A priestess comes up to our merry band and requests our services in procuring some medicine for a sick abbot. Naturally, we help her (it helps that the next map contains the greatest instrument of murder the DB will get in Part 1).
Map 1-2
Victory Condition: Laura Arrives
Defeat Condition: Any ally dies
But before we begin!
Laura (Level 1 Priest)
Base stats
16 HP 45%
3 Str 20%
8 Mag 70%
3 Skl 70%
5 Spd 70%
8 Luck 50%
2 Def 20%
10 Res 35%
5 Con
5 Wt
Priest? Strange. Laura is a by-the-book Staff Chick and the first healer the DB will get (who doesn't involve self-injury that is). She has amazing growths but isn't very likely going to see herself getting the levels necessary. More importantly, the game throws better healers at you anyway, so we don't care if she gets only magic levels. That is the only stat she needs. If you have a Master Seal lying around, you could throw it to her once she hits lvl 10 for the bonus stats.
The first couple of turns generally involve blocking off the ledge north of your units with random people and having Nolan block the chokepoint to the east, between some walls.
At the end of the first turn, who should arrive but Sothe! Actually being sneaky and thief-like for once as well, he opens up a door and then joins us for the third turn, having exhausted his daily quota of THIEF STUFF. Excellent.
Sothe (Level 1 Rogue)
Base Stats
35 HP 30%
19(+1) Str 60%
5(+1) Mag 20%
20 Skl 80%
20 Spd 45%
21(+7) Luck 65%
17(+3) Def 20%
11(+2) Res 30%
8 Con
8 Wt
Sothe's stats look the way they do due to my POR transfers (the +n's are the difference between his stats in my game and his transferless stats). As you can see, they can make Sothe even more broken for Part 1.
Sothe is basically the Jeigan of the game, not because he's a prepromote, or because his growths are terrible (they're not), but because his caps are hardly worth speaking of. On the other hand, he has more defense than anyone else in the DB, good resistance, and has the ability to hit hard even without decent weapons. We're going to be abusing him until we get better units, yep. In easier modes, unequipping him, and letting him tank hits is the best way to use him for part 1. Or stealing things. Lots of things.
We actually use him as a combat unit however, and take out an archer, while Nolan blocks access to Micaiah near the stairs. Micaiah spends the turn taking potshots at a hapless little soldier who can't hit her thanks to her ledge advantages.
Ledges, a new feature in RD, are simultaneously the best and worst terrain. Being on top of a ledge give you +50 Hit, +2 Atk and +50 Evasion automatically. The javelin guy can't do a thing to Micaiah right now. Furthermore, ledges give a movement penalty of 3 (there's a green space that takes 3 Mov to cross), which makes them ideal defensive terrain features. Basically, there is no reason you shouldn't be standing atop a ledge with ranged units, unless actively retreating.
Once the nearby threats are cleared (and a chest key obtained from the javelin dude), Sothe jumps down into the room Javelin was protecting, and post killing a myrmidon, obtains two treasures:
1) Windsword - a nifty weapon we may abuse that basically gives sword-users 1-2 range. Very inaccurate, but it does stop Edward from dying on a counter if it hits.
2) Thani - the best damn tome in the game, effective against armours and cavalry, and with 8mt, equivalent to a forged light tome.
Effective against in Rd gives a 3X multiplier to the weapon's might value. Thani has a mt value of 8, therefore, it becomes 24 against all armoured and mounted units. With Micaiah's high magic, she continues to be a goddamn magical freight train. Funnily, all the japanese Fire Emblems have the 3X multiplier for effective weapons, while it was reduced to 2X for some of the US versions.
So now we have Thani, and the Boss of this chapter is a armoured knight. Ooh, this will be fun.
We sloowly, (but faster than before now that we have Sothe), clean up the rest of the enemies. Sothe pilfers from a chest an Energy Drop, and waits with bronze dagger equipped for the boss.
3) Energy drop - great item that increases Strength by 2. I usually save up my statboosters for later, but it is an equally valid strategy to use it to bolster flagging units in the DB. There are at least 3 candidates for this item already, two of which we'll be meeting later.
We weaken the boss using Sothe on the Enemy phase, and after swiping a vulnerary from him, Micaiah blasts him into tiny pieces.
Micaiah's magic stat was not quite enough this run to OHKO the boss, even with Sothe's support, so we weaken him a tad before hitting him with Thani. Sothe cannot kill the boss even on Easy, so it's a safe strategy.
Remember that door Sothe opened up earlier? There's a blue square right there which Laura will have to Arrive on to finish the chapter.
Arrive chapters generally allow anyone to seize the square (unless specified, like in this case), unlike Seize chapters, which need the army commander. There are lots of different Victory Conditions in this game, and I'll be using an update after Part 1 is finished to explain them.
We finish the chapter in style and the abbot is saved (I think). Overall a good run, without any deaths (whaddya know?), thanks to liberal application of Sothe's knives.
Next time: My second-least favourite chapter in Part 1 and some more Thani-bombing.
