Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know I'm going way back with this question, but... did Gaiden ever explain how the Rigelian army knew about Delthea?

Would that be difficult to know about? I didn't get the impression from the limited lore that that would be the case.

[Shadow Mir]

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Would that be difficult to know about? I didn't get the impression from the limited lore that that would be the case.

Eh, I get the feeling that they shouldn't (and likely wouldn't) have known unless some outside source tipped them off.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

I agree with one exception, I actually prefer it a lot in Sacred Stones since its super short length means no one is even getting close to 20/20. Artur is a good example, he can either have early slayer access to make Eirika route even easier, or give you a 2nd restore user for Eph!14 since he comes with instant C staves. It's not necessary but certainly has its benefits. 

Although I never do it myself, I've given serious consideration to lv 15 promotions in FE8. Since it's about there that EXP seriously slows for a long while from what I remember.

 

4 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Tharja joining because she's creeping on Robin

...That isn't her recruitment reasoning in Awakening though, Robin doesn't do the recruiting or ever come up in the conversation she has with Chrom. It's self-preservation and being ordered to fight to the death by a king for no good reason that she betrays and becomes playable. 

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 16: Chapter 19

Well, it's my birthday today, and as the coronavirus is forcing me to “celebrate” it at home, I can't think of many better ways to spend it than with you guys. So let's do a bonus weekend session of my Blazing Blade ironman run!

Quick tangent before we start though: I was playing Binding Blade reverse recruitment a bit the other day, and seeing FE6's graphics again really reminded me of why I find that FE6 feels so different from a game that recycles so many of its sprites: it's not just the music. The colors of nearly all of the maps are much more muted and realistic, compared to the bright and cartoonish colors used for the assorted map tiles in FE6. It's weird that changing things like that didn't make FE7 feel “off” compared to FE6. In fact, while in fairness this may just be me playing FE7 first, FE7 looks more cohesive than FE6 does!

Ooh! Looks like we get a cutscene with Elbert and Nergal and Darin. Hopefully this explains things rather than making things more confusing.

So Elbert, whatever his original motivations, is pretty decidedly on the “Darin's plan is bad” boat now.

…

Nergal, rather than saying “quintessence” like he was obviously alluding to, says “FORCE”, capitalization his, not mine. I have to assume it's because the player hasn't been told what quintessence even is yet, but it feels weird.

“You weren't up to the task. Luckily, I have other means at hand.”

Okay, yeah, I'm absolutely convinced that Darin's still here because he's a massive wellspring of quintessence, and that's the “means at hand” that he's referring to, along with Elbert.

...Of course, then he also refers to his other planned means of starting a war.

...Fuck, then he orders Ephidel to have Darin fight the intruders...

...No, that still works. Obviously if he can harvest quintessence from a war, he doesn't need to keep Darin alive to harness his quintessence. He can afford to have Darin fight the intruders and die, thereby having his quintessence and eating it too. So my theory still works.

...The only problem is that there's little to suggest it if you aren't actively looking for support for that explanation, making me feel like I'm some idiot defending the plotholes in a bad movie I'm emotionally invested in by using my own headcanon as fact.

Oh shit. And now we get to see Jaffar.

Jaffar was terrifying. Such a badass, and so creepy too. The twist that he actually became a playable good guy was absolutely amazing to me as a kid. The assassin class is just so cool-looking. I mean, granted, now I know it's a sword-locked class whose abilities are basically useless without a killing edge, but still, Jaffar himself is super powerful and he's still so much fun to use.

Also, I find it interesting that Leila collapses rather than vanishing like all other dead characters in cutscenes in the GBA games.

I have to say, seeing Leila's unmoving map sprite upright in the forest is... really creepy. Very effective.

...Okay, looks like they're willing to use what I assumed (due to its instruments) was a Ninian-exclusive sad song for this scene, which makes me feel even more strongly that they shouldn't have used the Lyn Mode sad theme for Hector talking about his parents' deaths in the last chapter.

This is a great scene, but it's undercut slightly by us seeing both sides of it, with the former basically giving away the shock of the latter. It doesn't fully need the shock though, I suppose.

The way the story works though, the map feels kinda weird. They're apparently in a deep forest, but not only are they in a clearing, but the shore they just came from is still clearly in view.

Finally, some reasonable fucking deployment limits!

Though honestly, this kind of makes me more nervous, since it means I have to spread my limited weapon supplies more thinly. But at least I have more boots on the ground again.

I'm ditching Sain in favor of Bartre, mostly because now that deployment slots have opened up a bit, I haven't quite given up on getting Karla. Plus, the limited deployment slots for so long means none of the guys I can deploy again are exactly amazing. Really, I'm mostly concerned with getting out of this alive, and getting to a map where I can fucking see.

Curious how Dart doesn't greet the tactician in this mode. Or maybe it's just because deploying Matthew takes precedence and overrides it?

But Dart's... I mean he's good, but his promotion item is ludicrously expensive and far too valuable, and that's assuming I can even get it. You never know in an ironman run.

Hahahaha...

Hearing Eliwood say “Hmm... I'd best warn Marcus.” at the end of his B support with Lowen when Lowen started flipping out about making sure everyone stays fed again, I was strangely reminded of the immortal Spongebob line (like there are any mortal ones): “Note to self: Watch out for Squidward.”

These pegasus knights hiding deep in the fog are making me really nervous. Thankfully, they're so ridiculously weighed down by their steel lances that even Oswin can double them, so they'll be good training fodder, but they might also kill me in sufficient numbers.

I made sure to bring Florina, because I can't remember if anyone else recruits Fiora.

FUCK.

Dart died on turn two. And with him, the steel axe and hand axe I really could have used. I underestimated the sheer number of enemies who could attack him even without the snag bridges. Holy shit is there a ton of enemies on this map. And the worst part of it is, a lot of them are reinforcements that are basically hiding in the water, just out of sight. And there's also a bunch of pirates who apparently have been sneaking behind Fargus's ship for ages just so they could attack us. Cowardly bastards.

Man, this map is... intense. Dart's death was the wake-up call, but for a while, every turn felt like it might be a repeat of Dart's loss. I lost Merlinus almost immediately to pegasus knights hiding just out of sight due to Marcus and Lowen being occupied after using the last turn to kill the torch staff thief, and the pegasus knight reinforcements nearly killed Canas when I overextended him out of necessity to let Oswin take care of business elsewhere.

This is a surprisingly difficult game mode. While Binding Blade throws incredibly powerful enemies at you, this mode overwhelms you with sheer numbers over a wide area with limited healing. But I'm kind of pissed off at how few of these enemies you can actually see until Matthew uses a torch.

But I managed to get Fiora. I kept her from running off by rescuing her with Eliwood, after making absolutely sure that nearby steel lance pegasus knight couldn't double him when weighed down.

Honestly, it looks like in hindsight, if I knew that those cavaliers would refuse to move even to help break those snags directly southeast of the starting area (which wound up never getting broken by the enemy), I wouldn't have tried to hard to get a bottleneck set up around them. That's what wound up getting Dart killed. Of course, the game gave me no way of knowing that, which is annoying as hell, but, alas, there's no turning back now.

My other mistake was not checking movement ranges and forgetting how fucking heavy steel axes are in my greed to keep his hand axe intact. And now I don't have it, and I've gotta work with 1 and a half hand axes and a 9/10 of a javelin come dragon's gate.

On the plus side, Lowen's pretty much promoted now, and everyone else has gotten some nice exp off of those reinforcements once the initial panic settled down.

Uhai might have been scarier if I didn't have Lowen and his incredible bulk. Lowen and Marcus are really doing the majority of my team's heavy lifting right now. Lowen's level 19 and is going to promote after this chapter, but everyone else is somewhere between level 10 and 15.

This may just be because Lowen's guaranteed to survive a crit from Uhai's killing edge, but Uhai has no interest in unequipping the longbow to attack Lowen directly, and would rather attack Marcus from 3 range. Works for me. I'm really grateful he doesn't move.

Scratch that, Looks like Lowen's drawn out the Uhai fight long enough that he's able to promoooo...

...I...

...I drew out the Uhai fight.

…I completely forgot that this was a time-sensitive gaiden unlock.

...I lost the silver card, and I lost the hector-mode-exclusive 19xx chapter.

Mother of god, why the fuck do I have to screw up so badly on my own damned birthday!?

And it looks like on turn 20, Uhai starts moving. Not towards Lowen or Marcus though. For some reason he's gunning off in the direction of Erk, Priscilla and Canas.

...Which could end very badly if Erk can't finish off his last sliver of HP in a single turn.

...He's not... what the fuck... WHAT IS UHAI FUCKING DOING!? WHERE IS HE GOING!? WHY ISN'T HE ATTACKING ANYONE IN HIS RANGE!?

...Okay, that could have gotten really bad. He just started wandering around erratically and unpredictably, as if he were gunning for either Hector or for the weakest person he could find. Thankfully, the newly-promoted Lowen just barely managed to one-shot him with Marcus's half-used hand axe before he, or the sudden pegasus knight reinforcement that went after Matthew, could get anyone killed.

...Well. That's... the end of the map. Time to see the ending cutscene.

...Yeah, there isn't much to say here. More importantly...

I'm at an impasse now. I can no longer both review the Hector-Mode-exclusive chapters I haven't entirely seen and fully assess the ironmannability of this game at the same time. I have to either redo this chapter and give up the ironman, or I have to keep going and give up on the Kishuna subplot basically entirely.

I'm of a mind to continue. I want to avenge my mistakes these past few maps and prove to myself I can do this, even without the silver card.

But if you guys would rather hear my thoughts on the Kishuna chapters and the secret stuff with Nergal, let me know.

[Shadow Mir]

So that's two deaths, right? Also, was Kent in the forest when he died?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

So that's two deaths, right? Also, was Kent in the forest when he died?

I believe he was.

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well, it's my birthday today, and as the coronavirus is forcing me to “celebrate” it at home, I can't think of many better ways to spend it than with you guys. So let's do a bonus weekend session of my Blazing Blade ironman run!

Happy Birthday Alastor. Hopefully you can have a get together with all you IRL friends once this has all passed for a belated celebration.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I have to say, seeing Leila's unmoving map sprite upright in the forest is... really creepy. Very effective.

 I figured this is as good a place as any to mention that there is a major change to the finding Leila's body scene if Matthew is dead. Hector promises that when they return to Lycia with her body he will have her buried next to Matthew, and confides in Eliwood that the two were secretly lovers.

As an extra bit of trivia, while looking for some footage of that scene to show here, I discovered that the ending of the first chapter of Hector mode significantly changes if Matthew died in that chapter

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And it looks like on turn 20, Uhai starts moving. Not towards Lowen or Marcus though. For some reason he's gunning off in the direction of Erk, Priscilla and Canas.

HE MOVES??? That's terrifying.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

But if you guys would rather hear my thoughts on the Kishuna chapters and the secret stuff with Nergal, let me know.

Here is my advise, save into the next slot so you can continue with the ironman after having a chance to check on the gaiden chapter, that way you get to sorta do both. You will miss out on the some very minor things at the end of the game by continuing from the ironman save instead of the gaiden save, but I think continuing the ironman save is more interesting.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Happy Birthday Alastor. Hopefully you can have a get together with all you IRL friends once this has all passed for a belated celebration.

Yeah. Thankfully(?), most of my social life is online anyway, so this hasn't impacted me as much as it could have. It must be weird being an extrovert right now.

3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I figured this is as good a place as any to mention that there is a major change to the finding Leila's body scene if Matthew is dead. Hector promises that when they return to Lycia with her body he will have her buried next to Matthew, and confides in Eliwood that the two were secretly lovers.

As an extra bit of trivia, while looking for some footage of that scene to show here, I discovered that the ending of the first chapter of Hector mode significantly changes if Matthew died in that chapter

 

Thanks for the links!

 

5 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

HE MOVES??? That's terrifying.

You're. Telling. Me.

6 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Here is my advise, save into the next slot so you can continue with the ironman after having a chance to check on the gaiden chapter, that way you get to sorta do both. You will miss out on the some very minor things at the end of the game by continuing from the ironman save instead of the gaiden save, but I think continuing the ironman save is more interesting.

I'm not sure how much that would help. I've already lost access to the Kishuna chapters I haven't already played. Not much I can learn from just doing 19x and 19xx before going back to ironman.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

FUCK.

Dart died on turn two. And with him, the steel axe and hand axe I really could have used. I underestimated the sheer number of enemies who could attack him even without the snag bridges. Holy shit is there a ton of enemies on this map. And the worst part of it is, a lot of them are reinforcements that are basically hiding in the water, just out of sight. And there's also a bunch of pirates who apparently have been sneaking behind Fargus's ship for ages just so they could attack us. Cowardly bastards.

Ouch. I'd say starting him out with a steel axe that kills his AS is just stupid. Also, this means no Geitz if you end up getting Linus's FFO.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Ouch. I'd say starting him out with a steel axe that kills his AS is just stupid. Also, this means no Geitz if you end up getting Linus's FFO.

What!? He's the only one who can recruit him?

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well, it's my birthday today, and as the coronavirus is forcing me to “celebrate” it at home, I can't think of many better ways to spend it than with you guys. So let's do a bonus weekend session of my Blazing Blade ironman run!

Quick tangent before we start though: I was playing Binding Blade reverse recruitment a bit the other day, and seeing FE6's graphics again really reminded me of why I find that FE6 feels so different from a game that recycles so many of its sprites: it's not just the music. The colors of nearly all of the maps are much more muted and realistic, compared to the bright and cartoonish colors used for the assorted map tiles in FE6. It's weird that changing things like that didn't make FE7 feel “off” compared to FE6. In fact, while in fairness this may just be me playing FE7 first, FE7 looks more cohesive than FE6 does!

First, happy birthday! I've got someone close to me who is stuck with the same dilemma today.

Secondly I agree that FE7 is much tamer aesthetically, not as bright, bold, and cartoonish. I shouldn't overestimate the difference, but compare Bartres:

 

I'd say PoR and RD have the same aesthetic relationship. PoR is immature, RD is refined.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is a great scene, but it's undercut slightly by us seeing both sides of it, with the former basically giving away the shock of the latter. It doesn't fully need the shock though, I suppose.

In case you aren't aware, if Matthew is dead here, Hector says he'll bury the two together, it happened to me once long ago, and I cannot forget it.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

What!? He's the only one who can recruit him?

Correct, tempted to reset? The lone decent GBA Warrior, gone. 

I'd say do it. Just one exception to ironman won't ruin everything. You've already let Kent cross the Styx, more than most people would do. One exception and thats it. No resetting if Jaffar or Nino bites it in BBD. Don't train Dart and bench him for every fight except FFO just for the recruitment if ye want to.

Or, you can do split things in two. Keep an ironman file, but replay this map on a second file solely to judge 19x and 19xx, but stop playing it after that.

FYI, Uhai might operate on "low HP = move for safety, including attack if need be" AI. Don't leave him badly wounded if you opt to reset.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm not sure how much that would help. I've already lost access to the Kishuna chapters I haven't already played. Not much I can learn from just doing 19x and 19xx before going back to ironman.

I don't think you get locked out of the other Kishuna chapters if you miss the first. If you don't think you would get much from playing those chapters than don't, but there are some fairly questionable design decisions in 19x. It is absolutely deadly if you don't play quickly enough, or just have bad luck with how dodgy the boss is when not weighed down, plus getting 19xx is incredible RNG reliant. As for 19xx its just been a while since I have played it or seen anyone play it.

[Boomhauer007]

Dart only has 10 con so he takes a huge -5 speed penalty from the steel axe. Even on Eliwood hard he gets absolutely owned if you don't immediately trade him an iron axe. Losing Geitz definitely sucks, but at least now you don't ever need to deploy Lyn or Eliwood again. Ya boi Wallace has tons of recruit options! Assuming he survives his recruitment chapter...

Anyway you should be cool to move on. 19x can be shenanigins with the boss' ridiculous avoid, and 19xx is a cramped FoW where it can be very easy to lose people in an iron man setting. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Boomhauer007
A word

[Jotari]

Redo the chapter, but kill Dartz (along with his Steel and Hand Axe) so you're still losing something to the ironman mode. If not then at least watch someone else play through the missed Gaidens so you can present some sort of opinion on them.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 17: Chapter 20

So. Looks like we're fighting Darin two whole chapters early. This feels... wrong. And it also means I'm stuck without the silver card for basically the rest of the game, which... I mean given how generous they were being with that card, and how it's something they specifically only make available on Hector Hard Mode... that may not bode well.

But I'll just keep that save safe in case things go horribly wrong, and keep going. I'll watch a let's play of the chapters I missed later and tell you what I think of them. I'm really invested in continuing with this run.

Huh. I'm pretty sure this isn't where Elbert is supposed to die, and yet I'm pretty sure Jaffar just stabbed him.

...Shit, please don't ruin this for me, game. I remembered the upcoming scene way more awesomely than what I think you're implying actually happens.

Anyway, there's a blessing to losing those two gaiden chapters: I don't have to go nearly as long between shops as I originally had to.

Now, I remember where a secret shop is, but there's also a conspicuous lone forest tile in the southeast corner of the map, inside an otherwise empty room you have to break a wall to access, that's making me think that there might be a secret shop there too. Not that I have nearly as much money to spend as could have (we'll see after the treasures on this map), but I'll have to check it out regardless.

Here's the game plan: get Legault immediately. I'm rushing Lowen and Marcus up north, of course. I've seen a clip of Mekkah's ironman run suggesting he didn't even fight the mass of cavalry to the east of the north passageway right away, and still got Legault by making a detour through the western treasure room. I'm extremely nervous about trusting that, but I'll see how tough the cavalry forces turn out to be. I might not have to.

I'll have Florina carry Lyn, since she can recruit Legault too, not just Hector. Marcus and Lowen will mow down everything in their path to carve Florina's way to get Lyn to Legault. I'm really scared, because I don't know where he's going to escape to. Thankfully however, I'm relieved to discover that it definitely isn't those northern stairs right by the chests he's gonna raid.

He's planning to rob this place blind and jump ship.

So I seriously doubt he's planning to run directly into the hall of the dragon's gate itself.

And if he does, I'm going to scream. Very, very loudly.

Anyway, I got Hector's support with Lyn on turn one, and in so doing I think this is the first time in the marathon we've come across the topic of sexism, with Lyn assuming that's Hector's reason for refusing to spar with her.

Well... okay, I've said my piece on this subject in a recent thread regarding gender differences in the game and whether or not they're appropriate, so I think I'll just quote that here:

On 4/5/2020 at 7:46 AM, Alastor15243 said:

Here's my take on it. I have absolutely no issue whatsoever with creating a fantasy universe where this:

Is pretty much on the same strength level as this:

However, I feel that if the developer chooses to make a world like this (which they absolutely should, since it's just flat-out more fun gameplaywise and allows for a more varied cast), then these ladies here:

Should not have had to deal with huge numbers of men telling them that women aren't suited for warfare. Because how the hell would that idea even begin to exist in a universe where since the dawn of time, cavewomen beating potential mates over the head and dragging them back to their cave happened just as often as the opposite?

Granted, even if women were just as strong as men, evolution would still reward societies that had their men do everything dangerous, since women are the limiting factor on reproduction and a society with 100 women and 1 man will rebuild 100 times faster than the opposite, but that doesn't mean that the idea that women are weaker than men could be allowed to spread in this universe without facing continuous blatant contradiction, and I think it's incredibly lazy and kind of obnoxiously preachy to try to apply real-world aesops to a world that doesn't even follow real-world gender rules.

Also, to be fair, the characters of Fire Emblem decidedly do not have medieval beliefs about women, and most of the sexism these women complain about happens offscreen (though honestly that just makes me headcanon that Sully just has a complex over her low strength growth and she's lashing out by complaining to her coworkers about men in the army who don't actually exist), so clearly sexism here is different from sexism in medieval times, but that's more just applying modern values to medieval fantasy to avoid creeping out and alienating modern viewers.

My main point is that creating a world where women are just as strong as men on average, and then making this world still apparently have loads of men convinced that they aren't, is nonsensical and actually kind of sexist in and of itself, as if to insinuate that the obstacles women face in the military have everything to do with men and nothing to do with the limitations of their own body.

 

That being said, let's discuss the rest of the support.

Hector says that's not what it's about, and describes his armor as “heavy riding armor”. Yet again insinuating he knows how to handle himself on a horse while wearing this heavy armor, begging the question of why the hell he doesn't do that in combat. Especially when he then describes himself as “heavy cavalry”.

Man, imagine if Hector could be a great knight. That would be badass.

Anyway, things are going smoothly so far, as long as these thieves don't plan to run off to the dragon's gate. I've gotten past the chest room and the outdoor area by the secret shop with Lowen and Marcus, and I should have plenty of time to get Legault and swipe the member card. Hopefully.

Also, I used a sleep staff to disable a killer bow archer so Erk could kill him and get the killer bow, because why not? It's a killer bow and 40 exp for Priscilla.

The trickiest part so far was the 2-turn time limit for securing that bottleneck against the massive wave of enemy cavalry you otherwise have to fight through. I got Marcus there on time by using Lowen to kill the cavalier and Hector's Wolf Beil to kill a nomad, and after that, Hector took Marcus's place. He's currently in a very slow battle with Cameron, the miniboss of this map. When that's over, I plan to send Canas and Erk over and use this as a slow and steady training opportunity for them. Right now though, Erk's standing guard by the tent, and Canas is dealing with the mage reinforcements threatening to ambush Hector from behind.

The supports are really helping here. Erk really appreciates the evade, and when you have to kill this many enemies that you can't always reliably one-round, the crit bonus for Marcus and Lowen was greatly appreciated too.

Unfortunately, I forgot that Lyn doesn't have the con to do rescue drop strats, and now I have to stall the thief by keeping him run running away for one more turn while I drop Matthew so he can steal the turn after. I'll have to block the path and hope he doesn't attack someone who can kill him in one hit.

Looks like I was right about where they were gonna run off to. Because I blocked it just like I said I would, and it looks like in this game, just like in so many others before it, if you block off a thief's escape route, they just stop moving. They won't even attack or steal from anyone.

At any rate, I've got the member card, so let's hope they stay frozen again.

Aww. I just got Erk and Priscilla's A rank. It's a bit cliché... okay, it's a lot cliché... but I just find this whole “sweet and smitten teenage girl filtered through 57 layers of upper-class propriety” thing to be really cute. Of course, I imagine this would be even more satisfying if I had tried to pair her with anyone else and found out that tragically, only Erk can actually marry her.

Yep, the thieves do indeed stay immobile, meaning I can steal the member card thief's chest key too, which might come in handy later. Now to kill him with Lyn, then unblock the exit so that Legault can get in range to be recruited.

Alright. I think that's everything. Cameron's still alive due to three consecutive failed attempts to finish him off combined with his use of the elixir, but since Hector's blocking him off, everything right now is sustainable. I got the blue gem and sold it at the secret shop, and aside from the incredibly expensive physic staves that are making that lack of a silver card really, really hurt, there doesn't seem to be much worth buying. I'll have to check the other secret shop. I will buy a physic staff though, because it seems like something that would be crucial to have for emergencies on an ironman.

Honestly, I actually found the sheer variety of normally-super-rare stuff you could buy in FE6 pretty damned refreshing. Nosferatu tomes, physic staves, killer weapons, a hell of a lot of stuff that usually resides in an uncomfortable realm between “legendary weapon” and “standard shop merchandise” got put into the latter category instead of the “chests or secret shops or fuck you” camp they're usually relegated to. It was fun getting to use that stuff as part of my standard arsenal.

...Well. Canas is completely speed-screwed. Six levels. He's gained six levels since I got him, and of all of them, not one granted him speed. He's still at his base of eight.

...And I got careless. Again. Thankfully it didn't end in disaster like it could have, but even so, I don't know how this is still happening. What the fuck is wrong with me!?

I used a lancereaver to try and get Lyn some training against the poison lance knights. She kicked both of their asses, and then I failed to notice that the third one had an axereaver. Lyn was instantly dropped down to one HP.

That would have been the end of my ironman run right there if she had taken just a little more damage. I got careless because the map was basically “over”.

On the plus side, Canas finally got a speed level up.

At level fifteen.

But we're done here. Let's get moving and see the big cutscene to cap off the first half of Hector Mode.

It just kind of demonstrates, yet again, how silly Hector being the protagonist is when the game still has Eliwood rush from his spot on the map to the stairs to the dragon's gate... even though, since he's not the throne-seizer, that spot isn't on the throne anymore and it basically just shows him wandering halfway across the map from his spot guarding Merlinus despite talking with people who were in the throne room mere seconds ago. This story is so Eliwood-centric that the idea of making anyone else the protagonist just... doesn't work.

...You know, upon seeing Jaffar and thinking about him as an enemy... honestly it's a massive blessing you never have to fight him. Imagine having to fight an enemy who constantly has a nigh-inescapable chance of instantly killing you no matter what you do?

Fuck.

Looks like I did completely mis-remember Elbert's death.

I could've sworn he had been stabbed by Jaffar here. And what made that so awesome in my mind was that that would mean...

...well...

...think about it.

When Elbert attacks Nergal, giving him such a grievous wound that he has to basically funnel the souls of countless people into his body just to fix it...

...What did he attack with?

They never say.

What kind of weapon could a prisoner conceivably have on them?

Had he somehow managed to sneak a knife through multiple captures and imprisonments?

No. To my mind, when I looked back on this scene, I had the mistaken “realization” that Elbert stabbed Nergal... with the knife he himself had just been stabbed with.

That Elbert was such an unbelievable badass that he stabbed a bitch with the knife that had just been buried in his own fucking flesh.

Alas, reality is... so much more disappointing. I mean it's still badass that he did it with most of his soul ripped out, but... what the fuck did he do it with? Did he just grab onto the guy and chomp down on his jugular or something? I mean if so, holy shit, hardcore. But my point is we don't have any idea what the hell that attack even was!

So Ephidel dies because Ninian snaps out of it thanks to Nils and the power of the ritual goes haywire, causing both the dragon and him to disintegrate. Nergal survives because he warps away.

...But Ephidel can do that too.

I get that “panic in the moment” is a thing, but that's basically never, ever a satisfying excuse for why somebody dies to something they could easily defend themselves from.

Yeah, a lot about this scene is dumber than I remember it being. The fact that they don't even have a piece of artwork for the moment Elbert strikes down Nergal...

...And then they just have him vanish like he died and have Elbert say “he will return” rather than having Nergal simply warp away to heal himself like he did when Athos attacked him...

...It feels kind of stupid watching it again.

That said, ending the chapter with Elbert's death... not even giving anyone but Eliwood time to even react... just cutting to black and ending in silence...

...If I hadn't been taken out of the moment by the weirdness of the villain behavior, I may very well have gotten chills.

Well. Yeah. I think we're gonna have some problems with the plot like everyone says. The issues are just piling up. Hopefully I'll continue to enjoy the writing itself, though.

That's it for today. Stay safe, everyone!

[Jotari]

Jaffar as an enemy could work as he's locked to 1 range. Though that would go the opposite route of making him way too easy to deal with. Unless he can move in which case he would be a pretty terrifying, but managable, you have to kill him in a single turn (from range) or risk losing someone kind of boss.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Jotari said:

Jaffar as an enemy could work as he's locked to 1 range. Though that would go the opposite route of making him way too easy to deal with. Unless he can move in which case he would be a pretty terrifying, but managable, you have to kill him in a single turn (from range) or risk losing someone kind of boss.

True. Honestly in practice he probably wouldn't be as scary as, say, Valentian Sonya, who as far as I can remember is damned near impossible to reliably survive a round of combat with, and can counter most of your party.

[Alastor15243]

Blazing Blade Day 18: Chapter 21

Ah yes, the chapter where we get our dancer, and also the chapter where Priscilla's gonna use every last damned use of that torch staff we got to level grind.

Alright, so I'm at the talk with the lords and the twins, and it seems that how much quintessence you have scales exponentially with your “strength of mind and body”, and that the strongest can have hundreds of times more than the average person.

So wait...

...Wait, if Ninian and Nils don't have the power to drain quintessence from people... then why did it look like Ninian was the one sucking Elbert's quintessence out? And I explicitly remember Ninian apologizing to Eliwood in Eliwood Mode for what happened to his father, like she blamed herself in a very direct way...

...Okay, it can very, very easily be read that way, but it looks like Ninian going “power... p-power...” was just Ninian brainwashedly reacting to having Elbert's quintessence funneled into her by Nergal. Man, this game really pushes these portrait talking scenes well beyond what they can properly convey. I would've used some map animations at least, or a CG or two.

I would've changed Eliwood's portrait to the sad face before Ninian told Nils to stop talking about Elbert and his knights' deaths. Does the engine not allow for changing a character's expression without giving them a line?

“He told us he would sooner sacrifice himself than see his homeland, Lycia, embroiled in the flames of war.”

So, with that comment here, we can conclude one of three things:

1: Elbert was lying.

2: Elbert came to this conclusion out of regret for his attempts to start the war in the first place.

3: Elbert felt this way all along and faked joining the conspiracy to try and stop it.

And alas, the game never gave us any way to know which one it is. The game no longer even comments on his guilt or innocence.

Also Lyn offhandedly confirms that Elbert did indeed stab Nergal, presumably with a weapon he managed to keep and conceal on himself through multiple kidnappings and recaptures. That... honestly, I'd have liked my “stabbed Nergal with the knife in his own back” idea, or even the “bit him in the damned neck” idea better than that. Also, this is a Hector-Mode-exclusive line, so that just drives home how terrible they were at conveying what the hell was going on there.

...Nope, my mistake. I assumed it was, but apparently the tail-end of this conversation is in Eliwood Mode too.

But now we can finally shop for some more weapons! At this point we basically need more of everything. And since I know for a fact that I'm going to need hand axes and javelins basically the whole game through, I'm going to be buying a ton of them, just in case there's another shopping drought. Apparently there's a big one later in the game that ends in Cog of Destiny, which I really have to watch out for.

Yet again it seems like the massive lion's share of the enemies aren't going to be visible until Matthew and Priscilla use their torches.

...Actually, come to think of it, I think I'll be switching out Matthew for Legault, since Matthew didn't get much training throughout the game. Even after the angelic robe I gave him (no regrets there; it saved his ass in chapter 19), Matthew is still equal or worse in everything compared to Legault.

This is yet another super-low deployment chapter. I'll be bringing the lords (I have to bring Eliwood, and Lyn needs to stay in shape if I want to deal with one less fog of war chapter later on), Marcus, Lowen, Erk, Priscilla and Legault. I'll have Erk take care of the southwestern monks, Lyn will take care of the northern one, and as for the no-doubt copious enemies incoming from the east... I'll work that out once I light the torches and stock the fuck up on weapons.

And of course as soon as I start, Ninian yet again says “I stole [Eliwood's] father's life from him”, further explaining why I assumed she was the one doing the actual quintessence sucking in that scene when she was under mind control.

Yeah, I don't get why they thought Nils giving Ninian some of his power needed a whole CG, when the moment Elbert stabbed Nergal didn't. They're not doing anything they didn't explicitly say they'd be doing in the talk before it.

And of course there are wyvern riders in the fog. Time to shop for some axes and send in the cavalry.

Marcus finally, at long last, levels up speed. If he had done it even a little earlier that would've been fantastic, but it lets him double some crucial enemies now.

...Or not, thanks to the weight of hand axes. Guess he'll need to use javelins against some enemies. Shame, because he's S ranked axes due to using them so much.

Yes, just in time for the second half of the game, Marcus is finally paying the prepromote piper. Granted, it's only in comparison to Lowen, and he's still one of the sturdiest and most competent fighters in the army, but... it's starting to happen.

Nearly every physical enemy on this map has a poison weapon, and a lot of my guys are getting hit by them. Fortunately poison is barely an issue.

Even with just one healer.

I can't wait to promote Erk.

And yet I can wait. Oh hell yes I can.

I sold my devil axe, hammer and longsword for enough money to buy some more supplies, probably magic. I'm running low on dark tomes and I don't know when I'll be able to get a new one.

This honestly isn't nearly as terrifying as the last fog chapter, mostly because all of the enemies are coming from exactly one direction, where I can put all of my powerful axe users. The bandits were also really easy to take care of. Maybe it's just that I'm used to sending my strongest cavalry forward, not to mention that I now have my super-powerful Lowen, but the time limits to get to them seem to be getting more reasonable.

The wyrmslayer is inexplicably way, way more valuable than the other slayer weapons I've gotten my hands on, so I immediately sell it due to how insanely starved for cash I am right now. I may sell this second elysian whip too later, unless I come into a shitton of gold and hiring Farina actually turns out to be feasible. Because getting 30,000 gold in a normal run seems utterly psychotic, let alone without the silver card.

But thankfully, the boss has a second hero crest to steal, one which I decidedly will not need, so there's that.

Oleg isn't too scary as long as you can keep him using his steel bow instead of his killer axe. I fed the kill to Erk, giving him a full level and bringing him tantalizingly close to promotion time.

And now we get Isadora with a much-appreciated silver sword. Judging by the wiki, she's basically just Marcus with a speed growth, which is making me regret slacking off in training Sain. Honestly, I hope it's not too late.

Eliwood: Our battles are like nothing you've ever prepared for. Are you ready to face them?

...Obviously not, jackass. You just said they're like nothing she's ever prepared for!

What the hell does Nergal mean by “my strength is not what it was”? Nils and Ninian literally just explained he doesn't age anymore thanks to his quintessence use!

...But fuck it. You know what? I'm in the mood to keep going! I've got barely anything to do all day, so let's do another chapter.

 

Day 18 Bonus: Chapter 22

Oh shit. I love this scene. This is where the Four Fucking Fangs are assembled.

...And shit. Wow. This is my second to last chance to get the Linus version of the next map. I realize that it won't net me Geitz, but I'm not keen to deal with a swordmaster in fog of war on an ironman run regardless.

Plus, storywise, I like it better when Linus dies first. It feels obvious and expected that Linus would be manipulated into thinking the heroes murdered Lloyd. The other way around though... given Lloyd is the calmer and more collected one, I find that far more interesting to think that he's that overwhelmed with grief that it overwhelms his better judgment.

Holy shit. I never noticed this as a kid, but watching it again after reading all of the jokes... holy shit, yes, I think Ursula has the hots for Sonia.

I like this discussion about Uther and how seriously he takes information security. It's a nice bit of worldbuilding.

And now Nils passes out, which I have to assume is due to the energy he gave Ninian. What I wish I knew was why the hell Ninian says Nils mustn't be moved. The only thing I can think of would be that violating his personal space even the tiniest bit more than usual would make it obvious that he's a manakete.

Fuck it, I'm not gonna train Sain. He's too far gone at this point, especially since I don't even have a promotion item for him. I'll just pair Isadora with Harken. It's been ages since I've gotten this far in the game, but I've heard he's really good.

I also really wanna make sure I get Heath, but he's not on the map right now, so I hope he's where I remember him being.

First move is the same as always: send Marcus and Lowen in to clear the way to the treasure room.

...Shit, wait... there's a knight crest here. It's on the boss. Do I go to the trouble to salvage Sain from level 9 and use it on him... or do I sell the thing?

...Fuck it, of course I'm gonna sell the thing. My deployment slots are cramped enough as it stands, I don't need a fourth paladin if it'll cost me that much experience and 5000 gold.

Given that this is a survival map though, I'm gonna have to make sure I can kill Eubans in time. And I've gotta make sure I get the treasure and recruit Heath first.

Oh, and Rath.

I'm hoping I can make him good, but holy shit is he gonna be underleveled for this. Let's see what his stats look like now.

So let's just get our inventories sorted out, and... start!

Oh yeah, and there's a secret shop here. Might as well check it out, but given how expensive the shit in there normally is...

It is absolutely infuriating to me that Heath doesn't show up on the map in preparations mode, and is just there without any fanfare or cue whatsoever when you actually deploy. I don't have the slightest idea why that is, but they did it.

Isadora's first move on the map is to help Marcus and Lowen switch back to their hand axes and javelins after having to use different weapons to take out the axereaver knights. Gotta open up with the 1-2 range, or they'll just start piling up.

Also, my choice to spend more than three thousand gold on a physic staff has been vindicated, as it lets me heal Marcus from a nasty axereaver hit he had to take.

...EXCEPT NO IT DOESN'T, BECAUSE THE FUCKING KNIGHTS ARE IN THE WAY, AND I CAN'T REACH HIM WITH HER PATHETIC PHYSIC RANGE IF SHE CAN'T MOVE HER FULL MOVEMENT.

OH BLESSED ANNA PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON MY FOOLISH SOUL.

I CAN'T LOSE MARCUS. NOT YET. HE'S STILL GOOD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh thank goodness. He managed to survive with a little room for error. But I've gotta get him healed up immediately. Marcus just can't take hits from mixed weapon crowds like he used to. If he can't dodgetank, he's kinda fucked come enemy phase.

I've got a plan to both get Heath and kill the thief next turn. It depends on Heath being baitable. If not... there might be problems.

I am not liking how dangerous these enemies are. Not “not liking” from a game design perspective, “not liking” from a “wanting to keep my army's blood inside of itself” perspective. The reavers they're carrying are pretty damned terrifying, and even a neutral weapon triangle matchup is pretty scary. But I've gotta risk it, or I'll be even more financially in the hole than I already am. I have to hope the A support I built up with Lowen will keep him safe.

Thank goodness. Heath took the bait and attacked Hector. But strangely, he didn't have any pre-battle lines. Don't recruitable enemy units usually have a pre-battle line if you fight them? It's almost like they snuck him in there to punish people who aren't paying close attention to the map.

I was put in a very terrifying situation where Marcus's only non-axe weapon, his javelin, broke, right before the axereaver wyvern riders came upon him. Thankfully, he failed to double so many of them that there was no room for more than one of the wyvern riders to attack him. And then next turn, I managed to hide Marcus behind a bottleneck so that his former student, now master, Lowen, can take care of all of these enemies before they start swarming the area around Nils and make my life a living hell.

One thing I like about this map is that as nightmarishly difficult as it is right now, the actual core objective of staying alive is almost a no-brainer. It would be nigh-trivial to simply hole up in the area where Nils is and stay safe forever. It's only when you try to get Heath, the secret shop, the knight crest, the treasures, and Rath that this chapter becomes completely batshit insane.

Speaking of Rath...

...Hoo boy is he bad. He can't double, he can't one-shot wyverns due to merely doubled effective damage... I mean I have some cool bows he might be able to make use of, but right now it's not looking pretty for him. I think I'm just gonna sell that orion's bolt.

I got the brave axe with Marcus. Now I have to have Legault get the other chest, and really power through these enemies to get the knight crest.

The secret shop doesn't have anything overly interesting that the previous secret shop didn't have. Nothing worth the money on my budget at any rate.

Every time it feels like things are calming down, another massive wave just comes crashing down on Lowen and Marcus. Honestly, the concern now is more that they'll run out of 1-2 range weapons before the reinforcements stop. I may have an opening depending on what reinforcements show up this turn, but I'll have to see.

Okay, I would have had an opening, had these knights not outright refused to die. I'll have to wait until next turn. In the meantime, Heath got his first level up, and he got a full left column! Which means speed! Awesome!

Alright, so, just to give you a bit more of a mental image of what's going on, my army kinda got split into three in the massive chaos and spur-of-the-moment thinking I had to do to get all the objectives done. Erk, Canas, Ninian, Eliwood, Heath, Priscilla and Legault are between the secret shop and the treasure room, trying to train Heath and get the remaining treasure. Just to the southeast, Lowen is just outside the fort, right in front of the bottleneck hallway leading to the treasure room, with Marcus behind him, providing moral support since he'd just be a liability on enemy phase. The second these enemies are down, Marcus and Lowen are gonna rush down south to try and kill Eubans within the next three turns.

To the north, Hector and Isadora are manning the stairs, guarding Nils, Lyn, Rath and Bartre from the stragglers who either slipped past Lowen and Marcus, or were tempted over by the juicy green bait Uther so unhelpfully filled the fort with. Said stragglers were the main reason the rest of my army split in half in the first place. They went for the green units, and suddenly I had a ton of axereaver wyvern riders making a massive danger zone in the middle of the map. I had to have Rath get Lyn out of the way of most of them by rescuing her and then getting danced by Ninian. Then I had to have Priscilla and Isadora rescue the two of them to send them safely into Nils's chamber, before waiting for an opening for Priscilla to rejoin Erk to the west.

I got 10,000 gold from the other chest. Thank god the thief didn't go for that one first. I completely forgot chests could have gold you can't steal back.

Okay. Assuming anything doesn't go horribly wrong on the last turn, I should just baaaaarely be able to make it to kill Eubans in time. It'll have to be a team effort though. And depending on enemy movements, I might not be able to get enough people around him...

I got Ninian's support with Eliwood, and... honestly I don't have much to comment about. I like the pairing, but honestly I can't even begin to explain why. It may very well just be nostalgia.

Eubans started moving on the last turn, but thanks to how accurate Marcus and Lowen are with their support boosts, moving onto a forest isn't even a minor setback.

The brave axe also turns out to not be necessary, or even helpful. While it's still stronger than an iron axe even when its high weight keeps you from doubling, the iron axe was enough to secure the kill, and with better accuracy at that, after Marcus laid down a whopping bit of silver axe chip damage.

Honestly, I wish the story did more with the premise of the enemy here. The story here is pretty interesting. The mercenary company's master has abandoned them, and yet Eubans is almost a twisted version of the Greil or Jerrot brand of noble mercenary, remaining loyal to their client even after they've fallen.

But more importantly, they're basically completely fucked. Their boss tried to stage a coup, and they were in on it. They're wanted men everywhere in Lycia, so now their only option is to kill the heroes in order to impress the Black Fang. They're desperate. They may even know they're almost certainly going to die. And yet they go all out, in one massive blaze of glory, sending everything they've got at this one last chance of survival, sending wave after wave after wave of their men, because if they don't win here, they might as well die.

That could have been way more interesting if they had more than just Heath's talk with Eubans to explore it with.

I like the justification (that nobody will believe dragons are returning until it's too late) for why it has to be the heroes saving the world rather than getting help from the whole continent, even though honestly, given the history of the series, the gameplay wouldn't change, like, at all even if they did get the whole continent united around this. But it does definitely keep the scale of the conflict more local, despite the massive stakes, and I kind of appreciate that. I love a good war story as much as the next guy, but as Lyn mode demonstrates, the scale of the conflict doesn't need to be massive for the story to be engaging.

Alright. So at least for the moment, Nergal is decidedly out of commission and needs to heal. So the oft-mentioned “count the times Nergal could've stopped the heroes” game isn't in play right now. But it probably will come into play soon.

Hmmm...

I wonder how Uther knows about Athos?

...Questions that will hopefully be answered later.

Alright, that's it for today. Stay safe, everyone!

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So, with that comment here, we can conclude one of three things:

1: Elbert was lying.

2: Elbert came to this conclusion out of regret for his attempts to start the war in the first place.

3: Elbert felt this way all along and faked joining the conspiracy to try and stop it.

I have always thought it was option number 3 personally.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But now we can finally shop for some more weapons! At this point we basically need more of everything. And since I know for a fact that I'm going to need hand axes and javelins basically the whole game through, I'm going to be buying a ton of them, just in case there's another shopping drought. Apparently there's a big one later in the game that ends in Cog of Destiny, which I really have to watch out for.

I hope I didn't spoil that with my recent post in the ironman experience board.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I can't wait to promote Erk.

If you are training up an Erk, when you get lord Pent I would appreciate it if you compare the two of them.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Plus, storywise, I like it better when Linus dies first. It feels obvious and expected that Linus would be manipulated into thinking the heroes murdered Lloyd. The other way around though... given Lloyd is the calmer and more collected one, I find that far more interesting to think that he's that overwhelmed with grief that it overwhelms his better judgment.

In some ways the game almost disagrees with you. If Llyod dies first and you fight Linus in Cog of Destiny, in Hector mode there is a unique scene that plays at the end of the map if Hector landed the killing blow on him. Barely related side note Legault has some interesting battle quotes with whichever of the Reed brothers you fight on Cog of Destiny as well.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Speaking of Rath...

...Hoo boy is he bad. He can't double, he can't one-shot wyverns due to merely doubled effective damage... I mean I have some cool bows he might be able to make use of, but right now it's not looking pretty for him. I think I'm just gonna sell that orion's bolt.

Rath is the only Lyn mode charter who is arguably better if you skip Lyn mode, as that version of him starts with B rank bows at base, which lets him use that brave bow that usually just gathers dust in the convoy. With the brave bow he can usually take out a wyvern on his turn, which is a marked improvement.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Every time it feels like things are calming down, another massive wave just comes crashing down on Lowen and Marcus. Honestly, the concern now is more that they'll run out of 1-2 range weapons before the reinforcements stop. I may have an opening depending on what reinforcements show up this turn, but I'll have to see.

One of the greatest concerns in FE7, which is kinda sad. That is the big worry with the shop drought coming up.

 

Good Luck on Living Legends, hopefully you don't get unlucky with the something like ~6% chance Pent dies without any means of preventing it. Also are you going to try to unlock and play Genesis? If you do it might be a good idea to save into your third slot... just in case.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have always thought it was option number 3 personally.

Same, but it's weird we never get any explicit confirmation of that.

4 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I hope I didn't spoil that with my recent post in the ironman experience board.

Dom't worry. I did see you say that, but Mangs did it first when he responded to my superchat where I told him I forgot to buy anything for the dread isle.

6 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

If you are training up an Erk, when you get lord Pent I would appreciate it if you compare the two of them.

I'd be happy to.

6 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

In some ways the game almost disagrees with you. If Llyod dies first and you fight Linus in Cog of Destiny, in Hector mode there is a unique scene that plays at the end of the map if Hector landed the killing blow on him.

Wow. Interesting to know! I'll try to get that if I fail to get Linus's chapter 24.

8 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Rath is the only Lyn mode charter who is arguably better if you skip Lyn mode, as that version of him starts with B rank bows at base, which lets him use that brave bow that usually just gathers dust in the convoy. With the brave bow he can usually take out a wyvern on his turn, which is a marked improvement.

Oh yeah, that would have been immensely appreciated, even though Marcus and Lowen would still have to kill most of them.

And yes, I am gonna try to unlock Genesis. I'll take your advice. I can't remember anything about it because I never got it as a kid. But I've heard... things.

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And yes, I am gonna try to unlock Genesis. I'll take your advice. I can't remember anything about it because I never got it as a kid. But I've heard... things.

Its only really bad on HHM, so unless you were playing that as a kid it would be an entirely different experience. Oddly enough Genesis is the only chapter which I feel rewards you if you bothered to trained a sniper.

[Boomhauer007]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, the chapter where we get our dancer, and also the chapter where Priscilla's gonna use every last damned use of that torch staff we got to level grind.

Spoiler

Oh god I hope you didn't actually use them all, since living legend is fog on HHM, and shows no fog in the prep because that's a thing to do. 

It's spoilers for the next map but also what I immediately thought on the first line. 

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

  Hide contents

Oh god I hope you didn't actually use them all, since living legend is fog on HHM, and shows no fog in the prep because that's a thing to do. 

It's spoilers for the next map but also what I immediately thought on the first line. 

I still have three uses left. I used it as much as I needed to to keep Priscilla's xp flowing smoothly. Getting Valkyrie Priscilla sooner is something I figured would be more valuable than saving that staff for emergencies would be.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

“He told us he would sooner sacrifice himself than see his homeland, Lycia, embroiled in the flames of war.”

So, with that comment here, we can conclude one of three things:

1: Elbert was lying.

2: Elbert came to this conclusion out of regret for his attempts to start the war in the first place.

3: Elbert felt this way all along and faked joining the conspiracy to try and stop it.

It could be that he believed he could perform a bloodless coup. He had some issues with Uther ruling (maybe he knew he was terminal and didn't trust Hector's reputation) and thought if he could back enough strength they could oust Uther without it coming to a fight.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

One of the greatest concerns in FE7, which is kinda sad. That is the big worry with the shop drought coming up.

FFO and Vaida's fight have good shops, but yeah, after that you get 6 chapters with merely one Silver/Iron Armory + Vendor in the stretch.

Though Vaida guards the Unfufilled Heart shops, she can be managed.

Hawkeye on a Peak is 22 (Spd) + 13 (Lck) + 40 (Peak) + 15 (WTA) + 5 (S Axes) = 95 Avoid. Vaida is 70 + 42 + 8 = 120 Hit. 25 Displayed is 12.5 True * 2 b/c Vaida will double. 

Vaida is 47 Atk vs. Hawkeye's 16 Def and 50 HP, so 31 per hit. Hawkeye can't survive two consecutive hits, but he can mend a single one off with an Elixir use. And if the math of .125 * .125 is the right math to do, the chance of being ORKO'ed is 1.56%. Hawkeye needs three turns of baiting Vaida to work I think, maybe two with Ninian refreshing the flier who shops?

Just doing the math in advance for that chapter.