Sword-only units playthrough

[BBM]

Basically, a playthrough with units who can use only swords. That leaves:

Eirika

Colm

Joshua

Gerik (unpromoted)

Marisa

Rennac

Eirika HM, 5x is an Orson solo. The units not listed above can only recruit characters. They cannot fight, they cannot rescue, and they cannot support. If they're forced on a map, and it's impossible to keep them out of range, any weapons they can use have to be traded away. All units must be recruited, even if they're not being used.

Chapter 1 took me a few tries; the Soldiers were 2RKOing Eirika at rates in the 70s. I'm on Chapter 5 right now. Eirika has blessed strength. She's level 15 and has 12 strength. She's not supposed to have that until she promotes. I'm worried about Colm. His strength sucks, and Eirika's ORKOing stuff with a Slim Sword, so she can't weaken things very well. Other than that, things are going well.

[Life]

EDIT: Topic got moved to the right board.

Pretty easy if you're going to promote all of them (aside from Gerik). Audhulma Josh + Seiglinde Eirika should do the trick on the DK.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Life

[Integrity]

ooh. I should do Axes sometime, except only Ross and Dozla can ever use only Axes so that would be a nightmare. I guess I'd have to make it only units who can use Axes.

w/e

GL HF. Looking forward to this.

[Scarlet]

ooh. I should do Axes sometime, except only Ross and Dozla can ever use only Axes so that would be a nightmare. I guess I'd have to make it only units who can use Axes.

inb4stavesonly

@Topic: Since this basically also means no healing via staves and no 2-range ever, I guess the earlygame and some chapters in the lategame (hello chapter 18) will be pretty annoying, but it sounds doable.

Good luck.

[BBM]

Joshua refuses to stop dying or killing someone on my end. Since I'm trying to do this efficiently, and I have to rescue the villages, either Eirika or Colm must survive a hit from Joshua. The one time I recruited him without him getting criticalled, he got hit by two Brigands in a row with 40 displayed hit. Then another time, Eirika criticalled him with an Iron Sword...

I'm worried about the Chapter 14 Berserk staff... I can't remember exactly where he's situated, but someone will have to dodge at least one shot, possibly two.

@Integ- Garcia, unpromoted as well.

[Integrity]

@Integ- Garcia, unpromoted as well.

Frankly, it's not as bad as I make it out to be because berzerker!Ross can solo the entire game, so yeah.

GL on saving the damn villages. I never managed to without extensive use of Seth or Gilliam. :(

EDIT: I don't think there're Berzerk staffers in Eirika's C14. If there are, just have somebody tough and slow get 'zerked and stuck on a door or something while everybody else runs away :P

EDIT2: Wait, no, I remember the guy. He's sitting in the very topmost hallway, just left of the middle.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Integrity

[BBM]

I have no tough and slow units. All my units have 5/6 range.

How about lances? That's basically Ephraim + all the fliers promoted to WKs, minus Syrene.

The AI is really weird. When both are at full health, the enemies attack Eirika over Colm, even though she does more damage, takes less damage, has higher AVO, has higher accuracy, has higher crit, and has more HP. Basically, all her stats are equal or higher than his.

Edited May 16, 2010 by BigBangMeteor

[Scarlet]

The AI is really weird. When both are at full health, the enemies attack Eirika over Colm, even though she does more damage, takes less damage, has higher AVO, and has more HP.

That's lord priority for you.

[Parrhesia]

How about lances? That's basically Ephraim + all the fliers promoted to WKs, minus Syrene.

Don't forget unpromoted Gilliam. Or, Knight Amelia.

[Bryan]

Don't forget unpromoted Gilliam. Or, Knight Amelia.

This is going off topic, but there is always supertrainee.

No healing staves makes me laugh. :)

[Integrity]

:o

That's it.

SUPERTRAINEE RUN.

ok. ok. I'm done with this line of thought. Back to the topic at hand.

[BBM]

So, I'm on Chapter 8 now. Killing the 5 Knights in the top-right corner is proving difficult, because Eirika's Rapier has 4 uses left, and the Armorslayer won't OHKO, and gives the Knights displayed hit rates in the 50s. No staves is starting to make it tricky, with the constant WTD I'm suffering now. No one's dodging unless they're on a pillar, of which there aren't many. I'm thinking I should just have everyone go around left, and thus go around those 5 Knights. That would slow my turn count by a lot, though, and I would miss the item in that chest, whatever it is. Alternatively, I could send Eirika north, and have Joshua and Colm take the other path.

Chapter 7 was pretty easy; Colm and Eirika went over the river and killed those enemies, while Joshua mopped up in the south end of the map. Chapter 6 was a bit difficult, and I got a bit lucky with Joshua dodging two consecutive hits which had good hit rates, either of which could have killed him. I even managed to save the green units, although the Bael missed twice.

Is there any way to save the Rapier village in Chapter 9 without a flyer/Ross? Also, should I post my units' stats?

[Integrity]

You could probably circumvent the 5 knights in C8 by going around to Ephraim's side and up the left. It's not a Rout map, after all.

And no, it's impossible to save the house in C9 without a flier EDIT: /Ross /EDIT, unless I have my numbers very slightly off and you can aggro all of the pirates as they walk by - but even if that worked you'd have to 1RKO every one of them so the next would aggro on time. And I don't think they line up for it anyway.

Edited May 19, 2010 by Integrity

[Narga_Rocks]

Wouldn't it be easier to make it a "only ever fight with swords" playthrough? Well, I suppose if you did that you could start using seth and friends and it would be too easy. Maybe, "only sword-only units are permitted to have weapons"? Then you could at least fly in and get it. But then I suppose you could meat-shield with seth or something. I suppose any exception you make in order to get that Rapier would cause other things to become too easy.

[El Rey León]

I was going to suggest promoting Gerik and restrict him to swords, but I understand what you mean by "sword-only".

Honestly, if I did a sword-only PT it would include characters that can also use other weapons, but are restricted to sword. But that'd allow Seth which would destroy any challenge.

Eh, I just realized I have nothing to add. Good luck on Formotiss (or however you spell his name)!

[Integrity]

Wouldn't it be easier to make it a "only ever fight with swords" playthrough? Well, I suppose if you did that you could start using seth and friends and it would be too easy. Maybe, "only sword-only units are permitted to have weapons"? Then you could at least fly in and get it. But then I suppose you could meat-shield with seth or something. I suppose any exception you make in order to get that Rapier would cause other things to become too easy.

Nah. Fix: We can use naked fliers for the purposes and ONLY the purposes of looting villages. This gets us through C8 and a theoretical C13 Ephraim, since no way in hell are you blitzing both villages there without cavaliers.

Obviously Ephraim's route isn't in contest here, but there you have it.

[BBM]

In the end, I just went around the left, although it made the Chapter take 27 turns. I made a huge mistake, however, which I didn't realize until the chapter was over. In the chapter, I gave all of Kyle's, Forde's, and Orson's swords to Ephraim, as he was the only one who couldn't use them. However, I forgot to give them back before the chapter ended, so I have to wait until Chapter 15 comes around to get them. I briefly considered starting over, because those swords included a Silver Sword, but I honestly don't think this playthrough would have been as easy it has been so far without Eirika's hax strength. So I guess Chapter 15 it is.

Memorable moments of Chapter 8:

Eirika OHKOd an enemy not weak to Rapier/Sieglinde/Audhulma without a critical. Granted, it was a Mage who got slightly unlucky with his HP stat, and Eirika was using an Iron Blade, but still, I've never OHKOd an enemy with Eirika under those conditions.

Joshua capped Skill.

On Chapter 9, now that I've looked at the map, without use of a 7/8 movement unit, it is impossible to rescue the Rapier village. The Pirates in the east part of the water can be attracted by standing on the beach, but there's one in the west whose range at no point comes in touch with the eastern beach. For Turn 1, it can be attracted by standing above the wall in a specific spot, but no one on my team can get there without a rescue chain that would make it impossible to stop the eastern pirates. And my Rapier got used up in Chapter 8, and my Armorslayer's almost out as well. However, the next Knights show up in Chapter 13, I believe. There are Cavaliers in Chapter 10, but I have Gerik by then, who should be able to ORKO or decently weaken them.

My memory of Ch. 13 Eph. is bad, but isn't the only village in the bottom right corner? If so, Gerik and Tethys should be able to get it. Ephraim's route would be impossible with the units I'm using.

[Integrity]

C13Ephraim has a village in the far right side (Gerik can carve through the mobs to it without Tethys fine), and a second one in the bottom-left corner.

[BBM]

Chapter 9 wasn't too difficult after I stopped trying to save the villages. I realized it just wasn't possible. Colm hung around the beach killing the Pirates, while Eirika and Joshua went left, slaughtering stuff. Joshua used up the entire Silver Sword from the chest, as it came in handy.

Memorable moments of Chapter 9:

Joshua and Colm both capped Speed. I missed recruiting Amelia for the first time ever. There were just too many enemies and not enough player units.

For Chapter 10, I'm running into some trouble. How necessary do you think Marisa is? The reinforcements that come with recruiting her are a pain in the ass.

[Integrity]

She's a sixth of your team, but honestly she's your second-worst unit in terms of fighting (unless somebody can convince me Rennac isn't worse)....soyeah.

[Parrhesia]

Well, she might overtake Merc!Gerik by endgame, but Integ's right, she's pretty forgettable. Grab her if you think you can get away with it.

[Integrity]

Honestly, I'd grab her because I like recruiting people and I consider the extra reinforcements extra experiences. :D

[BBM]

lolextra exp. Eirika's level 20, Colm and Joshua are 18 and 19 and hit 20 before the reinforcements show up, and Gerik isn't going to get promoted anyways. I'll try one more time to recruit her and I'll see if I can defeat the reinforcements. If not, forget her. Colm can go Assassin if I badly need one.

[Scarlet]

Couldn't you recruit Innes' group, kill the boss, get Eirika to the seize square quickly and then blitz-recruit Marisa and seize on the same turn so that you don't have to deal with the reinforcements? If you use Eirika for both seizing and recruiting Innes it will probably get tricky, but if you allow yourself to deploy Tana solely for the purpose of recruiting Innes so that Eirika can move to the seize square right away, it should be doable.

[BBM]

No, I did it in the end, and recruited everybody. I totally forgot Tana could recruit him too. Gah. I made another mistake. I sold the Ocean Seal by accident, so I guess Colm is going to wait for the Master Seal. Joshua promoted into a SM.

Joshua went down Turn 1 with an Iron Blade and killed all the Mercs EP, while Colm and Eirika mopped up the Mages. Then Eirika went down south and recruited Innes, who recruited Gerik, who recruited Marisa. This whole chain happened in one turn. Then Eirika killed the PKs, and Gerik got the FK kill, and Gerik killed all the Cavaliers and the Ranger too, one by one. Meanwhile up top, Joshua and Colm killed everything, with Joshua getting the Boss kill. I wanted to give it to Marisa, but I couldn't trust her, and she was doing too little damage to even finish Pablo off, without taking millions of turns. While Eirika went up and seized, Gerik recruited Tethys.

Memorable moments of Chapter 10: Recruited more units finally. Colm and Joshua hit 20. About it.

Stats:

Eirika  20.00  31|14|19|16|20|8|8  
Joshua  1.00   44|14|20|20|9|9|8  
Colm    20.00  31|12|12|20|16|7|7
Gerik   13.03  35|15|15|14|10|12|4
Marisa  6.50   24|7|12|13|10|4|3

I'll set up a support triangle between Joshua, Gerik, and Marisa. I'm thinking Gerik x Marisa for the A, as it's the fastest, and they're the weaker of the three, and therefore need the bonuses more.

What paths should Colm and Marisa take? Assassin and Assassin, Assassin and SM, Rogue and Assassin, or Rogue and SM?

Edited June 1, 2010 by BigBangMeteor