screenshot Kirie Plays FE8 HALB: Strength Without Power [Complete! Closing Thoughts/Feedback Posted]

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 11 - Monster filler chapter gogogogogo]


Stupid creeping darkness. I much prefer the in-your-face kind of darkness than the sneaky, behind-your-back kind.



Oh, right, this is another FoW chapter. Lame.

Also, looks like !Ewan is another Bonewalker. Hopefully he'll either be a better one than Prince Kyle, or be someone I can't use. >_>



Creepy house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fog... of course it's the perfect place for a filler monster fighting chapter!



!L'Arachel and !Dozla are super excited about killing the monsters in this level, which is kind of ironic when you consider that !Dozla is a Spider himself.

And speaking of which, let's take a look at these 2 possible new characters, shall we?



!L'Arachel is Moulder, which feels rather fitting somewhere. He's a Merc with mediocre stats, but that's okay because Moulder is a non-draft unit anyway. At least he comes with another Shadowkiller and Lancereaver for us to filfer.



!Dozla is Elder Bael Knoll who actually looks... surprisingly good. Almost all of his growths are average, which means he's probably going to be horribly coin flippy, but his bases are pretty damn good, and unlimited Spider weapons. I could use another heavy offensive hitter, so I'm definitely glad he's free. Of all the monster units that have been available for me to use, he definitely looks the best.



Thanks to the FoW we can't see many of the enemies, including the boss, but this one is a sample to show you that the ones we can see don't look too bad at all. The +5 Def comes from the Poison Sword he has equipped.

The chapter begins and we split up into 2 groups. Princess Joshua heads down the southwestern path to recruit Moulder and Knoll as soon as possible, and Tana, Gilliam, and Lute accompany him. Everyone else takes the northeastern main entrance, with Cormag leading the way, Shadowkiller in hand, to illuminate the path.



EP round comes and shows that Moulder is no joke with that Shadowkiller. Definitely helps with his survivability. The greenies from last chapter should take notes from him.



Spider Knoll is also a fucking boss.

Next round comes and both of our groups continue pushing forward and eliminating enemies as they go. We pick up a good few levels along the way:



Lute's is pretty good, L'Arachel's ok, Franz's is meh, and Cormag is Cormag.



Shit. Fucking brave eyes. Thankfully, only one of them can attack Hayden over the wall and the other goes for Cormag who gave zero fucks.



Another brave eye on the bottom does after Joshua but misses both. Woohoo! \o/



Wait a minute... I don't recall there being any thieves this level...



Moulder runs back to heal but Spider Knoll gives zero fucks.



Next round, we mostly concentrate on moving forward, but everyone decides to suicide on Cormag for some reason, so he picks up another Cormag level.



Joshua also picks up another level, a shitty one for him, but he's capped Def now so that's something.



Moulder and Knoll change places, which brings Moulder is range of recruiting, so I'm happy.



So THAT's who's pilfering our shit. Fucking randomizer rolled a Rogue for the boss, and he's moving around. I was so pissed, I forgot to take caps of his stats, but they were pretty mediocre. His inventory was an Iron Sword and 2 Lockpicks, plus the Restore staff he yoinked.



We recruit Moulder who in turn recruits Spider Knoll.



Tana finishes up the Entombed that had gone after Joshua and moves steadily towards capping everything but Str. Lute takes the leftmost stairs to take care of any enemies left up there.



Knoll can't one-round the boss, so instead he protects the chest.



On the other side, Ephraim gets a very Ephraim level. Have I mentioned yet that I love Ephraim? I love Ephraim.



Cormag finally stops killing shit and gets another Secret Book to rot in convoy.



Asshole boss decides that since he can't open the chest, he'll steal Moulder's Exilir instead, which of course means that we cab no longer get the Restore staff he stole either. Son of a bitch. Oh well, it's not that big of a loss, I guess.



Next PP, Knoll weakens him up and Lute gets the kill, scoring herself another decent level.



Cormag opens the last chest and Franz finishes off the final monster to end the battle.



Welp, guess we can't argue with that.



To me, this sounds less like "cute kid" and more like "serial killer systematically hunting down his next victim."



We hook up with Saleh and head off. It looks like Saleh is a female Sage? God I hope I can use him/her. I really want to make Lute a T2 Pupil, but I'd feel much better if we had a staff user.



This is definitely the most pleasant contact we've had with, well, anyone from Grado.



Innes spreads the charm, as usual.



Yes, but at least he was smart enough to defect. You, on the other hand, well...



So THAT's why his sprite looked kind of weird. He wasn't a GK after all, but instead was a F!Lord. Valter still takes him down with a single critical hit from a bow at 1R for some reason. Stupid broken enemies.

Of course, we're too busy marching on to see that confrontation for ourselves. Onward to Caer Pelyn and (hopefully) 2 more recruits!

Apparently I hit the image cap, so C12, team, and closing notes will all be in a following post.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 12 - In which we desperately try to have Tana not kill the boss]


♫ This is the village... of silence. ♫



F!Sage !Saleh leads us out the next morning... into a den fulla monsters.



That's... not exactly an answer, but that's alright. Let's just kill these guys and move on with our lives. It's battle prep time!



Oh, hell yes. !Saleh is Vanessa, who is free, and indeed a Sage. We finally have a Staff user! It's so beautiful. ;~; Not only that, but she's got an A rank in Staves to boot, and also... Dark Magic? What? Her stats aren't super amazing, and she's another no-Str unit, but you know what, fuck it. At worst, she's a staffbot.



I give Spider Knoll the other two claws from Seth/Fado, but then I think to check what their effects were. Fetid is a Devil weapon, so we sell it instead. Woohoo, free 1kG! This is also when I notice that we have a full armory now and not just the ability to sell. Potential useful, but expensive.



Today's boss is... an incredibly shitty boss. 3 Def, really? He's a pushover. At least we'll get a Hammerne Staff if we let him get one hit in before slaughtering him.



Lck +5 comes from the Fiery Fang.



We check out the shop too. Is it just me, or does this stuff seem more expensive than usual? I guess you're paying for the convenience of being able to shop in the middle of a fucking mountain village that hides from civilization, the Fire Emblem equivalent of paying an extra buck if you buy a gallon of milk at the gas station instead of a regular grocery store.



As the level starts, we see a very amusing scene where !Ewan runs for his life and hides in this house. Then the battle begins!

Tana stays behind to lure forward the western-most Brave Eyes while everyone else heads east.



Unfortunately, Vanessa is slow as fuck and gets doubled.



Spider vs Spider! Those Sharp Claws on enemies are pretty tough. Knoll would have had the kill, but missed. Fucking terrain bonuses. :<



It feels so good to finally have a healer. ._.;



We keep edging forward. Franz gets some much needed Str and Hayden is Hayden.



More Gargoyles swoop down during T2 and Vanessa doesn't stand a chance. *sigh* I'm going to have to be pretty careful about protecting her.

Death Count: 9



We start over again, same plan, but making triple sure to keep Vanessa out of the line of fire. Franz adds an HP gain to his previous level up and L'Arachel gets a pretty nice level, too.



Wow do those dog guys suck.

So do Gilliam's hit rates, but, whatever.



We finally clean up the bottom enemies. Tana is finished with the Eyes and begins making her way back. We take the valley path rather slowly, luring enemies to us and staying out of the range of the northern eyes. Until we can bait them with Tana/Vanessa.



Ephraim gets another nice level, including an unexpected point of Str. He's really loving the unlimited Fiendcleaver.



This is our position when the reinforcements arrive. There's 3 more Gargs on the right, too. *sigh* I send Cormag, Spider Knoll, and Franz south to pick them off as best as possible.



With the Eyes finally gone, it's safe to pick up !Ewan, so Lute goes over and grabs him. It's Saleh! Which means we can't use him. He does, however, come with a nice unlimited Steel Blade (so many unlimited swords!) and an Energy Ring.

Ohman, that Energy Ring. I think I actually started salivating. I debated who to use it on as I continued with the chapter.



With nothing better to do, Saleh visits the other house and picks up a Barrier staff. That'll be nice to use on Princess Joshua, I have a feeling.



To the south, we learn that Sharp Claws are extra effecting against flying units. It's a bit overkill.



I made up my mind and gave Ephraim the Energy Ring. He and Tana are my power units, and he could use the boost more than her.



Cormag tanks the Wolf reinforcement line and gets a Cormag level.



Oh, Princess Joshua, what am I going to do with you... that was an awful level. :< Just because you've capped Str/Def doesn't mean you get to slack off on your other stats.



In addition to only having 2 uses, Axereavers are Eclipse weapons.



Even more reinforcements. >.<



Tana takes out the Entombed on the right and gets another level. She's soooo clooooose to level capping that I decide to see if I can get her to 20 in this chapter and promote her before C13.



The boss sucks so much that Tana would kill it without even trying. Instead, we have her kill the Bonewalker and then Rescue her so that the boss doesn't suicide on her during EP.



GODDAMNIT IT TANA.



New plan. Myrrh has a 1-use Slim Sword that she's been holding onto for some reason, so we trade that to Tana. It only does 10 damage and has a 1% crit chance so...



GODDAMNIT IT TANA.

Thankfully, I save stated right before that hit just in case, so I reloaded, burned an RN, and tried again. Success!



She even got +Str!!! Though I was kind of sad that she didn't get that last +Def to cap Def before promotion, too, which would have just been hilarious.



Franz gets the boss kill and a pretty good level, too. Level complete! \o/



With the monsters dead, we finally get to meet some of the locals.



"What happened to your neck? o_o"



To be fair, I'd probably forget about someone too if he hit away in a forest and didn't show himself for a few thousand years or so.



OMG MYRRH IS THE GREAT DRAGON. I definitely didn't see that coming. Nope.

http://i.imgur.com/tlW2l0i.png

Of course you're coming with us, Vanessa. Who else is going to be our heal slave?

http://i.imgur.com/FJmQyYc.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/l0CYx2l.png

Back on the main map, we check out Store 2.0. Prices are a bit more reasonable, and they have a nice Tome selection. I pick up a couple Fluxes and an unlimited (!!) Luna.

http://i.imgur.com/DZ0HqXo.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/sCQDAy8.png

We also promote Tana. She's now a Swordmaster! I figured it would be the better choice for her overall, better caps, the crit boost. Which means I'm probably going to send L'Arachel into Assassin when the time comes.

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 18 Knight
Squishy Jagen Myrrh - Lv. 11 Swordmaster
Tanky Cav Gilliam - Lv. 8 Cavalier
Promoted Tana - Lv. 1 Swordmaster
Sailor Scout Hayden - Lv. 10 Recruit
"Superior" Mage Lute - Lv. 17 Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 15 Myrm
Slowest Thief Cormag - Lv. 18 Thief
Girly Franz - Lv. 14 Archer
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 14 Pirate
Spider Knoll - Lv. 1 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 1 Sage


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited
Silver Axe - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

It seems the extra difficulty spike was only because of those super shitty greenies in C10, so I was able to play fast enough to get another 2 chapters in today. My goal is to complete the LP before Fates comes out on the 20th, so I'm on a good track. 9 days to complete as many chapters, plus any grinding I end up doing. Klok has warned us that grinding might indeed be necessary for the final chapter, so I'm more or less planning on it. Of course, I have less time on the weekends, but I still think it's doable.

We picked up 2 really nice characters today, both of them promoted. Considering that he IS a promoted unit, Knoll's stats are pretty low for where he's at, but compared to some of the stragglers I'm still using, he's great. Plus, he's got access to unlimited monster weapons, including that amazingly powerful Sharp Claw. His growths look pretty coin-flippy, but the only place he's grey is his HP, which has a nice base, so I'm fine with that.

Vanessa solves my Lute dilemma. I finally have a a staff user! And an A rank one, too. I'm not sure why she has access to Dark Magic too, but I'll make the most of it. Her Mag will never be good, but the rest of her growths aren't bad, and she doesn't need stats for healing anyway. I did give her a Flux tome to start working on that Dark rank, but I do see her primary function being healing.

You may or may not have noticed, but Garcia has finally hit the bench. I have an actually good Axe user now, and I'm starting to get enough good, usable units that space is starting to come to a premium.

And speaking of shitty units, I'm still not sure what to do about Gilliam and Hayden. At this point, I'm leaning towards just benching both of them. Gilliam can't hit anything at all, so that Str of his is wasted, and Hayden will never gain anything but Skl/Spd, and maybe occasionally a point in Res. Hayden will probably stick around longer because Eclipse weapons and Killer Lance make his lack of strength less important.

Everyone else that's on the list is probably sticking around. Lute is proving to be much more useful than anticipated. Cormag will always have utility, and it's kind of nice to have a tanky thief. Myrrh has definitely been outclassed by Tana, but she's still useful in her own right. Franz is actually not bad at all for a GBA Archer. And of course everyone else is forced, though those 4 are also doing pretty well.

With Vanessa around, Lute is definitely going to go T2 Pupil (which is the fun option anyway), and L'Arachel will likely go Assassin as a counterpart to Tana's SM. Joshua has always been planned to go General. Still on the fence between Berserker and Warrior for Ephraim, though. Too many decisions.

Also, looking at recruitment, we get 5 more units (would be 6 but apparently Cormag's replacement is unrecruitable). 2 of those units (Amelia and Tethys) are non-drafts that we can't use. So, up to 3 more units that we might be able to use. I'll hope for the best.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Kirie

[Tequila]

Cormag's replacement isn't unrecruitable per se, it just requires using some glitches features that the randomizer introduces (I forget exactly why). Namely, being able to rescue-drop units on terrain they can't normally cross.

[Kirie]

Oooh, thanks! I'll have to make sure to mess around with that when I get to the right level... which is actually next level, sweet.

[eclipse]

I kinda spoiled how to do it in my LP, if you're super-curious. Creativity FTW.

[Kirie]

I saw you dropping people onto walls and stuff, so I'm guessing it works the same way? I'm usually not one to exploit bugs like that, but if it's the only way to recruit them, I'm all for it!

[eclipse]

I saw you dropping people onto walls and stuff, so I'm guessing it works the same way? I'm usually not one to exploit bugs like that, but if it's the only way to recruit them, I'm all for it!

Something like that.

Remember how the enemies were positioned in Chapter 12? You can work that magic, too.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 13 - Waiting patiently to kill the boss, also some leveling]

Before we move on, I decide to use some of those statboosters that have been cluttering up my convoy. I still have 1 Secret Book left that I held onto because... fuck knows why. It's not like they're all that useful.

While messing around with items, I think about maybe getting some of the other monster items from that shop for Spider Knoll, but...

This fucker is in the way. Oh well, I guess we have enough time for a skirmish or two.

FoW, bluh.

Ephraim gets a sweet level. This guy is definitely going places.

Brave Eyes are fucking dangerous, so we let Franz kill them with a Longbow and he gets a passable level for his troubles.

More levels, including some stat points for Hayden that aren't Skl/Spd. SHOCK. HORROR.

Eventually Cormag susses out these fellows up north. Let's look at that boss!

+5 Spd from the Beacon Bow makes him fast as hell. I do find it kind of funny that the sniper boss of a monster skirmish has a monster-killing bow, though.

Everyone gangs up on poor Cormag. Poormag. :< He takes it like a boss, though.

The best way we have to damage this fucker.

L'Arachel and Ephraim can't damage him even with their strongest weapons, so they're solely on boxing duty.

Lue plinks and Josh gets the kill, though Lute got the better level for sure.

Baddies all gone, we finally move on, but the funny thing is that I decide the monster weapons at the store are all inferior to Spider Knoll's existing options, so we don't get anything anyway.

Back to the plot, then... where were we again?

Oh, yes, thank you narrator.

Another uninspired chapter title based solely on location.

!Cormag is pissed. I was going to say that Valter did a really nice job of hinting at Eirika killing Glen without actually lying...

But then he just flat out lies through his teeth. Stay classy, Valter.

Back with our heroes, Eirika reminds us all that she took her tactical lessons from Prince Kyle: Kill first, think later.

Prep screen opens up and we take a look at what we're up against.

Aias rolled a PK, which means he has shit Def and a weakness to bows. Plus, he's on a fixed location with no gate/throne bonuses. Piece of cake.

This fucker actually prompts me to reload to the main map so I can buy a Restore staff for Vanessa. We learned out lesson about sitting around while Sleeping.

The other Priest has a steal-able Red Gem... and he's slow enough that Cormag can actually steal it!

Regular enemies are starting to really see the effects of the stat boosts that Klok programmed in. This guy actually has higher Def than the boss!

... that only seems to apply to unpromoted enemies, though. The Rangers are pathetic.

The chapter finally starts and here's our opening formation. Our goal is to use most of our forces to take the east EXCEPT Aias and then come back to take out Pablo's forces when they reinforce at T9. We also want to recruit !Cormag, and the plan for that is to simply have Knoll pick up Josh and dump him on the mountain to talk to them. We've got 11 turns for everything. They've got quite a big opening force, but I think it's doable.

L'Arachel takes out the Ballista archer so Franz can take a ride... but man ballistae have been nerfed hard. Feels not even worth it.

Tana tanks on one of the forts and everyone else forms a defensive line behind her, except Ephraim who goes south to protect Franz.

Almost everyone decides to vote for suicide by Tana. She gives zero fucks.

Enough guys attack Spider Knoll that he gets his first level up too. Woohoo!

*sigh*

Physic Priest moves forward to heal this guy which puts him in range of pilfering, excellent.

Tana gets her first promoted level up and goes back to working on capping her Skl/Spd/Res as soon as possible. Good girl.

I have Cormag move forward to pick up that Red Gem but... son of a bitch, I'm so used to him being too slow to steal that I filled up his inventory with stuff. He convoy/trades with Princess Josh then swipes in for the steal.

Messing around with the ballista. Would certainly take out a chunk of Aias's HP.... if I somehow managed to get a 16% hit.

Reinforcements start appearing and....

I have no idea who this would be useful for in my shitty ass Str team, but of course I get it anyway.

Vanessa takes care of Spider Knoll and gets a shitty level for her troubles.

L'Arachel on the other hand defies all expectations and gets a point of Str!

Everyone really, really, really seems to hate Spider Knoll.

Franz can take a good chunk out of Aias's hide. I decide to leave the boss to him and Ephraim.

Meanwhile, to the west, Spider Knoll deposits Princess Josh in front of !Cormag who happens to be...

Thief Syrene! I forgot to take screenshots of her when she first appeared, so this one is from my current open file where she's gained some exp but not enough to level so her stats are the same. She came with another unlimited Steel Blade, a Steel Sword, a Lockpick, and an Elysian Whip.

The first thing I notice is that her Spd is higher than Cormags. The second thing I notice is that it's still a grey growth. Decisions, decisions.

Ephraim discovers that Swordslayers poison. I don't know why I didn't notice that earlier.

The joys of flyers not getting terrain bonuses.

I flipped out a little bit when Syrene attacked Josh, but then I saw how low his hit% was.

And recruited! \o/

Now we wait for Pablo's team. Eph and Franz are chilling out on the bottom forts and waiting for the right time to kill Aias while L'Arachel has fun with the other Cav reinforcements to the northeast. Everyone else begins moving towards the rest in preparation for...

This.

Pablo's a bit tougher than Aias, but like my team, he has hardly any Str.

This guy has a Body Ring I desperately want to steal, but...

Son of a bitch, his inventory is full again and Josh is up on the mountains. I decide to rescue Syrene with Spider Knoll and bring her down so she can hopefully steal it.

While we start whittling their numbers down, Lute gets a mediocre level.

Unlike Aias, Pablo does move, and he decides he wants to go after Myrrh.

In fact, everyone wanted to go after Myrrh. She took it like a boss, though. Sadly, she also took out the Body Ring Bandit, so we couldn't get that. :<

Cormag's lack of Str makes him shit against anyone who's not a monster, really.

Tana's the only one powerful enough to take Pablo out in a single round, so she does the honours and gets another level.

L'Arachel also picks up a level with the Cavs.

It's now the last round, so Franz starts the Aias attack...

... and Ephraim finishes it with a perfect level.

Also, thanks for the compliment, Aias.

With Aias dead, the faceless red guys become terrified of the faceless green guys.

Princess Moulder's identity is revealed.

It's so nice to have rich friends. :3

Princess Josh and Lute are both really close to level capping, so we decide to duck into the Tower of Valni for a bit just to get them one last level before promotion.

As we move toward the Tower, I can't help but notice... are all of the Skirmish bosses going to be Snipers? o_o;

Something seems... a bit odd about enemy placement here.

They both get their levels, Josh picking up some much needed Spd (though he could have gotten a few more stat points, too, it wouldn't have hurt), and Lute some useful Skl.

There's nothing worth sticking around for (the only dropable item is 10G), so we retreat and promote.

Lue becomes Super Pupil! Her promo gains are nice, and we can now wield Light (E) and Dark (D) Magic. I immediately give her a Flux and Nos tome.

Princess Joshua gets promoted to General and also gets some sweet promo bonuses. I've got enough Sword Users, I think, but I'll probably try training him up in Axes.

We go to move on with the game, but...

Son of a bitch.

And it's more FoW, too. I don't really feel like putting up with this bullshit, so...

Hey, it worked! Onto C14!

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 1 general
Squishy Jagen Myrrh - Lv. 11 Swordmaster
Promoted Tana - Lv. 3 Swordmaster
"Superior" Mage Lute - Lv. 1 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 17 Myrm
Slowest Thief Cormag - Lv. 18 Thief
Girly Franz - Lv. 15 Archer
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 17 Pirate
Spider Knoll - Lv. 2 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 2 Sage

Flying Thief Syrene - Lv. 11 Thief


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited
Silver Axe - Poison

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

Another fun chapter. This is one where the extra move really works in our favour moreso than the enemies. Tana being able to tank on that fort and murder almost everyone in T1 EP was incredibly useful. It was also very easy to move between the various theatres of combat, like Spider Knoll and Josh being able to fight and then moving back to recruit Syrene.

I'm really torn on Syrene. I love that she's got better Spd than Cormag, which makes her more capable at stealing... but it's still a grey growth. She's also much squishier, and I've grown to appreciate Cormag's bulkiness since it means I don't have to worry about him as much. I think I'm going to try leveling her in the Tower and see how she fairs. If it's actually possible for her to get some Spd growths and/or if she gets some decent bulk, I'll probably swap her onto my team in place of Cormag.

Next chapter we get !Rennac, who may or may not be usable. We've still got 5 recruits left and 2 of them will be non-drafts that we can't touch. Either way, he should still come with the Member Card which we'll probably use to pick up a few Killer Weapons (if they don't look shitty), a Physic, and either an Orion's Bolt or an Ocean Seal for Franz/Thief. The other of the two will be able to use the Master Seal from C15. Ephraim already has an Ocean Seal with his name on it, and we'll get another Hero Crest for L'Arachel in C16.

And speaking of promotions, I've just decided to bench both Hayden and Gilliam now. They've done their work. I'm proud of them. Promotion bonuses won't be able to save them, so I'm just going to sell my other Knight Crest to make up funds for the others. All of the other potential recruits in the game should be promoted anyway, except maybe Myrrh's replacement. If necessary, we can always buy !Myrrh a promotion item from the C19 SS.

I was originally planning on going onto C14 this afternoon, but I think maybe I'm just going to level up Syrene for a bit and see how she does.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Intermission 2 - Excellent Thief Syrene and Tower of Valni shenanigans]

We decide to play with Syrene in the tower a bit and see how she fairs next to Cormag.

She's loaded up with unlimited weapons for her adventure!

Princess Joshua is also loaded up to tank if necessary.

In addition, we bring Franz for ranged support and Vanessa for healing. I have no idea what to expect.

Syrene's first level is incredibly impressive! And her second level procs Spd! This is basically already enough to cement her over Cormag in my mind. I don't show any of her other levels, but she continues to do pretty well, and dodges like a boss. I don't even need Josh to tank. Shame that the enemies drop nothing useful; 1 10G and that's all.

I do, however, decide to see if I can take out that crazy boss and make it to Floor 2 this time, though.

Josh dodges the siege eye and weakens it with some stabs.

The next EP, the eye decides to specifically go for Syrene (who I'd set up as bait on a column) instead of Josh, so Syrene gets the kill and we move on.

The next boss is a joke. No drops at ALL this time. Syrene facerolls with her unlimited Silver Sword and makes it to Lv. 20. We make it to the 3rd floor.

We decide to use the Ocean Seal to promote her right away. Eph still needs some levels and we can buy him his Ocean Seal next chapter anyway.

Another joke boss and no drops. :< However, there's a chest, so I decide that this level is my reward and I go to grab some loot.

I also bring Lute so she can start building her Dark rank and have fun with Unlimited Nosferatu.

There some more levels that I didn't take pictures of. Ephraim got a couple, I think.

3kG, woohoo! \o/ Considering we've mostly been using unlimited weapons, this more than pays for our excursion.

We look at the next level just for fun. The boss this time is actually decent. Still no drops. :< :< I decide to stop here. My purpose has been completed, after all.

tl;dr - We <3 Syrene

[MrNight48]

the salt is real

[Tamanoir]

What surprises me isn't that every Skirmish Boss (and the Other Valnii Bosses) is a Sniper, it's that Valnii 1 Boss isn't one.

[Kirie]

That is a strange break in the pattern, now that I think about it. Especially since I know that Valni Floors 2-4 are also Snipers. Beacon Bows are also standard equip. Kinda weird, really. I'll have to do at least one final Valni push before I hit endgame to see all the floors.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 14: In which we take a really long time to accomplish anything and everyone promotes but Franz]

I guess naming this chapter after Ismaire was the consolation prize she gets for dying.

Princess Joshua reminisces about the fun times he had sparring with Lyon.

I guess the "frontal assault and kill everyone" style of tactics is catching.

Ohhey, another Sniper boss.

Probably not the sort of answer Ismaire was expecting. "I love you" is generally a poor reason to betray and slaughter a bunch of people, but the guy's kind of a creep, so who knows what he was thinking.

Battle prep time!

Carlyle comes with nice stats hampered by the fact that he's 2-range and throne locked. We'll have fun plinking him to death. Killer Bows also look really damn nice.

Only one status staff, but the dropping Mend is nice because I keep forgetting to buy more healing staves for Vanessa.

We split up to cover ground, open chests, kill dudes, and recruit !Rennac. We even bring along Moulder for this so that we won't have to pay him in order to bring him on board.

Syrene and Lute take the far west entrance alone. Joshua, Franz, and L'Arachel take the middle, everyone else goes right. Spider Knoll opens the door and we get our first glance at !Rennac...

... and find our penultimate non-drafted unit, General Amelia. I'm not sure how her AI will move, so I take a moment to save state and end turn to see what she does...

... which is apparently to move over to this wall and do nothing. Weird. Maybe the AI doesn't want to or know how to use the door key and thinks the crack is its best method of escape? But she doesn't even attack the wall, just stands there. I've got nothing. At least that's easy. We load the save state and go back to our round.

Unlimited Hand Axe is Josh's new best friend.

At the beginning of EP, Doggie Caellach and Lyon show up to banter a bit with Carlyle and kidnap Ismaire.

I love when Great Shield blocks magic attacks.

We're not in a hurry, so I have Lute just facetank these guys with Nos. They do minimal damage to her (which she then heals), and it's a good way to start building her Dark rank.

Eph picks up a Swordreaver, which is different from the Swordslayer, and actually a bit more useful, so we swap.

Amelia recruited!

You can tell the enemies are definitely making good use of that stat boost. The non-promoted ones anyway, though the boss is the only promoted unit in this chapter it looks like. Oh, wait, no, there is one non-boss Sniper...

lol

Lute picks up a nice level, killing all those Mages guarding the chests.

Woohoo! \o/ The ring will go to Eph again, as soon as I remember to do so.

Ohboy, reinforcements. They're all wielding iron lances and javs, so I send Tana down to deal with them.

Franz gets a shit level, but finally hits A bows, so that's nice.

Haha, fuck you priest. I bet you thought he had low Res because he's a pirate, but no you just suck.

Tana gets a nice level mowing down cavs.

Ephraim kills the priest that tried to Berserk him and hits his level cap.

Come on, L'Arachel, you're better than that. :<

Syrene moves steadily on to the next chest, grabbing us some gold.

Josh continues on his quest to cap his Str/Def.

This fucker gets a 7% crit off on Josh, but we survive.

At this point, we're mostly just waiting around for Syrene to grab the chests and Josh and Tana to make it to the upper right door that leads to the throne room area.

Yay, 5k gold~

Franz moves closer to his goal of capping Def.

We're finally inside. I was hoping to feed these guys to Lancereaver L'Arachel, but she's too far away, so Tana takes one for the team.

Unfortunately, I misread terrain and both Knights go after Amelia. Thankfully, she tanks them both like a boss.

What is it with specialty lances all having like no durability?

Last chest is another Hammerne. I'm not even sure what I'm going to use these on, considering that my most valuable weapons are the ones that are unlimited.

The Secret Shop hasn't been messed with at all, but we do spend a lot of money here, buying up a bunch of Killers of all types, 2 Physics for Vanessa, and an Ocean Seal for Ephraim.

And speaking of the man himself, it's promotion time!

This seems like a perfect opportunity to grind L'Arachel up to 20! :U

Her next level is a really fucking nice level... that also happens to greatly undermine the viability of my leveling strategy.

We spend a few rounds waiting for Carlyle to heal so L'Arachel can torture him some more.

Her final unpromoted level is also a really nice level. It's time to end this chapter now.

Franz is juuuust too weak to finish him off, so we have Lute bring him down to one.

Franz gets the kill and a nice level, too. Next chapter he should make it up to 20 and he can use the Master Seal from the village there to promote.

Our last matter of business before capping the throne is promoting L'Arachel.

After capping, everyone conveniently leaves so that Princess Joshua can have a heartfelt conversation with Knoll... that tells her absolutely nothing.

In her dying delirium, Ismaire thinks Princess Joshua is really hers, and then she starts babbling nonsense.

On the bright side, we get some sweet weapons!

And everyone is friends, yay~ <3

Ope, I guess our friendship was so powerful that it set everything on fire. Time to run outside into the mass of enemies waiting for us!

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 3 General
Squishy Jagen Myrrh - Lv. 11 Swordmaster
Promoted Tana - Lv. 4 Swordmaster
"Superior" Mage Lute - Lv. 2 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 1 Swordmaster
Girly Franz - Lv. 19 Archer
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 1 Berserker
Spider Knoll - Lv. 2 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 2 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 1 Rogue


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited
Silver Axe - Poison

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

This chapter was very slow but lots of fun. I meant to check how many turns I spent, but forgot, so I guess we'll just see what the final score is during the epilogue. A lot of that wait was just feeding (w)exp to certain units and letting Syrene run around to get all the chests.

I ended up opting for Berserker for Eph and SM for L'Arachel. Berserker gets so many nice benefits over Warrior, enough where I decided it was better than the higher Def cap, and L'Arachel could really use that crit boost to make sure she keeps dealing damage. Besides, with Rogue Vanessa we have a really nice thief, and Lethality proc rate is so low, so we don't get much benefit out of Assassin. I'm pleased in my decisions.

The last one left is Franz. I'm thinking Sniper for him, but still entertaining my options.

Not sure if I have enough time to tackle C15 this afternoon, so I'm ending this here for now. Might be back later. 2 new units next chapter and we're guaranteed to be able to use at least one of them since Tethys is the only non-draft unit left. Whether they'll actually be worth using is another matter entirely. I just hope keeping Prince Kyle alive doesn't end up being an issue.... >_>

Edited May 12, 2016 by Kirie

[Excellen Browning]

Don't promote Franz. He is terrible. Wait for the other archer.

[Kirie]

You're a bit too late, since I've already promoted him. :p I'm in the middle of C15 now; I made him a Ranger. I can always ditch him for another archer later, though; I should have plenty of funds to buy another promotion item if necessary. Franz isn't that bad, though, especially compared to some of the others that I've dropped. I wish I'd noticed sooner that Killer Bows were Eclipse weapons, though... *sigh*

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 15 - Desperately flailing around trying to hit these fucking bosses]

You'd think sand would have a pretty high sun resistance and all.

Princess Joshua is a master tactician.

Alright, enough rambling, let's take a look at this chapter.

Valter is all defense and tonnes of avoid. Those capped stats are crazy. I love that he still has that Fili Shield that does absolutely nothing for him.

Caellach is more offensive but his avoid is even higher. Man, these guys are going to be a bitch.

lol

Promoted enemy stats are starting to improve. This guy gets a speed boost from his Silver Lance which would be much more useful... if it didn't only have 3 uses. What is it with lances and shit durability this game?

+5 Lck on the Devil Axe. Usefully ironic?

The in-chapter shop is very expensive. We'll wait and check it out later.

Back in the inventory we check our legendary weapons. Audhulma is sweet and will be gifted to Tana. Excalibur is also pretty damn nice, but I'll probably train Lute up to S Dark instead.

And Eph raises his pitiful Str some more.

Our opening formation. Plan is to work kind of east and south to take out Valter first and pick up sand items, then swing around to Caellach. We don't bring Myrrh; too many enemies and I'm afraid of her squishiness.

Syrene takes out a Merc and gains a nice level for it.

It is now that I learn that Killer Bows are Eclipse weapons. Fucking hell. I feel cheated.

Everyone really hates Franz, even if they can't do anything to him.

L'Arachel really loves her enhanced crits. She actually takes out a pretty large chunk of guys in EP.

Lute gets some Skl.

Ah, fuck, thanks to high Mov this guy can reach the village super fast. I send Tana over, hoping that his AI will prioritize attacking over sacking.

Syrene picks up the Silver Card. Now just to remember to actually USE it when I buy stuff.

Knoll gets a really nice level.

These dudes appear right at the beginning of EP. In addition to shitty Prince Kyle, it looks like we're also getting a proper flying unit and also a F!Lord! Either or both would be nice now, I think.

This guy does indeed come after Tana, securing the village and Franz's Master Seal.

Spider Knoll wastes that Shaman's single use of Eclipse.

Our current formation. Let's take a look at the newbies!

Prince Kyle autoleveled but gained practically no stats but Spd. He also comes with a useful, shitty Steel Lance.

The !Knoll flyer is Tethys, our last non-draft unit. Awww.

!Duessel is Princess Dozla, and he actually looks pretty nice. Defenses are kind of shit, but we could use the offense. We'll take him.

Tethys makes herself useful and grabs the Master Seal for Franz. And speaking of Franz, those guys that attacked him...

They must have had those weird, glitched durability Iron Swords. They're all without weapons now.

L'Arachel gets her first promoted level and gets back to work re-capping her Skl and Res.

Syrene stays out of the northeastern clusterfuck and picks up our final Metis Tome.

Kyle... you're fucking useless.

Killer Axes also poison. I guess the overarching theme of the main melee weapons is that swords are infinite, lances have no durability whatsoever, and axes poison.

Franz picks up some Str in his last unpromoted level. Not bad, I guess.

Syrene picks up some Swiftsoles and L'Arachel visits to make use of the Metis Tome. A bit late, but better than never.

Ohjoy, more reinforcements.

Tethys makes it up to Franz and trades him the Master Seal so he can promote. I know I said I was leaning Sniper, but I ended up going Ranger anyway.

Kyle spends a round talking to Princess Joshua because he's too useless to do anything else.

Lute gets a really sweet level spamming Nos on those guys up north.

Syrene pilfers 5kG from the Shaman by Valter.

L'Arachel makes good use of her first Metis Tome level by gaining some Spd \o/

Wow Physic range sucks when you have no Mag.

Syrene picks up our own shitty copy of Eclipse.

I was originally going to try and give Valter's kill to Ephraim, but.... this isn't happening.

Ohhey, I forgot Valter and Cormag had a special battle chat. I also forgot that Syrene was !Cormag. Shame she doesn't do any damage to him at all.

We send Princess Josh over to deal with Valter. This... is her best hit. This is going to take a while. Most of the others have already started to head over to deal with the rest of the reinforcements and working towards Caellach.

They also have a pre-battle chat, and a rather creepy one at that. Valter comes across as some kind of weird sexual predator moreso than an enemy general.

Not even rigged, Josh actually does land a hit with her first attack. Nice!

Yep, these guys spawned with those glitch weapons.

I've had Tethys kind of flying around hoping to maybe luck into a desert find to save Syrene's time, and she finally scores and picks up this Wyrmslayer!

Lute comes over to help with Valter... and her hit rates suck too. Lame.

Syrene and Princess Dozla have a heart to heart.

Tethys lucks into another desert find... which is funny because she has super low Lck.

Some levels. Most notably, Josh gets some Spd.

A lucky crit from Valter and Lute is down to 1hp. Honestly, Lute was more of a hindrance than a help, since Valter prioritzes attacking her and his Beacon Bow makes his Avoid higher anyway.

Syrene picks up the Staff of Silence.

Ephraim actually tries to damage Caellach a bit from afar, but it's slow going.

This is actually our best hit on Caellach. *sigh*

To the southeast, I get fed up of dealing with Valter and rig a final hit to take him out. Josh rewards me with a super awesome level in the bargain!

Vanessa heals up Tana and gets a supremely shitty level for it.

Syrene picks up the Warp Staff... but our convoy is full because I'm a hoarder. She ditches the single use vuln.

Tana wipes out Caellach and gets an amazing level. She even got Str! I guess killing bosses in this level is good luck.

HOW?!?!?!

Gleipnir looks pretty sweet. It's heavy as fuck, but Lute's slow as fuck anyway, so it evens out. I'll look forward to her wielding it.

Garm also looks pretty nice. That will go to Eph.

Ohhey, Dead Ismaire was also rambling about that too. Probably should have paid more attention to her.

Ohnooooo...

It's probably a dragon.

Well, they ARE the namesake of this game, so I'd hope they'd be useful for something...

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 5 General
Squishy Jagen Myrrh - Lv. 11 Swordmaster
Promoted Tana - Lv. 6 Swordmaster
"Superior" Mage Lute - Lv. 4 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 3 Swordmaster
Girly Franz - Lv. 1 Ranger
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 2 Berserker
Spider Knoll - Lv. 3 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 4 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 2 Rogue

Princess Dozla - Lv. 10 Great Lord


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil

Silve Lance - Spd +5, 3 uses
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited

Killer Axe - Poison
Silver Axe - Poison

Devil Axe - Lck +5

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave

Killer Bow - Eclipse
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

Another long chapter. Thankfully high Mov makes sand not as horrible, but it still took a very long time to achieve our objectives and kill those stupid high Avoid bosses. Valter and Caellach were definitely the worst parts of this chapter. Took way too long to kill both of them and I just started getting bored. I did end up rigging one hit with Joshua to get that part done and over with.

I opted for Ranger for Franz mostly to make the most use out of his high Def. So many enemies surrounded and attacked him this game; would have been nice if he could do even chip damage during that time. Plus, there's lots of nice swords. And I have a fondness for Horse Archers. We'll see how it goes.

Princess Dozla actually looks pretty damn nice for a fill-in prepromote. I finally have a use for those Rapiers! She's got good offense, which we need, and her Def isn't that great, but better at least than, say, Myrrh, who's leaning towards bench territory. She's got amazing offense, but she's a fucking glass canon, and I have two other, more effective (not to mention forced) SMs, so unless Klok implemented a SM Triangle Attack and didn't tell me about it, I don't think she'll be seeing much more action.

I cleaned out my convoy a bit to save my inventory issues, but now I need to decide who to give the Body Ring and Swiftsoles to... decisions, decisions.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 16 - The anti-climatic end of Orson the traitor]

Before we begin, I give Princess Joshua both the Swiftsoles and the Body Ring. Franz also gets the last Secret Book.

Tethys's Bright Lance got glitch depleted. Oh well. :<

And he did quite possibly the absolute worst job at it, too.

A fitting description of Orson's mental state, as well as the state of Renais in general. One of the better chapter titles.

Oh yeah, we get !Myrrh this chapter now. Let's see how she is!

So, it turns out !Myrrh is Estmaire, a Lv. 1 Archer with actually decent growths. I might level her up later in the tower if I'm feeling unlazy, but for now she's benched.

Orson somehow found himself another Silver Sword, but default equips the Slim, which is kind of interesting. His stats are pretty good, but that low Def will be handy to take him out.

Boltings got a super nice boost...

On the other hand, Purge went the way of Eclipse.

Some promoted enemies have some really nice stats... but not all of them. These Warriors are pretty pathetic.

We start in the corner without much choice but to just move our way forward. Enemies are pretty slow about aggroing in the beginning, too. Tana, L'Arachel, and Princess Joshua all end up going to the southwest to murder the Shamans and get that one chest while the others begin to work their way north.

Spider Knoll and Ephraim get some nice levels. I'll take +Def on Spiderboy and Skl/Spd for Eph any day of the week.

Reinforcements, yay~ Nothing too threatening, though.

Tana and Ephraim collect some okay levels.

Apparently Bolting is also a Brave weapon. This guy just attacked Lute 4 times in one round for a grand total of 0 damage.

Josh picks up the first chest; Eph will like that axe.

Franz starts off his promotion with... a level of absolute nothing. Fuck you, Franz.

Joshua kills this guy through the wall to the outside because why not.

Syrene loots some gold while the others start working on throne room enemies.

Looks like Divine is an Eclipse weapon.

No Def? I guess he already capped it.

Syrene picks up another 5kG and a present for Josh.

L'Arachel picks up a mediocre level while facing the reinforcements with Tana.

I decide to grind weapon ranks for a bit on Orson. Lute builds up her Dark rank while Franz is on his way to S Bows.

2 shitty levels gained while plinking.

Lute hits B rank and another level.

Eventually I get bored and just send Princess Joshua in to finish him off. He gets a craptacular level out of the deal, but at least it's over.

Definitely one of the creepiest things in Fire Emblem.

I wonder if he also just said "darling" over and over?

We go outside to bask in the applause of everyone who loves us.

Don't be a downer, Myrrh.

We pick up the special Lord promotion items and the screen glitches out a bit. We could class change Joshua into a F!Great Lord, and as tempting as that would be for hilarity, General is really good, so we're probably not going to do it. Probably.

I save state to take a look at the promotion bonuses for Prince Kyle. Since he's forced in the last level, I'll probably grind him up to 20 in the tower and then promote him into M!Great Lord for better... things.

We load state and save the promotion item for later.

Sweet, we get some loot, too!

And they're not Prf items either! I thought they were for some reason. We'll give the Lance to Princess Josh and Tana and L'Arachel can fight for the 2 swords between themselves.

Back to the main menu, we give Josh his gift in preparation for the next chapter.

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 6 General
Squishy Jagen Myrrh - Lv. 11 Swordmaster
Promoted Tana - Lv. 7 Swordmaster
"Superior" Mage Lute - Lv. 6 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 4 Swordmaster
Girly Franz - Lv. 3 Ranger
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 5 Berserker
Spider Knoll - Lv. 4 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 4 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 2 Rogue

Princess Dozla - Lv. 10 Great Lord


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil

Silve Lance - Spd +5, 3 uses
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited

Killer Axe - Poison
Silver Axe - Poison

Devil Axe - Lck +5

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave

Killer Bow - Eclipse
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5

Bolting - Brave
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited

Divine - Eclipse
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

This was a pretty quick chapter, really. Just move in and mow things down. Compared to the desert, it was a breeze. We're building up a pretty strong foundation of units and a plan of attack in preparation for endgame.

Next chapter we'll pick up our final recruit, !Syrene. But even if they suck, I feel like we have a pretty solid team already. Mostly I'm just interested in seeing who they are.

I'm on the fence about Ismaire. She looks like she'll probably end up being flat out better than Franz, but grinding up from Lv. 1, especially a bow user, is going to be long and slow and I'm lazy. I'm probably not going to bother. Grinding up Prince Kyle will be enough. If Endgame is a bitch enough to the point where I think her services will be useful, I may grind her up then, and I'll probably pick up a spare Orion's Bolt in the last SS just in case.

[Kirie]

So, it turns out Prince Kyle can't actually use the Solar Brace, so I'm loading up a save state to promote him for reals.

While I was in there, I decided to promote Josh, too, and then reload, just to see what happens.

Turns out, it's kind of glitchy as fuck. No promotion bonuses or anything, just this. The Eirika sprite also stayed around for the rest of the dialogue between the sibs, and I thought I capped that, but I guess I didn't.

Great Lord stats vs. his reloaded General stats. It looks like he did still get promotion bonuses, plus a level reset, so we could in theory use that to give him even more stats.

He even kept his weapon ranks and got an automatic C in swords!

There is admittedly a part of me that is tempted to reload again and keep that... but I already have a F!Lord, so meh. And Generals are pretty sweet if they don't have shit mov.

Anyway, here's properly promoted Prince Kyle:

He also keeps his Bow ranks while earning a C rank in Lances. Looks like Siegmund is still Prf locked to him, but at least it aids his atrocious Str stat. At least this saves me from tower grinding him.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Kirie

[MrNight48]

It's a good thing you kept josh a general, he can't use anything but swords despite what the weapon ranks say

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 17 - Hey, we can actually protect the villagers this time!]

You better believe Grado has several rivers of regrets after how much ass of theirs we're kicking. Or something.

Frelia's army gets sorely decimated. Poor Greenies.

Our last recruit! How she ended up getting involved with a bunch of villagers in the middle of nowhere is anyone's guess.

Lyon shows his true colours, namely white words on black backgrounds.

Man, I really thought it would be a dragon...

... kinky?

Alright, pleasantries done, let's see what this map has in store for us.

Our final recruit is Eirika, how fitting! She's a promoted Wight with decent growths, but just like Ismaire, I'm too lazy to bother, and she's too weak to immediately toss in, so she'll head to the bench.

Armory's got some cheap unlimited Lancereavers. I should grab a couple (spoiler: I forget and there aren't any on the world map shop so I'm kind of salty)

Lyon actually looks pretty pathetic compared to some of the other bosses. I don't see him being problematic at all.

Some nice dropables and 1 stealable, so Syrene will be earning her keep. Fimbulvetr has a nice +5 Mag, but that Sage is still way too low powered to be of any threat.

Our opening formation. We're going to split the ground to head both northeast and north central. We bring an unequipped Marisa to recruit Syrene, too.

A nice level for Tana and a bluh level for Josh.

Eirika javelins this dude just to prove that she's not useless.

Our beginning formation at T2. We're pretty bad at killing guys, in case you can't tell, and got kind of swarmed.

Marisa recruits Eirika and everyone's happy.

The real Syrene steals an Elixir because wynaut.

Joshua makes great use of his Dragon Axe.

Prince Kyle learns the hard way that Siegmund is a reaver weapon.

Death Count: 10

Take 2, Joshua gets another shitty level.

This was almost bad, but thankfully Dozla dodged one of the two hits.

I'm beginning to have second thoughts about attempting to use our promoted Lord units.

Tana takes the bottom Heros this time and earns a pretty good repeat level.

The Brave Axe is also a reaver weapon, but Tana gives zero fucks.

Eirika's next javelin attempt is much poorer than her first.

T2, Tana shows that Heroes aren't the only ones who can dabble in a bit of water walking.

Prince Kyle does something useful for the first time in his life.

Aaaaand the Wyvern Riders prioritize murdering the Greenies. Fuck. We restart.

Greenies don't count as deaths, though, so the Death Count is still at 10.

New Plan: L'Arachel, Marisa, and Lute take the middle path. Marisa recruits, L'Arachel guards the bridge against the northern druids, and Lute goes after the snag on the east side to take out the Mage group. Tana takes the bottom path to kill the Heroes and takes the far eastern path. Everyone else goes west to make sure we can take out all of the Wyverns before they go after the NPCs. We got this.

Josh gets another level. We have him attack with the Dragon Axe so that he has it equipped during EP and can hopefully score a few hits to kill some of those WRs.

Franz actually connects with his bow for the first time and earns some Spd which is nice I guess. Also Lck. I didn't even realize he HAD a Lck growth.

Tana gets an amazing level up. Str! \o/ If it weren't in the middle of EP, I would save state right now.

I guess hitting 2 out of 3 WRs is exactly what the hit rate predicted.

Ephraim kills the Dracoshield Warrior because he probably had shit stats. Sigh. I'd restart, but I'd rather keep Tana's Str level up, honestly. That's much more useful to our team at the moment.

Eirika fails again. It's okay.

Either Franz isn't a super great archer or these are some beefy wyverns. Probably both.

Oh well, at least you earned some wexp.

I'm not even sure why this guy bothered.

Our new T3 formation. Tana's at the very bottom dealing with Hero shenanigans off screen. There are 3 Wyverns left to deal with before they take out the NPCs, but we slaughter them mercilessly. Everything's actually going pretty damn well.

Lute puts the 4 Mag Sage out of his misery and scores herself a nice A rank tome.

A round or so later she takes out the KE SM with no fear and scores an okay level.

I was kind of afraid to send any of our far west dudes backtracking in case more WRs showed up, and they prove my fears were justified. We'll rely on Tana, Lute, and L'Arachel to take out Lyon.

Guy is kind of a pushover anyway. I don't actually go through with this attack, just wanted to see how it would go.

Franz plinks his way up to C Swords.

Ephraim gets a meh level, but L'Arachel's is nice.

Well, this should be easy.

I was right; it was easy. I think that's the first time we've ORKOed a boss since I stopped relying on Myrrh as a boss killer.

And Tana gets a super sweet level again. More Str! And her HP is capped? Tana for MVP.

He's just salty I beat him so easily.

Our newest toys. Franz is almost good enough to wield Nidhogg, and Josh will take the unlimited (!!) Vidofnir. The +Def is kind of superfluous, but overall it's damn nice.

*sigh* We never get credit for our good deeds.

We will pocket the loot, though.

No Lancereavers in the world map shop. :< :< :< Slims, Steels, Ranged, and Killers (where applicable by type). We do buy a few more Brave Longbows for Franz, though, and I even remember to use the silver card! D/C Tome/Staves in the regular shop as well as the usual stuff.

Onto Rausten!

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 7 General
Promoted Tana - Lv. 9 Swordmaster
Superior Pupil Lute - Lv. 7 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 5 Swordmaster
Girly Franz on a Horse - Lv. 4 Ranger
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 6 Berserker
Spider Knoll - Lv. 4 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 4 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 2 Rogue

Princess Dozla - Lv. 10 Great F!Lord

Prince Kyle - Lv. 1 Great M!Lord


Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil

Silve Lance - Spd +5, 3 uses
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited

Siegmund - Reaver
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited

Killer Axe - Poison
Silver Axe - Poison

Devil Axe - Lck +5

Brave Axe - Reaver

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave

Killer Bow - Eclipse
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5

Bolting - Brave
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited

Divine - Eclipse
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

Another fun chapter to play through. I'm glad we really were able to save the villagers at this point, even though the Rescue staff is practically useless given Vanessa's low Mag.

Tana is pretty much showing herself to be the main MVP of this playthrough. Josh, Eph, L'Arachel, and Lute are also all top tier. Franz, Vanessa, Knoll, and Syrene get their jobs done, but have weaknesses that keep them from rising to the top. Overall, though, I think it's a pretty good team build. I'll probably do a final unit analysis right before end game.

Dozla and Kyle I'm uncertain of. They're both kind of squishy and not as good as our main players. Dozla's biggest weakness is his low Def, but it's a yellow growth, so it might be worth shoving some levels into him. Prince Kyle might also beef up with some training, and IIRC he's forced in the last chapter, so I see some Tower in his future. We'll see how they do.

That brings us 11 of our 12 endgame units. I can always toss Myrrh in if I don't think her low Def will be too much of a liability. Guess we'll see.

We're getting close to endgame now. Gorgons, Rausten, Forest, Endgame. Probably some tower grinding in there somewhere too. I'm still hoping to finish the playthrough up before Fates releases here, so I'm hoping Endgame won't be too blindingly difficult.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 18 - Find Eggs, Kill Eggs]

What a coincidence, we were heading in that direction anyway!

So, if Lyon is one face... who's the other face? o_o;

Dammit, L'Arachel, stop encouraging her.

Doesn't matter. You already gave Princess Joshua false hope, so he's not going to listen to anything else you say.

See? I TOLD YOU.

Anyway, let's move onto the chapter.

Our boss is a ranger for some reason. Pretty lol worthy.

Oh, yeah, we have to deal with strong, unlimited siege monster magic again. At least the Gorgon stats are on the low side.

And Stone is also unlimited (and has Mt for some reason), though I forgot to take a shot of that. We make sure Vanessa has her Restore staff on her.

Slaughtering eggs for excellent exp and two good levels.

The Gorgon took a hefty chunk out of Knoll's HP during EP, but high-mov Josh to the rescue is just able to take her out. And since that was the Stone Gorgon, we don't have to worry about that anymore either, which is a nice relief.

Great Shield is pretty great.

Ohhey, looks like Demon Surge is another Eclipse weapon. Thankfully, L'Arachel moves backwards slightly and it misses. Gotta love those GBA dodge animations.

Franz gets a decent level taking out another egg.

Tana, unfortunately, managed to get hit by that 6% hit Demon Surge before she can finish off the Gorgon. *sigh*

We continue our sweep, killing eggs and getting some sweet levels. I teared up a little when L'Arachel gained Str. General plan of attack was Joshua, Franz, and Lute taking the northwestern path; Tana and L'Arachel in the middle; and Eph, Knoll, Syrene, and Vanessa going southeast.

Ohhey, the boss moves this level if you're in his range. Thankfully, Lute gives zero fucks.

Princess Josh finishes off the boss and gains another level. I mostly fed it to him since I really want him to S Rank Lances to use Vidofnir ASAP and he's soooo cloooose.

Tana gets another great level and shows off her deliciously capped stats. Everything but Str, and she's only 3 points off in Str so it's actually possible for her to cap everything. <3 Tana

Josh takes out the last two eggs and scrapes up just enough wexp for S Lances. He also gains Skl, which is nice.

This scene pissed me off so much the first time I played this game.

*sigh*

WHAT A SURPRISE.

L'Arachel always looks on the bright side of life.

Back on the main map, and it looks like Sieglinde still really is Prf-locked even though it says S. Bummer. :<

Oh well, onto Rausten for reals this time.

I was hoping to squeeze two chapters into one post, but 19 ended up being super long, so I'll put that and the end stuff in the next post.

[Kirie]

[spoiler=Chapter 19 - The Clusterfuck]

Now, Princess Joshua, don't fuck it up this time!

L'Arachel gives the best advice.

Ohgod, this next map is FoW, isn't it. >_<

Yep. Here's our opening formation. Lute and L'Arachel are up in the northwest starting spots.

Can't see all too many enemies yet, but I did spot a dropable Brave Lance. Shame about the 14 uses.

Four greenies bite the dust during T1 EP. We can only let 5 of them die if we want to get the Light Sword prize.

Syrene gets a shit level up.

Looks like Brave Lances are also monster-effective. Spider Knoll runs back and hides on a column for protection.

Lute hits Dark A. Man, that unlimited Nos tome is sweet.

Enemy gets a totally unnecessary crit to murder our last expendable greenie.

Spider Knoll dodges like a boss.

Syrene begins looting.

Our beginning T3 formation up at the top. L'Arachel and Lute are blocked in, but holding their own.

Franz gets a crappy level and gets shown up by Lute. She even got Spd!

Oh fuck, didn't realize this was open here. Thankfully, Mansel dodges the second hit.

Tana and Josh are at the bottom, holding back the southern stream of reinforcements from outside. However, not even a double crit can take out this high-Def fucker.

More loots!

Vanessa takes out the interloper.

Eph goes on guard duty for a bit. Not sure where he'll be most useful atm.

Lute gets an okay level and snags an unlimited (!!) Brave Bow from an enemy sniper.

Tana gets nothing. We forgive her.

Wooo, Bolting! \o/

Tana and Josh hold strong at the bottom at the beginning of T6, despite waves upon waves of reinforcements. I was originally hoping to break through and kill Riev once we were done with the treasure chests, but now... I don't really see that happening.

L'Arachel made it to the south and opened up the other treasure room. She scored herself... a one-use Runesword. Yay~ :U

Spider Knoll make it to the secret shop and buys an Orion's Bolt for Ismaire, just in case we decide we want to train her up and use her.

Josh gets some Skl.

Thief reinforcements are pretty fucking speedy and decide they would rather steal than open chests.

You know, you last few greenies are really making it tough on me to protect you. >:|

More nothing for Tana.

I was pretty angry about the member card... until I realized that this chapter was the last SS and I'd already used it so meh. Thief can knock himself out with it.

Greenies use the Knight Triangle Attack and score an automatic critical hit... apparently not realizing that 3x0 is still 0.

*sigh*

Come on guys, seriously, go run away and heal or something. :<

At the end of enemy phase, the camera panned over here suspiciously and, sure enough, some Generals have appeared. Eph and Spider Knoll will try to hold them back.

L'Arachel gets a shitty level.

And the Generals beeline towards killing the greenies. Awwww. No Light Sword for us. :<

Ugh, really?

Lute misses this Nos hit. That's going to hurt.

She does get a +Spd level up from the Sniper that goes after her next, though. \o/

Eph gets a nice level killing Generals.

Lute gets revenge on the stupid Warrior and fixes her HP issues.

Syrene scores a Speedwing in the last chest. \o/ The other one was a Fenrir; must have forgotten to cap it.

Have some levels! Tana even got some Str! :D

Sadly, it's rather short lived...

A whole bunch of Mage Knights appeared at once and slaughtered Princess Joshua. :< :< :<

Death Count: 11

Thankfully, I had save stated towards the end of the previous round, so I didn't actually have to restart the whole chapter. I don't have a lot of options left, but I have Josh chug a Pure Water from the convoy to see if that will be enough to save him.

Spider Knoll trades his +Spd for a +Lck/Res and Tana loses her +Str gain. Not a good trade-off. :<

On the bright side, Josh survives this time and we're able to move on.

I sent Franz up to help pick off Mage Knights, but he's a bit TOO good at killing them. I was praying for a miss here so that another Mage Knight wouldn't be able to step into the square and kill him.

We made it to the final turn! \o/ So long as Josh and Franz survive, we'll be just fine.

I don't think I've ever seen her gain anything but HP and Skl...

Josh survives EP with 22hp to spare. :U

It was touch and go for a while, but we did indeed make it.

We just need to make sure she doesn't hand it over to the enemy and we'll be good to go.

I guess that's as good a place to check out as any.

Oooh, yay, more goodies! :D

Ivaldi does nothing for us, but Latona is definitely nice in the hands of our shit-Mag healer.

We don't really need the gold either, but I guess we'll take it.

A lot of paths opening up on the world map. Lagdou at the bottom, an extra path to the top, and the penultimate level directly west.

The shop sells Silver Sword and Lancereavers \o/ Other good stuff, too, though we're honestly pretty well-stocked right now. The shop was more or less the same stuff we've been having lately, though we'll probably replenish our Elixir fund, too.

L'Arachel gets the Speedwing and we're ready to move on.

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 13 General
Promoted Tana - Lv. 14 Swordmaster
Superior Pupil Lute - Lv. 11 Super Pupil
Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 7 Swordmaster
Girly Franz on a Horse - Lv. 7 Ranger
Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 8 Berserker
Spider Knoll - Lv. 6 Elder Bael
Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 6 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 4 Rogue

Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]
Slim Sword - Horseslayer
Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)
Steel Sword - Devil
Silver Sword - Unlimited
Iron Blade - Rapier
Steel Blade - Unlimited
Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers
Armorslayer - Unlimited
Shamshir - Unlimited
Poison Sword - Def +5
Lancereaver - Unlimited
Slim Lance - Spd +5
Iron Lance - Axeslayer
Steel Lance - Devil

Silve Lance - Spd +5, 3 uses
Javelin - Eclipse
Toxic Lance - Unlimited

Siegmund - Reaver
Axereaver - Eclipse
Iron Axe - Res +5
Steel Axe - Poison
Hand Axe - Unlimited

Killer Axe - Poison
Silver Axe - Poison

Devil Axe - Lck +5

Brave Axe - Reaver

Swordslayer - Poison
Halberd - Brave
Fiendcleaver - Unlimited
Hatchet - Brave
Steel Bow - Unlimited
Longbow - Brave

Killer Bow - Eclipse
Brave Bow - Unlimited
Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5
Fire - Poison
Thunder - Brave
Elfire - Res +5

Bolting - Brave
Luna - Unlimited
Nosferatu - Unlimited

Divine - Eclipse
Evil Eye - Brave
Lethal Talon - Str +5
Rotten Claw - Def +5
Fetid Claw - Devil
Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers
Evil Eye - Brave
Crimson Eye - Brave
Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

C17 was quick and easy. Lots of exp to go around, and the only real big threats were the two Gorgons, both of which were easily neutralized.

C18 on the other hand... oh boy.

I was originally planning on stalling to let Syrene get the chests and then killing Riev, but I quickly learned that wasn't going to work. There were simply too many reinforcements and my team is too poor at one-rounding things during EP to keep clearing them out. Kind of sad. I wanted to see Riev. :< I guess I'll look at the other HALB LPs and see if someone got his stats and stuff so I can see what I missed.

The unending waves of enemies made this chapter last pretty damn long. I'm really starting to feel the effects of my team's overall low offense with how hard it was to kill things effectively on so many fronts. There were a few times I was forced to rig hits/crits to make sure I could keep things going (mostly with Eph and Knoll in the lower right), though that ended up saving my ass as I had a save state to fall back to in order to make sure Josh didn't get murdered by those Mage Knights.

There's a part of me that wants to go back and play this level over again to fix some of the things I did wrong and hopefully actually kill Riev. I can actually skip most of the chests; I want the Speedwing and the Bolting would be nice, maybe the Fortify, but the others could be passed. I still have a save state in the battle prep screen, so I might load that up and see how it goes. I guess we'll see how masochistic I'm feeling.

EDIT: Looking at some of the other LPs, I think I will sit back and be content with my C19 clear and not go back and replay. I don't really feel like poking that sleeping dragon. And, really, it wasn't so bad a clear.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Kirie

[MrNight48]

there was a strong reason why I kept insisting my units get strength, when it comes randomized runs, strength is nearly the only stat you can't compensate for while the other stats, don't mean as much as long as you can get them into double digits.

plus you really have been working hard, I just torch glitched this chapter and got everything.

[Kirie]

there was a strong reason why I kept insisting my units get strength, when it comes randomized runs, strength is nearly the only stat you can't compensate for while the other stats, don't mean as much as long as you can get them into double digits.

plus you really have been working hard, I just torch glitched this chapter and got everything.

I guess that could be considered work. :p I try to avoid using/abusing glitches when playing games. I don't have anything against them or whatever, it just doesn't fit my personal play style. Closest I'll get is dropping Josh off on the mountain to recruit Syrene, or occasional save-stating/RN abuse to land certain hits, or otherwise just save time.

And speaking of using save states to save time....

[spoiler=Chapter 20 - Ohgod, why does the dragon boss move]

Before we actually move on to chapter 20, we pop into the Lagdou Ruins quick, mostly just to see if there's any worthwhile loot.

Why, hello there worthwhile loot.

The stats here are pretty high, though. And I don't feel like spending a lot of time here, so let's just pop in quick.

There, that was fast. :U

Hello Darkling my old friend.

I KNEW THERE WOULD BE DRAGONS SOMEWHERE. I CALLED IT.

Ohhey, we get to fight Dragon Riev after all. Those stats are something else, especially with the Dragonstone bonus. We'll have to tread carefully.

The other boss is this cool dragon zombie guy. Less impressive stats, funnily enough, but I guess he is dead.

The Wights seem to be stuck with the "shitty promoted unit" curse, but the other guys are more in line with what we've been fighting recently.

There are a few Gorgons and Eyes, but mostly Wights and Centaurs, oh and some of those giant Cyclops guys, too. We make sure to bring out Shadowkillers.

Josh lures out the Gorgon for a missed Stone opportunity.

PP T2 formation. We're mostly just following the northern path since we have no flyers. Eph and/or Spider Knoll might be able to climb over, but I don't trust them to survive on their own, so they just follow the party line with everyone else.

Tana kills a Wight and scores a Str point! \o/

I admit that I save scummed for this, mostly just because I really want to see her cap everything. I am a terrible person.

Franz also gets an okay level.

Man, these Eyes are much less scary now than they used to be.

Halberds are Brave. Also, Vidofnir is one of the few ways we have of one-rounding these guys, so it's hella useful.

At the beginning of T4, we've taken out all the bottom enemies and are making good progress northward towards the Cyclops spawn point.

L'Arachel and Eph pick up some pretty nice levels.

Beginning of T6, I think. We move forward and mow all the immediate enemies down, but...

Ohfuck, Riev moves. Lute doesn't stand a chance.

Death Count: 12

I had a save state at the beginning of the previous round, right about where I took that earlier screenshot, so I reload that and try to figure out a good way to deal with Riev. Guys got some good range, but at least only a 1 range attack.

Princess Joshua seems like my best chance of surviving a round against Riev, so we put her in line...

And promptly get crit in the face. Son of a bitch.

Death Count: 13

We reload again, this time wasting a few RNs in hopes of not falling prey to a stupid crit.

Instead, Josh procs Great Shield. 11/10

We survive! \o/ Now just to figure out a way to kill Riev before he kills anyone else.

This seems like my best bet of actually being able to hurt Riev at range, which is basically necessary to weaken him without dying. We save state a bit to rig this hit and make sure it connects.

Success! And a pretty decent level out of the deal, too.

Vidofnir didn't do any extra damage against Riev, but the Dragonspear did. One more rigged hit later, and Riev was behind us.

Tana rushes forward to start luring more enemies towards us while the others clean up the northern monsters. She gives zero fucks about weapon triangle disadvantage.

At the end of Tana's rampage, almost no one is left.

I guess siege tome eye doesn't move, so we'll move Tana towards him, put that good Res to use.

A couple more levels as we clean up more enemies. Josh could use the Skl, and Knoll could use the Def.

Oh, huh, I guess convoy is full again. Stupid enemies drop too many things.

Tana dodges the Siege Eye, but terrain hampers her movement too much to get in there yet, so she just closes in.

And speaking of being just short of range, poor Franz can't reach those Gargoyle reinforcements either.

I forget to pay attention to Siege Eye range and it snipes at Vanessa, but she survives.

They're bloody useless anyway.

We're almost there, but then... more reinforcements. This level just has fucktonnes of enemies to slaughter.

Syrene boosts her defenses.

Longbows are apparently Dragon effective. Or zombie effective. Or something. Who the fuck knows.

Actually, he probably just counts as a flying unit. I'm overthinking things.

Nidhogg does better damage but also puts Franz in range. We hold back attacking for now.

Lute does some good damage with Luna... but is far too slow to survive anything. We send her south to Nos tank some Wights instead.

Alright, this is actually pretty useful. We have a plan of attack. Franz first, then Eph finishes off.

Franz is pissed off that I don't let him get the kill and he gives me this bullshit level.

Eph on the other hand rewards me with this amazingness.

Wait, really? This drops? Maybe Knoll can use it. We toss out the Hand Axe to make room.

It looks more purple, if you ask me.

Demon King confirmed for asshole.

Oh shit, I guess we don't get to go back to the world map before the final chapter. Well, we'll give it a go, see how horrible it is.

Current Team:

Princess Joshua - Lv. 14 General

Promoted Tana - Lv. 15 Swordmaster

Superior Pupil Lute - Lv. 12 Super Pupil

Lethal L'Arachel - Lv. 8 Swordmaster

Girly Franz on a Horse - Lv. 8 Ranger

Cap'n Ephraim - Lv. 10 Berserker

Spider Knoll - Lv. 7 Elder Bael

Staffbot Vanessa - Lv. 6 Sage

Excellent Thief Syrene - Lv. 5 Rogue

Known/Suspected Weapon Effects:

[spoiler=list of weapons]

Slim Sword - Horseslayer

Iron Sword - Devil, Reaver against lances (?)

Steel Sword - Devil

Silver Sword - Unlimited

Iron Blade - Rapier

Steel Blade - Unlimited

Killing Edge - Effective against Flyers

Armorslayer - Unlimited

Shamshir - Unlimited

Poison Sword - Def +5

Lancereaver - Unlimited

Slim Lance - Spd +5

Iron Lance - Axeslayer

Steel Lance - Devil

Silve Lance - Spd +5, 3 uses

Javelin - Eclipse

Toxic Lance - Unlimited

Siegmund - Reaver

Axereaver - Eclipse

Iron Axe - Res +5

Steel Axe - Poison

Hand Axe - Unlimited

Killer Axe - Poison

Silver Axe - Poison

Devil Axe - Lck +5

Brave Axe - Reaver

Swordslayer - Poison

Halberd - Brave

Fiendcleaver - Unlimited

Hatchet - Brave

Steel Bow - Unlimited

Longbow - Brave

Killer Bow - Eclipse

Brave Bow - Unlimited

Short Bow - does Magic damage

Beacon Bow - Spd +5

Fire - Poison

Thunder - Brave

Elfire - Res +5

Bolting - Brave

Luna - Unlimited

Nosferatu - Unlimited

Divine - Eclipse

Evil Eye - Brave

Lethal Talon - Str +5

Rotten Claw - Def +5

Fetid Claw - Devil

Sharp Claw - Effective against Flyers

Evil Eye - Brave

Crimson Eye - Brave

Fiery Fang - Lck +5

Player Notes & Thoughts:

C20 was an interesting combination of difficulties. You got from the loldier-level Wights on one hand to fucking max stat, Dragonstone-boosted Riev on the other. Knowing that he's affected by the Dragon-slaying weapons (in hindsight, duh), I probably could have had a cleaner kill without needing to worry about rigging the Luna hit, but this is fine. Next to him, the Dragon felt like a pushover.

I'd forgotten that you go directly into the final chapter right after C20, which is kind of unfortunate. I'd been hoping to have the option to grind before Endgame. I have a save at the beginning of C20 that I can use to go back and grind if I need to, but then I'd have to redo C20, too, which wouldn't be THAT bad, but I'd like to avoid it if I could.

So we're just going to go into Endgame blind and see how it treats us. Wish me luck!

[Tequila]

Whooooo boy.

*rubs hands together in glee*

This is gonna be good.