I FINALLY own this game! (post of a newbie)

[Czar_Yoshi]

The general pattern for Second Seals is that each unit (bar Avatar) comes with a (usually) unique set of three base classes and all the classes that promote from those. There's not really a pattern along the lines of "X gets Y class, therefore they're likely to also have Z class" unless class Z promotes from class Y.

[Rxmonste]

Since you're going for a no grind run, I would advise that you use your Second Seals and Master Seals wisely. Since you're playing as a female Avatar I would recommend going Dark Flier for Galeforce and Chrom goes Paladin for Aegis for his shoddy resistance. But that's just me, do as you like. If you want Aether sooner for example then I won't blame you because Aether is arguably Chrom's best skill.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Wisely? This is Normal. You can get away with absolutely anything here, so do what you want.

[Rxmonste]

Wisely? This is Normal. You can get away with absolutely anything here, so do what you want.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. I'm used to playing on difficulty levels above normal so that's why I said that, lol.

[bookwormbabe29]

Me again! Sorry for the lack of updates, but the real world has been a mess lately, and my little kitty died unexpectedly. It's weird typing here without a cat snuggling up to me, but that is life, and I'm trying to move forward.

So! Game talk. Last I left off here, I was about to fight some risen. The battle with two risen on the world was mildly challenging, with the large numbers and them being equal to higher level. The stage was one of the borders near Ylisse (forget name exactly) and it had these slopes that were easy to defend. I had 8 units become four with pair up, a melee unit on each end of a slope and a mage/healer combo in the middle. 4th unit had cordelia flying around on mountain (air unit alone) terrain, so she was safe to throw javelins and take out flying units. Scored a bit of exp and some items, so a good fight.

From there, I noticed I now had two paralogues to do, so decided to hit them before getting too far ahead. Para 3 was rescuing some villagers with weak enemies, so I sent my two flying units for movement, and then a few of my under leveled people to catch up. Nothing too challenging here, though the idiotic villagers running towards the enemies was mind boggling. Came quite close to losing one as I couldn't reach an enemy flying unit who could kill a villager in the next round, but I was able to surround the villager by separating my paired up flying units. Saved everyone, and moved on.

Para 4 we recruited Anna! SCORE. I thought she was super cute in the last battle (thouh i guess it's two different anna's) and didn't think she'd actually join up. Gaius and Anna looted some chests (loot!) we knocked around a few easy enemies, and gained a cool new team mate. This battle seemed even easier, as my units scored a LOT of critical hits in this fight. I had Maribelle (I think i spelled that right) healing 1 damage from level up's more than damage from enemies, which is kind of sad. I don't generally play normal mode, and figured it would be easy... still, just easier than I would have thought. Looking forward to doing harder modes.

Next up was 'renewal' with our team pulling back after our 'defeat' (which wasn't clearly explained, as we just finished killing their defenses. Sure they had risen reinforcements, but I would have thought we'd press the attack). Catching the thieves wasn't too difficult, as my units barely need to try anymore. I don't know if the growth rates are much higher in this game or what, but my level up's have been amazing. The fight was over quite quickly, and I sat there killing reinforcements as I really liked the music/atmosphere of the stage.

Next up, kill the beast! Er, King. Looking over the enemy stats, I decided to try to make this somewhat of a fight, and benched most of my main units. Even with the second stringers, the fight didn't pose much of a challenge. I split my force in three, and just descended the stage killing everything as they approached. Being lower leveled, I needed to actually heal a few times. They gained quite a bit of experience, so while my main units are still stronger, my second units are not far behind. I haven't used Panne and Nowi much as their stones are limited, but other than them the units are all decently leveled. I brought Gaius as one my few main units to grab chests. I finished the stage....and suddenly it's two years later.

At this point, I had to pause to go over relationship guides. I had planned Chrom/Avatar, and had gained their S support before the fight. I watched the scene, and was able to put together S support = marriage. With unlimited supports, I had decided to reset, and keep developing supports to see some of the S supports. This bit me in the butt, as after beating 'mad king' Chrom married Sumia, who I thought was the Canon choice. Not wanting THAT to happen this game, I watched the scenes, and reset. I gave Chrom/Avatar their S support, redid the stage with my second stringers, and this time Chrom finished the mad king with a critical hit. There was a clear scene skipped (which seems to be Chrom getting married from what I'm reading) as he is now engaged to Avatar. Some scenes, and poof! Baby. Which it were that easier in real life, my wife and I have been hoping for a child for years now. Oh well.

With that marriage figured out, I'm trying to figure out some of my other potential marriages as no one is married yet, and i'm worried I'm falling behind if the game is marrying people at this point.

My favorite/main units at this point: Chrom, Avatar, Lissa, Sully, Cordelia, Gaius, Ricken. I use Sumia, Kellam, Maribelle, and Lon'qu a bit as well (who finally decided to gain some STR) but switch them out for others, like Vaike, Donnel, etc. I've married Chrom/Avatar, and I'm liking Cordelia/Gaius as a couple so far. Lon'qu was on my bench for a while, but as I was raising the lower level units and doing supports I liked Sully's reaction to him, and I've paired them up often since. I love Ricken with just about everyone, honestly, and don't know who to pair him up with at the moment. Lissa and Sumia are great units, but I haven't found a support chain I like for either of them yet. I am SO not worried about best 'mechanical' pairings at this point as the game as normal is easy enough... this run, I am focusing on story, and nothing 'clicks' for me so far yet. I'm open to ideas, if anyone knows a cute conversation to see, but hardly crucial as it's not for mechanical gain.

Thinking of mechanics, I am sitting on a large number of stat boosters, but haven't needed them. I am holding onto some now in case of an awesome new character shows up with low base stats. Still, my main units are nearing 20 fast, and will need to class change soon. Lissa already did, and I promoted her to a war cleric as none of my favorite people use axes at the moment, though I wouldn't be surprised if Chrom gains them upon promotion. At the moment, I am thinking of promoting most of my units and not re-classing much. Re-classing seems like it would make your units stronger, and with the game being easy enough, I don't want to break it any more than I have. If there are any characters who really should be re-classed, let me know and I'll consider it, but as of right now I'm thinking of skipping it and saving it for harder modes. Maybe if I get less experience, the enemies will catch up to me.... slim chance, I know, but figure it can't hurt to try.

So yea, that's where I am, debating what class changes and marriages to set up. As I debate, I saw another two risen battle. I'm going to go tackle it now, see what ideas come to me. Figured i'd post since I'm behind, and see if anyone had any suggestions for class change/marriages (again, not crucial to this thread). That done, I have some risen to fight....which asks the question, who control these things? Seemed like Aversa was controlling them for the mad king, but we didn't fight her, did we? That's not suspicious at all! Personally, I like how no one seems it important to mention this stuff so far. Anywho, battle calls! :)

[Sentacotus]

Ouch sorry about the cat as a dog lover/owner I can imagine that being hard hope all is well.

Sounds like you're having fun with the game so far. Yeah pairing up units just based on who you like is fun as hell. I kinda laughed when Chrom married Sumia that tends to be a problem for alot of people. And those villagers....you're a better person than me I let them die.

Edited January 26, 2015 by TacoMan42

[Rxmonste]

I'm sorry to hear about your pet

And about the villager rescue paralogue. I have always let those villagers die. Never managed to save them, maybe I needed more flying units?

And about pairings, yeah. No need to go into making everything optimal while you are playing Normal mode. It won't make that much of a difference since this is essentially easy mode.

[Melissa]

Make sure you make Donny a Hero

[Czar_Yoshi]

That done, I have some risen to fight....which asks the question, who control these things?

A bad guy.

But they're mostly just wandering around razing villages and doing standard zombie things (except in the DLC where they're primarily concerned with trolling people).

Second Seals: the only unit who really needs one is Donnel, should you want to use one. However Panne benefits greatly from one as well as Taguel is a pretty bad class. Everyone else is fine either way.

You get a Dragonstone drop from Gangrel and can buy more at a shop that opens pretty soon, so don't worry about Nowi running out of weapons. Her Dragonstone has 50 uses and that lasts a very long time on Normal/Hard with full deployment.

Growths in Awakening are indeed very high, we don't have precise data for them but ~50% is the norm for most non-HP stats.

Chrom is the only unit who marries automatically, and that's because he needs a child for the story. He'll actually automatically marry a generic unplayable village maiden if he doesn't have any support with anyone else by the end of Cht.11. Don't feel pressured to marry everyone else off in time for anything, you don't have nearly enough deployment slots to warrant getting more than half of the children in most playthroughs.

I don't know about supports that are particularly well-written (though I'm sure many others consider themselves experts on the matter), but there are a few ones you may want to consider avoiding: Manakete supports in general tend to range between abusive and creepy (there are a few OK ones in there though), and Stahl and Cordelia's kid has atrocious hair.

[bookwormbabe29]

Quick question: I've noticed Wind magic does double on flying units like in a few previous games. Do the fire and lightning based tomes have any benefits in this?

[Rxmonste]

Quick question: I've noticed Wind magic does double on flying units like in a few previous games. Do the fire and lightning based tomes have any benefits in this?

If you're asking if they have bonus damage when used against certain units then nope.

[Sethera]

Just gotta say, this has been a joy to read. It's pretty cool seeing somebody go through this for the first time, and I agree with most everybody here in that just doing what you want and ignoring the DLC is probably the best way to go for a first playthrough. If you really want to do DLC, I recommend doing it after you beat the game.

Personally, I always feel the need to rescue all the villagers every playthrough because I'm a perfectionist, but if I recall correctly, you can get by with rescuing only one because the others only give you a Ladle and a Log.

As for your question, Awakening's not like FE9 or 10 where certain magic is effective against certain units. The only exception is Wind as you mentioned, which makes up for it being the weakest magic in the game.

[Czar_Yoshi]

The only exception is Wind as you mentioned, which makes up for it being the weakest magic in the game.

Pretty sure none of the other Anima magic types have Brave Tomes, which would make Wind the strongest boosts or not.

The boost is actually x3, by the way- it's applied to the Tome's mt, not the damage you do. So a 4 mt Elwind Tome gets a +8 boost, and a 10 mt Rexcalibur Tome gets a +20 boost.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[eclipse]

RIP kitty.

Since you're on Normal, there's literally no need to optimize. Just have fun, and you'll beat the game fine~! As for stat boosters, I'd dump them once you pick up the next two characters - the rest probably won't need it, unless you're hellbent on using kids.

[Kirie]

Even if you're not using everyone, I would suggest pairing everyone up (eventually, not necessarily right away), so that you can play all of the kids' paralogues. You can pair up whoever you like, but I'd keep an eye on Sumia's supports since she has a rather limited pool of suitors to choose from compared to the rest of the ladies. You will likely get the most use out of pairing up the characters in your "main" team with each other (and therefore your bench warmers with each other as well) so you can make use of those support bonus, though on Normal mode, this certainly isn't necessary.

My sincerest condolences for your kitty, as well. :< The pain of losing a pet is terrible.

[bookwormbabe29]

Thank you all. Truly appreciate the condolences for little Rita.

Today's battles brought us to 'sea comers' for a classic port fight. I think the hardest part was not wasting exp with several units hitting level 20. I sent out Donnel (now a level 1 mercenary with the stats of a demi god) just to soak up the excess. By stage end, he was level 6 with a maxed stat already (skill or speed, I think, blanking now). After watching him clear half the field, I'm thinking he could solo the rest of the game with a vulnery as a backup. It was quite comical watching his happy 'dumb hick' routine as he bathed in the blood of the enemy fleet. Most of my main units hit level 20 with this fight. A few were just shy and this annoyed me, so I did a random risen battle to remedy that. They were so low leveled I just hit 'end' to let them charge me to death. That done, I promoted my units with the help of the new shop selling master seals, using up some of the money I've been sitting on from trying out 'golden gaffe.'

Chrom is now a great lord and gained spears, where I would have thought him more an 'axe' guy. Cara/tactician is now a Grand Master. Didn't gain any weapon type, which is fine, but surprising. Lissa was made a war cleric a few fights ago, and i'm loving the spiked metal dress. Ricken is now a sage, fairly typical, but the dark knight thing was just odd looking. Plus since I want to pair him with Lissa, the war cleric, I figured going 'dark' would be a poor choice. Sully is now a Paladin as i like more movement over axes. Lon'qu is a swordmaster, as I made Gaius my Assassin. We now have someone who can use bows! Huzzah. Cordelia is a dark flyer, which amuses me as I made Gaius her husband so they now share a dark theme. Sumia is a falcon knight to be different. Last few fights I've been fielding Frederick (great knight) to support Sumia, as all her other potential partners are married. With everyone being promoted, his being a promoted unit isn't such a drawback anymore, so I might take him along for now.

With new classes, we traveled down to see Aversa for some ships. Funny, I was just thinking we hadn't seen the last of her. We met King 'wasn't he dead?' and the the avatar's body twin. Revelation or two later, and now Avatar is a possible lost daughter/servant of Grima.... gee, that doesn't sound familiar at all. It's like a reverse Deirdre for crying out loud. Didn't see it coming, but I really should have. Battle starts, and I've deployed three flying units into this field or archers. I suppose I should have thought that out better.... opps? Not a big concern really, but still made me laugh at myself. Chrom/Avatar and Sully/Lon'qu took the right side, Cordelia/Gaius and Sumia/Frederick took the left, while Ricken/Lissa took the center with the hilarious Henry in tow. I took Cherce (think i spelled that right) and Virion as well, dashing in and out so she could gain some exp (and Minerva too, of course!) Honestly I might need to make her a permanent fixture on my team for Minerva alone. I use Minerva every time I play the older games, so it's a nice nod. I approve.

After the battle, Lucina joins us. This one didn't surprise me, honestly. One of the few spoilers I did learn was 'time traveling kids' and while I didn't know any names, that hint alone is enough to put two and two together long before this. I'm still confused about the mask though. I mean, what was she trying to hide? Her gender? There are plenty of strong woman in the game, so that doesn't need to be hidden. Her brand? Her own parents need to look super close up to see it, so that doesn't seem as big a giveaway as waving around a unique sword only possessed by royalty. It just doesn't add up in game, though out of game I suppose you could argue they wanted 'Marth' on the cover and it seemed a good way to do so. Still, just odd in my mind.

After that, I needed to redo my items, but saw three new paralogues open up. Curios, I saved and started them, reset, repeat, etc, to get an idea of what I was coming up. one of the stages introduced Morgan, asking what would 'mother' do in this situation. And since the other two chapters have green NPC units just like Morgan (Severa and Kjelle if I spelled it right) I'm guessing these could be the future kids. Chrom and Cara/tactician had Lucina, so I have two other married pairs (Sully and Lon'qu, and Cordelia and Gaius) so I'm guessing they each have a kid. Two sets of parents, three potential kids though, so maybe some parents have multiple kids, or my theory is off a tad. Not enough time to start a chapter now though. We'll party for Gregor's birthday and see to these potential allies tomorrow.

Also, appreciate the feedback on the tomes, as I wasn't seeing anything for fire/lightning, and wasn't sure if i missing something. For green NPC unit, I just about always reset if even a single one of them dies. It's usually a pain in Blazing sword, that one level where you meet with Hector's brother and you have nearly a dozen npc units charging ahead. But yea, I do try and save most NPC units.

In conclusion, at this point I am guessing the child options are starting to open up, so I'm thinking I might want to work on pairing up my bench warmers like Kirie said. Part of me thinks to keep pushing through, use the weaker units for the story battles, but the other side of me hates benching the favorites this far into the game. And If I did use them, I'd need to promote them eventually too. I used a bit of cash getting enough master seals for the main team, so not sure I can afford to promote everyone without another trip to golden gaffe and the DLC. Unlocking stages and new characters = good! Grinding to do so = bad! Gah. Not sure what I'll do at this point, though I'm open to ideas.

[eclipse]

You'll get some more cash as you plow through the story. Sell your Bullions~!

As for kids. . .choose when you want to pick them up. Their parents affect their stats and two of their skills. Since this is a blind Normal run, I wouldn't worry too much about inherited skills. . .but maybe stats, if you want to use them in the remainder of the story.

[Kirie]

The official Awakening mini-comic has a little two-page story that talks about the origins of the mask. It's posted on the main SF page, though parts of it might be spoiler-y if you haven't played through the whole game yet (I honestly don't remember, it's been a while since I've read it). The reasoning given, though, is to hide the children's identities and specifically Lucina's brand. It is kind of hard to notice, but if someone did happen to, it would likely raise a lot of questions that she would have rather avoided.

[hersheyman]

The brand doesn't have to be easy to see for Lucina to want to cover it up. All that's needed is for one person to notice and there comes a world of problems. Lucina will give more reasons for the mask in a later chapter and a dlc chapter.

Did you start looking at the Lucina/Morgan supports yet? Or any of the supports between the parents and the kids?

[Czar_Yoshi]

though parts of it might be spoiler-y if you haven't played through the whole game yet

That comic has spoilers up through the end of Cht.24 and for all children, though the atmosphere is based off the Future Past DLC pack so you'd want to play that first too (which contains very major spoilers for all children and endgame).

Anyway, Lucina had the mask made for her by a friend. In the official comic she says it's to hide her brand, but she's a lot more specific in the Hot-Spring Scramble map... If you want to know. No spoilers for anything past where you are now in the main story, but it's a line from a rather touching convo that you may want to read in-game and all in one piece, if you have any intent of getting that DLC.

Lucina

Masks are good for that. The moment I first saw my father, it was all I could do not to leap into his arms. That, or break down in tears at having seen him alive again after so many years. I couldn't have gotten through it if not for that mask...

Kids: the reason you've got four of them from only three pairs is that Chrom and Avatar (both genders) each have on tied to them, and each of the normal 1st gen females (anyone who can S-rank with units other than Avatar) also has one tied to them. So you're getting children from Chrom, Avatar, Sully and Cordelia right now.

[bookwormbabe29]

Ah, that makes sense. Wasn't thinking of Avatar and Chrom as separate.

Haven't read the comic, but I will keep that in mind for when I finish up the game. I guess my main issue with the mask covering her brand is she willingly waives around her father's one of a kind sword everywhere she goes. If the goal is stealth, you'd think she'd pick up an iron sword at the shop and not show of her unique sword in a tournament watched by who knows how many people, for example.

I didn't do much today, but I did make the use of my time. Loading up this morning, I was looking over Lucina's stats and her skills, seeing if I understood how inheritance worked from what I had looked at. Again, goal wasn't to min/max, but to have a better grasp, you know? I noticed avatar has passed on 'solidarity' to her, which isn't that great a skill in my opinion. So I decided to experiment. I loaded up my file before the last fight and getting Henry/Lucina. My avatar had been level 20/3, so to test the waters I ran down to the DLC 'exponential growth' and quickly leveled her to level 5 for a new skill (Frederick having gained Luna at level 5 for my first promoted skill, I had high expectations). Gained Ignis, which seems quirky. I then redid the stage (easier the second time even without using my avatar) and like expected, Lucina now joins with Ignis. I have no idea if this is a smart move yet as she already has Aether (holy!) as a skill based activation skill... still, it was a test that worked out as expected, so I call it a win.

At that point, I had to deal with snow. I'm in good ol Mass, a little south of Boston here in the USA and we are having ourselves a full on blizzard. Drifts made the snow piles anywhere from 3 feet to 8 feet high in some places. When you're six feet tall and need to look UP at the snow piles, there is a lot of snow lol. Anywho, that soaked up a lot of time and energy. When I came in to rest, my brain was fried. I tried to do a stage 3 times, and I couldn't wrap my head around the words. Unable to follow the plot, I ended up putting years of RPG gaming to use, and did some mindless grinding for my bench warmers to build up supports. It was mindless slaughter of low level risen from reeking boxes. Being so low leveled, they didn't give much exp. None of the bench warmers even caught up to my main units in levels (though Donnel is has ditched the 'demi' part of his demi god status) which surprised me, but at this point I have my couples paired up.

So while hardly optimized, the pairings for this run are:

Chrom/Cara(avatar)

Lissa/ricken

Sully/Lon’Qu

Sumia/ Frederick

Cordelia/Gaius

Nowi/Donnel

Cherche/Henry

Olivia/Virion

Maribelle/stahl

Panna/Vaike

Miriel/gregor

Tharja/Kellam

... I feel REALLY bad for some of their kids lol. The last pairings had a lot of cringing on my part, and my 'plan' (for lack of a better term) was minimizing the cringe factor. Take into account I know very little about the kids, so I don't know if any of these would be optimal mechanically. That said, my reasoning was as follows:

I'm liking the use of Cherche and Henry, so I may end up using them more and hoped they would pair well, and the story worked for me. I had started Tharja/Kellam earlier as I was debating using Tharja as my dark mage before henry showed up, and Kellam is a solid wall I called upon before Cherche joined. Donnel seemed 'young' enough for Novi, and seeing how powerful Donnel is, I can stick him in the back and not use them for now, and potentially have an insane family of powerhouses for any uber hard DLC. Virion and olivia had an 'artsy' feel to them, and their first support had them dancing, so I went with it. From there I began really cringing... liking Maribelle the most of my single ladies, I paired her up with Stahl who seemed the best candidate left, and the story wasn't too bad. I experimented with those left, and enjoyed Gregor/Miriel more than expected, so I went with it. That left Panne with Vaike or Libra... neither really clicked for me honestly, so I went with Vaike as I like him over marrying the priest. Not the best of reasons, but it's done, and stages appeared with each marriage, for the kids I have to assume.

That done, I allowed myself to sleep, going to bed early (why I didn't think of early is beyond me) and woke up a little while ago. I'm going to be heading back to sleep soon, but figured I'd update this while I had the energy (and brain cells) to do so. Tomorrow I'm thinking of proceeding with the main story a bit and leaving the many paralogue (and kids) alone for now (assuming this doesn't screw me over...right?). That will give me time to gain a few promoted class skills to pass onto kids. I've figured out you gain a skill at level 5, and I without double checking at the moment I 'think' someone said level 15 as well. Not sure if it's worth it to wait that long, but I can think on it tomorrow.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Nothing bad happens if you leave Paralogues 'til later. In fact, on higher difficulties it's a very good idea to leave Par.2-4 so you can use them to build supports and gain exp for the children, who usually come with low stats and high growths.

You specifically pass on the last skill you have equipped. That means if you open up the Skills section of the menu and rearrange them, whichever one is at the bottom of the list will be inherited. So while you always can grind for more new skills, you can also pass down old ones like Avatar's Veteran (except Chrom. His inheritance is fixed).

Lv.15 is when promoted classes gain their second skill, yes. Outside of Dark Flier, they usually aren't worth waiting to get- most promoted Lv.5 skills are pretty good.

[eclipse]

Lv.15 is when promoted classes gain their second skill, yes. Outside of Dark Flier, they usually aren't worth waiting to get- most promoted Lv.5 skills are pretty good.

Says the guy who passes Axefaire to daughters when possible

There's a few niche level 15 promoted skills here and there that you might want to pass on, but it definitely won't be needed for a casual run of any sort. Funniest thing I did was pass Gregor's Armsthrift to his kid.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Says the guy who passes Axefaire to daughters when possible

Actually I prefer Despoil

[bookwormbabe29]

My long awaited return! How you all survived without me, I'll never know. I had family visiting, and sacrifices had to be made! Still, I return with more tales for your amusement....as soon as I stop channeling Virion lol.

Well, to recap, my last story battle update was 'of sacred blood' where we grabbed Henry and Lucina. I did some grind work to pair up my bench warmers, and unlocked several paralogues. Still, being behind in the main story, I decided to advance that a bit, see what skills I came across.

"Flames on the blue' opening scene did a terrible job at being subtle. "Lucina: you will be betrayed by someone close to you." "Avatar: my head!" Not a direct quote, but still, that's laying it on pretty thick. We already had the prologue chapter where you kill Chrom, this blatant hint doesn't seem needed. I was hoping it was a misdirection attempt, and that Basilio/Flavia are the real enemies here (why haven't you two joined up, eh?) but 'inexorable death' tends to say otherwise. The battle was again, easy. 'Strategy' has been reduced to 'pair up and charge' as it's faster and the enemies are pathetic on normal. I literally watched several units in a row all attack with hit rates from 0-17%, and not one of them could actually deal damage. i mean, come on. I was planning on playing all the modes and work my way up, but I think i'm going to jump right to Lunatic after this run. Being so easy, I let new recruits Henry and Lucina split the map and go slaughter happy and level up a bit. I had two, TWO, perfect levels on this one map. Two. If I had two perfect levels a game in older gens, I would be happy. Two in one battle is nuts. Still, my growths have been so impressive this game I shouldn't be surprised. I've yet to see a level with only 1 or 2 stats, and 3 has been a rare sight. 4 and 5 are the norm for me so far, and I have to wonder if this luck is typical, or if it's factoring into the pathetic difficulty.

At this point, I met with Sarah, my fire emblem fanatic friend, for dinner, and we had a streetpass (think that's right term). She's had the game since launch, and has her lunatic+ fully maxed team ready to show off. Easy as the enemies have been, there was no contest between the teams. Not to mention I hadn't updated my team from when the option first appeared, so she slaughtered my team. I wanted to recruit her avatar with her still here, so I did a quick run of Golden Gaffe to afford her rates. I then spent nearly every coin I had to hire her. Considering everything is already too easy, I won't be sending her into battle. The class I hired her as was a falcon knight, so I'm throwing some healing staves on her and keeping her in the back without a weapon. I can afford to have a unit do nothing as again, easy fights, and I can say I have one of my best friends fighting with me. It's cheesy, but I love seeing 'Sarah' on the roster.

Next up, 'smoldering resistance.' Ohhh, new character! I sent my flyers (Cherche and Cordelia) up over the barrier to rescue her, with Sully not far behind. One she was rescued, it was a Henry/Lucina slaughter party with special guest Say'ri, them splitting the map and flinging the bodes into the sea. Lucina is quickly becoming one of my strongest characters..... that's my girl! I let recruited Avatar Sarah visit the houses to give her something to do.

Next battle was 'Naga's voice." (Nice tree!). Liking Say'ri, I deployed her and let her, Lucina, and Henry continue to lead the slaughter. The terrain being slightly annoying, they split up to tackle it better, though Cordeila and Cherche scored some kills as well by virtue of having flight. Still, easy or no, I wasn't about to send them into the path of archers with Silver bows as that would be a bad habit to get into. Say'ri was quit fun this map, and scored bonus dialogue with the boss, which I was not expecting. I can see her sticking around. After the fight, it's Tiki! Sorry Tiki, Mar-Mar is in another castle. We apparently need to collect jewels now, and have 2/5. Basilio saying he forgot to mention their country's jewel to Flavia was funny, have to admit.

We quickly head down to 'inexorable death' which is really a wonderful title to set the mood. We have another confusing scene over troop numbers. We have troops we never see fight, and the enemy has a million troops which we won't kill half of, unless I really underestimated this game's length, you know? Anywho, we break into the middle fort (Steiger?) with another three way split. Seeing chests on both sides of the room, I deploy Anna with lock touch as well as my usual, Gaius. I let my units go to town to quickly clear the enemies near the front, and then let Lucina/Henry/Say'ri take the map by thirds with little aid. I had the map cleared of everyone but the boss and only waiting on treasure collecting when this Excellus guy starts being our new evil jerk. Our allies turn on us, so I sat around and let my units slaughter them. Better as EXP than an enemy, yea? Chrom finishes off the boss with some nifty bonus dialogue. Henry/Lucina/Say'ri are officially caught up on levels, and Lucina is so powerful it makes her mommy proud. Then we have the sad story of Basilio falling in battle. Poor guy, he was nice to have around, but it wouldn't be Fire Emblem without characters dying. Flavia, get back here and join up already before you're picked off as well. Seriously.

The last battle I have done is 'Sibling blades.' I let Henry/Cherce fly left, Gaius/Cordelia fly right, and flooded the middle with the rest, Sully/Lon'qu leading the way. (Also, still using Chrom/Avatar, Lissa/Ricken, and Lucina/Say'ri). Putting more of my units into the rotation made it go by quickly, even with the fire hazard. The fire hazard did cost me a treasure chest and a restart of the level, though the enemies collapsed so fast it was hardly noticeable. Second time, I let recruited avatar Sarah fly down with Anna to pick one side. Finally make it to Yen'fay, and looking forward to learning of the rift between siblings! Say'ri attacks, and we get some comments from Say'ri, but Yen'fay is mostly silent. She finishes him off, and Excellus gives us the 'he did it for you' story, which seems like a terrible idea. How did THAT deal go down? "Join us, be evil, and we'll hunt your sister down with our soldiers but we promise we won't kill her?" Because Excellus seems so trusting (eye roll). Not to mention sending his own troops to kill her. I mean, wouldn't that violate his own contract, freeing him to do what he wants? Unless he's sending in super weak units to die on purpose and collapse the empire from within, he's REALLY bad at his job. I just wanted to go over and kick his body for being an idiot.

That's what I have for now. I'll push on with the story for a bit, and go back and grab the kids after, I think, as there are a LOT of side missions, and I want to see the story at the moment.