6 turn clear of Chapter 17 in HHM without a second paladin

[ruadath]

The discussion of how to achieve this is clogging up the thread for my LTC, so I've decided to create a separate thread like I did with chapter 14. Let's recap what we know so far:

Turn 1: Marcus moves forward 8 spaces and ends his turn carrying one of the cavs. He is 39 squares away from the throne.
Turn 2: Marcus moves forward another 8 spaces and drops of the cavalier in front of him; let us refer to this cavalier as Cav 1. Another cav or two (and maybe Florina) need to be reasonably close by him. Marcus is 31 spaces away from the throne, Cav 1 is 30 spaces away.
Turn 3: Generic cavs/Florina clear out enemies who may be in the way. A cav (let us refer to him as Cav 2) moves next to Marcus. Marcus rescue him and moves forward only 7 spaces. Cav 1 moves 7 spaces forward as well, takes Cav 2 from Marcus, and drops him forward. Marcus is now 24 spaces away from the throne, Cav 1 is 23, and Cav 2 is 22.
Turn 4: Cav 1 rescues Marcus and moves 7 spaces forward. Cav 2 moves ahead of Cav 1, takes Marcus and drops him forward. Hector is probably lagging a bit behind now, so someone needs to rescue him so that he can get Give-chained to Marcus on the next turn. Cav 1 is 16 spaces away from the throne, Cav 2 is 15 spaces away, and Marcus is 14 spaces away.
Turn 5: Hector somehow gets given to Marcus. Marcus moves forward 8 spaces and drops Hector forward. This puts Hector in seizing range and things should be able to work out from there.

Turn 3: Marcus and two of my 7 mov units (cav 1 and cav 2) are occupied with moving this turn, and I need to have my other 2 7 mov units (or 3 if one of the cav#'s is priscilla, but I doubt it) take care of an archer and a knight who are standing in the way. I'm going to need 2 crits to do this. Lowen can take care of the knight with a crit+hit (even with a Javelin, which is likely since he's far behind). Florina is the only person who can double the archer (with the Slim Lance), though to ORKO him she needs a critical on one of the hits and a Str proc from previous combat. This also (I think) puts her in range for a nomad to attack her, which I guess means she'll have to dodge.

Let's call the person who takes care of the archer cav 3, and the person who takes care of the knight cav 4. Obviously we need to assign roles. Marcus is Marcus, and:

- Cav 4 needs to be Sain or Lowen (only people strong enough to kill the knight with a javelin hit+crit)

- it is useful to let Cav 3 be Florina so that she doesn't get absolutely mauled by the 2 nomads + 2 archers+ a hammer guy who attack Marcus and co. on turn 3 EP. She can do the job as long as she gets a Str proc beforehand.

My first real attempt at this, during which all units survived through the end of EP3, had Kent as Cav 1, Lowen as Cav 2, Florina as Cav 3, and Sain as Cav 4. However, I got stuck after that, as I had to clear out 3 enemies with two units (Sain and Florina) so that Marcus and co. could advance. There are two ways, as far as I can tell, to get around this

- switch Kent and Lowen's role so that the enemies are positioned differently, and hope for a better result.

- try and figure out a way to get Kent to kill the Hammer guy when he attacks him. He's a couple of points short on Str, and can't double with the Iron Blade (and too low weapon rank to use Killing Edge), so I'd have to rely on a random crit. This doesn't seem so great considering that I have a reasonable amount of dodges to rig on that turn as well.

so I'm probably going to try the first option out. I found it useful to have Lowen as cav 2, because cav 2 gets to stay in the back and help the ground troops clear out enemies during the first couple of turns. Lowen is my strongest unit, and in particular:

- Lowen and Matthew have just enough power to take out the myrmidon on the first turn.

- If Lowen has the heavy spear, he can take out a bothersome knight on turn 3 when he moves up to get rescued by Marcus

However, I think I can deal with this issue in the following ways

- for killing the myrmidons, I think either reorganizing who attacks who, or giving Kent the Heavy Spear should work

- Lowen can take out the annoying knight on EP2 if he has the Heavy Spear (the knight could choose to target Marcus instead, but Marcus can kill him pretty easily with two swings of the Iron Axe)

so that is basically where I am at right now. Any suggestions? I'll update this thread as more progress is made.

[ruadath]

My first real attempt at this, during which all units survived through the end of EP3, had Kent as Cav 1, Lowen as Cav 2, Florina as Cav 3, and Sain as Cav 4. However, I got stuck after that, as I had to clear out 3 enemies with two units (Sain and Florina) so that Marcus and co. could advance. There are two ways, as far as I can tell, to get around this

- switch Kent and Lowen's role so that the enemies are positioned differently, and hope for a better result.

- try and figure out a way to get Kent to kill the Hammer guy when he attacks him. He's a couple of points short on Str, and can't double with the Iron Blade (and too low weapon rank to use Killing Edge), so I'd have to rely on a random crit. This doesn't seem so great considering that I have a reasonable amount of dodges to rig on that turn as well.

Actually, if I buy a Steel Sword in Chapter 16, Kent could probably deal with this guy.

Edited December 24, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

Survived turn 3! (again) Matthew needed to use a Vulnerary. I didn't buy the Steel Sword/Lance

While the situation is now possible to advance from, I need to rig a couple of crits from Sain and Florina, and unfortunately the RNG is not particularly in my favor (have to mass burn RNs if I want to do so). Not entirely sure what I'm going to do.

EDIT: Florina can be positioned below Sain instead of to his right in order to get the nomad out of the way. Then Sain should hopefully be able to crit kill the archer with Florina's Slim Lance. Alternatively, if I can redo what has been done in this playthrough so far with Sain swapping positions with Lowen, I should be able to just have Lowen barge through that archer. Sain isn't quite as tanky as Lowen, however, so there may be some problems.

Edited December 24, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

I tried modifying the above strategy by cleverly trading the Heavy Spear to Lowen so that he killed the closest armored knight on turn 2 EP (the one below Florina on the picture), hoping that it would make things easier. However, this turned out to be the incorrect move to make, as it resulted in the nomad being too scared to go down and attack Florina, so the passage ended up getting clogged like normal. I guess this means I'll have to try swapping Sain and Lowen to see what happens.

[ruadath]

No real progress since yesterday yet, but I have figured out that (at the expense of Priscilla getting a turn healing, and possibly a Vulnerary) I can have Priscilla and Kent bring up Erk to help out on turn 4 if necessary.

Edited December 24, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

Wow, I'm an idiot. There is no need to worry about Sain crit-killing or Lowen regular killing the archer, since I can just have Marcus take care of that (cav 1 and cav 2 rescue-drop him further north).

EDIT: Alternatively, since I already managed to rig a critical (de-equip Florina), I can have Sain crit kill the archer and let Marcus take care of the nomad to increase Florina/Prisiclla's survivability chances.

Edited December 25, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

It's a Christmas miracle! I've got the 6 turn clear!

... but, uh, Kent died. I can't seem to get around this unless I'm willing to burn >50 RNs at some point, something I promised I wouldn't do at the beginning of this playthrough. Hopefully I won't need him at any point in the playthrough? At least I was able to trade his weapons over to Marcus before he died.

EDIT: untested, but I think he might survive if I give him the Dracoshield at the beginning of the Chapter?

Edited December 25, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

Indeed, giving Kent the Dracoshield does end up working out. Regarding other positives of the playthrough, I should note that Florina sees a lot of combat and hits level 6; with 9 Str and 12 Spd (8 AS with the Iron Lance), she's at least usable as a combat unit, and its unclear whether or not she or Fiora will take the early promotion.

I also grabbed both Door Keys (Matthew stole the one that doesn't drop), and got both of the southern treasure chests (Hero Crest + Unlock Staff).

[Yojinbo]

I don't think either the Dragonshield or Kent will actually be important in the run so it's up to you what you'll do with it. You may wanna give the Dragonshield to Boots!Priscilla at a later point maybe? Can't think of anything else you'd do with it.

[ruadath]

I think it would be nice to keep everyone alive, so I'll probably save Kent. Priscilla would probably like that Dracoshield, but I doubt she is going to absolutely need it in the way Kent does during this chapter.

Also, saving Kent here allows me to not crit a certain enemy, which in turn allows me to get better level ups. It's kind of hard to explain, but hopefully you'll see it in a few days.

Another quick thought: during the chapter I use the Heavy Spear 4 times. However, at least 2 of these uses could be replaced by a Steel Lance, and I didn't need the 4th Iron Lance for this chapter. So do you think it would make sense to purchase the Steel Lance from Chapter 16 instead of the Iron Lance? Especially considering the cost (Steel Lance is 16G per use, Heavy Spear is a massive 75G), and the fact that the Steel lance may prove useful later on as well?

Edited December 25, 2015 by ruadath

[Gradivus.]

It's unlikely to make a difference, heavy spear is bad later on anyway due to the crappy coefficient and it's not like you'll have big money concerns.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Gradivus.

[ruadath]

Since I now actually have Hand Axes, I might play around with the final enemy phase a little bit to see if Hector/Marcus can perhaps get some EXP (though I have to be careful to make Priscilla still survives and that I still have RNs for good levels).

[ruadath]

OK, Hector and Marcus don't get to play with the new Hand Axes or Raven ends up slaughtering Priscilla, so I've got the strat worked out now. Expect a video soon (hopefully)!

[ruadath]

Spent the last few hours practicing the run to make it look good. I just finished recording a great run... and then I pressed "accept sidequest" at the end of the chapter :(

Oh well, time to try again.

[ruadath]

The wait is over! The video is finally here!

Details of the clear can be found in the description. Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, or give suggestions!

[ruadath]

Looks like we already have some improvements to this clear, with at least 10 more EXP to Lowen by changing his position by one space on turn 5. More details will follow soon once I figure out what I'm doing.

[ruadath]

I think I might have a way to get around using the Dracoshield on Kent, though I'm not sure. Instead of having Marcus rescue Kent on turn 3, there is nothing stopping me from having him rescue Sain instead and having Lowen drop him forward instead of Kent. However, this leaves the problems of how to deal with the critting the nomad (Kent isn't strong enough to take him out in one blow with a Slim Lance crit, and the other weapons available to me don't have the crit bonus to perform the critical.

Still, it's something worth investigating, maybe?

[Junkhead]

That was adorable.

Also, Rudy totally doesn't ship SainxFlorina.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Soul o:

[ruadath]

That was adorable.

Lolwut

Anyway, regarding the idea mentioned above to save the Dragonshield, one small problem is that Sain is strong enough that he kills the Hammer!Fighter with the two swings of his Iron Lance instead of leaving him with 3 health. This means that the archer and nomad realize there are 3 spots to attack Lowen from, and decide to target him instead of Sain since his HP is under 20. I can easily fix this by equipping him with the Slim Lance, but this compounds the issue of Kent not being able to crit kill the nomad further by not letting him crit at all (no access to the slim lance). If only one of these guys could use the Killing Edge...

Ironically enough, I could probably get around this by giving the Dragonshield to Lowen at the beginning of the chapter, but that would of course defeat the whole point of this idea. There is still the issue of figuring out how to deal with not being able to crit-kill the nomad, however. Any thoughts?

Edited December 28, 2015 by ruadath

[ruadath]

Another idea is to perhaps revisit Chapter 16 and check if its not impossible to get Kent more experience (perhaps by having him grab a Javelin from Lyn on the first turn and aggroing some of the PKs during that enemy phase?). If I can get close to leveling (~5.80 EXP), then I can try to fit a level in for him during turn 2 of Chapter 17. If he procs Def, that is good enough for him to survive. The problem is, however, that Sain also needs his level from Chapter 16, since without it he does not have the strength to crit+hit the knight during turn 3.

This would require a significant amount of effort, however, since I would be rerouting basically the entirety of Chapter 16, which has a very RNG reliant sequence on turn 2 EP, since Marcus has to survive the attacks from all of the cavs. :(