requires a bit of RNG blessing to be useful, and even then Henry can outclass her in an instant.

I'm a bit surprised you're not using Henry: he has access to Assassin and Warrior, and obviously, he's a Dark Mage. But I suppose using him would take the challenge out of it, wouldn't it? :)

Either way, I look forward to seeing this!

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This sounds kinda interesting. I think I'm gonna try to actually follow this. (Though I'm not a particular fan of Bows.)

Though I'm (also) surprised about using Cordelia as a Dark Mage / Mire-spam.

Edited by Shirley
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Cordelia is a half-serious inclusion; she is the only first-gen unit with both Armsthrift and Dark Mage access. I'm curious if it's worth anything at all. I noticed in my ad hoc run that there was frequently a distant enemy that I wanted to kill off or injure, and I had to rely on my Longbows for it (which is more difficult).

Strictly speaking, I could always use Severa instead. Plegia is easy enough that I could get away with delaying Mire, it would save me an early Second Seal. I'd just have to re-Seal her to Dark Mage immediately, and get Tomes to C. Her stats would be horrific in all likelihood, but for Mire we only care about MAG and hit rate for the most part.

Edited by Interceptor
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I want to echo that Cordelia is a really bad mage because her magic is really bad. She starts with a whopping 3 base and ~20% growth until you can reclass her, then it's ~15% for a Merc, then it's still only ~30% as a Dark Mage. In my grind run, I tried her as a Dark Flier and even with the extra levels, her offense was just really bad. Note that Severa is going to pretty much be in the same boat with a slightly higher Mag growth (if SF listings are accurate) and base Mag (both assuming a mage father).

Even with a +Mag support and constant tonic supply, I doubt she'll be able to really keep up. Add in that Armsthrift won't be particularly reliable and you'll be burning through expensive Mires for barely any damage. I think the cash would be better off put toward more Longbows, which only cost 150 more and have 2.5 times the amount of uses.

For pair up partners, consider finding strong lance and axe users for your leading bow units. Beastkiller and Hammer dual attacks are really nasty and extremely helpful during the Valm arc (in a no grind, these and Brave weapons are the only ones I find worth forging).

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Sacrificing a lot of Mag for Armsthrift + forged Mire doesn't seem worth it to me. With Gregor's Despoil, I can't see you having any money problems. Using Henry instead with unforged Mire likely offers more punch without breaking the bank to any real extent.

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Fair enough, I'll take Cordelia off the table. I guess that using Henry in her place is probably the best default Mire option. His SPD is irrelevant to me unless he's getting doubled, and Mire is not able to be forged anyway.

As an alternative, any thoughts on maybe Laurent (GregorxMiriel)? Mirel could theoretically do double-duty as the Demoiselle unit.

The cash profile of this squad is pretty good. In my test run, Avatar and Morgan were very easily hitting the 100% Armsthrift threshold (made even easier by the respective Chrom and Lucina supports), so they always had good weapons available (forged Longbow is especially good). Gregor's activation rate was serviceable, and with a Player Phase centric strategy, Despoil coughed up a lot of bullions.

Fred is going to be available as my primary "effective weapon bot" in the Support slot. I'm not sure who else might qualify. Gregor would be an option, but he's going to be a Lead unit. Libra and Cordelia will probably suffice for Axe/Lance duty, I guess.

Edited by Interceptor
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YESSSSS.

Are you using Nosferatu?

I'm not opposed to it, but Counter introduces some reliability problems. It's pretty easy for even Nosferatu users to kill themselves on Enemy Phase. At least it doesn't cost anything to add one if I have a Mire user.

I will follow this as long as you don't use any DLC. Everything else is fair game as long as I'm concerned.

I don't think that DLC will be necessary for completion. It wasn't used on my first Lunatic+ run, which was sort of poorly planned, so for me to need it for this one I'd have to derp pretty hard.

EDIT: and by "DLC" I mean the Outrealm Gate. I'll be using the other Wireless features like Spotpass teams and Bonus Box.

Edited by Interceptor
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Fred is going to be available as my primary "effective weapon bot" in the Support slot. I'm not sure who else might qualify. Gregor would be an option, but he's going to be a Lead unit. Libra and Cordelia will probably suffice for Axe/Lance duty, I guess.

Chrom is pretty good at this as a Great Lord or Paladin, especially if you're going to be using Spotpass (yay, Armourslayers). Sully or Stahl could also be considerations for their access to Paladin and/or Great Knight. There's also Lon'qu or Panne as Wyvern Lords if you want to use more Second Seals.

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I'll keep all of those in mind. I'd like to avoid training too many Support units if I can, since things will get pretty ugly if my Lead units fall behind, so the best options will be the ones who are Good Enough™ at base.

Not sure what is going to happen with Chrom. I need to get him to level 10 for Charm, but after that, it doesn't matter what I do with him. If his stats are looking OK, I might even make him a Lead unit. Certainly I don't have a lot of potential earlygame units being trained aside from Avatar, so he is a good option to stash some EXP away. Maybe a second life as a triangle-controlling GK is the way to go.

Nice thing about effective weapons in this run, is that there isn't going to be huge pressure to kill quickly in the early Valm chapters. There's a narrow corridor to defend in Ch12, a ramp in Ch13, a plank in Ch14, and desert and a 2-wide entryway in Ch15. It only starts getting stupid in Ch16... I'm hoping that by that point, Morgan is good enough to shoulder some of the burden.

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Chrom+ Lucina is the way 2 go. He equips a rapier, and they get busy against Knights and Cavs. She needs a good mom though, but their dual attack rate is sky high, even at base support.

But if you want, you can give them other people (after CH.13), in case you want to have an easier time against Grima, with two Falchions, instead of one pair.

Edited by 1% critted
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I'll keep all of those in mind. I'd like to avoid training too many Support units if I can, since things will get pretty ugly if my Lead units fall behind, so the best options will be the ones who are Good Enough™ at base.

Yeah, I figured since your team list is pretty small, you'd just be using one, maybe two of the four (I suggested as many to make sure marriages were covered and all that jazz). With an A or S support, I find support units can usually train themselves without needing to swap in for a kill steal very often (or even at all in some cases). Since WEXP is gained at the usual rate, what they lack in raw stats, they can make up for by wielding stronger weaponry. Generally speaking, I found most of the support units on my no-grind could still deal decent enough chip damage (enough to allow the lead to one-round) with silver against non-Generals (Armourslayers and Hammers came out here). A unit trained this way will probably only get to 15/10 (unless said support is the partner of a lead unit who is getting an abnormal amount of kills, which typically happens with my Chrom since he marries FeMU), so the cavs will likely be your best bet (Discipline probably doesn't hurt, especially since Spotpass can give you access to early steel and silver).

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Anyone who doesn't have a bow and good stats is probably going to wind up as a Support bot or bench-warmer.

Or making babies, right?

Riiiiiiiight?

I mean Noire might actually be gold for you... as odd as that may sound.

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Woah, no grind L+???

No grind seems like it would be theoretically impossible to finish the later chapters though. Feel free to splurge on some of the spotpass characters (Innes comes as a lvl 12, Dual Guard+ Sniper)

If you're going to soft reset if a unit dies, you should probably go with casual and save yourself the trouble.

I'm closely going to follow this thread, you'd better finish this!

Edited by PK Gaming
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Woah, no grind L+???

No grind seems like it would be theoretically impossible to finish the later chapters though.

Nah, it actually gets easier later because characters have much better options for countering Counter. I should know because I've done it (following the same constraints as Walhart's run) and I'm pretty sure I'm not the first.

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less RNG-dependent

Always hated those chapters that relies on luck of the RNG to win them.

EDIT: and by "DLC" I mean the Outrealm Gate. I'll be using the other Wireless features like Spotpass teams and Bonus Box.

Just as long as they aren't much higher levelled, like Clair, Florina for instance are ok to use. Plus more Veteran characters are always a good thing.

If you're going to soft reset if a unit dies, you should probably go with casual and save yourself the trouble.

That we don't always bother to do and that it wouldn't really be a strategy game without perma death involved. I almost always do classic for that reason.

Edited by ポーラ
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Woah, no grind L+???

No grind seems like it would be theoretically impossible to finish the later chapters though. Feel free to splurge on some of the spotpass characters (Innes comes as a lvl 12, Dual Guard+ Sniper)

Well, my first Lunatic+ clear was no-grind, so I think it should be alright. The last four chapters plus Endgame were sort of annoying, but I basically cleared them with just two unit pairs: Sniper Avatar (Support Chrom) and Warrior Morgan (Support Lucina). Chrom was promoted but not a great combatant, and Lucina was half-trained (enough to deal 12 damage a hit to Grima on a Dual Strike). My two Lead units had capped combat stats.

So if I could pull it off with that, I think that this better-planned run should be easier.

Just as long as they aren't much higher levelled, like Clair, Florina for instance are ok to use. Plus more Veteran characters are always a good thing.

When I say "Spotpass teams" I basically just mean buying items from them; I don't intend to recruit anyone, unless for some reason I need extra cannon fodder. I expect that I'll want some early Physic and Levin Swords. Also opens up the option to have Mire prior to Ch21.
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Alright, let's get this party started.

[spoiler=PARTY TIME]MMGBQh2.jpg

I've updated the OP. Please feel free to weigh in as I go along, if anyone has feedback/suggestions or whatnot. Here is Prologue:

[spoiler=Prologue: The Verge of History]

And so we begin, with Louise the +DEF/-SKL female Avatar. As with all early Lunatic+ chapters, you are going to be something of a slave to the RNG. Not only for hits/misses, but for skill combinations, and stat level-ups (Avatar really needs HP and DEF in a hurry). Hawkeye, Luna+, Pass, and Vantage+ can all appear here; each can present its own difficulties. The last two tend to be fairly benign, although it can make walling or last-hitting a problem in certain circumstances. If the Elthunder mage up top spawns with Luna+, you may want to reset if you're going to use the water trick.

Keys to this chapter: train Avatar, don't overuse Frederick.

I like to approach this chapter by having Frederick kill the north Mercenary (OHKO, pray that he doesn't have Vantage+ and Luna+), leaving him in position to weaken the nearby Barbarians on Enemy Phase. Chrom can move all the way to the right and down, to stay in range of only the right-hand Mercenary (he will not be doubled, and you may want to equip his Rapier for a better hit rate).

This leaves you an easy clean-up on Turn 2 for Avatar (kill one Barbarian on Player Phase, second on Enemy Phase, and remember to Pair up with Lissa), and Chrom with Frederick as the Support has just enough pepper to finish off the Mercenary he injured on the first Turn. With any luck, the mage is in a position where Avatar with Lissa Support can kite him around with Thunder/Vulneraries for a while to farm up some EXP. Otherwise, you'll need Frederick to kill him.

From here, a useful trick: none of the enemies here can occupy a Water tile. Of your own units, only Chrom and Avatar can move onto water. Therefore, you can pair AvatarxLissa and ChromxFrederick, and have your entire team out of reach of everything except the Elthunder mage. With Lissa giving +2 MAG and +2 RES, Avatar can attract/duel the Mage (use Vulneraries on Player Phase), while ChromxFrederick play rope-a-dope elsewhere to keep the Mercs and Barbs at bay. Once the mage is dead, it's a simple matter to kill off everyone else with Thunder, worry-free.

For the boss, fight using Avatar with Thunder at 2-range. You need 8 SPD to avoid getting doubled, solved by a Pair with Chrom (you may want to unequip him to milk the EXP a little bit longer). He will have listed crit on Avatar, unless she is bracketed on both sides by Lissa and Frederick (which gives enough Support points for +dodge). Make this last as long as you can. Remember to trade items around as needed before you finish the chapter, because you won't get another chance to re-organize until Ch1 starts.

When you finally put Garrick out of his misery, that should be a minimum of seven kills (possibly more) plus the boss that you've fed to Avatar, getting to level 6-7 easily. Done correctly, this should set up the rest of the earlygame chapters.

Turns: 48 (did you think I was kidding when I said I didn't care about Turns?)

Heroes: Loiuse & Lissa

           Level HP ST MG SK SP LK DF RS
Louise      6.85 23 10 8  5  6  8  11 4
Chrom       1.40 20 7  1  8  8  5  7  1
Frederick   1.30 28 13 2  12 10 6  14 3
Lissa       3.38 18 2  7  5  5  8  4  6 
In a few more levels, Louise will basically be a second Frederick.
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