Grandjackal's FE6 Hard Mode Low Turn Attempts!

[grandjackal]

So while I wait for things to get settled with an apartment before continue my FFT playthrough, I figured I'd do something for a smple handheld, since nothing obstructs a handheld from being awesome. However, I'm incredibly rusty with FE6, and I've been hearing a lot of talk about some serious low turns, like chapter 1 in 5 turns or something. Sounds pretty damn hardcore, so I would like to ask what a general low turncount looks like so I know what to at least aspire to. dondon, if you could be a champ and let me know, that would be fantastic. I recall that your issue with your low turncounts was that it was very barebones, and that we couldn't see what could fully be done within said turns. I, with my serious OCD, I would like to see what can happen in entirity, or at least explore the possibilities of which can be scrutinized by the masses.

I want to do this playthrough for multiple reasons.

1. I am quite the fan of FE6, despite acc being a horrible horrible issue. Love the wonky map design, and how varied the cast is, despite how awful garbage it can be.

2. Like stated, I would like to see what results we can muster under these new views of low turncounts, other than instant utility is awesome, which is the most obvious thing in the world.

3. To see if this low turning can also be done with the armors, cause I'm the King of Low Tier, and it's my duty to do so. Hopefully chapter 16 and 16x will go better. Note to self: Use the fucking Warp Staff ASAP this time instead of saving it for later maps, cause chapter 16 and 16x can go fuck itself.

Now before I start, I would request an outline for chapter 1's 5 turn strategy to see if it can be consistantly reliable. I recall doing a playthrough of FE8's chapter 4 and it was said to be done in 3 turns, which is indeed possible but depended on Garcia landing two strikes of 59 displayed on a single enemy phase, thus while possible is unreliable. I wanna see if the same could be said about chapter 1 here, because my initial run of it came with the result of 6 turns. Following I could conclude off this dry run.

1. Marcus is a boss.

2. A cavalier will have to act as Roy's taxi, and forest terrain is boss.

3. The other cav can get to a minimum of around lvl 2.30. That would be with Allen. If with Lance, he might be higher due to doing less damage, with Wolt being higher than usual as well due to needing to chip to help Lance kill. Thus, I would suggest Allen is best. The hell am I talking about? Well, while Marcus assaulted the boss, I had a cav stay on the forest tile blocking the path to the destroyed village to protect Roy's ass, and by the time the boss was dead, Allen had the 2 fighters and bandit I bumrushed past dead and in his exp wallet.

4. Bors can waltz over to the village, pulling the southernmost fighter with him to make the treck north less clogged. Unless doubled, Bors can handle him fine as long as he just beelines to the village and swigs vulns when he gets close to death. Can thus get up to about lvl 1.50, granted he hits his blows before we end the map.

5. Walt could land a useless chip on a unit at the end, and would be lvl 2. Roy saw no action. Lance saw very little (He's at 1.30).

Edited July 28, 2011 by Grandkitty

[Mekkah]

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=C89BCA3E52A5EACA

Enjoy.

[grandjackal]

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=C89BCA3E52A5EACA

Enjoy.

Let me fix the title of my topic to say Hard Mode this time...

[Mekkah]

The same strategies work as long as you are willing to abuse in previous chapters. Unless you wanted to do a continuous run, in which case you probably won't be able to overcome dondon other than on rare occasions where he needs level ups.

[grandjackal]

The same strategies work as long as you are willing to abuse in previous chapters. Unless you wanted to do a continuous run, in which case you probably won't be able to overcome dondon other than on rare occasions where he needs level ups.

Not willing to abuse, as I believe the only way to make the chapter 1 strat work in hard mode is to use the silver lance, of which due to acc issues would make it far more unreliable than normal. Unless I'm missing something here, of which I might, since it's been a while for me with FE6.

As for dondon, I'm obviously not trying to outdo him, but merely to see what the possibilities are under his results. At best, I'm merely trying to match him. Pretty sure none of us can outdo dondon.

[Balcerzak]

These were my turn counts under restricted deployment draft settings (with growths, obviously). They can certainly be improved upon with access to the full cast.

[spoiler=Collected turn counts]

Ch1	6
Ch2	8
Ch3	10
Ch4	8
Ch5	9
Ch6	6
Ch7	13
Ch8	17
Ch8x	12
Ch9	10
Ch10	8
Ch11	10
Ch12	8
Ch12x	8
Ch13	9
Ch14	11
Ch14x	3
Ch15	5
Ch16	12
Ch16x	10
Ch17I	7
Ch18I	4
Ch19I	5
Ch20I	6
Ch20xI	3
Ch21	12
Ch21x	2
Ch22	8
Ch23	4
Ch24	12
Final	1
247

[chococoke]

These were my turn counts under restricted deployment draft settings (with growths, obviously). They can certainly be improved upon with access to the full cast.

Your strategies all required a significant amount of luck and/or RNG manipulation, though, given the insane level ups and amount of crits.

[dondon151]

Here's what I have so far.

01   5 turns   07   8 turns   12   8 turns   16   9 turns   20xI 3 turns   F    1 turn
02   6 turns   08  15 turns   12x  6 turns   16x  4 turns   21   8 turns   T  187 turns
03   7 turns   08x  8 turns   13   6 turns   17I  5 turns   21x  2 turns
04   7 turns   09   7 turns   14   7 turns   18I  4 turns   22   6 turns
05   4 turns   10L  7 turns   14x  2 turns   19I  6 turns   23   3 turns
06   7 turns   11L  9 turns   15   5 turns   20I  3 turns   24   9 turns

Ample RNG abusing against bosses. Not so much elsewhere, except for chapter 5, where I had to crit 3 generic enemies, once on a single hit.

Edited August 14, 2011 by dondon151

[grandjackal]

Well, I suppose for my first chapter I'll just do more an analysis on it then, cause chapter 1 is weird. Also, Roy's crit on turn 4's enemy phase is a strange sense of sorcery.

Chapter 1

So, dondon was kind enough to even give me is turn by turn for chapter 1, which I had copied down to the wire. It was weird, knowing that the exact movements he gave me would work 100% of the time...Up until Roy gained his level (Which I'm sure under these circumstances would be static every tme. +1 HP, Skl, Lck. I'm not impressed, but then again it's Roy. I shouldn't expect to be impressed). That level up, however, kinda screwed up his guideline, since it made Marcus miss Damas with his silver lance. Due to needing to land two 59 displayed hits for this to work, and that if it screws up, Roy runs a high risk of death from 2 fighters and an archer attacking him or else result in me having to rescue him away and kill my turncounts anyways. 2 59 displayed leaves quite a big margin of error once the laws of physics basically jump out the window with Roy's level, and missing one of those blows will result in basically an entire restart of the chapter. 6 turns could be seen as more reliable for normal standards, though 5 is possible (but might require more RNG molesting, again due to Roy gaining a level so awful it broke the space/time continuum), just missing 1 shot on Damas results in Roy dying and a restart on the entire chapter.

For those of you who want a surefire way to get through chapter 1 errorless (and not have to reset to see that damned opening again and have to skip through like 4 scenes to get to the game again), here's his guideline. Mind you, it's bulletproof up until turn 5.

Turn 1

Marcus 2U 5R attack fighter (IronS)

Lance 3U wait

Alan 1L 2U wait

Wolt 1U 1R wait

Bors 3U 1L wait

Roy 1L 3U wait

Turn 2

Roy 4R 1D attack fighter (Rapir)

Alan 5R 1D attack fighter (IronS)

Marcus 3R 2U attack archer (IronS)

Wolt 5R attack archer (IronB)

Lance 3R rescue Wolt 1L

Bors 1U 3R take Wolt dropL

Turn 3

Roy 1U 4R attack fighter (Rapir)

Wolt 4R attack fighter (IronB)

Lance 3R 4U attack brigand (IronS)

Alan 5U 1R wait

Marcus 1U trade Lance -Javel -Vulnr use Vulnr 1R 4U

Bors 3R 1U wait

Turn 4

Roy 3U use Vulnr

Lance rescue Roy 2U 3L

Alan 3U 2L take Roy dropL

Marcus 3U 5L wait

Bors 1R 3U attack fighter (IronL)

Wolt 1R 4D wait

Turn 5

Marcus attack Damas (SilvL)

Alan 2L 1U attack fighter (IronS)

Wolt 3R visit

Roy 4U seize

Now, to look over results, I can basically make some broad generalizations about this map for those that don't want to basically do a sterile run of it, but still want to fish for a 6 turn strat.

-By turn 3, you're basically in the clear.

-Wolt is surprisingly helpful. My dry run, dondon's strat and my strat had Walt generally getting the same amount of exp, and basically is the reason why Marcus can move forward. A second run also showed that it's possible to get him to lvl 2. I don't know why you'd do that, but it's possible.

-Bors will have around 40-50 exp leaving chapter 1.

-Roy doesn't actually need to see any action for 6 turns to work, though for the 5 turn he clearly has to.

-One of the cavs will get to level 2, while the other won't get as much (it's weird, like the difference is 2.10 to 1.40, in all 3 of my runs). It can be one or the other depending on your actions. If someone can do a 6 turn that gets both cavs to lvl 2, then cool.

-Whatever you do will work the same every time you do it up until someone levels up. Then it's chaos from there.

-5 turns is possible, but 6 turns is more realistic.

Now, it's just sort of a wing-it form here. Thanks dondon for your tunrcounts, I'll be using it as a guideline to see how reliable they are, and to see what possibilities there are from there.

[dondon151]

Hitting twice at 59 hit is a 44.6% chance. Not exactly bad odds if you're just gambling on one round of combat against the boss.

I'm anticipating my final turncount to be just over 190, but I have no idea how long chapter 23 will take.

[grandjackal]

Hitting twice at 59 hit is a 44.6% chance. Not exactly bad odds if you're just gambling on one round of combat against the boss.

I'm anticipating my final turncount to be just over 190, but I have no idea how long chapter 23 will take.

That would indeed sound like decent odds on paper, but you forget that if he misses, either Roy will die to 1 of 2 fighters and an archer, or I will rescue Roy away but now Marcus is easier to hit with WTD, and your strat leaves him at about 20 HP, so Damas+anything kills him (and Damas has about 44 displayed, which when the next hit's gonna kill you, is not fun).

[grandjackal]

So I decided to do yet another run of chapter 1 to sort of see if 5 turns is reliable, because admittedly I had my reservations. However, I would have to say it can be, on the basis that I just did a deviation from what dondon wrote up, except not only did I get the 5 turns, but I got Allen and Lance both to lvl 2. Since those levels came before Marcus lands the final blow, this means there's a lot more leverage with how you can play with the RNG. My deviation was like this.

Turn 4 is supposed to be Allen and Lance dropping Roy off in position to get the throne for turn 5. What I did instead was have Marcus rescue him turn 3 so that the next turn he could drop Roy off in said position and canto over to the boss. Wolt had to take a hit, but who cares? I still got the 5 turn. Best of all, what had happened was basically this.

Turn 3, Marcus rescues Roy and parks himself on the forest going towards the ruined village, which puts him in range to be attacked by the northwest fighter. Marcus does as stated, Wolt takes a shot at said fighter Marcus weakened, Allen finishes off (He did not gain a level), and Lance positions himself so that Allen and he protect Walt's flank as to ensure his safety, both Allen and Lance healthy, neither having leveled up yet, Allen near the forest to said ruined village. Damas attacks and HITS Marcus. This is important. In dondon's run, he needed Roy to land a crit so that the path to the throne was clear. With Damas landing a hit, the 2 fighters nearby go after Marcus in an attempt to hit him. They will miss every time. Why? Because with this strat, by this point, no one has leveled up yet. Essentially, this will happen every single time. Marcus still has to land 2 Silver strikes, but we're in luck since we got 2 units prime to level, and both are in range to kill something (Allen killing one of Damas's bodyguards that Marcus weakened, Lance with Wolt on the last fighter). Quite a bit of RNG wiggle room.

Wait, what about Bors? He did not go north. Rather, what I had him do was go towards the village. How I had him do this was I had him start a position south so that he was in range of one fighter, but not a 2nd. Fighter comes to him and attacks from his right flank. Next turn, Bors does a half circle around him, essentially ignoring the guy. Fighter will attack, but not move to do so. Bors goes towards village (I believe the fighter misses one of these blows) again, and either heals on turn 3 or 4. I believe it was 3. He visits village, kills fighter. To present la levels, since I forgot to mention them in my last post.

Name Lvl Exp HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Roy    1  31  Base
Marcus 1  60  Base
Allen  2  47 22   7   4   7   4   6   0
Lance  2  10 21   5   7   9   2   6   0
Bors   1  51  Base
Walt   1  61  Base

Hm...Ok, so maybe Allen leveled earlier than I remembered. I didn't write this up right after I did the run, but I know I did it. Regardless, you can still get away with a 5 turn, considering you can do quite a few deviations. I believe you can manage to get Wolt to 2 doing this, but it might not quite be possible. Due to the fact he's heading the same way Marcus is, it's possible, since for the most part this chapter's free exp for whoever you want to give it to.

Prett sure the only deviation that isn't possible in a 5 turn is Bors getting more exp than this. Reasons being A. His starting position is not suitable for it. B. Slow-ass armor that can be doubled, is 3HKOd, and has assy acc while 3RKOing in return. You do the math. However, he can let you get the gold so that Wolt can help a 5 turn be a bit more lean.

[grandjackal]

Chapter 2

Turns completed: 6

Now I love how I went about this one. So here's the skinny. How dondon did it, if I recall correctly, was that he had Merlinus go get the Armorslayer for Thany to pick up, who flies it over the mountain to Marcus who kicks Rude's ass, and through the magic of cavalier wheeling we get Roy to the throne on turn 6. Fine and dandy, except I find a fun lil' deviation, which is a nice sign of a turncount being solid rather than iffy. You see, I had Roy go fetch the Armorslayer, and Thany went to go rescue him over. The goal of the Pheraens was to basically get Marcus on that fort by turn 2 to attack a fighter. If someone else clogs that spot, you gotta restart.

Marcus weakens the southern soldier for Lance to finish off with a javelin (important because Lance doesn't want to be in target range of the hand axe fighter), Wolt/Bors/Allen taking care of the other with Allen getting the kill and Bors not getting a scratch (which even if he got worse, Ellen would heal it right up anyways). Enemy phase, a soldier and a fighter attack Allen, who survives and severely weakens the soldier. These two units are completely non-issue as we'll observe. Turn 2, Marcus gets on the fort and weakens a fighter (the one without the hand axe, since he's the one blocking the way forward) for Walt to kill, Bors kills the weakened soldier with Ellen healing Allen, then Lance and Allen rescue Ellen and Wolt and bust through the blockade. It gets predictable from there, though to distract the 2 fighters left I have Bors sit his ass on the fort. With 2 vulns in tandem with fort healing along with severely reduced acc on the hand axes (srsly, like 38 displayed on an armor for fuck sakes), Bors ain't dying and is soaking up some residual exp. Even one of the fighters who could switch to an iron axe came in to attack because it doubled (about 50s displayed, again not too big a deal), which just got me more EXP. I couldn't kill said fighter by the end of the chapter, but 2.30 on Bors by chapter 3 isn't unreasonable.

Deick's group are the real heroes here. With Thany being the one rescuing Roy over while freeing up Marcus to kick ass indiscriminantly, it felt like just having Deick's group take care of everything seem real safe, because Marcus was undoubtedly gonna back them up, along with the cav duo and Wolt. Deick had to be the one that man-faced the iron blade merc, but he did so, Wolt chipping and Allen finishing it off with an iron lance. Once more, it got predictable from there, though I learned that positioning Thany for Roy to get a perfect rescue drop was kinda weird due to the archer being a dick.

Oddly enough, it felt like Deick accomplished more than anyone else on this map, though Marcus killed the boss and Thany did transportation. This was a map where everyone worked together perfectly, and in an odd sense, no one felt above the other here. Try your own fun little things. Hell, have Thany rescue-drop Marcus over, that might prove to be easier, but what I did got me more exp overall I feel.

Now for levels.

Name Lvl EXP HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Roy    1  30 Base
Marcus 1  88 Base
Allen  3  31  23  7   4   7   4   7   0
Lance  2  70  21  5   7   9   2   6   0
Bors   2   7  21  7   4   4   5  11   0
Wolt   2  39  19  4   5   6   2   4   0
Ellen  2  55  Base
Ward   2  50  Base
Lot    4   0  30  7   6   8   2   5   1
Deick  6  33  27 10  13  11   6   6   1
Thany  1  11  Base

Had to have Thany chip at that archer I mentioned to clear a path for Marcus.

[dondon151]

You can have Marcus occupy the near fort on turn 1 with a rescue chain. See if you can 5 turn the map that way.

[grandjackal]

You can have Marcus occupy the near fort on turn 1 with a rescue chain. See if you can 5 turn the map that way.

I was about to say "I think the AI's gonna choke the way forward with the hand axe fighters", but apparently the AI's too stupid to think of that. I have my issues however, since the next problem is dropping Roy in position to nab the throne turn 5, namely that it's impossible in one way or another. First off, there's the merc, the fighter and the archer near the throne. Before you can drop Roy, these guys gotta be dealt with, or they'll slaughter Roy, namely because the only position you can drop Roy for a turn 5 seize of the throne is to drop him right in the middle of them. Thany can't help with the drop, she can't do that AND get the Armorslayer in time. Lastly, Rude has 31 HP and an effective 15 Def, which is 1 HP shy of being ORKOd, and it's impossible for Marcus to actually reach rude until turn 5.

So unless Rude at times gets 30 HP, and on top of that you have a way to make the enemies near the throne NOT go after Roy (even if the merc is distracted, the fighter+archer can still kill Roy, so this has a chance to end right then and there), what you request doesn't seem possible, and if it is it still seems reckless. With the ease of RNG manipulation in a 0% run I could see this being possible, but 'mma have to give this one a not quite.

P.S. By what sorcery allowed you to 7 turn chapter 3? Reinforcements ram themselves up my ass before I can have Marcus reach the boss for an Armorslayer kill in time. Is there a trigger to the reinforcements I'm unaware of? Also, did you manage to nab the Halberd doing this?

[Toothache]

Visiting the Mend village also sets a pair of cavs on the map on the next turn. So, visit that on the turn you seize.

[dondon151]

Only Lugh's village triggers cavalier reinforcements. The Mend village is safe.

[Janissary]

I don't know if this would affect anything, but if you drop Roy even with the boss via Thany in Chapter 2, and the archer doesn't aggro despite being in range.

[grandjackal]

Chapter 3

Turns taken: 8, but I can explain.

Basically I was completely setup to take the throne on turn 7. There was just 1 problem. A fighter and a javelin cav (Marcus can kill the sword cav thanks to javelin goodness). Marcus whiffed a shot on the fighter, which left Lance and Thany unable to kill it reliably with javelins (since I'd have only needed to land 1 shot instead of 2). However, this basically changed nothing, aside from Marcus getting another kill. I didn't get a rundown of how dondon did it, but if he did any rescue chains to help move Marcus forward, it's not needed. I'm sure it helps things be less risky at the final stretch, but not necessary.

I basically had Merlinus as soon as he could maximize trading so that everyone got their javelins and iron lances, my army now fully armed. Had Thany trade a vuln and her javy to Bors, since he was about to go on a solo mission to kick ass and take names, and she got traded with Merlinus after her canto, Lance trading out as well as Marcus, who took the opportunity to jay a soldier. From there, it was basically ensuring you maximize Marcus's movement, because he goes on a warpath on this map.

While Bors speed was basically blessed, it basically only resulted in the javelin soldier dying quicker. I run Bors to the forest, have him down vulns till the iron soldier is dead. Once that happens, I'm basically safe. Bors can get all 3 kills for himself, granted he lands those shots on the archer before the end of turn 6, since he will have to go get Lou. Luckily, that's what happened with me.

Wolt continued to help with his picking of soldiers, including over a wall to break what was almost a blockade. Kinda cool to see Wolt is actually helpful....He's gonna get dropped once I get passed chapter 5, but he's been helpful in a solid way before then.

Deick and his mercs, aside from Thany, didn't actually do much. They just mowed the rest of the front yard once the rest got inside. Bors was kinda already done before they could reach them, and rescue-dropping all of them wouldn't have proved to be beneficial due to their godawful starting positions. I rescue whoever had the Hand Axe (Ward) to help at the portion right before the throne room (finishing off a soldier to free out Marcus. Have Lot do this instead, cause he has 2 shots at hitting). Outside of letting Merlinus nab the Mend staff without worry, they didn't really do much here.

Levels

Name Lvl Exp HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Roy    1  34  Base
Marcus 2  54 33   9  14  12  10  10   8
Allen  4  60 24   8   5   8   4   7   1
Lance  3  25 22   6   7  10   3   6   0
Bors   3  64 22   7   4   5   5  11   0
Walt   2  96 19   4   5   6   2   4   0
Ellen  3  21 17   2   6   9   8   0   7
Ward   3  32 29   9   3   6   4   3   0
Lot    4  19 30   7   6   8   2   5   1
Deick  6  77 27  10  13  11   6   6   1
Thany  2  22 17   5   6  13   6   6   6

As you can see, Walt can be lvl 3 by chapter 4...Possibly.

Lance's level is kinda annoying me. I mean, I probably did unconciously feed more exp to Allen, but with Lance's speed already safe, it just feels like Lance doesn't need it much, and his Str more often than not is not satisfactory. Even now, his speed isn't going to help until 5, and his speed is redundant in 6. He's also noticeably less durable than Allen, which has helped me let Allen blitz things alongside the mighty Marcus. Early on, I actually feel that Allen is better.

Granted I could have evened out exp a bit more with Lance, but how does it feel to see Bors with a level lead on a cav?

[Toothache]

I think you worry too much about keeping Alan and Lance's levels even. Lance can always catch up, and the knight crests are staggered throughout the game so you won't be promoting them at the same time anyway.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Toothache

[dondon151]

I brought Dieck and Wolt with me to the interior of the building to help me clear past the enemies. Since base Marcus and Dieck 3HKO Slater with the Armorslayer, I needed 2 users of the weapon.

[grandjackal]

Eh? Uhh...Marcus ORKOd at base Str. It was no issue dealing with him.

Also, oddly enough, Thany even with Roy rescued was able to help out in clearing the inside of chipped out soldiers, since even with Roy rescued, carrying a Slim Lance she still doubles. Chalk up some more goodness Thany has over other mounts early on.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Grandkitty

[Mekkah]

Granted I could have evened out exp a bit more with Lance, but how does it feel to see Bors with a level lead on a cav?

As you can see, Walt can be lvl 3 by chapter 4...Possibly.

This topic is just a thinly veiled way to give GJ more bs arguments to try to up them on the tier list...

[Dark Sage]

Granted I could have evened out exp a bit more with Lance, but how does it feel to see Bors with a level lead on a cav?

BORS FOAR TOP TIER !!!!111!21!!!!!1!1!

[dondon151]

Just going to point out that Slater usually is not 2HKO'd by 9 str Marcus or Dieck.