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Chapter 9: Power Limiters
For the stretch between chapter 8 and chapter 12, the game seems to forget about having portraits during map exposition scenes. I went for these pretty sober ones, showing Leif's position and his next objective/opponent.
Today is Flier Day. Fergus will be in charge of missing heals while Halvan is taking a break, Callion is only here to play the randomizer roulette by talking with Selphina. Nanna is here to work some magic. And everything else is fliers, because I'm not going all the way around a mountain.
Well, Leif will go around. Only Leif, though.
Orsin needs to freaking beef up already, so he gets the Strong/Magic Boy scroll and the Robust Boy scrolls. Safiya gets the Big Girl scroll (Hezul) because she still gets weighted down by anything above a Slim Lance.
By the way, the only spears I have above E rank are this Long Lance and a Javelin I forgot to bring (...how the f-). I'm praying for Soldiers in the next few maps. That's how bad it is.
Now that that I look at it, Njörun's scroll is really just Chome's scroll. Big Defense, some HP/Luck, and less Magic/Skill. It seems Njörun, too, was a robust dull girl.
A lot of stuff regarding Travant was retconned between FE 4 and 5. I do really enjoy how he's gone from “Mostly just a jerk” to having a big of a hardass dad king attitude. He's still a bit ham-handedly tragic, though. Like, just this chapter, he goes:
: To have a single, united Thracia... My fondest wish is to return this land to what it was in the days of Dain and Njörun. ...Even if it damns me to the deepest pit of Hell.
Not being very subtle, there, Thracia 776. 
One day, while having a discussion about believable human antagonists, Cirosan mentionned the question of what that character would be doing on a normal day, a little bit before posting this very shareable little list:
Cirosan 05/07/2019 posted:
Travant's Daily Schedule:
* Light exercise and jogging around the palace grounds
* Breakfast with Altena and Arion
* Daily security briefing with General Distler (bring coffee to stay awake)
* Quality time with Percy, his dragon mount
* Check on dragon hatchery for progress of newborn dragons
* Playing catch with Percy (time permitting)
* Drills with Dracoknight recruits - anyone who can land a hit on the king gets a silver spear
* Lunch (bring extra ham to share with Percy)
* Check on Arion in the reading room, followed by taking afternoon nap in same room while Arion is trying to read
Which is a little fun exercise, really. Doesn't really work for bad guys who represent forces of nature, or are larger-than-life representation of abstract concepts (what does Kefka's normal day look like? Grima's?? Nyarlathotep's...?), but it does help flesh out those more sympathetic human villains.
You'd be surprised how accurate Selphina's line is going to be. 
Behold, the Leonster Scrub Squad!
Awright, let's take a look at the map. We have a Forest Knight surrounded by basic Fire Mages, who will only aggro when you get in their range. The Forest Knight used to be a Meteor Bishop, so he doesn't move at all.
He also has way too many swords. This is a serious cutting hazard, and we'll make sure to relieve him of those dangerous items.
Merloch brought the girl squad. They all have Armorslayers and Killing Edges, which is a bit dangerous.
As for Merloch himself, he is very dangerous, boasting some of the highest offensive stats we've seen, and Miracle. He does have one weak point, but... we'll get to that in a bit.
On the western side, there's a bunch of myrms with a variety of basic swords, ranging from Slim to Long. Behind them are Thunder and Fire Mages, the usual riffraff. There are a lot of them, though.
As for our team of winners near Hannibal's villa, we have... Selphina who is just okay. Fliers are good, and the B Swords could be useful in very specific circumstances. Nothing really interesting aside from that.
Alba is basically the same but worse. D Lances and 2 FCM is better, but his bases are lower. He'd need a lot of catching up to compete with just Safiya.
Kane is... pffrt. He is in a very unfortunate class, with awful offenses. Between Renewal and his defense, he could probably hold the base pretty well, if there weren't armorslayers and a billion mages on the way.
Okay, staff users are good, and I do enjoy growth staff users, but... come on, Robert. What are these bases? Why do you have E staves? No, I don't care about your 5 FCM, go away.
We're getting one more promotion this chapter. Karin finally gets to spread her wings again, in a chapter where aerial combat is great and she's level 14, so
Hurray, she put on actual armor bits!
This isn't the Berserker promotion (nothing is like the Berserker promotion), but it gives her a nice stat bump, puts her Lance weapon rank up to D, and gives her more movement for maximum flying dances.
She'll be joined in her flight by Hicks, carrying Callion, and Orsin, carrying Fergus.
Did I say one more promotion? I meant two. Just like Lithis, Nanna has to go an a mission.
The class skill for female Rogues is Pavise, because now I guess Nanna wears pants.
She finally gets some strength, as well as a small boost to her stealing abilities. Speaking of, do you know who has 16 Speed or more, on this map?
Nobody, that's who. 
You know what else is fun? Mountains. Selphina likes mountains, so after Kane gave her his two swords, she decided to dismount on a mountain. Dismountain.
You see, Selphina is a male Dracorider which is... not a class you actually play in Thracia 776, so it has pretty weird dismounting “penalties”. These penalties mostly amount to “sacrifice some defense for a bunch of Mag/Skl/Spd”. And the defense drop is negated by the +5 defense she now gets from terrain.
It does nuke her movement down to 4, but who cares, she's not going to leave her little mountain. Yes, you heard that right, Selphina is actually going to choke the point.
Alba grabs her Slim Lance on the way. He's going to stick around, do hit-and-run chip damage, maybe trade-swap other characters' weapons.
Robert and Kane (when his turn next arrives) are out, though.
I initially planned to have Nanna go down and around with Leif, but the boss is booking it to the defend point, so I'm gonna need to ferry her over.
Everyone else has landed over the mountains. And Alba went off to claim this little beauty.
Just like the Unlock, the Thief staff is E rank, meaning even Robert could have used this to make himself useful. Except not really, because the boss has 16 Magic what the fuck.
There's nothing worthwhile in the Armory up north, by the way.
Callion fulfills his only purpose on this map, getting his birthright.
I do find it funny how our translator characterized Callion as very assured, but then this conversation pops around and all of a sudden Callion gets a bad case of the Solid Snake. I get that it's not as interesting a conversation as Finn's, but man...
A ridersbane? Ridersbanes own in Thracia. They're heavy and fairly inaccurate, but they're almost as strong as Silver Lances and will fuck up even foot units.
It does take a B rank to wield, which just happens to be Safiya's rank!
Hicks, Karin and Nanna are going to stay here and see if they can break the enemy formation by luring them into the peaks and easing the pressure on Selphina a bit.
While this is happening, Leif is going on yet another solo journey to kill all mages.
They all attack him one by one, then he walks up to them and one-shots them.
This is what he gets from all this. That's Leif's next five turns, in two pictures.
Anyways, the distraction worked! Selphina doesn't actually have too much trouble surviving these guys, but she doesn't fully block their path, so if there are too many enemies around, a few are bound to sneak past her.
Going ahead, huh...?
The enemies prefer atacking Selphina than Safiya and her 10 defense, so the latter is going to help choke the point up there. As for Nanna, she's going to be a nuisance, disrupting and distracting.
And Orsin is going to try and get a few levels.
Hicks is helping too, when there are no steal targets around.
Selphina has pretty low HP, but she managed to dodge everything on enemy phase. Had she not, Fergus is just around the corner to heal her).
Anyone trying to attack Nanna has to deal with ridiculously low hit rates.
Believe it or not, the one who almost caused a reset was Orsin, as he could have gotten cleanly killed by this one guy.
Then a lot of mages try to go for Nanna, with single-digit hit rates.
This worked out pretty well! Orsin deletes one of the mages aaaaannndd...
And there goes the boss! 
Karin dances through the skies for her, and now she's back in the mountains, Paragon Sword in hand, and ready to dodge a hundred fireballs.
I'm not kidding, she gets a whole 2 levels (while promoted) simply from dodging spells. Good ones, too.
Selphina is also doing extremely well. Hey, if I can find places for her to just fly to and tank, I might still use her after this map.
The lady above Selphina has a Killing Edge, so she's our next target, after Hicks is done stealing shit.
Fergus spooked her, and then Safiya went for the Capture. Speed!
Strength!!
Alba then proceeds to squeeze the most useful actions our of a a single turn by:
- taking Safiya's capture
- stealing her Killing Edge
- changing Safiya's weapon to a Slim Lance
- releasing the capture
- canto'ing to block the villa from the one enemy that could sneak through.
I fucking love Thracia 776's action economy. 
The next player and enemy phase are more of the same. Selphina is handling this whole tanking thing pretty well.
And Nanna is dodging things for great profit and EXP. Or smacking mages around with a sword that's taller than her.
The enemy forces are in full flight! Almost all the remaining enemies have been disarmed.
This one guy, however, decided to flee through the mountains to find a new sword. That's not the Armory though, it's the Supply.
I don't know, he's been there for a few turns, contemplating his life.
Have I mentionned by the way that, this entire time, Fergus has been remarkably accurate with his crapshoot evil magic? That's like the third 30~% he lands in a row. And he hasn't failed a single heal either!
Still staying on the B Team, though.
Orsin is going to mop up the mages, then set chase after the fleeing ones.
What? It's medieval times, we don't have to be respect the Geneva Conventions. 
Leif has also completed his journey walking all over frail mages. I'm going to ignore the promoted cav, and hit up the local village.
The Vendor has a pretty decent selection, though I do already have a lot more Elfires than I have fire mages. Had I brought Finn along, I could have bought a Skill Ring or two, but eh. Money is already going to be a bit short from all the Master Seals I'll need to buy.
Neat. More toys for Nanna,
and more defense for Orsin,
and... yo, I told you the Ridersbane is really strong. 
Also, check out this new trick that Hicks just learned!
He's a male Dracorider too, you know? By pulling a Selphina Maneuver, Hicks can expand his range of stealable targets even further!
Note that, this entire time, Merloch did not flee like the rest of his troops. Dude really wants to get into that villa.
And for that, he gets captured by Alba, of all people.
He's not supposed to be capturable, so no boss release quotes there, sadly.
That just leaves this one guy.
Nanna took everything but his Longsword, and Orsin poked him a bunch. Hey, those stats are starting to look like something now, aren't they?
And Karin maxes her speed. This has all been quite profitable!
All done. That just leave small incidental conversations, and then leaving.
A lot of escape quotes have been fully rewritten to give them more flavor. Orsin's is uh... weird. Doesn't feel like it fits his character much, I dunno.
Oh boy, is he...!
I'm sorry, every time people talk about Leif's appearance, it's just all I can think about.
Altena, it's literally just the Supply guy left.
And his one problem is specifically that he doesn't have a sword to sheathe.
Have you not been following?
Next time:
