screenshot Let's Play FE4 Binary: Where Hacking Goes To Get Hacked

[epilepsyduck]

Man, I wish I could pair up Beowulf and Briggid in my Binary playthrough. The Binary patch I have seems to be mostly the same as this one, but almost all portraits are Thracia-like, and the Beo Sword for no good reason is B rank. Unless female thieves have B rank, Patty has a cheated B rank, or she could use the Beo Sword anyway, it becomes an instant pairing no-go.

Ah, I think I've seen that version of the patch floating around before! Maybe it's based on an older build before the weapon mechanics were modded to allow for *-rank weapons that aren't Holy Weapons?

You wouldn't happen to have that patch on you still, would you? I'm kinda interested in the portraits if nothing else.

It's time to kick of Chapter 2 for real! This'll cover the march to Thove and the severe weather and flying pests that blocks our way to it.

Chapter 4 Part 2: The forecast for today is: inaccurate

I've certainly kept everyone waiting long enough at this point. Let's annihilate the population of another nation!

Giving Tiltyu a siege tome was one of this hack's better ideas. It makes getting her some experience much less of a hassle.

Like so.

Midayle and Adean can still have their conversation in this map, but instead of a Hero Bow, she gives him...

A Master Bow! Much like the other Master weapons, it's basically a Hero Bow with more damage and crit but less accuracy and more weight. Unlike the Lance and Axe, it's not 1-2 range (neither is the Master Sword, which we have yet to see), but it's very useful regardless. Besides, I've never been overly fond of 1-2 range bows in hacks.

Her conversations with Jamke and Azel still yield a Hero Bow and Rescue Staff, respectively, in case you'd rather go for one of those instead. It's nice that Midayle gets something a little different to incentivize picking him over Jamke, though, especially since the main advantage of the pairing (Pursuit) is no longer all that important.

Our first obstacle are all these magic users. Rather than a squad of crappy Wind Mages led by an unarmed Bishop, they consist of dismounted Mage Knights, a High Priest and a definitely-armed Bishop.

And yes, this won't be the last time we see enemies who are dismounted. They can't actually use the mount/dismount feature, so they're basically treated as a different class entirely. Though in practice dismounted Mage Knights are just Mage Fighters without access to Light magic. I suppose technically all the Generals we've encountered are just dismounted Iron Knights, but nevermind that.

All the Mage Knights are packing Elwind and Blizzard. The latter tome has an interesting new feature; it now has a chance of inflicting Sleep on targets, another Thracia mechanic ported over. I don't know how that chance is actually calculated, and it seems to be fairly low, but it can really make life difficult.

The High Priest only has a measly Wind tome, but his Fortify staff makes him an annoyingly effective healer.

Cuvuli ditched that Physic staff and picked up Elwind instead, but kept the Sleep staff around because apparently all his troops being able to Sleep us just wasn't enough for him. Now that he's actually, y'know, armed he can take advantage of his boosted stats (most notably +6 Magic) to maybe do something before his inevitable death. He's also learned the Life skill, but being your typical squishy wizard I can't imagine that's going to help him all that much. You're supposed to pair that with Prayer, dummy!

I suppose Lachesis will be the first of our number to weather the blizzard.

I'm not even remotely sorry.

Since the Sleep effect can only kick in if the spell actually hits, she's in no danger.

The others continue to slowly inch forward through the woods. I don't know why enemy commanders seem to love bogging down their own mages by putting them in the woods like this.

Deet'var will be flying our way for the next few turns. I'll get to her and the other Pegasus Knights when they become a problem.

Another pirate bites the dust with a lucky Bolting crit.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd. That is considerably less lucky.

And another siege tome crit. Nice!

We're all bunched up and ready for more harsh weather conditions.

They're less than successful.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but Fortify now has 15 range instead of 10. Physic got the same buff, actually, but the other ranged staves didn't. Just a little tidbit that makes them more useful in our hands and more annoying in theirs.

The pirates are still tearing giant chunks out of the villages. I should've let Fury deal with them, but I wanted her and Azel to spend some quality time together until they're trapped in Hetero Baby Party hell like the other happy couples.

Yep, Peg Knights are still inbound.

Briggid's been training to bring down all these flying ladies, but only manages a measly +1 MHP, +1 Luk. I've been a loyal supporter of you and this is how you repay me?

Despite his higher movement, Beowulf hasn't been charging boldly forward like the rest of the calvary because he needs to stay near Briggid. He still finds action, though.

Let's test out that new Master Bow on Cuvuli before he has a chance to Sleep anyone.

Bye bye, generic Bishop #087115.

+1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Luk. Midayle continues to get better and better.

With the boss out of the way, his mages are even more easy to pick off.

We also deal with another pirate. I didn't think piracy would be such a problem in Snowy Pegasus Land.

Waste of a Bolting use? Yes. Worth it so Tiltyu would get another level?

Maaaaaaybe. (+1 Spd, +1 Luk)

+1 MHP, +1 Mdf. You sure did level up, Sylvia.

I don't think Blizzard's sleep effect goes off so much as a single time in this update. It helps they're mostly attacking a unit who'll heal whatever minuscule damage they deal automatically at the start of the next turn.

The High Priest is fed up with this bullshit, and attacks in a rage with all 2 Hit that he could muster. Predictably, the assault fails.

Deet'var is nearly on us, so I think it's time to look at what her and her troops can do.

The Peg Knights are carrying Horseslayers and Pursuit Rings, but nothing else. A bit of a pain given how effectiveness works, but not too dangerous.

The Falcon Knights, on the other hand, have Sleep Swords, because there just wasn't enough stuff that could inflict Sleep on the map yet. They've also got healing staves, and Continue, both of which make them extra annoying.

Then we have Deet'var herself, and she's definitely received a few buffs. Not only did she get large boosts to every stat (including a weirdly huge buff to Magic for some reason), but she' also ditched that Prayer Ring for a Horseslayer while moving Prayer into her personal skills along with Critical, which makes her both deadlier and harder to kill. She also got an extra leadership star and, for whatever reason, retained A Swords despite Falcon Knights only having B Swords in FEBinary. I guess they didn't want to give her the Silver Lance instead?

With all that said, I'd like to get these mages out of the way before she arrives to make life more difficult for us.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd. It's going okay, I guess.

And the slaughter continues. Even the clergy aren't safe from our blades.

I figured it was also time to patch ourselves up a bit, and Claude got a really excellent +1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf level for his trouble.

They're nearly in range now.

Make that actually in range, for Azel anyway.

I'm pretty sure Meteor doesn't have a crit bonus, but that doesn't stop Azel from getting critical hits constantly with the thing it seems.

We're ready for a vicious assault.

The first one to attack comes up with an idea that's pretty harebrained, to be perfectly honest.

Not as much as her friends, though, most of whom proceed to attack Ira for some reason known only to the tactical mind of the AI. Not a single one of them survives.

Those who didn't attack Ira made a similarly foolish choice by going for Fury, who has the Wind Sword equipped and makes short work of all of them.

+1 MHP, +1 Str. Sure, I'll take it.

Deet'var herself didn't get any attacks in on enemy phase, so here's Briggid making her life a lot more difficult.

I was admittedly hoping for a crit, but we've still got her on the ropes. We just need a way to deal with Prayer.

As a lark, I let Noish attack the boss, and was surprised when this happened.

He even got an unexpectedly decent level from it, too, with +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Luk. Maybe you aren't entirely beyond redemption.

I've cut most of the long trip to Thove castle out, so here's some pics of Fury and her effective damage weapons.

Alright, now we're where we need to be. First, the Mage Knight and Myrmidons.

Easy.

+1 MHP. So much for growth units.

Those guys are out of our hair, and out of this plane of existence entirely.

It seems like Blue Elliot realized this was a terrible idea, though. He's gone and raised the bridge on us, leaving a Mage Fighter and two Mage Knights out in the cold. And yes, they do all have Blizzard, though unlike the other Blizzard mages, their AI means they won't move an inch.

They aren't very good at using it, though.

We've still got a few pirates to do away with before we start trying to conquer another castle, though. Fury handles this guy...

And gets an immensely bland +1 MHP, +1 Spd level out of the deal.

The remaining pirate is handled by none other than Noish, though admittedly Ira was standing nearby with the King Sword to help.

+1 Def. Honestly, anything that isn't HP-Skill is a win coming from you.

Now that we're done there, we've got some weathermen to deal with.

They're inaccurate as always.

And when they finally get a hit in, Great Shield robs them of dealing any damage at all. Lex has exactly enough resistance for Great Shield to negate all the damage.

I really like that generic Mage Fighter palette. I kind of wish other FE games had more varied palettes for enemies.

Holyn ended up eating a Blizzard to the face at one point.

He doesn't make the same mistake twice.

I completely forgot about the ballista in the mountains, given that it can hit like six spaces of traversable terrain, and foolishly place Adean on one such space. She's fine, though.

Alright, enough getting pelted from afar.

Another stylish backstab by the newly-competent Dew.

Let's patch Holyn up a bit and idiotically capture the experience bar in one swoop.

All to let him take sweet revenge on these mages for nearly killing him.

And to get a totally kickass level, to the tune of +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Mdf.

There, that's that taken care of.

Thove itself sits ripe for the taking, but we'll have to hold off on that due to image limits. See you soonish, I hope!

Edited April 20, 2016 by whenbananasattack

[epilepsyduck]

A double post is a necessary evil in times of famine, I just hope I can be forgiven for such a transgression!

Chapter 4 Part 3: From mediocrity, a true hero emerges

Instead of progressing on to Thove castle, I decided to plop everyone here to grind love points.

Tiltyu and Levin is a go. For reasons I haven't gone into yet, this pairing no longer breaks the game straight from the get-go, but it's still pretty great.

Sylvia and Claude are hitched too. Prayer + Life is really gonna help the kids, I think. A shame we don't have a second Lightning tome to pass to Corpul, though. I'd rather have Lana receive it, but having a weapon right off the bat would be a boon to the poor boy.

Finally, Fury and Azel are paired up. I almost wish I'd gone with Iron Mage for Azel so he could pass down better staves to Sety, but that would've made using Azel really annoying in the short term, so I guess it evens out.

I sent Fury to deal with the utterly pointless ballista in the mountains once she and Azel tied the knot. Maios could've set that one up a little better.

Speaking of which, let's check how Blue Elliot and pals are doing.

The armors are pretty bog-standard. They don't even have Great Shield!

The Iron Mages, on the other hand, do have the skill, as well as healing staves on the off chance something here actually survives fighting you.

Maios here is a much thornier issue. In addition to Tornado, he's got a droppable Blizzard tome, and he's not afraid to Sleep units with it. He's also got a nasty skill combo of Great Shield, Continue and Critical to make fighting him more dangerous than fighting any of his mooks.

If you're wondering about that A in Wind magic, he's got minor Holsety blood, much like Shagaal having minor Hezul. Unlike Shagaal, he won't be taking advantage of that to pick up a Holy Weapon or anything, but it's a nice detail anyway since he's Levin's uncle and should've had that Holy Blood to begin with.

All this talk of how threatening he is will be completely hypothetical thanks to Adean's Silence Staff, of course.

No more evil gloating for you, Blue Elliot! Save it for the villains who matter.

+1 MHP. Figures, really.

Let's bring this bridge back down.

I do appreciate the game's attempts to give Dew something to do regardless of whether or not you went through the herculean effort of promoting him.

I guess the plan to raise a bridge and just wait for Sigurd to die of old age isn't gonna work.

Briggid will kick this little slaughter off.

As well as get a fantastic level of +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf. Holy shit, where was that hiding all this time?!

I'm still amused by her ability to steal money by firing arrows at people.

Midayle lacks such refined archery techniques, but makes up for it by having a ridiculously strong bow.

Lex gets in on the Master weapon action.

I guess I could've thought ahead a bit better here, but it's not a big deal.

Especially with the AI's astounding ability to engineer its own demise.

If they've got a deathwish, I'm not going to judge.

Alright, that's the last of the generics. Now onto the boss.

I wanted Levin to kill Maios to get his Blizzard tome.

He flubs it, though, and doesn't even scratch him.

I guess there's only one thing to do; test out that new toy Ira got!

And that ends that, finally.

After all that, it was time to send everyone home.

+1 MHP and +1 MHP, +1 Mgc, respectively. I don't know what I expected.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk. You certainly do have levels and gain stats from them.

Sylvia visits some random ass village, and performs her Gamefreeze Dance without, oddly enough, freezing the game. She gets the Defender Sword for her troubles, which now only gives +5 Defense when equipped instead of +7. A shame, really, but it still has its uses.

Everyone's back at home, nice and cozy from all those sleep-inducing blizzards outside.

I gave a few people a second chance at tackling the Arena. They did surprisingly well:

Arena Rankings and Level Ups:

ARENA RANKINGS- Noish *, Sylvia *, Claude *


ARENA LEVELS-

Noish: 3 levels- +4 MHP, +1 Skl, +3 Str, +1 Luk, +1 Def

That was oddly decent of you, Noish. I'm surprised, but not quite impressed.

Sylvia: 4 levels- +3 MHP, +1 Str, +2 Mgc, +2 Luk, +3 Mdf

There's really not much to say when the Blaggi duo level up except "you leveled up".

Claude: 2 levels- +2 Mgc, +1 Mdf

Yep, you definitely did level up.

We've got another two candidates ready for promotion. Unless Alec picks up the slack somehow, this'll probably be the last time in Gen 1. Tiltyu will go first.

Mage Fighter is, of course, Tiltyu's default promotion. It's got good stat boosts (+3 Skl, +3 Str, +6 Spd, +4 Mgc, +4 Def, +5 Mdf, +1 Mov) and provides the Continue skill, B Staves and C Light. And C Swords too, I guess, but let's be real, no one gives Swords to female Mage Fighters, and especially not to Tiltyu.

Mage Knight is Tiltyu's alternate path. The boosts are largely weaker, with +1 Skl, +3 Str, +2 Spd, +3 Mgc, +4 Def, +2 Mdf, +4 Mov, but it does grant a huge movement bonus to compensate. The ranks are mostly worse, too, as she doesn't get Light tomes and only gets C Staves. She does get B Swords, though, which I guess makes Swords less worthless for her if only because she can access better ones.

Despite what you may think, I'm going with Mage Knight here. Even with the boosts from Mage Fighter, Tiltyu's just kind of unexceptional and frail, and I'd rather have her playing hit-and-run and pelting things from afar with Bolting than pretending she's anything resembling a real combat unit. Besides, she gets a pretty white pony and everything!

Noish just barely made it to Level 20, and now gets to promote so he'll stop being terrible.

His first class option is Paladin. The stat boosts are quite balanced and slightly defensively oriented (+3 Skl, +2 Str, +3 Spd, +5 Mgc, +3 Def, +5 Mdf, +1 Mov), and he gets full weapon triangle access. No new skills, though, a thing it shares in common with his other promotion.

The alternate promotion is to steal Finn's thunder and go Duke Knight. The boosts are a little more offensively oriented (if ultimately inferior), at +1 Skl, +4 Str, +1 Spd, +3 Def, +3 Mdf, +1 Mov. He doesn't get and Axe rank, but switches A Swords for A Lances.

There's really no contest here, though. Paladin is the better class all-around. +2 Str more than Paladin really doesn't make up for all the downsides to Duke Knight as a class. Also, his palette as a Paladin looks a lot cooler.

Sigurd finally conquers Thove, spawning a discussion about how it's totally okay that he keeps destroying everything he touches because the things he touches largely suck anyway.

Let's get ready to watch a massive NPC battle while a border guard disallows us from going to help for... some reason.

In this corner, we have Pegasus Knights.

And in this corner, we have the same thing, but slightly shittier.

Sounds like it's time to go home.

Also, Pamela totally cheats and brings in a bunch of overpowered archers. There truly is no honor left in the world.

Things go okay for the yellow ladies at first.

Especially once Mahnya gets involved.

Can I just mention that battles and events like this are why I absolutely love Genealogy. Despite all the weird mechanics and balance issues, it's still probably one of my favorites. Of course, those issues are also why I love this hack.

Sorry about getting distracted there for a second, let's look at our courageous pegasus ally. Mahnya's pretty tough, and like all the NPC Falcon Knights has retained her A Swords despite Fury only getting a B.

In a pure 1-on-1 fight, Mahnya would probably actually beat Pamela, who doesn't have the Shield Ring and thus has inferior defenses. Of course, having Critical instead of Charisma might've evened those odds a little bit.

The item she's got is a Critical Guard, which protects her from both Critical attacks and effective damage, like a weird Iron Rune/Fili Shield hybrid. Not like Mahnya's got any way to deal effective damage to her, though, that's really only relevant for when we fight her.

That's all a moot point, of course, because Pamela's not alone, and her squad, in addition to some ho-hum Pegasus Knights, has two Killer Lance and Master Lance toting Falcon Knights that are downright lethal.

That's not even getting into the utterly ludicrous troops Andre brought with him. They've got both a Hero Bow and a Hero Sword, and can pretty effortlessly demolish Mahnya's knights.

Enemy phase goes incredibly poorly for the NPCs.

A weird little glitch happens whenever Andre's Bow Knights use their swords. The rider totally disappears and we just get a horse using telekinesis to swing a sword at someone.

Here it is again in case you don't believe me.

In a single turn, these three are all that's left. Mahnya's totally got this, you guys.

Ah, well, maybe not so much...

I've had her survive a ridiculously long time before, but I suppose it wasn't meant to be this time.

Goodbye, noble Falcon Knight. We hardly knew ye.

The Lake Spirit Queen pretty much immediately knows she's fucked the second Mahnya's corpse hits the ground.

Andre sends Pamela north towards the castle we just captured, which I left totally undefended because I am a genius.

Can we defend a castle that's several miles away? Will this border guard stop being a useless moron and just let us through already? Check in at whatever nebulous amount of time from now it takes for me to post the next update to find out!

[Alastor15243]

Why would anyone give a class that can use fewer weapons worse stats? The way you describe it it sounds like there's not a lot of justification behind Duke Knight being worse than Paladin.

[epilepsyduck]

Why would anyone give a class that can use fewer weapons worse stats? The way you describe it it sounds like there's not a lot of justification behind Duke Knight being worse than Paladin.

Far as I can tell, there isn't any justification for it. The split classes are cool, but they're not always balanced.

With Pamela flying for a castle I foolishly left undefended and Andrei marching straight for the capital itself, let's join Sigurd as he and his army sit and watch, helpless to deal with it because an NPC told them not to.

Chapter 4 Part 4: Hannibal Lecter wears a dumb hat

Andrei's ridiculous Bow Knight squad effortlessly chewed through Mahnya's crappy squad, and waste no time capturing the capital.

They all immediately leave after doing so. See you guys in Chapter 5, I guess!

Skipping all that untranslated dialogue, we've now got a bunch of enemies chasing after some helpless civilians, because it wouldn't be Fire Emblem if shitty villagers didn't run around on the map at least once.

Daccar also sets out a bunch of mercenaries for us to deal with later. Some of them nabbed a class change, even!

We've got more pressing concerns, though. There's a pair of dismounted Mage Knights with the ever-present Blizzard tome, and I'd prefer not having to deal with them for too long.

Y'know, I'm not really seeing the resemblance to a meteor that the Meteor tome's animation should have. It's kind of just a generic explosion.

While Azel hit with perfect accuracy, neither Tiltyu nor Levin were able to do the same. I guess he can live for another turn.

Not his friend so much, though.

The green unit's escape plan seems to consist entirely of "go north". Lucky for them, that's where we are right now.

Green Kinbois- I mean, Donovan, sets out a few soldiers who've actually promoted to deal with our approach. Maybe you should've sent a few of those guys after the greenies.

Dew has cut through the mountains to deal with the inclement weather.

The NPCs had no idea that we aren't interested in saving them, but rather in devouring them whole and gaining power from it. Alec's getting all of them, because the fucker's like level 12 and I'm not stupid enough to let him near actual combat.

They only give 50 EXP instead of a free level, which is a shame. If he'd had the Elite Ring, he'd have gotten the full 100, but he didn't have anywhere near enough money to afford it.

The pursuing Fighters all try to take a chunk out of Fury, as I'd hoped they would.

Well, I'd also hoped to remember to equip the Lady Sword for this, but my failures know no end.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mdf. Now Fury's leveling like a Pegasus Knight.

I's okay, though; her inability to 2HKO them means more experience for everyone else!

You can stop showing off with your fancy crits, Noish; even with the promotion, you've merely gone from "worthless and incompetent" to "kinda mediocre". Nobody's impressed, least of all me.

Even Arden was actually useful to me before promotion, and became legitimately good after it!

+1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk. Even when reduced to cannibalism to level up, Alec drops the ball.

This time I remembered to equip the proper weapons.

Blizzard activated its Sleep effect on this Fighter... after I killed him. You can tell Sleep happened because the Blizzard animation will play a second time, but there's no check to see if the target is actually alive or not.

Levin decides to stop being a little underachiever and gets +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def.

Let's put a little spring in everyone's step.

There's the last of them. Now we can focus on real threats.

But first, there's a little healing to be done. Adean hits the level cap on a whimper with +1 MHP, +1 Mdf, while Claude starts up a weightlifting regimen and gets +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Mgc.

Pamela's been heading straight for Thove this entire time. Now, I could just let her smash it and take the loss in funds.

But I won't be doing that. Instead, Adean warps Midayle and Fury to Thove to defend it. With all that effective weaponry they've got, they should be able to handle themselves.

Sylvia danced for Adean and got +1 MHP, +1 Spd. It's a bitch to say anything interesting about your levels, my dear.

There we are, ready for action!

This is technically the turn after the image above this, but nothing happened on that turn, so let's just jump through time like some sort of foolish time wizard.

Well fuck, I forgot to equip the right sword again.

I guess Fury doesn't really need it to be deadly. She got a +1 MHP, +1 Spd level from this.

Time for Fury to get some sweet revenge!

... or time for Fury to take a lot of damage and not even land a hit on Pamela. That works too, I guess.

Alec continues his fascinating new diet, but earns meager rewards of +1 Skl, +1 Spd. This has been a worthwhile use of all that experience.

Pamela' Falcon Knight duo have been dealt with now.

Fury spends the entire enemy phase on the brink of death, with the Lady Sword's Prayer effect being all that kept her from the grave.

Oh dear. Pamela's retreating to get more reinforcements. I was kind of hoping to avoid that.

Midayle takes a couple shots at her, but doesn't get a kill. He does, however, manage a level of +1 MHP, +1 Skl.

Since Pamela is out of the picture, I figure we should take on Donovan and his goons. The generics aren't anything special, really, so I won't be looking at them. Instead, here's the boss;

Donovan is quite fond of critical hits, as you can see here. Even aside from Wrath, those Killer weapons can really mess up your strategies if you're unlucky. He's slow enough that he won't be doubling anything, though, so he's not as threatening as some of the other bosses on offer here.

Jamke opens up our assault.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk. That sure is a level.

Ira decides to show off as always.

With levels like +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Def, though, I can't argue with the results.

Really, Donovan's guys don't stand a chance against us. Maybe Daccar should've sent a General who doesn't have a weird mismatched Bandit portrait.

We clean up the last few guy with siege tomes. There'll be songs about us raining down ice and fire on our foes.

The word "shame" is not in my vocabulary.

And lightning, but bringing that up doesn't let me make incredibly forced references to nerdy things for nerds.

Fury hasn't spent a minute of her time at Thove with more than single-digit HP.

Most of her opposition spend their time with zero-digit HP.

One of the Warriors came dangerously close to killing Tiltyu here, but the RNG smiled upon me.

That's the last of the viragoes that Pamela brought with her.

The last of Green Kinbois's soldiers, too. All that's left his the boss himself.

Naturally, I gave the first strike to Lachesis, who proceeds to miss on the second hit and let me down.

As if to make amends, she gets +1 Str, +1 Spd. It's not fantastic, but it's better than she usually gives.

Briggid handles the rest with the usual amount of overkill.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def. I guess Defense is nice.

Azel patches up his childhood friend after her near-death experience.

Alec devours the flesh of the last escaping villager. Once again, he completely muffs it and gets +1 Luk.

Alright, the castle is ours. Queen Rahna isn't a tragic dead parent just yet!

Rahna takes time out to thank Sigurd for murdering half of Silesia's population and feasting on the innocent for power.

Now let's get Sigurd out of the way so Levin can snatch up that OP tome of his!

The world's least necessary effect, and I love everything about it.

It's pretty much the same as before. Like every other Holy Weapon, the weight was increased and the damage was dropped, but it's still every bit the absurdly powerful nuke it always was.

Daccar knows the weird bandit-general he sent to deal with us fucked it all up.

Luckily for him (but unluckily for us), his other subordinate failed her mission as well, and is coming to get reinforcements and make life harder for everyone.

That's not even getting into Lamia and her squad of scary ladies. They're making a beeline for us right now.

We'll handle all three bosses and their cronies in the next update. If you've got anything to say, please do so and satisfy my crippling need for approval from others!

[Moblin Major General]

I can forgive Verdane for being Axeland and all, but FUCK Miletos! Those white bitches seriously need more testosterone so they can twirl some staches.

[eclipse]

You get my support when the word "shame" is added to your vocabulary

This looks more interesting than vanilla FE4. Like, it ALMOST makes me want to give it a try.

[Ansem]

I think Duke Knight gives A lances while paladin gives A swords and B lances

[Vahne]

A bit off-topic, but hey look!

https://playimago.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/partia-2-widescreen-is-out/

Thanks to you it looks like the rest of us will be able to play a better Partia 2 if we ever want to.

[epilepsyduck]

I can forgive Verdane for being Axeland and all, but FUCK Miletos! Those white bitches seriously need more testosterone so they can twirl some staches.

Did Miletos get mentioned at some point? I don't think we even hear about that place until like, what, Chapter 10?

You get my support when the word "shame" is added to your vocabulary

This looks more interesting than vanilla FE4. Like, it ALMOST makes me want to give it a try.

This is shameshaming and I won't stand for it.

I'd say go for it if you're willing to wrestle with untranslated menus and occasional weird glitches related to the mount/dismount system.

Alternately you can just read my babbling about it and spare yourself the experience.

I think Duke Knight gives A lances while paladin gives A swords and B lances

I'm aware it has a higher Lance rank, I'm just saying the stat boosts are a bit rubbish compared to Paladin.

A bit off-topic, but hey look!

https://playimago.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/partia-2-widescreen-is-out/

Thanks to you it looks like the rest of us will be able to play a better Partia 2 if we ever want to.

Ah, I saw that (and had my incredibly pathetic ego boosted by the shoutout), and I've even played a bit of the new update. It's a bit of a shame the game's only now getting these updates, but that does bode well for the next one at least! I did contemplate making a post about it in the Partia 2 LP thread, but that thread's been dead for a month so it didn't seem like a good idea.

This update's the last we'll be seeing of Chapter 4, but the chapter's not going down without a fight! Admittedly one that's entirely the result of my own failures, but still!

Chapter 4 Part 5: A Holy Weapon-Lite

We've got three swarms of enemies to take care of, so let's look at the first of these three, Lamia and her crew of scary ladies. Frankly, more FE games need all-female groups of enemies.

First off, the physical weapon wielders are nigh-universally wielding Killer weapons. This makes them surprisingly threatening despite their somewhat underwhelming stats. Every enemy but the healer also has Pursuit, which is something to watch out for.

That goes for those lance-wielding women in the back, too, who've also got Master Lances on top of that. They're a class called Lancers, and are a dismounted version of things like Lance Knights and Pegasus Knights.

The Mage Knights don't get Killer weapons, but they do get the Critical skill. They also have Sleep Swords, because there've been too few enemies that can induce Sleep this chapter.

The High Priest isn't as much of a combatant as the others, but makes up for it with Prayer, just to make dealing with her a headache and a half. At least she doesn't combine it with Life. That'll be saved for the rest of the game.

Lamia herself easily the scariest fighter in her squad. Her stats have been bumped up across the board (+2 MHP, +1 Str, +2 Mgc, +3 Skl, +4 Spd, +14 Luk, +3 Def, +5 Mdf), and she's gained an extra leadership star on top of that. She ditched her Silver Blade + Life Ring combo for a Hero Sword + Luna Manual, and has a frankly absurd skillset of Pursuit, Continue, Critical and Sol. And yes, she can use both Sol and Luna in a single attack, more or less giving her Aether.

Since I'd rather not have her troops kill me with bullshit criticals, we'll be parking our asses just outside of their range.

On enemy phase, Pamela reaches the castle and heads inside. I'm sure everything will be fine.

Lamia's Angels, meanwhile, march straight into our collective faces. All according to plan.

First off, a timely crit to remove the wonderfully pink healer.

Because I'd rather not deal with Lamia's nonsense, let's use that new Holy Weapon of ours, shall we?

She died in a green fog. Levin got the Luna Manual, but he won't be keeping it.

After she goes down, I try to deal with the enemies in a way that gives them as few chances to crit me as possible.

If you're wondering what the Lancers look like in battle, they're basically the Princess class using Armor Knight animations. It looks a bit awkward.

Beowulf gets +1 MHP, +1 Def from dealing with an archer. Far be it from me to complain about defense.

Pamela's brought out what are effectively clones of her previous squad. Not such a fun time. They won't be attacking us this turn, at least.

The lone ponyless Mage Knight tries to use her status effects, but just gets a Lightning tome to the face instead.

Honestly, it's kind of impressive this enemy even managed a 3% hit rate on Levin when he's got Forseti equipped.

Now onto all those pegasi. Lachesis takes up a new hobby in marksmanship to help deal with them.

+1 MHP. Thanks a lot, Sigurd.

Ira actually isn't the one to do Pamela in, though she brings the boss very close to death.

It's Briggid who gets the job done instead. Who needs effective damage when you've got Yewfelle? She can sell the Critical Guard for plenty of cash, at least.

Dealing with Pamela has left my units in range of the Iron Mages surrounding Daccar. Not to worry, they probably won't kill anyone.

My siege tome users all level up at once, one after another. Levin gets a decent +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, Azel gets an unusual +1 MHP, +1 Str, and Tiltyu gets a mediocre +1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Mdf.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Luk, +1 Def. Claude's getting really buff these days.

Everyone gets in on the pegasus-killing action, from the most powerful of Lex's to the most pathetic of Noish's.

And here we are. Let's hope Blizzard doesn't decide to fuck us.

Fortunately, it doesn't; the three Iron Mages all target different people, and none of them land a hit, much less put the unit to sleep.

I don't understand the logic of this attack here. This is easily the worst unit to attack with a Javelin out of everyone in my army.

+1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Luk. Back up to base Strength at last.

I can kind of get the logic behind this one, but it was still a bit boneheaded.

With only a single pegasus left, let's look at the Daccar Defense Division.

They're just generic Iron Mages with Great Shield, Elwind and Blizzard. Nothing special, moving on.

Daccar himself is a whole other ballgame. He's gone from just another generic shitty Baron wielding spells he didn't have the Magic to use properly (he had 9 magic for fuck's sake) to a genuinely deadly mage who can also do appreciably in physical combat if you Silence him. Like Lamia, the buffs he's received are significant (+13 Mgc, +4 Skl, +3 Spd, +8 Luk, +3 Def, +10 Mdf), and he's now packing Critical and Continue in addition to Great Shield. That's not even getting into his weapons, a Master Lance paired with a brand-new tome...

Meet Excalibur. It's basically the closest the game gets to giving us a "Killer" version of magic, and it comes with a +5 bonus to Speed. It's one of the weapons with special requirements for wielding it, in this case requiring either Holsety/Forseti blood or with a "personal" MAG+SKL+SPD of 34, the "personal" meaning that it doesn't count class bases for those stats.

Daccar actually fulfills both of those requirements, because he's a little overachiever.

Dealing with the enemies around the boss isn't hard at all.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk. I guess we're taking a bit of a break from working out and getting super strong.

Since I've detailed why fighting Daccar can be a bit of a pain, let's just put him to sleep and render all of that irrelevant!

He still has the chat with his nephew of course. I guess he's known for talking in his sleep.

Levin kills him with a cool-if-unnecessary finisher.

That's another country destroyed by Sigurd.

We're done fucking around with foreigners, though, time to go to the homeland and fuck shit up there!

We're making great time!

Next up, we deal with the final chapter of Gen 1, meet a few villainous faces wielding painful weapons that maybe, one day, we'll get our grubby mitts on, and spend a lot of time and money shuffling inventories around so the kids can break the game right out the gate!

[Moblin Major General]

I mentioned Miletos because of Hilda's uncanny resemblance to Lamia and equally bitchy brutality towards the characters in this game.

[epilepsyduck]

I mentioned Miletos because of Hilda's uncanny resemblance to Lamia and equally bitchy brutality towards the characters in this game.

Ah, okay. The resemblance is uncanny, undeniably.

[epilepsyduck]

If you were underwhelmed by Chapter 4 being the Land of Sleep, fret not! Chapter 5 is where the hack starts getting serious, and by that I mean it's where the hack's intense hatred for the player becomes abundantly clear.

Chapter 5 Part 1: Welcome to BelHELLa

Sigurd's destroyed half of the surprisingly small continent of Jugdral, and is ready to march back home and fuck shit up there as well. Unfortunately for him, the villainous faces on display here have other plans.

Hey, look who it is! Vylon isn't ready to become a Tragic Dead Parent just yet!

Though if these guys have their way, he'll be one very soon.

Who cares about the plot, though, we've got pitfighting to do and inventories to manage!

The Arena enemies this time around are pretty much all toting Killer weapons, with a few exceptions. We've got another generic Swordfighter and Bowfighter pair, because damn near every Arena so far has had one.

The Warrior in the second rank has been replaced with a Berserker, toting a Killer Axe in melee and a mere Hand Axe at range.

Geese the General retains his class, but has dropped all those crappy Steel weapons for a dangerous Master Lance.

This Mercenary/Forrest has also traded his equipment in, tossing aside a Thunder Sword for a Killer Sword and Hand Axe.

Yet more Killer weapons with this Dragon Master and his ranged Sniper counterpart. This chapter's Arena enemies are threatening, but not especially creative.

Oddly, we get a little FE3 cameo in the form of Rikard, known as That Thief Nobody Uses, or alternately, That Thief With A Big Gay Crush On Julian. He's basically just the generic Earth Sword-wielding Thief Fighter from the vanilla game with a new coat of paint, but it's a neat cameo nonetheless.

The female Mercenary on the left is the first Arena enemy with a Skill, namely Luna. Both she and the Sniper are wielding Hero Weapons, just to make life less fun for everybody.

Interestingly, the Mercenary apparently drops a Luna Manual if you beat her without having received it in the previous chapter. I've never had this happen, as not getting the Luna Manual involves somehow ignoring Lamia and her little deathsquad, and there's really no reason to do that, but it's pretty neat all the same.

Arena rewards have been doubled, instantly filling everyone's wallets to the brim. I suppose it's the game's way of telling you that it's time to start thinking about item inheritance.

You already know what comes next, of course; time to see how everyone did in the Arena!

Arena Rankings and Level Ups:

ARENA RANKINGS- Sigurd *, Briggid *, Fury *, Sylvia 3, Arden *, Tiltyu *, Claude 7, Levin *, Holyn *, Adean *, Midayle *, Noish 5, Lachesis *, Dew *, Jamke *, Beowulf *, Ira *, Azel *, Lex *, Alec 2


ARENA LEVELS-

Sigurd: 3 levels- +3 MHP, +2 Skl, +1 Def

Making the best use of that Elite Ring you got, aren't you Sigurd?

Briggid: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +2 Luk, +1 Def

Strength!

Fury: 3 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +2 Def

I wish Fury was always this tanky. It's nice having Pegasus Knights with decent durability.

Sylvia: 1 level- Nothing

Yep.

Arden: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Def

Moving on.

Tiltyu: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +1 Def

One of the 2 levels she got was completely empty, because of course.

Claude: 2 levels- +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +2 Def

Someone's been slacking on their workout, I see. Come on, Claude, I need a buff High Priest in my life.

Levin: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def

If you're wondering why he hasn't gotten Speed, I'm pretty sure he's capped it. Not a surprise, coming from him.

Holyn: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk

It's honestly pretty difficult to say anything interesting about most of these. They're not bad, they're just kind of generic.

Midalye: 2 levels- +1 Skl, +1 Def

I have no idea how you got all this Defense, but I wish you'd do it again sometime.

Noish: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Def

Next.

Lachesis: 1 level- +1 Str, +1 Luk

Typical, really.

Dew: 2 levels- +2 Def

I mean, why not I suppose, but you've got other stats that are equally neglected by your 40% growths.

Jamke: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Those certainly were levels that you had.

Beowulf: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Spd, +1 Mdf

It's a minor miracle whenever anyone gets Resistance, so good on you Beowulf!

Ira: 2 levels- +1 Str, +2 Def

Man, it seems everyone's getting more Defense lately. I can't complain.

Azel: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Str, +1 Mgc

You're kidding yourself if you think that Strength stat means I'm giving you a sword, Azel.

Lex: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str

He's hit the level cap. Way to end all this with a bang, Lex.

After that, it was time to start passing items around for the kids. Fury's snatched up the Critical Guard off of Briggid, who in turn used the money to buy the Luna Manual and trade her Steel Bow for Midayle's Silver one. This is more for Faval's benefit that Briggid's.

The Silver Card is now in Adean's hands. This will really help Lana out.

Tiltyu swapped her Thoron with Levin's Elwind. In hindsight, not the best move, since neither of Tiltyu's kids can get Thoron anyway, but it'll give Teeny something other than a measly Thunder tome. I'll need to figure out what Levin'll pass down to Arthur later.

Finally, Levin handed that Recover staff over to Claude, since poor Corpul will need every advantage he can get if he wants to be relevant.

This isn't all I'll be doing, but any more item shuffling would fuck up my plans for beating Chapter 5, so for now we'll be leaving it like this.

Sigurd'll be taking most of the army to "save" his dad and deal with all those dastardly villains in the way.

A few characters will be splitting off to deal with a more... diabolical threat than some ugly old men with fancy dragon blood, though. You'll see what that is in a moment.

First, let's see what stands in between us and a touching family reunion with dear old dad.

First up, the armor knights. Three have Killer Axes, while the other two have Silver Axes and Halberds. A bit of a worry, but nothing we haven't seen before.

The dismounted Mage Knights are just your typical mages with a side of being annoying healers.

Then we get to their commander, who has a portrait lifted from Thracia 776 but still lacks a unique name. With that Hero Axe, Master Bow and surprisingly high (for a generic) stats, he's a fairly credible threat, though as long as you're careful in how you approach him he's still nothing too difficult.

How I wish the same could be said about the enemies who've gathered on this side of the map. You see, in doing away with all the crappy Armors that used to populate this side of the map, our foes have managed to summon something for more sinister for us to deal with.

The Great Knights have Devil Axes, and the Iron Knights have Devil Swords. While the potential for backfire can result in enemies doing themselves in, you're still looking at 25 Might whenever the weapon actually hits home without backfiring.

The female paladins are a nasty pair, with healing staves and an unpleasant new sword in hand;

Meet the Darkness Sword. Unlike a lot of weapons who were clearly inspired by/lifted from Thracia, this one actually isn't anything like Mareeta's special weapon, it's just another magic sword, but one that casts a dark magic spell, and has a very high crit rate to boot! The +5 Mdf is coming from this weapon.

The male Paladin in the center is yet another visitor from pre-zany-fun-time Akaneia, Hardin. Though with all the evil-themed stuff around him, I'm guessing it might actually be Satan in disguise.

One of those evil-themed things is a "new" skill, also called Darkness Sword. It's been changed from its default-but-unused incarnation in vanilla FE4; if it activates when the unit is attacking, it adds 10 Attack, and if it activates when the unit is taking a hit, it adds 10 Defense/Resistance.

There's also this nasty little thing he's holding, the Lopto Sword, providing a +20 Res boost and halving any damage dealt to him. And yes, Darkness Sword's defensive effect can stack with it. We'll need Ira and the Blaggi Sword just to hurt the guy.

It wouldn't be Genealogy if there weren't bandits destroying villages. They've all got Devil Axes too, so I can only assume they're part of the demonic incursion that's rapidly approaching our home castle.

Let's see how our father is doing, as well as get a look at the jerks trying to off him.

Vylon has decent enough stats, and remembered to equip something other than his broken Holy Weapon, but he's still not long for this world if you don't reach him quickly. The boss between us and him can kill him in just a couple Master Bow shots.

The troops chasing after him are more or less Axe Knight versions of the Armors we're about to deal with.

Slayder, on the other hand, has his own niche to carve out, and that niche is "fucking annoying jackass". No longer is he just some chump with pitiful stats that gets mowed down effortlessly by our troops, because he's gotten huge boosts to basically everything, picked up both Pursuit and Great Shield, and is toting something more potent than your run-of-the-mill Silver Axe;

He's got yet another special weapon called the Tomahawk. It's basically a Helswath-lite, with similar damage and range but without the huge stat boosts. The +5 it provides is still quite potent, of course.

And hey, remember those fucking absurd Bow Knights from the last chapter that ate Mahnya's squad alive with almost no effort. Guess who we'll be fighting!

Their commander, Andrei, is even more threatening than any of them, with higher stats, the addition of Continue on top of the Pursuit-Critical-Charge combo, and a pair of incredibly lethal weapons.

The Master Sword rounds out the quartet of Master weapons, and like the others is a more powerful but heavier and less accurate version of the Hero weapon of its weapon type. You might think this makes it unwise to attack him in melee, but you haven't seen what he's got for ranged battles;

This bow is called the Gatling Bow, and if you've played Tear Ring Saga, you know exactly what this is and probably groaning in disgust at the sight. For those not in the know, imagine a Hero weapon that goes off 4 times before the enemy gets to retaliate, rather than two, and can potentially get 8 attacks if the wielder is fast enough, with skills potentially bringing that number even higher. It requires either Ulir blood or 15 personal Skl to wield. This weapon makes attacking Andrei from range downright suicidal, especially given his uncomfortably high chance to crit with it.

We won't be dealing with any of that just yet, though; right now we've just got to worry about Vylon and these bandits.

Okay, and these demons about to rain hellfire down upon us.

Speaking of hellfire being rained on people, Alvis discusses the upcoming cookout that will be hosted in the capital once Sigurd finishes tearing his way through to them.

I think you can guess how this encounter went.

In a form of desperate madness, I use Blizzard on Satan!Hardin in the vain hope that it'd put him to Sleep. It doesn't.

Nevermind that, then, we've got enemies who are complete pushovers to handle.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Mdf. Keep this up and Yewfelle will cease to have any weight at all!

Her soon-to-be husband gets a +1 MHP, +1 Spd level here, but I didn't screenshot it because I'm the worst in all things.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk. Why are your best levels always siege tome related?

One healer down, one to go.

Not our healers, though, they're still kicking.

Vylon shuffles towards us, away from the scary axe guys.

Unfortunately, he's bumbled into range of the unnamed boss. He survives, but only barely.

Also, this happens. I have no one to blame but myself.

Levin gets the shit kicked out of him, but he manages to cling to life.

Stupid Iron Knights and their Great Shield skill. It's only okay when my Iron Knights do that!

Satan took an interest in Lex, which scared the ever-loving shit out of me, but thankfully Great Shield ended up saving his life.

Ira witnessed this attempt on her lover's life, and decides to put an end to things once and for all.

And with the power of love, anything is possible!

Okay, anything except one-rounding the boss, apparently. She's got him on the ropes, though, we just need someone to finish the job.

It falls to our local wind god to handle this.

With a crit and a second blow, he destroys Satan once and for all, and good wins the day.

Or it would, if this wasn't Genealogy of the Holy War.

+1 Skl, +1 Mgc. Levin's got a specific brand of underachieving where he always does the same thing, but it's always exactly what you need.

Briggid and Beowulf tag-team the nameless boss, so Vylon and Sigurd can have a father-son bonding moment in peace.

Everyone else does their part by demolishing what's left of the border guard.

As well as getting rid of a bandit, which is totally related to what we're doing here.

Claude continues to be the beefiest Claude anyone's ever seen with a +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk level.

Now, time for Sigurd to do his thing and kill Vylon by talking to him.

"Dad, please die already so I can have our sacred sword and go kill everything in sight"

And with a blinding flash of light, Sigurd's father is dead and the sword is in his hands. Time to slaughter everyone!

Or, well, time to wait until we find a blacksmith. Then we slaughter everyone!

It is now when I realize I haven't posted a guard for the home castle. Whoops.

No worries, though; Adean can fill in for now.

Will our army survive the oncoming onslaught of axes? Will those Paladins pick on Adean or go for less vulnerable prey? Will I not make the next update take an absurdly long time to reach you all? At least one of those questions will be answered soon!

[BrightBow]

I guess your theory that this guy is the devil could be true, considering that his arrival marks the point where the game basically changes from being merely an improved version of Mounted Emblem to Pony Island. Either way now we're on the Hardin to hell.

Edited May 10, 2016 by BrightBow

[Vahne]

With a evil Hardin cameo I kinda expect him to be a Baron rather than a paladin like his pre-evil self.

[Konnor97]

If you were underwhelmed by Chapter 4 being the Land of Sleep, fret not! Chapter 5 is where the hack starts getting serious, and by that I mean it's where the hack's intense hatred for the player becomes abundantly clear.

Chapter 5 Part 1: Welcome to BelHELLa

Sigurd's destroyed half of the surprisingly small continent of Jugdral, and is ready to march back home and fuck shit up there as well. Unfortunately for him, the villainous faces on display here have other plans.

Hey, look who it is! Vylon isn't ready to become a Tragic Dead Parent just yet!

Though if these guys have their way, he'll be one very soon.

Who cares about the plot, though, we've got pitfighting to do and inventories to manage!

The Arena enemies this time around are pretty much all toting Killer weapons, with a few exceptions. We've got another generic Swordfighter and Bowfighter pair, because damn near every Arena so far has had one.

The Warrior in the second rank has been replaced with a Berserker, toting a Killer Axe in melee and a mere Hand Axe at range.

Geese the General retains his class, but has dropped all those crappy Steel weapons for a dangerous Master Lance.

This Mercenary/Forrest has also traded his equipment in, tossing aside a Thunder Sword for a Killer Sword and Hand Axe.

Yet more Killer weapons with this Dragon Master and his ranged Sniper counterpart. This chapter's Arena enemies are threatening, but not especially creative.

Oddly, we get a little FE3 cameo in the form of Rikard, known as That Thief Nobody Uses, or alternately, That Thief With A Big Gay Crush On Julian. He's basically just the generic Earth Sword-wielding Thief Fighter from the vanilla game with a new coat of paint, but it's a neat cameo nonetheless.

The female Mercenary on the left is the first Arena enemy with a Skill, namely Luna. Both she and the Sniper are wielding Hero Weapons, just to make life less fun for everybody.

Interestingly, the Mercenary apparently drops a Luna Manual if you beat her without having received it in the previous chapter. I've never had this happen, as not getting the Luna Manual involves somehow ignoring Lamia and her little deathsquad, and there's really no reason to do that, but it's pretty neat all the same.

Arena rewards have been doubled, instantly filling everyone's wallets to the brim. I suppose it's the game's way of telling you that it's time to start thinking about item inheritance.

You already know what comes next, of course; time to see how everyone did in the Arena!

Arena Rankings and Level Ups:

ARENA RANKINGS- Sigurd *, Briggid *, Fury *, Sylvia 3, Arden *, Tiltyu *, Claude 7, Levin *, Holyn *, Adean *, Midayle *, Noish 5, Lachesis *, Dew *, Jamke *, Beowulf *, Ira *, Azel *, Lex *, Alec 2

ARENA LEVELS-

Sigurd: 3 levels- +3 MHP, +2 Skl, +1 Def

Making the best use of that Elite Ring you got, aren't you Sigurd?

Briggid: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +2 Luk, +1 Def

Strength!

Fury: 3 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +2 Def

I wish Fury was always this tanky. It's nice having Pegasus Knights with decent durability.

Sylvia: 1 level- Nothing

Yep.

Arden: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Def

Moving on.

Tiltyu: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +1 Def

One of the 2 levels she got was completely empty, because of course.

Claude: 2 levels- +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +2 Def

Someone's been slacking on their workout, I see. Come on, Claude, I need a buff High Priest in my life.

Levin: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def

If you're wondering why he hasn't gotten Speed, I'm pretty sure he's capped it. Not a surprise, coming from him.

Holyn: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk

It's honestly pretty difficult to say anything interesting about most of these. They're not bad, they're just kind of generic.

Midalye: 2 levels- +1 Skl, +1 Def

I have no idea how you got all this Defense, but I wish you'd do it again sometime.

Noish: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Def

Next.

Lachesis: 1 level- +1 Str, +1 Luk

Typical, really.

Dew: 2 levels- +2 Def

I mean, why not I suppose, but you've got other stats that are equally neglected by your 40% growths.

Jamke: 3 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Those certainly were levels that you had.

Beowulf: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Spd, +1 Mdf

It's a minor miracle whenever anyone gets Resistance, so good on you Beowulf!

Ira: 2 levels- +1 Str, +2 Def

Man, it seems everyone's getting more Defense lately. I can't complain.

Azel: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Str, +1 Mgc

You're kidding yourself if you think that Strength stat means I'm giving you a sword, Azel.

Lex: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str

He's hit the level cap. Way to end all this with a bang, Lex.

After that, it was time to start passing items around for the kids. Fury's snatched up the Critical Guard off of Briggid, who in turn used the money to buy the Luna Manual and trade her Steel Bow for Midayle's Silver one. This is more for Faval's benefit that Briggid's.

The Silver Card is now in Adean's hands. This will really help Lana out.

Tiltyu swapped her Thoron with Levin's Elwind. In hindsight, not the best move, since neither of Tiltyu's kids can get Thoron anyway, but it'll give Teeny something other than a measly Thunder tome. I'll need to figure out what Levin'll pass down to Arthur later.

Finally, Levin handed that Recover staff over to Claude, since poor Corpul will need every advantage he can get if he wants to be relevant.

This isn't all I'll be doing, but any more item shuffling would fuck up my plans for beating Chapter 5, so for now we'll be leaving it like this.

Sigurd'll be taking most of the army to "save" his dad and deal with all those dastardly villains in the way.

A few characters will be splitting off to deal with a more... diabolical threat than some ugly old men with fancy dragon blood, though. You'll see what that is in a moment.

First, let's see what stands in between us and a touching family reunion with dear old dad.

First up, the armor knights. Three have Killer Axes, while the other two have Silver Axes and Halberds. A bit of a worry, but nothing we haven't seen before.

The dismounted Mage Knights are just your typical mages with a side of being annoying healers.

Then we get to their commander, who has a portrait lifted from Thracia 776 but still lacks a unique name. With that Hero Axe, Master Bow and surprisingly high (for a generic) stats, he's a fairly credible threat, though as long as you're careful in how you approach him he's still nothing too difficult.

How I wish the same could be said about the enemies who've gathered on this side of the map. You see, in doing away with all the crappy Armors that used to populate this side of the map, our foes have managed to summon something for more sinister for us to deal with.

The Great Knights have Devil Axes, and the Iron Knights have Devil Swords. While the potential for backfire can result in enemies doing themselves in, you're still looking at 25 Might whenever the weapon actually hits home without backfiring.

The female paladins are a nasty pair, with healing staves and an unpleasant new sword in hand;

Meet the Darkness Sword. Unlike a lot of weapons who were clearly inspired by/lifted from Thracia, this one actually isn't anything like Mareeta's special weapon, it's just another magic sword, but one that casts a dark magic spell, and has a very high crit rate to boot! The +5 Mdf is coming from this weapon.

The male Paladin in the center is yet another visitor from pre-zany-fun-time Akaneia, Hardin. Though with all the evil-themed stuff around him, I'm guessing it might actually be Satan in disguise.

One of those evil-themed things is a "new" skill, also called Darkness Sword. It's been changed from its default-but-unused incarnation in vanilla FE4; if it activates when the unit is attacking, it adds 10 Attack, and if it activates when the unit is taking a hit, it adds 10 Defense/Resistance.

There's also this nasty little thing he's holding, the Lopto Sword, providing a +20 Res boost and halving any damage dealt to him. And yes, Darkness Sword's defensive effect can stack with it. We'll need Ira and the Blaggi Sword just to hurt the guy.

It wouldn't be Genealogy if there weren't bandits destroying villages. They've all got Devil Axes too, so I can only assume they're part of the demonic incursion that's rapidly approaching our home castle.

Let's see how our father is doing, as well as get a look at the jerks trying to off him.

Vylon has decent enough stats, and remembered to equip something other than his broken Holy Weapon, but he's still not long for this world if you don't reach him quickly. The boss between us and him can kill him in just a couple Master Bow shots.

The troops chasing after him are more or less Axe Knight versions of the Armors we're about to deal with.

Slayder, on the other hand, has his own niche to carve out, and that niche is "fucking annoying jackass". No longer is he just some chump with pitiful stats that gets mowed down effortlessly by our troops, because he's gotten huge boosts to basically everything, picked up both Pursuit and Great Shield, and is toting something more potent than your run-of-the-mill Silver Axe;

He's got yet another special weapon called the Tomahawk. It's basically a Helswath-lite, with similar damage and range but without the huge stat boosts. The +5 it provides is still quite potent, of course.

And hey, remember those fucking absurd Bow Knights from the last chapter that ate Mahnya's squad alive with almost no effort. Guess who we'll be fighting!

Their commander, Andrei, is even more threatening than any of them, with higher stats, the addition of Continue on top of the Pursuit-Critical-Charge combo, and a pair of incredibly lethal weapons.

The Master Sword rounds out the quartet of Master weapons, and like the others is a more powerful but heavier and less accurate version of the Hero weapon of its weapon type. You might think this makes it unwise to attack him in melee, but you haven't seen what he's got for ranged battles;

This bow is called the Gatling Bow, and if you've played Tear Ring Saga, you know exactly what this is and probably groaning in disgust at the sight. For those not in the know, imagine a Hero weapon that goes off 4 times before the enemy gets to retaliate, rather than two, and can potentially get 8 attacks if the wielder is fast enough, with skills potentially bringing that number even higher. It requires either Ulir blood or 15 personal Skl to wield. This weapon makes attacking Andrei from range downright suicidal, especially given his uncomfortably high chance to crit with it.

We won't be dealing with any of that just yet, though; right now we've just got to worry about Vylon and these bandits.

Okay, and these demons about to rain hellfire down upon us.

Speaking of hellfire being rained on people, Alvis discusses the upcoming cookout that will be hosted in the capital once Sigurd finishes tearing his way through to them.

I think you can guess how this encounter went.

In a form of desperate madness, I use Blizzard on Satan!Hardin in the vain hope that it'd put him to Sleep. It doesn't.

Nevermind that, then, we've got enemies who are complete pushovers to handle.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Mdf. Keep this up and Yewfelle will cease to have any weight at all!

Her soon-to-be husband gets a +1 MHP, +1 Spd level here, but I didn't screenshot it because I'm the worst in all things.

+1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk. Why are your best levels always siege tome related?

One healer down, one to go.

Not our healers, though, they're still kicking.

Vylon shuffles towards us, away from the scary axe guys.

Unfortunately, he's bumbled into range of the unnamed boss. He survives, but only barely.

Also, this happens. I have no one to blame but myself.

Levin gets the shit kicked out of him, but he manages to cling to life.

Stupid Iron Knights and their Great Shield skill. It's only okay when my Iron Knights do that!

Satan took an interest in Lex, which scared the ever-loving shit out of me, but thankfully Great Shield ended up saving his life.

Ira witnessed this attempt on her lover's life, and decides to put an end to things once and for all.

And with the power of love, anything is possible!

Okay, anything except one-rounding the boss, apparently. She's got him on the ropes, though, we just need someone to finish the job.

It falls to our local wind god to handle this.

With a crit and a second blow, he destroys Satan once and for all, and good wins the day.

Or it would, if this wasn't Genealogy of the Holy War.

+1 Skl, +1 Mgc. Levin's got a specific brand of underachieving where he always does the same thing, but it's always exactly what you need.

Briggid and Beowulf tag-team the nameless boss, so Vylon and Sigurd can have a father-son bonding moment in peace.

Everyone else does their part by demolishing what's left of the border guard.

As well as getting rid of a bandit, which is totally related to what we're doing here.

Claude continues to be the beefiest Claude anyone's ever seen with a +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk level.

Now, time for Sigurd to do his thing and kill Vylon by talking to him.

"Dad, please die already so I can have our sacred sword and go kill everything in sight"

And with a blinding flash of light, Sigurd's father is dead and the sword is in his hands. Time to slaughter everyone!

Or, well, time to wait until we find a blacksmith. Then we slaughter everyone!

It is now when I realize I haven't posted a guard for the home castle. Whoops.

No worries, though; Adean can fill in for now.

Will our army survive the oncoming onslaught of axes? Will those Paladins pick on Adean or go for less vulnerable prey? Will I not make the next update take an absurdly long time to reach you all? At least one of those questions will be answered soon!

I hope you don't have Tiltyu keep that Bolting tome during inheritance. Don't want Tinny chucking those around while you try and recruit her.

[Alastor15243]

I hope you don't have Tiltyu keep that Bolting tome during inheritance. Don't want Tinny chucking those around while you try and recruit her.

Can you still overload her inventory and manipulate it so that the bolting is in storage when she's an enemy? Or does this mod change how that works?

[Konnor97]

Can you still overload her inventory and manipulate it so that the bolting is in storage when she's an enemy? Or does this mod change how that works?

I'm not sure. I don't see why not.

[BrightBow]

Isn't it better when she uses Bolting? Then at least she won't put herself into harm's way.

[epilepsyduck]

With a evil Hardin cameo I kinda expect him to be a Baron rather than a paladin like his pre-evil self.

If they wanted maximum points for this cameo, they should've made him an Emperor and hacked in Gradivus for him to use.

I hope you don't have Tiltyu keep that Bolting tome during inheritance. Don't want Tinny chucking those around while you try and recruit her.

I have totally never made such a silly, painful mistake and am honestly insulted and hurt that you'd imply I had ever done such a foolish, trauma-inducing thing. For shame.

Don't worry, I won't be letting Tiltyu keep that tome for much longer, I just need it for my plans on dealing with the desert.

Can you still overload her inventory and manipulate it so that the bolting is in storage when she's an enemy? Or does this mod change how that works?

I certainly could do that, but I'd rather just give the tome to her brother so I can use it right off the bat. Having all the siege tomes right from the word go is really useful.

Isn't it better when she uses Bolting? Then at least she won't put herself into harm's way.

Bolting makes it a lot harder to approach her, and she tends to keep her distance when she's got it in my experience (which is NONE AT ALL THANK YOU VERY MUCH). I'd much rather have her just use an El- tome.

With Satan out of the way and the Tragic Keepsake Sword acquired, we're ready to deal with all these special weapons and the assholes who wield them.

Chapter 5 Part 2: I used up all my clever title points on last update's title

With the generic Thracian menace out of the way, we're ready to begin our march against Langobalt.

But first, a couple little thorns in my side need to be dealt with.

Luckily, they don't get any lucky crits in with those Darkness Swords of theirs.

My units, on the other hand, have a wonderful time doing just that.

And getting levels, too. (+1 MHP, +1 Spd and +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, respectively) I think this is the first time Sigurd's gotten a +2 MHP this playthrough, and since he's now hit the level cap, it's the last time, too.

Alright, the home castle is safe. Everyone'll join back up with Sigurd now. Lachesis got +1 MHP, +1 Luk from this fight.

Sigurd took quite the beating, so Adean patches him back up.

Now, onto Slayder and his annoying mini-Helswath. If bosses are gonna start pulling out legendaries, I figured it was only fair to send a real Holy Weapon in to deal with him.

She and Tiltyu get him nice and weak. Who gets the kill?

Why, the second half of Jugdral's hottest power couple and newest inductee to the Hetero Baby Party, of course!

The pointy-faced menace has fallen!

We spend the rest of the turn cleaning up his lackeys. Two remain alive, though.

Bless this overblown spell animation, really. It looks like he's conjuring a miniature sun to heal everyone.

+1 MHP. So far, of everyone who's hit the level cap, Sigurd's the only one who didn't drop the ball on their last level.

The remaining Axe Knights pick a vulnerable target.

They accomplish little.

Unfortunately, someone who's in fact very good at accomplishing things is about to make our lives a lot harder.

Someone who's very anal about remaining in formation, but that doesn't negate the competency.

Sorry that I've relegated you to bandit-killing duty once again, Fury. I promise you'll get to do more exciting things once we hit the desert!

Ugh, still barely clinging to life. There's another 500 gold down the drain.

Slayder's forces are eliminated. Now we can devote all our attention to Andrei and the Bow Knights of Absurdity.

I figured it was only fair that his long-lost sister get first blood on his troops.

She performs admirably as always.

With a bit of that rogueish pirate charm, of course. I love having a Holy Weapon user who earns money every time she hits something.

There, now he's dead and Fury can spend her time on more important things.

+1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Def. I really love how durable and speedy she's become. The Strength is a bit of an issue, though.

Sylvia got this +1 MHP, +1 Mdf level by dancing for the demon-killing squad. Yep, that's a thing.

Tiltyu gets a bit more up close and personal than I'd normally be comfortable with, but she kills him so it's okay.

+1 Spd, +1 Luk. Better than some of your previous efforts.

Sigurd gets the first attack in on the boss himself.

It... maybe wasn't my brightest hour. Adeanand Claude are nearby, though, so he should be fine.

Kick his ass, baby!

He sorta took a big chunk out of her before she could get rid of him, but Andrei is no more!

+1 MHP, +1 Luk. Y'know what, fine. You don't really need the levels anyway.

We're feeling the sunshine thanks to our priest/lord/prophet friend.

Briggid getting mobbed is a bit of an issue, but she'll be fine, right?

Yes!

NO!

Okay, she kind of got beaten senseless out there, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Not that these guys are gonna know what that's like.

Without Andrei's leadership stars, these guys are still troublesome but not quite as threatening.

I've patched up Sigurd and Briggid with the last use of the Fortify staff, so they should be fine.

Gee, thanks for undoing all my hard work. Jerks.

There can only be one response to that.

There, no more ridiculous Bow Knights.

+1 MHP. Sigh.

Well, let's check out the last few enemies before we hit the desert.

The Generals are Master Axe-wielding Ambush-using Life Ring-holding jerks. They, like seemingly everyone in this part of the chapter, have higher weapon ranks than they're supposed to just so they can wield their weapons.

To say Langobalt got buffed is a huge understatement. His stats were bumped up to huge levels (+6 Strength and Defense and +4 Speed in particular), and he's now got both Ambush and Continue, just to make attacking him risky for damn near anybody. He's also got Elite, I guess as a nod to Lex having it, but that's obviously useless for him. In any case, physical weapons are borderline useless against him, mainly because of Helswath.

For the most part, Helswath is the same old thing, but Binary gave it the Great Shield skill. This is redundant for Langobalt himself, but it's relevant information for later.

The ballista aren't really much of a threat; the two near the castle should probably be taken care of, but the two in that random ditch can be safely ignored.

Let's start getting rid of these Generals before we take on the big boss himself.

I hope you enjoy this screenshot of Lachesis failing to kill the general, accompanied by a segment of the EXP bar.

+1 MHP. Mhm, yep.

He was a persistent fucker, but I finally killed the leftmost general. 1 down, 2 to go!

+1 MHP, +1 Mgc. Big surprises happening in the stat screen today.

Levin just barely made it into Blizzard range of Langobalt, and only Langobalt, so I figured it was worth a shot to try and maybe Sleep him. It didn't pan out.

I'm sure we'll be perfectly fine.

Like I said, the ballista are low on the list of threats. Like, they're written on the table instead of on the list itself.

Lachesis came out of this fine, but I wish I'd equipped the Earth Sword so she could retaliate. Ah well, he won't live much longer anyway.

Yet another enemy who dies and has the Sleep effect on Blizzard go off. Maybe one day it'll work on a living enemy.

And that's the other general taken care of.

We're finished with all of these pricks, and now Langobalt sits all alone, contemplating how his poor decisions led him to this moment.

The wily old man dodges all three of Levin's attacks, though, defying probability in an effort to not go down like a total chump.

Tiltyu's long-range magical support is similarly ineffectual.

And on enemy phase, he gets hit three times, and all three hits are blocked by Great Shield! Sure, Levin still did some damage, but that's super annoying.

Enough fucking around, let's get the Charisma Zone back into action.

A shame Lex didn't get a shot at his loving father figure, but using the Green Nuke to obliterate things is too much fun.

Levin gets an unusual +1 MHP, +1 Def for dealing with the major villains. Hey, I'll take anything that isn't +1 Skl.

Just for fun, I let Briggid kill the remaining ballista despite what a non-issue they are now. I am a merciless tactician.

+1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Luk. Not bad.

We've now taken the castle whose name I don't remember, which makes Sigurd tell Oifey to fuck off so he can play Jagen for Celice and company. No dying in a fiery blaze for you, kiddo!

And there they go, never to be seen again.

Next up, we march at incredibly slow speeds through a scorching desert while assholes pelt us from afar, and absolutely no tragic heartbreaking events involving a cool Master Knight and his badass Paladin wife occur whatsoever, no sir.

[eclipse]

. . .and definitely no events that cause a massive timeskip, either!

[Moblin Major General]

Sigurd realizes he's fucked and tells Oifey and Shanan to watch the baby for the next 15 or so years.

[BluBlaDe]

Awesome LP. Hopefully Reptor will be able to stop mad conqueror Sigurd and his gang of evil civilians eaters. Even Satan couldn't end them, he probably was on his way to eat the civilians himself until he learned Sigurd did it. Not to be one fucked with Satan decided to attack Sigurd, it's all clear now.

[epilepsyduck]

. . .and definitely no events that cause a massive timeskip, either!

As we all know, Chapter 5 is the final chapter of Genealogy of the Holy War, and Awakening was the first game in the Hetero Baby Party series.

Sigurd realizes he's fucked and tells Oifey and Shanan to watch the baby for the next 15 or so years.

Crutch characters are very important to a young Lord's development. Sigurd's just being a good dad!

Awesome LP. Hopefully Reptor will be able to stop mad conqueror Sigurd and his gang of evil civilians eaters. Even Satan couldn't end them, he probably was on his way to eat the civilians himself until he learned Sigurd did it. Not to be one fucked with Satan decided to attack Sigurd, it's all clear now.

Thanks, glad you're enjoying the villainous adventures of Sigurd and friends.

After all that excitement dealing with story villains and acquiring precious artifacts, it's time to slow things down. Literally, I mean, we'll be moving at a snails pace for most of the rest of the chapter. Absolutely nothing notable will happen while we're in the desert, no sir, not at all, never.

Chapter 5 Part 3: Cuan Quixote

We'll start with Dew handing Adean a load of money and getting a +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Luk in return.

Look who returns to us at last! I'm sure Cuan and Ethlin will make it through the desert incident-free, and back us up with their incredibly powerful army of unpromoted Lance Knights, equipped with the finest generic lances in the world.

Yep, everything's going to be just fine.

Since we killed Langobalt and conquered that castle, a tiny force of mages is deployed. I'm sure we'll have no trouble at all dealing with this.

One of those mages decides to get an early shot in on Claude. Wow, that's just rude.

Claude effortlessly dodges the exploding sun behind him by stepping back a bit.

Joke's on you, asshole, we've got our own siege tomes now!

It actually managed to put him to sleep! I think that's the first time this playthrough.

And now he's dead.

With Sylvia's help, Levin gets a shot at another mage.

He manages to get the Sleep effect to hit a second time! A master of slacking, Levin is.

We're all slowly shuffling into the desert like a bunch of retirees.

Nothing exciting happens to Cuan and Ethlin at all this turn.

Nothing exciting over here, not even a little bit!

Since I'm about to pass out from the lack of excitement over on that side of the desert, let's see what Vaha and her squad of irritating mages have in store for us.

First off, we have yet another dismounted Mage Knight, another victim of the equine famine that's struck Jugdral in recent months. She, like all the enemies surrounding this castle, has Prayer to make getting rid of her a pain in the ass, and totes a Sleep Sword as a counterpart to what the far-more-annoying High Priests have in hand.

The High Priests have Sleep Staves instead of the Sword, and are all too likely to knock out at least a few characters before you can close the distance between yourself and them. They also have the aggravating Prayer/Life combo to make getting rid of them super-obnoxious, and have Resire for extra healing fun.

Vaha herself really isn't fucking around anymore. She's chucked that stupid Prayer Sword and gotten Bolganone instead, but slipped Prayer into her native skillset just so getting rid of her isn't a walk in the park. The combination of Critical + Meteor summons flashbacks of the final two chapters of Partia 2, with mages killing units from ridiculous distances before you can even begin to approach them. A Silence or Sleep staff can work wonders, but unfortunately Adean has both of those staves and her Magic isn't high enough to use them.

Since getting Sleep'd and Meteor'd in the same turn isn't fun, you should be careful about how you approach this castle.

Enough about that, let's view this totally uneventful trek through the desert.

Everything seems to be just GRAND over here.

It's all going exactly how it should!

I was so busy making sure no one is in the Sleep Staff's range that I put Levin into Vaha's range instead. Whoops.

I just feel blessed that she didn't crit.

Fighting fire with ice, I use Blizzard on the High Priest. The Sleep effect kicks in yet again, so now we'll have a lot less trouble approaching Vaha.

Speaking of not having trouble

Cuan decides that, given how positively boring the trek has been so far, he doesn't need his lance for this at all.

And then he and his wife and his shitty generic friends went home, the end!

Travant, who has done nothing wrong in this desert, tells his guys to go smash Sigurd's army for no special reason, just because he's a dick. A dick who hasn't done anything wrong, yep.

A change of palette for a change of goals.

Jamke got hit by both Sleep and Meteor because of my tactical genius. Poor guy.

Thankfully, we've got people in range who can deal with these problems. Prayer doesn't help much when you're dealing with the Green Nuke.

There, we've only got one High Priest and Vaha left.

For no reason in particular, I let Jamke and Dew have their little talk. Jamke can apparently hold entire conversations in his sleep.

Let's fix that problem.

+1 MHP. Yep.

Two down, two to go. Fury's flying around and dealing with the siege tome pests in the meantime.

We've got a couple turns to deal with all of that before we have to deal with all of this, too. If I'd been smarter, I'd have let these guys come to me before dealing with Vaha, but if you want smart strategies you've come to exactly the wrong place.

The High Priest very rudely uses Sleep on Briggid. Could've been worse, I guess.

It's a real meteor shower around here; Beowulf gets hit by Vaha, and Arden gets hit by a mage to the south of the castle.

The latter is dealt with swiftly.

Vaha's got some impressive dodging ability, though, so I'm less fortunate in dealing with her.

This is kind of a problem, because we've got quite the draconic incursion to deal with soon. I'd rather not be getting slapped around by Meteor the entire time.

Augh, just die already! You're not even an important boss, nobody gives a fuck about you, Vaha!

Your death will be slow and agonizing, generic mage. Fury will make it so.

And she's dead, with the power of Luna!

Lachesis patches up her beloved for an oh-so-typical +1 MHP. I guess good levels aren't really needed anymore at this late stage, but still!

With the boss out of the way, the last obstacle between us and Reptor are these guys. Let's see what we're up against!

These are the stats and inventory of every single dragon rider in this horde sans the boss. Yeah, they're pretty pathetic, especially compared to what came before them.

The boss, Green Zyne, is a whole other ballgame, though. While he's as vulnerable to archers as any flying boss, if he gets the drop on you he can really bring the pain, and not just because of Critical:

We have yet another special weapon, and yet another weapon nicked from Thracia, in the form of the Dragon Lance. In addition to being a Brave weapon, it provides Ambush, and getting hit by it hurts. It's restricted to dragon-type units and people with Noba or Dain blood; the boss fulfills the former qualification, obviously.

On the positive side, Fury's gotten rid of another Meteor mage, and gotten +1 Spd, capping Speed entirely. I've never had such a great Fury before.

Skipping ahead a bit, here we have my Great Wall of Infantry, to protect all those vulnerable ponies from the Horseslayers. I get Fury and her Wind Sword into position, too.

The first kill goes to Levin. Why anyone tries to hit him is beyond me.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def. Not like he needs defense anymore with all the evasion he has, but it's nice to have anyway.

Like I said earlier, the dragon knights are a complete joke. In a completely crazy hypothetical scenario where Cuan and Ethlin had to fight against them, maybe they should've brought allies who weren't complete shit to protect them from all the nothing out there that didn't attack them.

+1 MHP. Yep, whatever you want Holyn.

The boss, AKA the only unit on the enemy side who's any good, picks possibly the worst target for his assault.

It goes about as well as you'd expect.

With only a few enemies left, the archers are on cleanup duty. (+1 Skl)

With all that out of the way, it's time to take yet another castle in Sigurd's unstoppable rampage through the continent.

An old man shows up to tell Sigurd that Cuan and Ethlin are just fine thank you very much.

Meanwhile, Reptor and Aida discuss how they're going to avert the oncoming apocalypse of Sigurd and his band of special snowflakes.

The solution is "a fuckton of promoted enemies and siege tomes".

Next time, instead of going on to the final confrontation, we'll be standing in the desert and tossing items between people for the oncoming barbecue party, and maybe getting a little bit of combat on the side. I promise it won't take a week this time!

References like this are why I'm in college

[Alastor15243]

...Is this a picture of two characters both carrying siege tomes at the time?

...How the hell, when carrying comparable weapons, does the enemy have a 100% hit rate against LEWYN, while Lewyn has a 7% hit rate?

Edited May 21, 2016 by Alastor15243

[epilepsyduck]

...Is this a picture of two characters both carrying siege tomes at the time?

...How the hell, when carrying comparable weapons, does the enemy have a 100% hit rate against LEWYN, while Lewyn has a 7% hit rate?

Well, she has a higher Strength stat than him and is on a castle, whereas he's got like 3 Strength and is standing in the desert. The 100% is still pretty surprising, though, so maybe there's some sort of arcane math that only makes sense to the inner workings of the SNES at work.