Grandjackal's FE6 Playthrough

[grandjackal]

Chapter 15

How do I describe this chapter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMZJxmwgRco

I think that does it well. This map is not hard, but it's easily the weirdest map in the game.

Let's go it step by step. Captain killface is trailing your ass, in frnt of you is a squad of cavs with a psychotically fast Valkyrie with Aircalibur and a cav witha Horseslayer, then incomes a pack of mercs with among them an armorsayer and a killer edge (edge crit+slayer=RAEG), a silver bow sniper, two longbowmen, followed up by a recruitable berserker you have to stop from destroying a village with an incredibly valuable item, ANOTHER squad of cavs with a valkyrie (elfire ths time) and yet ANOTHER with a horseslayer, then go up the center to fight off cavs, ANOTHER Silver Sniper, ANOTHER armorslayer merc, only to reach the boss who is the biggest joke of all bosses in the game.

What the fuck?

It's not hard, but it is cheap on how many ways a lot of your team can just get blicked, yet on the other hand it's what makes it fun. My only real trouble was that damn killer edge guy. Try to take him out player phase and without taking a counter (Bartre is so awesome with bows).

Triangle attacked a valkyrie, a swordmaster killed another...It's nice to vary up your team this map. Oh, and take out the silver lance wyvern ASAP so that Percival's men don't get harassed. I used a combination of Miledy luring (with killer lance, could have OHKOd if a crit), with Bartre at the ready with hos bow. They killed him perfectly to the 1 point.

Now I could have had Miledy fly in with the horseslayer to kill the boss, but the guy had 2 crit, and considering quite a few restarts were caused just from one dude with crit, I wasn't going to risk it, so it cost me a few turns. If I had a Goddess Icon, I could have easily shaved off turns, but...got caught up in reinforcements.

Overall, pretty simple map, though due to how unlucky a couple people on my team are here, it caused me to uhh...raeg a bit. Oddly enough, the armors were not in much danger of armorslaying, since one of the good things about this map is that the enemies are quite spaced out, so armor-transport is A-OK here. Got them to the upper forts before the boss spoke, thougha pesky sniper gave me trouble...

So yeah, easy map, just got hung up a bit due to really shitty luck.

Oh, and instead of having Elphin treck back to get Percival, I just went ahead and let Percy catch up to me. Proved to be far more effective to have that Barding on those first few turns.

Turncount: 14, though easily doable in at least 3 turns less.

Levels

Name Lvl EXP HPs Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Roy   10  78  32   9  10   9  11   8   3 C Lillina B Allen C Lance
Fir    7  49  49  19  26  25  18  14   9 B Bartre
Bart   5  51  49  22  11  11  15  10   3 B Fir
Saul  19  86  26   9  13  17   3   4  13
Mil   15  47  39  20  17  17   8  16   4
Boris 16  66  32  12  10   9   9  19   0 B Barth B Wendy
Wendy 16  98  32  12   8   7  10  14   1 B Boris B Barth
Barth 17   1  33  13   8   6   3  17   1 B Boris B Wendy
Rutgr 10  57  48  17  25  27   5  13   7 C Clarine
Al    18  35  33  13  12  14  10   9   2 A Lance B Roy
Lance 17  40  32  11  13  17   6  10   3 A Allen C Roy

I got a bunch of crappy levels here, but all the supports made up for it. Well, except for Boris who got a legendary level up.

Well, not all were crappy. Check out Fir and Miledy. Hurrrrr. I would promote Miledy now, but I wanna squeeze out as much speed as I can from her before I promote her for Sacae. If she hits 20 speed early, I'm promoting.

My armors could promote now and still they would be at "invincible during Sacae" toughness, or at least tough enough to waltz around without worry. +20 Acc doesn't hurt either.

Trying to get Rutger and Fir to support, because I don't know how well Rutger's gonna handle the crit with his paltry luck.

It's at this point I notice how shitty Allen and Lance's HP is compared to my team...Weird.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Master Tang

[Ether]

I love how this went from "FUCK YEAH RUTGER!" to Fir curbstomping Rutger.

[Anouleth]

I'd pick up the pace a little bit with the armours (if such an action is even possible) . If you're hoping to have them at 20/01 by C17, they'd need to gain 3-4 levels each in Chapter 16 and 16x.

[grandjackal]

I'd pick up the pace a little bit with the armours (if such an action is even possible) . If you're hoping to have them at 20/01 by C17, they'd need to gain 3-4 levels each in Chapter 16 and 16x.

Considering I got Barth two levels here, it shouldn't be hard. Trust me.

Besides, I could pretty mcuh promote them now and they'd be invincible for Sacae.

Secondary note, I think I should give the boots to Roy so I don't have to transport him anymore. I know Colonel gave them to Miledy, but I could always give her a pair from the secret shop in 21 for completion of the later chapters.

Thoughts?

[Anouleth]

Why is transporting Roy a big issue? Anyone can carry him. I usually make Clarine play chaffeur for him, since she still has no combat duties, the half skl/spd doesn't matter for her.

I guess with 3 armours, you might want to free up a pony. But why not just give the Boots to one of the armours?

[grandjackal]

Why is transporting Roy a big issue? Anyone can carry him. I usually make Clarine play chaffeur for him, since she still has no combat duties, the half skl/spd doesn't matter for her.

I guess with 3 armours, you might want to free up a pony. But why not just give the Boots to one of the armours?

It's mainly due to the fact that I don't have to spend turns dancing Roy and having him be transported all the time, which frees up my dancer and transporters.

Suppose I could just live with that and give the boots to Barth so he can rescue-run some of his armor allies, since he's the biggest con out of any of them. It would also help him be another dropper, along with being able to run over and rescue whoever if they're ever in danger.

Rrr...I have held onto the boots this long, I really should just figure out now who to give them to. I hate having to decide the boots.

[dondon151]

I'm a little perplexed as to why you and Narga in particular are so paranoid over miniscule crit rates. The chances of strategies failing due to untimely misses is greater than 2 crit. Sure, it's demoralizing, but the paranoia is cutting into turncounts.

(By the way, 14 turns on chapter 15 is... pretty high. You can probably do it in 4-5 turns, easily.)

[grandjackal]

I'm a little perplexed as to why you and Narga in particular are so paranoid over miniscule crit rates. The chances of strategies failing due to untimely misses is greater than 2 crit. Sure, it's demoralizing, but the paranoia is cutting into turncounts.

You don't have my luck.

(By the way, 14 turns on chapter 15 is... pretty high. You can probably do it in 4-5 turns, easily.)

Well excuuuuuuuse me, Mr. Let's Just Drop My Not Screwed Deick In and Have Him Do Everything.

[Life]

Jackal, Donnie's right about the crit rates. Hell, I had Matthew and Guy tank Luna shots on my EHM run while you guys worry about 2 crit (might be from common enemies but I was dealing with 20 crit).

[dondon151]

You don't have my luck.

I'm just saying that you don't have to be crit to have bad luck. You can have 85 hit attacks miss that you need to hit and it'd be almost as bad. But the thing is that you take many, many such risks over the course of a chapter, and no one really seems to complain.

[grandjackal]

Jackal, Donnie's right about the crit rates. Hell, I had Matthew and Guy tank Luna shots on my EHM run while you guys worry about 2 crit (might be from common enemies but I was dealing with 20 crit).

Let me rephrase that.

One of my previous runs was about to land me a turncount of 11 until a longbowman and a crit from a merc (of which had 1 crit on her) bitchslapped her, and their were the few left on the map.

Forgive me if I want to be a bit cautious, considering those 1 to 2 crits were the cause of plenty of my restarts here.

[Narga_Rocks]

I'm a little perplexed as to why you and Narga in particular are so paranoid over miniscule crit rates. The chances of strategies failing due to untimely misses is greater than 2 crit. Sure, it's demoralizing, but the paranoia is cutting into turncounts.

(By the way, 14 turns on chapter 15 is... pretty high. You can probably do it in 4-5 turns, easily.)

It's true that bad misses screw you over more, but at least with those I can generally save the run anyway, even if it ups the turncount by 1 like in chapter 12x (where a couple of unlikely misses caused issues since any one of four things not missing would have probably allowed a lower count).

But a crit kills the run because a unit is dead and I won't accept that. 1 or 2 crit can cause a restart. Missing an 80+ hit causes an extra turn. There's a pretty big difference. And most of my paranoia stems from 20+ crit rates on killer weapon or berserker enemies. On NM I had my Alan get crit-blicked by 10 hit and 15 crit (or around that) in chapter 12x. That's under 1% given that 10 listed drops to like 2 or 3 % true. Then multiply that by .15. Also, the killing edge merc in chapter 10 caused me a restart on my first try by a lucky crit on Fir. Then in my next run he managed to crit both Marcus and Lance (who I had made sure would survive in the even of a crit, and sure enough they got crit). That's 3 out of 3 opportunities. One of which I think was only possible because of a miss on the guy. Lance. Lance only had to hit and the thing would have died. The chance of Lance missing + Merc hitting him with WTD and Lance's Alan support + Merc critting had to be pretty bad and you could maybe do that without making sure Lance would survive a crit. But he got criticaled. Forgive me if I tend to place my units under the assumption that they will be criticaled when the chance is above 4 or 5 % given all the <1% crit chances that I get blicked by.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[dondon151]

It's true that bad misses screw you over more, but at least with those I can generally save the run anyway, even if it ups the turncount by 1 like in chapter 12x (where a couple of unlikely misses caused issues since any one of four things not missing would have probably allowed a lower count).

"Generally" may be correct, but situations aren't uncommon where a miss not only prolongs your turncount, but it also puts units at risk of death, whether on the counter or on the subsequent enemy phase. The truth is that I've dealt with those so much that I regard imperfect hit rates as more of a threat than very low crit rates. They're annoying, of course, like when Wendell got crit by that 3 crit hero on an otherwise flawless recording attempt, but my plans were foiled much more often by either him, Jagen, or Hardin missing on the subsequent player phase.

[grandjackal]

Crit rates don't help that, as acc in this game in general is crap, thanks to crap for hit rates on the weapons themselves. If anything, crit rates only compound that problem.

[Narga_Rocks]

"Generally" may be correct, but situations aren't uncommon where a miss not only prolongs your turncount, but it also puts units at risk of death, whether on the counter or on the subsequent enemy phase. The truth is that I've dealt with those so much that I regard imperfect hit rates as more of a threat than very low crit rates. They're annoying, of course, like when Wendell got crit by that 3 crit hero on an otherwise flawless recording attempt, but my plans were foiled much more often by either him, Jagen, or Hardin missing on the subsequent player phase.

Well, don't think my paranoia doesn't extend to missing, though. I frequently have the thought "if I miss, what happens then?" and plan for survival in that instance. I can't always do that, though, without absolutely killing the turncount so I try to only do it in a way that may add one turn at the most and if I can't manage that then I'll simply roll the dice and hope for the best. At which point, yes, a miss is potentially as bad as a 3% crit-blick. Or worse, even, since the COD can be higher than the 3% crit sometimes.

[grandjackal]

Alright, so I have to ask. Does anyone have tips on how to deal with Douglas? I can get to the throne reletively quick, the major problem is him getting himself killed (I forgot that Fir is insane and took him out with a freaking iron sword).

[Narga_Rocks]

Alright, so I have to ask. Does anyone have tips on how to deal with Douglas? I can get to the throne reletively quick, the major problem is him getting himself killed (I forgot that Fir is insane and took him out with a freaking iron sword).

some people put him to sleep. I get Thany to tink him with an iron sword while facing less than 20 hit from the silver axe and being 2HKOd. More importantly, Douglas + spawning merc fails to KO Thany from full health.

[Mekkah]

Since you're probably getting 30 turns for that chapter anyway, you can walk him in circles by staying right out of his range. This might be a good case to hype earlypromoted Wendy!

[grandjackal]

Since you're probably getting 30 turns for that chapter anyway, you can walk him in circles by staying right out of his range. This might be a good case to hype earlypromoted Wendy!

Mekkah, come on. As much as I know I'm going to take forever on this map (simply because I don't have the patience to get all the chests, then transport all that to the secret shop along with member card within the span of 12 turns, armors or no I wouldn't have the patience), I don't see what Wendy being early promoted has to do with it, and the fact she's pretty much level 17. That's not exactly early-promotion.

[Colonel M]

Mekkah you fool, Douglas could have 1 or 2% crit on Wendy. </sarcasm>.

Best strategy is to just attempt to put hin to sleep on your first try with the Sleep Staff. And not using the Boots on Miledy is foolish: you can 1 turn C20X's boss with only one use of Warp instead of two.

[Mekkah]

Promoted Wendy, unlike unpromoted Wendy, would be able to walk ahead of Douglas forever, without wasting one of your higher movement units on that task!

[Colonel M]

Promoted Wendy, unlike unpromoted Wendy, would be able to walk ahead of Douglas forever, without wasting one of your higher movement units on that task!

Which way are we taking? Assuming the 30 turn shenanigans, wendy could have reinforcement clog if she goes West. Also thr possibility of Douglas going in the throne room. If she goes East there's a Bolting Mage reinforcement and "trees".

Is Shin promoted? He can distract Douglas with Iron Sword while sitting on the stairs (so worst case scenario you don't die from Douglas + Mercenary combo). That's what I did with Thany when I fucked up funds.

[Narga_Rocks]

Which way are we taking? Assuming the 30 turn shenanigans, wendy could have reinforcement clog if she goes West. Also thr possibility of Douglas going in the throne room. If she goes East there's a Bolting Mage reinforcement and "trees".

Is Shin promoted? He can distract Douglas with Iron Sword while sitting on the stairs (so worst case scenario you don't die from Douglas + Mercenary combo). That's what I did with Thany when I fucked up funds.

?

I just had her kill the mercs while distracting Douglas last playthrough. I had to promote this one at level 14, though, so she may not be able to 4HKO the mercs this time. But shin should have it pretty easy if you don't want to use him to KO the boss. He will probably even 3HKO the mercs (though maybe not your weak little shin) meaning he doesn't take a counter on player phase (assuming you let him start with them on enemy phase). The only issue is that you only have one physic staff until you can buy more in chapter 18 or 19 so there can be difficulties if shin gets hit by Douglas. Not particularly difficult, though. Elixir or even Mend him and pick up the mender with someone else.

[grandjackal]

Chapter 16

You know it's going to go bad, I know it's going to go bad.

However, I did devise a nice way of doing things. I had Miledy start on the right team, but she went left through the central area as I set her on the far left slot of the right team. The rest of it was Clarine, Rutger, Bartre, Fir and Chad. Chad because I was going to Steal the member card and have Clarine wheel him over. I'll get to that in a bit though.

Due to my team, I had to get creative, as mainly my thieves being long range magic fodder was a problem...Well, not a problem for Ashtor because he's a champ, but more for Chad. So what I did was had Clarine rescue Chad and gave her an Elixer. She wouldn't be doubled by the bolter, and I was easily able to get out of his range in 2 turns. Bartre, Fir and Rutger have no issue dealing with the enemies on the right side thanks to their killer edges and the Brave Axe. There will be no need of healing unless Fir gets unlucky and takes a killer edge crit. Thanks to her astounding luck and Bartre's support, she reduced the chance down to 17, which is pretty minimal in comparison to most.

But wait, what about the purger? Simple, had Saul stand in his range to the south so he would be dragged south, ensuring that Fir's team never had to deal with him. Saul takes the first shot, has Physic for anyone else despite now lagging behind. Only issue is luck, but considering Saul's only attacked once on the first turn, taking a crit is not that big a deal since it's first turn. I didn't get a crit, so that was nice.

The armor transport works here, as through the center, enemies are nice and spaced out. They helped take out the aircalibur mage without me having to take a counter (after stealing hte Red Gem from it of course), and hte armor blocking the doorway, along with a merc with the paladin's group. After that, I had Wendy and Barth plug up the reinforcement slots, so no mercs and fighters. However, even when the reinforcements stopped I was cowardly and held up in case that I moved them they would come up as I didn't want to get screwed on the chance that it worked in the way that they'll come out until this number of them has appeared. Considering Boris and them could have actually took on the snipers (with Saul's help), I could have given them chest keys, a door key, and saved me a LOT of time. I'm talking a good five turns. Gotta pay for my paranoia I guess.

As for Douglas, I luckily didn't have to use an Elixer as one of the bolts missed, and Clarine was in the clear, so I gave the elixers to Bartre, had him equip Iron bow and had him sit up at the upper right stairs to block the mercs.Doug needs to land 3 shots to kill Bartre, so Bartre helped buy me plenty of time to distract Douglas, especially since Doug was quite capable of missing. Before I started wheeling Chad over with Clarine, I had him unlock the door to have Rutger Durandal the mamkute within. Rutger had chest keys, and I didn't care about transport because nothing on the right side is worth selling here. Luckily it was before the reinforcements so while Rutger was busy, Fir and Bartre helped block the way so Clarine was in the clear. Then Bartre blocked the stairs, Fir went towards the throne.

Do give Fir an armorslayer if you don't want her dependent on crits (as likely as they are) to take out the two armors near the throne. I got lucky here, but now thinking about it I should have done that. Would have saved me Killer uses as well. As for the boss, I reached him turn 13 with Fir, though Roy would not get there till turn 15. I was weary of player phases with Narshen hitting me with that 38 displayed, recovering 17 health. Luckily, I had the wyrmslayer, but it was not quite enough to destroy him. However, a single shot from another weapon (Killer Edge used due to ACC), it took only a turn to down him. Luckily she didn't crit with the wyrmslayer, so I got both the Blue Gem AND the Delphi Shield.

However, I had errands to run, and I had not yet raided the leftside chest room. I had got caught up on mages, and now realizing it could have gone through them a lot quicker had I not sat back and let them line up one by one. I was weary of the mamkute, as this game has done dumb things to me before, despite it never moving. Stole it's Red Gem.

Had Fir and Bartre give eachother their weapons to wall off Douglas in the narrow hallway after the reinforcements stopped, Clarine healing if he hit.

Sold the Guiding Rings, the extra hero crest and all the gems I had collected here. Got 2 Knight's Crests, 3 Angel Robes. Didn't need anything else, so I left it there. I still have about 25K, so I'm good for Boots later on.

Turncount: 36, which is pathetic as I could have shaved off so many turns. At least 12. However, 24 is STILL pathetic. You might as well bring a whole mount army here, and yes that DOES mean even thieves I feel are detrimental (Mounts with chest keys can unlock things and Canto so you can trade keys, therefore you still have a good amount of mount units here to do all the handiwork). However, this map I feel is really not worth lowturning it. Strangely enough though, took me very few retries (of which my failures mostly consisted of stupid placement of units and putting them in danger, something easy enough to avoid if you aren't oblivious like me). So yeah, even though I could have shaved off many turns if I were just more diligent, I still would have had a bad turncount of about 24.

Luckily, saved my Sleep Staff for a rainy day though.

Levels

Name Lvl EXP HPs Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Roy   12  65  33   9  11  11  13   9   4 C Lillina B Allen B Lance
Fir    8  86  50  20  26  25  18  14   9 A Bartre
Bart   6  14  50  22  11  11  15  10   3 A Fir
Saul  20  -- Who Cares
Mil   17  41  40  20  18  19   8  16   4
Boris 18  57  34  12  12   9  11  20   1 B Barth B Wendy
Wendy 18  25  33  12  10   7  10  14   1 B Boris B Barth
Barth 17   2  33  13   8   6   3  17   1 B Boris B Wendy
Rutgr 11   5  49  17  26  27   5  13   8 C Clarine
Al    19  78  34  14  13  14  11   9   2 A Lance B Roy
Lance 19  42  34  11  14  18   6  11   3 A Allen B Roy
Clar  14  21  22   4   9  18  17   2  10 C Rutger

Got Roy more levels, all for Idoun really. So happy I got speed, was worried he'd get speed screwed. Not that his speed is spectacular by any means at this point in the game, but whatever makes him easier to protect.

Lol Fir, almost has as much strength as her dad, is tougher.

You can get Bartre to C rank quite simply before Sacae, as I'm only like 1 or 2 shots off. Also, A Support between them is quite simple, as I had gotten it only a few turns after the "Transfer treasures to person at secret shop" phase had started, so had I not gotten it here in a better run, I would have gotten it in 16X or the start of 17. Not that it matters much, B is what they want most.

All my knights (save Barth who didn't have much to do outside of positioning himself, but really how much is he gonna change?) are going to be able to promote by Sacae, and thanks to a bit of switching out didn't suffer capping my cavs. Too bad I have a speed screwed Wendy...Luckily though I have a blessed defense Boris.

RUTGER STILL HASN'T GAINED ANY LUCK!

Thoughts so far

Armors-If you aren't mad about armors, they still have a use in an efficient run, depending on your style. They suck on some maps pretty hard (like this one for example, or 14, what have you). Basically if there's 3 slots of people you aren't using seriously yet have no need for anything special like flight or something, you can bring out the armors to just triangle disposal of threats (chapter 12 is a perfect example). There are other examples, but if you have 3 spare slots you aren't using a designating to people you are bent on using, armors can be switched in, depending on the situation. This makes your transition to late-game units much easier, and in a normal run you would probably stop using armors right around this mark (however, I'm still going to use them and have been using them seriously so far, so unless I can work miracles, don't expect anything surprising), as I can't imagine what use they'd be in Ilia, and you could probably find more effective units to use in Sacae.

Bartre-Really, if you got him and Fir, then they both are pretty golden, as you can easily get all you need out of them. you might want to toss a Secret book his way if you wish, but for hte most part he's best with bows, and axes seem strangely enough like his secondary weapon. However, he can easily get to C rank by Sacae, and his support with Fir helps them both there. Survival is obvious, as is the crit, acc (as minor as it is), and the fact both have killers. Unless you have a bit of support with Deick on Rutger, I would find Fir superior at boss killing at Sacae, due to not being so dependent on Clarine who is far more fragile there due to enemies actually having ACC there, as much as a healer helps. So far, he's been great in helping me avoid counters and being a pinch hitter in an emergency.

From here on out though, I'm probably gonna end up slipping into a more casual form, so I wouldn't expect anything good out of turncounts from here. If I can manage to surprise you with armors again then great, but I doubt I've surprised any of you so far.

Big thanks to you all for keeping with me so far, I hope I have entertained you at leasta slight bit so far, and I hope to continue to do so.

[dondon151]

36 turns.