Sacred Stones SG

[Katon]

Chapter finished, report to follow this afternoon or evening; given the nature of the chapter, about 90% of the report will be level-up screens.

[Katon]

Chapter 5x: Unbroken Heart

In which, to be more precise than my previous estimate, 87.5% of the pictures are level-up screens.

Chapter 5x sees us switch parties for a chapter and control Eirika's brother Ephraim and his merry band of men. Radiant Dawn (FE10) will take this multiple-groups-of-characters idea and push a bit too far, but here it's used briefly enough to qualify as a nice change of pace.




Ephraim's the one lance-specialized lord in the western FE canon, and his party's also pretty lance-heavy between the two cavaliers and the paladin, so we need to be a little careful to make sure the fighters only come up against Kyle or Forde using swords. Still, this is a very straightforward map, especially since Kyle and Forde will apparently show up when Ephraim rejoins even if they die here (I say “apparently” because I've never needed to test this). Our guys massively outmatch their enemies one-on-one, so as long as we're willing to use vulneraries and careful not to trigger too many enemies at once there's not a whole lot of danger.



Now, it's not exactly uncommon for our units to be better than any individual enemy unit; when our side has individual named units and theirs has faceless replaceable mooks, it's almost to be expected. The series has a few common ways of making life difficult even when it hasn't packed its really strong enemies. First, the most frequent AI script has units wait til something enters their move+attack range, then attacking it, so if you set up multiple mooks in such a way as to make the party enter their range simultaneously then the player has to figure out how to prevent his lead unit from getting swarmed.



The one problematic moment of the level was along these lines, when I decided to tidy up the chests as soon as I had the starting area under control. This meant charging into a room with the fighter and the mage simultaneously, and since I'd screwed up my initial positioning by not having Ephraim closest to the door before Orson unlocked it I actually couldn't kill either of them on the first turn. Fortunately, Forde was exactly capable of surviving two magic hits and one axe hit, so I could handle a round of being pounded on. Other than that, if you're slow and careful you can trigger enemies one at a time for the rest of the map; even the mage-fighter pair can be avoided with enough (unnecessary, in this case) patience, if you gain control of the northward corridor first and javelin the mage through the walls.



Another common trick for making weak enemies a challenge is setting their AI to come after you, rather than waiting til you're in attack range. If there's just one enemy, they'll get destroyed when they move into your attack range, but if there's more than you can kill then suddenly you need to figure out an actual defensive line – especially on fog of war maps where you can't be sure how many enemies are charging towards you. Not a feature here, as the handful of enemies set on offensive AI are spread out enough to be handled one at a time if you're careful.



The last common trick I can currently think of for getting challenges from enemies this outclassed is if it gives you something on a time limit – grab the chests before enemy thieves get there, save the NPC so they'll join your party, kill the boss for a drop before you win a siege map on time – then you'll have to push forward quickly enough to contact multiple enemies at once. Nothing of the sort happens here.



Since the game does nothing to prevent you from taking this map unit by unit, and there isn't even a weak Ross equivalent whose spoon-feeding might be interesting to talk about for a sufficiently broad definition of interesting, I really don't have much to say about the tactics of this chapter.



“We lured them out one by one and stabbed them with pointy sticks for a lot of levels.” There, report written.

Next time: Did anyone miss fog of war? No? Well, here it comes again anyway.

New Units

Ephraim is our other lord, and a very good one at that. He's basically Hector with a different weapon loadout (lances instead of axes + swords on promotion), a horse (after promotion), and 4-5 points of defence traded for luck, speed, skill, and resistance. The lack of weapon flexibility and the less ridiculous defence combine to make him a bit less of a walking fortress than Hector, but on the other hand the better speed, accuracy, and mobility make him frequently more use on the offensive. Great unit, very happy to have him around.

Forde and Kyle are both cavaliers like Franz, so they can also choose between paladin and great knight. All three cavaliers have fairly similar good-but-not-great growths across the board, but there is some variation. Kyle's usually going to have the best strength and defence, Franz the best speed, and Forde is the weakest but most accurate. I'd rate them Franz > Kyle > Forde on average, but if you polled a dozen FE8 players you could probably find one to defend any possible ordering; they're all in the same general weight class, and it really depends who the RNG likes on any given playthrough. They're decent fits for endgame utility spots, so anyone who goes on a run of good levels is likely to stick around.

Orson is going to join Team Evil before his next appearance, so get all his equipment off him and just use him as unarmed bait. Pity; between his growths and those awesome bases, if he rejoined with Forde and Kyle he could spend the rest of the game bickering with Seth over who gets to be the best early prepromote in the series. Seth would probably win, but Orson's not at all far off.

[Jowy]

Got it, will play today or tomorrow.

[Jowy]

Oh boy.

[Fenn]

Viewers out there, over/under on number of units lost?

But yeah, FE8 might be easy generally, but C6 is very difficult from what I remember.

[El Grillo]

Fog of war + effective weapons (why is that horseslayer even there T_T) - Seth to sit on the fort and bodyblock 12 units = no fun indeed.

Edit: I'm going to go with 3 deaths.

[Katon]

Fog of war and iron man are a dangerous combination whichever FE you're playing, so chapter 6 was always going to be the worst part of the early game. I'll guess 2 deaths in a spirit of blind optimism.

[Ichabod]

I'll go with 2 deaths. The pegasus rider and the apprentice Ross (?).

[Jowy]

Report here:

Chapter 6 - Victims of War

Normally I'd show the full map here, but let's stay immersed this time. This is a FOG OF WAR map. We can't see shit.
The objective is to kill all enemies. There is a village with an antitoxin in it, and there are 3 civilians we need to save to get an additional reward.



I went with this team. I took Colm because thieves clear extra fog. I like Joshua, but we have some weaker units that need the levels more.



We sent Vanessa ahead for extra vision. She needs to hurry east to save the civilians, but she's too weak to tank everything on the way.
Everyone went forward to the middle, except for Eirika and Franz who went north to lure out and kill a few cavaliers.
Before the battle, I sold our Red Gem and sorted out the rest of our stuff. I gave Ross the +2 DEF and +2 SKILL items.
Axe users usually have low hit chance, so the extra SKILL comes handy, and extra DEF early on will help keep Ross alive.



Next turn, we moved Gilliam in range of the first units. He will lure them in, then we will finish them off with our group.
Franz critted with a counter to kill one cavalier in the north, then Eirika Rapier'd the other.



A third cavalier attacked Franz. In a crazy AI move, a healer parked herself next to Franz. Perhaps the intention was to block Franz from escaping, but that might be giving the AI too much credit.
Eirika went in for a Rapier attack. This could be scary if she misses, especially if another unit comes out of the fog. There is a Knight nearby, but it shouldn't be in range unless it has already moved.
In any case, Eirika critted to kill the cavalier in 1-shot. Franz then killed the healer.



Gilliam lured in three. Ross killed the lance for a +HP +STR +LUCK level up.
Neimi and Artur killed the sword user, and Lute soloed the Knight.
Vanessa visited the village to pick up an Antitoxin. I'd love to fly ahead with her, but she would get killed, so she has to wait.



An axe-user popped out of the fog and attacked Artur. The attack missed, but it couldn't have killed him anyway.
Thankfully Lute was on a forest, which is the reason why the axe didn't go after her. It'd have a lower chance to hit her than Artur, BUT if the blow lands, it's lethal.
Lute got a +RES level up when it was our turn.



Eirika and Franz lured out an Archer. Shouldn't be a problem.



This is new! On this difficulty, enemy reinforcements appear from behind us. I have no idea how many there will be, but I doubt it's just one.
These reinforcements have now cut off Franz and Eirika from our main force.



Reinforcements aren't even the main problem. Gilliam lured out 4 units, and a Shaman attacked Lute. Now we need to deal with them.
Artur killed the Shaman, and Gilliam killed a lancer.
Vanessa flew forward because the clock is ticking. She's in range of a lancer, but she's standing on a hill for defensive bonuses.



We still got work to do. Lute killed the Knight, and Neimi attacked the sword user.



Ross needs to hit this.
Ross didn't hit this.

Colm does no damage to anything. What this means is that two enemies are left alive.
Let's play the death roulette. Who's it going to be?







Meanwhile in the north, Eirika kills the Archer and Franz lures in two of the reinforcement cavaliers.
Franz moves to the forest south and attacks the cavalier. Eirika goes to Franz' previous spot and kills the other cavalier.
Franz and Eirika are both at half HP.



Gilliam lured in two axes this time around. We still have the two units from last turn to finish off, two reinforcement cavaliers, and a lancer who attacked Vanessa.
Artur lands this attack. It's a good start.
Next up, Lute attacks the lancer. Ross finishes it off for a +STR +SPD level up. He's already Lvl7, at Lvl10 he'll auto-promote to a real class!
Gilliam kills one of the axes for a +HP +DEF level up.



Neimi was healed to full by Moulder. You'd think that Neimi and Colm would be able to kill the axe, but nope, missing 4 damage.
Four enemies will live to strike a second time at us. At least everyone is on a forest, so we've got nothing to worry about!





Oh. Not everyone was on a forest.
Rest in peace Moulder. One healer down, one left..



Vanessa got attacked by a Knight with a Javelin. She's all alone flying atop a mountain, trying to reach the civilians in time.



Clean up duty went OK. However.. Gilliam needs to hit this or things might get scary.
And he hits it!
The rest of the chapter should be a cake walk.



We were two turns too late to save all the civilians. Our Vanessa is too weak to body block the spider.
The reward would have been a Pegasus Knight promotion item, but if we lose one Pegasus Knight in the process of getting it, it won't be much use for us.
Lute leveled up after killing the Knight. Just three enemies left after that. Boss and two units close to it.
The boss doesn't even move, so we can just lure out the two enemies safely and





He got doubled.

And now he's dead.



Rest in peace Ross. One axe down, one left..



Artur ended up landing the killing blow on the boss.

And that's that shit show over. We won. Kinda.

Save:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/2144c5...283%29.SAV

[El Grillo]

As a silver lining, more open endgame slots for your other units? (Alright, I got nothing. RIP.)

For future reference, pegasi/other fliers don't get bonus defense/avoid from terrain. If that weren't intuitive enough, they do heal in forts, but don't get the bonuses :3.