Barhara to preside over Evans Castle along the border.
Agustria. The lords of Agustria expressed strong anti-Grandbell sentiment.
by an assassin.
to invade Verdane.
the midst of conflict.
Chapter 2 - Disturbance in Agustria
Chapter 2 is a very fast paced chapter and gives us a lot of room to screw up. Smart preparations are important here.
Before we get started, though, I have to mention that I went back and replayed the first two chapters before making this update. So much time passed since I had taken the older screenshots that I had trouble writing anything to accompany the images.
So if you've been paying close attention, you might see that a few units have drastically different stats or somethings just seem off. That's the reason.
I used the same general strategies for the first two chapters, but I did do a few things differently. In the spoiler below I included screencaps of the biggest changes.
I had Noish collect the gold from this village rather than Alec. Seems trivial but it's a difference worth mentioning.
At the end of the Prologue a few units successfully broke out of formation and I managed to get the 12 turn Chapter clear.
And I gave Fin the Speed ring. I couldn't afford to have Sigurd take it this time around as it would have slowed me down too much. It actually goes really well on Fin. I remember now why I always used to have him take it.
I took the Skill ring with Midir rather than Dew. It was much easier to set up the kill for him, and they have a battle conversation so why not?
While it's important to decide where the stat boosting rings end up, it is never really something of critical importance. They are best gotten by units that need some quick gold or can immediately benefit from the stat boost (Midir has low base Skill, and the ring stacks well with the Killer Bow I have him buy off of Jamka). I always overthink the skill rings.
Sigurd has drastically lower Evade now. A few points less Speed and about 10 points less Luck (the first time around Sigurd had very lucky Luck growths). This made the above section significantly easier; I just used Sigurd to cut through the Brigands as now they actually targeted him.
I took the Magic ring with Alec rather than Dew. Alec needs the money he'll get from selling this piece off.
Dew gave all his gold to Ethlin before the start of the 2nd Chapter.
Cuan did not clear the Arena this time around and consequently didn't make much gold (one of the opponents takes a lot of luck to defeat), so when I had him give gold to Ethlin I found out it wasn't enough for all the preparations I wanted her to make at the start of Chapter 2.
Dumping all the money Dew possessed (about 25000g) into Ethlin was the only way I could solve the issue. This will negatively affect the playthough, but I will be able to work around it, hopefully.
I managed to get Chapter 1 cleared two turns faster, on turn 27. This was due to the fact I used Sigurd to quckly cut through the Brigands in the forest.
Finally, I mentioned before that I had trouble pairing Aideen and Midir up...
I made sure to keep them together as much as was tactically possible. So they should fall in love soon!
So not too many differences...
A notable thing happens while clearing the Arena.
A warrior named Holyn, who is a bit weak for a level 7 Arena opponent (Level 7 = the final round of the Arena), is handily defeated by Alec.
After collecting the reward, Alec is confronted by the warrior.
The mysterious gladiator Holyn joins the cause.
He has a very nice portrait. Looks like a serious brooding type.
Anyway, his base stats are strong. HP growth and Skill growth are both high, the rest of his growths are just average except for Luck, which is very low.
Sword Fighters all have A rank Swords and so does Holyn.
He has the Pursuit and Lunar Sword skills. Lunar Sword allows him to make a strike that completely ignores his opponent's defense stat. It's activation rate depends on Skill.
A descendant of the the Sword Saint Odo, same as Aira, meaning he is an Isaacian or is at least of Isaacian lineage. You'll only find out about Holyn's past and where this blood comes from if you pair him up with a particular female, which I won't be doing.
As a unit, Holyn is good, but we will never use him for any important tasks as he can't keep up with the cavalry. He's pretty much in the same boat as Aira. Powerful yet useless on the field.
Our battle preparations take us to the Item shop, which has some new weapons stocked. Steel is outright stronger than Iron, so these weapons are a flat upgrade to most of the stuff we've been wielding.
Fin buys the Steel Lance, Jamka takes the Steel Bow, and Azel the Thunder tome. I leave the Steel Blade in the Item shop. It's too expensive, and everyone that can wield the weapon doesn't want it.
A lot of items get switched around through the Pawnshop so I can't really get a good screenshot of what went on. I'll do a brief overview of each unit so you can see their current inventory and stats, and then we'll sortie. I'll probably do it this way in the future, too.
When I say +1Strength or -2Skill I am referring to the difference between a units current stats and their average stats, or what stats they would typically have. Some units haven't really leveled up much so I'll skip them.
-2 Speed,-2 Defense. A bit below average.
He's gotten 27Kills on the Silver Sword so far, and by the end of this chapter should be nearing the 50Kill mark. The Iron Sword is just to cut down on costs when fighting in the arena.
Deidre bought the Warp staff off of Aideen. She's going to spam it from the beginning of the Chapter till the very end and gain a huge number of levels.
-1Skill, -1Speed, -1Defense, +1 Resistance, +1 Luck.
He's got no money because he gave up his gold to Ethlin before. I had him refrain from fighting in the arena as I'm going to send him through later on in the chapter for reasons.
+1HP, +2Skill, -1Speed, +4Defense, +4 Luck. In FE fandom this is called a blessed unit.
Ethlin bought the Magic Ring off of Alec and the Relive staff from Aideen. She'll be the only healer around for most of the map, and our units are going to take a lot of damage so this set-up helps a lot. No weapon, she's going to be given one soon.
+2Strength, -2Skill, +2Speed, +1Defense.
The Steel Sword has about 26Kills on it.
I'd like to point out that Noish has 41120 gold. We want as many of our units as possible to have at least 40000gold by the end of this chapter, that's the golden number. Not every unit needs that much, but most of them do. I'll explain why at the start of the next chapter.
+2Speed
-2HP, -1Strength, +3Speed, +1Defense
-1Skill, -1Speed, -1Luck, -2Defense
We might be able to promote Lex during the battle.
Azel is lagging behind but that's normal. He'll catch up.
-1HP, -1Skill, +2Speed, +1Luck
Aideen bought Ethlin's Live Staff so she has something to work with.
+1HP, -1Strength, -1Defense
The Killer Bow is one of the most expensive weapons in the game. Midir will spend a lot of money maintaining it. I had him buy it off of Jamka at the end of the last chapter.
+1HP, +1Strength, -1Skill, -1Speed, +1Luck
+1Luck, +1Defense
Units are turning out mostly average. Still a lot of time left for the RNG to make itself felt.
The mounted units sortie into a very specific pattern worked out many playthroughs ago.
Ethlin returns Aideen for the experience.
The Light Sword is a magic sword, allowing Ethlin to attack from range with magic. In melee it works as any other sword.
Most of our units sortie. Azel and Aideen remain inside of Evans castle.
On the enemy phase the attack on Nodion is set into motion, and one of the lords of Agustria sets bandits loose on Agustrian pioneers.
It's a race against time.
Eve and his brothers are sturdy but without aid Nodion will fall.
Just within sight of the castle.
Most of the enemy targets Eve.
He won't survive another enemy phase.
His brothers take a few attacks but remain mostly in good health.
And the bandits gather at the edge of the forest...
Do you know what is playing as we watch allies spill blood and bandits make their way unimpeded to defenseless villages? A soothing, dreamy theme. Not what you'd expect, but it makes sense. This is the golden age of Genealogy. There is war, but things are still clear and mostly good.
It's one of my favorites. Faintly mystic and militaristic, it seems to celebrate something.
The enemy is weakened from fighting against the knights of Nodion and are easily routed.
I move Sigurd to speak with Lachesis.
Lachesis becomes a player controlled unit after the conversation.
High Strength, and Luck growth. All the others are very low.
The sword she carries gives her the Prayer Skill when equipped.
She is a Princess. A ranks Swords and C rank Staves.
Her only skill is Charisma. Charisma gives a 10+ bonus to Hit and Evade to any units within 3 tiles of Lachesis.
She is a descendant of Hezul, like her brother.
Lachesis is an odd unit. She is not an effective fighter but can defend herself from occasional attacks. Keeps herself from being completely useless through healing and sometimes providing Charisma support. She promotes into one of the strongest classes in the game, and we can easily get her there through staff spamming.
So we have to put a little work into her but it pays off.
We've nearly wiped out the enemy.
Eve is still at 16HP and Elliot is very capable of killing him, but that's not what will happen.
Eve and his brothers take their turn before the enemy.
They kill off one of the knights with Javelins and then move to surround Elliot.
Elliot has a special AI routine that forces him to retreat upon losing nearly all of his troops, or when he becomes very wounded. He would normally ignore our units and go back to Heirhein castle, then reemerge fully healed and with fresh soldiers.
But because his path is blocked from every direction he doesn't do anything, and Eve manages to hang on through the
Ethlin starts in on Elliot.
Lex follows up with a Hand Axe throw and Cuan finishes.
Cuan equips his new weapon and approaches the wall of Armor Knights guarding the route to Heirhein.
He's just within range of the enemy. They'll all come forward and attack on the enemy phase.
Now we are on the offensive.
Nodion's knights remain active. They'll stick to Lachesis, but attack any enemy that comes within their range. Their exact behavior in combat is very unpredictable but they make good distractions and are sturdier than any of our own units.
Cuan has drawn the enemy out... Good.
Allows us to fight at the edge of Ballista range.
Ballista are immobile long range units. Once we close in on them they're very easy to destroy. Generally inaccurate and not very powerful. Mostly used to deter low Defense units, but there are stronger versions of ballista we'll encounter.
I move Lachesis to heal Cuan back up to full.
Ethlin heals Eve.
Alec finishes off the wounded Lance Armor. The Charisma and Leadership bonus helps him avoid damage.
Sigurd targets this priest. It's equipped with the Recover Staff, which completely heals any wound. If we don't take him out early he can be very annoying.
Sigurd's Speed actually wasn't high enough to double attack so I had to finish him off with Cuan.
We take out another Lance Knight. Midir wounds another Armor Knight.
We'll break through on our next turn.
The unmounted units are trailing far behind. They are particularly useless in Chapter 2.
Nodion's knights kill off a wounded Armor Knight and ruin our formation.
The enemy almost completely ignores us and instead attacks our allies. They don't deal much damage in return.
Philip (that's the enemy general) attacks Eve. Eve's counterattack is blocked when Greatshield activates.
Greatshield completely negates any attack when it activates, and it's activation rate is Level% so it can get quite high. Greatshield is the worst skill in the game, and from here on in it becomes incredibly common. Nearly every boss has it and just a few unlucky activations can slow us down greatly.
The bandit are starting to tear down the villages.
I prioritize taking down Philip. Greatshield adds a huge amount of randomness to what would otherwise be an unremarkable boss.
Lachesis kills one of the weakened knights blocking the road.
Ethlin should be able to easily knock Philip down to single digit HP-
A bit desperate here now. I don't want to divert Sigurd or Cuan to attack Philip because it would slow the assault on Heirhein. And we've also still got to kill a few of those knights or they'll kill Lachesis.
Fin manages to land his attacks.
Midir finishes him off with precision killing power.
Philip drops the Return Ring. It allows the unit possessing it to warp to the base castle at any time.
The rest of the units roll over the remaining knights.
Nodion's knight take out the last one.
The ballista have been targeting them over our units, too, which has been nice.
Then they are easily dismantled.
Unmounted troops have been steadily plodding along. Dew has something to say to Lachesis.
The Thief Sword is the weakest weapon in the game. It's still useful as it allows units who land a hit with it to steal gold.
Lachesis isn't going to get much use out of it, though.
We close in on Heirhein.
I open up with Ethlin. This guy is a General, meaning there is no guarantee anything will hit.
Lover Critical animation plays.
Well, Boldo is pretty much finished.
I heal Lex with Lachesis. He gains back 18HP.
Midir ends him.
Ring that grants +5 Resistance. I'm having Midir collect all these rings so that he can make it to the golden 40000g. Each ring sells for 10000g.
All that's left is to gain access to the castle...
Cuan weakens the Armor Knight so that Sigurd can kill it and I begin to send my units toward Anphony.
Heirhein is seized on turn 9.
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