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

[BrightBow]

That is one frail and slow Iron Mage. Seems like Sylvia's crappy growths were left unchanged.

Come to think of it, Chapter 9 is were I lost the motivation to play this hack. The reason being that I lost Altenna because I killed her back in chapter 8 using Blizzard. At the start of Chapter 9 she appeared on this map as normal, so I thought everything was still fine and that I could overwrite my save without worry. Unfortunately after quitting and loading the save, the game corrected itself and removed Altenna from the map.

Edited August 31, 2016 by BrightBow

[Tamanoir]

In my first playthrough, I ended up with Lana X Oyfeye,and Larcei X Shannan.

Afterwards, I promised myself to never let nature decides anymore and to consider 2nd Gen pairings more seriously.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Tamanoir

[Miacis]

That is one frail and slow Iron Mage. Seems like Sylvia's crappy growths were left unchanged.

Thankfully, with his low move, pretty much every enemy in a formation will be dead by the time one reaches Corpul, so he's not in too much danger really. Most the fighting he should be doing will be in the Arena, and having Great Shield is just another layer of protection to ensure that Prayer breaks the arena fights in half.

Thankfully, Lana didn't fall for her cousin or some weird gross crap,

Good times were had. All I needed to make the perfect awful_binary_pairings.png was Larcei-Shanan, so thanks for stepping in.

[Moblin Major General]

Wincestual. I don't know how, but your third generation is more inbred than an Irish family in the backwoods of West Virginia (not racist, I'm a White Southern Irish descendant, I can make that joke).

[epilepsyduck]

That is one frail and slow Iron Mage. Seems like Sylvia's crappy growths were left unchanged.

The woes of being a dancer's kid. Still, I'm not expecting him to tank, just to not go down like a chump when something looks at him funny.

Good times were had. All I needed to make the perfect awful_binary_pairings.png was Larcei-Shanan, so thanks for stepping in.

God, I forgot how fucked you could make the pairings in FEBinary. Glad I could help complete your family tree from hell, I suppose. :P

Not a whole lot happens this time around, but we do discover an annoying enemy spell with a deadly buff, and we hand the Balmung over to a new host.

Chapter 10 Part 1: Portraited pirates pose perpetually present problem

Welcome to Miletos, an annoyingly-woodsy land populated almost exclusively by mages of dubious morality. Is it any wonder we have literally never heard of this place until just now?

Hi Julius! It seems you've been on a real sightseeing tour lately!

Meanwhile, some poorly-drawn children cower in fear in the mountains, awaiting their doom.

Manfroy uses his plot-powered teleportation skills to kidnap our dear friend Julia. You'd think if it was so easy to teleport in here he'd try to kill Celice, but I suppose I'm not an evil cultist and just can't see the wisdom of this plan. See you two in the final chapter, I guess!

Julia's kidnapping at least leaves me with a convenient space for saving the game! Let's check out the arena and the item trading that went on.

Some fine items are on display, mostly things that we didn't obtain in Gen 1. Things like the Master Bow and King Sword could be found here if you left them behind way back when, but instead we have the Hero Sword and Rescue Staff, as well as a Master Sword that would be here regardless and a Steel Sword that I just don't want to bother purchasing.

The Master Sword is now in Larcei's capable hands. I figured she needed another absurdly overpowered weapon.

Lana has completely abandoned her mother's healing ways, becoming a pure utility staff user and Nosferatank. A Nosferatank with halfway-decent defense, even!

Her brother Lester has the Hero Sword, taking after his uncle from days gone by.

Since Ced was light on staves to use and needs some extra experience, I let him have most of Julia and Lana's castoffs. He also gets the Elite Ring, but only after the Arena since he couldn't afford it beforehand.

Leif has that Dragon Lance we got last chapter, and is ready to cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.

Nanna chucked her Defender Sword at Fin, because lord knows Our Knight of Mediocrity needed a boost if he wants to do anything but die in the next two chapters.

The Prayer Ring is on Johan, because he obviously needed yet more insane defensive skills. Sorry for cribbing your strategies here, Miacis!

Our most interesting change, however, is Nanna here, who has taken the Balmung from Shanan's feeble grip and wields it with the power of Hezul. Admittedly her low-ish speed kind of offsets the boost a bit, but there's still time for her to patch that little issue up, and if all else fails I can throw it to Larcei or Delmud instead.

I gave Shanan his cousin-lover's Silver Blade to compensate, but if we're being honest his relevance to our army is waning. He'll pretty much just stick around to make Larcei more deadly.

The Arena is significantly different from vanilla FE4 here. The first opponent is a Valkyrie with Lightning, an odd sight since Valkyries are such rare enemies.

An Iron Knight and a General team up as the rank 2 enemies, both with Killer Weapons for extra fun.

The "Forrest" that used to work here was fired, and replaced with a Hero wielding a Hero Sword and Hero Bow.

This foe once wore the robes of a dark mage, but saw the error of his ways and donned armor instead.

Yet more Killer weapons at this level, but with a Forrest Knight and Sniper instead.

For a really interesting fight, we've got this Dark Bishop wielding Luna, which makes him utter hell for a lot of the mages.

For our final foe, we have who I can only assume is Hilda's long lost sister, who's abandoned her regal title to become a gladiator.

Everyone eventually makes it through, though for someone whose name rhymes with "bin", it's exclusively due to the Sleep Sword. Here's how everyone stacks up!

Arena Rankings and Level Ups:

ARENA RANKINGS- Celice *, Faval *, Corple *, Nanna *, Teeny *, Larcei *, Delmud *, Arthur *, Altenna *, Leif *, Patty *, Skasaher *, Johan *, Fin *, Shanan *, Oifey *, Lana *, Lester *, Fee *, Ares *, Hannibal *, Fee*, Ced *

ARENA LEVELS-

Celice: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk

I really don't have much of note to say for most of these, yet I will force myself to type something out anyway because otherwise it will look inconsistent with other updates, and that would drive me up the fucking wall.

Faval: 3 levels- +4 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +2 Luk, +1 Def

I guess I can't really complain about more defense, even if it's not what you really need most.

Corple: 5 levels- +4 MHP, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +3 Luk, +1 Def

Those sure are some stats.

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

It's like she knows I've handed her the Balmung and wants to make absolutely sure I don't snatch it from her.

Teeny: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Mdf

Uh-huh.

Larcei: 1 level- +1 MHP

Yeah.

Delmud: 2 levels- +4 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +2 Def

Defense is a bit of a weak point for Holyn!Delmud (only 40%), so I'm glad he's getting a bit more.

Arthur: 1 level- +1 MHP

Yep.

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

That's fine.

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

Sure.

Patty: 1 level- +1 MHP, +1 Luk

How is it the Ulir kids didn't cap Luck before Lana and Teeny did?

Johan: 1 level- +1 MHP, +1 Spd

Hmm.

Fin: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +1 Def

It's far too late, friend.

Shanan: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Mdf

Ditto, though you're at least not totally useless.

Oifey: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +2 Def

Oifey wants to be the best tank he can be.

Lester: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Luk

Sure.

Fee: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +2 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf

While everyone else has long capped their best stats, Fee continues getting stats her growths wouldn't normally lend themselves to.

Ares: 2 levels- +3 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Def, +1 Mdf

I'm glad that, unlike Shanan, you've actually remained relevant.

Hannibal: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf

Hannibal's already pretty pre-built, honestly, but a little more never hurts.

Leen: 3 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Str, +1 Spd, +2 Mgc, +2 Luk, +1 Mdf

Amazingly, she didn't need the Sleep Sword for once. She's also clearly asking for a Thunder Sword or something, which I may or may not indulge.

Ced: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Luk

Okay then.

Patty chucked some of her cash at Ced once all was said and done, and got +1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Skl, +1 Luk.

At last we set out, but not before looking at this swarm of foes who block the road.

Most of the Dark Mages are pretty standard fare.

Two of them have a far-nastier spell in stock, however.

Anyone who's played Genealogy and/or Thracia is familiar with Hel, a spell that drops a unit's HP to 1. FEBinary adds a nasty trick to this little tome, though; instead of FE4's inability to kill a unit or FE5's ability to kill a unit that's at 1 HP, this version of the Hel spell, in addition to dropping HP to 1, will instantly kill a unit with 25 HP or less. Disposing of any unit with this thing in hand should be top priority.

The three non-boss Dark Bishops all have Sleep Staves, for pretty much no reason but to slow you down.

The physical fighters are dangerous but not especially hard to get rid of. The Berserkers do have Wrath, though, so watch out for that.

Then we get to Zagam, who's sole purpose in life seems to be "keep everyone alive for as long as possible to stop you from pushing past us in 1 turn". He's pretty durable thanks to that Defense Ring and the Life skill, but ultimately not a huge threat in and of himself, though Luna can still hurt like hell.

There's pirates all over the map, but there's one in particular that's a bit special.

These guys are turning out to be the Annas of FEBinary. It's yet another FE3-portrait-having bandit with a dangerous axe and the Steal skill! The Lady Sword is an obvious solution to the problems he'll create, but since you can't get him right away it's best to focus on other foes first.

That is indeed what we're doing here, as Celice gets the first kill of the chapter.

Lester tries out his sudden new competency in melee combat.

With one Hel mage disposed of, can Ced get rid of the other?

He can, and with one round of combat! I was sure I'd have to bring out Leen for this.

Thanks to the Elite Ring, he levels and gets +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc. That's very Azel!Ced.

+2 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def. I can't ever complain about more Defense.

Lana decides to use the power of love to dispose of a Berserker.

It works extremely well!

Here's our formation. Fee's gonna chill in the mountains until the border goes down.

The bishops decide to get rid of the double-attacking axe duo first.

They also pick on Teeny, just because.

Ultimately though, not a single hit was landed.

Here's Magenta-Zyne telling us he's gonna go kill some kids, just because.

These pirates are probably planning on getting up to that too.

We'll handle all that later, though. We've got to wake up the slumberparty we've got going.

+1 MHP, +1 Str. Sure, I guess?

Delmud's back in action.

I keep getting sibling crits without even meaning to set them up. Accidentally good strategist!

That's Zagam down and out.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk. Whatever makes you happy, kid.

Patty has been forced into perpetual poverty because of me, but she always builds her wealth back up.

Leif decides it's time to test out that new lance of his. He looks very dashing!

+1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Mdf, Sure, sure.

Sorry for leaving you to your nap, Teeny, we need fighters more than mages right now.

+1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Def. I don't have any complaints.

This was a 100% necessary and good use of the Balmung, and I'll hear no other.

Ditto for Altenna's lance here. That's the last of these losers done with!

Time to go save some brats.

The knights here seem to take a slight detour towards the coast here. Maybe they want a relaxing vacation once they're done stabbing kids.

This pirate continues his incredibly slow trek through the ocean.

We'll be going on a Queen-killing kid-eating extravaganza next time, so look forward to that whenever I've got the time to post it!

[Miacis]

Sorry for cribbing your strategies here, Miacis!

Eh, it's fine. I probably borrowed it myself from some GameFAQs post or another while I was doing research on this game.

"Good artists are creative, but great ones steal."

These guys are turning out to be the Annas of FEBinary.

Holy crap, it finally hit me! You know who is a pirate (sometimes) and is related to Anna...? I think those pirates are all Jake!

I don't care if they're unnamed, this is my new headcanon.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Miacis

[epilepsyduck]

Eh, it's fine. I probably borrowed it myself from some GameFAQs post or another while I was doing research on this game.

"Good artists are creative, but great ones steal."

Holy crap, it finally hit me! You know who is a pirate (sometimes) and is related to Anna...? I think those pirates are all Jake!

I don't care if they're unnamed, this is my new headcanon.

Yet more mysteries of FEBinary have been unveiled! I suppose if Anna's turned to thievery in recent games it only makes sense her boyfriend's an outlaw too.

Implying I'm a "great artist" is the funniest thing anyone's ever said to me.

With all that nonsense we dealt with last time out of the way, it's time to clear out the southern half of Miletos and get one step closer to home. Read this totally mistake-free update and enjoy!

Chapter 10 Part 2: Anti-progress

We've got a trio of troublesome bosses to handle this time, and a bit of a soft time-limit with that pirate past the border. Time to get a move on!

But first, we've got a mage to wake up! Sorry about leaving you all knocked-out like that, Teeny.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Def. More defense is never a bad thing, but I'd appreciate some more magic on you.

I'll skip the next couple turns of moving...

And get straight to the gameplay! Let's check out Hilda, who's sitting all alone here.

Everyone's favorite wicked stepmother has received a few buffs to make her even more dangerous than usual. The Queen class now gives her +5 Crit, and she's gained a triple threat combo of Continue, Ambush and Luna to compliment her Pursuit and Charisma skills. She's also wielding a special tome, the Hellfire, that boosts her damage to a whopping 50 Might.

Though she's actually not the first unit with this thing in hand, I can't remember if I showed it off the last time it appeared, so here it is again.

Before we handle her, we've got some pirates to torch.

I figured it was time to put Nanna's new weapon to a real test.

Y'know, I really dig the Queen class sprite. Kinda wish one of our units could promote into it. It's not like FEBinary hasn't set a precedent of enemy-only classes becoming special promotions!

Nanna has been really on the ball recently when it comes to getting the needed stats (+2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk).

I let Fin weaken her just a smidge, and he offers me +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Spd. Once, long ago, in another generation in fact, I would've liked to see a level like this. But throwing this out there now... you're a cruel tease is what you are, Fin.

I let Ares nab the kill for this. Sorry about that, Teeny. I'll let you take a bite out of her in the Final Chapter!

I forget what the Paladin class caps are, but I think Ares has already smacked into a few of them. (+1 MHP, +1 Def)

I yank Fin back a bit, because lord knows I don't need his idiot ass in the way of the oncoming horsehorde.

I'll let my star players take the first attacks instead.

Ares really makes the most out of having Vantage, doesn't he?

Nanna instead just goes for dodgetanking.

I'm not sure what the plan here was, but I hope everything went as these guys wanted.

The boss is thankfully sitting out of range, so his pesky Leadership doesn't help anyone on his side.

First we do a little healing. In hindsight, Ares is the last unit to ever need to be healed, but I didn't think of that at the time.

Nanna and Ares then switch to their Rapiers for some effective damage fun.

+1 MHP, +1 Def. Yeah, he definitely hit a cap or two if he's getting the exact same level again.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk. Speaking of stat caps, guess who hasn't hit his Speed cap! Christ, Celice, now's not the time to be slacking.

It doesn't take long to finish most of these guys off. Maybe their commander shouldn't be hanging back like some sort of wimp.

Killing these dudes is a very profitable venture for Faval. (+2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Luk, +1 Def)

And for his sister, of course.

Now that we've pretty much annihilated all but a handful of his soldiers, let's look at... um, this guy!

I've totally forgotten this guy's name, but with yet another Zyne recolor as your portrait there's no way in hell you're important. Anyway, Purple!Zyne here is actually rather tough, believe it or not. He's got a pair of Master weapons for any range, and has added Awareness and Sol to his already existing skillset of Pursuit and Critical. You'd be surprised how often he can pull a Sol critical for huge damage and huge self heals! He's also got horribly high Leadership, though thankfully he stayed too far out of range to make it helpful to his team. The best way to deal with him is either effective damage or just more Hero/Master weapons.

He and the tattered remnants of his squad do make an effort, at least.

They don't have their own best interest at heart, if we're being honest, but I admire their courage!

The boss is pretty much the only person able to get a hit in on anyone.

A shame that these guys used their one chance to make a difference and flubbed it so utterly.

Larcei opens up on the boss with a snazzy critical.

Leif is the one who ultimately ends things, finally facing a foe worthy to die on his Dragon Lance.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Mdf. He really puts a lot of other people to shame.

Another pirate down, one more to go. Technically two if we count that one that's slowly inching through the ocean.

And yes, using the Gáe Bolg here was absolutely necessary. (+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc)

I technically had Teeny visit this village a couple turns ago, but who cares? It provides her with a nice +7 MHP.

We've got but a few foes lurking between us and northern Miletos. I think you know what needs doing.

Though statistically unimpressive, the dark mages here are all packing Hel, so one should approach this castle with care. The fact that they don't budge prevents them from being super-threatening, though.

Morrigan, aside from being my favorite Dragon Age character, is mostly only a threat because of said mages. The fact he's got a siege tome can combo well with them, but once he's on his own he isn't terribly dangerous anymore. He's here to get in our way and slow us down, nothing more. Great Shield can certainly work wonders in his favor when it comes to that.

Iron Mage!Corple honestly looks pretty impressive when he uses Fortify. You go, you adorable armored staffbot you!

+1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Mgc. Both are things you could stand to have more of, so no complaints.

Ced's just gonna hang around and eat children for free levels. I'm gonna post them all at once instead of doing it chronologically, because that would break this update up in a way that wouldn't be fun to read.

Some levels are decent. (+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mdf and +1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk)

Some are just mediocre. (+1 MHP, +1 Mgc and +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Luk)

And some just defy description in how bad they are. (+1 MHP, +1 Str and +1 MHP)

There are no glaring mistakes being made in the above screenshots or any other part of this post, by the way. None whatsoever, as I never make any mistakes.

That's another Pirate taken care of. Even if it did put Altenna in range of the boss.

She ignores any sense of probability and dodges the horrendous shade of blue he throws at her.

Don't worry, Arthur and Celice are on the job! Well, Celice will be on the job, anyway.

Corple gets a little more healing done and takes some babysteps towards competency. (+1 Mgc, +1 Luk, +1 Def)

This guy's whole shtick is hitting people from afar so his buddies can instant-kill them, and he's been fouling that up the whole way. No wonder you're using a generic boss portrait!

This guy has started doing his pirate thing. Time to get a move on!

More of his shitty friends are dealt with.

Arthur benefits from the death and suffering of others for the last time. (+1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf)

The boss finally hits home. Your death will be a slow, agonizing one.

I don't think he stands much of a chance.

He at one point threw up Great Shield, but all it did was extend his suffering when Arthur smacked him again.

This isn't wasteful at all.

Levin tries to tell Celice that he's forgotten something very important, but Celice won't hear it because I- I mean, he never makes mistakes or forgets anything ever.

That's one castle down.

I let Arthur have the Magic Ring from this village. Figured he can never do too much damage!

So, remember when I said I never make any mistakes? That's still true, actually. Celice has nothing more he needs to do in this part of the map at all.

I didn't fail to seize this castle after stabbing Hilda out of it, nope, didn't happen, that'd just be ridiculous.

And Leen is not dancing for him just so he can keep up with his own army after I fucked everything up. (+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Luk)

Anyway, forget about that little silly I didn't make, we've got some plot-important bosses discussing all manner of important things, such as what they'll be dropping for our army when we fight them.

Julius wants to get in on the item-dropping action, of course. Please, provide us with all sorts of delightful treasure!

They all spread out across this weird forest.

Having all my units pressed up against the gates when they opened caused... issues.

It wasn't all bad, though.

Next time, we cross a forest full of evil-themed foes with evil-themed weapons, gather all manner of wonderful toys, and are forced to choose between an unkillable blade and a tome of immense power.

[epilepsyduck]

Here we'll trudge through a woodsy area full of evil cultists and be granted a number of incredibly overpowered items, at least one of which is plot-related!

Chapter 10 Part 3: The Forest of Evil

Now that we've done everything there is to do in southern Miletos, it's time to march through the newly-opened gates and take on Julius and his various minibosses.

But first, we've got to take care of Jake here. We've seen through your disguises, criminal scum!

Fee can't quite get rid of him on her own, it seems.

Luckily, Altenna is here to be her eternal flying companion. Yes, using that lance now was absolutely necessary.

Let's take a look at some of these enemies scattered about the forest. They mostly exist just to get in the way, but there's a few surprises here and there.

The swordfighters all have evil-themed swords in hand. No, I don't know why the Swordmasters have the Darkness Sword and not the Mercenaries.

All these dark mages have status staves, Leg Rings and the ever-annoying Hel and Luna spells. They exist entirely to slow you down and fuck up your strategies, and I hate them.

We'll take a look at the enemies around the castle later; let's start cutting through these jerks!

Taken out with a single crit. She truly is Levin's daughter.

Speaking of units who're fond of crits...

+2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd. I never expected him to get so much Skill.

For all the aggravation these guys can cause with their status staves, the dark mages go down like absolute chumps when faced with any sort of combat scenario.

I had Teeny talk with her deadbeat dad for a bit, but since her Magic is already capped it doesn't give her much to go on.

Come enemy phase, the staff guys do what they do best.

Despite handing his Holy Weapon over to a distant relative, the AI still has it out for Shanan. Thankfully Larcei is nearby with the King Sword to keep him dodgy.

Ced is still far behind, but I let him heal and restore a few people with his long-range staves.

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Luk, +1 Def and +1 MHP, respectively. Another unit's hit the level cap!

His sister's steadily chugging along that way, too. I think she's matched her mother in most everything now. (+1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Mgc)

The less we have to deal with being Sleeped and Silenced, the better.

Things like this are why I keep Shanan around.

Chewing through the enemies here is more profitable for some than it is for others. (+2 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Def, +1 Mdf and +1 MHP, +1 Luk)

The support team get a little something too. (+1 MHP, +1 Spd)

Enemy phase consists of the typical foes-being-killed-allies-being-sleeped stuff we've come to expect from FEBinary.

As well as an enterprising Sniper who doesn't realize Fee's taken care of her effective damage issues long ago.

In less fun news, some of the soldiers defending the castle are moving out. This is absolutely terrible for reasons we'll see very shortly.

Sure, buddy, waste your turn Silencing Nanna, who of all my healers is the least effective one. Excellent strategies at work here.

Three very special friends are running out to greet us today. The female Sniper, the topmost Mercenary and the Baron are who I'm talking about, and there's something very special about all of them.

Namely, they are three of the twelve Deadlords/Dark Warlords, here to give us a taste of what's to come in the Final Chapter. Here we've got Funf, an incredibly dangerous Sniper with an absurd skillset guaranteeing the maximum number of attacks she can get, especially given the bow she's got.

God, I think the last time we saw this thing was back in Gen 1. If you don't remember, it's the Gatling Bow, a Hero Bow that gives four attacks instead of two, and eight if you can double your opponent. It's the main reason she's such a pain in the ass to deal with, but thankfully she drops it for us.

This one's Zwei, and he's got a skillset even crazier than Funf! Like Funf, he focuses on getting a ton of powerful attacks and wearing down the opposition, especially when he gets Luna and Astra activations stacking up double. Thankfully...

That's something we'll be able to do ourselves very soon, with the final Sword Skill Manual!

Eins here has the damage-halving Loptyr Sword in hand, and a nasty skillset like the others, but sadly drops nothing for us to make up for being a pain in the ass. The Blaggi Sword is a pretty hard counter to this guy, thankfully.

Teeny is here to cut a path to Funf, so we can take her out before she gets a chance to attack.

She gets a bit less frail with +1 MHP, +1 Def.

Celice will start our assault on this first Deadlord.

Her sheer speed makes it hard to double her, though, and Celice gets only one hit in.

Nanna nearly brings her to 1 HP, but her Darkness Sword skill protects her just enough to stop that.

It's ultimately Delmud, wielding the humble Hand Axe, who brings Funf down.

Time to open a path to Zwei, I suppose.

Altenna, astoundingly enough, dodges three of the four attacks he throws at her. Way to beat the RNG!

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Def. Don't have much to say, pretty bog-standard Altenna stuff.

Like Funf, Zwei uses Darkness Sword to protect himself, but the +10 Def is provides simply wasn't enough and Ares kills him.

Here's how we're all set up.

Yet more status effect shenanigans. Why they can't Silence an actual mage and not some secondary staff user is beyond me.

It seems like we've attracted the attention of Julius and Ishtar. That's certainly not good, but I suppose there's no time like the present to look at the pair!

Ishtar here can either be a breeze or absolute hell to deal with, entirely depending on who you send up against her. She dished out a lot of damage with great accuracy and a high chance to double, but if you send, say, your Forseti user up against her she's merely a pretty good mage. She's probably the easier of the two to handle.

You may have noticed that icon next to Mjölnir in Ishtar's inventory. She does indeed drop it if you kill her, and our Tordo kids can wield it for half the boosts. It's a fantastic way to boost up Teeny to roughly her brother's level if he's toting Forseti, but as we'll see soon, it's not the only option available here.

Julius has gotten some insane buffs to his tome, granting him +10 to Skl, Spd, Def, Mdf instead of a measly +5 Mdf. He's snatched up both Charisma and Continue, just to make fighting him and Ishtar even more difficult. If you've got the Blaggi Sword, he shouldn't be too much trouble, but without it trying to take him out is an exercise in tedium and frustration.

Speaking of special swords, he drops the Loptyr Sword on defeat. It's pretty much the ultimate defensive weapon, but its high weight and merely decent damage kind of drops the offensive potential of its wielder. It's a very worthwhile weapon despite that, as anyone with this in hand is borderline invincible.

You have to choose between Mjölnir and the Loptyr Sword, though, as both Ishtar and Julius will flee when one of the two goes down. I'll be going for Mjölnir this time around, as I really want to give Teeny something nice, but the Loptyr Sword is a really good item too.

It's time to pull back a bit. We don't need the two of them ganging up on someone.

It'd be smart to patch everyone up, too, of course.

Altenna ends up fighting Eins during enemy phase. He doesn't take even a point of damage.

Celice and Julius are about to have an incredibly unpleasant family reunion. Though since it's the first time they've met, I guess it's just a family union or something.

Man, the RNG has been good to me recently. Celice dodged the first attack, though he ate the second one.

Since I don't want to deal with Julius for any longer than I need to, I decided to get a sib crit to dispose of Ishtar here.

Nanna has really been kicking ass since we handed her the Balmung.

And she gets a decent level to help her stay in the game, with +1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf.

Bye, Julius!

Shortly after that, I've had Eins dealt with the only way you really can.

I guess we may as well look at this last guy, underwhelming as he is after all that.

I forget this guy's name, but he's got a cool palette, so I'll call him Cool Palette Guy. Cool Palette Guy here isn't really much to look at, all in all. If he'd accompanied Julius on his merry little chase I could imagine he'd be a tiny bit more threatening, but as it stands he's merely a generic Dark Bishop that doesn't take much effort to handle and that you can deal with on your own time. Sorry, Cool Palette Guy.

Celice and Shanan have their little +3 MHP talk here. I'm sure that'll really make a difference.

The remaining mages aren't at all hard to dispatch.

+1 MHP, +1 Luk. That sure was a level, Delmud.

Lester sets up the kill, and shows off Cool Palette Guy's Cool Palette.

Skasaher is the one to get the kill. A waste of EXP in hindsight, but eh, pretty much everyone is closing in on the level cap at this point anyway.

We're gonna have to backtrack a bit and reorganize our shit. We'll be back with yet more powerful gear up for grabs, and yet more harbingers of what we'll be seeing in the Final Chapter.

[Moblin Major General]

Did they really need to add Mus, Bovis, and Draco? The Twelve at once are bad enough normally, but they seem to take the lord part of their name a little too seriously.

[epilepsyduck]

Did they really need to add Mus, Bovis, and Draco? The Twelve at once are bad enough normally, but they seem to take the lord part of their name a little too seriously.

No other soldiers were fit to wield the mighty Gatling Bow and Astra Manual! And then drop them for the enemy forces.

Only one (important) boss blocks the route to the heart of this evil empire: Arvis. Let's not actually deal with him, though, and instead handle the massive horde of generics and strangely-portraited fellows who block the incredibly narrow bridge on the way to him. Surprise cameos await!

Chapter 10 Part 4: Fusion is a cheap tactic to make weak bosses stronger

Before we get into the real meat of things, let's have Corple visit this village we saved from Jake.

It now provides us with an item!

This here is the Again staff, yanked straight from Mystery of the Emblem. Not actually as powerful as its FE3 incarnation, though; instead of letting everyone move again, it just lets one unit go again. Still, casting it on your dancer can allow for maximum unit refreshment, so it has its uses.

Patching everyone up nets Corple a measly +1 MHP. Bad levels appear to run in the Blaggi bloodline.

Leen is all too happy to prove this by getting an identical +1 MHP level.

In addition to fixing everyone's stuff, I traded some items around. Leif now has the Master Bow, giving him one of every physical weapon class.

Lana has given up status effects and returned to healing, but also nabbed the Return staff.

Nanna has abandoned staves altogether, and instead channels her Odo bloodline with the Astra Manual. Luna/Astra shenanigans await us!

Teeny and Arthur are the only units who can wield Mjölnir. Since Arthur already has Forseti, it only seems fair that Teeny get her cousin's tome.

Shanan has Larcei's King Sword, so while he's busy playing support to her he can boost her up in even more delightful ways.

Lester can now truly imitate his uncle Andrei with the marvelous Gatling Bow, as well as trading his Steel Bow for Silver.

Ced is our go-to status staff guy, with effectively 34 Magic and another +5 boost coming soon!

We're all ready to meet whatever Arvis throws at us. While everyone else is busy fighting the main forces, Fee and Altenna will protect the dear children from those evil cultists, at which point we'll be free to eat them.

Enough of your yammering, Levin.

We've got castles to conquer!

Arvis does The One Noble Thing he does and lets a bunch of kids escape, along with Lord Ring a bishop named Palmark.

Enemies appear everywhere, as they normally do. All of them have skills outside of those provided by their class, which will become standard in the Final Chapter.

Y'know, I don't know where you thought you were escaping to, buddy. There's literally nothing over there.

The enemies, as usual, get first blood.

Not on Larcei, of course. Nothing can touch her.

Rather, on her cousin-lover in the back.

Imagine this happening four times. That's how ineffective these Meteor tomes proved to be.

With everyone lined up to greet us, I think we should take a look at some of the toughest foes here.

First, we've got this Baron guy, using a generic boss portrait he nicked from a different game entirely. Statistically similar to the last guy with this portrait we faced, he nonetheless has a slightly more threatening air about him thanks to Vantage and Critical, as well as a Master Lance and Master Axe. Nonetheless, he's probably the least threatening of the three minibosses here.

Then we've got blue-Macbeth here, who needs to be dealt with quickly and without mercy. In addition to the ubiquitous Sleep Staff, he's got the Wrath + Ambush combo to make merely attacking him a risky venture, and Continue to give him even more chances to reduce your units to ash. He's pretty much the perfect candidate for testing out the Gatling Bow on, though; he's slow enough that you're practically guaranteed to get 8 attacks on him.

Then we've got this strange lady, who's like Amalda but in Cyas colors. A weird fusion of Amalda and Cyas? Amayas? That's what I'm calling her. Amayas here combines Amalda's sheer combat effectiveness with Cyas's annoying Leadership qualities; any enemy near her will get immense boosts to their combat potential, but trying to take her out first to stop that is difficult when she's got two strong weapons and a bunch of great skills. The Dracoshield prevents you from taking advantage of effective damage or critical hits to take her out, so the best way to handle her is to send units with incredibly strong weapons and hope she goes down in a few hits.

Thankfully, she'll be dropping us that Dracoshield when we dispose of her. You didn't think it was an enemy-only item, did you? You can also get it through Femina's secret event, but if you do it that way Amayas won't drop hers anymore.

Since Femina doesn't even exist, though, we gotta pick it up through good old-fashioned murder. Fee laughs at the apparent oblivion Femina is in as she and Altenna prepare for the oncoming Dark Mages.

We begin our assault on the bridge in a predictable fashion.

It made for a predictable end.

Nanna got her first Astra-Luna activation. I'm so proud!

In case you haven't noticed, all the enemies here have a pleasing red palette. The Mage Fighters end up looking a lot like Azel because of it, actually. It's rather neat.

Teeny decides to trivialize Orange Largo with her newfound powers.

I love when these minibosses get deathquotes. Even if I can't read them.

Poor Patty is perpetually poor because I need her powers of giving money to people, so it's time to let her build up those funds yet again.

Great Shield did nothing to save him against the awesome might of the Dragon Lance.

A lot of people took a lot of damage, so I figured it was time to heal.

+1 MHP. Some things never change.

I really want Blue Macbeth handled ASAP, so I let Leen dance for a few people.

Lester's got good odds of handling this guy, I'd wager.

It took five attacks, but he got him in the end.

Just when you thought we'd long past the tragic tale of Macbeth, it comes back for us a second time.

Lester becomes yet another unit to hit the level cap with a bad level, granting me +1 MHP, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk. He's so good that I don't care.

No healers allowed except for mine, douchebag.

Arthur and Ced are way too far away to meaningfully contribute, but they take out the last armor that was lurking about.

I don't trust Hannibal's ability to survive against a million mages, so I pull him back with Rescue.

One mage does target him from afar, but he doesn't even care.

Much like before, the Meteor-wielding mages seem unable to land a hit. Maybe if they stayed near Amayas it wouldn't be a problem for them.

One of them makes the foolish mistake of attacking Johan, and receives her just desserts for such folly.

Others are at least smart enough to attack units that can't fight back.

Amayas picks Lester has the sacrifice she'll take for this turn.

She's got a really lovely color scheme, I think.

Thankfully, she doesn't end up killing Lester, though she comes damn close. One Continue activation and he would've died.

The kid-killing squad shuffle along s l o w l y towards their targets.

They probably weren't counting on a pair of fliers standing in their way.

It's time to dispose of all these wannabe Azels.

+1 MHP, +1 Str. Sure, you could use more Strength.

We leave basically none of Amayas's troops left standing. (+1 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def, +1 Mdf)

Teeny seemed like a wise choice to open fire on the strange fusion first.

Nanna leaves the miniboss at exactly 1HP. Good, I didn't really want her to get the Dracoshield.

Gotta dance a few units into place for this.

She's finally done leveling! (+1 MHP, +1 Skl)

Corple uses the Again staff to dance for his dancer sister. Its animation is... basically nothing, actually.

Leen's getting quite a workout today.

Skasaher was my choice for the Dracoshield this time around.

I guess I have a bit of an obsession with getting him and his sister as many powerful items as possible.

With the biggest threat out of the way, it was time to handle the rest of these Azel cosplayers.

Altenna and Fee, meanwhile, make short work of the Dark Mages going for the kids.

They try to heal each other to save themselves.

But all they do is prolong their own suffering.

Palmark gives the ladies a free heal for their valiant efforts. Thanks, buddy!

Our next post will see us finish off Arvis, collect a bunch of stupidly good items, and complete Chapter 10 and move on to the brink of FEBinary's insanity. Hope you enjoy!

[epilepsyduck]

The false emperor stands before us with a huddled force of a few mages, bent on blocking us from the heart of his empire. We'll deal with him, devour the souls of the children he tried to protect, and gather yet more power for our final showdown.

Chapter 10 Part 5: Ced's Inferno

Teeny opens up this update with a little +1 MHP level from healing.

Before we get anywhere near Arvis and his crowd, let's take care of some important business.

I don't even know how many levels of saiyan this is.

Celice now has his ancestral sword, the Tyrfing. Thank god it comes with that Speed bonus; Celice has gotten remarkably screwed in that area. It's still the same Prayer-giving Mdf-boosting nuclear option it was last time we had it, of course. It should work well with another item he'll be getting soon, though!

Hannibal has the Elite Ring, and since he's way behind everyone else levelswise, I figured he gets exclusive access to this buffet Arvis kindly laid out for us.

The levels he gets, in order, are +1 MHP, +1 Str, +1 Mgc, +1 Def...

+1 MHP, +1 Str...

+1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Str...

+1 MHP...

And +1 MHP, +1 Skl. Not the best, but then Hannibal's not really a growth unit.

We've got only a handful of guys between us and being done with Miletos forever. Let's see the magesquad Arvis has put up.

Siege tome users with Critical and (in the case of the Sages) Continue make approaching this castle a bit of a pain in the ass, to be honest. Two of the Iron Mages sit right in the Leadership/Charisma area that Arvis is projecting, making them especially good at pelting people from afar. Try to get rid of all of them in one turn; the RNG seems to favor letting them crit whenever it's least convenient.

Generic Fortify priest. He can put up a fight thanks to Critical, but ultimately isn't too difficult on his own. Take him out ASAP so he doesn't heal everyone.

Then we've got our brave Emperor himself, absurd stats and all. He's not particularly more difficult than before, but given that he was a pretty difficult boss in vanilla FE4, that's a small comfort. The Rapier/Blaggi Sword will be your friend here, but even with effective damage it will take a long time to deal with him. If you went with the Lopto Sword instead of Mjölnir, don't think you can just cheese this fight with it, as he's got a Blaggi Sword of his own to counter such strategies.

He'll be dropping that wonderful Valflame tome for us, though, which will give any child of Azel's (Ced in this case) an absurdly high Magic stat for maximum damage and staff usage. I suppose you could hand it to Julia once she comes back, but there's not much point given her own absurd tome.

We've got a little while before we have to deal with that guy, though. For now, it's enough to handle his wonderfully purple Sages.

+1 MHP, +1 Def. Okay, I guess.

The Iron Mages are hardy enough that clearing them out is a pain, but we manage.

If Corple had a palette like that for High Priest, I might actually consider making him one. Pink makes everything better!

+1 MHP, +1 Skl and +2 MHP, +1 Skl. Must be an Ulir thing.

Yes, this was an absolutely necessary use of both of these expensive items. Don't question me.

Well, that wasn't so bad! Now onto the hard part...

Effective damage adds +20 attack, but even with that taking Arvis down is slow going. Fuck him and his 40 defense.

A little healing gets done on this dim day.

Larcei gets a crit for maximum damage on enemy phase. That's the Larcei I know and love!

We proceed to gently chip him down, as well as steal all his gold.

Like FE4, the whole "meet your dead parents" event only activates if Celice gets the killing blow.

Thankfully, that's exactly what happens.

+1 MHP, +1 Mdf. Your parents will have a lot to say about that.

"Child, are you fucking kidding me? That's the kind of Speed I would've had by level 29!"

Celice still gets a ring, but it's something infinitely cooler than another Life Ring.

Meet Naga's Grace! It grants the Life skill just like the ring that used to be here, but it also provides a Loptyr-negation effect like the Blaggi Sword as long as it's in your inventory. This'll give Celice (or whoever you give it to, really) the edge he needs as we move into the last days of this conflict.

You know how this goes by now; capture a castle, get your ear talked off.

This might legitimately be the fastest I've cleared a chapter in this whole LP.

Next time, we'll be killing every last person still alive on the continent, some of whom have come from faraway lands to stop our endless massacre. Meanwhile, Johan gets the final piece of the puzzle he needed to become truly immortal, and a tome of legendary power comes back after six long chapters of absence.

[Moblin Major General]

Johan and the Hand Axe from Hell. I'm looking forward to it.

[Baldrick]

With Naga's Grace, you've got 99 problems but a Lopt ain't one.

[epilepsyduck]

Johan and the Hand Axe from Hell. I'm looking forward to it.

Tsk, don't spoil the surprise. Even if everyone who's read this either already knows or could have easily guessed.

With Naga's Grace, you've got 99 problems but a Lopt ain't one.

The people who read this thread are funnier than the hack writing it.

_{Haha, hack. I didn't even mean to do that.}

^{...I'm very sorry.}

It's at this point that the hack simply stops holding back and let's everything loose onto the player in a desperate bid to destroy them, up to and including the appearance of several invaders from a faraway land. Here's a quick peek at what's to come.

Final Chapter Part 1: A Tale of Two Roberts

After all this time, we've built our forces up and are ready for the final confrontation with Julius and his many, many lackeys, who're bent on saving what little of the continent Sigurd and Celice haven't destroyed in their rampages.

Here's one of those guys right now, being generically evil as usual.

Enemies have scattered all over the place, of course.

But Levin and Celice know we have other business to deal with first.

Savor this screenshot, as it's likely the last time we'll ever see anything like it in this thread again.

Even with so many units maxed out, I sent everyone through the Arena one last time. This time around, there's a few familiar faces lurking within.

Namely, every single opponent here is based on a character from the Archanea games. Here we've got Ogma and Barts, the former of which has Luna for Defense-halving unavoidable-damage fun, while the latter combines Wrath with the dangerous Pugi. Like practically everyone else here, they've also got Pursuit and/or Continue, and do a good job introducing the kinds of things the hack will be facing you against both further into the Arena and in the Final Chapter itself.

Next we've got Abel, with a Horseslayer for melee combat and a Master Lance for ranged. Arguably one of the easiest opponents given his lack of Luna/Sol/Astra or other potent skills, but he can still put up a fight.

Navarre and Gordin fight us next. Navarre's got Astra and is your typical crit-happy Swordmaster, while Gordin's yet another Luna user with a nearly-equal penchant for crits. In some ways, Gordin is actually the tougher fight, but fewer units will have to deal with him than with Navarre's flurry of sword swipes.

Draug comes after that, with a pair of Killer weapons for both ranges. He's got Great Shield just to make the fight last longer, and Ambush so he can get a free hit in. He's a tough guy, but nowhere near as tough as...

Minerva! If it wasn't for the rank 7 guy, Minerva would easily be the hardest Arena fight to get through. In addition to wielding the mighty Dragon Lance and Master Lance, she has Great Shield, Ambush and Sol, which makes even surviving a single round with her difficult for a lot of units, much less dealing any real damage. She pretty much exists to wall out anyone who doesn't have potent skill combinations and/or good equipment. She also, unlike previous enemies, appears to be immune to effective damage.

Merric comes after that vicious fight, and while he's undeniably difficult to handle, he's a bit more tame. He's got Excalibur, a Speed-boosting Wind tome, and he's not afraid to get a lot of attacks and crits with it, but his lack of attack skills prevents him from being able to handle evasive units easily, and he doesn't have any real defensive ability either. Still, he's very good at wiping the floor with low-Mdf units before they even get a hit in.

Finally, we have the obvious opponent; Prince Marth, who wields a Silver Sword for the regular Arena and a Silver Bow for the ranged one. In addition to some of the typical Pursuit/Continue/Critical stuff, he has a very scary enemy-only skill; Aether. When this little move activates, little pink-ish sparkles appear before the typical Sol ones do, and he gets a guaranteed Sol and Luna strike on whoever he's facing. This basically spells doom for most units, and thus fighting Marth is all about finishing him off as fast as humanly possible to lower the likelihood that he'll get a chance to activate his skill. Even then, he hits like a truck and is remarkably fast and hard to double.

Arena rewards get tripled this time around, though, so even if all your units are capped out, it's worth fighting through them for the funds. You'll almost certainly want to pass stuff around for this chapter.

Believe it or not, I managed to get everyone through all the opponents in the Arena. Even the Blaggi kids made it; Leen with the Sleep Sword, and Corple with the Dracoshield, a Speed Ring, and some incredible luck. For the final time, we look at the Arena results and the paltry stats gained within. No commentary this time, since everything is too painfully generic to say anything about.

Arena Rankings and Level Ups:

ARENA RANKINGS- Hannibal *, Faval *, Leen *, Ares *, Fee *, Patty *, Lana *, Oifey *, Teeny *, Arthur *, Nanna *, Larcei *, Skasaher *, Delmud *, Leif *, Altenna *, Shanan *, Johan *, Fin *, Celice *, Corple *, Ced *, Lester *

ARENA LEVELS-

Hannibal: 1 level- +1 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Faval: 3 levels- +4 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Mgc

Fee: 2 levels- +1 MHP, +2 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Luk

Patty: 1 level- +1 Skl, +1 Mgc, +1 Mdf

Oifey: 3 levels- +3 MHP, +1 Luk, +1 Def

Nanna: 1 level- +1 MHP, +1 Spd, +1 Def

Delmud: 1 level- +2 MHP, +1 Luk

Leif: 2 levels- +2 MHP, +1 Skl, +1 Luk, +1 Def

Altenna: 5 levels- +5 MHP, +3 Skl, +2 Luk

Shanan: 5 levels- +6 MHP, +2 Str, +1 Def, +1 Mdf

Johan: 2 levels- +3 MHP, +1 Spd

Fin: 1 level- Letting me down one last time with absolutely fuck all

Celice: 1 level- +2 MHP, +1 Luk

Some items traded hands after all was said and done; Celice has a Speed Ring to patch up his shoddy Speed, while Oifey gets both of the defensive-oriented Rings to be an even better tank.

Larcei now has Faval's Luna Manual. You didn't think I'd pass up the opportunity to have a second Luna + Astra unit, right?

Lana's back to typical healing duties in addition to teleporting people around with a Restore Staff and a Recover Staff.

Ced, meanwhile, is our dedicated status-effect guy. 39 may seem a bit overkill, but in all honesty it's necessary to at least get over 35 for some of this stuff. Some of these bosses have insane Resistance.

To stop Delmud from being completely overshadowed by his sister and cousin, I chucked him a Sol Manual for more sword skill combos. It's like having Aether but less reliable!

Finally, Hannibal gave Arthur Thoron so the boy could have an A-rank tome just in case, and gathered up Bolganone instead.

Seems like some pairings happened while we weren't looking! Teeny has claimed Oifey for her own, which... okay. You're both adults, I think, you do whatever you want.

In less enthralling news, Altenna and her brother Leif have gotten hitched. Damn, I was hoping to avoid any incest pairings. I guess this is where IntSys nicked some of their ideas for Fates.

Let's ignore the Corrinesque choices in lovers some of our army has taken and focus on our opposition. First, we have two teams of Dark Mages surrounding our castle.

They pretty much exist to annoy you and slow you down while you leave your castle. Dealing with them shouldn't be too hard.

Then we come to this varied bunch of pony riders here, who are decidedly more up to the task of stopping us.

Some of them are tough, but decidedly generic.

Interestingly, it's not the Valkyrie in the center but the Mage Knights on either side who've taken up the role of Annoying Healers. They of course have Prayer like all good Annoying Healers should, and exist to drag the fight out while their tougher allies try to finish you off.

The Bow Knights have made the interesting decision of having a Sleep Sword as their melee weapon, which can be pretty annoying when they knock out a tough unit.

Then we have the original leader of this group from vanilla FE4, Robert, as well as some weird clone of him. With Master weapons and Luna added to their arsenals, they're a hell of a lot tougher than they were (well, than he was) in the original. Yet they aren't the actual boss of this particular squad anymore...

Lena here is the actual commander here! Yes, Lena from Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem and all that. How and why she's here is a mystery, as is why she has Saphy's (badly recolored) portrait instead of her own, but whatever, it's her! She's a killer boss fight, actually; getting hit by Aura that's been Luna'd, criticaled, or both is gonna put a real dent in any unit's HP if not kill them outright, and she has Prayer to keep herself alive. The Dracoshield gives her Great Shield and immunity to crits and effective damage on top of that, and her leadership is aggravatingly high to make all her mooks that much deadlier. The best way to handle her is with Silence or Sleep, though if you'd rather keep your staves fresh for tougher opponents, Celice with the Tyrfing can work wonders.

Let's not worry about her just yet, though. We've got cultists to clear out.

Yes, I absolutely needed to use Holy Weapons to deal with this. You saw their stats, clearly they could take us on singlehandedly without them!

Skasaher doesn't bust out any legendaries and just goes for the simplicity of the Master Axe.

Some dancing gets done. I kind of like this frame of the dance animation for no particular reason.

Still totally worthwhile and necessary.

Altenna gets her last level ever with +1 MHP. Fair enough, I guess.

Time to get the southern pests too.

It goes about as well for these guys as you'd expect.

Fee tries her hand at killing them, but they just barely survive through it.

No matter, that's why we have siege tomes.

The weird Lenasquad move to greet us.

Still maintaining their formation, of course.

Anyway, I say fuck fighting Lena the fair way.

She won't utter a peep.

One healer down before he could even become a problem.

Nanna really like showing off now that she's got Astra/Luna.

The strange Robert clone will be dealt with swiftly and without mercy.

Lester does a great job chewing through like 2/3 of his health.

But it's truly the power of love that shall prevail over this evil.

I suppose it's appropriate that Lana got the lover crit; Resire even looks like some sort of Sailor Moon attack.

The false Robert is slain!

Meanwhile, the real one gets a nasty shock.

He also gets some severe burns all over his body.

Finally, a blizzard puts him gently to sleep. An end to his humiliation, at least for now.

On enemy phase, the typical Annoying Healer behavior commences.

Ares is the best thief.

Most enemies try (and fail) to attack units that can't fight back.

In some cases, they seem to have trapped themselves behind enemy lines.

1 HP left, huh? I know exactly the man for the job.

Finally, Fin, we found something even you can handle!

Disgusted by what a weak foll Fin is, Hannibal gets out there and shows the younger generation how it's done.

Not that they were slacking in any way.

Prayer only barely saves the boss from defeat.

Teeny somehow defies both the odds and the game engine to hit her regardless of that.

With the second Mage Knight put to the sword, all that's left is the True Robert.

How shall we deal with this napping idiot?

By finally getting a chance to show off Gen 2's Triangle Attack, of course! A reason to keep Shanan around, at least!

He is so very very dead.

I'll never get tired of those Swordmaster animations. They're over the top in the best way.

Next time, we have more recolored menaces dropping more useful equipment for a team that's already pretty loaded down with useful equipment, all while fighting enemies with an impeccable formation.

[Etria]

Welp, time to rename the thread to "Where Incest gets hacked"

But then, they didn't get to grow up with each other. Nope, still nononono.

[Miacis]

That you thought you could escape the incest in a game like Genealogy was your one and only true mistake.

Thumbs up for completing the arena with everyone. Even my obsessive micro-managing couldn't accomplish that.

Oh hey, you didn't get the one weird glitch I had with Merric, either. Seems Binary's damage algorithms are as stable as Super Thracia's graphics engine.

Lena here is the actual commander here! Yes, Lena from Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem and all that. How and why she's here is a mystery... of the Emblem!

I'll see myself out.

[epilepsyduck]

Welp, time to rename the thread to "Where Incest gets hacked"

But then, they didn't get to grow up with each other. Nope, still nononono.

Don't worry, soon Altenna will reveal to Leif that they're not actually siblings after all and he's got a ~mysterious past~ that he's completely in the dark about. Now it's 100% kosher!

That you thought you could escape the incest in a game like Genealogy was your one and only true mistake.

Thumbs up for completing the arena with everyone. Even my obsessive micro-managing couldn't accomplish that.

Oh hey, you didn't get the one weird glitch I had with Merric, either. Seems Binary's damage algorithms are as stable as Super Thracia's graphics engine.

I'll see myself out.

I've made much bigger reaches for much worse jokes, so I'd better go too. THREAD'S OVER EVERYONE GO HOME.

How do you even get a game to do the shit it's doing in that Super Thracia gif without doing it on purpose?

Here we'll capture Edda and maybe break the plot a tiny bit by semi-accidentally exploiting the AI. More surprise cameos await!

Final Chapter Part 2: Taking the scenic route

With the strange foreign interloper and her clone army dealt with, it's time to take Edda itself. Standing in our way is a rather fancy formation full of dudes.

The physical guys up front are pretty much all variations on this guy. Killer Weapons and Sol do make then aggravating to handle, but they're arguably the least tough/annoying foes here.

All but one of the Bishops are toting a mid-range tome and a siege tome, which makes approaching Edda for anyone with crappy Resistance kind of a headache, and they've got a self-heal skill that ultimately doesn't help them much. They're not the only ones...

The dreaded Sleep Staff makes yet another appearance, wielded by all the male High Priests and one of the bosses! Getting rid of these guys should be top priority.

In an odd display of Jugdrali gender roles, the female High Priests are more focused on healing and self preservation with the ever-annoying Prayer + Life. Get rid of them ASAP.

Then we get to the bosses, which includes... Boyce? I think that's right. Boyce here's a rough one, as indicated by the change from his original regal purple to a rugged brown for his outfit. With a combination Astra + Sol and the Critical and Continue skills, he's got all sorts of chances to obliterate anyone who takes him on in melee combat while keeping himself healed up. His lack of a ranged weapon makes him easy pickings for an archer or mage, though, so be smart and you should be fine.

Then we have... uh, fuck, I forget and can't be bothered to look it up. Well, this old fart is pretty aggravating in any case, with the ultimate survival combo of Awareness, Prayer, Life and Resire to make disposing of him take forever, and effectively 30 Magic for maximum Sleep coverage. Don't feel bad for Silencing him, though I ultimately didn't do so here.

Another strange fusion lurks between them, this one being Olwen with Eyrios colors. Compared to the other two bosses we've seen, she's nothing particularly special or difficult to handle, but Excalibur still hurts like hell and gives her high crit and AS, and she's got Blizzard for more Sleep fun.

If it seems strange we're getting Excalibur so late in the game when better tomes are available, note that Hawk can get it from his secret event, in which case this one won't drop. It's a little something to make him stand out from Ced, I suppose.

Then there's this guy who I don't even fucking care enough about to give you his name. He's got Wrath and Sol and those are really his only defining features. He's not very good or hard to take down.

I decide to try and lure all the Killer weapon guys out so I could deal with the mages separately, and what better way to do that than with Skasaher and his wonderful Master Axe!

Lex has really left the Isaach twins quite a marvelous Enemy Phase.

Celice has a couple close calls with the archers, but nothing hits.

Boyce takes an interest in our little Forrest Knight and decides to cross blades with him.

Skasaher really exceeds expectations, nearly killing the boss outright.

Unfortunately, both him and his sister fall victim to the Sleep Staves. Curse you two and your bad Resistance!

Their cousin/husband/brother-in-law narrowly avoids a similar fate.

Johan will not stand for such an insult to the love of his life, even if she's rejected him.

It didn't take much to get this guy out of the picture, did it?

I figured Celice was perfect for mageslaying duty on Olweyrios.

He performs admirably...

But Altenna is the one to snatch the kill from him. She gets Excalibur, a tome that I have absolutely no use for this playthrough because the one unit who could actually benefit from it, Corple, can't wield it do to his poor stats. Oh well, I guess Altenna could always use more money to keep her weapons repaired.

After that, I had one goal; do away with all the Sleep Staff assclowns.

As well as rescue one of their latest victims from his lethargic prison.

The chapter has barely started and already the Again staff is broken. Here's it turning Leen an odd shade of pink.

She dances for a few people, including the very brother who just refreshed her.

Here's our airtight formation as we see a rare sight in progress.

A status effect user using his staff from melee range! Poor Nanna never stood a chance.

It seems the priests want to always knock out siblings at the same time. What strange customs Jugdral has.

Shanan avoided being sent to dreamland last time, but wasn't so fortunate this round.

The intense hatred the AI has for Shanan and Ares has not abated one bit, but fortunately neither has any trouble avoiding the damage.

Okay, maybe I lied a bit.

Please go save your worthless cousin-husband, Larcei.

She does so with the usual overkill and dramatic flair.

Arthur's pretty good at both those things, too.

With the biggest threats removed, taking care of everyone else wasn't too complicated.

I try to patch Shanan up only for the boss to immediately wound him again. Rude!

Larcei won't stand for this, and plans to make him very dead.

Oh so very dead.

So very very very DEAD.

It was always his fate to feed the Blaggi Sword's unquenchable lust for cultist blood.

Levin tries to remind Celice that he's left the home castle totally undefended, but Celice ignores him because he never makes any mistakes.

You might notice I've got everyone bunched up at the gate north of Edda, there's a reason for this.

Even though Burian and the random mustache he's talking to say they're gonna split up...

When it comes time to play the chapter, only one of them goes the direction he's supposed to.

Since I've got everyone bunched up near Edda, Burian decides to fuck off and ignore Chalphy entirely, instead going all the way around the mountain and attacking us. I didn't realize this was a thing you could make happen until this playthrough, but I tried a few times and got it to work consistently. Is this a thing that happens in vanilla FE4?

Since I don't like splitting my forces up unless absolutely necessary, this is a boon to me.

These unpromoted losers are a complete joke, to be honest.

So is their boss, as it turns out! I guess we won't be seeing his stats today.

I'm very sorry, guy whose name I don't remember. Your death shall probably be in vain.

Without Mr. Mustache to help them out, these guys are even bigger chumps than usual.

The standard slaughter of enemy healers and healing of our own slaughterers gets done as always.

And that's the end of that!

Burian has no reaction to his underling's death, and continues his senseless march against the plot.

Let's see what we'll be up against here!

The Great Knights are divided between kinda-tough Hero Axe guys and friggin'-aggravating Master Axe guys, both with Vantage in honor of the late Lex. Try to deal with them outside of Burian's Leadership if you can; his stars can make them absolutely horrible to fight.

Pony-mounted Fortify healers are the worst, and Burian made sure to get three of them! Fuck these ladies so hard, kill them without mercy.

Then there's this asshole, and above all he's tough! With Helswath giving him both huge Def/Mdf and Great Shield, he's a hard guy to bring down, and he of course has huge damage and some decent combat skills to make him a threat on the offense as well as defense. Getting rid of him is pretty much always an ordeal regardless of who you send to fight him.

Though fighting him is technically optional, it's oh-so-very worth it because of Helswath; Johan becomes almost completely unkillable with this thing in hand, and Larcei, Delmud and Skasaher can potentially all wield it too if any of them have Lex as a dad and have the right classes. If you make bad choices and picked Johalva than it can serve him well too, I guess. In any case, getting this thing is borderline required for some of the shit we'll see later, so don't pass it up!

We'll deal with this detour-taking idiot and his stupidly powerful axe later, though. Hopefully it won't take me another week to send out!

I was kind of sleep-deprived when I wrote this, I'm sorry.

[N30]

Purge Sages.

Purge Sages.

P..u...r...g...e....

PUUUUURGGGGGEEEEE

GL with that.

Edited September 28, 2016 by N30

[Baldrick]

re: Burian's AI, I believe the AI usually goes for the closest enemy unit unless they can reach a castle in one turn.

[epilepsyduck]

Purge Sages.

Purge Sages.

P..u...r...g...e....

PUUUUURGGGGGEEEEE

GL with that.

Those fucking SAGES hasdiufaspfafgiodf

re: Burian's AI, I believe the AI usually goes for the closest enemy unit unless they can reach a castle in one turn.

I figured they'd have set his AI to go where he was actually supposed to go, but if he's just using the normal AI then I guess that makes sense.

I had to snip this one in two to get it all to fit, so look for another post coming soon-ish. For now, here's Burian's Folly.

Final Chapter Part 3: Seeing double

Last time, we tricked Burian into ignoring his actual objective and taking a pointless route through the mountains to attack us.

Now I've got everyone sitting just outside his range. My tankiest units are at the front, since I'm not confident that anyone else can handle all these Great Knights.

They're all pretty good at taking hits, thankfully.

It's at this point that we see a bit of a split in opinion in Burian's forces

Most of them, including the boss himself, continue their suicidal charge against us.

However, a few bold soldiers have abandoned their liege in order to actually do their jobs. They start heading straight for Chalphy. This is a very bad thing, as I have no one defending the place.

On the positive side, I know how to speed all this up so we can catch up to them.

That's certainly a very green outfit you're wearing.

With him out of the way, we can focus on getting rid of his mooks, who are pretty tough but vulnerable to our more regal weapons.

And hey, Sol + Luna always works too.

Patty's fallen to the wayside a bit since we've got so many powerful units now, but she pops out to show she's still got it.

Got the gold, that is.

Hannibal and Teeny haven't gotten much opportunity to show off those spells of theirs, and these guys are the perfect guinea pigs for them.

Since Patty was literally 1 EXP away from hitting the level cap, I had Leen dance for her.

+1 MHP. Worth it.

These guys are still heading south, realizing the futility in trying to fight us head on. Perhaps the smartest foes we've faced in this whole LP!

Certainly smarter than these idiots, who maybe should've just stayed home.

The Valkyries prove very annoying, of course, both healing their allies and damaging Patty. They will come to regret all of it.

Faval gets revenge for his sister's grave injuries.

Leif's pretty much got all the stats he needs already, but gets +1 MHP, +1 Skl because why not?

Though Faval thought he was avenging her, it's ultimately Patty who gets the final blow.

A very fancy backstab that we haven't seen in a while. Savor it.

I suppose now it's time to deal with this loser.

I may have scummed the result a teeny bit, but this manages to get Burian to low HP without outright killing him.

For it is Johan, and not Larcei, who must deal the finishing blow.

Supporting him in this fratricide is his newfound lover, Nanna! It seems Johan is always destined to love Odo ladies.

He gets both his brother's insane axe and a nice +1 MHP, +1 Spd level. The Final Johan has been unleashed!

Fin's role in this little army is at an end, so he gets to sit on the castle to stop anyone from just crushing it immediately. With the Defender Sword I'm just he'll be fine.

Fortunately that won't be necessary, as the errant knights are coming to face us.

The random guy defending Dozel makes his presence known, demanding that I show him off instead of just killing him immediately like the mustache dude.

Okay okay, fine. I'll show everyone what your stats are. Sheesh.

I don't remember his name, but he's effectively a copy of Yupheel, just with Luna instead of Sol and Thoron instead of Bolganone. Another generic boss that takes no effort to handle.

He takes so little effort that I'm more concerned about these generics than I am about him.

Luckily, their bad decision making leads them right into a deadly trap.

When I saw these guys actually heading for my undefended castle, I assumed they must be AI geniuses, but it seems one you get enemies near them they're as dumb as the rest.

That was the end of the Great Knight Saga.

I was kind of hoping for a Sleep here, but I got a crit instead. Not what I expected, but I'll take it!

And another hit in from Teeny! Now we just gotta get Ced over-

Oh, okay. She got a Continue.

Guess I was smart to look at that guy's stats when I did.

Another castle left a smoldering ruin by the "Liberation Army".

The enemies up at Freege don't care for that one bit, and summon high class Baron from all over the land to handle the imminent invasion, as well as three very strange Mage Knights.

The Barons are tough and can hit pretty hard, though they don't have any partcularly scary skills or equipment. Still, they're orders better than those silly unpromoted Axe Knights.

Leading them is the biggest douchebag in Jugdral, the land of douchebags. Hilda is a pretty tanky mage, and has the requisite high Leadership + Charisma to make all her troops that much scarier. She's also going to be healing them basically every turn, so taking her out is very important, though made difficult by the knights surrounding her.

Coming all this way from the cold grip of death is none other than Reinhardt! He's pretty hardy for a Mage Knight, and has Great Shield like almost all the rest of Hilda's troops. He also has the ever-popular Master Sword for physical damage. More worrying is the tome he's wielding, his own personal Dime Thunder, a "brave" tome! And he's not alone in that setup...

On either side of Hilda are yet more bizarre cloning and fusion experiments, only fusing two Mystery of the Emblem characters instead of two Thracia ones. We've got Linde but wearing Marth's outfit, and then a clone of her with a shorter hairdo. An even more bizarre cameo than Lena!

These weird Linde clones are exactly the same statwise and skillwise, and what that means is you've got two mages with a brave-effect tome and the Continue and Critical skills running around, with Prayer to make killing them much harder than it would otherwise be. These strange ladies are even tougher than Reinhardt, who's a known tough boss from another game entirely!

Handling all that is gonna take some doing, so everyone gets their weapons repaired. Ced nabs the villages to fix his staves.

Now we have The Final Johan in our army at last. It's gonna be so fun.

I suppose I lied when I said I have no use for Excalibur; while Corple can't get it, Hannibal certainly can! A bit sad that there's no flying enemies to use it on, or at least none that can actually be hit effectively with it.

Ugh, I guess I'd better get this out of the way.

Nice try, buddy, you're still not getting the Balmung back.

We've formed up, ready to throw down with Hilda's weird zombies and clones.

[Moblin Major General]

Seliph:"WELLL... Teeny's aunt is the biggest bitch is the biggest bitch in the whole world. She's the biggest bitch she's the biggest bitch she's a bitch to all the boys and girls."

Arthur:"Shut your fucking mouth, Seliph!"

[epilepsyduck]

It's time to fight and slay Hilda for the very second time, but not before dealing with a rather ineffectual ambush and acquiring the mighty Yewfelle long after it would've been useful to have.

Final Chapter Part 4: Ambushing the ambush

I wasn't going to do this, but since I already tricked the AI into doing something it shouldn't, I figured I'd best go for a double.

Though the round of combat was not the best one for Fee, that doesn't really matter.

The Baron handily blocks all his friends from being able to do anything. Given my lack of confidence in Fee's ability to handle the Mage Knights, that's a blessing.

Because a lone Pegasus Knight flew around in the mountains a bit, Scorpio decides now is the perfect time to ambush Celice and company, even though Hilda is nowhere near them.

With Fee out of the mountains, they'll stay perched around Freege so I can deal with all these horse archers separately.

I suppose we'd better see what's what with Scorpio and his Whatever Ritter

Oh boy, that's certainly familiar! Scorpio seems to have copied his father's troops wholesale for the most part, a wise move on his part; foes with a Hero Weapon for both ranges are a real pain to deal with.

Don't worry, though, he also stole some ideas from Burian and got the same thing, but with Master weapons instead. No, I don't know why they have Elite.

And Valkyries with Fortify and Life are just all the rage in Jugdral these days, so he got a pair of those too.

Scorpio himself can hit pretty hard with that Yewfelle, and has all the skills needed to get extra attacks and crits, but is a bit tame compared to Burian earlier. The fact he only gets half of Yewfelle's already small bonuses probably contributes to that. He also only gets a King Sword instead of a Hero or Master one for melee combat, and can't even really take advantage of the Charisma bonuses since he'll have Yewfelle equipped.

Here's the utterly unnecessary formation I'm using to face off against him. I'm a master of pointless symmetry.

Skasaher ends up taking most of the blows here; the AI pretty much ignores Johan.

Well, I say "taking blows", but in truth he barely gets scratched.

Hannibal tries out yet another new spell. With the crit this thing has, it's powerful in his Vantage-powered grip.

The Valkyries spend their time running around and unleashing miniature suns at people to heal them.

I want Faval to get his hands on that nice bow of his, so everyone starts cutting through his nice grey Bow Knights.

Some dancing gets done too, of course.

Interestingly, the guys with Master weapons have a completely different palette from the other Bow Knights, black instead of light grey. Kind of a neat detail.

Not that it helps them stay alive or anything.

I wanted Scorpio dead by the end of the turn, so we turned to the usual suspects for help. The Blaggi kids are masters of refreshment.

Johan takes most of his health out, but thankfully doesn't kill him.

There is so much kinslaying going on in this chapter it'd make George RR Martin proud.

God, that palette is just garish. You deserve death just for that!

It certainly took the game long enough to cough this thing up, didn't it? Still, it's a pretty nice bow and will definitely get Faval out from under Lester's shadow.

The AI decides attacking Patty from melee range is a swell idea. I have no idea what sort of logic it follows.

Who cares, she could always use the gold.

At least one of them knows what's good for him.

The others make the same silly mistakes for precious little benefit.

The healers are the last of Scorpio's troops left, and go down with little trouble.

Corple and Lana patch everyone up...

And we get ready to fight Hilda, for real this time.

I put our ultimate unkillable superweapon out front, supported by the Charisma Zone.

One of the bizarre Linde creatures takes the bait.

Prayer just barely saves her life here.

Hilda decides to run away from everyone and heal the one wounded unit, thereby negating her dangerous Leadership bonus. Way to self-sabotage!

The strange lady is dead next turn, courtesy of Skasaher.

I do love when these weird minibosses have death quotes, even if I have no idea what they say.

Now that we've disposed of one of Hilda's bizarre fusion experiments, we should take care of the product of her necromancy.

There is truly nothing more pure than a couple killing an already dead man with a magic axe.

Even without the lover crit, this was the only possible result.

I try to kill this Linde clone too, but Prayer just barely saves her.

No worries, though. Fee is here to pick up the slack.

On enemy phase, the Baron all largely have the same idea.

I didn't say it was a good idea.

At least one of them realizes Johan is death incarnate and tries another target, but she is basically immortal thanks to the powers of the Charisma Zone.

I'm very glad Hilda has decided using her massive Charisma + Leadership aura is a worse use of her time than healing minor scratches from miles away. It makes my life easier.

Without her there to lead them, the Barons fall to the might of the Liberation Army one by one.

Some of whom very wastefully use their overpowered ancestral weapons for the job.

The final remnants are mopped up from afar.

I actually didn't intend for this to happen, but it sure is convienent! Few others are more deserving of a chance to take a chunk out of Hilda.

He doesn't do as well as he could've, though. Great Shield really saves her bacon.

Thankfully, I know someone who's even more deserving of a chance to kill her.

She unleashes all her fury to not do a whole lot.

Her husband shows up to try and get vengeance on her behalf, but falls short of the mark.

That's okay, though. Leen gives Teeny a second chance at finishing things.

I feel like there's some poetic justice to this, using the tome of house Freege to kill its evil matriarch.

Afterwards it was time to patch everyone up. I feel like I'm forgetting something, though.

Oh right, that guy on the castle. God, that was rude! Fine, we'll look at your stats too.

He's basically like the others, just with Tornado/Aether instead of Bolganone/Soland Thoron/Luna. This makes him marginally more dangerous, but ultimately he's still only a threat from a distance.

Once you get up in his face he goes down like a complete chump.

Leif's final level is okay by final level standards, getting him +1 MHP, +1 Mdf.

Oops, forgot about those guys on the ledge!

They take the time to knock out some of my heaviest hitters.

What sort of fell sorcery do they have cooked up?

For the generic ones, not a whole lot of fell sorcery at all. Their Sleep Staves are their only redeeming feature.

As for the boss...

Manfroy? With crappier stats and practically no skills? Strange that he'd show up this early all downgraded like that.

I have to cut it short here, but we'll crack the mystery of this strange appearance and see all sorts of nasty tricks FEBinary has been saving for the finale. Enjoy!

[epilepsyduck]

I'm so glad Imgur's staff decided to break every single fucking facet of their website and leave it all broken for months with no sign that they're fixing any of it.

As we deal with the strangely early appearance of everyone's least favorite villain, FEBinary prepares yet more horrible traps and nasty surprises to make sure the final chapter doesn't go down easily.

Final Chapter Part 5: Purging Purge

There's a strange Manfroy-esque creature and a bunch of generic dark mages standing between us and the final battle. Leif will start us off on cleanup duty.

Dark Mages in this chapter really suck.

They are very good at putting people to sleep, though.

The blue palette is the final clue we need to prove this is a pretend Manfroy. He didn't stand a chance against Larcei.

There, no more of your Sleep antics.

After I get done patching everyone up...

It's time to conquer Freege!

It turns out the antagonists have a lot to say about that, though. Not nice things, but very angry things.

With righteous fury in their hearts, they send out the absolute best (and last) troops the empire's got.

This castle out in the middle of nowhere also deploys a lonely sage. Surely not anyone we know!

Speaking of sages, the ones that deployed with Ishtar have a new siege tome!

One with a very strange way of handling animations. Guess they couldn't figure out how to make Aura a proper long-range animation.

I suppose I'd better show that shit off, as well as what everyone else here's got.

These Sages are basically the worst thing ever. They don't have lots of flashy skills or anything, but they've got that siege tome that makes fighting Ishtar a complete headache;

The Purge tome is like most of the other siege tomes, but has a higher hit rate, crit rate and damage than most. The crit in particular makes this tome way more dangerous than Meteor or the like, and is the main reason players might have to reset while fighting Ishtar.

Not that the other enemies are pushovers. These male Heroes aren't particularly fancy either, but they've got the damage and the crit rate to ruin someone's day.

The female Mercenaries are quite a bit more vicious, though, with Master weapons that boost their crit rates and damage even higher.

The High Priests are your typical asshole healers, with Prayer and Resire to make getting rid of them annoying as hell and Fortify to make fighting everyone else last even longer.

Then we come to the Pegasus sisters, who've all got the same stats and equipment and skills, though only one has Leadership. Dealing any lasting damage to them is nightmarishly hard thanks to their Earth Sword and their Awareness skill, and there's no chance for effective damage or critical hits thanks to the Critical Guard. Their high move thanks to the Leg Ring lets them fly around your formation and murder your squishies. Get rid of the Leadership one before you even try to take on the other two; trying to do otherwise is a losing proposition.

Then we've got the big scary boss herself, and she has stopped fucking around. She's got frighteningly high stats and excellent defensive measures in Great Shield and Ambush, and has maxed out Leadership to ensure her troops are as deadly as possible. She's also got a very deadly weapon to replace the one we stole from her...

This right here is the Tordo Sword. It's a magic sword, only instead of casting an El- level spell or something, it casts Mjölnir! It also provides all the stat boosts of her lost tome, and isn't half bad as a melee weapon. It's still preferable to take her on in melee, of course, but she isn't a complete cakewalk in that department.

No time to panic about having to face off against all that; we've got sages to kill to make the fight a bit less daunting.

I probably won't bother getting all the lover conversations (I'm not sure all the pairings I have even have conversations), but here's Lana and Celice's at least.

+3 Mdf. Every point counts!

Oh hey Areone! It's been a little while since we've seen your ugly mug.

He's here to make a beeline for Chalphy. I'm sure he'll make it with no interruptions.

This enemy phase proves that while our foes are quite fearsome, they maybe aren't the best decision makers.

God bless them, though, they do try!

I don't recall if we've seen female Mercenaries in action before, so here's a tantalizing look at a class I'm sad I missed out on.

The sisters are heading straight for Dozel, but I'm not too worried. As long as someone gets close enough they'll turn around and fight us.

An interruption appears!

Areone has joined the party, kinda! He probably won't be turning the tide of battle, but it doesn't hurt to have him around.

As for his troops... I suppose expendable bait isn't a bad thing to have.

I spend a bit of time picking off units who are outside Ishtar's Leadership range.

Then we get to the fearsome general herself, and whittling her down proves difficult.

Very very very difficult.

Leen refreshes a few units so we can take her down before she gets healed.

She's nearly there...

It just wouldn't feel right to let anyone else have this kill, though.

Teeny proves that when it comes to Mjölnir, you shouldn't settle for a cheap imitation.

With immense haste, I go about purging the world of Purge.

I also patch everyone up a bit, though Corple was really all I needed for this.

Despite being ordered to take Dozel, the sisters decide to completely ignore that and get a taste of Sniper blood.

Interestingly, they've all got a different colored pegasus. This one's white...

This one's sort of blueish...

And this one's a pleasing shade of brown.

Thankfully, they don't Triangle Attack poor Faval here, even though they absolutely could've. I think it's got something to do with the Leg Rings screwing with their AI.

The sage who is very much not someone we know is approaching as fast as her mediocre Movement will let her, so let's finish these ladies off before the new threat arrives.

Disposing of the sisters basically requires Holy Weapons; anything less will deal too little damage that they'll just heal with their swords.

The Dragon Lance is just good enough to compete, though.

With their leader slain, the other two were still a bit tough, but ultimately fell.

Altenna is slowly flying back to catch up with everyone, redshirts in tow.

I suppose we'd better see to this sage that we don't know anything about.

Oh, right, it's Julia. What a shocking twist!

FEBinary has decided that recruiting Julia should be really annoyingly difficult, and has accomplished this by handing the Purge tome to her along with her Circlet. Since she tends to hide in Julius's Meteor range and cast her horribly annoying spell from afar, it makes surviving until Manfroy is taken care of pretty aggravating. Silence is your friend, and is the main reason it's worthwhile to hand your status staves to whoever's got Valflame.

Speaking of Manfroy, you might notice something a bit... strange with the castle he's defending...

It seems Manfroy has picked up on the cloning techniques some of the other bosses have been using, and has cloned himself instead of some random miniboss. Most of the Manfroys look like this, with the incredibly awful Hel tome and Sleep staff to make approaching their castle very dangerous.

The one in the center is the real deal, and is far far nastier than his copies. He's got both Charisma and maximum Leadership so his troops are as deadly as possible, and can't be easily cheesed with skills thanks to Awareness. Worse still is that tome he's got in his evil clutches;

This right here is Maph, a very familiar tome from a very familiar boss. Unlike the "real" Maph, it doesn't outright cancel any and all attempts to attack him, but it does cancel any attacks that come after he casts it. It also halves your Attack Speed, so he's got a good chance of doubling even very fast units. All in all, a fight with him is not going to be easy, but there is a workaround; Naga's Grace and the Blaggi Sword both cancel the special effects of this tome, which makes attacking him a lot more manageable.

You may be wondering, since Manfroy is no longer defending the castle, then who is?

The answer here is Dreizehn, AKA the 13th Deadlord, and the main reason I went with the Japanese version of their names. Unlike Manfroy, who relies on special tricks and powerful Leadership to win the day, this guy merely gets insane stats and hits incredibly hard.

The reason, of course, is none other than the Book of Naga. You didn't think Julia was getting exclusive dibs to that, did you? Combined with his Prayer skill and the boosts from being on a castle, fighting him is sure to be a fun time!

Next time, we have a fun time fighting him and all of Manfroy's other nasty creations.

[Moblin Major General]

So, the non-canon Deadlord Felis shows it's face finally. Mus kicked its ass out when it found out it could turn undead. It hates Mus ever since.

[Miacis]

Wow, that all went... surprisingly well. I guess positionning more defensively put the Sages in a more vulnerable position and delayed the confrontation with the sisters. having half my army hurtling down the cliffs sounded so awesome in theory tho

Manfroy and Dreizehn I remember being quite luck-based, so Imma sacrifice a couple FE12 cavaliers for your good fortune.

How do you even get a game to do the shit it's doing in that Super Thracia gif without doing it on purpose?

I dunno, it seems to be happening at random during battles. I've had it pop up for random spells, physical attacks, movement, deaths, you name it. Typically five to ten times per chapter, although it thankfully only lasts one frame. That gif just pauses on it so it's easier to see.

So, the non-canon Deadlord Felis shows it's face finally. Mus kicked its ass out when it found out it could turn undead. It hates Mus ever since.

That is quite very appropriate. Although once we see Mus's equipment it'll become apparent that Felis was just too cool for them and decided to peace out with the Manfroy club instead.