Vestaria Saga Orthodox Ironman

[Pépito]

Reading Eltosian Kadath ironman of Vestaria Saga 1 inspired me to try one of my own. I never finished an ironman of this game before but it shouldn't be too hard. The game give you many different tools to crawl your way to victory as well as means to negate most of the biggest obstacles like crits and status effects. Compared to a game like Berwick which really isn't made for ironman runs, this should be fun.

As tradition dictates, we begin with a short and simple little chapter during which our lord, the (soon to be) heir of the kingdom of Meleda, must flee by boat and seek out allies to help him reclaim his homeland.

We are introduced to the main lord of this game, Zade, and his big brother Zech as well as Garlan, Zade's tactician.

 

You may notice some differences in the artstyle between portraits. Apparently, Kaga reused some of the portraits meant for Tear Ring Saga but this will be a lot more apparent with later units.

This here is the first map, the prologue. Very simple objective, few side objectives (the flower, the village and preventing a ship from being destroyed). It's really here to let you learn how to use your units and to let the villagers fill you in on the doubling threshold and the like.

Speaking of our units:

This man here is the main lord and compared to the other kaga lords he is... okay. Pretty good combat unit with good growths but he is shafted hard by his promotion,  which takes place after chapter 15. Other than that, he comes with some good skils: commander 1 gives +10 accuracy to all allies within 3 squares of him and critical edge adds his dex (the skill stat of this game) to his chances to crit. The third skill you see, orison, is only here as long as he has his Edelstern equipped and it increases his avoid when his health dips below 50%. Speaking of his personal weapon, this is Kaga Saga. You'll see a lot of personal weapons and they are all pretty crazy. For comparison, the short sword has 4 might and 65 accuracy whereas the Edelstern has 7 might, 15 crit, 120 accuracy, an effectiveness against armor knights and is a brave weapon. It's really good but 30 uses might feel a little low, if not for this game having Siurian Thaumite which are small blue stones with one use letting you completely repair a weapon. They are decently common , maybe 20 or so throughout the game if you don't buy any in shops. Finally, Zade has the light cavalry weapon type which isn't great but there is even worse. Before talking about the other units, I'll talk about the stats a little. STR, DEF, RES, MOB (for mobility) and MAG are pretty obvious, DEX is skill and gives + 3 accuracy per point, AGI is speed and gives + 2 avoid per point, LUCK is only used to prevent crits with each point giving you one point of crit-evade. PROF is proficiency, the stat that dictates what weapons you can use. Here, Zade can only use normal swords with a PROF stat equal or inferior to 5. It's not too limiting given that it has a high chance of increasing on level-up and that few weapons have high PROF stats but it still screws several characters. A general rule is that non-magical characters don't have a magic growth, a very low resistance growth and almost no-one can gain movement points by leveling up.

For comparison with Zade, here is his brother.

He has even more skills, but it's not really relevant. The only things to remember about him for now is that he wields Silvanister, has a Vermil Ring and is supposed to marry our next character, Atholphis.

Athol is our starting healer as well a the Starmaiden. Whatever does this mean I wonder? She only has two skills, benison which is miracle with a Luck x 2 percent chance to activate and charisma which increases by 5 the avoid of allies within 5 squares of her. If you pick Clemency mode, charisma is replaced with Starmaiden's grace which increases STR, MAG, DEF and RES of all allies by 2 as long as she is here if I remember correctly. It's  a lot more broken than it sounds. On Orthodox we are stuck with charisma unfortunately. She is also unable to promote which is really annoying. We will also need to remember later that she is a 14 year-old girl which might explain some of her actions. Neither her nor Zech really have feelings for each other, their marriage being an arranged one.

Next is Prody.

Prody is an armor knight and they still suffer from the same problem as always, shit movement and movement type. But Prody has more to offer. To start with, he can wield both spears and throwing spears which are separate weapon types in this game. Up next are his skills, diligence (50% bonus exp) and good neighbor (+3 DEF and RES to adjacent allies). He still isn't going to be very good but he is far from useless.

Unfortunately for him we also start with Bonacel.

Better in every way before the growths kick in and he also comes with a Phalanx Lance with a PROF stat of 9 meaning only he can wield it for now, giving him +3 DEF. What this means is that he is pretty much invincible earlygame. He comes with wrath (25% chance to crit on a counterattack) and shield (DEX% to nullify any attack against him). I'll mention it here before I forget, the doubling threshold in this game is 3 SPD, a crit doubles the damage that would be normally inflicted and a point of weight is nullified every 2 point of STR (MAG is used instead for magical weapons).

 

Our last character is the best unit in the game by far, Troy.

He may not look very impressive for now but he is a fighting god. His only skill is multichance which lets him attack again AGI x 3% of the time. Simple, effective, perfect. On this map Troy has to charge alone to rescue the ship while the rest of the group drags itself across the map.

This is what will happen most maps.

This here is a list of the conversations currently available. All of these ones are flavor text but some other will give us items of even let units form bonds with each other. Bonds differ from supports in that sometimes Unit A may give a bond bonus to Unit B but Unit B doesn't give anything to Unit A. As of now, our only bond is Zade giving a small bonus to Athol.

This how a combat looks:

On our way to the harbor we can visit houses from flavor text, tutorial and 100 denarii each. If Athol visits some houses on this map they'll have different dialogue and the house will remain open, so that you can see the bonus dialogue and still see the normal one after that

.

Some of the enemies are carrying treasures. It's not a problem here but some later thieves will have a jeweled knife equipped, meaning that they have to be killed before they land a hit on you if you want to get the knife (which sells for 600 denarii).

On his way to the harbor, Troy kills a special enemy which nets him  a full level-up. It's a pretty good one for Vestaria Saga.

There is also this little conversation to remind us that there is a village to visit.

I also forgot to mention that we can save every 5 turns in this game. The game gives you 99 save slots for a reason but this is an ironman so I won't be able to savescum this time.

Something I forgot to mention about knives in this game is that, just like in Berwick Saga, they bypass defence. This doesn't really mean much for now but we'll meet buff thieves with triple attack knives sooner than we'd like.

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I didn't manage to catch it but the battlefield darkens and a "Critical" pops up when you crit. The sound is also a little different which is nice.

This is how it looks like when a skill activates. It's a little bit overkill here.

This is how it looks like when someone gets an item through an event like searching the flower. I had to place Athol in range of the pirate because he sometimes just refuses to be baited by Troy.

It works and she dodges.

After that he gets gutted by Troy and Prody and I can calmly search the rest of the map.

Troy gets a cutlass visiting the village. Its a brave sword. Kaga.

I finish up on turn 14 and gets a nice little reward for having saved the ship.

And so we see the Empire's army led by Ajax (the black knight without a helmet) repair the bridge and slowly approach the capital supposedly leading to Zech's death.

I'll end this first part with a musical recommendation: Holy Diver by DIO.

This is the first time I do something like this so any criticism is welcomed.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Pépito
Having the images where they are supposed to be. Trying things with editing.

[Pépito]

Now, for the first proper chapter of this game... exposition.

Ritton is of course the good guy *tm and Venecian Hitler is the not so good guy.

Turns out the Venecians don't have a real army, only mercenaries. I don't know why you would choose mercenaries over a real army but I'm sure they have the best of the best.

Dulles doesn't want to aggravate an empire that could squash them with no real effort but Ritton thinks Zadrian (Zade's name) could get rid of the bandits infesting their country for them since their mercenaries, lead by a man named Villweiss, refuse to do it.

This convinces the rest of the senators (?) to welcome Zadrian but Dulles wants to at least give him a time limit to ensure Zade holds up his end of the bargain.

We are then introduced to Zade's nee-san, Beatrice.

They talk a little about their plans to build an army to retake Meleda and hope that Zech is still alive fighting a guerilla warfare.

They then start discussing the brigands.

We then march to the port town of Elsa, but ask Athol to stay with Ritton as she is too important to be on the battlefield.

Alright, now the first chapter but for real this time.

It's a fair bit bigger than the prologue but there isn't that much more going on.

We need to send Zade to the top right village of Lucca, Troy must go to the top left village before it is destroyed and after that we all regroup to take the port town. Pretty simple. The music is also really good.

Down by the beach is Amundsen who became a meme for some reason. It's just Kaga showing you that sometimes there'll be enemies with a name and a portrait but you still can't recruit them.

He drops a sword so killing him is mandatory of course. But not right now. We need to go to Lucca first.

The village of Lucca has three brave militiamen and a sestra ready to defend it.

They should be able to fend off the one or two bandits that are heading for them.

Troy with his waifu.

I'll have to stop the post here because I can't upload any more pictures.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Pépito
Didn't know I was limited to two posts per day. Also having the images appear properly. Trying things with the editing.

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 hours ago, Pépito said:

Reading Eltosian Kadath ironman of Vestaria Saga 1 inspired me to try one of my own.

Awww...I am honored that I have inspired a new LP.

 

5 hours ago, Pépito said:

Something I forgot to mention about knives in this game is that, just like in Berwick Saga, they bypass defence. This doesn't really mean much for now but we'll meet buff thieves with triple attack knives sooner than we'd like

Really its the quality of the knife that makes 'em dangerous, as even in advanced classes Thief strength cap is 3...

 

5 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

I had to place Athol in range of the pirate because he sometimes just refuses to be baited by Troy.

That is a bit unlucky, but she should be able to take at least one hit this map.

 

5 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

This is the first time I do something like this so any criticism is welcomed.

One noticeable thing is that you didn't have a line break (press enter) between text and images a few times, so it can look a little funky at places on computer. Also, if you either find, or create a stitched together version of the full map, that would look a bit better than the piece-wise version you have been using at the start so far. I know Aggro Incarnate had some for the excellent information he compiled, although that runs dry around chapter 11. I think you can find link to the full map images in this google spreadsheet he was using for that data (but again only til chapter 11).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c3qCZpgGxmseuq_d3FhvOfHN4BhEeoRb2XW74PH7NPQ/edit#gid=231748558

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

Turns out the Venecians don't have a real army, only mercenaries. I don't know why you would choose mercenaries over a real army but I'm sure they have the best of the best

One reason that comes to mind is with a citizen army you have to either give those soldiers a greater position of power, or risk rebellions.

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

I'll have to stop the post here because I can't upload any more pictures.

Yeah, the 10 MB upload limit doesn't last long. You are going to need to find an image host site to keep going, I think Imgur and Imagebox are the most common ones to use (technically I use Google Photos, but tricking that into acting as an image host is really finicky, and I would not recommend it to others)

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

Didn't know I was limited to two posts per day.

That will go away soon enough, as it is because you are "New Memeber"; after an unspecified number of posts you will be upgraded to "Member" where you can make as many posts as you like. Its a system to limit ad bots from taking over the site, but can be kinda a slight inconvenience at first.

[Pépito]

Quote

Really its the quality of the knife that makes 'em dangerous, as even in advanced classes Thief strength cap is 3...

That's true for most knife wielders but assassins can have higher strengh. Knife wielders being able to deal 42 damage no matter your defense per round of combat are peppered here and there.

Now for the update proper.

I had to leave just before a bunch of level-ups.

Prody shows us why we love him.

Zade gets a really good level-up.

Troy gets an okay one. Just one more PROF and he'll be able to use the phalanx spear. He also kills an archer who drops a bow for the archer that joins in a few turns.

We are then introduced to the edgy sword user. At least one per game and their quality varies wildly but this one is... okay.

The man is currently working for the bandits and is a little bit on edge (eh eh). We can't recruit him yet and we have to battle him to enter the town.

Stat-wise and skill-wise, you can think of him as a deadlier Troy who can't tank and has trouble reaching the enemy in time for now. His third skill is Mettle which increases his crit chances the lower his health is. You might also notice two different sword icons in the lower left corner. That is because he can wield both normal swords and greatswords (the massive two-handed cool Conan swords). They are generally just stronger and heavier than normal swords but we will get to see a few notable ones later on. Right now, Haldyn is a stationary boss with just enough attack to be unable to pierce Bonacel's defense if he uses the phalanx lance or is next to Prody.

Troy reaches the top left village and gets some money for his trouble.

He then goes to the shop to buy 4 spears (9 ATK, 70 ACC simple, cheap and fairly reliable), 3 pilums and 3 hurlbats (throwing axes).

Zade eventually reaches the village and recruits the two axe bros (Jean and Ash) and the early-game archer (Dune) as well as another healer. The village elder is a certified badass who can't join our party but gives Dune a personal bow. It's a strong and accurate brave bow with two uses, tailor-made to kill the pirate waiting near the top of the map. If you wait in the menu when you start the game you get a little image reel of the game, one of which is Dune using this bow on that bandit. You can keep the bow for other situations but I really want the 500D carried by that bandit.

Now, the unit discussion:

Dune really doesn't start out too great. He only has one skill, ambush, which is vantage with an AGI x 5% chance to activate. It's useless for now because even if it manages to activate, Dune can't use vantage very effectively for now. His AGI caps out at 19, so 95% activation rate and he'll get better bows. Eventually. He also gets multichance at level 12 (I think). He'll become a very strong fighter if he lives that long. Honestly one of the most important units for an ironman. His other skill is lurk, which is given by his hunting bow and gives 50% more terrain bonuses. Nice, but nothing more.

Jean is the first of the axe bros and he is very hit-or-miss. He's strong and gets a lot of HP but he is slow and inaccurate. His one skill is axe defense which has a STR% chance to negate any attack. You don't want to rely on it but it's very nice when it happens. He'll get a personal axe eventually which will make him a lot better but until then he's pretty bad.

Ash's growths beat Jean's in DEX and AGI which will make him much more reliable. He also gets two skills by leveling-up, one that increases his movement by one and another which gives him 15% chance to find herbs at the beginning of the turn for the first 23 turns (it prints money). He also has mettle but I don't want him to be on low health. Jean and him also have a small bond with each other which partially alleviates the accuracy problem. Finally, all three of them have the light infantry movement type which let's them go through some terrain like crags (the cliffs preventing other units to access the pirate at the top of the map. All three of them can get really shafted  by their growths so let's hope that doesn't happen (especially Dune).

The last character is sestra Alysia, essentially Athol with slighly different stats and no charisma (the skill). She can boost our three scrubs by standing near them at least. She also come with a unique, but not personal, staff: the staff of Beatitude. Having it in a healer's inventory grants them the regenesis skill (+5 hp at the beginning of every turn) and it can be used to give that status to another unit for 5 turns. Something really nice about it is that whereas a regular healing staff gives 20 exp per use, this one gives 50.

She also has access to conversations with both Zade (which is just Alysia already being under Zade's charm) and Dune (to remind us that Dune got gravely injured recently to rescue Alysia). I'm not sure if the events of Alysia's rescue are covered in the side-game "The Heroes of Lucca" (which is a small side game about Dune, Jean and Ash rising up against the brigands). Hopefully it will be translated one day.

Another thing of note is that although Alysia has a bond with the 3 heroes of Lucca, only Dune gives her bond bonuses (big ones too) which shows that she really cares about him.

Another thing that I forgot to mention regarding weapons. Bows, tomes and throwing spears (throwing spears lose one even if you miss at close range which is a little weird) lose one durability per attack even if they miss but not throwing axes. Considering how expensive they are and how inaccurate the axe fighters are this is important to keep in mind.

 

I use the downtime to make sure everyone can get the weapons they should have before moving towards the port city and engaging the dreaded Amundsen.

He at least makes sure to give his life energy to Bonacel before leaving this world. Perhaps we will see him again one day.

This will be especially important later on so I will mention it now: your units can use the trade function to change each other's equipped weapons.

We park Bonacel next to Haldyn and Prody next to Bonacel before skipping forward a few turns as Haldyn futilely tries to down Bonacel with Berwick crits.

After destroying Haldyn, a villager drags him to her house so that we can recruit him later.

All that's left if cleaning up the remaining brigands and let Troy deal with boss. He has a 1-3 range axe but it's pretty inaccurate and he has bad stats anyways.

Visiting the houses gets us a decent sword and a magic stat booster that we won't use for a while.

Troy gets a really good level up from the boss kill.

I buy 2 short swords and seize after 20 something turns with Zade.

Before finishing the update I'll also say that effective damage is a 50% boost to attack. Using a sword effective against armor knights while having 14 ATK will mean you deal 21 ATK - DEF damage to the knight. All of this to say that the rapier and it's 6 might still aren't really worth it.

The music recommendation this time will be Diggy Diggy Hole by Wind Rose

[Pépito]

After seizing the manse and talking to the mayor we decide to have a little chat with Haldyn and invite him to join us, but only after his wounds have healed.

We then embark on a little side-quest to go rescue the town's children. I'm not sure why it's treated as a side thing when our objective is to wipe out the bandits anyway but whatever. Sure, they are only pirates and not part of the Gallachian bandits but they are pretty much the same thing (even worse since they want to sell children to slavers).

We also have confirmation that this is one of the games with a big "offscreen" army and the units we do control are leading other soldiers.

We then head of to the pirate island and are treated with our very first prep screen.

This time we can bring everyone but that will not always be the case.

Here is the full map (taken from AggroIncarnate's google doc)

The green knight that you is called Merida. She arrived a few hours before our party and decided to try to rescue the children alone. She is a little bit stupid but she is also a good contender for the second-best unit of the game.

It's Lestian, as in from Lestia.

Merida is bit of a weird one. She isn't very sturdy and her strength is terrible, base and growth-wise, however she has a decent resistance and a magic stat which makes her the best magic sword use in the game. Her 6 base luck also let's her avoid a lot of crits. Skill-wise she has high evasion, which gives her + 20 avoid and lightfoot which gives her + 1 MOB. her personal weapon is absolutely amazing. A brave lance with 10 might, 80 accuracy, 5 crit, effective against armor knights, 6 bonus AGI and it also raises her DEF growth by 10%. It speaks for itself. Since she is a female sword user she also gets to use the last sword category, the maidenswords. They are rare and expensive but they usually come with powerful effects and great stats.

Merida is great, but she also has a chance to die on the first turn. After said turn, the Luccas can come and rescue her since they can climb the cliffs while everybody else has to take the long way around. If she gets defeated while still a green unit, she becomes recruitable again on chapter 11 and comes already promoted with a skill that increases her growth rates and multichance but without the Dandelion. According to Serenes Forest she would also have lower caps but I have always use the regular version of Merida. Hopefully that doesn't change now.

I rearrange my units so that the Luccas start closest to the cliffs and start the map.

Our current objective is to get Zade to the building next to the lowest ship within 10 turns, else it's game over.

Zade also needs to speak to Merida to recruit her and someone needs to get to the seashell on the beach for a stat-booster.

After Zade seizes the wharf, many pirates will spawn over the bridge but that is for later.

They at least have good taste in women.

All I can do now is pray...

Well, looks like Silken Knight Merida will have to wait.

Ash gets a level off of his rescue of Merida and it is a really good one. It would have been perfect with some DEX but I won't complain.

On his way to rescue Merida, Zade gets another really good level-up. I would rather not spend all of my luck at the start though...

This pirate here drops a battleaxe, which I'll promptly give to Ash so that he can preserve his serrated axe (75 ACC and only 6 weight).

Meh. He needs PROF to wield a certain bow soon but otherwise...

The final assault on the wharf gets Jean a decent level-up. Essentially one more point of speed and 33% more defense.

He doesn't need more stats anyways.

Before seizing the wharf and triggering the reinforcements we recruit Merida and ask her why she is wandering the land alone to which she responds that she has her reasons. I'll get back to that in about 15 chapters (hopefully).

We give her the means to preserve her Dandelion a little bit and hope she gets a PROF level-up soon so that she can use the spear.

Alysia gets a nice level-up but it doesn't really matter as this is the last map where she is under our control.

Zade rescues the widdle children and summons some fresh blood for our units. Dune doesn't feel like it however and would much rather have a beach episode.

Prody tries to prove he isn't worthless.

"The monkey's paw curls one finger"

Troy eventually gets the boss and gets yet another "ok" level-up out of it.

Zade seizes on turn 17 and Dune finds us a stat booster.

Once Zade comes back victorious at Elsa, he and Garlan have a little talk about Athol and Zech. About how she is the last of the royal family and how she clung to Zech out of despair more than love.

About how she is so lonely and desperate that if Zade asks her to stay with Ritton she will probably throw herself of of the balcony.

Zade also shows how humble he is when Alysia fell for him in five minutes yesterday.

I forgot to grab it but Garlan advises Zade to friendzone Athol. he then tells Zade that he has arranged for her to be brought back from Venecia, just in time for Alysia to leave the party.

Zade then decide to take in the sights of the city, which looks very colorful (and a little bit empty).

The mayor also gives us our first Siurian Thaumite that a merchant wanted us to have. These little blue stones will make the personal weapons last so, so much longer. We have to be a little careful however. Whereas in some previous games like Genealogy or Berwick weapons would become broken variants of themselves when depleted, in this game they disappear. So we will have to balance our desire to use the weapons as much as possible before repairing them and the risk of breaking them permanently.

The chapter concludes with a nice walk on the beach by Zade and Athol.

And I'll recommend Dragula by Rob Zombie.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Pépito
I published it with only the first sentence by accident :(

[Pépito]

The next chapter begins with exposition about how the bandits hideout is some old temple in the mountains, how Ritton tried to get the Concio (the governing body) of Venecia to send an army to deal with it and how the bandits conquered the country largest mining city a few months ago. It concludes by drawing a parallel, in the minds of our soldiers, between the brigand occupation and the empire's occupation of their homeland.

Haldyn will start pulling his weight soon. But not now.

The map of this chapter, once again taken from AggroIncarnate's google doc.

This is the first real chapter of Vestaria Saga.

Here is how this is going to go. Most of our units will move left and wait by the bridge while the Luccas climb the cliffs and deal with the enemies there. The "archer" standing in a forest is using this game's ballista, an arbalest. We will also have to kill the thief standing in a forest to the left of us without letting him attack as he has a jeweled knife equipped and a skill ensuring he always has 100% accuracy. After that, we will have to wait for a new unit to arrive and unlock the bridge for us. Then, we'll move to the city on the top left and seize it.

 

I decide to give both the liquid dexterity and the liquid defense to Jean. He uses the DEX one on the first turn and i use a trade chain to get him the tomahawk (stronger and less accurate hurlbat) I get by visiting the house.

Athol already gets a level-up from using the staff of beatitude on the Luccas and it's...

At the beginning of turn 3 we get a little event in the village.

Enter Theodel, the early game wind mage and very bestest friend of the lord.

Mages aren't really the strongest of fighters in Vestaria. To compensate, they have great versatility.

There are three different types of tomes in this game. Elemental magic, vestal magic and sphirian magic.

Elemental magic is further divided into fire (effective against infantry and brigands), wind (effective against cavalry and fliers) and thunder magic (effective against armor knights).

Vestal magic reduces all damage taken by half and usually has some other effect like 100% vantage or regenesis.

Sphirian magic is weird. It has everything from status effects to half damage taken to triple attacks to nothing.

Theodel can use elemental and vestal magic but vestal magic isn't findable for a loooooong time.

His skills are critical edge and aegis (mag% chance to nullify any attack) which is wonderfully unreliable. He also has a good reciprocal bond with Zade. All in all, Thodel is only useful in a few select instances and he is really frail. He gets a personal weapon late into the game that makes him a lot better but he may not get there.

Something that really hampers mages is the rarity of their promotional item. You get three units that can use it and you only get one in chap 11 and one in chap 15 before you can buy the third one. It really discourages heavy use of your combat mages sadly.

Theo comes with a better wind tome which I'd like to save as much as possible and a regenesis ring. He will have to protect the village from the brigands alone with his set of mythril balls.

While he charges in, let's see what the rest of the army has to do.

This turn we will have to retreat a little in order to only have to fight this brave bow wielder on enemy phase.

And... I completely mess it up.

The axe fighter near Jean can still attack him, leading to an exact kill if all three attacks hit.

The enemy phase begins with the best of news.

Then the brigand misses Jean (who consumed the liquid defense, I forgot to mention it).

He gets an empty level-up out of it but at least he is not going to die.

Then I don't know why, but the brave bow wielder just ended his turn by moving closer instead of attacking.

Meanwhile, in the bandit-occupied town...

We are introduced to two of the most entertaining characters this side of Vestaria.

We don't get control of Sheela just yet but we do get Cezar.

Cezar isn't much of a fighter but he is irreplaceable. He can "unlock" chests, drawbridges and everything else and can unlock the bridge for us if he gets there. His other skill is lurk, the 50% bonus avoid from terrain skill. To make him even more slippery, he comes with a main gauche which gives him 20 bonus avoid and only has 30 ACC to prevent its meager durability to be depleted too fast. I mentioned it before but knives bypass defense so he'll always be able to finish something if you really need it. Starting from the next chapter, he'll give an item worth 1000D to Athol once per map if we have less than 3000D in our coffers. And, most importantly, he gets a 25% reduction in shops once he is promoted. You need to get this as soon as you can (chapter 5) if you want to be able to buy most of what you want throughout the game.

Theodel has to rescue Cezar after I placed him in the wrong forest and pulled the bandits in the wrong place.

Our army has almost completely cleaned up the starting bandits. It's almost time to attack the forest thief, who is stationary until attacked.

On his way to the distant archer, Ash buys two dirks which sends one to the convoy.

Ash knows it's an ironman.

Prody managed to hit a 20 something and Dune a 40 something. Zade only has to hit one of two 80% to get the knife.

Zade does it again!

That's garbage. Then again, there is a tome that needs 18 PROF to be wielded.

Upon meeting with Zade, Cezar shows that he is a man of his word.

Then, Marth finally reunites with Meric.

Theodel running from wherever he was to come to Zade's help will come up again later.

Obviously, that girl is going to come up again (much) later. There is some confusion about a few things about her that I will clear up when we get there.

Theodel is going to live through this. He needs to.

Reliability matters to Merida.

Theo really wants that tome huh?

The thief that Merida missed revealed to us that there is something to find in the woods. We'll search the spot a little later.

And so comes the turn 10 save. I'll continue this chapter next time 🙂

[Pépito]

Troy visits the village which gracefully informs us that we should search a particular cave for loot. It's nice but you should already be searching anything vaguely suspicious in this game anyways.

Now that we have a regenesis ring we can save a lot of money by trading it around and using it to heal during the downtime.

Our main army starts crossing the bridge which summons reinforcements. They'll come for a few turns but they aren't very threatening.

In the meantime...

Cezar searches the spot in the woods and is ambushed by two enemy thieves. They are both armed with a deadly edge which reduces HP to one but since they don't have another weapon they can't kill Cezar. He'll battle them for a few turns on his own to grind some exp.

Cezar level-ups won't matter to much but anything that makes him less liable to get one-shot/one-rounded later is good. If  he gets the one point of strengh he needs to cap it it would be great too. Cezar won't get access to too many crazy knives, but when he does...

Ash searches the flower and finds Octavo Herbs. Whereas regular herbs have three uses and heal 10 per use these ones have 8 uses and heal 15.

Zade keeps it up.

I forgot to grab it but Jean got an HP and PROF level-up. He's going to be bad this run...

Amazing Merida level-up. She'll probably receive the strength booster anyways.

Now, to seize Thebes we need to fight 3 mini-boss brigands.

We can't just charge in and risk a crit so we will have to whittle them down little by little. Since they remain stationary we can take our sweet time. The cavaliers will attack them and canto away while someone fights Wes at two range (to only be in range of Wes).

Well, no need for that I guess. Troy just one-rounded Wes. Guess I'll just have him deal with the others too.

While all of that happens, Cezar is still in the middle of his training arc.

Wallace managed to survive a round of combat but not the second one.

Now that Troy is level 10 he gets his other skill, triple threat. It has a 20% chance of letting him attack 3 time. Other units might need some weird utility to justify their existence but Troy just attacks a lot and wins.

Pretty much useless.

I feed the actual boss kill to Ash because I want him to look for herbs as soon as possible.

Cezar finally kills the thieves.

It's time for Zade to seize. It will send some more reinforcements from the caverns and let us proceed to the rest of the map by having Valerius finally go away.

Even if you try to take him down his totem ensures he can never go below 1 HP. This game will have far better implementation of strong recurring enemies than the death knight who just spouts edgy Sasuke bullshit before retreating for the nth time.

We liberate the town and finally get to meet and recruit Sheela.

She's perfect.

The tomboy archer with a bandana thing makes a return in Vestaria Saga but this time she is a good unit. We'll discuss her right after

Valerius is done playing with Haldyn. At least this time he brought a healer to the fight.

Ravinia is of course going to come up later. I'll try to get Haldyn to talk to her but it probably won't happen.

Once Valerius is done thrashing Haldyn, he takes interest in Alysia.

He deduces that Alysia is one of the five circlet maidens (Athol being the starmaiden).

Her brother Lucius and the mysterious Philip will probably be more important in VS2 but this is the last we see of Alysia in this game.

Valerius warps away with her and leaves Haldyn for dead, bleeding out in the mud like an idiot.

So, Sheela.

She may look useless for now but both of the infantry archers are really good in this game. Unlike Dune, Sheela can use magic bows

effectively and will get one soon. She may be weak and have a low strength growth but she can use a bow locked to female archers,

the rambling rose, which is strong, light and accurate. It also increases her HP growth a little which is appreciated. Another really nice

thing about her is her high DEX which lets her be really reliable and she eventually gets the flurry skill, which is a DEX% chance to attack

5 times. She can also climb cliffs and has the lightfoot skill. Right now, she has to walk all the way to the little tribal village on the right of

the map to get all their warriors to go back into their tents and to recruit another unit.

MAG is nice on Athol but the rest doesn't really matter very much.

I give the liquid strength to Merida and wipe out the remaining reinforcements.

Once it's done, I travel to the shop near the starting point to buy a few things. 1 healing staff, 2 iffyres and 2 light bows. I'll come back

to buy a wargoddess sword later.

On the way back, Zade encounter some shifty guy offering 2000D if we take back the statue that the Yapa have stolen from him.

It's in the Yapa cave nearby and anyone can take it except Sheela and the unit she recruits since they know it was never stolen.

Once Sheela gets to her tribe:

Her grandfather tells her to go explore the world be he also has a buff prepromote go with. Just in case.

Zayid has a really good bond with Sheela so you want to keep the two together. As you can see, the man is can take it and dish it just

as well. He comes with critical edge and wrath (25% crit on counter) and can wield normal swords, greatswords and axes. 6 MOB, can

climb cliffs, 1-2 range, great bases with a lot of room to grow. He can get even better if you get him his personal weapon but I would

rather get Sheela's. It's something like 16 might, 100 ACC, gives bonus resistance and has 25% chance to nullify any attack.

Right now, the hatchet that Zayid comes with also gives him ambush but we will save it because it's really good.

Now that the Yapas have retreated into their tents, Cezar goes to steal the statue.

Something to keep in mind is that the statue can't be traded.

These two are so precious. It will only make it hurt more when one of them dies. Zayid gives her a rambling rose and they move

to rejoin the rest of the army.

Cezar gives the statue and gets 2000D for it. But then...

The thief tries to make an escape and appears in the forest conveniently surrounded by my units. Meanwhile, the chieftain wait

for whoever has the statue to bring it to him. If Sheela or Zayid do it they get their personal weapon. If anybody else does it they get

a flame axe, which is useless since it's a magic axe and only one axefighter (that we get later) has a magic stat. Since the statue

can't be traded, Sheela has to get the kill. And since the thief never attacks to get himself killed by somebody else, she will eventually get it.

I have Jean try to weaken the thief before I notice he could crit him. Thankfully he doesn't but I still get punished with a bad level-up.

Ash learns to walk faster by throwing axes at this guy.

Sheela shows just why she is so popular.

Cezar also gets to the store and buys 2 battleaxes. He'll also go buy a wargoddess sword and another healing staff to end the

shopping on this map. Now, why is the WS so good? First thing to note is that because it's a maidensword, only Merida can use it for now.

It's a magical weapon with 10 might, gives 7 bonus RES and, most importantly, grants crit immunity. We'll see that immunity serve us well in

two chapters. It's also effective against dark creatures

but that won't be relevant for a while.

Sheela brings back the stolen statue to the village and gets a magical weapon of her own.

It's amazing. And she is already able to double the slowest enemies with it too!

I use the downtime to make sure everyone has the weapons they should before charging in the mountain base of the bandits.

I can't even complain, she really needs more bulk.

After about half the army tramples Haldyn, Garlan notices him drowning in failure.

Haldyn tries to tell us that a black mage did this to him but he gets confused and tries to use the wrong slur.

It also triggers reinforcements from the city caves and the mountain cave. They come for a few turns before stopping.

Sheela good.

Athol keeps getting MAG, which is all I really want from her.

Now that the boss is below half health he switches to a 1-2 range axe. It's effective against mages, is droppable and is the only one

we get It'll be very useful later one.

While the boss is dealt with, I send Theodel deal with the statues surrounding the chest. They are stationary, have high DEF and no 2 range

so Theodel is perfect for them.

Ash gets ever closer to the weeds and also gains some stats.

Merida is starting to be strength blessed.

Theo destroys the rest of the statues and is clearly focused on the 18 PROF tome.

Cezar opens the chest to get the starfall dagger, which attacks 5 times in a row. It sounds good but it has no might, so only 2 damage

per hit for now. Only really there for meme strats and guarantying the execution of wounded units.

After about 100 turns, Zade seizes the temple and ends the map. He and Garlan learn from bandits that Valerius took Alysia.

Garlan informs us that Valerius is an Empire spy who worked to weaken Meleda and its allies before the empire's invasion. He also

wonders if Valerius kidnapped Alysia because there is more to her than meets the eye and that it could help Valerius move up in the ranks

by bringing her to the higher-ups since his more direct superior, Ajax, doesn't like his methods very much.

Haldyn gives his backstory to Zade and explains that he isn't from Vestaria but from some eastern kingdom on the mainland and that

he met Valerius 5 years ago, back when they were both poor and destitute.

We also start getting into the ethnic relations of this world.

According to Haldyn, Margul was defeated by other udagal heroes who then decided to implement limits to the power udagals could

attain in this society and they handed the leadership to humans after that.

After that, he talks about Ravinia. She is his younger sister by five years (how old is he?) and a great and renowned warrior. Two years

ago, Valerius mind-controlled her into following him. He also apparently went from Haldyn's equal in power to what he is now in two years.

Dune is also extremely agitated about Alysia's disappearance and spits on Haldyn for his stupidity before being convinced by Zade to

be a little patient. They know an imperial mage took her so they'll get more eventually get more information by fighting the empire.

Zade and Garlan also find Cezar looting the ruins and Garlan makes his distaste for him clear but Zade tries to be more diplomatic

and gets him to join in exchange for the right to loot the temple after they chase the remaining bandits. Funnily enough, he tries to sell

us some siurian thaumite for 1500 despite it's market price being 3200. What a generous man (we get it for free when he joins).

 

Garlan then convinces Zade to send some knights kill the remaining brigands because being starving is no excuse to kill and steal from

other starving people.

This concludes chapter 3.

The music recommendation is Band of The Hawk by Battle Beast.

[Pépito]

We begin chapter 4, the first one where we can't bring everyone because "the caves are a little tight" despite them being able to fit dozens and dozens of bandits. It also has the first ambush reinforcement spot but I'll block it as soon as possible.

Cezar and Sheela tells us that we really want to deploy them this chapter, Cezar for his thief utility and Sheela so that she can speak

to a named brigand.

Once again thanks to AggroIncarnate, the map:

To open the door on the left we need one of the axe bros or Zayid to break the rock and have Cezar open the door.

The middle door needs a special key carried by the skeleton at the top of the map.

As is tradition in Kaga Saga, the last treasure room is only accessible through an invisible path. Its chest is guarded by a dragon with

high defense that only takes half damage and deals magic damage in return. The game essentially begs you to send Theodel with his

anti-flier tome or Sheela and her magic bow.

The caverns at the top of the map and the space above the skeleton will spawn reinforcements. That middle cavern in particular will

eventually spawn ambush reinforcements that can one-shot almost anyone so be sure to block it when you can.

Most of the enemies on the left will try to run away at the bottom of the map so we'll need to send Troy and Merida butcher them for

treasure. Finally, the map will end when the boss is defeated.

He is stationary until attacked and wields a brave axe. Not much of a threat if you are prepared.

We bring Troy, Merida, Zayid, Sheela, Cezar, Athol, Haldyn, Dune and Zade.

Time to begin.

They complain a little about their fate but they have it a little wrong. Venecia (aside from Ritton) didn't care much to hunt them down

and kill them until we came and needed to be tested.

Merida fails to kill a thief holding a jeweled knife (but dodged his attack) and got a meh level-up out of the other fool.

We also see Cezar donating to charity for the first time.

Troy kills the thief next to Merida and she charges in to kill the other jeweled knife thief. So far, so good.

Our heroes hear some of the brigands trying to escape and they have a little discussion on what to do. Garlan is a firm believer in the

"kill-them-all" solution, Zade also believes it but is nicer about it and Sheela is starting to understand the reality of the world.

Dune can finally lift his lightest bow without penalty.

Good Athol level-up.

Our first Zayid level-up is very disappointing. He got defense every level-up during my last run until he capped it but it doesn't looks

like this Zayid will be a blessed one.

This is probably the best Zade I have ever seen.

He can't quite punch boulders yet, but he will get there.

We have reached turn 5 and the brigands in the top left managed to dig a tunnel to freedom. They swear to return to a normal life

and since they don't carry any loot, there is no reason to kill them. Most importantly, it unlocks a conversation between Barl and either

Sheela or Zayid. Either way, it lets him escape and give us a stat booster after the map is done.

Sheela also reminds us that this is her first real fight.

Zayid goes to talk to his friend:

If you want to see the Sheela version you can go read Eltosian Kadath's ironman.

Anyways, Cezar loots a multichance tome.

This game has skill tomes but they are very rare. One for multichance, one for diligence (50% bonus exp) and buyable mettle tomes

 (more crit the lower your health is) much later.

There are many good candidates for this tome. Merida is an obvious one, Sheela is another. I could also give it to the secondary lord of the

game when we get there but I think I will give it to one of the two fliers in the next chapter. I need these fliers to be able to handle some things

on their own later.

Barl's friends react if he escapes before them which is nice.

More DEX is always nice but still...

Sheela shows her how it's done.

We eventually manage to block all the sources of reinforcements. All that is left is killing the dragon and having Cezar open the chests

before killing the boss.

Troy getting ready to tank platoons of knights alone later.

Cezar loots a cool magic sword.

Haldyn gets a good level-up.

While preparing to take on the dragon, Cezar bullies Sheela a little.

 

 

Cezar: Oh goody. Well, back to murdering things. Be seein' ya.

Some more Sheela and Cezar goodness.

"Haha, this is what being a knight is really about teehee~"

Cezar opens the final chest which contained a really good spear. Reliable kills, tanking, this thing can do it.

A little better but still not great.

We then get the final Sheela conversation before the end of the chapter.

We then destroy Dawes, who spits in our face and gives us a blank level-up.

Sheela then wonders if the captured brigands will be judged fairly and Garlan promises that there will be leniency for those that

pledge to return to an honest life.

Theo is pretty disappointed by Zade's faith in the Concio of Venecia and tells us of a time when a poor blacksmith came up with a new

and improved hoe (the farming tool) but the nobles stole all his assets on bullshit charges (he forgot to repay a small amount of interest

on a loan he took). Then, the nobles became richer while the smith rotted in prison and the peasants had to do with low quality

mass-produced hoes. Garlan convinces Theodel to give a chance to Ritton since he has a good guy portrait but it's a little sad

to know that patent laws are fucked even in fantasyland.

The party also realizes that a netherdrake is slumbering deeper into the temple. We don't have the means to fight a netherdrake yet so

thankfully they decide to leave.

Barl also comes back to give us liquid agility.

Ash and Jean also decide to stick with us because it's a lot more entertaining than their village.

Then Athol admits to Zade that she knew Alysia since they are both circlet maidens and talks to him about how she was back at the

 Vestarian Vatican. Also reveals that Alysia onii-chan is the king of Rivelle and that he fell gravely ill last summer.

Then, after a good night of sleep...

We will have to march on Venecia next chapter. It's the chapter that got Mangs to stop his let's play because it was just too difficult

but it's really not that bad with a little caution.

And I'll recommend Runnin' Wild by Airbourne.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Wow, you can push out updates fast...

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

Stat-wise and skill-wise, you can think of him as a deadlier Troy who can't tank and has trouble reaching the enemy in time for now.

Figures I wasn't the only person whose first thought was to immediately compare him to Troy

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

. He also gets multichance at level 12 (I think).

Unfortunately he doesn't get it til level 16

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

Prody tries to prove he isn't worthless.

Oof, poor Prody getting dunked on. I like the good neighbor skill he has, but that low move makes it difficult for him to keep up, and use it effectively.

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

I published it with only the first sentence by accident 😞

No worries, I have done that before on an older LP before...

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

Here is how this is going to go. Most of our units will move left and wait by the bridge while the Luccas climb the cliffs and deal with the enemies there.

Not sending anyone around the plateau eh, that is showing a fair bit of confidence in Theo's abilities.

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

The axe fighter near Jean can still attack him, leading to an exact kill if all three attacks hit.

...Oops, hopefully he can manage-

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

He gets an empty level-up out of it but at least he is not going to die.

A dodge like that there. Seems the lords of luck giveth, and taketh on this little turn.

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

Then I don't know why, but the brave bow wielder just ended his turn by moving closer instead of attacking.

That enemy must have some weird AI behavior, as I remember him moving to that spot (eventually), and just waiting there in my LP as well.

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

Theodel has to rescue Cezar after I placed him in the wrong forest and pulled the bandits in the wrong place.

Yikes...I know @BrightBow warned me about the possibility of them trapping Cezar on the bridge, and I guess its moves like this that lead to it.

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

Zade does it again!

Your Zade has been getting amazing level-ups this run.

 

14 hours ago, Pépito said:

That's garbage. Then again, there is a tome that needs 18 PROF to be wielded.

...4 HP, Theo got rather close to dying on his own here.

 

37 minutes ago, Pépito said:

Cezar won't get access to too many crazy knives, but when he does...

I mean, he is about to get the 5 hit brave weapon by the end of this map...

 

38 minutes ago, Pépito said:

Well, no need for that I guess. Troy just one-rounded Wes. Guess I'll just have him deal with the others too.

I am guessing he got a lucky Multichance proc that surprised you.

 

39 minutes ago, Pépito said:

Capped defense already. Actually, this was a fairly solid way of training him up, and explains you bothering to buy some Dirks.

 

42 minutes ago, Pépito said:

Right now, she has to walk all the way to the little tribal village on the right of

the map to get all their warriors to go back into their tents and to recruit another unit.

You know, I had Cezar trigger this recruitment on all my runs so far, so this is my first chance to see this version.

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

I have Jean try to weaken the thief before I notice he could crit him.

Accidentally had Ash too close for the bond crit boost. Honestly, that is an easy thing to overlook in the moment, and at least it didn't end up biting you.

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

Sheela shows just why she is so popular.

Securing both her excellent personal weapon, and an excellent level. Things are looking up for Sheela

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

 

us some siurian thaumite for 1500 despite it's market price being 3200. What a generous man (we get it for free when he joins).

To be fair, selling for half to the shop is a common video game convention, so we could probably only get 100 more if we tried to sell it too...

 

25 minutes ago, Pépito said:

 

Troy kills the thief next to Merida and she charges in to kill the other jeweled knife thief. So far, so good.

Nice job securing those Jeweled Knives.

 

29 minutes ago, Pépito said:

If you want to see the Sheela version you can go read Eltosian Kadath's ironman.

Thanks for picking the other option, so I (and all the other readers) had the opportunity to see the alternate version.

 

32 minutes ago, Pépito said:

"Haha, this is what being a knight is really about teehee~"

Lol, such a turn around from the serious talks she has this chapter on the subject. Also the teehee at the end makes me think of the TeeHee thread here (although its really just become a chat thread at this point).

 

34 minutes ago, Pépito said:

We will have to march on Venecia next chapter. It's the chapter that got Mangs to stop his let's play because it was just too difficult

Seems the egg is as bad at FE games as I remember...

[Pépito]

Quote

Wow, you can push out updates fast...

I'm trying to get as far as I can while I still have free time. I was also trying to make the most of the two post limit per day but it seems to have disappeared already.

Quote

Figures I wasn't the only person whose first thought was to immediately compare him to Troy.

He's really unfortunate. We already have so many good boss killers and general fighters that he feels a bit redundant. After the glorious sword fighters of Berwick I guess Kaga wanted to try something else in this game. At least he can dish out good damage very accurately and have a reliable unit like that can save a run.

23 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Unfortunately he doesn't get it til level 16

Dune is really lucky there is an incentive to train him up to that point because he has one of the worse starts in this game with Jean and (lol) Maya.

 

25 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof, poor Prody getting dunked on. I like the good neighbor skill he has, but that low move makes it difficult for him to keep up, and use it effectively.

I genuinely think he can be super useful at times but this Prody still can't even wield a spear.

 

28 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Not sending anyone around the plateau eh, that is showing a fair bit of confidence in Theo's abilities.

It's more out of habit than anything honestly. Never needed to before as long as I got a little lucky, I though I could let Theodel introduce himself to the readers and I wasn't disappointed.

 

30 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That enemy must have some weird AI behavior, as I remember him moving to that spot (eventually), and just waiting there in my LP as well.

I got way too confident and forgot to check which squares counted as cliffs but Kaga, peace be upon him, though it would be too disappointing to have Jean die so soon. I can't imagine he'll make it to the end after surviving this so early in the run.

Something else I noticed is that the arbalestrier will not move away from the forests, it's sadly impossible to bait him near the cliff.

34 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yikes...I know @BrightBow warned me about the possibility of them trapping Cezar on the bridge, and I guess its moves like this that lead to it.

I usually move Theodel to the other forest so that he can finish off the injured brigand but since he crited him this time, I decided to move him here. A mistake, but at least he lived.

 

35 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Your Zade has been getting amazing level-ups this run.

This is easily the best Zade I have ever seen. He was really bad in my last run too (like 8 STR at 20 unpromoted), so the contrast is even more striking.

 

37 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...4 HP, Theo got rather close to dying on his own here.

Close. But he can't die. He has to get his good ending and rescue "spoilers".

 

39 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I mean, he is about to get the 5 hit brave weapon by the end of this map...

Yeah but it's really not that great a weapon. 20 damage if you get super lucky, 30 if you also get to 3 strength. It's nice, but it doesn't last long.  But even at his best he doesn't hold a candle to "that other knife user". At least he'll be able to chip with darts and throwing knives.

 

45 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am guessing he got a lucky Multichance proc that surprised you.

I don't remember, I think he just hit two 50% attacks.

 

46 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Capped defense already. Actually, this was a fairly solid way of training him up, and explains you bothering to buy some Dirks.

It's really nice, the thieves just stand there and take it after they break their weapons on you. I'm doing it just in case there is a level 10 requirement to promote since I always thought there was one but it may have been out of habit.

 

48 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You know, I had Cezar trigger this recruitment on all my runs so far, so this is my first chance to see this version.

I didn't post it in full but she basically apologizes to her grandfather who tells her that he understands and that he won't hold her back anymore.

52 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Accidentally had Ash too close for the bond crit boost. Honestly, that is an easy thing to overlook in the moment, and at least it didn't end up biting you.

I'd have been so mad. Be he knew he would get his own weapon eventually so he let Sheela have it.

 

53 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Securing both her excellent personal weapon, and an excellent level. Things are looking up for Sheela

I don't think she was ever bad in any of my runs except maybe the first one, the only one where I had Zayid fetch his weapon. Bows are just super good in this game (even if they can't quite rescue a certain steppe runner)

 

56 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To be fair, selling for half to the shop is a common video game convention, so we could probably only get 100 more if we tried to sell it too...

It's true but the swindler and thief trying to sell something below even it's resell value is just funny. Cezar is just nice, even if he doesn't want to admit it.

 

58 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Nice job securing those Jeweled Knives.

It's more luck than anything. But when I think about it, they are the equivalent of buying a cutlass each (before Cezar's haggling) which is pretty good.

 

59 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Thanks for picking the other option, so I (and all the other readers) had the opportunity to see the alternate version.

I usually do the Sheela version too. Still interesting to see it leads to a better outcome for Barl versus Sheela's version where he simply rejoins the Yapas.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Lol, such a turn around from the serious talks she has this chapter on the subject. Also the teehee at the end makes me think of the TeeHee thread here (although its really just become a chat thread at this point).

I couldn't help it when seeing her happy face while the dragon burns alive and screams in agony as it just wanted to sleep.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Seems the egg is as bad at FE games as I remember...

He actually finished chapter 5 but it got him to end his let's play because it was too frustrating for him. He could be good when he bothered to turn his brain on but he didn't that time. Oh well.

[Pépito]

Now it's time for the chapter 5 update.

Spoiler

It begins with a big info dump, some of which will be relevant later.

Litteraly the one percent lol.

Now, while Ritton is supposed to be a good guy and everything, its important to note that despite having had two years for reform he still didn't implement them which means either that he isn't that great a guy or that the Venecian system is really broken. Or both.

Try to remember the name of Ceddica.

This confirms that only pure udagal people were banned (and even then, could apparently stay if married to a non-udagal person) but those with only some udagal heritage were allowed to stay.

I suspect this is true of most people

We are then treated to a discussion between Villweiss and Hitler which informs us that Ritton loyalists have been rounded up but the man himself is still free. Vilweiss has sent men to retrieve him and the key to the city's treasury which he still holds. Hitler also claims to Vilweiss that he is only doing this to save Venecia but Vilweiss says it's bullshit and he only wants power. Since we don't know much about Hitler it's hard to say if he really thinks that but it is notable that he is the one who found a way to fix the bandit problem by using Zade after the concio refused to do anything about the bandits for a year and Ritton didn't even think of sending Zade deal with them without a time limit. So he may legitimately be a well-intentionned extremist and not just a massive douchebag. Although the last time Kaga had an authority figure send the protagonist deal with bandits with a strict time limit, he made it clear said authority figure was almost completely devoid of qualities.

Meanwhile, at the Ritton mansion, the whitewings assemble  to protect Saphira.

Turns out the little healer girl is super important to the plot again. Only two maidens left, but we don't learn anything about them in this game. We also learn that the maiden are chosen through some obscure process and aren't just replaceable at will.

No pegasi riders in this game. They ride massive griffins into battle instead. They still are all women though.

FOR GOD! LEAVE NO HERETICS ALIVE!

AggroIncarnate's google doc stops having these maps at chapter 11, but it's a great help until then.

So. There is a lot going on. Our army will start divided, with three units not doing much for some time. The rest of the army will have to fight the garrison below them and go through the hallway of death. More on the rest latter. Just know that God's warriors will defend the mansion and will be under our control from turn 3 onwards and that if we don't rescue the green units by turn 30 we are in trouble.

To this map I bring

I also decide to give the liquid vitality to Zayid because of this guy:

The chances are slim but he can crit Zayid twice and kill him.

And... start.

We aren't going to go through these gates or deal with these people for now. Instead, we send Merida to rescue the little girl and

 

It's the inn near our three units at the bottom of the map.

And because we sent a woman to rescue her, she also gives us a ring of bliss. This is the only one we will ever get and it is extremely important as it has the ability to make its wielder immune to crits.

I've never fought these two before and I won't start today. We'll wait for another way to show up.

Ash is tankier and twice as fast as Jean. So good (and Jean is so bad...).

Well, its time for some unit reviews.

The first one is Yaeri,the calmer and more experienced of the two that will join us permanently. Her stats are serviceable but she also comes with multichance and aegis which is really nice. She and her colleague can use the same weapons as Merida, even though they won't be quite as effective with the magic swords. Except for the Doyenne.

 

It is the only 2 range weapon the fliers can use before promotion and it is pretty busted. We will repair it many times, although I will have to buy the fliers other weapons as soon as possible to save the Doyenne.

Rubina comes with critical edge and wrath (ambush is given by estoc). She doesn't start out quite as good as Yaeri but her superior growths tend to make her reach higher stats than Yaeri. What really holds her back is the lack of multichance, or at least it would if I hadn't saved the skill tome for her. In an Ironman I need them to be as strong as possible for chapters 16 and 18 in particular. Her and Yaeri also have a bond with each other.

Then, there's the captain.

Good stats, access to 1-2 range, immune to crits, ACC boost to other units, guaranteed crits on counter... It's really no wonder she leaves at the end of this map. You can also see that while some other classes gain MOB on promotion, our fliers won't.

Aslanne doesn't want to be an exp thief so she goes to fetch our very first promotion item. This is the one for non-magical infantry and we will use it on Cezar to save some money.

Rubina buys three short spears so that we get to keep the better equipment for later.

Haldyn tries really hard to justify his place in the army but he isn't one of the two units who can level MOB.

I hate that asshole.

Cezar lowers the first half of the drawbridge but he will need to go to the other side to lower the other half.

Jean misses a 90+ hit and puts everyone in mortal danger.

Ash eliminates any risk to us and shows jean what not being a failure is like.

I'll end this update on this cheerful note, with a little teaser of what we will have to face soon.

 

[Pépito]

Now for the second part of the chapter.

Spoiler

A good omen.

Eh...

The Dandelion still had 4 uses left but I have Merida repair it now in preparation for the showdown with Magaroth.

Zayid also takes the ring of bliss so that he can start chipping the big M.

I can send 4 units to the other side of the river by visiting the red house, and they will be Cezar, Merida, Troy and Zade. But that won't happen for a few turns since Zade needs to move all the way there. It will also fully heal all four of them so I don't need to waste healing staff charges to heal them right now (every denari saved is a denari earned).

In the meantime...

Rubina gets an okay level-up.

This guy is the first big obstacle in the game. He can one-round anyone, most of your army doesn't need to be critted to die. If he isn't taken down we have to take a detour to get into the city and worst of all, he has a Kaga tm skill, great shield, which gives him 18% chance to nullify any attack. I will keep count, because it feels a lot higher than that in every run. His tisane also lets him heal 20HP at a time to be extra cancerous.

Zayid crits him but gets his second attack cancelled because of course. The level-up is pretty good at least.

It's not great but a least she is a little more accurate now...

Zayid somehow manages a double-crit with no great shield activation. I am tempted to attack him with Sheela to kill him before he heals but she would have 18% chance to die. I decide to take it slow, the 30 turns soft time limit is pretty lenient.

Time to cross the Rubicon.

It refreshes both the HP and the "action" of all four that I send.

One more point of strength and she would only have had around 1/25 chance to face a counter. As it stands its too risky to attack. And because we have already attacked him before he will now attack anyone in his range.

He moves to heal. Hopefully he will go back to fighting Zayid next turn.

A little too late. Still great though.

Our enemies have managed to capture Beatrice and plan to use her as bait to force Ritton to surrender.

Matagroth also goes back to Zayid and...

We'll get him.

Ritton decides to surrender but also instructs Nina to go seek Zade's help.

 

And so we get Nina as a guest unit. She is surprisingly gifted stat-wise, except for MOB because she's just a little girl. her biggest contribution will be to get the two minibosses to leave.

The last heretic is dispatched, leaving the fliers free to loot houses before harassing Vilweiss's little group on the bottom right.

The beast falls.

A rare RES level-up.

Hitler tries to get Ritton to hand over the key to the treasury but he refuses so he threatens Beatrice. Ritton still refuses... and Hitler doesn't go through with it, simply throwing Ritton and Beatrice in jail for now.

Cezar lowers the bridge and shows his worth.

Blessed Sheela.

 

Nina does some big puppy eyes at these two and they decide to leave the map. Thank god.

This peculiar axe is a legitimately good weapon. But it can also be sold for more than a cutlass's worth.

Nina has finally fulfilled her purpose. She won't do much now.

If Zade crosses this bridge, the 30 turn event is immediately activated.

This bridge is lowered.

And a lot more soldiers will appear around Vilweiss, some of which will try to kill the green units. Reinforcements will also appear in the forts around the city until we kill Vilweiss. It's turn 17 right now so I have the time to get my army near the bridge before triggering the event. The fliers aren't allowed to cross the water for now but they can still pick off the archers, although it would require lucky crits of multichance procs to do that. One of them also has a droppable x4 brave bow; At 13 PROF, Sheela can almost wield it too.

Turn 23, time to fight.

The bottom two soldiers will focus on the green units. We need to kill most of the rest this turn.

I forget to grab it but Yaeri gets a DEX level-up. her captain gets a much better level-up.

Then I fuck up by forgetting that this guy auto-crits on counters.

He kills Aslanne. She is only a guest unit so she leaves the party but is still alive and will come back later but I lose access to her inventory, perhaps permanently I don't know. So mostly a loss of money but also the pilum + 2.

Rubina avenges her captain and shows off her growths.

Vilweiss is kinda like Matagroth but without crits and with less powerful 2 range. He also has the commander 2 skill, which increases the ACC of his allies within 5 squares by 15.

 

It's not great but at least the reinforcements will stop. All that's left to do is to clean up the last remaining enemies and go shopping with a promoted Cezar.

Ritton wants Hitler to stand trial which is a pretty big waste of time and money honestly.

Cezar gets his last level-up before promotion.

There is a crowd clapping sound when you promote by the way.

And so we can start saving money.

He buys 3 short spears and 3 longswords.

4 spears and 1 battleaxe here.

2 physic staves and 1 raezer here.

Rubina gets upgraded into Yaeri +.

This door key will be relevant in chapter 18.

1 greatsword (usable only by Haldyn and Zayid for now) , 4 pilums, 4 hulrlbats.

And finally the sutler. He can only be visited once before he joins your convoy and sells you various things in the prep screen.

We buy 6 scimitars and seize with Zade after almost 50 chapters

.

Lol ok. What a little rat. Zade also mentions how unusual it is to see eagle knights so far from the Lanna Sanctum (the vestarian Vatican). They tell him that Nina is to become the Earthmaiden and that the identity of the maidens is supposed to be kept secret to shield them from kidnappings and murders.

Zade spouts some bullshit about how she won't listen and wishes to remain with her country's army but the truth is that he doesn't want to lose his only healer.

The circlet maidens need to be protected at all cost, as we will see later.

Lanna Neere being the fem!pope of Vestaria.

Aslanne gives her Yaeri and Rubina to help protect Athol. These two will be extremely useful to us.

He wasn't actually allowed to leave.

Perhaps we will see all of that in VS2.

Soren isn't just any mage, he also is the legitimate heir of a powerful family. He lost his mom to the black death when he was five years old and he almost died as well. He only spent one year being a ward of Zade's house before needing to return home. Sadly, his father had remarried an absolute monster from house Frist who abused Theo for fun. Then, when he was 7, his father died and he became the ruler of Frall, or at least he would have had his step-mother not been named the regent until Theo's majority. She kept abusing him and he eventually ran away back to Zade's house. Zade's father tried to petition the king but he was a simp who forbade him to intervene. So he tried to get Theo to become a vestal mage instead so that he loses his claims to his territories and doesn't attract more abuse, since the step-mother would be satisfied with her own child (Theo's half-brother) becoming the legitimate heir. The man in charge of his clerical education still let Theo spend a lot of time with Zade. Once he turned twelve, he had to go to Vesta.

It will cross our minds during some chapters. It also becomes pretty clear during that conversation that she has a little crush on Zade.

They opt not to go to Shire, the black mage country, as it is currently in turmoil. The first step of the other route is to go back to Lucca village. They ask the elder if there is a way to cross the mountains and it turns out that the map that could show them the way is in another village. It appears going to that village won't be entirely painless however.

Can you guess who is recruitable? They mention that healing herbs are particularly prized in their village which is a neat way to explain the herb forager skill of Ash and Lillia.

Eheh.

Tomboy supremacy wins again.

Dune and Jean also mention they want to come and Zade needs to stay in Venecia for now to help with the power balance. You really want to bring Dune and Jean to this mission.

But that is something we will do in the next update.

I'll recommend Freya by Brothers of metal and bid you farewell for now.

 

[Pépito]

Chapter 6. A break from chapter 5.

Spoiler

 

 

 

Ash being racist against the french.

 

Thanks again to AggroIncarnate for the map.

You can see here the new option in the menu.

 

I sell a few herbs and buy 2 imperial bows. They are surprisingly good for their price.

This map only lets us deploy 7 units, one of which is Lilia. Dune, Troy and Jean have special events during this map so we kinda have to bring them. Ash has a bond with Jean and Lilia and can climb cliffs so we might as well deploy him. I pick the fliers to complete the team since they can navigate this map so much more easily than anybody else. Our goal is to escort the convoy to the village and there is no turn limit so obstructing the convoy's path while other units clean up the path ahead is encouraged.

This map goes back to the best map theme. Now, for our new recruit:

Her stats aren't super great but unlike Athol, she can promote. She comes with two great skills, herb forager (15% chance to find a bundle of herbs every turn for the first 23 turns) and industry (15% chance to take another turn, but it can't activate more than once per turn). Her only flaw is her base MOB of 4 but its not even that bad. Its only relevant for this map but the convoy also buffs her.

The fliers assault the archers to our left but only Rubina kills one.

Thank you, sign.

Out of despair, I give the liquid agility to Jean.

I send the fliers deal with the arbalestrier. He doesn't one shot them so as long as I position them correctly next turn, it is perfectly safe.

Lol ok scrub.

Prof doesn't matter for her but the rest is really good.

I didn't grab it but she activated industry again.

Yaeri fails to kill her target once again but they are still completely safe.

150D just plucked right from the ground.

Then she moves to heal Ash and activates industry again.

His last words were that he should have just bought a normal bow. And Lilia prints more money.

This is the shop by the way. We won't buy anything in there but I'll still show it to you.

The archers in this map all have terrible positions, it's really great.

Oh no, enemy reinforcements!

Wait, what happened to the reinforcements?

Troy goes on ahead and clears the group of three brigands ahead.

We are about to enter the final stretch. Troy and the fliers will take care of the rest of the scrubs and as soon as our army has reunited they'll bait the ones near the village.

Thats already enough for a cutlass.

Thankfully, Garlan knows how to spot a golden opportunity.

She will get 3-4 a map on average but she is already a 7 with 7 turns to go.

FINALLY!

Amundsen comes back to bless us with good level-ups.

And so the map has been cleared of enemies. The wagon gains 3 MOB and a mysterious man emerges from the woods...

Again!

The funny thing is that we will meet a mounted golden-haired prince pretty soon.

Lilia tries talking to the man and...

Now, it is true that Lilia has no strength.

But then again...

 

It's very inaccurate.

Literally the axe of friendship. Super busted and gives Jean industry so he'll try to keep it equipped even out of combat to move around easier. I'm pretty sure it is the only physical weapon effective against fliers but not dark fliers.

Eheh.

An odd rule.

This piece of cake cannot be traded and increases Troy's max HP by 5 when consumed. But because he is near the cap already he will have to carry it for months and only eat it after promotion.

 

Kaga having fun.

 

The only place I have ever seen Ix-nay.

It doesn't matter if he is an axe-bro on the outside as long as he has good stats on the inside.

Hard liquor will solve all of your problems.

It has five uses and gives you regenesis for a few turns when used. Pretty useful. After over 20 turns, the convoy is allowed to reach the village. We will see Tasha again for more comic relief later.

Maechen invites us to feast with the villager but Garlan is a "work hard, party maybe" kind of guy.

Garlan is more interested in the mountains of money she will get us.

Dune asked for the Lucca elder to give his consent regarding Dune learning about all of this but...

Turns out, there is more to Dune than bad earlygame archer. Getting Dune this bracelet lets us see the rest of his story down the line.

Lets hope we don't get her killed before she can chase her dream. After that, she has a little talk with her father and goes to say goodbye to all her friends at the village.

Meanwhile, back at Ritton's mansion:

Beatrice is still super sad that her daughter had to leave.

And Ritton makes this little comment. You could apply it many different ways to our world but it also serves to remind us that the empire isn't just pure evil. Ritton also says that he would support Zade with Venecia's soldiers and money if he could but they have no army and convincing the Concio to lend money would take forever. It is nice but it isn't necessarily putting the needs of the venecians first, which should be Ritton's priority.

They also talk about Ritton's marriage and the impact it had on Zade, Beatrice and the venecians. Given that he just admitted he would help his step-brother instead of focusing all of Venecia's ressources to stabilize the country after the coup, it seems like those who worried about Ritton's marriage were kinda right.

Maybe you should get a fucking army then.

So Ritton is currently 33 and Beatrice 27. A 22 year old courting a 16 year old is weird but it could have been far worse in a medieval society.

Ritton gives us 7000D from his personal coffers which is definitely more moral than trying to give us money from the country's coffers. And so the 6th chapter ends. The next chapter will be a more complicated, with many opportunities to fuck up.

I'll recommend Rasputin by Turisas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pépito]

Chapter 7, the one with an optional character to recruit. For some ungodly reason, Kaga decided that that very optional character would be Zade's starting companion in VS2.

Spoiler

As we enter the second act of the game, Kaga treats us to more exposition.

Basically the mongols. But less asian.

Like Ceddica, you should remember this name.

The Ordoms being one of the clans.

Cyltan being the second, and more interesting, lord of this game. Hope we'll see him in Vestaria 2.

This is where it turns into Night of The Living Dead.

Zade offers to deal with the fiend.

The map is once again taken from AggroIncarnate's document. It is pretty blatantly divided into two sections. Our first objective is to go deal with the diabolist all the way to our left. The only obstacle is a small group of 4 skeletons, but 3 of them will rise back up when slaughtered. The terrain also slows most units but Zade has a talk available with the mage. Now, I have to spoil the twist a bit. It turns out that the skeletons and the mage are just villagers (mostly) and our army is tripping balls. If we kill the skeletons, we lose access to the items that the houses on the left give out. And if we kill the skeleton witch, we don't get to recruit a certain character.

To make it easier on us, she never attacks us and just wants to enter one of the red houses. If she does, I'm pretty sure it's the same as killing her. Once Zade talks with the diabolist, he dispels the illusion spell placed on our army but that is for later. In order to not kill the skeletons I will have to empty the inventories of some of my units, as it is impossible to simply unequip weapons in your inventory.

I have Cezar buy 4 rusted swords. A terrible weapon but it also costs nothing. For this map Athol and Zade are force deployed but I also bring Zayid, Bonacel and Prody (to serve as unarmed meatshields), Troy and Merida for the second part of the map (on the upper half), Lilia for more healing and money, Ash to get him to 15, the fliers mostly for the second half, Cezar for the chest, the shops and dodge-tanking at the start, Sheela for her pretty smile and Haldyn (since he will be able to reach some enemies this time). Both healer also carry weapons for our unarmed fighters when they don't need to wall these damn dirty undead creatures out. Dune, Jean and Theodel will sit this one out.

 

And this is why we don't go to Sphire.

Garlan reminds us that we really should try to talk to the diabolist, and that you should remember to disarm Zade before sending him through the revenants.

This helpful man here gives us a potion that sells for 250D. You also could drink it and have one of your characters go berserk but why would you do that?

This cute villager gives us a potion that cures paralysis. You need a character to use it on the paralyzed character of course, since paralysis prevents you from using items. One of the skeletons here can cause paralysis but I am going to be sending Zade alone.

It would be nicer not to visit this house. Sure would be. I give regenesis to Zade and send him running, unarmed. He has enough defense to only take scratch damage from the skeletons thankfully. Merida also gets the liquid vitality.

The wall has been erected!

Nani?!

Neira isn't entirely comfortable with a mass slaughter of innocents to finish off their enemies. Jamulan also has a thing for her, even if he would rather obey Tamthir than betray him for her. The only ones who will attack the yurts will be the two axe fighters while the rest of the army just stands by and watch. If any of them is engaged in combat, the rest of the army will charge in. As long as one of the yurts remain we won't lose, but if more that half are destroyed, a green unit that is also a game-over condition will charge in like an idiot. So we have to hurry a little bit.

Prody showing how good he is.

A little better. He still can't wield a spear.

Cyltan wants to ride out of the big yurt to go defend the villagers but Aynellia, his uncle's concubine, convinces him not to (until half the yurts are destroyed) and saves the run. Also something about him being the last legitimate heir to the solissian throne.

As soon as Zade gets near the houses, the skeletons will stop attacking us. We still can't let them get to the red houses but we can rearm the wall's bricks. Also, all three houses tell you to fuck off but we can visit them again later for items.

These two will leave soon. Jamulan is pretty strong right now and has Nihil, which negates all of his opponents "chance"-based skills (as in, with a chance to activate). But while we make progress with our objective, so does the enemy.

 

Such a kind soul, finding the murder of a defenseless child to be reprehensible.

She also gets Jamulan to retreat with her.

Don't say it diabolist, you'll get banned on twitter!

STOP!

Oh thank god. He wasn't racist, just aryan.

His portrait is too beautiful to be evil.

We haven't actually attacked the villagers so the self-defense is tenuous at best.

She doesn't do much in this game but it looks like she will be much more relevant in the next game.

(Ohmigosh this "Zade" guy is so hot!)

Roland also has illusionist powers because he is just that cool.

He can also turn people racist at will.

What a wonderful father he must be.

It is also probably the first time Zade sees an "exposed" woman.

We worked hard to not kill anyone you bitch!

They were beating on an unarmed Prody like he was a battery, what the fuck?!

Seems like his name has already spread far and wide.

Heretics?!

It isn"t quite child hunts level bad, but it is still pretty bad.

"Rattle rattle"

The situation may look absolutely horrible but it isn't quite that bad. All of the skeletons will disappear if we kill Grevandel and the two red cultists are healers. We have to kill one of the skeletons to get what he drops but that is still only five ennemies plus the boss.

This guy is really weak for a margulite but he still has a tome that cuts all damage he takes by half and a skill that grants him infinite durability. If you use the masudian brand on him he gets deleted but we will save it for later. He can also summon weak reinforcements with his staff but we won't see it.

Before engaging them, lets talk about Accorte.

Accorte is much more powerful than Theodel and the wielder of the dire thunder, although she has even less bulk. Since she is sphirian can also use dark magic but we won't have an opportunity to get some for a while. That is about it. She gets a bond with Zade later but she is just a magic nuke. She also has unique dialogue with the nearby houses.

And since we haven't killed any of the "skeletons", he really will get to see his dad again. Although if you kill the skeletons the houses can't be visited anyways.

Jesus!

Margulites are little devil people in this game. This is, very sadly, not the last time we will face them.

Ash uses up the last of his serrated axe and keeps getting good level-ups.

The two healers will entertain Prody and Bonacel for a long time before their death. The rest of the army will head to the steppe to deal with the mongols. The victory condition is now for Zade to seize the monastery by the way, so we can take the time we want to do shopping after dispatching our enemies.

Thanks but no reward. Its still nice to feel appreciated.

The third ones gives us herbs. Very nice.

Yay, the good ending!

Lilia also gets us herbs for the first time this map.

I'm still debating who to give the diligence tome to (50% bonus exp). Not Accorte since mage promo items are super rare.

It only has 1 might but its better than nothing.

Cyltan is popular with the cougars.

And he is a growth unit, perhaps worthy of the diligence tome.

Aynellia is a massive flex by Gyskhal but thats a little bit of a spoiler.

Armor knights and horses have to take the long way around but everybody else can use an entire turn to cross the bridge.

Cyltan has much to learn and much to prove. But they will tell us that more clearly later.

This little thing isn't very useful to me except in one specific situation much later.

Complimenting Accorte's figure a bit. And Lilia finds more herbs.

He can finally wield a spear. All he needed was a defenseless healer to torment.

As our army gathers for the final showdown, I'll end the update. Next time on DBZ:

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Pépito
Left empty space at the end for no reason.

[Pépito]

Chapter 7, part 2. It shouldn't be a super long update.

Spoiler

A meh start to the day.

Time to fight.

I put Merida in range of the 3 close-range cavaliers, the bowmen having 7 MOB instead of 8. She should barely survive even if she doesn't dodge anything.

Look at how powerful and cute she is, awwww...

Sus?

It looks pretty powerful when she attacks but it is hard to convey through screenshots.

One of the cavaliers decide to not commit suicide on Merida and commits war crimes instead.

This is the only one we have right now by the way.

Shit.

Time to dodgetank haha. They have between 80 and 100 ACC and she has 75 avoid after Troy equips the Dandelion for her. If two mongols hit her, she dies.

I try to have Yaeri bait the boss to prevent him from buffing the ACC of his allies and to make Merida's survival more likely. She has barely enough HP and DEF to take a hit of his bow.

A little stressful. He has pretty cool death music too.

Nice. It has 13 might and 70 ACC, will be very nice to have.

None of them attacked Merida. That yurt is about to break though.

I joked about it last time but pummeling unarmed people really gives him better level-ups.

The fighting is already done. But there will be a lot more next chapter.

 

And he still focuses on destroying the yurt.

He'll need the bulk next chapter. Also a reminder that Bonacel has 12 DEF right now. And Lilia breaches the average yet again with a 4th herb found this map. And a 5th one next turn, on turn 23.

One dirk+1 (two might instead of one), three altium axes (lighter battleaxes with 1 more might), two iffyres, three broadswords (9 might, 6 crit, 80 ACC) and three light spears (7 might, 75 ACC and only 5 weight).

The ghoul spears can't actually be used by anyone in our army sadly. We'll buy a masudian brand (so two total in stock) and 3 thieves repeaters (5 might, 60 accuracy brave bow). Shopping is done, almost time to seize.

"Can't be outdone by this Troy youngster fella goddammit!"

His bloodthirst is finally quenched.

Roland can just cure the disabled because he is cool like that.

Pretty sure this is because we seized after defeating the raiders. And the vague wording is in case Cyltan manages to defeat them all on his own I guess.

Oh Hoelun... So good and yet so, so bad...

I love you too Cyltan.

Cyltan is the blond sidekick of our lord this game, although is starts off a lot more arrogant than Vanmillion.

Zade calmly saying that Cyltan is nothing to him.

All his skills and his super busted sword didn't save him.

The bro respect is strong here.

I wonder what the world would be like if people thought for themselves more.

Hoelun takes the opportunity to kick Cyltan while he is down but  Gyskhal tells her off for being a bad unit.

Tea and tisane are better than coffee. Also plays into the Mongol theme more. Now that I think of it, a lot of JRPGs have a mongol inspired culture somewhere.

Political kidnapping and arranged marriage to Cyltan. Poor little Hoelun.

(didn't grab it) Cyltan: "Was he wrong? Your father betrayed us to join Thamthir's rebellion. If my father was still alive he would have sent the Nymans your head.

Cyltan and the Irish colored Mongol don't really like each other. Cyltan really has no taste.

God damn Cyltan. I forgot how low you started off. Also, more Gyskhal shilling.

Aynellia is essentially Cyltan's mom. She's a pretty nice mom to have.

Oh fuck you Gyskhal.

Cyltan isn't stupid enough to waste his personal weapon on target practice.

Oh come on, he isn't that bad.

Cyltan didn't want a bad unit either. You'll ruin his children's growths!

Zade isn't an avatar but people sure do love shilling him.

Yes.

Just as a reminder, Athol 14, Hoelun 15.

I hope we go There in VS2, it looks super weird.

I wonder if Valerius kidnapped Alysia to brainwash so that she can go there and do something for him.

Lanna, the five maidens... Who is the 7th chamber for?

Having a square around your thigh would probably be a lot better than having a square. It also hits me that all the maidens we see so far are very young. Must be a very dangerous job, or they switch every few years.

Literally chosen by God.

Also, you can't just take off the circlet. Unless you cut off your leg I guess.

You have remain alone forever even if you want to marry too. What really makes her jealous is that being a healer would excuse her lack of a meaningful strength stat. She wouldn't even have to give up a promotion either, since she already can't promote.

Gods no.

Kaga better explain Zade supernatural powers one day. From hating his guts to falling in love with him in only half a map. Last time it happened it was some horrible destiny thing to summon Satan.

Turns out the road to Meleda is right through the civil war. Zade would have to fight everyone to take the planned path but

We instead start the second big arc of the game, the Solissian civil war arc. Starting with

A defense map. But one where we are heavily encouraged to rout the enemy instead.

He was a few yurts away from riding out on his own last map, but she doesn't know that. In fact, I wonder if the dialogue changes here if you do let him ride out.

Cyltan trying to imitate Gyskhal. It doesn't really work.

Way to prove Hoelun's point you idiot. Next time we will non-canonically kill Baymonk, who I am pretty sure returns in VS2.

I'll recommend his theme, since it is an absolute banger.  It might look out of place next to the other Vestaria music but as Saint Rubenio pointed out, it fits with him being basically Kramer 2 (Balmung, Baymonk, you can see it if you squint a little).

 

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

This confirms that only pure udagal people were banned (and even then, could apparently stay if married to a non-udagal person) but those with only some udagal heritage were allowed to stay.

It was only the mainland empire that had laws restricting the Udagal. Here in the island nations of Vestaria a lot of noble houses come from Udagal descent. In fact, Vesta kinda relies on those noble houses to provide Udagal noble girls to become Circlet Maidens

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

Only two maidens left, but we don't learn anything about them in this game. We also learn that the maiden are chosen through some obscure process and aren't just replaceable at will.

I think we hear something about the rest of them in this game, even if we don't see any more of them.

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

The chances are slim but he can crit Zayid twice and kill him.

You do get the Bliss Ring this chapter, although I am guessing you want to deal with him before that would become an option.

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

Ash is tankier and twice as fast as Jean. So good (and Jean is so bad...).

You have been leveling Ash a fair bit more than Jean...

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

This is the one for non-magical infantry and we will use it on Cezar to save some money.

If I knew about the promote before level 10 mechanic before I finished this chapter, he would have been the one I considered early promoting for the same reason, although I don't know if I would have (or will) actually gone through with that.

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

the two units who can level MOB.

Technically there is three, but who actually bothers to train Tallan. (The other two are Aynellia, and Lianka...)

 

On 7/25/2022 at 2:29 PM, Pépito said:

 

I'll end this update on this cheerful note, with a little teaser of what we will have to face soon.

I guess that works, although I am fairly certain it would take two action to heal that much damage, so it will take a little bit after every time he is hit to heal up...

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

 

The Dandelion still had 4 uses left but I have Merida repair it now in preparation for the showdown with Magaroth.

Huh, thinking of using the Dandellion instead of the Thunderlight Sword against him. I guess if you get him low enough that will work better, but those sorts of ranges that the Starfall dagger might be the best options.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

Zayid somehow manages a double-crit with no great shield activation. I am tempted to attack him with Sheela to kill him before he heals but she would have 18% chance to die. I decide to take it slow, the 30 turns soft time limit is pretty lenient.

Although depending on how his healing AI works, he might move out of range to attack Zayid. I seem to remember him moving away twice when he healed on my run...

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

One more point of strength and she would only have had around 1/25 chance to face a counter. As it stands its too risky to attack. And because we have already attacked him before he will now attack anyone in his range.

So close...and if it can get the kill at 8 health, it is a better option than the starfall dagger (it is fairly similar odds at 6, and the starfall surpasses it at 4 and below)

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

A little too late. Still great though.

There is she is rubbing salt in the wounds of that missed opportunity.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

 

The last heretic is dispatched, leaving the fliers free to loot houses before harassing Vilweiss's little group on the bottom right.

That is a promising little levelup on Rubina.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

This peculiar axe is a legitimately good weapon. But it can also be sold for more than a cutlass's worth.

I always waffle on whether I want to use this thing or sell it...

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

 

He kills Aslanne. She is only a guest unit so she leaves the party but is still alive and will come back later but I lose access to her inventory, perhaps permanently I don't know. So mostly a loss of money but also the pilum + 2.

OMG...hopefully she is alive in chapter 20 after this death...At least she wasn't still carrying the Champions Mark.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

Vilweiss is kinda like Matagroth but without crits and with less powerful 2 range. He also has the commander 2 skill, which increases the ACC of his allies within 5 squares by 15.

Already baited him into switching to his 1-2 range option huh.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

Rubina gets upgraded into Yaeri +.

Probably a good use of the Multichance book there.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

This door key will be relevant in chapter 18.

I was going to comment on you not wiping this group of enemies out, but I guess you were just waiting until the end to finish them off.

 

On 7/26/2022 at 5:50 AM, Pépito said:

 

And finally the sutler. He can only be visited once before he joins your convoy and sells you various things in the prep screen.

Is this the only source of Rusted Axes in the game? I know there is a cute little even involving Rusted Axes far latter, and I wonder if both of us missed that opportunity...

 

On 7/27/2022 at 3:55 AM, Pépito said:

Then she moves to heal Ash and activates industry again.

You have had MUCh better luck with her luck based skills than I did...

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

Chapter 7, the one with an optional character to recruit. For some ungodly reason, Kaga decided that that very optional character would be Zade's starting companion in VS2.

You do kinda have to work at it to miss out on  recruiting her.

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

To make it easier on us, she never attacks us and just wants to enter one of the red houses.

Huh, never knew about this red house behavior, as it is kinda trivial to visit all of them on the first turn...

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

Prody showing how good he is.

well, you aren't using him right. I know I am going to use him to get three units to get to 12 defense on this map...

 

19 hours ago, Pépito said:

She doesn't do much in this game but it looks like she will be much more relevant in the next game.

 

I found her to be a fairly solid unit

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

Time to dodgetank haha. They have between 80 and 100 ACC and she has 75 avoid after Troy equips the Dandelion for her. If two mongols hit her, she dies.

Yikes, that is a little scary, but probably be just fine

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

And he still focuses on destroying the yurt.

Hey, that is better than them trying to kill your units instead.

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

It also hits me that all the maidens we see so far are very young. Must be a very dangerous job, or they switch every few years.

They talk about it a bit latter, and part of the requirements for circlet maidens is them being unmarried, which means they usually target girls too young to marry in their candidate process...

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

You have remain alone forever even if you want to marry too. What really makes her jealous is that being a healer would excuse her lack of a meaningful strength stat. She wouldn't even have to give up a promotion either, since she already can't promote.

You do have the option to make that change to her if you want...

 

3 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

I'll recommend his theme, since it is an absolute banger.  It might look out of place next to the other Vestaria music but as Saint Rubenio pointed out, it fits with him being basically Kramer 2 (Balmung, Baymonk, you can see it if you squint a little).

Heh, look at that, the little youtuber  @Saint Rubenio getting some cred for his Vestaria Saga 2 expertise 😛

Edited July 28, 2022 by Eltosian Kadath

[Pépito]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It was only the mainland empire that had laws restricting the Udagal. Here in the island nations of Vestaria a lot of noble houses come from Udagal descent. In fact, Vesta kinda relies on those noble houses to provide Udagal noble girls to become Circlet Maidens

Ah you're right, got a bit confused there. I didn't remember the circlet maidens exclusively coming from noble houses but I skipped the story every time I played after the first time.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You do get the Bliss Ring this chapter, although I am guessing you want to deal with him before that would become an option.

Yeah, I wanted him to die so that the other units could safely cross over and join Zayid's squad.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You have been leveling Ash a fair bit more than Jean...

He needs to get to 15 as fast as possible to print money. And Jean's level-ups have been so bad...

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

If I knew about the promote before level 10 mechanic before I finished this chapter, he would have been the one I considered early promoting for the same reason, although I don't know if I would have (or will) actually gone through with that.

I wish I learned about it earlier too, I got him to level 10 by chapter 5 every other time I promoted him early and it was a pain.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Technically there is three, but who actually bothers to train Tallan. (The other two are Aynellia, and Lianka...)

Oh that's right, I didn't remember him being able to do that. Pretty sure you can do meme strats with a leveled Tallan and the starfall dagger but it is much better to have him repair your stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I guess that works, although I am fairly certain it would take two action to heal that much damage, so it will take a little bit after every time he is hit to heal up...

Athol healing him, the regenesis ring and him using an herb on his turn was actually enough to heal him completely. But before Athol got here he had to wait some turns between engagements yeah.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh, thinking of using the Dandellion instead of the Thunderlight Sword against him. I guess if you get him low enough that will work better, but those sorts of ranges that the Starfall dagger might be the best options.

The starfall dagger would be better if he was low enough but I would rather be prepared for every opportunity. And the thunderlight sword only has 82% chance to kill him, whereas the dandelion would have around 96% if he is low enough (great shield is horrible).

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Although depending on how his healing AI works, he might move out of range to attack Zayid. I seem to remember him moving away twice when he healed on my run...

I always kill him in one turn by rigging it if I have to but that's not possible here so I learn stuff about some enemies AI's. I though he wouldn't move away like he did for you if he had someone in his range but I was wrong. At least it's pretty much confirmed he will always move to that particular tile to heal.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

There is she is rubbing salt in the wounds of that missed opportunity.

She has every right to considering she could have died.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That is a promising little levelup on Rubina.

My Rubina is turning out pretty good but my Yaeri is the Jean to her Ash. Although she is at least somewhat useful, unlike Jean.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Already baited him into switching to his 1-2 range option huh.

I actually didn't mean to, I endangered Troy like an idiot.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

OMG...hopefully she is alive in chapter 20 after this death...At least she wasn't still carrying the Champions Mark.

In retrospect I should have written that she gave the mark to Cezar back when he crossed the second bridge. You can see them standing next to each other I'm pretty sure. Also, I did permanently lose all of her inventory, the loss of the pilum+2 being particularly horrible. I'm pretty sure she will come back, there was a popup saying that she only died for this chapter but I didn't grab it.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I always waffle on whether I want to use this thing or sell it...

I always sell it because I love money. Although I think Aslanne was still carrying this one when she died.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Probably a good use of the Multichance book there.

It makes her so much better. I usually give it to Merida but she is already so good. Pretty sure Zade is the one to "canonically" get it if VS2 is any indication.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I was going to comment on you not wiping this group of enemies out, but I guess you were just waiting until the end to finish them off.

No reason to care about them before the main objective if you don't plan to enter through the main gate after all.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Is this the only source of Rusted Axes in the game? I know there is a cute little even involving Rusted Axes far latter, and I wonder if both of us missed that opportunity...

 

No, Kaga gives us a bandit with a droppable one in the chapter just before the event. If you intend on doing that little sidequest in chapter 13 there really isn't anything to worry about.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You have had MUCh better luck with her luck based skills than I did...

I stopped screenshoting them after a while but she activated industry a lot more during this map. It was pretty crazy.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You do kinda have to work at it to miss out on  recruiting her.

Killing the witch and the diabolist isn't that far fetched on a first playthrough. The game doesn't force you to seize the abbey if you do and all you get is a weird feeling you did something very wrong.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh, never knew about this red house behavior, as it is kinda trivial to visit all of them on the first turn...

I don't remember if she can enter a closed house.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I found her to be a fairly solid unit

I meant that she doesn't do much story-wise. As a unit she is pretty solid even if she is a little frail and held back by the rarity of mage promo items.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Hey, that is better than them trying to kill your units instead.

Yeah, green unit lives are pretty worthless after all.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

They talk about it a bit latter, and part of the requirements for circlet maidens is them being unmarried, which means they usually target girls too young to marry in their candidate process...

Yeah but they should grow up and become old. Which makes me think they have trouble getting there.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You do have the option to make that change to her if you want...

I know but I really don't need a third healer on Cyltan's route. A mage could be fun but I'll probably keep her as she is and have her learn flurry.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Heh, look at that, the little youtuber  @Saint Rubenio getting some cred for his Vestaria Saga 2 expertise 😛

I'm reading his Berwick ironman right now. He really loves Sylvis doesn't he...

Edited July 28, 2022 by Pépito
right instead of roght

[Pépito]

Chapter 8. If we live through the initial charge, the rest of this defense chapter will be easy.

Spoiler

Cyltan being a little shit again.

And so he rides to one of the trees and will stay there. Despite being a mounted archer. With Canto.

I know, Lucky Charms. If only he could be as obedient as you are.

At least Kaga warns us about the ambush reinforcements. He'll do it again on a later defense chapter but it will be harder than this chapter here.

Big sloppy kisses to AggroIncarnate for this map.

This is Gyskhal. He is a better Troy, at least until Troy gets 1-2 range on promotion, but we very sadly never get to recruit him. He starts on the greatyurt and will stay there for a few turns before joining us as a green unit.

This is Hoelun. The cutest Vestaria girl joins us as a guest unit on this map. She is a mounted thief with multichance and the stats of bows carry her a little bit but she has no strength and no bulk. While I like her as a character, she is a terrible unit. Whats more, she is a defeat condition for the next several chapters. It is possible to reclass her and, technically, to promote her. But since it doesn't reset her level, she only has 18 levels to gain. Oh well, she can still act as a support as a mounted archer at least. Stats aren't the end all be all in this game (but they sure do help). I'm not sure if her inability to be promoted normally is an oversight due to her unique class of if it is just a Kaga thing to do.

Just because this game really hates her, this is Cyltan. Better in almost every way, joins us with his personal weapon next chapter, can promote using the regular cavalry promo item. Sure he doesn't get multichance, but his bow is a brave one. Also one more MOB is very valuable, especially as an archer with canto.

Cezar buys 3 serrated axes and compact bows.

This guy is the enemy commander. The victory conditions are to either survive 15 turns or to kill him. He may have a brave sword but he is just garbage so that Zade can easily kill him with the Edelstern. He is also stationary, but runs away if he is too gravely injured (which ends the map).

Was he now? I wOnDeR iF tHiS wIlL cOmE uP aGaIn.

Not yet. Right now they still are into the "bickering siblings" phase. I'm also pretty sure raising a prince and his arranged bride together resulted in at least one couple having a failed marriage because they couldn't not see each other as siblings. I don't remember who these two were though.

Don't they descend from Am Solim?

It will probably come up again at some point, but I don't think it does in this game.

...

1 longspear and 4 cutlasses.

Troy isn't even remotely in danger. He kills two cavaliers while only taking scratch damage.

Scandalous.

Since Cyltan didn't get any skills from Gyskhal its probably not true.

Jean is a little bit in danger here. They don't end up focusing on him too much though.

One update I'll compile everybody's level-ups and show how blessed or cursed they are.

Accorte really has a massive crush on Zade. 2-3 sentences and she is already willing to die for him.

Roland is just here to steal your loot. He might heal you if he feels nice. We, of course, do not get him.

Yes, which is why we have to keep units near you for the rest of the map.

Cyltan really knows how to speak to women. Good job Cyltan.

Its basically the house in Berwick chapter 5 but instead of sending a screaming Daoud, we just send Zade.

Now that the initial attack has been repelled, we will divide the army in two squads. The first will protect Cyltan (Ash, Jean, Bonacel, Prody, Athol, Cezar, Hoelun and Accorte) while the other will rout the enemy.

Lilia also find the first bundle of herbs on this map.

In case I want to spare the Nashorne.

These escargots give us the only source of liquid mobility in the game. I usually give the +1 MOB to Lilia but maybe I'll give it to somebody else this time around.

The top mage, the boss and the arbalestrier are stationary but we will bait the rest little by little while dealing with the incoming reinforcements.

I bait the 3 mongols right as a wave of reinforcements appear (turn 7). I kill the 3 and retreat behind the chokepoint.

How the chokepoint looks.

"Struggling".

Aynellia being best mom again.

She also immediately deserts her post to go talk to Cyltan.

The final guest unit of this chapter, Aynellia. She won't do much this map but I really like her both as a unit and as a character. She comes with critical edge, higher avoid when below 50% HP, 20 bonus avoid, automatic multichance and she also buffs the attack of adjacent allies by 3. Low strengh but the guaranteed multi-hit makes up for it. She can also be good with magic swords, has access to maidenswords and is one of the few units that can gain MOB on level-up (unlike Tear Ring it is something like 2 max with around 5% chance on lvl-up). All of that is already good. But she also comes with a personal sword, the Alcyone.

Guaranteed vantage with her other skills is pretty nuts.

Alright, Baymonk has a unique brave sword and it is pretty strong. Thankfully, Troy with the ring of bliss can face him with no risk of death.

Also, Sheela searches the plant over there.

Kramer?

On turn 9, reinforcements also appear to try to catch you off guard and kill Cyltan. And Lilia finds herbs again.

We get his blade. It will be a fine weapon for Haldyn and Zayid.

Lilia please...

It is also really nice of Roland to help but I think he killed a mercenary who dropped his sword 😞.

He is two squares away...

 

She can't do that when we get her of course.

Oh look, a heart ❤️.

They spawn just as I bait a dangerous mage, on turn 10, with multichance and a thief. They won't last long at least.

These enemies are almost done but more reinforcements will come soon on the bottom (on turn 12 I think?).

He doesn't even need a real weapon. Meanwhile...

Haldyn and Troy dispatch every single flier on enemy phase.

Zade arrives just in time to claim all the glory.

It looks more dire if he arrives in the midst of the enemy forces but it looks a little over the top here.

Zayid will get the boss exp here.

It's really funny.

That guy had his stun pilum equipped. With 18% of paralyzing Zayid if Dulcan's attack connected. That piece of shit escapes with the Siurian Thaumite!

Hoelun almost becomes a little tattletale but decides that she isn't a bad person.

Next time we can even raid the enemy yurts. But we won't.

They truly are made for each other. We also receive 3000D from grateful villagers.

Roland also explains to us why Sphire is a no-go-zone right now. Their king died from the plague, one of his sons died after ascending the throne along with his mother and most of the court during an event called the Red Night. The late king's daughter, Syvill, ascended the throne and became their current queen at just 18 last year. Roland also tutored her at one point but he says that she looked completely cold and emotionless when he saw her during her coronation compared to the sweet little girl she used to be. He then bluntly tells Zade that he has to try to reason with Syvill, who is leading Sphire to ruin, even if he might die doing it. Letting Accorte join Zade's forces is so that if something happens to him, she won't be alone.

Ans so ends chapter 8. With a recommendation of Fields of Gold by Turisas.

 

[Pépito]

Man I really wish I could play VS2 right now. But I guess I'll wait until the end of this ironman to be really refreshed on all the important plot points. Chapter 9... is a bit of a trap. They bait you, make you feel safe and then they crush you with a big ball of reinforcements.

Spoiler

The southern part of Solis is home to two great clans: The Aragoths, who became independent about two decades ago and try to stay away from all the conflicts between the clans. The other clan is the Shyft, great allies of the Ordoms (Thamthir's clan). If Cyltan's army tries to march on Thamthir, the Shyfts will be able to destroy them from behind, so it would be very welcome if the Aragoths became our allies and kept the Shyfts in check. Just in time, a rider of the Aragoths comes to deliver bad news...

Helme informs us that the Aragoth princess, Lyttia, was kidnapped by the Shyfts along with her slave shota, Tallan. Tallan escaped and told everything to the Aragoths so Helme travelled to the Shyfts to know whats-what.

If you though Cyltan before his character development was a brat, you will love Lyttia. Thamthir threatens to kill her in five days if the Aragoths don't ally to him. He says he tried to offer them many things to get them to join before and finally lost patience, but killing Lyttia might be the best thing that could happen to the Aragoths. If she ever gets to rule anything, she will ruin it. The Aragoths decided to go to war with Thamthir, with Naccara "resigning" himself to the fact that his daughter "cannot be saved". The bad news is that Helme has the brilliant idea to send us rescue Lyttia since the Shyfts won't harm her if we are the ones attacking (since they have no reason to think that we are related). The worse news is

that any legitimacy with replacing Thamthir with Cyltan would be lost. Lyttia would be a far worse tyrant that Thamthir.

Oh thank god Zade!

Cyltan yes!

Gyskhal, why do you hate Cyltan so much...

Helme, you filthy liar.

If anyone reading this has kids, give more love to your kids than Gyskhal gives to Cyltan please.

Garlan being the voice of reason again. We get to bring Cyltan thanks to him.

This is also the event that bringing Dune in chapter 6 unlocks. He got the bracelet and it will help him find someone here (or rather, someone will recognize his bracelet).

AggroIncarnate's map. Zade and Athol are force-deployed and Hoelun + Cyltan are unavailable in the prep screen. These two will begin the map below that boulder, separated from the rest of the army. We can bring 10 more units, which will be: Lilia, Ash, Dune, Yeari and Rubina, Cezar, Troy, Merida, Prody and Bonacel. Prody and Bonacel may seem strange but that is because I will try to fight the reinforcements at the end instead of running away like I should. I won here before losing anyone before, I'll do it again. Prody and Bonacel are acceptable losses. Something else about this mission is that we can raid enemy yurts for rewards like money, weapons and thaumite but this isn't very niiiiiiiiice...

Cezar buys 4 hurlbats. I decide to give the diligence tome to Dune but I am still going to keep the liquid mobility. Something to note is that Merida is going to use my only Thaumite on her Dandelion so I will hold off on using unique weapons as much as possible for now.

...

He finally stops being an idiot after that. I didn't grab it because it auto-scrolled but Hoelun says: "The only certainty in life are taxes and Cyltan's death eluding him" or something.

She then double crits this dude and saves Cyltan.

STOP BEING A BITCH CYLTAN!

Thank you Hoelun.

Even more enemies... Obviously, these two need to retreat to the bottom, with Cyltan chocking the point. You also really need to put Hoelun next to Cyltan so that they unlock their bond. If you have them hiding at the bottom and they don't fight, the bond can't be unlocked.

The royal jelly is a regenesis potion.

w

If you raid her yurt you could get a second Doyenne. You wouldn't do that right?

She must be pretty good at haggling.

"My dad isn't like the other red units, player. Please check the conversations available before attacking him."

The first part of the bond.

Well maybe if he gave Cyltan some attention...

Hoelun is fishing for a "But I did want you Hoelun!". It doesn't happen. But she is still right.

She is beautiful. But only on the outside. Even then, Hoelun is way cuter.

True.

Ouch.

Cezar goes and buys 4 spears and 6 pilums.

This is also the first time we "see" assassins. Kaga made them invisible. The enemy range outline added in the english release spoils them a little.

They use knives and their STR can go higher than 3. They will kill a lot of your units on a blind playthrough.

Turns out, this guy isn't just nice. He is also the brother of the Shyfts current leader. The assassin that I was trying to bait with Zade also ran away during enemy phase.

If only we had access to a yellow filter and a divine cursor.

His little squad is stationary and doesn't attack unless you attack them. Be sure to TALK to them player.

Turns out Gyskhal was a really trash father who gave both of his kids massive self-esteem issues.

Just why I gave you paragon Dune.

Zade and Lilia taunt Dune.

They gain this bond with each other and stop crapping all over the other whenever they can. I'm not sure if not getting this bond impacts their ending but it probably should.

Hoelun... Why are you so bad...

I wanted him to use a serrated axe but I misclicked. Still good.

Finally, money money money.

This guy spawns on turn 6 (near the chest). And he has a sleep knife because of course he does.

We take on this squad.

I also fuck up with Cyltan. If the previous guy had hit him with his battleaxe at ~40% chance he would have died. He is a defeat condition by the way.

We will deal with him much later. You might also be wondering why I am not raiding any enemy yurts. That is because is I do, I can't talk to Ke'mar or recruit Maya later. And I really want to.

This tent is the only one we can "raid". Some rat gives us a cutlass and then fights us. We kill him and get a bag of gold. Also, you are guaranteed to crit him on your second hit for some reason.

My Cyltan isn't going to be good is he... I need either him or Dune to be good, if neither are it is going to suck.

I'll stop here on turn 10 for now.

 

[Pépito]

The end of chapter 9 (probably).

Spoiler

We begin by being shown how dangerous assassins can be.

16 damage that bypass defense. I baited him with the wielder of the ring of bliss but still.

This yurt shills Ke'Mar some more.

Almost.

I don't buy anything here but I might as well still show it.

While Merida grinds the mage's siege weapon (while taking no damage), the two fliers Ash and Dune will go beat the sleeping knife thief. Then, they will attack the Shyfts from the side which will cause a lot of the stationary forces to charge at us.

This yurt works like the house near the bridge in chapter 7.

I sent back Cyltan and Hoelun after they took more bows from the stockpile. Dune will bait the thief. Here goes...

Much better.

The mage's weapon has been exhausted. Ash baits the two fighters. Yaeri get +1 STR and AGI but I didn't grab it.

His first "bad" level-up.

And Cyltan already caugh up to Zade in levels.

Or not.

No Thaumite once again.

The cleanup continues.

Troy caps defense bashing a rock.

Our objective is for Zade to seize the yurt. But there is a problem.

128 avoid. Anything with 42 health or lower risks death when fighting him since the cerberus attacks 3 times and he will double you. If you have attacked the yurts you will need to rig something. Otherwise, you can just talk to Ke'Mar.

Just enough uses to kill him and to exhaust his tisane.

Because Cyltan got enough STR level-ups, he gets to keep one use of the bow. May be useful later.

When Zade seizes the yurt, the objective will change to escaping with everyone through this forest. A few turns after the seize, massive reinforcements will appear on the right of the ladder and at the top of the map. I always fight them for the loot but thi time I am going to pussy out. It is just too risky. I'll put everyone near the forest and have Zade run to it after seizing the yurt.

Wonderful.

Just kill her and pretend the Shyfts did it, Garlan please...

SHIT!

Lyttia: Be careful everyone!

I miss out on a tisane and a 50 uses brave sword by not fighting them but I'd rather keep my units after all. I wait a turn to show the last group.

They would have gotten me some gold. Oh well.

Does she really though? It does suck to have tour husband be decided for you. But if you enslave and abuse a boy just because, you don't get to complain. Hoelun is also starting to get jealous.

Turns out, Dune isn't just anyone. He is the lost prince of the Aragoths and is going to be the step-brother of Cyltan if he marries Lyttia.

15 years ago,  the last Khar was being an asshole and committing massacres so Naccara sent Dune's mother and infant Dune away to Venecia. After brutal fights, the Aragoths managed to reclaim their peace and freedom. Naccara looked for his wife and Dune but only found whispers of their demise. To ensure the stability of the clan, he had to take a new wife... It resulted in Lyttia, whose mother died last year (which means that she is about 14). Dune is therefore her 18 years old step-brother. Since Lyttia is to marry Cyltan, Naccara asks Dune if he would be his heir since the timing of his return is miraculous. Dune refuses, because he must free Alysia first so Naccara gives him the bow. The Bow.

Something like 13 might, 10 crit, 100 ACC, brave bow that gives +3 RES. And it also gives Dune Canto. It will also make Dune's "vantage" worth relying on.

Yeah it is. Having tour husband chosen for you is just as horrible as having your wife chosen for you.

Such a great person. They are of course caught immediately.

We hear the first few lashed being administrated.

Instead of coming clean, she faints.

Garlan sweeps Cyltan's hotheadedness under the rug, always nice to see.

Garlan and Aynellia also try to salvage the whole marriage thing to prevent horrific tyranny and rebellions in a few decades.

She also calls Hoelun irrelevant and useless. Just in case you liked her a little.

While Hoelun is a much worse unit, she actually has a soul, unlike Lyttia.

A wonderful way to thank Athol for saving Tallan.

She did this to him.

Just die already...

Who'?

Urven is here to get Hoelun to assemble the clans under one banner to depose Gansuk.

A motive both petty and cute.

The next chapter will be a special one. But until then, Fight Against All Evil by Primal Fear.

 

 

[Pépito]

Chapter 10 is a weird little Kaga RPG.

Spoiler

Finland is real?

A small Gaul village remains steadfast against the Roman advance.

*

She will heal Hoelun every turn and will heal Urven if he is adjacent to Hoelun.

AggroIncarnate has a 9 inch penis (before erection).

This map is essentially Hoelun and Urven travelling to the villages and recruiting green units to have a big battle at the end. We only have 80 turns for this before the battle happens anyways.

 

This gives Urven bond bonuses from Hoelun (but she doesn't receive any bonuses).

Their starting inventory for this map.

Before anything happens I should probably talk about Urven. He gets higher crit when at low health and doesn't suffer effective damage from blue tomes and poleaxes. He is a really good unit but doesn't quite reach Troy and Merida's level. Unlike them, he does start with 1-2 range, at the price of never getting swords, but they are close to promotion anyways. Good bases, good growths. He also gets his "personal" weapon after this map: the Cavalry lance. It is just a strong lance effective against cavalry but being able to oneshot regiments is nice. I hope he shows how good he can be on this playthrough.

She is 15.

Really starting to regret Cyltan.

We are then presented with a choice. 3000D, Urven leaves after this map, 4 green units and her story probably becomes a lot more depressing from then on OR we tell him to go fuck himself.

 

Hoelun gets a bonus turn and we run away. They'll spawn for a few turns and chase us but that is just free exp.

This will happen a lot.

Alright, not bad.

More bulk I guess?

See? He's good.

1 pilum, longspear and longbow.

The USSR.

Hoelun: I think I see the problem.

This moves the barrels and will makes enemies spawn for a while.

Much better.

YES!

Holy shit.

This guy is pretty bad. Urven could one-round him but in the interest of seeing the most dialogue...

Is that a typo?

We'll give the liquid fortune to someone other than these two so I will send it to the convoy at the first opportunity (they will be unavailable next chapter). Let's head to the center yurt.

(screams in the background)

Hoelun's good level-ups have gotten to her head.

 

The only reason she will be able to kill it is because it is an old, sick, wounded wyvern. It doesn't even have the "cut all damage in half" that all the other wyverns have! Is she going to pick on a bullied kid wyvern?

She will never fight another one ever again in this playthrough. Unless I lose so many units that she has to be the one do it.

Even then, she'd be useless. Stoelan is still impressed and gives Hoelun her personal weapon.

He says it was his final token of love and then

Hoelun receives the exoskeleton that will carry her for the rest of the game. We move to the last yurt with 40 turns left.

 

Cue zombies.

This bitch...

Two of the skeletons drop these. Sells for a 1000D, actually pretty good stats if we could use it.

Turn 70, we finally reach this thing. We will need to sprint to be ready for the battle.

The enemy army has a lot of loot we don't want the green units to get. 2 sacks of coin, a physic staff... and an argent sadle. The cavalry promo item. We want this.

I forgot about this guy.

I get the loot I care about. Now i can let the Radiant Drawl brawl play out.

The greens steal the rest of the loot from us. About 1900D lost...

I don't remember if he moves when provoked but I put Urven in front of him just in case. I let him use the archbow (which he drops) to kill the greens because I want him to be weak enough and have his cutlass equipped so that Hoelun can get the kill. 8 of the 20 uses for this.

That's right, tell him Hoelun!

Don't let him get to you!

Garlan sweeps in for the rescue.

This isn't the last time Athol does something reckless.

 

And on this romantic note, this chapter ends. Next chapter will be the chapter 5 of this arc. And so I recommend Great Heathen Army by Iced Earth.

 

[Pépito]

Chapter 11. This will be a multi-parter.

Spoiler

Harral is supposed to be just as unassailable as Venecia and we have trouble coming up with a strategy. Meanwhile, Thamthir decides to attack the nymans. While some forces are away, Zade and Cyltan (1200 soldiers) will attack the citadel and Gyskhal, Hoelun and Urven (2000 soldiers) will ride to defend the nymans.

The last of AggroIncarnate's maps. I'll miss him ;(   We have to bench 3 units and they will be Prody, Theodel and Bonacel. We will go through this map clockwise and enter the citadel on the second "circle". Weak reinforcements will come from the forts outside of the wall and destroying the three blue houses will stop them. Killing the demon at the big tree will remove a +3 DEF/RES buff all enemies have and visiting the various yurts will open the left door for us. I decide to give the liquid magic to Athol, the liquid dexterity to Ash and both the liquid fortune and the liquid mobility to Zade. I wanted to give the mobility to the dancer this time but I would be better on Zade all things considered. Troy is the cavalry that will be promoted this map and he will wield the ring of bliss.

I don't buy anything here.

Turns out, Cyltan's dad was a horrible ruler. We are talking "mass executions of dissidents in the town square" bad.

Gyskhal actually allowed it and Aynellia wants to protect Cyltan anyways. In practice it means that she will heal Cyltan every turn but we still can't use her as a unit.

He is right, we will have to dispose of them to enter the town safely.

The three blue houses are food stores. If we destroy them all, Thamthir can't feed the conscripts and they won't spawn anymore.

The boss of the first grain reserve.

The margulites are very hard to keep dead sadly.

Hard to kill but somewhat harmless. His pilum reduces you to 1HP and he has a nosferatu skill so he is pretty sturdy. But he can't kill you so you just have to send Dune or Sheela (or a mage with a blue tome) deal with him. Sheela does massive damage with her Soaring Flame. After his death, a part of the forest in front of him will wither and disappear for easier crossing and we will get a cool sword.

Ku'Than retreats even if you kill him in chapter 9 if I remember it correctly.

She isn't a great fighter but she is still pretty cute. And a good haggler too.

In case you didn't check the demon out yet.

The next boss will be a lot harder.

What a Zade.

He'll be sorry a lot today.

The lithe axe is a brave axe for women which also gives lurk.

Salla goesz first, then Nasha, the Ilisse.

He has gotten this exact level-up so many times. Merida gets +1 HP fighting Ilisse.

This is how it looks on turn 10. I'll stop here for now and continue later. I'm going to go mod FNV.

 

[Pépito]

I don't think I will ever truly get tired of Fallout New Vegas. Anyways, the second part, and the end, of chapter 11.

Spoiler

An amazing start, he immediately puts Sheela's hp to 1 so he won't heal later and she gets a str level-up.

I have Cezar finish him off when he is at 4 hp to gain time and spare a use of the Soaring Flame. Now the enemy will lose the dark aura giving them +3 def and res. We even get a cool sword out of it.

It has 12 might, 65 acc and a nosferatu effect. Really nice sword.

The dark forest also withers and die which lets us go much faster. We still have to be a bit wary of the siege weapons below.

Killing this guy gets us the masakiri, an 18 might, 50 acc throwing axe.

Turns out, Tamthir isn't a great guy but he at least doesn't worship demons.

After dragging my units across, I reach turn 18 and

These units spawn. As soon as I kill the gold wagon I will get some gold and all of the sphirian mercenaries (the mages) will leave the map.

Pretty good level-ups with Cezar finally getting that elusive point of strength.

Very nice Jean. At least we get 6000D out of it.

This guy reminds us that there is treasure to be found near the ruins while complaining about the successive khars never cleaning up the bandits there. Given that there is a mage promo item in the chest, I am very glad they didn't clean that temple.

Nothing wrong with wanting to be paid.

The last temple bandit is also very dangerous if you don't have anyone with over 38 avoid. Too bad for him...

Nice. Any bulk is good on her.

And now the conscripts will go on strike. poor Thamthir, losing so much of his army in such a short time...

What was his strategy?

Now that we have proved to the citizens that we are the good guys, they will help us get in the city. But first...

We all do lad.

You can pay a 1000 denari for the four assassins inside the city to be recalled but I'll just kill them. As long as I am careful, it should be fine.

Very nice of you Thamthir.

A reminder that Neira and Aynelia are sisters if you didn't get it. It will be very useful next chapter.

This is the shop on the bottom right, I won't buy anything there.

While cleaning up some idiots that were right next to the ramparts, Cyltan gets bulkier.

Cyltan will now tank the arbalests until they are exhausted. They can't kill him in one turn and he gets free full heals every turn. He'll still look like a porcupine after they are done with him.

Cyltan wins this round.

This guy is the other method to deal with the arbalests.

If you do accept, the arbalestriers will die but I think some of the civilians will also die and Maya won't be recruitable anymore. Speaking of which:

The third flier, Maya. A terrible fighter but she get even higher discounts than Cezar at 33%. She also has industry for better movement. We can make her a better fighter next chapter but it really isn't worth it. I will have to talk to her with Yaeri to get her but she sadly won't be available until next chapter.

The first two arbalest have been emptied, let us move on to the other two.

And that's it. No more arbalests. Time to start the assault.

Merida will bait one of the assassins.

Zade will bait the next assassin. He should be able to kill it 100% on retaliation. This will also make the fliers move towards us. The scariest part is Maya given that she has 3 Thracia stars. If she doesn't proc them, everything is fine.

Just don't kill Zade please.

Lilia good.

Zade great. I also realize Maya couldn't have killed him because she only has 12 attack, so even a double crit with the Doyenne wouldn't have killed him. The fliers are baited outside and Maya doesn't Thracia bullshit her way to one of the squishies.

Now, time for the slaughter.

Very good level-up, but missing his shot is pretty bad.

Oh well, he already capped so many stats. Time for him to promote and eat the cake.

Merida baits the second-to-last assassin.

Very good.

The fliers clean-up the arbalestriers and loot some stuff. Also, time for promotion before moving forward.

Look at him. The perfect unit.

I will give him the phalanx lance and have bait these two. I hate doing it but it should be fine.

He will never die.

Very unexpected of you Jean.

This guy would be threatening if I didn't have Troy.

We get the nice Thaumite from the middle of the lake and prepare to kill the last enemies. Almost everyone in the fortress was stationary so I didn't show much.

This guy's biggest asset is his commander skill. But He isn't much of a threat otherwise.

I want to weaken him so that Cyltan can get the kill but Zayid missed both of his attacks.

He must make his retreat!

This is to ensure that Cyltan gets to kill him no matter what. But it is now time for shopping.

Troy celebrates with some water cake.

20000 denari. Now for the shops:

All I buy are 2 champion's marks and 1 empyrean wings. I am left with just under 9000 for the next chapter. I am still not done however. I will now unequip everyone except Cyltan, Dune, Ash and Jean. And I finally seize on turn 90.

Also look at this salty loser hehe.

Just following order man, c'mon...

Aynellia not manifesting herself here is honestly pretty weird.

The harsh reality of life under a cruel tyrant. Sometimes, following orders is a justified defense.

Thamthir: "You there, with the cobalt locks."

Man, she really sees him as her kid doesn't she.

"Cutscene battle"

Bannable last words Thamthir.

Aynellia's story is a tragic one. If I manage to keep her alive to the end, we will get to hear it.

Zade isn't very smart. Cyltan's portrait is here to stay by the way now that he has sufficiently grown as a character.

I can hear the yaoi fangirls screaming from over there.

A woman arrives and ruin this wonderful moment of bromance by telling Cyltan that he should go out and greet his subjects.

She really needed the healing though...

"It even gave me a new portrait."

Athol: "I lost my brothers... My beloved..."

She is talking about Zech. And she may be misinterpreting his feelings towards her.

I don't think Kaga will have Zade end up with anyone but Athol. And if he does, I don't want to know, no VS2 spoilers please.

Aynellia invites Athol to go shopping. Then Cyltan invites them to the celebratory banquet and

has the best pick-up line. Women love when you remind them they are just there to make the one you really care about jealous. Bravo Cyltan!

Of course, Athol is just too nice.

Theodel is just jealous. And on that wonderful note I just have to recommend one of FamilyJules medleys

The FFX battle theme starts at 4:53. Until next time!

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Spoiler

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

 

And so he rides to one of the trees and will stay there. Despite being a mounted archer. With Canto.

Honestly, probably the best thing a green unit could do. I don't trust those lemmings to use canto properly, and this way he gets some extra avoid to better survive.

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

 

Don't they descend from Am Solim?

And Am Solim was a normal person, not one of the 5 Udagal heroes (who I think are a subset of the 17 Heroes, but I kinda forget the details...)

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

 

I am not sure if the dates end up right, but it makes me think of that Black death that killed Zade's mom, and Athol's mom, and Theo's mom as well...honestly, a LOT of moms died to a disease while their children were young in this game.

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

Its basically the house in Berwick chapter 5 but instead of sending a screaming Daoud, we just send Zade.

Oh wow, you are using this event. Zade is such a good unit, and your army can easily reach him in the 10 turns it takes for this, that I just had him press on with the rest of the army in my last run, and probably will in my ironman.

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

These escargots give us the only source of liquid mobility in the game. I usually give the +1 MOB to Lilia but maybe I'll give it to somebody else this time around.

Huh, I guess I can sorta see the logic here. I ended up giving it to Zade on my first run, as I figured there were maps that this would uniquely help with. Plus it gave him just enough move to become an excellent assassin counter...

 

On 7/29/2022 at 9:02 AM, Pépito said:

It's really funny.

That guy had his stun pilum equipped. With 18% of paralyzing Zayid if Dulcan's attack connected. That piece of shit escapes with the Siurian Thaumite!

Oh man. This wasn't the enemy that made me hate the power of stun pilums, but this certainly adds to that.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

They bait you, make you feel safe and then they crush you with a big ball of reinforcements.

Well you supposed to ru-

...oh, you just fought them all didn't you.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

If you though Cyltan before his character development was a brat, you will love Lyttia.

The things people let refreshing units get away with...

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

Prody and Bonacel may seem strange but that is because I will try to fight the reinforcements at the end instead of running away like I should. I won here before losing anyone before, I'll do it again. Prody and Bonacel are acceptable losses.

...this is going to end in a bloodbath isn't it.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

Something else about this mission is that we can raid enemy yurts for rewards like money, weapons and thaumite but this isn't very niiiiiiiiice...

What madness, you literally lose a recruitable unit, and have to deal with the stupidly evasive boss at the end of this, without the scripted weapon that deals with it at the end. Truly a Kaga trap for the blind and brutal.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

 

Even more enemies... Obviously, these two need to retreat to the bottom, with Cyltan chocking the point. You also really need to put Hoelun next to Cyltan so that they unlock their bond. If you have them hiding at the bottom and they don't fight, the bond can't be unlocked.

Heh, if you stay out of their range, they don't chase you, and Cyltan can chip the near ones freely and canto out of range...for a while at least. It almost feels like a spoiler for mentioning it.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

If you raid her yurt you could get a second Doyenne. You wouldn't do that right?

She comes with that Doyenne for free if you recruit her...

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

Just why I gave you paragon Dune.

Ah poor Dune. Although giving him that diligence is probably a better idea than the dumb plan I have for that skill...

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

 

This guy spawns on turn 6 (near the chest). And he has a sleep knife because of course he does.

Sleep Knives are so annoying.

 

On 7/30/2022 at 10:33 AM, Pépito said:

I'll stop here on turn 10 for now.

Did I inspire you to take reasonable chapter breaks like this?

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

 

We begin by being shown how dangerous assassins can be.

16 damage that bypass defense. I baited him with the wielder of the ring of bliss but still.

Glad my +1 MOB Zade could jump and one round these fools with the Edelstein on my first run, as having to lure them just sounds annoying.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

 

The mage's weapon has been exhausted. Ash baits the two fighters. Yaeri get +1 STR and AGI but I didn't grab it.

Oh wow, you actually waited out some of the seige tomes. I hope I don't end up having to do that on my ironman as well. I seem to remember there being a way to get at them on this chapter fairly safely, but I can't remember if that was because of some weird AI behavior with the enemies beyond that rock or not...

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

Wow, capped STR, DEF, and AGL. What a beast.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

Just enough uses to kill him and to exhaust his tisane.

Fairly certain you have enough archers in your army to trade chain it to kill him in one turn, which saves the uses the tisane would waste.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

 

I miss out on a tisane and a 50 uses brave sword by not fighting them but I'd rather keep my units after all. I wait a turn to show the last group.

Glad to see caution, and reason prevail here.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 10:06 AM, Pépito said:

 

Something like 13 might, 10 crit, 100 ACC, brave bow that gives +3 RES. And it also gives Dune Canto. It will also make Dune's "vantage" worth relying on.

This bow really pushes Dune over the edge. Getting Canto on an infantry unit is surprisingly useful thing to have in this game.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 2:07 PM, Pépito said:

The only reason she will be able to kill it is because it is an old, sick, wounded wyvern. It doesn't even have the "cut all damage in half" that all the other wyverns have! Is she going to pick on a bullied kid wyvern?

~

 

On 7/31/2022 at 2:07 PM, Pépito said:

Turn 70, we finally reach this thing. We will need to sprint to be ready for the battle.

Wow that is a high turn count, but I kinda remember this solo mission tends to get that high.

 

On 7/31/2022 at 2:07 PM, Pépito said:

 

The enemy army has a lot of loot we don't want the green units to get. 2 sacks of coin, a physic staff... and an argent sadle. The cavalry promo item. We want this.

I seem to remember getting all of the loot being kinda tricky...

 

On 7/31/2022 at 2:07 PM, Pépito said:

The greens steal the rest of the loot from us. About 1900D lost...

I respect the healthy level of restraint shown here.

 

On 8/1/2022 at 5:01 AM, Pépito said:

I wanted to give the mobility to the dancer this time but I would be better on Zade all things considered

Oh well, I fully understand giving it to Zade (heck I did it myself), although giving it to Lyttia would have been funny.

 

On 8/1/2022 at 5:01 AM, Pépito said:

Hard to kill but somewhat harmless. His pilum reduces you to 1HP and he has a nosferatu skill so he is pretty sturdy. But he can't kill you so you just have to send Dune or Sheela (or a mage with a blue tome) deal with him. Sheela does massive damage with her Soaring Flame.

Annoying to kill is right. Didn't have the Soaring Flame on my last run, and whittling this beast down was very annoying.

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

I don't think I will ever truly get tired of Fallout New Vegas.

It is by far the best of the modern Fallouts, and a GREAT game.

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

I have Cezar finish him off when he is at 4 hp to gain time and spare a use of the Soaring Flame. Now the enemy will lose the dark aura giving them +3 def and res. We even get a cool sword out of it.

Nice to see the Starfall Dagger get some work in here.

 

1 hour ago, Pépito said:

 

The last temple bandit is also very dangerous if you don't have anyone with over 38 avoid. Too bad for him...

Crooked Axes are in that funny range where they are either useless, or scary, with nothing in between.

 

2 hours ago, Pépito said:

And that's it. No more arbalests. Time to start the assault.

My goodness, you waited out a bunch of Arbalests here too. I remember finding a way to deal with them using the high move of cavalry on my last run...

 

2 hours ago, Pépito said:

Just don't kill Zade please.

...Ma'aya being able to kill Zade? Is he in range of a deadly knife or something?

 

2 hours ago, Pépito said:

He will never die.

I guess that defanged the deadly knife encounter.

 

2 hours ago, Pépito said:

And I finally seize on turn 90.

Oof, that is a brutal turn count.

 

2 hours ago, Pépito said:

 

Also look at this salty loser hehe.

I seem to remember the poison guy saying something similar, if you wait til after you break into the city walls to talk to him too.

 

Yeah, I have a large enough comment update to spoiler box it this time.

[Pépito]

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And Am Solim was a normal person, not one of the 5 Udagal heroes (who I think are a subset of the 17 Heroes, but I kinda forget the details...)

Ah gotcha.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am not sure if the dates end up right, but it makes me think of that Black death that killed Zade's mom, and Athol's mom, and Theo's mom as well...honestly, a LOT of moms died to a disease while their children were young in this game.

Didn't 25% of Europe die to the real black plague?

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oh wow, you are using this event. Zade is such a good unit, and your army can easily reach him in the 10 turns it takes for this, that I just had him press on with the rest of the army in my last run, and probably will in my ironman.

It was just in case I royally fucked up and couldn't reach the boss in time.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Well you supposed to ru-

...oh, you just fought them all didn't you.

I usually do but I didn't risk it this time. I'd rather keep a unit or two than get the brave sword and some gold.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...this is going to end in a bloodbath isn't it.

I pussied out 😞

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Heh, if you stay out of their range, they don't chase you, and Cyltan can chip the near ones freely and canto out of range...for a while at least. It almost feels like a spoiler for mentioning it.

That's true, but I don't think it unlocks their bond.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

She comes with that Doyenne for free if you recruit her...

Yes but you don't necessarily know that when playing blind.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Did I inspire you to take reasonable chapter breaks like this?

As the chapter get longer and more dangerous, it will become more and more important. I usually am way less careful even during Ironman runs but this is such a big time investment that I don't want it to stop because of a dumb mistake.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oh wow, you actually waited out some of the seige tomes. I hope I don't end up having to do that on my ironman as well. I seem to remember there being a way to get at them on this chapter fairly safely, but I can't remember if that was because of some weird AI behavior with the enemies beyond that rock or not...

You can kill the misarme guy by sending your fliers. I'd still rather be careful.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Fairly certain you have enough archers in your army to trade chain it to kill him in one turn, which saves the uses the tisane would waste

Oh my god you are right, I never thought of doing that. I guess that will be a trick for the next run.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Glad to see caution, and reason prevail here.

Don't get used to it. I very easily get carried away and overconfident.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This bow really pushes Dune over the edge. Getting Canto on an infantry unit is surprisingly useful thing to have in this game.

This might even be an argument for giving him the mobility but I decided that Zade was more important for this run.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Wow that is a high turn count, but I kinda remember this solo mission tends to get that high.

It would have been shorter if I had remembered to use the bellflower leaf when fighting the undead. Their paralysis is extremely time consuming.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I seem to remember getting all of the loot being kinda tricky...

You can just send Urven with a pilum and have him kill 90% of the enemies in one turn but I can't risk that in an ironman.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I respect the healthy level of restraint shown here.

I suspect the chapter where I won't be as restrained as I should will be chapter 15. Until then, everything should be ok.

 

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oh well, I fully understand giving it to Zade (heck I did it myself), although giving it to Lyttia would have been funny.

I considered it but I remembered she doesn't really need it. She has great movement in the desert, is always close to the other during 14, doesn't need to move fully every turn in any of the three "zones" of 15, 17 is a slog and 19 doesn't see her move around too much either. It would have been useful to get her to the front faster in 20 but it really isn't necessary.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Annoying to kill is right. Didn't have the Soaring Flame on my last run, and whittling this beast down was very annoying.

He wouldn't be such a problem if you didn't need to reach the gold wagon in time.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It is by far the best of the modern Fallouts, and a GREAT game.

My most played game of all time. So unbelievably good with enough mods to do whatever you want and great DLC's. I also came to appreciate 3 more after 4 and 76 came around.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Crooked Axes are in that funny range where they are either useless, or scary, with nothing in between.

Just like in Berwick, you just need to send the speedster deal with them.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

My goodness, you waited out a bunch of Arbalests here too. I remember finding a way to deal with them using the high move of cavalry on my last run...

I always do it that way. Just like Kaga intended.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...Ma'aya being able to kill Zade? Is he in range of a deadly knife or something?

I jus overestimated the Doyenne's strength. She had 12 might and Zade would have had 11 DEF and 5 HP if he hadn't leveled defense so even a double crit wouldn't have killed him. If she had procced industry and attacked again she could have done it but the chances would be very low and he leveled DEF anyways. Still scary.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I guess that defanged the deadly knife encounter.

You can also run in and kill the archer since almost everyone is stationary but I wasn't sure of that at that point.

 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof, that is a brutal turn count.

I like to take my time in all aspects of life. Although we won't see a turncount like that until 17.