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Chapter 9: Bow Woes



Welcome to hard mode, baby. Just getting through is still pretty easy, but if you want everything, you're going to have to put some work in. First and foremost, note the pirate in the northwest corner. He's new to hard mode and starts heading for the west village immediately. You have 3 turns to beat him there, or you lose the village. Let's meet the enemy contestants.



We've got pirates!



Mercs!



Snipeeeeee-

Right, so let's talk about this guy. He is, if not the sole reason, at least the biggest source of difficulty in the early part of the chapter. He has an effective 17 AS, can one- or two-shot anyone not named Seth, is fast enough that it's impossible to double him (unless you've been giving Karel a lot of screentime and he has at least 21 speed) and you very well might get doubled, and has enough HP and Def/Res that he's a bitch to take down. Even Seth is a 3HKO with his Silver Lance.



That said, you don't really have much of a choice if you want to stop the pirate. We line up and move forward, as Priscilla starts heading across the water. Assuming I play my cards right, she and Seth will both arrive at the west village at about the same time.



Tana has also forced her way into the party, and after taking away her silly Heavy Spear, she's basically on par with Priscilla in basically everything, and will be completely caught up in a couple levels. Long story short, Tana's pretty amazing.



One of the most irritating "designs" of the hack really starts rearing its head here. Defending really isn't a thing this hack does, and the opening turns throw a lot of guys at you up here. Excepting Forde because he's a cavalier (and therefore broken as shit), almost all my units are lucky to be able to take more than one or two good hits on the chin before dying. What you're seeing here is the fourth start I made, to say nothing of resets later.



And just for good measure, the game spawns a second pirate at the end of turn 1. Love you too, FE8.



We start by cleaning up the soldiers and forming up for the mercs. Remember that I can't double the mercs, so I'm going to have to spend even more of my turns to get rid of them.



Meanwhile, Seth rides out and takes a shot at the sniper. Seth will take 17 damage a shot from him, plus the mercs/pirates nearby love to throw an additional 4-8 a shot on top of it, so this turn isn't too bad, but pretty much every turn afterwards is going to be a big gamble.



Tana joins Priscilla on the way across the harbor.



With Seth up the sniper's face, this is the danger zone for this turn.



The game cuts me a huge break here. Between the first pirate deciding to attack Seth instead of continuing south like his friend and the sniper missing Seth, next turn is going to be much, much safer.



Turn 2 reinforcements. The south archers (along with the two mercs by the fighters and soldiers) will make their way north toward us, and the mage/merc in the north will immediately jump into the fray.



I can't really do much with the north group since the sniper still has them on lockdown, so it's another turn of cleaning out the enemies that charged us last turn.



Another important thing: Seth isn't strong enough to OHKO the Killing Edge myrm. On its own, that isn't a problem, but I can't risk him eating a crit with the sniper still hanging around.



Thankfully, Priscilla is here for a leading blow. The catch is that if she misses, she can be doubled by our Killing Edge friend, and odds are she's not walking away from that. Guess how many times I had to reset for the hit here? Just one.



With that little bit of unpleasantness dealt with, we've basically assured the villages being saved. Just a matter of survival for the time being.



Seth isn't so lucky this time around, so I'm going to have to burn an Elixir.



Merc/Soldier and 2 fighters on turn 3.



Seth hits the village, but this means he can't heal up this turn. He's in range of the sniper either way, so I have him equip a sword to not get fucked by the pirates.



Naturally, I take the opportunity to put Forde in the one position that lets the sniper get in the forest to attack him. I had an early run I had to throw away because the sniper got in the woods and even my myrmidons could barely put up 50% hit on him, so I just reset.



Erk of all people finally picks up the first level of the chapter and it's a masterpiece.



Tana grabs the other village, which has a fun side effect of making every pirate on the map actively hostile to us, since we saved all the villages.



Fortunately for Forde, the mage decides to take the forest and accomplish nothing. The sniper takes his attention elsewhere.





Turn 4: more fighters, more mages, soldiers, and Amelia.



Amelia is the first trainee that's actually available to me since Ross was replaced, and while I do like that her base stats aren't objectively awful, they're still comparatively garbage, and she'll need a lot of time in the tower to really shine.



As you can see, I'm a little busy up here right now, and Eirika can't really fit the time to go talk to Amelia into the schedule. Oh well, it'll let me show her off the later chapter.



Forde being the one least likely to be horribly murdered, he takes up position in the forest. The rest of the army moves back a bit to let most of the mob crowd around Forde and miss, but a few get suckered into the main army. In retrospect, if I was going to go for recruiting Amelia, this would be the time to have her start moving south, but I'd rather play it conservatively and just recruit her in the second chapter where I don't have to worry about a one-turn safety window for villages.



Now let's kill the sniper. Both the pegs and Seth all have to land to take him down, leading me to another reset when Seth misses with the killing blow.







Well, that's certainly an interesting cleric level...



The south reinforcements are starting to reach Seth and co, and I thought I was going to have to add another reset because of those mercs.



And so, Forde makes it through turn 1 only missing most of his health. That's what those elixirs are for, I guess.



The south mercs are nowhere near dead, and the group of soldiers with Amelia have started charging as well, so Seth and the pegs beat a hasty retreat to heal up.



Most of the pirates are heading around the pier into the center of the map, but this guy tried to sneak behind us. Josh and Nino reward him for his ingenuity.



Forde picks up an alright level from chip experience. The second turn goes much more smoothly than the first, and if I didn't have the main army so far off the to the right, I probably could have dealt with most of them in the upcoming turn.



Seth and the pegs are still on the move, but any farther and they'll be chased into the north group's range.



Eirika pulls a crit out of her ass and gets a defensive level for the trouble, still no strength.



No, this is great. I wasn't going to have Seth go anywhere anyway.



Tana is completely safe hiding back in the corner, but even at full health, Priscilla will be killed if both the fighter and pirate land with their hand axes (one can attack from the vendor entrance, one from the right). Forde heals up and closes off one of the attack spot, guaranteeing her safety.



We've almost restored order to the top part of the map, ignoring the reinforcements from the south finally reaching us up here.



Despite his position in the forest, Guy still ends up flirting with death, and gets a shit level along the way.



Fortunately, we're finally freed up enough to start fighting back.





Lyn is sitting at 21 HP, but the only things I can actually expect to hit her are the mage/archer. All things considered, we have a pretty strong position.







She somewhat makes up for this by dodging axes and the archer like a champ.



Oh hey, what up Elfire buddy. Just going to be taking that off your hands.



Hey, look at that. The hard part of the map is done, and we even got both villages. Amelia is about to leave, but that's okay, we'll see her again in Chapter 13, even if I'll be significantly less enthusiastic about raising her at that point.



At this point, the rest of the chapter is smooth sailing. None of the remaining enemies will actively charge us (the boss and his archer flunkies won't even move), so we can pick them off at our leisure.





Well that was a fun little diversion.



Binks is basically unchanged from normal FE8, and really rendered even more helpless than usual due to us having three myrmidons he's never going to hit with that Steel Axe. +5 HP, +5 Str, +4 Skill, +4 Speed, +5 Def, +4 Res.



Nino kills one of his archer buddies for another fantastic level. If she maxes magic and speed, she's getting a Guiding Ring on the spot.



Guy and Lyn get to work on Binks. They can both survive a Steel Axe hit, so even if he gets lucky I can pull one out and have Josh switch in for them while they get healed up.



Lyn puts him into the danger zone...



...And Josh takes us home. That fucker is going to max strength before promotion.



Oh, right. I guess there is still this guy.



Now we're done.

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Level 4 Pegasus Knight
Lances - D, Affinity - Wind
Equipment - Heavy Spear, Javelin, Vulnerary

HP: 20 (+5) (65%)
Strength: 7 (+4) (45%)
Skill: 9 (+4) (40%)
Speed: 13 (+4) (65%)
Luck: 8 (60%)
Defense: 6 (+4) (20%)
Resistance: 7 (+4) (25%)
Con: 5

Tana. There's not much to really say that wasn't said about Vanessa, but Tana comes in with reasonable bases, even better growths than Vanessa, and a ton of growing room to put them to use. Just take away her Heavy Spear, because using shit that heavy is a good way to her killed off very quickly. Also, she gets huge bonus points for not having a recolored sprite. I don't know if he just missed her in the process or what, but I'm sure as hell not complaining.



Level 1 Recruit
Lances - E, Affinity - Thunder
Equipment - Slim Lance, Speedwing

HP: 16 (+5) (60%)
Strength: 4 (+4) (35%)
Skill: 3 (+4) (40%)
Speed: 4 (+4) (40%)
Luck: 6 (50%)
Defense: 2 (+4) (30%)
Resistance: 3 (+4) (15%)
Con: 6

Amelia is the first recruit I have available to me, and while I appreciate the author giving her base stats that are no longer complete dogshit, she's still at the bottom of the barrel comparatively speaking. To add to it, I really don't see how you can reach her in time on this map without giving up the villages, meaning we have to pick her up in Chapter 13 instead - a little bit more than a minor inconvenience. Still, RNG gods willing, she makes a hilariously effective general, and she and Ross are the two trainees I actually bother to use on a regular basis, so brownie points for that I guess.