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You know the drill. Pirates are attacking Port Talma, and we need to stop them.
"Thunder and lightning maneuvers" makes more sense now than ever. Or it would. You'll see.
As I showed last time, Shinon is some kind of wacky Archer. At the time of taking this screenshot, I hadn't figured it out yet.
And Gatrie rolled Mage! At ninth level, Gatrie has -4 HP, +1 STR, = MAG, -3 SKL, -4 SPD, +0.5 LCK, +4 DEF, and = RES compared to an average Soren of equivalent level. He also got Fire Mage, based on his weapon levels.
Shame he couldn't have rolled Thunder Mage. So close.
Ike grabs Shinon's Iron Bow and keeps the Fighter Band.
Shinon grabs the Knight Band, mostly out of habit because I don't expect him to level up this chapter.
Gatrie takes the Archer band, because his deficiencies are in Speed and Skill.
Titania is mostly just here.
I spend a while looking at enemy stats and positioning, and doing more math than I'd like to admit. I want to win this first try.
Eventually, I settle on this:
Titania snags the Elixir.
Shinon - who rolled an enemy-only Archer sprite instead of Rolf's, for some reason - weakens the nearby Fighter...
...and Gatrie takes him out from close range.
He got the enemy-only Mage as well, not Tormod. I wonder why that happens.
And Ike finishes the Bandit.
Shinon pulls in, and weakens, the enemy Archer...
...and eats a hit from the Myrmidon.
By the way: Shinon's experience gains mean he's truly unpromoted. He isn't some kind of custom promoted Archer class, or else he'd only be gaining 1 point per combat.
Turn 2 starts in this position. I want to finish the nearby enemies without drawing anyone else.
But it's not quite possible without wasting experience, so I settle on this formation.
The Bandit wastes his turn on Ike, and the nearby Bandits come closer.
Turn 3 is a little trickier. For all that I have some super-units, the enemies do have their Hard Mode bonuses and my Gatrie and Shinon aren't as tough as normal.
Shinon moves as far south as possible to weaken this Bandit...
...for Gatrie.
Then, Titania takes his Steel Bow...
...and flies here.
Ike trades inventories with her...
uses the Steel Bow's power to just barely pick off a Bandit...
...and swings south to block the other one.
The nearby surviving Bandits waste their turns swinging at Titania.
Now this is a situation I can fully control.
Shinon reclaims his bow to feed Gatrie a kill.
(bam)
Titania switches back with Ike and clears out of the way.
And Ike pulls out the first Needlessly Flashy Second-Hit Critical of the campaign. This was a killshot either way.
That Fighter on the gangplank has a Hand Axe, so he'll crash into Ike and draw counterfire.
More importantly, Ike has now advanced past the western market stalls. That means it's...
...Marcia time! 
It's interesting that she's still a flyer. I'll take this.
She seems unusually tough, too. Maybe she got some boosted bases from the sturdier class.
Fast, too. What's going on here?
...oh. Oh!
quote:
Ohhhhhhh.
This randomizer has a chance to modify base level as well as stats! Ike got +1 compared to his normal 01/--, Titania got +3 compared to her ??/01, and Shinon got -4 compared to his ??/01.
I should have seen this right away. It took this preposterous +5 on Marcia to make it obvious.
Speaking of Marcia, though, let's take a closer look.
It isn't pretty. -2 HP, -5 STR, +1.5 MAG, -0.5 SKL, -0.5 SPD, -0.5 LCK, +1.5 DEF, and -1.5 RES compared to a tenth-level Jill.
Still, it makes her functionally unbeatable for this chapter. That's still +5 DEF compared to her own natural base, at her standard starting level of 05/--.
Anyway, let's deal with this new situation.
Ike picks off the Myrmidon.
Gatrie moves up, and Shinon (whose combat role in this map is over) gives him a shove.
And just for novelty's sake, Titania flies over here into a square you'd normally never get to use.
Marcia Status: Still Fine.
Ike sends her packing. Not only could she have flown away to begin with (just like vanilla), she could probably have soloed the entire map as long as she was careful about the archer.
Ike then parks here to draw in a Hand Axe pirate.
Gatrie picks up a second shove from Shinon...
...which allows him to show up on deck and start fireballing pirates.
He's pretty nimble.
The turn ends in this position.
Gatrie's pirate takes a swing at Ike.
The other nearby pirate picks a fight with Gatrie (and gets double-fireballed for it without landing a hit.)
And Ike crits his Hand Axer into what looks like a really painful forced limbo. (His health bar isn't finished draining away; he does die from this.)
This is the first level-up of the chapter, and I think we can safely conclude that Ike has some wild growths going on.
He's pretty tough.
At Turn 7, the game is mine; it's all mop-up from here. I'll skip past me feeding Gatrie every mook kill remaining, except the following highlights:
This toy for Titania,
an Unnecessarily Flashy Mage Crit,
and a pretty great level resulting from same.
Now it's Turn 12 and we're here.
There's one tile that the mook can reach but the boss can't.
That means it's safe for Gatrie to walk in and facetank an axe blow...
...and double-counter the pirate in return.
Ike scrambles up here to draw out Havetti...
...and Gatrie finishes cooking his pirate.
I've always thought this was a funny line. Unless Havetti can sail this ship on his own, he's kind of cornered into continuing the fight.
Poor guy.
Gatrie finishes us off with a guaranteed kill...
...and a mediocre level.
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Gatrie takes the Archer band, because his deficiencies are in Speed and Skill.
Careful what you wish for, I guess.
That's just rubbing it in.
Somehow, that still earned a speed bonus.
Next Time:
