FE10 Casualty Run

[Vykan_12]

Ieattables showed me this topic yesterday and proposed I do the same challenge for Radiant Dawn. The basic idea is you sacrifice a unit every chapter (whenever possible). Here are the rules quoted directly from the FE8 topic:

THE RULES
1. Hard mode all day every day.
2. Someone must die every chapter, determined by someone else's RNG.
3. Only exceptions to the rule are the twins. Everyone else is fair game.
4. Promotions are also RNGed. But no Super Trainees. Fuck them.
5. Trainees can go to level 10 in the tower. Everyone else is out of luck.

So far I've managed up to 2-2 inclusive and the run's been easier than I expected, although I do turtle in a lot of places for reliable clears. See my casualty and chapter notes in the spoilers below:

[spoiler=Casualties]

Laura (chosen 1-4)
Meg (died in 1-4)
Edward (chosen 1-5)
Nolan (chosen 1-6-1)
Ilyana (chosen 1-6-2)
Zihark (chosen 1-7)
Muarim (chosen 1-8)

Rafiel (chosen 1-E)

Marcia (chosen 2-P)
Brom (chosen 2-2)

[spoiler=Chapters]

Chapter 1-P to 1-2: I'm reminded of how terrible the dawn brigade truly is.

Chapter 1-3: I tried going by the left side and was managing perfectly fine until I forgot about an archer reinforcement that killed Leo. I swear there was an archer on the other side of the wall that reduced Leo to 1 hp while he did 6 damage in return. When I went by the right side, I managed a safe 7 turn with a couple clever exploits to keep Sothe from getting clogged in a corridor + the usual Micaiah shove shenanigans. Ilyana was surprisingly useful here.

Chapter 1-4: With Laura sacrificed, I have to resort to herb/vulneraries for all my healing. Unfortunately I didn't bring enough so I had to use those green totem pole thingies to heal. I actually try to use Meg but then a tiger doubles her on like turn 2.

Chapter 1-5: I worked out a really nice strat that involves occupying all 5 ledges in the middle area of the map. In fact, I even managed to kill the boss with Sothe on turn 2 and keep Jill safe.

Chapter 1-6-1: Nothing too hard once Tauroneo rescues Micaiah. Made sure to build the Zihark x Volug support but that turned out to be pointless since Zihark was sacrificed in 1-7.

Chapter 1-6-2: After a couple tries I found the Tauroneo 2 turn rescue-drop strat was actually the most reliable clear since I didn't have to worry about Fiona being Fiona. Also gave up on using Jill for combat since she's been only 3HKOing enemies with a forge and never doubles.

Chapter 1-7: Lost a turn because I had nobody to shove Sothe, could've 5 turned but tried to build a Jill x Volug support, which I gave up on as soon as the enemy/other phases proved to be too long.

Chapter 1-8: Those bandits are ridiculous, somehow they manage to even make Volug look bad, Tormod doesn't double some of them, etc. Lost 5/6 prisoners, although I was safe as soon as Nailah rescued one of them. At one point I had to have Micaiah sacrifice for Vika in order to keep her alive, and Rafiel was used almost every turn.

Chapter 1-9: Copied dondon's 8 turn strat.

Chapter 1-E: This chapter made even my pre-promos (Volug, Tormod, Vika, Sothe, etc) look bad. I gave Nailah pass since I don't see any need for it in part 3 since I'm not going for LTC. Put painstaking efforts into increasing Volug's strike level, finally managed it when I glared an archer (13% chance). Got all the treasure as well.

Chapter 2-P: After seeing Chiki use Nealuchi untransformed and getting his strike levelled up in this chapter, I figured I'd try out the same antics for a bit. Nothing else to say really.

Chapter 2-1: This chapter is troll-tastic. I had to actually lure the boss into the stairs with Brom.

Chapter 2-2: Very happy with how I used Leanne on Mordecai and Lucia almost every turn and walled in certain squares to keep Leanne safe at all times.

Also, I recorded everything I did + voice commentary if you want to watch any chapter in particular.

Recording of 1-P to 2-2

Danved is most certainly not Devdan (remember, he fights like 10 men)

Edited July 23, 2013 by fireemblemvids

[Melonhead]

rules 3-5 don't exactly make sense anymore.

Still, this seems interesting. I'm assuming you are killing off the weakest of the bunch always?

Nvm

Edited July 23, 2013 by Melonhead

[Tables]

Yeah rules 3-5 don't make sense. The rules are basically:

Hard Mode

Every chapter during preparation, randomly choose someone allowed to die in the next chapter. They have to die at some point in that chapter. I think not recruiting Aran and losing Meg might have come back to bite a little towards the end of Part 1, since it upped the chance of losing valuable characters considerably.

[SB.]

oh god i forgot how bad my kyle and forde were

He's probably gonna be fine though. GMs are full of buff characters and the worst is behind him.

[PKL]

Who was the 1-E kill?

[Florete]

Rule 3 basically becomes "anyone who's death will give me a game over."

[shadykid]

Rule 3 basically becomes "anyone who's death will give me a game over."

so if you were to do this in Awakening and include paralogues, you'd be left with only Chrom and Avatar?

[Vykan_12]

Who was the 1-E kill?

Rafiel. Edited my post to include him and crossed out rules 3-5. Just made it past 2-3 and still currently streaming.

Edited July 23, 2013 by fireemblemvids

[Vykan_12]

Updated to 3-12. I've had really bad luck in sacrifice selection, lost Titania, Haar and Gatrie very early on and really got to notice the impact of their absence.

[spoiler=Casualties]

Astrid (chosen 2-3)

Danved (chosen 2-E)

Gatrie (chosen 3-P)

Rolf (chosen 3-1)

Haar (chosen 3-2)

Soren (chosen 3-3)

Lethe (chosen 3-4)

Rhys (chosen 3-5)

Volug (chosen 3-6)

Titania (chosen 3-7)

Janaff (chosen 3-8)

Calill (chosen 3-9)

Mist (chosen 3-10)

Boyd (chosen 3-11)

Mia (died 3-11)

Fiona (chosen 3-12)

[spoiler=Chapters]

Chapter 2-3: This chapter was a nightmare. I used Chiki's LTC strat of forming a vertical line with my units (which includes directing the allied units along with me), then I would have Makalov sit unarmed at the fence area and effectively clog half the enemies in the middle of the map. The problem comes at the very end of the map, as you cannot leave anyone too close to the throne, otherwise they get sniped from above a ledge by two very strong steel longbow users. On my third attempt, the boss also double critted Geoffrey with the wo dao, which is something like a 4% chance. The only person the boss doesn't double at base level is Danved, so I should've had him face the boss, believe it or not.

Chapter 2-E: Since Danved was my sacrifice, I had to play out 8 turns before beating the chapter. I basically hit & run the enemies in the middle area of the map, then send Mordy right and Haar left to cover 2 crucial chokepoints. I actually have Nealuchi guard the left stairs at the end of the map with good success, which frees up Haar to assist Elincia in doing hit & runs on the southern enemies. Elincia eventually finishes off the boss after luring him out.

Chapter 3-P: The only challenging part of this chapter was getting Gatrie killed since he was my sacrifice unit. I actually had to have him rescue a unit and attack a mage, then had to put an unarmed Titania in front of the boss to prevent Skrimir from seizing, then had to have Gatrie (still carrying someone) attack the boss 2-3 times.

Chapter 3-1: Without Gatrie, this actually played out until the final turn. I probably could've saved a lot of time sending Ike northwest instead of having everyone do an inverted C-turn through the level.

Chapter 3-2: Very easy, lured the boss out with Titania and ganged up on him. Should've played out this chapter more to develop my units. A real pity I had to lose Haar here.

Chapter 3-3: Not having Haar or celerity really hurt (recall I lost Ilyana and couldn't send over any items!) here, and I had to play this out to the last turn as well.

Chapter 3-4: I had Mordecai, Kyza, Lethe and Mist hold off the enemies directly north where the first ledge is, and send everyone else west.

Chapter 3-5: At this point I got to taste how weakened my army was. Even with a steel forge and C Ike support, Oscar was facing 40-50 display hit and 3HKOing without doubling enemies in return. Ike was also failing to ORKO enemies by 2-4 damage. I played the chapter defensively, guarding all the top ledges and the stairs, and doing a little aggro with Titania since I managed to promote her and she was the only unit even remotely capable on offense.

Chapter 3-6: Incredibly easy actually. I gave Sothe resolve + savior, unarmed him, rescued Micaiah and made him use a concoction every time he was hit. I also made the allied units move towards Sothe, which minimizes the attacks he faces until the black knight shows up. Once the BK is here, Sothe and the BK can be adjacent, which means only one enemy can attack Sothe at a time, effectively reducing his odds of dying to 0% (take one hit -> heal every turn).

Chapter 3-7: Super boring, trained the strike level for my hawks. Had to sacrifice Titania, which was painful.

Chapter 3-8: Gave Ulki halfshift and got him to S strike. Oscar x Ike finally reached A level and they're both effectively invincible, but doing terrible combat-wise. My other units are doing even worse: Boyd and Mia have barely leveled at all despite being actively used, although Shinon is doing quite well, but he is player phase locked for the most part.

Chapter 3-9: Pretty straightforward. Geoffrey brave lances the boss, Kieran finishes.

Chapter 3-10: I didn't give Ike a wind edge and it cost him dearly. I send him, Oscar and Ulki northeast while everyone else deals with the southern enemies. I also make Reyson use a laguz stone on turn 1 since I need all the offense I can get right away. I'm pretty sure by this point I am completely broke, have like 300g left and had to sell generic weapons just to afford a steel bow for Shinon.

Chapter 3-11: I inherit 30,000g in cash, as well as a serviceable amount of BEXP and a master crown, and Ike gets ragnell. I manage to promote both Shinon and Oscar, and along with Ike and Ulki, they basically power my offense. I must say, having fliers cover traps makes really short work of this map, and Shinon's 3 range is invaluable in a terrain-heavy level like this. I lose Mia towards the end of the chapter because I forgot she gets 2 shotted and really needs some kind of avo support for her durability. Since I already have Ike x Oscar going, I don't bother resetting.

Chapter 3-12: Fairly trivial, give Tauroneo BEXP, master crown, celerity and some quality axes, have him rain down hand axes from atop a ledge, hide Sothe in a corner like in 3-6, make the NPCs actually do stuff.

General observations:

-Haar, Titania and Gatrie make all the difference in the world. Without them, my turn count on most chapters basically doubles-triples.

-I deploy Mordecai in every map just to have him smite units, usually Reyson.

-Ranulf's been surprisingly useful, as he reduces armors to 1/2 hp and most enemies to 1/3 hp while never having durability issues transformed.

-Not being able to send any items via Ilyana to the GMs was also a great burden. No celerity, energy drop, dracoshield, seraph robe, brave sword, paragon, etc.

-Nobody can double worth a damn in the greil mercenaries. I couldn't believe it when Oscar failed to double a druid.

-Hard mode without your best characters is, well, hard. Go figure.

-My units are levelling so little (and not even attempting LTC) that I feel like I'm playing 0% growths sometimes.