Alec retreats from Aira.
Our troops are nearly in position to assault Marpha. It will be difficult fighting with just a few low-leveled knights, but I have a trick for this.
Aira's AI changes once Genoa has been captured. She'll still attack any unit within her range, but will move toward Genoa and capture it if we don't stop her.
Enemy units start to pour in from the Agustria.
Eltshan warned us this might happen.
He also said he'd have our back.
I have Sigurd enter Genoa to repair his Silver Sword.
Looking back, I didn't have to do this, and it might have been better if I hadn't.
Aira joins us, I guess because we're safeguarding Shanan. Or maybe she feels obligated to because we rescued him from Kinbois?
Anyway, she's a strong unit. Her growth rates, excepting Skill, are poor, but her bases carry her.
She's carrying an Iron Blade. Blades are swords that are twice as heavy as regular swords, but do much more damage. All blades are A rank.
Aira is a Sword Fighter, and has the Pursuit, Nihil, and Meteor Sword skills.
Meteor Sword allows Aira to make 5 attacks in a row, it's activation rate depends on Skill.
A descendant of the Sword Saint Odo.
Aira ihas a strong class and skill set, so no matter how her stats turn out she'll be a powerful unit. Getting her into battle however is not easy. She just won't see much combat- mounted units do all the heavy lifting in Genealogy. She'll gain most of her levels in the Arena.
Cuan moves next to Ethlin and uses the Give command.
Give is how units share gold with each other.
When a unit gives gold, he gives all of his gold up. So Cuan is now penniless. The only way to retain some gold is if the receiving partner will go over the maximum allowable amount of gold (50,000) if they were to accept all of the money. Only lovers and Thieves can give gold.
Ethlin doesn't need the gold now, but she will for the next chapter.
Mountain Thieves always carry 5000 gold on them, so we want to steal from them whenever possible.
Lex attacks with a Hand Axe but misses.
Midir kills the Mountain Thief.
And I move Fin well within the enemies attack range, while the others wait on the edge.
I'm counting on Fin's Prayer skill to keep him alive while he heavily damages his attackers. We can kill the wounded on our next turn, heal Fin up with Aideen, and then repeat. Its faster than waiting for Sigurd.
In a different playthrough I could have used Lex here as well, but his growths have been weak. In about 10 level-ups Lex has gained only 1 point of Defense despite his 50% Defense growth. Very bad!
The enemy will surround Fin and knock him down to 3HP, giving him a 70% boost to Evade.
This is enough to guarantee he dodges the Hunters, but gives one Brigand a 10% chance of killing Fin. I'm comfortable taking this risk, mostly because this is the fastest way forward.
The AI is not good at optimizing attacks or movement, so the risk never even amounts to anything. The Brigands nearest to Fin do not loop around and attack him from behind, so the Brigands further away don't have room to attack.
The last Hunter targets Midir.
Meanwhile...
Eltshan has Elliot outmatched, and he and his knights have the first move.
The CrossKnights pelt Herhein troops with Javelins, each hit dealing more than half the enemies HP. They completely blow out the troops Elliot brought along.
In one turn, half of Elliot's troops are wiped out and Eltshan stands at the front lines.
Most of the enemy units target him, but are killed in one blow.
A descendant of the Black Knight Hezul, Eltshan wields the Demon Sword Mistoltn. Combined with his Leadership, victory is guaranteed for him and his Crossknights.
We just need to finish up things on our end now.
The plan is to protect Aideen against direct attack while leaving Fin as exposed as possible. We also want to kill at least two of the Hunters to make sure they don't kill her.
Cuan is just within range to lend a hand.
I use Fin to weaken this Bowman before moving back to his starting position.
Dew will guard Aideen's rear also using the opportunity to trigger another conversation.
We can use the staff to warp units to any castle we've captured.
This actually isn't as useful as it sounds. There are a few times it will save us some turns, but for the most part we'll just use it to get easy EXP. Each use of the Warp Staff gets the user ~60 EXP.
The only downside to using it this way is that it gets expensive to constantly repair.
Here is where I make a big mistake.
I use Midir to take out this Hunter knowing he would probably be counterattacked. One more hit and he's dead now.
But rather than move him to safety, I put him back on the Wood tile.
Not sure why I did this. Really, have no idea. This puts him within range of quite a few attackers.
No matter what move I take with Lex, the enemy phase will be rough now.
We'll have to leave Aideen open to attack if we want to save Midir, and that means there's a chance she'll die.
This is the best I could come up with.
Just have to hope for the best here.
She dodges, but it was far from a sure thing. Very good. Rest of the phase will go smoothly now.
They focus their attacks on Lex but he's safe. Forgot to equip the Steel Axe, though.
Eltshan's knights kill the last of the enemy Agustrians.
He finishes Elliot off himself.
We'll be seeing him again.
Sigurd will take two more turns to reach Marpha Castle. By the time he gets there we want all the troops here killed, and Gandolf- who's guarding Marpha - taken out.
The Skill ring Gandolf drops upon death is very valuable, I don't want Sigurd to take it because he doesn't need the money or the stat boost. I always try to set Dew up for the kill on Gandolf, but it's difficult and far from guaranteed. I would settle for Noish or Alec getting the kill, too.
We begin finishing off the castle defenders.
I have Noish wait on the entrance to Marpha. He'll duel with Gandolf on the enemy phase.
The Return Staff allows us to warp units back to our base castle.
Like the Warp Staff, it's mostly just for free EXP, though it only gives about half as much as the Warp Staff.
We're pretty much done here.
The last Brigand gets left alive. I use Dew to keep him from attacking Aideen or Ethlin.
We're making excellent time.
The next part will be hectic. I hate it and do not look forward to it.
This is the layout of the map displayed whenever you hit the START button. You can see we've covered about half of Verdane. Our next movement will take us through the that greenish mass west of our current position, the great Verdane Forest.
Anyway
Dew dodges the attack.
And Gandolf comes out to fight.
Noish dodges the first hit and lands one.
Then Charge activates and both combatants injure the other.
Gandolf is pretty tough. Sigurd could take him out easily, but it's worth the effort to kill him with another unit and get the Skill ring on someone who needs it.
I begin to move Midir into the forest. I had to get him out of the way to heal Noish.
Cuan lands a hit, Continue activates but he misses.
I'm trying to get Gandolf down to 1HP. I did the math and this was the only way I could make that happen on this turn.
Lex pulls off a 58% CTH attack.
Alec gets him down to 1HP.
This is it...
76% CTH is the best we can get here.
If Dew had missed, I would have gotten Noish the kill on the next turn. We got very lucky.
I'm very satisfied with how this turned out.
Our units were able to roll over Marpha without any assistance from Sigurd, and I was even able to get the Skill ring with Dew without slowing down the advance.
3000g obtained
Into the trees.
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