So, I dunno who all looks forward to these (besides maybe Barrylocke, bless you) so sorry for the delay. I got distracted by some
Nazi killing. But that's over with and now I have wrapped up Chapter 7. It was actually the hardest yet, and I did not manage to get through without consequence. Also, I seemed to have lost my notepad file with notes so I'm going off my memory a bit more here. Of course, having the images helps. We left off after just having captured Yied Shrine and reuniting Shanan and Serlis while Leif and Co. are unable to meet up just yet. Ishtor and Liza lay waiting to the south, Bramsel and Aless north, and Blume and Tinny east. Lots of enemies.
So I start moving my units down south. Liza doesn't seem too tough but holds/drops a
Magic ring, Ishtor has a
Bolting which means I have to be careful about getting into his extended range., he also holds/drops
Thoron There are also two ballistae to worry about as well. Basically, I want to pull Liza's mage and armored troops up and away from those ranges.
I learn that the mages in the group are the more dangerous of the foes, and I reason Liza with +5 magic is even moreso. I do notice however that a lot of the troops move onto the cliff to the west, meaning that if I stay right I can worry about them later and focus on the guys closest to me. Lakche, with her +3 move, is a great boss killer so I decide to have her move in and use her Brave Sword on Liza right away. She is victorious and will have to pawn off the Magic ring later I suppose. The rest of the turn is basically just clearing as many units on the east side as possible. I'm ignoring the healers for the moment because I'd rather get the dangerous units out of the way first and foremost.
While clearing the units, I notice Julia has some really good resistance. This is super helpful, in a lot of FE games resistance seems like a weak stat but I learn in this chapter that it becomes amazing helpful in Holy War to see who my high resistance units are. In fact Julia takes (next to) no damage from the mages here so she is apparently a great mage killer; she overwhelms their resistances with high attack Aura (like her "mother"? Deirdre ??). Well, I get Lakche back to full health (since Lana can only heal at the moment anyways) and as always Myrmidons are generally great mage killers as well. I'm able to clear most all of the eastern units so things are going fine so far.
There are a few more units to finish up. I'm able to get weaker units like Patty some hits on the healers, and
Roy Serlis is actually one of my better units now with his Brave Sword (as well as the Fire sword shown). Um. Not much else to say here, I wipe out the remaining units so now all that's left for this part is Ishtor and some keep guards. Lots of long range attacks to worry about so I have to wonder about how to tackle this.
Well Bolting is, obviously, a magic attack. I have just learned that Julia has high magic defense.
HMMM. Also, she can heal with Mend, and Lana can heal with Mend. So, my strategy here is to have them pair up and just heal each other if needed, and it worked pretty well. I quickly clear the Ballistae before I have to worry about having too many hits on one of my characters, even though individually none of them are anything to worry about. After that, clearing the area around the keep is easy as long and I make sure Ishtor can only use Bolting and no one gets in range of his other spell, Thoron.
However, neither Julia or Lana are strong enough to take on the big big boss himself. Luckily, I had recently learned that Shanan+Balmung was a pretty great combo for dodging long range spells, plus he is easily strong enough to take on Ishtor. He will have to pawn off Thoron later but that's not a big deal. Castle is clear, Serlis moves down to seize. When is Levin gonna join up and actually help out?
This is where things get dicey. Bramsel sends out Jabarro, Aless, and a bunch of knights from the north. Blume sends the sisters (?)
Vampa, Eliu, and Fetra from Alster to the east, as well as his niece Tinny (whom I've reasoned that I can recruit. Her low lever/stats is further evidence I suppose.) He also sends various units up north towards Lenster, which right now is unprotected.
Great. So it seems like I have a multi-fronted fight ahead of me.
Aless decides to defect to my side automatically, which is a nice enough gesture considering how hard the upcoming fight is going to be without having to worry about him and his Mistolin on top of everything. He talks to Serlis and even though they don't see eye to eye, circumstances put them on the same side for now. He also confirms that he's Eltshan's son, which was obvious but I don't think it was 100% confirmed until now. Leen did not leave with Aless and Bramsel continues to be a creep. I assume we will have to rescue her later. And Tinny seems a bit distraught by the liberation forces' actions but I assume we can convince her as well to join our side.
Armored knights start heading north and I have to pull back the Lenster peeps back to meet them. Lakche is also able to quickly make her way over to help with the great move stat that she has. With Serlis's group, I have to prepare for an attack from the north by the cavalry and on the east but the various mages. So I try to split my units in a way that makes sense, such as getting Balmung and Mistolin ready to take on Jabarro's troops, and getting Oifaye, Femina, and Julia (high mdef gonna be useful again) to take on the three sisters and Tinny. I also start moving Arthur over to the east as well since the game has basically telegraphed that they are siblings; they even look like siblings.
While the three sisters themselves keep heading west, the other mages with them + Tinny start heading north to intercept Leif, Fin, Nanna, and Lakche. This at first seems like it's going to make things really hard, but actually Tinny's group tends to move really slowly so they ended up being a non factor for a few turns. Plus, it allows me to focus fire on the three minibosses without having to worry about everyone else. Aless takes out Jabarro without a lot of effort, and the battle starts against the mage trio. Both Julia and Lana are over here healing pretty much non stop. With Nanna up by Lenster keep, that leaves no one to heal over by Serlis and Jabarro's remaining knights...
I quickly note that the mages do not die here, but retreat. I wonder if this means there was a way to take care of them without fighting them, but too late now. I lose Lester to the mounted units
((( . He hasn't been very useful so I ain't even mad. I have a Valkyrie staff in Arthur's possession, but talking with a friend it seems like I didn't have my parents paired up in a way where anyone will be able to use it. OH well. On the same note, with Azel as his father, Lester had not seemingly inherited a lot that made him useful in the first place. I had also not managed to get him anything more than an Iron bow. It's unfortunate, but for a blind playthrough I'm not going to worry about not having an optimum final group. If I was worried about that, I would have been using a guide, and the playthrough would be comparatively boring. RIP Lester. You will not be forgotten. Serlis already gutted the guy who took your life.
I start to wrap up the fight to the east, with weaker units like Delmud finishing off who stronger units like Julia and Oifaye manage to weaken. Meanwhile, Tinny and Co aren't quite catching up to the blue units moving towards Lenster, which is a relief. Lacke being up here is a great help and I'm unsure I would have been successful without having sent her up with Leif. Nanna having the Earth sword and being able to heal herself also saved her life as well. So it's not all bad luck!
Fin parked in one of the villages with a Brave Lance was able to hold his own against many the sword wielding knights, I just had to make sure to heal him up with Nanna once. Lenster castle is flipped to red but it's not a big deal apparently. The attacking knights are all eventually defeated, leaving only the small cluster of mages left with Tinny. I easily bait them into attacking some higher resistance units like Julia or Femina and get her to switch sides with Arthur, as expected. She seems kind of useless, though. Maybe I'll see if I can get her to have paragon or something.
Serlis and Leif finally meet \o/ . Lenster castle is retaken (I dunno if this actually did anything?) and finally all of the attacking enemy units have been defeated. This leaves only Bramsel and some swordsmen up to the northwest, and Blume and his THammer down south.
Bramsel is so far awaaay. I send Femina to take on the myrmidons since since can take them on pretty easily and could get there fast. She has to heal at a nearby church once. I send Aless up there as well since his Mistolin is going to be helpful to clear the boss and he can get there in not a ton of time as well. Serlis slowly starts crawling their to seize it. It going to take him a bit longer x_x.
Aless has a close battle with Bramsel but wins in the end. He mentions Leen so it's not a stretch to think about having him enter the castle once it is mine (hurry up Serlis) to try to rescue her. I'm reminded of the spell I missed by not having Levin enter a certain castle way long ago. Meanwhile, Leif is one of my lower level units that I want to try to give some exp to, so I have him start taking out the defenses near Blume, with Nanna healing him to try to get her some exp as well. I just let him retaliate with Light and heal him up every turn. Slow but safe.
Serlis finally siezes the keep, Levin says more stuff. Apparently this place was really important in the past and was a meeting place for the 12 Holy Knights during the war. (Again I'm going off memory here so even though I
just played it, it's a big foggy.) Basically Levin implies that history is, in a way, is repeating itself and that a
miracle of similar importance is likely to happen again. As expected, Aless can fetch out Leen from the keep, and she is also a dancer. You know what
that means. But first I want to get everyone back over to the Alster keep where Blume is. Leif has finished taking out the defenses. I'm interested in seeing if Tinny and Blume have any sort of conversation, but her low level and stats make that a risky proposition so I forgo it.
Impatiently, I take out Blume with Balmung+Shanan, but he also retreats. Lame. Once Serlis and Leen and everyone else is finally back as Alster, I ball up everyone (in case there are supports or other pairings) and level up the dancer. I also feed Nanna and Lana exp with each of Leen's level ups.
Why not? I think she ended up slightly better than Sylvia, which I'm still not sure has been confirmed as being her mother. If so, Levin would be her father, and he's been around but hasn't said anything so I dunno. Maybe I missed something. I don't think I've met anyone that would be her son (since they all seemingly come in brother-sister pairs.)
Alster is finally siezed, and we chase Blume over to Conote, deep within Thracia. We learn that Thracia is naturally divided into a properous north half, currently ruled by Blume, and a desolate southern half, led by King Trabant. Will we finally be able to have revenge for Cuan's death? How poetic would it be if Leif were to finish him. Anyways, Trabant is enjoying the turmoil going on, and seems eager to take over the whole country once Blume is out of the picture. But he will have to deal with Serlis as well. We are also introduced to Ishtar (?) who is likely related to Ishtor (?). A few other generals were named but no one seemingly of any real importance. It seems like once again we will have to deal with Blume and the three mage sisters.
We are introduced to
Hawk, probably a friend but we don't know much about him. We are also let known of a Wyvern rider named...I didn't mark down his name.
Alion or something like that (I lost my notes and don't want to risk looking it up). He doesn't quite seem to be in total agreement with Trabant, but it's not
as clear if he's a friend, but I think it
might be so. Lastly, Serlis sends the Lenster peeps back to guard that castle while he stays at Alster. I do some arena fighting and item shifting (such as giving up Paragon from Johan, trading around the magic ring to Arthur. Thoron was dropped into the Pawn shop as well. Hopefully I don't regret not resetting for Lester.
