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Marth's Amazon Army - Let's Play FE 11


CelestialContrail
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Part 0 - Setting Ground Rules

Hello. :^) For a while now, I've been thinking about doing an all-female (plus Marth, because a) doing the Prologue would be completely impossible without being able to use someone during it, and b) I really don't want to have to drag around complete deadweight on every map) run of Shadow Dragon as a fun challenge. And now that I've actually started in on it in a fit of boredom, I thought I'd post about it here so that maybe you fine folks would find my struggles to beat Shadow Dragon while letting the ladies do almost all the work entertaining. (Also, posting about the run will help keep me honest about sticking to the rules for this challenge.)

Anyway, the exact rules for this challenge run are as follows:

  1. Only female characters (and Marth) are allowed to attack the enemy.
  2. Any male character can take hits while unarmed and be used to block the enemy's path (though I will try not to rely on that second part too often).
  3. Wrys can heal until Lena is recruited. (Because not having a healer just sucks, and it's not like it takes that long for Lena to show up.)
  4. Thieves can open doors and chests. (This will help reduce unnecessary tedium, plus keeping them alive while unarmed to make use of them will add to the challenge.)
  5. All female characters must be recruited. (Yes, this includes Norne and Athena. Blood will be shed to achieve this.)
  6. Breaking any of these rules or letting any of the female characters die are grounds for a reset. (I'm going to be starved for combat units as it, I'm not letting any of the ones I can use stay dead.)

This run will be on Normal difficulty, partly because I don't feel like using a hacked version of the rom to be able to get Norne outside of that difficulty and partly because I think the other limitations will be challenge enough for me. Also, don't expect a detailed recounting of the game's story to be included with this Let's Play - I'll be focusing on the gameplay pretty much exclusively.

As of writing this, I've already finished running through the Prologue chapters, so expect a post detailing the happenings there in the next day or so. After that, I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this - I have Tactic Ogre Reborn on order to arrive tomorrow, so that will be taking up most of my game playing hours in the near future, but sneaking in the occasional chapter of FE 11 wouldn't take up too much time.

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2 hours ago, CelestialContrail said:

All female characters must be recruited. (Yes, this includes Norne and Athena. Blood will be shed to achieve this.)

Will you be doing the kill Tiki while holding the Falchion on chapter 24 trick to get Nagi from chapter 24x, and using the Aum staff to revive Tiki, or will resetting for female character death take precedent?

In either case good luck, and hopefully my favorite Shadow Dragon character Minerva leads your army to victory!

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4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Will you be doing the kill Tiki while holding the Falchion on chapter 24 trick to get Nagi from chapter 24x, and using the Aum staff to revive Tiki, or will resetting for female character death take precedent?

In either case good luck, and hopefully my favorite Shadow Dragon character Minerva leads your army to victory!

That's a good question that I hadn't really considered. On the one hand, I haven't done that trick before and seeing new content is always fun, but on the other Nagi's really just there as a backup in case you manage to screw yourself as far as taking Medeus out goes. I'll probably let my readers decide what to do when I get to that point - audience participation is a fun thing to have.

And thanks for reading and the well wishes. :^) I'm sure Minerva will be quite the help once I get her.

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Are you gonna activate the trap card, Amazon Archers? (record scratch) ...Wait, what the heck am I talking about?

Real question: Any reclasses you plan on doing?

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46 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Are you gonna activate the trap card, Amazon Archers? (record scratch) ...Wait, what the heck am I talking about?

Real question: Any reclasses you plan on doing?

Yep. Lena is going to be switched to Mage once I get Maria since I think an extra Mage will be more useful than an extra Cleric and Lena has the better bases and growths. Caeda and Catria are probably going to get swapped to Paladin after promotion so less of my forces will be vulnerable to archers. I'm considering swapping Palla to Myrmidon/Swordmaster so those classes' high Speed bases will mitigate her terrible Speed growth. I may also make Midia a Sniper just because her Defense base and growth is so bad that using her for chip damage from range maybe more useful than trying to have her frontline while being so squishy. Of course, if any of these ideas end up working poorly in practice I'll reconsider my options.

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Part 1a - Marth Solos Prologue 1 & 2

I've decided to split the Prologue chapters into three separate posts, so I'm not trying to shove 60+ images into a single one. This first one will cover the first two Prologue chapters, since there really isn't that much to say about Prologue 1 - that one's always a Marth solo anyway. The only screenshot I bothered to take from that chapter is of Marth's first level up:

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Which was fairly decent.

I'll be sticking the discussion of Prologue 2 under a Spoiler to make the thread easier to scroll through. Also, please let me know if you think I'm not giving enough detail or giving too much detail. This is my first time doing a screenshot Let's Play, so I'm not sure what the right balance is.

Spoiler

We get Abel and Frey to help out in Prologue 2, but for this run their only use will be as item carriers and meat shields. So the first thing I do is have them give Marth their swords and Frey's Vulnerary - he'll be wearing out his own sword quickly and taking the most damage as the sole combatant.

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Then I send Marth left to attack the soldier nearby, which he'll double and kill while taking minor damage.

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On Enemy Phase, a Fighter moves up and gets a hit in on Marth, but takes almost half his health in damage in return.

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On Player Phase, Marth attacks the Fighter in turn.

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Marth gets a pretty good level from the fight - strength and speed are always good to get.

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Unfortunately, since Marth isn't doubling this guy, he can't kill him here, and unluckily the Fighter hits a second time for 5 damage even though his hit rate isn't great. With Marth this damaged and another Soldier close enough to attack during the next Enemy Phase, I decide to send Abel down as a distraction. I make sure to remove his weapon to prevent him from attacking.

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Both the Fighter and the Solider decide that taking potshots at the unarmed Abel is better than going after Marth, but they don't do enough damage to kill Abel, which is good because I'd rather not have any unnecessary deaths. Now that Marth can safely take out the Fighter without taking any damage, I send him down to do so.

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Since Abel's looking a bit worse for wear now, I bring Frey over in case I need to sub him in for meatshielding duties, and have him disarm as well.

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Lastly, I move Abel up so he's a little less exposed. The Soldier wouldn't do that much damage to him, so there's no need to have him retreat behind our line entirely yet.

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Not that that ends up mattering too much, since the Soldier decides to suicide on Marth instead.

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I have Marth move down one so he's just outside of the range of the nearby Archer. Not wanting to leave him badly hurt while there's still a few more enemies to take out, I also have him down some Vulnerary.

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The Archer gets doubled and taken out the next turn.

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Then I move Marth to the right so that he can take out the other Archer next turn. (Not strictly necessary when I could've just taken out the boss and seized, but Exp's Exp.)

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The Archer nicely moves closer so Marth doesn't have to go as far for the kill.

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And Marth gets a really good level for his troubles.

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Marth takes out the Soldier standing on the seize point without taking much damage himself - looks like I could've gotten away without that Vulnerary use, but better safe than sorry - and seizes to end this chapter.

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All in all, not too bad a time, with the only tricky spot being the time I had to use Abel as a distraction to keep Marth from being overwhelmed.

 

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Part 1b - Marth Solos Prologue 3

Spoiler

I had to reset this chapter a couple of time due to rule violations - the first time I accidentally moved the extra units into range of a Soldier and had forgotten to make sure Abel was disarmed. The second time Abel retaliated against an Archer even though I could swear I'd made sure to disarm him that time.

Anyway, this chapter gives us Jagen and Cain, who also won't be allowed to do much. The first thing I do is have Frey and Jagen dump their inventories into Cain and Abel's, respectively, for reasons that will become clear in the next Prologue chapter. (And probably aren't that hard to figure out.)

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Then I send Marth south so the barely visible Soldier will suicide on him on Enemy Phase and end my turn.

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Next turn I move Marth left to a spot where he's close to another Soldier but outside the range of the Archer that's further to the left. I move the others close by so they'll be around if meat shielding duty is necessary but make sure they stay outside of the Soldier's range this time. The Soldier also suicides on Marth on Enemy Phase.

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Marth gets a so-so level. The one I got on the second attempt that I had to reset was better - guess the RNG was punishing me for my failure.

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The Archer moved closer during the Enemy Phase, so I move Marth left to take him out and have the Soldier kill himself on Marth during the next Enemy Phase.

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I move Marth into the range of the next set of enemies while bringing the others over onto the bridge.

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Marth takes one step forward to take out the Fighter with the Hand Axe, then gets attacked by the other Fighter on Enemy Phase, which doesn't die because Marth can't double him.

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Marth also gets a pretty bad level from the fight.

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Marth takes out the Fighter, but that Archer is now close enough to attack Marth on Enemy Phase. So I use the spare Cavs to pen the Archer away from Marth, leaving Abel behind since he has the 2 range Javelin and I don't want to risk him causing another reset of this chapter.

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Marth takes care of the Archer on the next Player Phase, using up the last of his original Iron Sword.

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Our forces move up towards the seize point. There's a Mage off to the right as well, but I judge the extra Exp from him as not worth taking the extra damage. So I have Marth take out the Mage on the seize point (a slightly risky move - if Marth missed he'd probably take lethal damage on Enemy Phase) and seize.

gJsbJLh.png wxf40O4.png

 

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Part 1c - Marth Solos Prologue 4

Spoiler

No new additions to the roster at the start of the chapter this time, though we do get a free Door Key to get into the fortress that occupies the middle of this map. I start off by sending Marth right to take out a Fighter with a Hand Axe, which puts him in the range of another Fighter and an Archer, who attack him during Enemy Phase. Only the Archer actually hits him, though.

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I have Marth move a space down to take out the Archer.

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Marth gets a really good level.

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He also gets the Archer's Iron Bow, but I forgot to make sure Marth would have room for it so I had to discard it. The Fighter attacks on Enemy Phase and dies, but manages to do some damage before he goes.

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We make our way into the fortress and free Gordin, triggering the event to send someone back as a decoy. I chose Frey for this and send everyone else towards the fortress exit, making sure no one is in enemy range once the exit opens.

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Next turn I send Marth forward to take out the Archer that's standing next to one of the forts. The nearby Soldier suicides on Marth on Enemy Phase. (Sorry about the poor timing on the second screenshot.)

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Marth takes out the other Soldier on the next Player Phase. I make sure to attack from the fort above the Soldier so Marth will get a bit of healing.

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I move the rest of my forces out of the fort, being careful to keep them out of the range of an approaching Soldier that suicides on Marth on Enemy Phase even though he couldn't do any damage to him. The first set of Pegasus Knight reinforcements have appeared to the left at this point, by the way.

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Marth takes out the Mage near the village on the next Player Phase, though he takes a serious hit in the process.

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He does get a (poor) level out of it.

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Most of the others move upwards to get out of the Pegasus Knights' range, though I move Jagen towards them in hopes that they'll go after him. I need another death before the Prologue ends to get Norne, and Jagen is the one I've chosen to be sacrificed. I also couldn't get Gordin out of range, so I parked him on one of the forts and hoped the Pegasus Knights wouldn't go after him. No such luck, though. So I had Marth backtrack to take out one of the Pegasus Knights.

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The other Pegasus Knight continued to go after Gordin on the next Enemy Phase, who I'd moved north to try to get away. But Marth takes care of this one too on Player Phase.

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Since my first attempt at taking Jagen's life was thwarted, I move him into the boss's range. Unfortunately, the boss's chance to hit against Jagen isn't very good, so he doesn't do that much damage to him over the next few turns.

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Now that all of the immediate threats have been taken care of, I can finally send Marth back to that village to pick up the Steel Bow it gives. I also have him use a Vulnerary to heal up before taking on the boss.

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Once he has the Steel Bow, I send him back over to my other forces so he can offload the Steel Bow. That way his inventory won't be full when he kills the boss.

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All this has taken long enough that the second set of Pegasus Knight reinforcements have shown up. Giving up on having the boss kill Jagen, I send him down to keep the Pegasus Knights busy  - they'll do less damage but they'll hit him more consistently. (The boss had only manage to hit Jagen twice at this point.)

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I have Marth use the Rapier for the first time this run so he'll take out the boss in one round.

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With the boss taken out, there's nothing to do but wait for the Pegasus Knights to kill Jagen. A slow process when they're only doing 2 damage a round.

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Once they finally finish Jagen off, I have Marth seize before the Pegasus Knights go after anyone else.

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As the Prologue draws to a close, I get the reward for my sacrificial efforts - Norne showing up alongside Draug! (This is the first time I've gotten her, actually.)

I'm looking forward to starting the next chapter, where I'll have 3 (!!!) whole units that are actually allowed to attack.  Now to return to playing Tactics Ogre: Reborn, which I've been enjoying so far.

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On 11/12/2022 at 3:27 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Both the Fighter and the Solider decide that taking potshots at the unarmed Abel is better than going after Marth, but they don't do enough damage to kill Abel, which is good because I'd rather not have any unnecessary deaths.

Surprising to see this reluctance towards unnecessary death of the unusable units, as you need at least one extra death in the prologue, and a lot more to get to Athena's paralogue.

 

On 11/12/2022 at 5:32 PM, CelestialContrail said:

I had to reset this chapter a couple of time due to rule violations - the first time I accidentally moved the extra units into range of a Soldier and had forgotten to make sure Abel was disarmed. The second time Abel retaliated against an Archer even though I could swear I'd made sure to disarm him that time.

I appreciate the transparency in this disclosure.

 

On 11/12/2022 at 7:19 PM, CelestialContrail said:

He also gets the Archer's Iron Bow, but I forgot to make sure Marth would have room for it so I had to discard it. The Fighter attacks on Enemy Phase and dies, but manages to do some damage before he goes.

An easy mistake to make on limit unit challenge runs like this. Fortunately I think you get the convoy soon after you are out of the prologue, and Shadow Dragons has enough early game shops that the extra bow probably wont be missed.

 

On 11/12/2022 at 7:19 PM, CelestialContrail said:

We make our way into the fortress and free Gordin, triggering the event to send someone back as a decoy. I chose Frey for this and send everyone else towards the fortress exit, making sure no one is in enemy range once the exit opens.

Surprised you didn't take the opportunity to see what unique dialogue there is when Marth guts Gaggles, as you got to get another death somewhere in here, and letting Marth get that kill is certainly faster, and easier than letting the enemy do it, but I guess you are more reluctant in the slaughter than I.

 

On 11/12/2022 at 7:19 PM, CelestialContrail said:

(Sorry about the poor timing on the second screenshot.)

On 11/12/2022 at 7:19 PM, CelestialContrail said:

JViMZm7.png

Honestly, it looks kinda dramatic with the darkness enveloping the enemy soldier, reaching out towards Marth.

 

On 11/12/2022 at 7:19 PM, CelestialContrail said:

I need another death before the Prologue ends to get Norne, and Jagen is the one I've chosen to be sacrificed.

That is a dramatic, and difficult death to accomplish, but fair enough. Reminds me of the old school Jeigan archetype hate from back in the day.

 

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6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I appreciate the transparency in this disclosure.

An easy mistake to make on limit unit challenge runs like this. Fortunately I think you get the convoy soon after you are out of the prologue, and Shadow Dragons has enough early game shops that the extra bow probably wont be missed.

Hopefully there will be less need of such disclosures going forward - this is the first time I've tried doing a FE challenge run, so for these early chapters I was still getting a feel for exactly how careful I need to be not to violate the rules.

And yeah, I figured the bow wouldn't be a great loss, particularly since Norne comes with an Iron Bow (unlike Gordin) so it isn't a net loss compared to a normal run.

As far as my attitude towards unit deaths go, I'm someone who normally resets when anyone dies - I can be somewhat of a perfectionist and letting units die feels like a failure to me. So this run already has a higher death count than any of my previous FE playthroughs. I have a list of planned sacrifices to get the two non-Nagi female characters that require unit deaths to get, chosen based on emotional factors, but I'd prefer not to let anyone else die. And in hindsight, I probably should have sent Jagen off as the decoy and gotten Frey killed through actual gameplay - Frey wouldn't have taken as long to die. Ah well, it's not like this run was ever going to be particularly low in turn count anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Part 2 - Chapter 1

I've managed to find time to make a bit of progress on this project again despite the efforts of other games to take up all my free time.

Spoiler

 

Starting the first proper chapter of the game adds a few new faces to our team, most importantly Caeda and Norne. Now we have three people who are allowed to attack. :^)

First off, I need to do some inventory management. I have Abel give the Silver Lance and Javelin to Caeda, then store the Vulnerary and Iron Sword he's been carrying in the Convoy (which we thankfully have access to now).

TYmGVJA.png 3iphOJ1.png

I also have Cain trade the Steel Bow to Norne and store the other spare weapons he was carrying in the Convoy. Having Draug trade Caeda his Iron Spear completes my efforts to disarm all of the units that can't attack and get Caeda and Norne properly equipped.

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Next I send Caeda down to take care of the Thief there. I would've liked to have had her weaken him for Norne to kill, but even with the Iron Lance she did enough damage to kill him.

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Marth heads to the nearest village, where he's rewarded with some cash.

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Then I have Norne head to the Armory to get an extra Iron Bow and Javelin, since I don't have spares of those.

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On Enemy Phase, some of the enemy troops move forward but none of them can reach mine yet. So I have Marth and Norne move forward to just outside of the enemies' range. (And also trade Marth's one use Vulnerary to Norne while storing the Javelin away.)

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I have Caeda attack the one Pirate who's trying to make his way across the water. She's at a bit of a disadvantage against them, unfortunately, since they're the main enemy type on this map. I move everyone else up near Marth and Norne to avoid the enemies going towards them instead.

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The Pirate attacks Caeda on Enemy Phase and dies, but Caeda's pretty wounded at this point. So I have Marth move down one space so I can have Caeda get a Vulnerary from the Convoy and use it from a safe spot.

uzKLYdp.png QxOHXd3.png0ZIuwmt.png

A Pirate suicides on Marth on the Enemy Phase (which I didn't catch a shot of, sorry!). There's a lot of Pirates to deal with now, so I send Caeda back into the fray to weaken one of them for Norne to kill.

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As a result, Caeda gets a very Pegasus Knight level.

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Unfortunately, Norne has to move into a fairly exposed position to get the shot. She also has to use the Steel Bow to have enough damage to kill the Pirate.

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Marth takes out another Pirate, gaining a halfway decent level in the process.

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I then move Cain and Abel to minimize the number of directions that Norne can be attacked from.

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On Enemy Phase, Cain gets beat up by a couple of Pirates and Norne gets doubled by the one Pirate who can reach her. Ouch!

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To minimize the amount of damage my troops are taking, I have Caeda use a Javelin to weaken the bottom-most Pirate, which Norne then takes out, with an Iron Bow this time.

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I have Cain move out of the way so Marth can kill the left Pirate, then move Draug and Abel to pen in the last Pirate.

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During the next Enemy Phase, Caeda gets attacked by another Pirate that was lurking around, taking more damage and missing one of her Javelin strikes against him. And Abel takes a little bit of damage from the penned in Pirate (which I also missed getting a shot of).

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I have Caeda move one space away and take another set of shots with the Javelin, and she misses with her second shot again.

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Oh well, that gives me a chance to have Norne take out this Pirate. She needs the experience more anyway.

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Since standing on the sea gives Pirates more avoid, I just have Marth take out the Pirate we penned in earlier.

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An Archer that was over to the left starts moving forward on the next Enemy Phase. I have Draug move just into the Archer's range to hopefully bait him over, while putting Cain on the fort to heal up some while having Caeda and Norne move forward one space each while using Vulneraries.

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Then Marth and Abel move up as well while staying just out of the Archer's range.

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The Archer attacks Draug, the arrow just plinking off of his armor. (Another thing I missed getting a shot of.) Now that the Archer's nice and close, I send Caeda over to weaken him with an Iron Lance, then have Norne finish him off.

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This nets Norne her first, fairly terrible level. Please don't make a habit of this, Norne.

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I send everyone else forward towards the next (and last) set of enemies.

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As we reach the edge of their range, I have Abel act as bait while sitting on a conveniently placed fort.

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A Pirate takes the bait and damages Abel, but the fort erases that damage as Player Phase starts.

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I move Cain back out of the way a little so Caeda can take a couple of Javelin shots at the Pirate.

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Thankfully, she lands both of them this time, letting Norne rack up another kill afterwards.

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I have Draug move in front of Caeda so the next Pirate won't go after Caeda.

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On Enemy Phase the next Pirate goes after Abel and this one misses, letting the fort heal Abel to full this turn.

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Another set of attacks from Caeda and Norne take him down.

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I have Draug move up one to hopefully bait the last non-boss pirate over. I also give Marth a turn on the healing fort.

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The Pirate does take the bait, and even could have done a single point of damage to Draug, but missed.

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Caeda and Norne work together again to take him down, getting Norne another level. At least she got defense this time, I guess.

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Marth finally heads to the last village on this map and recruits Wrys, who has a very limited window of usefulness in this run. Still, better to have him for now than not.

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I would like to have Caeda kill the boss to get another level, unfortunately her odds against him aren't that good even with the Wing Spear. And then I oopsed and confirmed the attack instead of canceling it. Thankfully, she hit both times and dodged the boss' attack, so it could've gone worse.

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Norne has even worse odds against the boss, so I'm definitely not getting her involved.

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So I sent Marth in to get the kill. There'll be more opportunities to get Caeda and Norne more experience in the future.

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Marth seized on the next turn, officially ending the first full-fledged chapter of the run. The quantity of attackers versus the number of units I have to use to clear them out with is definitely an issue right now, and that isn't going to change anytime soon since I won't be getting another unit I can attack with until chapter 6x when I pick up Athena. Though the situation probably won't really improve until I get four more characters I can fully use in chapters 10 through 12.

 

Next time I'll be taking on Chapter 2, where I'll recruit a bunch of guys I can't use to fight with and promptly get a couple of them killed on purpose.

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On 11/14/2022 at 12:47 PM, CelestialContrail said:

As far as my attitude towards unit deaths go, I'm someone who normally resets when anyone dies - I can be somewhat of a perfectionist and letting units die feels like a failure to me. So this run already has a higher death count than any of my previous FE playthroughs.

Understandable. My main gripe with this game is that the extra content was gated behind some terrible design choices. Well, that, and this game kick-starting a trend of having the hardest difficulties be extremely poorly designed and broken.

Anyway, who are you gonna use to frag Gharnef?

Edited by Shadow Mir
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5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Understandable. My main gripe with this game is that the extra content was gated behind some terrible design choices. Well, that, and this game kick-starting a trend of having the hardest difficulties be extremely poorly designed and broken.

Anyway, who are you gonna use to frag Gharnef?

Yeah, the Gaiden requirements are something where I can kind of see what the designers were going for (extra items and units to help players who are doing poorly) but the reality of it is just bad because of how terribly you have to be doing to qualify for them. I'm going to have to kill off about half of the units I get by chapter 6 to qualify for 6x, and the necessary death toll for the later ones are even worse.

As far as taking out Gharnef goes, Linde will probably be my best option.

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1 hour ago, CelestialContrail said:

Yeah, the Gaiden requirements are something where I can kind of see what the designers were going for (extra items and units to help players who are doing poorly) but the reality of it is just bad because of how terribly you have to be doing to qualify for them. I'm going to have to kill off about half of the units I get by chapter 6 to qualify for 6x, and the necessary death toll for the later ones are even worse.

As far as taking out Gharnef goes, Linde will probably be my best option.

Yeah. If the characters were good enough to make up for this, I'd still struggle to forgive this, but most of them aren't.

Understandable, given what happened between her father and Gharnef.

Anyways, what are your opinions of the higher difficulties in this game?

Edited by Shadow Mir
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21 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyways, what are your opinions of the higher difficulties in this game?

I've only played Shadow Dragon's Normal difficulty before, so I don't have any personal experience with its harder difficulties. What I've heard about them has made me disinclined to try anything past Hard 1, though. I generally stick with Hard or lower difficulties when playing FE - I prefer the difficulty to be such that it's not a complete cakewalk but I won't suffer too much from using what I want to instead of focusing on only using the most optimal units/classes/weapons either. (I've also only been playing FE since around the time Fates came out, and play plenty of other games as well, so I wouldn't consider myself an especially experienced FE player.)

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22 minutes ago, CelestialContrail said:

I've only played Shadow Dragon's Normal difficulty before, so I don't have any personal experience with its harder difficulties. What I've heard about them has made me disinclined to try anything past Hard 1, though. I generally stick with Hard or lower difficulties when playing FE - I prefer the difficulty to be such that it's not a complete cakewalk but I won't suffer too much from using what I want to instead of focusing on only using the most optimal units/classes/weapons either. (I've also only been playing FE since around the time Fates came out, and play plenty of other games as well, so I wouldn't consider myself an especially experienced FE player.)

Huh. Honestly, the higher difficulties in this game feel like the devs didn't even bother to playtest them. It's just stupid when you pretty much HAVE to break the boss's weapon to kill them because they 2HKO everyone, and your strongest attack option barely does enough damage to outpace their healing, with anything else just getting healed off come the next enemy phase. And this is true for two chapters in a row because the boss in question, and the next one, use hand axes. The final boss being blatantly unfair to the point where suicide attacks are pretty much the only way to kill him does not help.

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On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

I have Caeda attack the one Pirate who's trying to make his way across the water. She's at a bit of a disadvantage against them, unfortunately, since they're the main enemy type on this map. I move everyone else up near Marth and Norne to avoid the enemies going towards them instead.

klMkwun.png

Poor Caeda, doing almost as badly as the enemy Pirates...honestly it is kinda funny how similar those numbers are.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

I then move Cain and Abel to minimize the number of directions that Norne can be attacked from.

u7RrqZT.png KRb4o77.png

Now that is good use of the fodder units, with the classic body blocking.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Caeda and Norne move forward one space each while using Vulneraries.

Ah good old Vulnerary-chan, the healer that replace Wyrs in FE3 book 1, putting in some good work here 😛 .

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

This nets Norne her first, fairly terrible level. Please don't make a habit of this, Norne.

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Oof... that isn't a great start.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

stCNTen.png

 

I guess that is better, but still not great. For some reason this makes me think she should reclass to General, but unfortunately that option was only added in New Mystery of the Emblem.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

And then I oopsed and confirmed the attack instead of canceling it. Thankfully, she hit both times and dodged the boss' attack, so it could've gone worse.

Dab6WzM.png

Yikes...misclicks are scary, but I guess Wrys is close enough to keep it from being a reset even if Gazzak did hit.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 5:26 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Norne has even worse odds against the boss, so I'm definitely not getting her involved.

At least you aren't following the old Kid's World Shadow Dragon guide by using the boss's lack of two range and passive healing to massively over-level Norne.

 

On 11/24/2022 at 8:09 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Yeah, the Gaiden requirements are something where I can kind of see what the designers were going for (extra items and units to help players who are doing poorly) but the reality of it is just bad because of how terribly you have to be doing to qualify for them. I'm going to have to kill off about half of the units I get by chapter 6 to qualify for 6x, and the necessary death toll for the later ones are even worse.

They just took the death requirement way too far with it, especially when the game already has generic recruits to help out people who fall below the deployment limit for maps. Although I do rather like the requirements for the last gaiden, as it is much more interesting.

 

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9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Poor Caeda, doing almost as badly as the enemy Pirates...honestly it is kinda funny how similar those numbers are.

Now that is good use of the fodder units, with the classic body blocking.

Ah good old Vulnerary-chan, the healer that replace Wyrs in FE3 book 1, putting in some good work here 😛 .

Oof... that isn't a great start.

I guess that is better, but still not great. For some reason this makes me think she should reclass to General, but unfortunately that option was only added in New Mystery of the Emblem.

Yikes...misclicks are scary, but I guess Wrys is close enough to keep it from being a reset even if Gazzak did hit.

At least you aren't following the old Kid's World Shadow Dragon guide by using the boss's lack of two range and passive healing to massively over-level Norne.

They just took the death requirement way too far with it, especially when the game already has generic recruits to help out people who fall below the deployment limit for maps. Although I do rather like the requirements for the last gaiden, as it is much more interesting.

Caeda will definitely be glad when we get out of these axe heavy early chapters. (And the pirate getting extra avoid for standing on the water wasn't helping, either.)

Norne's defense growth is actually pretty mediocre (20% as an Archer), she just got lucky there getting the defense point. Her speed growth's her best one (55% as an Archer) so hopefully she'll get some in the next few levels to start doubling with the Iron Bow at least.

I blame the misclick (at least partially) on having played TearRing Saga recently, which had the confirm and cancel buttons swapped compared to US releases. And yeah, even if things had gone poorly there Wrys could've moved over to heal her, so it wasn't really risky, just kind of a waste of Wing Spear uses.

Boss abusing for extra levels is very boring to do, and with how restricted my usable roster is going to be I don't think anyone I can use is going to be hurting for experience.

Yeah, a smaller number of deaths or a specific character dying (Navarre dying unlocking Athena's chapter, for example) would've been better as requirements for the Gaiden chapters.

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Part 3 - Chapter 2

I found the time to progress this a bit more, even though I'm still working on Tactics Ogre Reborn and playing the latest Pokemon with my roommate.

Spoiler

This chapter starts off by giving us four new guys to use right off the bat, with another nearby waiting to be recruited. But since none of them are ladies, they're just going to be more bodies to potentially put in harms' way in this run.

First off, I bring Ogma down to talk to Caeda (mostly so the game will stop highlighting the other character when I have one of them selected).

ZP2xnOm.png

Then I have Bord and Cord dump their weapons into the Convoy. Don't want any accidental attacking, after all.

HnB4791.png VIfpakm.png

2yJngNi.png Rl9pSmd.png

I move Norne and Caeda out of the way into a position where they'll be ready to deal with the attackers that will be coming from the north.

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Now that there's more space next to Marth free, I have Barst unload his weapons into the convoy as well.  ...Except he can't reach the free space next to Marth, so I have Abel act as a middleman.

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Marth moves next to Ogma, where he's be able to take Ogma's weapons off of him after storing his Vulneraries in the Convoy for the moment.

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Lastly, I have Wrys move a little closer to the action in case his services are needed.

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The Pirate that was off to the left moves in on Enemy Phase, but Marth quickly deals with him and gets a rather nice level. He's actually at or above his averages for everything but Speed (where he's only half a point behind) at this point.

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At the start of Player Phase, I move Marth over to where he can talk to Darros and block the Archer and the Thief from leaving the island to the north. I also have him store one of the spare Iron Swords so he can have a Vulnerary on him again.

edhTzpa.png FDv1ErL.png

wXdW2HA.png

I have Caeda take out the Theif on the left before he can get too far. That gives Caeda her next level, which gave her Strength at least.

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Darros moves up and to the right to start making a wall to block the Pirate off. He also dumps his axe into the Convoy.

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I move Norne up to take a shot at the Pirate.

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Then I have Draug step up to finish forming the protective wall to keep the Pirate from going after her.

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I also move Bord and Cord to block the bridges to the left - there's a couple of Cavaliers coming from that direction and I'd like to keep them at bay until I'm done with the enemies from the northern island.

rus14Ln.png xuXTcpn.png

On Enemy Phase, the Pirate attacks Darros but he dodges and a Pirate that was off to the left past the bridges takes a chunk out of Cord.

mGstf8Q.png G7vosqi.png

The Hunter trades arrows with Norne as well, both sides hitting their marks.

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It's a little risky, but I have Norne fire on the Hunter again since she'll kill them if she makes the shot. Unfortunately, she misses and gets dropped down to 1 HP.

RLijj4V.png

So it's time for Plan B - having Caeda take the Hunter out instead. The Javelin could've done the job in one hit instead of two, but I didn't want to risk its lower hit rate at this point.

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I don't want the Pirate to keep being a nuisance, so I let Marth take care of him.

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Wrys moves up to give Norne some much needed healing.

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For some reason, the Pirate that attacked Cord last turn decides to swap targets and ends up taking a chunk out of Bord as well. One of the Cavaliers tries to get through Cord on the southern bridge, and the Thief suicides on Marth. Would've preferred for Caeda to get that experience, but c'est la vie.

ha3RJ4i.png yMpgf4C.png

lg05kuj.png

I have Caeda Javelin the Pirate that's been attacking Bord and Cord, and Norne follows her up to get the kill.

GlRKrNw.png goc71FM.png

LGZOJ1N.png t48srsP.png

Leaving Bord and Cord on bridge guarding duty, I move Marth closer to the action in case he needs to step in. In case you're wondering why I'm using him sparingly, he's strong enough to double and kill these Cavaliers already. Between that and him being overleveled from soloing the Prologue, I'm having him hang back a bit to let Caeda and Norne get more experience.

qNTzzeP.png

The Cavaliers swap which bridge they're trying to get through, damaging both Bord and Cord in the process.

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I have Caeda and Norne start wearing down the northern Cavalier.

98wnE88.png 0Mbk4JC.png

Draug and Abel move into position to make sure that the southern cavalier will still be blocked when Cord falls. You mave have figured this out already, but I'm planning to have Bord and Cord die in this chapter. Blood must be shed for Athena to be recruited, after all.

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As expected, Cord goes down on Enemy Phase, and the wounded Cavalier takes Bord down to 1 HP.

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Norne finishes taking down the wounded Cavalier, getting another level in the process. At least she got Speed this time, but it'd be nice if she got Skill soon too - she has a good growth in it, and her hit rates could use some help.

dAM79U8.png

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Draug moves onto the bridge Cord was blocking, so the Cavalier will probably head north on Enemy Phase to kill Bord. I have Abel back off so Caeda can throw Javelins at the Cavalier from a safe spot.

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The Cavalier takes out Bord as I anticipated.

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I send Caeda around and ahead of the Cavalier and have her take another shot at them with the Javelin, figuring they'll either die or be weakened enough for Norne to finish off. Both strikes hit their mark, netting Caeda another Strength level.

edmqESN.png LMEXF9l.png

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Marth, Norne, and Wrys move forward, while Draug acts as bait for a Pirate.

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Abel and Cain move forward as well, in case I need some meat shields while dealing with the rest of this map.

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The Pirate I wanted to bait over went after Draug, managing to do a single point of damage to him, but unfortunately another Pirate and Castor also started moving. And if I send Caeda to talk to Castor at this point, she'll be in range of a Hunter with a bow.

AY0TvLU.png

So I have everyone back up out of the enemies' range. Draug couldn't quite get out of the range of the one Pirate, but that's fine.

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The Pirate that can reach Draug tickles him with his axe.

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First off on Player Phase, Caeda moves to talk to Castor to recruit him. That accomplished, she attacks the nearby Pirate with her Javelin and scores another kill.

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Next I move Castor out of danger and next to Marth, so they can talk and Castor can store his Iron Bow away.

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I'd rather not have the Pirate drawn too far away from his current position when he attacks, so I move Barst out of range and move Abel a little closer to him.

jC6NJfF.png Z2UJfq8.png

Figuring the Pirate will probably go after one of the unarmed men, I move Norne down so she can potential take a shot at him next turn.

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The Pirate goes after Cain - not too surprising he'd attack someone squishier than Draug.

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Caeda heads down to soften the Pirate up with her Iron Lance - the Javelin would kill him unless she missed one of the hits.  Norne then finishes up with her Iron Bow.

ayY3ou0.png jNZj9tn.png

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Marth, Draug, Wrys, Abel, and Cain all move forward again.

Li5GhvP.png kZE4td4.png

omc70Kf.png XsrFWAP.png

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Moving forward attracted the attention of another Hunter, so I have everyone shift around so Draug can finish baiting him in.

YMX4Ovf.png PB2NCv9.png

FKgTdXa.png 

Caeda and Norne move closer as well.

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The Hunter goes after Draug but does no damage.

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Caeda moves forward and takes the Hunter out, though it puts her into the range of a Pirate.

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I move Norne forward so she'll be able to shoot at the Pirate once he goes after Caeda.

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When the Pirate swings at Caeda, he misses and she leaves him almost dead.

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Norne moves in afterward and strikes the finishing blow on him.

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Draug steps ahead to lure in the final group of enemies before the boss, and the others move up to be ready for them to arrive.

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BXCKQ3Z.png Sl0QMqf.png

Only one of the remaining two Pirates gets lured over, leaving another minor dent in Draug's armor.

EI6nJOV.png

The usual strategy of weakening with Caeda and killing with Norne would've been employed again here, but Caeda decided to overachieve with a critical hit. That gave her enough experience for another level. I'd normally be happy about her getting Strength, but now she'll kill these Pirates even with the Iron Spear, so no more setting up kills for Norne by her on this map.

cmD4mXd.png

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Marth heads up so he can visit the village next turn.

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While he takes care of that, I set up to pull in the last Pirate with Draug.

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When the Pirate goes after Draug, he actually manages to evade the hit.

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Visiting the village with Marth gets us another 5,000 gold.

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Norne does some damage to the Pirate with her bow.

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I'd like to give her this kill, so I set up a wall with Cain and Abel to keep him relatively contained.

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The Pirate takes a whack at Cain, bringing him down to half health.

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At this point I realize I left Wrys behind a bit, so I move him up so he can heal Cain next turn.

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I have Norne take another shot at the Pirate, but she misses. *sigh*

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Marth and Caeda move towards the boss.

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Cain has another chunk taken out of him by the Pirate.

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Norne shoots the Pirate again and doesn't miss this time.

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I have to do some shuffling around to be able to heal Cain.

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Even with the Wing Spear, Caeda isn't doing great against the boss, and she's dead if he manages to hit her twice. Not worth risking even if the boss's hit rate isn't great.

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Marth does better against him and isn't in any danger of getting killed. I decided to use the Steel Sword since, while it has a slightly lower hit rate than the Iron Sword, it's still pretty good and the more damage I can do the easier it'll be for Caeda to finish off the boss.

aqxMkTl.png

I do have Caeda move onto the fort to heal up the minor damage she's taken so far.

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The boss attacks Marth on Enemy Phase, missing and getting struck by Marth again for his trouble. The Pirate Norne's been whittling down continues going after Cain.

QhCckBd.png qTlDHlR.png

Norne switches to her Iron Bow to have a better chance of finishing off the Pirate, which she does, reaching level 5. She only hits her two highest growths, but she could use both of them at the moment so I can't complain too much.

pKTayZg.png

EgmEYE0.png

Sending Caeda in to kill the boss, I have her use the Wing Spear - since her hit rate's a little low, I'd rather her use something that she doesn't have to hit twice with to kill. Not that I had too much to worry about, since she kills him with the first strike.

ZxC5QO8.png

Marth seizes, putting an end to chapter 2. So far these chapters have had the occasional tricky moment but haven't been too tough to tackle with careful tactics. We'll see how long that continues. I'm happy with how Marth and Caeda are shaping up. Less so with Norne (get more HP and Strength, girl!) but she's not a lot below her averages yet. Here's hoping she has better luck with her levels in the next chapter.

Next time I'll be tackling chapter 3, where I'll be getting Wrys's replacement and a thief. Also an edgelord, but he's irrelevant.

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On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Now that there's more space next to Marth free, I have Barst unload his weapons into the convoy as well.  ...Except he can't reach the free space next to Marth, so I have Abel act as a middleman.

xXwMtbs.png XCJit3I.png

Now that is a clever little bit of item management...its odd to say, but I kinda appreciate that you aren't rushing past moments of item management like this, as these things can end up kinda intricate (and important) at times, but are also easy to skip over.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

At the start of Player Phase, I move Marth over to where he can talk to Darros and block the Archer and the Thief from leaving the island to the north. I also have him store one of the spare Iron Swords so he can have a Vulnerary on him again.

Its funny to see Darros not recruiting himself, but it is kinda necessary, as the goofball would see some enemy phase action if you didn't. I am reminded of how often he recruits himself and dies on some of the highest difficulties.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

It's a little risky, but I have Norne fire on the Hunter again since she'll kill them if she makes the shot. Unfortunately, she misses and gets dropped down to 1 HP.

RLijj4V.png

That is a bit unlucky, but

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

So it's time for Plan B - having Caeda take the Hunter out instead. The Javelin could've done the job in one hit instead of two, but I didn't want to risk its lower hit rate at this point.

LB26kV0.png

You had a solid backup plan ready just in case.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Leaving Bord and Cord on bridge guarding duty, I move Marth closer to the action in case he needs to step in. In case you're wondering why I'm using him sparingly, he's strong enough to double and kill these Cavaliers already. Between that and him being overleveled from soloing the Prologue, I'm having him hang back a bit to let Caeda and Norne get more experience.

qNTzzeP.png

Marth is the Jagen now.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

As expected, Cord goes down on Enemy Phase, and the wounded Cavalier takes Bord down to 1 HP.

Ci0yC5z.png

I do have a soft spot for them axey boys thanks to their New Mystery triangle attack, but a few deaths are a necessary evil of the run.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

Norne finishes taking down the wounded Cavalier, getting another level in the process. At least she got Speed this time, but it'd be nice if she got Skill soon too - she has a good growth in it, and her hit rates could use some help.

dAM79U8.png

ZeOupqe.png

She really needs to have a noticeably good levelup or two to make up for how meh she has been so far...especially some more strength, and skill...really she needs a near perfect levelup or two.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

The Cavalier takes out Bord as I anticipated.

6WX2A4W.png

Wait didn't we see this already? 😛

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

First off on Player Phase, Caeda moves to talk to Castor to recruit him. That accomplished, she attacks the nearby Pirate with her Javelin and scores another kill.

xwJAehA.png cq4DQtB.png

sF4hSSO.png

Its nice to see this is a game where talking doesn't end the turn, as that tends to see some interesting maneuvers occur.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

 

The usual strategy of weakening with Caeda and killing with Norne would've been employed again here, but Caeda decided to overachieve with a critical hit. That gave her enough experience for another level. I'd normally be happy about her getting Strength, but now she'll kill these Pirates even with the Iron Spear, so no more setting up kills for Norne by her on this map.

cmD4mXd.png

1m7dLbX.png

Caede is really coming out strength blessed, which is generally a good thing....

Oh no, are you going to have to forge an intentionally weaker lance for her now?

 

On 12/3/2022 at 4:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

Norne switches to her Iron Bow to have a better chance of finishing off the Pirate, which she does, reaching level 5. She only hits her two highest growths, but she could use both of them at the moment so I can't complain too much.

pKTayZg.png

EgmEYE0.png

I am kinda hoping she manages to get the levelups she needs for a redemption arc, or some weird reclass that lets her shine somehow.

 

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On 12/3/2022 at 6:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

The Hunter goes after Draug but does no damage.

vRQE8eC.png

I do so love the sound of no damage in the morning.

On 12/3/2022 at 6:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

EgmEYE0.png

 

Yeesh... I hope her level ups start improving.

On 12/3/2022 at 6:58 PM, CelestialContrail said:

1m7dLbX.png

That makes her 3 for 4 on strength levels, does it not?

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16 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Now that is a clever little bit of item management...its odd to say, but I kinda appreciate that you aren't rushing past moments of item management like this, as these things can end up kinda intricate (and important) at times, but are also easy to skip over.

Its funny to see Darros not recruiting himself, but it is kinda necessary, as the goofball would see some enemy phase action if you didn't. I am reminded of how often he recruits himself and dies on some of the highest difficulties.

That is a bit unlucky, but

You had a solid backup plan ready just in case.

Marth is the Jagen now.

I do have a soft spot for them axey boys thanks to their New Mystery triangle attack, but a few deaths are a necessary evil of the run.

She really needs to have a noticeably good levelup or two to make up for how meh she has been so far...especially some more strength, and skill...really she needs a near perfect levelup or two.

Wait didn't we see this already? 😛

Its nice to see this is a game where talking doesn't end the turn, as that tends to see some interesting maneuvers occur.

Caede is really coming out strength blessed, which is generally a good thing....

Oh no, are you going to have to forge an intentionally weaker lance for her now?

I am kinda hoping she manages to get the levelups she needs for a redemption arc, or some weird reclass that lets her shine somehow.

Well, I'm glad that you're finding the extra time it takes me to include the inventory management stuff worthwhile.

I honestly forgot that Darros actually recruits himself if left to his own devices. Not that I regret doing things the way I did them.

Heheheh :^) re: Marth being the Jagen now.

Yeah, choosing who to sacrifice for Athena's Gaiden chapter was kinda tough, because it's not like I actually want to see any of these characters die. On the other hand, Bord and Cord are so redundant as characters in this game that they don't even have different death quotes, as you commented on later.

I don't have access to forging quite yet, but making some weak weapons to set up kills may come in handy when I do.

Ironically, Norne actually has a slightly higher Strength growth than Caeda (25% to 20%) despite what their actual performance so far has been. Statistical variance is gonna vary, I guess. On the other hand, that means Norne just has to get a good level or two to catch up to where she should be. And promoting to Sniper in the future will help her out some - +2 Strength and +5 to Skill and Speed. And yeah, I'd like to see her get some good levels and turn things around, too.

 

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I do so love the sound of no damage in the morning.

Yeesh... I hope her level ups start improving.

That makes her 3 for 4 on strength levels, does it not?

Re: sound of no damage and Norne getting better level ups, I feel the same way.

And yes, Caeda's 3 out of 4 for getting Strength levels. On average she doesn't hit 7 Strength until level 16, so she's definitely Strength blessed. Otherwise she's pretty much on her averages.

Edited by CelestialContrail
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Part 4 - Chapter 3

Another update for this project. Will it answer the most pressing question of this run so far - will Norne ever get a decent level up? Read on to find out!

Spoiler

We start off with a lot of moving around, since the new members of our army we get at the beginning of this chapter start off in danger. Lena and Julian flee south, with Julian giving Lena his Iron Sword to prevent any accidental fighting on his part.

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Norne, who starts off positioned all the way to the left, moves closer to where the enemies pursuing Lena and Julian will be approaching from.

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Caeda and Marth move north to start blocking off the path Lena and Julian are following.

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Draug does his best to join them, and Wrys moves up as well so he can hand off his Heal staff to Lena when he gets a chance.

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On Enemy Phase, enemies start moving towards our troops from both the west and the north, so I set up a wall on the west side with Barst, Darros, Abel, and Cain.

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Lena continues moving south, reaching Marth this turn. She promptly talks to him and dumps Julian's Iron Sword into the Convoy.

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Julian also reaches Marth and has a chat with him.

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Draug and Marth move north to better block off the path Lena and Julian just came from.

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Wrys steps over to Lena so he can pass off the Heal staff, officially ending his ability to contribute as a healer to this run.

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Caeda also moves north a little, to better intercept Navarre when he moves closer. Norne moves to the spot just below her so she'll be in a position to contribute once the enemies hit the wall I've set up.

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The first thing I do after the enemies move is send Caeda up to talk to Navarre.

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Afterwards, I have her kill the Thief blocking Navarre's path so I can get him out of there. ...Except she misses one of the strikes and leaves him with 2 HP.

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So I have Norne advance and take a shot at the Thief. She manages to get the kill, netting a decent amount of experience.

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Draug immediately moves up to protect Norne from being attacked.

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Then I have Navarre head south to talk to Marth and put his Killing Edge into the Convoy. Even if most recruits won't be a lot of help for this run, at least they bring free equipment with them.

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Marth moves north, even though he can't quite be part of the protective wall this turn.

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A Fighter attacks Caeda during Enemy Phase, losing most of his HP while costing Caeda a little of hers, and another one attacks Draug to little effect.

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Caeda goes after the uninjured Fighter, taking another hit while greatly weakening him. She also gets another level, this time without getting Strength, though I can't really complain about that with how blessed she's been so far.

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Norne takes out the Fighter Caeda just weakened, and Draug moves up to wall off Caeda from further damage.

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I also move Lena up so she can heal Caeda next turn.

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On the west side, I move Navarre, Gordin, and Ogma over to potentially take the place of the guys currently blocking off the enemies if they take too much damage before my actual combat troops can finish up in the north and head over there.

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A Fighter takes a bit of HP off of Cain in the west, while two other Fighters put a couple more dings in Draug's armor on the northern front.

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First off on Player Phase, I have Lena heal up Caeda almost to full.

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Then Norne polishes off the remaining injured Fighter.

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I have Caeda take out the Thief - he won't damage her, and if the last Fighter over here attacks her on Enemy Phase, Norne will probably be able to pick him off on Player Phase.

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Marth moves closer to the action just in case I need him to step in if I get unlucky next Player Phase.

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My western wall takes some damage on Enemy Phase (though the one attacking Abel misses), as does Caeda, though she dishes out plenty of damage back.

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I move Draug out of Norne's way, then have her take a shot at the last Fighter. She hits, dropping him and getting another unfortunately mediocre level. At least with more Speed she might be doubling things soon, but...

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Caeda takes out the nearby Hunter to finish clearing out the northern part of the map.

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Marth and Lena start heading south so we can start tackling the enemies to the west soon.

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Everyone currently manning the wall to the west can take another hit, so no need to swap anyone out yet. On Enemy Phase, the Fighters take more whacks at our wall of troops to the west, dropping a couple of them into the danger zone.

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I move Caeda south to a spot where Lena'll be able to heal her so she can start working on the Fighters on the west side next turn.

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Draug also moves over so he'll be able to replace someone in the wall next turn.

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Since they're the most badly hurt, Cain and Darros move back so Navarre and Ogma can take their places.

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I move Norne south so she can join in on the action soon.

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Marth moves up as well - I think I may need to have him do a bit of fighting this time, since I only have so many guys to make a wall with.

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The Fighters dish out damage again on Enemy Phase.

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I have Abel move back and put Draug in his place - everyone else can still take a couple of hits.

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Norne moves close enough that she'll be able to chip in next turn.

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I decide against sending Caeda in to attack just yet - I don't want a couple of the Fighters to gang up on her, she might take too many hits and die. I do move Marth south a little bit to make it easier for Caeda and Norne to gang up on the topmost Fighter next turn.

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Lena heals up Cain a bit in case I need to use him as a shield again.

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The three Fighters all attack again, the top one moving up to attack Barst and messing up my plans a little. At least Barst dodged his attack.

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Marth can easily take out the Fighter that attacked Barth, even with him benefitting from the Mountain tile's Avoid bonus.

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I have Navarre move out of the way so Caeda can take his place and strike the Fighter who was attacking him.

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With that Fighter now nicely weakened, Norne moves in to get another kill.

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The remaining Fighter takes another chunk out of Ogma, but that won't save him from his fate.

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Caeda sets the last Fighter up for Norne to kill once again.

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Marth visits the village a bit to the west of our defensive line, and gets a Devil Axe for his trouble. Yay. It gets sent to the Convoy since Marth is still quite full on gear.

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Draug starts making his way west to bait out the next set of enemies, taking a nice break in a fort to polish the dings out of his armor along the way.

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Lena moves forward and heals Caeda, since she'll probably need to tangle with a couple more Fighters before the map's over.

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I move Cain, Abel, and Barst forward as well, in case I need them for forming more walls.

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The next turn is just spent moving everyone forward again...

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...But that makes one of the two Hunters left on the map move towards us. So I rearrange my forces so that Draug is the only target, and Caeda and Norne can move in to attack as needed.

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The Hunter makes his way over to us and bounces an arrow off of Draug's armor.

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Caeda makes short work of the Hunter, even using her weakest lance. Still, I let her have this one, getting another level and getting another point of Strength. Which is great, but she could try letting Norne have some of that kind of level, too.

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Everyone else moves west towards the second Hunter...

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Who moves towards us on Enemy Phase.  There's a little bit of risk to this plan, but I send Norne over to trade arrows with the Hunter. She can take four hits from him without dying, and takes him out in three shots with the Iron Bow. (The Steel Bow could down him in two, but the hit rate's a bit shakier.)

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Both sides hit in the first exchange of arrows, and I move everyone else out of range to make sure the Hunter will keep attacking her on Enemy Phase.

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Enemy Phase sees both Norne and the Hunter hit their marks again.

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And there's no unexpected reprieve for the Hunter on the next exchange - Norne hits and finishes downing him.

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Time to move everyone forward again - all that's left is a couple of Fighters and the boss.

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We moved close enough that those Fighters come after us on Enemy Phase.  The closer one is a little scary - he has a Steel Axe instead of the Iron Axes the rest of them have been carrying, though his hit rate's a bit worse because of it. But even if Caeda eats a hit from this guy and the other one, she'll live, so I go ahead and have her take him on.

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Caeda gets lucky, not only dodging his attack but criting with her follow up, taking him out completely unscathed. Since this guy dropped a Vulnerary, I have her send her mostly used up one to the Convoy.

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Baiting the last Fighter won't accomplish much, so I just move Marth out of the way to make sure he goes after Caeda (who will hopefully leave him alive for Norne to finish off). Norne and Lena move up but stay out of range.

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This Fighter doesn't have any better luck hitting Caeda than the last one, but Caeda does at least leave him with a sliver of health this time.

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Norne wastes no time fixing that and gains another level, finally getting a good one - she hit Strength and HP as well as her more usual Skill and Speed. (I was literally pleading for her to get a good level as the level up screen was animating in, and let out a 'Yes!' as the Strength gain popped up.)

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Marth and Lena move towards the boss, the only remaining enemy on the map.

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I also have Caeda move up, but I make sure to place her next to Marth - her Iron Lance is almost broken so I have her put the Silver Lance she can't use yet away and take out another Iron Lance.

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The boss is actually fast enough that Marth doesn't double him, but sending him in is still a good option. I go with the Steel Sword, favoring the extra damage over the hit rate loss. In unsurprising fashion, Marth hits and the boss doesn't.

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Caeda's odds against the boss aren't terrible, but they're not stellar either. But if she hits both strikes she'll kill him, and she can survive two hits from him so sending her in won't get her killed.

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But luck is on her side again, she dodges the boss's blow and hits her mark both times, felling him. She almost gets enough experience for another level, but not quite. The Mend staff he drops gets sent to the Convoy for Lena to grab later.

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Which I go ahead and have her do now, since Marth can't seize this turn anyway.

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I do have him seize first thing on the next turn, though, ending this chapter. We get 15,000 gold before we leave, which is nice.

All in all, this chapter went very well. Caeda continues to exceed expectations (4 for 6 on Strength levels, jeez) and Norne finally got a good level.

Next time I'll be taking on chapter 4, which we finally get a prep screen for (yay!) and will have some more useless recruits, and some more necessary bloodshed.

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