9 turns, waiting to see if I have a +4 penalty. More on that further down. Nope.
A few new things this chapter: We now have the preparations screen, so unneeded characters can be left in Hammerspace and item trading is a lot easier. The tactician screen is up, so from now on I'll report on my current ranking there. Before this chapter starts I stand at:
- Tactics — 3 stars
- Survival — 5 stars
- Funds — 4 stars
- Exp — 1 star
- Combat — 5 stars
I choose to bring Hector, Marcus, Bartre, and Guy; plus Serra and Matthew. Serra will recruit Erk to keep him out of my hair — I considered letting him run around neutral to kill things faster, but he would die and I want his goddess icon. Matthew, because I'm just that cheap, is going to try and steal some vulneraries, lol.
Starting out, Bartre stays in the starting zone to kill the two soldiers there. Marcus goes to rescue Erk while Serra waits near Merlinus. Hector and Guy move out to meet the first wave of troops, with Matthew tagging along behind. This turns out well, Matthew managing to nab a vulnerary and Marcus actually getting a decent level-up.
To make a long story short(er), everything goes pleasantly as planned this chapter, minus two major wrinkles and one minor. The minor is that Bartre, trying to join up with Hector, had to do an about-face to save Merlinus from some pegasus knights, and then it started to rain. It worked out in the end though, Bartre criticalled the first on a 4% chance and the other missed two consecutive hits on Merlinus. I don't know how a tent can dodge, but man, it did.
First major wrinkle: Hector and his Wolf Biel go to face Erik and all the cavaliers alone. He has a dramatic confrontation in the rain over two turns that ends with Erik dead captured for canonical reasons and Hector reduced to 1 HP, with a lot of nomads and cavaliers left around him. Fortunately, this turned out not to matter. Why? Hector's 14 defense is impenetrable by every remaining enemy on the map. Save for a bandit descending from the mountains, but that bandit ignored him in favor of another target...
Second major wrinkle: the pirates spawn much earlier than in Eliwood Mode, I think it was the second turn. Guy and Matthew had to rush down there, Matthew distracting the pirates, who can't resist attacking an unarmed man. Unfortunately, one of them lands a hit on my Pacifist Dodge Tank in spite of the odds. It's a good thing I had him steal that vulnerary, because Guy and Matthew have to trade it back and forth a couple of times to survive their race to the village.
The village-saving is the last thing that happens this map, in fact. The pirates die, and Matthew and Guy face off with the aforementioned bandit and a lone cavalier. Matthew is injured and Guy doesn't manage to kill the cavalier. The vulnerary is gone and Matthew stands a good chance of dying next turn.
So, in a stroke of genius, Matthew goes to the village and recruits Priscilla. She then rescues him, and, as a mounted unit, has enough movement to get out of the enemies' range. The last two enemies meet the sharp end of Guy's blade on their phase, and I congratulate myself on a job well done.
...and then, while writing this up, I realize I had an unrecruited unit visit a village. Is that legal? Find out when I next update! Either way, I'm not restarting, since this chapter went so splendidly. EDIT: It's fine, but I'll try to avoid it in the future.
Comments
