Parrhesia and Integrity's Guide to Surviving Wesnoth

[Integrity]

to be fair, poachers advance at 29/65 instead of 44/80, which is a grand 30 xp faster. you can have a second trapper with the xp you're putting into the elf to get to tier 3 versus a poacher.

 

i think it's still a bit skewed towards elves because, hell, wesnoth elfwank, but the benefits to human archers do exist

[euklyd]

oh right I forgot about xp differentials, which were even mentioned like, pages ago

the point is trappers are sick

as you will find out even more in a future campaign, mind you 👀 

[Parrhesia]

Yeah, the tier 3 poachers are basically tier 2.5 units... hell, it could be argued that the elven archers are basically tier 3.5 units.

[euklyd]

i'd say both are kinda true? probably more the latter than former; i don't think t3 poachers really stack up that unfavorably compared to master bowmen or slurbows

elves are just stupid lol

[Parrhesia]

MEMOIRS 14: Berlin by Christmas

Spoiler

 

f

Welcome back to the Not Dead club, Lionel. Don't make yourself too comfortable.

Ugh. The penultimate sentence is fine; the final one makes it obvious HEY GUYS, VIDEO GAME.

who the literal fuck are you

Hey, have a slightly uncomfortably zoomed-in look at the generic red mage.

Is the game rubbing it in hard enough yet that The Empire Underestimates This Threat?

So how do you imagine this pans out?

Hey, nice. Art asset. I could be wrong, but I think this is one of the ones the game comes pre-packaged with, that anyone can use wherever. Also, uhhh... make up your mind, game, did only a token force go north under mighty Dudpon, or did the entire army?

Fine so far.

V I D E O G A M E

Lionel, you've literally seen Delfador tote around a nerd entourage when he was with you before.

East we go.

I've included the minimap in the top right. This map's fucking miniscule.

Hey look, it's the other half of the map.

Why do we have to keep Relgorn alive? Anyway. We have an insane time limit. It's transparently there to give us cash. This is obvious filler to reacquaint ourselves with our human troops. We have... uh... everyone we had before entering the Land of the Dead, plus the garrison at Parthyn ... MINUS Delfador's actual human/mage retinue he brought with him over the past couple maps.

We recall the homie spearman and halberdier from Parthyn, the knight Gar Town (one of the guys Derrin Hynch brought with him), and both our archmagi, Moth (from the start) and Sylell (from Parthyn).

So. Dwarven fighters counter every skeleton. They shrug off physical damage, they pulverise cunts with hammers. So naturally the dwarves recruit ... four ulfserkers and a scout.

These three ulfserkers in the north die literally fucking instantly.

... Yeah, good one, Delf.

Hey, we get a homie a kill.

... And that's pretty much a wrap.

We--

wait

where the fuck is Lionel

Ughhh. The disorientating faction-switching was made kind of tolerable when Kalenz could recruit tier 2s; now you're telling me our under-lord is tier one??

Okay.

Glad that map came after a massive plot dump, or I'd feel like I was shortchanging you.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by Parrhesia

[epilepsyduck]

I definitely remember seeing that little art asset in a ton of addon campaigns, so you're probably right on the money. Not that I'm complaining, it's nice to give addon creators some stuff to work with so they don't use, like, grainy photographs or stolen artwork or whatever.

[BrightBow]

Ulserkers vs Skeletons? I guess Delfador's legendary status comes from him being somehow the only person in Wesnoth who knows that skeletons need to be smashed with blunt weapons.

[Integrity]

let's actually make forward progress

Spoiler

Can you tell we're extremely entering the final act? There's only this and two more maps.

Pretty cursory run-up. Everyone is allied against us on this map.

 

The map is, to be honest, pointlessly immense. We're up against two humans and one orc. You see a map like this and imagine all the potential, right?

We will win in two pitched battles, each taking approximately three of the eighteenish turns the whole map takes.

 

The first guy deadass recruits Royal Guards, which is rude but comes with a problem for him. Note what he recruited on turn 2.

 

Course, these guys are still scary if you don't recruit any ranged attacks whatsoever, which, I mean, Laura.

 

Fade me, doc.

 

So blue has one guy and his leader yet, spoilers: he won't recruit another. It's turn 4. Nobody in the south has come close to the river. The first pitched battle is over. The second will be on the river.

 

Sure, why not.

 

I'm getting this guy promoted. I swear.

 

The reinforcements is three Halberdiers. It's actually kind of scary since I recalled my entire horseman squad, but it's not really a threat.

 

Right. Blue is completely gone, with literal modern American shock-and-awe. One green unit has crossed. I left the minimap in frame so you can see just how sparsely the southern half of the map is populated - remember, that's units and houses. Note how it peters out towards the castles.

 

Both lords are out of cash. I think purple recruits a single unit extra, on the final turn, for the rest of the map.

 

To add onto that, my presence on the bridge is so overwhelming (?) that the AI is swerving to ford the river. And I have a keep right here to recruit from.

 

They're really gonna attack dwarves while standing in the water.

 

Masterfully executed. Battle 2 has begun.

 

I literally forgot about the Halberdiers, and now I have a slowed Specter right there. Oops, lol.

 

Anyway, they really are gonna fight dwarves in the water.

 

Not only dwarves even, mind.

 

I'm just pointlessly flexing on green now. He's a non-entity.

 

oh son of a bitch. There was a tier 2 gunner healing up there and I didn't even notice the rider.

Casualty.

 

Eye for an eye.

 

Tooth for a tooth. Sucks to lose a tier 2, but I've got a pair of tier 3 gunners right before a map with a bunch of enemy horses.

 

Li'sar squeaks out of the halberd onslaught (seriously they hit like 5 from 6 at 40% or some shit), and green comes out to play. Like I said, three turns.

 

Many mages just deadass whiff this guy, so I go for the dumb trade - except he's next to Li'sar, which nullifies first strike!

 

Green's gone.

 

The halberds are mopped up. The battle is over. Three turns.

 

This is a map of where every single enemy unit on the map can attack. A Goblin Knight was recruited by green before he sallied forth. A Halberdier went right for no reason. Otherwise, there's the purple lord.

 

Knightn't.

 

Halberdiern't.

 

You know what? Sure.

 

Generaln't.

 

Go, survivor, and tell your people of our coming.

 

[Parrhesia]

HTTT blatantly needed to cut five maps, huh.

[Integrity]

just look at how much fucking unopposed Experience i have gotten

[Integrity]

hey

 

[BrightBow]

You know, seeing this in English makes me realize that "Son of the Black-Eye" is kind of a weird title. I mean, isn't it basically like being called "Son of the Glass Jaw"?
In German it was fine since the term used to refer to eye bruises is "Blaues Auge", so "Blue Eye" basically. But in the English language, I don't think it's a very imposing title.

Edited July 2, 2019 by BrightBow

[Parrhesia]

MEMOIRS 15: Bats out of Hell

Spoiler

So far, so generic.

So, objective in the east. Now this is only the southern half of the map...

They would not slam all of this here without reason. I don't trust this.

Remember how we couldn't let Relgorn, Some Dude, die last map? He's not here. He's not even in our recall list. But we can just recruit fresh tier 2s, blessedly. We also still have, uh, the guys we had before.

Pictured: suicide. We'll swing north.

This becomes our squad.

Their scouts hurl themselves into our face. It's not a great call!

So anyway we immediately grab five unanswered kills.

Then three more. At night.

Then another thr- are you kidding me? Two. Some steelclad pays for it with his life, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

HHHH things get dicey, but we're okay.

And through! Let's--

Cheese it, it's the final boss!

It's daylight, holmes, good luck.

Gar promotes to Paladin, and his final form, Gar City FC.

Let's mop up here--

This is a really, really bad idea... except the commander AI isn't going to risk the fight.

Mage of light is ready to shine bright.

Aaaand the floor is lava.

"Okay."

Well, lich > necro anyway, for mine.

"Make sure Leaf is the first to escape!"

So, we've got a problem here. The problem is I lured out the lich - as you do, to kill enemies fast - and forgot how flagrantly OP they were.

But paladins are tailor-made for taking liches out. They deal arcane damage, and are highly resistant to it themselves (and thus, to their drain touch). Hammer softens it up, and...

...
I'm sorry. You'll have to run that one by me just one more time.
He's plot-immortal now? That's fine. This is literally the only time you have a solid excuse to pull out the 'so he zooms away' line. But then he has to zoom away.

By completing the natural stretch goal of killing their very strong leader, I've just fucked myself.

It's not a failstate. I reload to the start of the turn and put him into retreat% health. Feels fucking bad, though!

Delfador and Sylell will make it home in 8 turns.

The fighting retreat goes on...

Delfador has to pause, just long enough to vapourise this cunt, with the help of Gar.

And again, though it hardly matters. There's only 9 villages, so the early finish bonus is going to be miniscule... and we're again 200 in the hole, and shedding. Also a couple dwarves belatedly chase down a wounded chocobone on the run from village to village.

Or. You know. They can have bats.

I have to track back a few turns and mob up the group in order to mop everything up before Delfador gets cherry-tapped to death. It's not interesting and it's not worth anyone's time. The map is bad.

You know, it's as if by killing their leader, which I did, I should not have had to worry about this. For which my reward - along with the experience - could have been a straight shot to the exit, instead of a fighting retreat, and thus more money.

Next time is easy because from turn 15 onwards, the lich literally only trains skeletons. And one adept. Nothing that can outpace us, which is the whole trouble. And our finances are in the toilet.

Thus since I cannot prove a speedrunner
To entertain these poorly-plotted maps,
I am determin'd to prove a grinder
And crush the idle pleasures of these maps.

40 kills. 40.

 

[Integrity]

10 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

40 kills. 40.

39^

[BrightBow]

Man, if you gonna revive the boss right away, at least put him back in his keep.

Of course even better would be what The Southguard did and simply prevent you from damaging the boss at all.

Edited July 3, 2019 by BrightBow

[Integrity]

it's almost over

 

Spoiler

Sounds fun. (it isn't)

 

This map sucks, but the clans rule.

 

We're just gonna kill shitloads of the clansmen, because we're here.

 

Now, it's hard to overstate the size of this map. There is the top about 40%, stretched across two monitors.

With these incredibly long positionings, there are four enemy keeps. Each is captained by a Great Knight, one of the aforementioned Sirs. When you kill enough enemy guys, the map ends. Each horse lord you defeated joins you in the finale, and if you kill any (or maybe if you kill the southwest one, I don't remember) you can just straight-up recruit Knights As In Tier Two Horsemen for the finale. Hypothetically, if you kill all four, the map ends irregardless of your killcount. This is patently impossible.

 

I'll do it, of course.

 

Here's why the map is awful. Tier 1 archers (sometimes longbowmen), but more importantly each guy will shit out random Horsemen, Knights, and Lancers. Remember: they're the super mobile but flimsy streaky damage kinda boys, where it's balanced and fun for the player to be able to use but it turns out when they're used by someone with no consequence in large number they suck.

 

They run out of money pretty fast, but that still means there's ~20 tier 1-2 guys bearing down from about three directions.

 

I have a cohesive strategy for the south, the rest is going to be ad hoc - because, here's the thing, the unit kill limit is really fucking tiny. If I wipe out everything they just recruited, I'll be 2/3 of the way to hitting the map objective, and they're not done recruiting. Two horse lords is a reasonable goal if you attack with two laser-guided assassination squadrons. There's four. On Hard, the kill count is bigger, but they have more cash, so it's not actually any better balanced.

 

I'll be honest, I've tapped out of this.

'i have infinite guys' is quite the flex.

So if you play this map like a sane man, you gun straight for the southwest and kill Lord Bayar before you accidentally too many of his guys.

 

Anyway, the key to the map is making sure zones of control are used well. This is great when you're not blitzing to avoid killing human waves, but I digress.

 

The tier 1s sometimes don't even take trades, because they're so unfavorable.

 

lol

 

We take this shot instead, I just wanted to show off that he'd dead oneshot a horseman.

 

Bang, and wiped out.

 

I'm honest about when I reload. Even in the dark, a Lancer taking three from three will kill almost any unit in my entire army, at 10 movement.

 

There's three sort of fronts emerging. The southern one, where Warven just diedn't; the southwestern one, where the bulk of my thrust is going; and the western one, where I'm just going to spin my wheels and figure out what to do.

 

The southern one has disproportionate force because I'm trying to stop this guy from recruiting so he can stop hemorrhaging their guy pool.

 

The southwestern one has.... horses.

 

Horse trades are brutal, but a little archer or two sprinkled in makes things a little better.

 

The western front stagnates.

 

I also have this little diversion going on in the far north, looking for if I can get those birds to sneak in and get the northwestern guy, but this guy will fuck them up on either phase.

 

South comes out to play.

 

A mistake.

 

After that all the guardsmen fuckin beef it and the other gunner has to knife him. Seriously. Anyway, his dudes don't despawn, so that's -3 more to the dude pool.

 

Reloads to units dying from full: 2.

 

The berzerker ambushes a Lancer and, even at 70% defense, splatters. I can think of no better ending.

 

Rest in pepperoni, Ulfdain.

 

After some maneuvering, here's how the general west looks. As you can see, to foil me getting more lords, they're churning tier 1 archers into my mill to deplete the dude pool. Just offscreen to the south, the horses have crossed the bridge and Specter One is swinging north for a Bad Idea.

 

A bird dies, accomplishing nothing.

 

This is the Bad Idea. I save, just in case, but it's unnecessary.

 

Three from three and dodging one counter on the first try. Hell yeah.

 

A reserve force is trying to pull the archers back and retreat. At this point I have like eight kills left before the map force-quits.

 

It is at this point that a completely insane idea occurs to me.

 

Specter One can flank up the left. Alone.

 

The other gryphon master dies because I forgot about him.

 

Lord Bayar is in reach, and I have faith.

 

Never in doubt. Why the hell will the clan fight on?

 

There is no follow-up text.

 

'

Another turn unscreenshotted because it's just Specter One dodging aggro and everyone in the center fading because I can get Three more kills passes, and we're here. Hit 60, dodge 60, hit 60, dodge 60, hit 60 is the only way to get the four clear. Since I have the map beaten otherwise, with like eight tier 2 units in range of four or five tier 1 archers, some of whom are damaged, I say fuck it and just save. It's a 3.5% chance according to the battle odds calculator.

 

It takes me like 15 minutes. I mostly just wanted to see the dialogue.

 

I did say I like the clans, but seriously, you're just realizing this? It wasn't good enough that we kicked your ass personally, we had to swing wide without killing (explicitly killing!) any more of your dudes until we could gank your third and final general.

 

This means we can recruit Knights in the finale.

Hey, remember when this was tired the like third time it happened?

Good news, it's about to be over!

But not until the interim to the next map. I'm ending this campaign tonight, with my infinite fucking money.

 

[BrightBow]

21 minutes ago, Integrity said:

 

I guess the clans are lead by Zapp Brannigan and his clones. Why do they feel like bragging about their ability to send their soldiers into a hopeless slaughter?

[Integrity]

it is over.

Spoiler

The titular map.

 

So, to recap, in the final moments, the writers realized they were in a corner and really transparently bail themselves out by revealing that Konrad died 18 years ago and this Konrad is a fake who has been lied to his entire life.

Konrad, true to brand, does not react to this. This is not mentioned by him at all. This occurs entirely in the map text between the pen- and ultimate chapters. By the time the next map begins, everyone is fuck yeah Li Sar!

The ending to Heir to the Throne is a fart, and we're not even at the best of it.

 

No matter how the last map went, as long as you win the clans start a bunch of shit and distract her forces. It's a reasonably clever trick to justify the small scale of our conflict here.

 

I'm still lowkey confused as to how the ancient artifact buried beneath dwarven caves way outside of Wesnoth is the ultimate sign of ownership of Wesnoth, but go off I guess.

60 turns is fuckin generous. I will take nine. It's possible to take fewer.

 

The map is pretty small. There is a killing field, and then you're pressing in on Asheviere, an orc ally, and two human allies. All of them recruit tier 1 and 2s; Asheviere recruits chiefly tier 3s. Killing the guy to the left is extremely a stretch goal.

 

She's... flaccid. 15x2 cold makes her roughly on par with a tier 2 dark mage, and 48 hp ain't. This isn't a boss fight against Asheviere, this is a fight against her dudes and then you kill her.

 

Your starting force is the usual, plus whichever horse lords you defeated last map as loyal Great Knights. We have the ability to recruit Knights directly, but you know?

 

It's time for the boys. I'm going to recall straight down the list until I run out of cash.

 

On turn 1, under no pressure, the first boss engages my southern horse lords. This is extremely time to trade them for him.

 

Bop.

 

Sir Alric is a very tangible horse lord who refuses to be traded, but the other guy melts.

 

It's the finale. I'm not gonna get cheeky and do my usual little "strategies" and "maneuvers". I'm just going to recall until they get here, fuck them up, and keep recalling. Losses will be monumental.

 

One goblin chooses to be the first to die.

 

Our ranks swell. Alric is dead.

 

Our lines clear.

 

Fuck's sake. Kalenz should just be acceptable losses by now.

 

Jimmy the line in a few places...

 

Yowch.

 

Battle is well and truly joined.

 

First things first.

 

I'm a man of my word.

 

Look at this man.

 

With that, the southern flank starts to collapse. This is promising.

 

The north is way more precarious.

 

I do what I can.

 

That was scary, but she weathers it.

 

New turn, and they haven't really reinforced the south, but my center is looking very fragile.

 

So, naturally, it's time to keep crushing that south.

 

Fire and gunfire cause huge problems.

 

I apparently missed this screenshot gently but here we are. The southern envelopment is beginning and it's time to reinforce the center.

 

Delfador can still do a job.

 

Don Quixote, your final joust awaits.

 

glory

 

Here we go.

 

Laura, one of the Highwaymen, and Specter One bite it.

 

This is extremely the pivotal turn, unless that was last one.

 

Great Knights are wonderful.

 

It's a rout. Organized resistance has disintegrated.

 

Blue comes out to play.

 

Goodbye.

 

There is one enemy unit in frame.

 

He is no longer in frame. Uncle Somf promotes.

 

The tide does not stem.

 

And then, confusingly, the queen rushes out and punches Haldiel in the face.

 

Okay, lady- wait.

 

I said I'd promote him. I said he'd make it to tier 4. Now where are we?

 

Specter Two confirming target eliminated.

 

Don't lie, art. There's nothing left of her.

 

shut up kalenz

I still had money. I was literally incapable, recalling a full force every turn, of spending all of my cash.

 

What a non-ending. Christ.

 

final statistics for the nerds:

Not in frame: 2x Elvish Sharpshooter, who cares.

 

Total statistics:

Recruits:

Spoiler

7x Dwarvish Fighter

3x Dwarvish Guardsmen

4x Dwarvish Thunderer

8x Elvish Archer

10x Elvish Fighter

3x Elvish Scout

1x Elvish Shaman

6x Gryphon Rider

3x Horseman

3x Mage

3x Poacher

4x Thug

Losses:

Spoiler

1x Dwarvish Berzerker

3x Dwarvish Fighter

1x Dwarvish Thunderer

1x Dwarvish Thunderguard

4x Elvish Archer

3x Elvish Fighter

2x Elvish Scout

2x Elvish Sharpshooter

1x Elvish Sylph (R I P LAURA)

3x Grand Knight

2x Gryphon Master

2x Gryphon Rider

1x Highwayman

1x Lancer (SPECTER NEVER FORGETS)

2x Mage

2x Merman Fighter

1x Merman Netcaster

2x Thug

Kills:

Spoiler

1x Ancient Lich

1x Armageddon Drake

2x Banebow

5x Blood Bat

8x Bone Shooter

7x Bowman

2x Cavalier

14x Cavalryman

2x Chocobone

2x Cuttle Fish

8x Dark Adept

1x Dark Queen

1x Dark Sorcerer

1x Death Knight

1x Deathblade

7x Dragoon

5x Drake Burner

1x Drake Fighter

2x Drake Flare

1x Drake Glider

1x Drake Warrior

1x Draug

8x Duelist

3x Fencer

4x General

3x Ghost

3x Goblin Impaler

9x Goblin Knight

7x Goblin Pillager

1x Goblin Rouser

16x Goblin Spearman

4x Grand Knight

2x Gryphon

7x Halberdier

4x Heavy Infantryman

9x Horseman

13x Knight

3x Lancer

5x Lich

6x Longbowman

1x Mage (one????)

3x Master Bowman

6x Naga Fighter

1x Naga Warrior

1x Necrophage

1x Nightgaunt

11x Ogre

40x Orcish Archer

14x Orcish Assassin

13x Orcish Crossbowman

57x Orcish Grunt

1x Orcish Slurbow

1x Orcish Sovereign

6x Orcish Warlord

25x Orcish Warrior

1x Pikeman (again one???)

1x Princess

3x Red Mage

15x Revenant

6x Royal Guard

1x Saurian Ambusher

1x Saurian Augur

1x Saurian Flanker

3x Saurian Oracle

4x Saurian Skirmisher

1x Saurian Soothsayer

1x Sea Orc (unfortunately)

3x Shadow

37x Skeleton

12x Skeleton Archer

1x Sky Drake

3x Spearman

5x Swordsman

14x Troll

4x Troll Warrior

38x Troll Whelp

4x Vampire Bat

16x Walking Corpse

5x Water Serpent

43x Wolf Rider

13x Wraith

 

 

IT'S OVER

[Parrhesia]

You started HTTT on Page 4, in March. I was like a quarter of the way through Descent at the time.

It's been an ordeal, huh?

[Integrity]

Christ.

[BrightBow]

I remember Asheviere being level 2 back in the day. Guess they raised her level without actually raising her stats.

Shame we didn't get to see Delfador hamming it up when he is the one to kill Asheviere. That man has a ego as large as the moon.

Edited July 4, 2019 by BrightBow

[Integrity]

i opened up wesnoth and instinctively clicked [Load] fuck me up

[Parrhesia]

MEMOIRS 16: The Trouble with a Refused Flank

Spoiler

And so all of the villagers followed Delfi the coolest warlock into a very humid, very fetid swamp.

And it was so humid and so fetid in there that Delfi began to scribe... wizard runes! Which, as we all know, turn into fireballs!

Anyway, at that moment, he felt a bony little hand rest upon his back, and he turned around... and who should that hand belong to, but the badly burned ancient lich from the day before!

"What are you doing here? I thought I killed you yesterday!" grumbled Delfi, quite coolly.

"No, Delfi! You didn't kill me with your arcane lights! I crawled to safety, but you did leave me very badly disfigured," laughed the lich. "Why are you chasing me?"

"TO FINISH THE FUCKING JOB."

Alright. So. Without fanfare, we have our ghosts back. Except that this is a fucking terrible idea, because, you will note, the lich does arcane damage in melee, which shreds ghosts. Lionel is off to our right, the lich has a lackey to his right and another in the southwest. We have 28 turns and can take as many as we damn well please, and 200 gold which, due to upkeep, will turn into 9 recruits. Despite Kalenz being here, we can't recruit elves. But we can recruit them. We can also recruit white and red magi.

Lionel's like, the fuck.

He ... puts up a shroud.

By only recalling three guys on turn 1, I'm able to use the excess gold to make a dwarven fighter, leaving us with 1 gold spare and losing 20 a turn. Stanis, Truck Nuts and PARTY HARD pick up the holy water.

Here, have a minimap in the top right.

Huh, really? Damn, it's a shame you've recruited... terribly, for the task at hand.

I have a mage of light to stand on him, a paladin to soften him up, and a nightgaunt that deals arcane damage to administer the finishing blow.

This is the extent of black. We do have to kill them, but I can get it done with a token force.

Purple is weak.

Both routes connect back to green... eventually. Anyone fighting black will take the overland to the far west. Since the game thinks it's a revealed shroud map, I don't know how much cash anyone has, but there's like no villages on the map and everyone's second-turn recruitment was incomplete, so I think this is basically it for competition.

I should've brought another healer. Oh well.

The east is fine. The east is so fine I really should've brought more guys west. I didn't expect green to gang up so readily.

Very fine indeed. I'm considering a crossing over the west, in fact... it may be the only way to save Delfador's retinue.

Breakthrough. Time to siphon off some guys.

The retinue buys itself ti- nevermind, Lionel gets hit by everything and dies. Pretend this happens again but a random cavalry takes point instead. And... survives.

Okay. Good, distraction.

Truck Nuts goes down. He died the way he lived; killing too many people and inviting too much DPS. I'm proud of him.

I was going to put something here, but then Delfador misses all four 70% shots on the revenant and I despair of life for a moment.

In the east, the interminable bridge slog, for the first time, shows signs of ending when a space for a second guy is opened. The paladin almost gets ganked by the bat who's just been chilling there this entire time, but pulverises it with a single lance blow.

Great Mage. Onya, Sylell.

Zombies in deep water have the very, very rare 10% evasion.

Finally, the horrors of the west are over. I'm just gonna let Gar recover on the fort before-- oh, fuck, but I need him to kill the lich. But that... doesn't look a realistic prospect, right now!

Lionel carves up the necromancer.

Oh thank God. Gar City rides him down and crushes him under his hooves with five hits from five, Ulrek not needed. The archer rolls up and removes his remaining, like, 2HP the next turn, but his job is done; he can rest.

And PARTY HARD rips out his spine.

There is a bright light, and Iliah-Malal vanishes.

He was given it sarcastically, Kalenz. Mind, that didn't stop Pompey reclaiming Magnus.

Ulrek has 17/76 HP left. Don't forget to support the new FE5 fan localisation project! Also note the empty space where once was a paladin.

Oh, that is a cute touch. Judging by the promotions, number and XP bars, that is, in fact, every ghoul and ghost left in the recall list. They die off in sequence.

Well, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

And everyone vanishes for some reason.

That... was kind of a sloppy clear. I don't mind admitting it. A couple of units in the east did not see combat - like that fighter, who would have been so useful in the west, because I was obsessed with the idea of everyone in the west being able to make it to the north, which never materialised (bar the flying nightgaunt). Granted, it's often hard to see in advance just how things will play out.

This was the swansong of our soldiers, dwarves and ghosts. But there's still one last great feat for Delfador to get through before HTTT...

 

[Parrhesia]

MEMOIRS 17 + 18: Aging gracelessly

Spoiler

Do you remember me?

So. This is the denouement of the Memoirs, and it's a good place to draw things to a close. As disjointed as the rest of the campaign has been, I'm optimistic about the closing stages.

Kill Eldred, our lords survive. We have Chantal with us. Easy.

The status table tells us there's a green loyalist opponent, presumably the guy in the south. He doesn't have to die, though. That sa--

Oh. Now that IS a neat touch.

Kalenz can only recruit tier 1 units, but everyone on the recall list has levelled up; even the tier 3s have gone up another notch. All the tier 1 units have branched out to the first option; captain, ranger, druid. But we have twenty tier 3s. It's a pity we only have 100 gold! Anyway, here on out I guess we can let people die basically freely and don't have to worry about experience. It's a really nice touch, though. It's been like 30 years, of course this crack team of elven warriors has been training.

Interesting batch of enemies.

... Well, the rider gets unceremoniously gibbed by horsemen. The green general is a guy called Lowel, which sounds vaguely familiar.

We aren't here to tangle with green. We're here to murder Eldred and get out.

We've murdered Eldred.

Oh, hey, you look like shit. Except your art quality itself, which improved. You look very artistically like shit.

This fuckin' book, swear to God.

You mean you can't teleport?

A pretty slim update. Let's do more. You deserve it, worthy readers.

F for Lionel. We all knew this was coming, assuming you remembered the death knight in those caves in one of Integrity's HTTT updates, which might be a big ask on the face of it. I do really like how Memoirs went into that guy's backstory.

Let's do this.

It's time for so many war crimes. Also, uh, Kalenz, my man - orcish swords and arrows, maybe. But I'm not sure anyone's gonna be fooled by the orcish thorns, gossamer and faerie fire.

This guy is so fucked, and knows it. We are the ones who knock.

Kill everyone and don't let anyone make it to the end of the roads.

Here's our unit list. Oh, and you'll notice...

Delfador, debuffed to his HTTT self. It's a neat touch... though it doesn't entirely work in-story. His powers have diminished, including his healing, leadership, and some damage.

errrrr

Anyway I re-recruit, plus an outrider, minus someone else.

This goes better.

... Aaaand it's over.

Or... is it?

You'd think it's the... gate-looking things in the south, but those are just walls.

It's here. Well, next time, let's find out if it was worth spunking all my cash away...

 

[BrightBow]

I almost didn't expect to see Delfador looking like this in this campaign, considering HttT takes place a whole 17 years later.