HNM Sacae-Only Playthrough

[Sunwoo]

And now the poll says not to use Nils. Well, I only have three chapters left (including the gaiden) and Nils is forced in two of them. So I'll just ignore him in the gaiden. Right now, I kind of wish he wasn't forced on me. He's so ridiculously low-leveled, he dies to anything that so much as looks at him. (All right, he survived one hit from a hero, but still.)

Chapter 32: Victory or Death

Nils: Let me help! I want to do this ... for Ninian.

Cian: That's nice and all, Nils, but are you sure you're up to this?

I split my army into groups. Lyn and Hector go north, whereas the swordmasters take the middle route. Rath can handle the area by Sophia's village himself. I decide to send Nils with the sword-group, because he should be able to help them out a bit more. Lyn and Hector tank the nomad troopers, snipers, and armors that charge at them. The swordies stick together, and Rath does his own stuff. I play Ninis' Grace for Karla so she can tank properly, but I'm forced to rescue Nils with Karel. Good thing I did, too, because Karel gets attacked by a wyvern lord. Amusingly, though, he dodges the wyvern lord and doubles with a silver sword while rescuing Nils. I reach Renault's village with Lyn and Hector, then recruit him afterwards. Karla got strength! I fail to save the Set's Litany village. Guy, Karel, and Karla meet up with Rath. Renault sits on the fortress to deal with pegasus knight reinforcements. Nils is dependent on forests and staying out of people's ways to survive. Things get a little messy when reinforcements pop up everywhere. Karla gets strength again! Rath and Lyn team up on Limstella and defeat her on turn 13. Hector races to the throne. Karla, Karel, and Guy continue to clean up baddies. Nils stays out of my way. I seize on turn 16.

Nils: ... So that's the whole story.

Eliwood: ... Nils.

Lyn: I had no idea ...

Hector: Come on! Enough standing around here! We have to stop Nergal!

Chapter 32x: The Value of Life

Hector: Blast! That magic seal is back!

Guy: Don't worry, Lord Hector, none of us can use magic.

I deploy all the Sacaeans except for Lyn. Karla needs some experience to reach level 20. Guy and Karel still need to build up their support. Rath and Lyn have the same movement after I gave Lyn the boots, but Rath can canto (while Lyn can't). I'm going to need him to grab the stuff in the chests for me. Oh, boy ... three sword-locked units, one character who can only 1-range or 2-range at a time, and Hector who has no hand axe. This will be fun. -_-

I start by moving everyone upward. Guy, Karel, and Karla hang back and clear out armor reinforcements, while Hector and Rath move on. Hector reaches level 20. The swordies clear out the armors and try to catch up. Karel and Guy finally get their freaking A support. Rath grabs both the Fortify staff and the Runesword. And since he actually has A swords, he can use it, too. XD Yay for self-healing! Karla and Karel finally get their C support. I'm really glad I decided not to let those two get an A. Karla gets the other Runesword, by the way. Rath finishes off Kishuna.

Rath: Guy ...

Guy: Y-yes?

Rath: That swordsman you train with ... He scares me.

Guy: Well, yeah ... he scares me too. But he trained me in the sword, so I'm stronger now.

Karel: Karla ... when the time is right, I will cut you down too.

Karla: Brother ...

Cian: ... Why is Rath the only sane person in this group?

Final Chapter: Light

Hector: This is it, everyone, the final battle! Leave everything to me!

Cian: Forget it, Hector. If we leave everything to you, then you die. Now! You guys! I want you to ignore everything Hector tells you and do as I say!

I deploy the Sacaeans, along with the forced characters. Athos gets the Fortify staves. Yay healing! Guy and Karel get the Light Brands, and Karla and Rath keep the Runeswords. I decide to use Eliwood as a storage for holding onto the stuff I can't use. Lyn gets a Killer Bow and the Sol Katti. Rath gets the other Killer Bow. Everyone else gets a various combination of swords.

First, I run from Uhai, keeping Rath at the very edge of his range with a KIller Bow and Lyn in his support range. Karel and Karla run to Kenneth's room with Nils and Hector close behind. Eliwood stays out of my way. Rath crit-kills Uhai. Karla kills a sage. Karel fails to kill Kenneth. Athos uses Fortify. Rath waits for Brendan and the other warrior. Hector makes his way to Darin's room. Rath crit-kills Brendan. Guy finishes of Kenneth. Hector weakens Darin. Rath crit-kills Ursula (with a Killer Bow and both Guy and Lyn in range, he has 71 displayed crit! And yet, he fails to crit three times in a row. RNG is trolling me. -_-) Hector finishes off Darin and the other armor suicides into him. I finish off Jerme with Lyn, Guy, and Rath (RNG being trollish again). Everyone runs from the Reed brothers. Somehow, I end up putting Hector in Linus' range but not Lloyd, so they are no longer in support range of each other. That is rather convenient. Rath crit-kills Lloyd. Hector punches Linus in the face, Karla hits him and reaches level 20, then Lyn kills him. Nergal's room opens.

Karla dodges a berserk staff. Rath and Guy move up to Nergal's room, with Hector and Lyn close behind Karel and Karla stay behind to clean up the reinforcement armors. Athos stays where he is. He can heal from anywhere in the room. I clear out everything but Nergal on turn 12, but I decide to wait to let Karla and Karel catch up. Hector hits Nergal with a Killer Axe, critting once. Lyn hits him with her KIller Bow but does not kill him. I let Karla kill Nergal. The Regal Blade was the only sword she did enough damage with. :P

And now, I get to fight an angry Fire Dragon! Darros requested that I defeat the fire dragon using only Karla. I shall try, but if she looks like she's failing I will put in someone else to help her.

I play Filla's Might for Karla, but she falls one space short of the dragon. Nice. -_- I rescue her with Rath so that the blessing doesn't wear off, and drop her in front of the dragon the next turn. Umm ... Nils just got killed in one hit from a sage, and I have no desire to restart and do all the above again. There goes that plan! In the end, I just use Hector and Lyn to attack the dragon. Athos heals. Lyn gets a lucky crit on the EP, so that Hector can finish off the dragon on the following PP. And that's the game! Sorry, Nils ... at least you don't actually die?

So ... including Lyn's mode, my turncount comes out to be 469 turns. Ouch. I have no idea whether this is good or bad. I also let NPC Farina and Nils die. I feel bad.

Final character stats and thoughts coming up next.

[Sunwoo]

Whoops ... I sort of deleted my file so I can't get finals stats now. -_- Oh, well, I remember most of it anyway. Everyone hit level 20 promoted.

Hector returned to Ostia and because the marquess after word of his brother's death got out. With much help from his advisors, he became an enlightened leader. He married and became the father of Lilina, but no one could say who his wife was.

Hector was pretty good. He had solid speed and the best defense on the team. He was, however, weak to magic and not as good of a dodger as the others. He used swords, but only a little. He had no supports. Thumbs up to Hector.

Lyn stayed in Caelin until her grandfather's death. After his passing, she turned control of Caelin over to Hector and then set out for Sacae to stalk Rath. She found the Kutolah tribe quite easily, and she eventually married her fellow Sacaean.

Lyn was super blessed this playthrough! I'm pretty sure she capped strength. Her speed was excellent, as it usually is, but she had high enough luck so that she was practically untouchable. As implied above, Lyn got an A support with Rath. Kudos to Lyn.

Rath returned to the Kutolah after the journey had ended. He never left the tribe again, except that one time to stop Guy from fighting Karel. He married Lyn sometime after she tracked him down, and they became the parents of Sue.

Rath is always my best player, and this time was no different. He didn't get a single point of skill for ... I don't know, his first seven levels at least, but after I stuffed a few skill books down his throat, he did well. He had a B with Guy and an A with Lyn. He also capped speed.

Guy continued to travel around, honing his skills. As promised, he and Karel set out to fight against one another, but Rath stopped them. Guy then returned to his tribe and became the greatest swordsman of the Kutolah.

Guy's strength actually pulled through! I think he got 19 strength, which is only one above his average, but he had enough strength early on to help him clean up enemies quite well. He got a lot of crits, which was nice. He wasn't durable, but dodged enough for me to not care. Had A Karel and B Rath.

Karel never did get to fight Guy. He wandered the continent, challenging any opponents whom he deemed worthy, until one day he changed his ways and became the Saint of Swords. People were too relieved to wonder why.

Karel ... caused me a few problems. First of all, I had to restart and blitz through the map on the successive try to even get him. His strength only went up once, if I'm not wrong. He didn't max speed (although it was by no means bad) and his HP never went past 40. I think it was at 39 when he reached level 20. Still, it was nice having an additional unit around. He had A Guy and C Karla (I think ... on the last one).

Karla was unable to knock the crazy out of her brother, but she did marry Bartre after the journey had ended. They became the parents of Fir. Years later, Karla fell ill and died.

Karla actually didn't disappoint me, surprisingly. Her offense was terrible (I think she got two strength ups to put her at 16 strength), but she did well in speed and luck, letting her dodge well. I also gave her the Angelic Robe, which helped her durability a lot. After a little babying to get her some levels, she held her own well. Had C Karel because I wasn't willing to wait for her to get a B.

I apologize for not having final stats. I'm an idiot. ._.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Boron