Let's Play Monster Quest Part 26
I ended up giving Amelia's Speedwing to Kyle. Kyle and Forde are the characters who I'm actually using who most consistently run into trouble from being doubled and whatnot, and Forde has gotten additional shots at leveling Speed out of the Juna Fruit so Kyle it is.
An argument could be made I should've saved it for someone with much more serious Speed problems, but Ephraim's route is enough of a jump in difficulty I don't like holding off on using stat boosters unless I have good reason to believe it'll be wasted.
I honestly tend to forget this mission exists. Well, more precisely I tend to remember the previous mission going directly into the mission after this. I can remember this mission exists just fine, it's just my mental timeline of Ephraim's route doesn't give it a place to exist.
For starters, let's look at our fake-out Boss.
Selena is here to freak out a first-time player with the threat of Bolting harassment that then turns out to not actually apply to this map. I'm curious as to what her stats would be in the base game here, but Serenes Forest's page doesn't actually bother to list her here. If her stats are identical to when she actually gets a mission to herself, though, then Monster Quest has given her 2 more HP, 6 more Magic, 3 more Skill, 1 more Speed, 1 more Luck, 7 more Defense, 3 more Resistance, and 5 more Constitution, while lowering her Level by 3 and her Speed by 1. And of course she's a Gorgon instead of a Mage Knight, just like nearly every other Can Actually Be In The Player's Party characters. And of course she doesn't normally have Excalibur, but whatever.
This doesn't matter here because the instant I end my turn, Valter will swoop in, claim Vigarde is calling her back home, and then dump a much less threatening replacement Boss in her place, the idea being that Selena would've dragged Duessel in alive for questioning while Valter's goon will outright kill him. Why Valter is doing this is never really addressed beyond 'he's evil'. The vague pointlessness of this mission is a contributing factor to me struggling to remember it; you'd think Duessel joining up would be a fairly narratively significant moment, but honestly Ross and Garcia were more interesting and coherent of a join sequence.
Ah well, let's look at the real Boss of this map.
Beran's gear set is actually exactly what he always has. Stats-wise, he's gained 3 Strength, 4 Skill, 4 Speed, 5 Luck, 4 Defense, and 3 Resistance. This is somewhat conservative for Monster Quest, but that makes sense; Beran is, in the base game, already an unusually vicious Boss. Killing him is completely optional, so the base game doesn't need to play nice. It's actually atypical for me to manage to kill him in the base game unless I get really lucky -for one thing, notice his Lancereaver means Reginleif isn't a safe way of taking him out unless he's baited into using a Bow first. It should come as no surprise I don't really expect to kill him in Monster Quest, either.
As an aside, note that those two Cavaliers and the Archer to his west aren't actually willing to charge at your units, even if you stop in their strike radius. Oddly, they're willing to retreat if they end up low on HP, but once their retreat behavior is done they go right back to holding still. This is important as they'd be some of the more problematic enemies if this wasn't so; the Archer is wielding a Killer Bow, the southern Cavalier has a Killing Edge and a Javelin (He'll drop whichever one he's not using), and the northern Cavalier has a Horseslayer and a Javelin. (He'll drop whichever one he's not using, just like the other Cavalier) A first-time player is liable to end up playing suboptimally since there's no indication of this and they look like they threaten a good chunk of terrain on your way to meeting up with Duessel.
Speaking of Duessel...
Compared to when he joined us in Eirika's route, Dueseel is two levels lower, has 2 less HP, 2 less Strength, 1 less Skill, 1 less Speed, 1 less Luck, 1 less Defense, and 1 less Resistance. Eh, whatever, it's not like I tend to use Duessel regardless.
Given this is really the base Duessel (Eirika's route takes Duessel's base stats from Ephraim's route, and then fairly literally levels him twice, rather than having a developer-designated set of stats), this means in real terms Monster Quest Duessel actually has only 4 in most stats, 1 in Defense, and 7 in Speed. That's still pretty awesome an improvement, and in particular means Duessel is a lot less vulnerable in this mission than in the base game. He's tough enough in the base game you basically have to be trying to kill him to get him dead, but I've had runs where he managed to rack up an alarming enough of damage, enough so I had to back him off. This isn't a concern in Monster Quest; enemies on this map largely have nearly no chance of hitting him, and if they do hit him they'll inflict trivial damage. Critically, he doesn't have to worry about being doubled; Beran is the only promoted unit on the map, and he doesn't have enough Speed to double Monster Quest Duessel. In the base game, the tides of Mercenaries flooding this map will double Duessel, so even though they won't hit that hard per strike (17 Defense is a lot when your enemies are generally doing a little over 20 damage) it still ends up adding up fairly quickly.
Which makes the 'Duessel must survive' mission objective a bit of a formality in Monster Quest... though surprisingly I've found this mission harder than in the base game regardless. Some specific elements are less frustrating, but the lack of a strong core of Cavaliers makes it a lot harder to push forward aggressively; the map is heavily biased toward Sword wielders, plus an initial rush of Fighters, which Cavaliers are of course well-suited to taking on with their Lances and Swords while speeding forward. Ross and Garcia being Tarvos doesn't adequately take the place of these lost Cavaliers; it's unsafe to send them against the Mercenaries -many of them can double Ross and Garcia- and the majority of Lance-wielding enemies show up late in the mission from your own starting location. Not to mention they include Sword-wielding enemies (It's a blob of Cavaliers), and thanks to that one jerk of a Fighter back in Victims of
So too are my flying Lancer options slower, albeit stronger than in the base game.
The overall result is the time pressure -which is already fairly tight- is just about crushing in Monster Quest, if you're trying to actually kill every enemy on the map aside Cormag.
Speaking of.
Cormag is here too for some reason. The game never tries to justify his presence here, either, and Cormag's muttering to himself makes it clear Glen is already dead. And Valter shows up at the beginning of the mission, but doesn't bother to trick him into attacking Eirika like he does in Eirika's route, which draws one's attention to the lack of an explanation. Cormag is just sort of... here.
This is one of the more significant elements that makes me think Eirika's route was plotted out first.
Notably, compared to when we got him in Eirika's route, Cormag is 5 levels lower, giving him much more room for growth, which is a bit lucky since I was committed to making real use of him in this route run in part to show off his promoted graphic. This is actually one level higher than he is in the base game here, for whatever reason. He's still got a Toxin Lance, but compared to the base game this is actually replacing an Iron Lance instead of the Steel Lance he had with Eirika's route.
Stats-wise, when compared to his Eirika route self he's 5 HP lower (But also 5 levels lower so really Eirika's Cormag was probably ahead in real terms), 4 Strength lower, 4 Speed lower, 3 Luck lower, 2 Defense lower, while his Resistance is unchanged. He might do better in this run -though admittedly it's a bit unlikely.
Compared to the base game's Ephraim version of Cormag, his HP is unchanged, his Strength is actually -1, his Speed is +2, his Defense is -2, his Movement is -1 and his other stats are unchanged. Gosh, no wonder he wasn't appealing when I got him in Eirika's route -where most of my characters have been clearly mildly buffed or massively buffed, Cormag has lost more stats than he gained! +2 Speed is nice, particularly if his Speed growth is still eh and his Defense growth good, but ouch.
This Fleet unit is one of the big things that is less of a pain than in the base game. Normally you have to send Vanessa or Tana in, accepting that they're going to be shot at and possibly take alarming amounts of damage because Ballista are extra-effective against fliers, or hope it chooses to shuffle close enough to shore one of your ranged units can attack them -and also hope they're strong enough to kill it in one round, because probably you can only get one individual in range and then it'll move away.
Monster Quest gives me Mogall Artur and Lute, able to fly out and tear it apart with basically no fear from its attack, since they don't take bonus damage from anti-air effects. 13 damage is weak enough Artur will laugh it off, and Lute isn't particularly more vulnerable.
This Shaman is a lesser example; he's a bit of a nasty trick in the base game since he doesn't charge like the Myrmidon and Mercenaries in this area, but he's not unwilling to move like the Archer and the Cavaliers, either, and once you've figured out everyone else in the area doesn't move you've probably written him off as also immobile right up until he kills someone you thought was safe. Surprise!
But Monster Quest trends heavily toward inflated HP values, so Luna's bypassing of damage reduction is just not as big a deal. 36 damage would hurt if he crit, but it wouldn't be a one-hit-kill on very many of my characters.
I ended up bringing Tana over Vanessa because she's one of two ways to recruit Cormag -the other being Duessel, and of my 5-6 attempts only one was lucky enough to recruit Duessel quickly enough to use him to stop Cormag from attempting to skewer my other characters. Honestly, this probably isn't worth doing regardless, but I had one run where RNG and AI shenanigans conspired to severely delay my initial recruitment of Duessel such that if I hadn't brought Tana on that attempt Cormag would've probably would've killed somebody -if only himself through retaliations.
I really feel the loss of Vanessa's stats, though.
This is my initial formation; Lute and Artur placed to fly straight west, Colm placed so he can run into that Forest to bait out the Soldiers and hopefully Mercenary, and everybody else placed so the slower people are in front. (Aside Ephraim's position being out of my control)
This is an example right off the bat of really feeling the lack of Cavaliers; Colm, Ross, and Garcia (Well, and Dummy I suppose) are my only characters who can move far enough to get into the Forest while actually benefiting from its bonuses, and Colm is the only one of them that doesn't have to worry about weapon triangle disadvantage from the Mercenary. A Cavalier could equip Lances and ride out to the Forest just fine.
This mission is already a pain, but uuugh.
Forde and Kyle have a chat, hitting C Support, as do Ross and Garcia for B.
And that's my turn.
Colm defends himself just fine, getting a pretty nice level out of it, though unfortunately he fails to bait out the Mercenary since the Soldiers survive.
The irritating thing is in my previous attempt I had Colm wield his Sharp Claw precisely to avoid this outcome, but he very nearly died, and it was only blind luck that he didn't die. The Sharp Claw weighs him down so much that the Soldiers had a 50~% chance of hitting him, and the Mercenary was more or less guaranteed to hit him and double him. Nonetheless, that made all the following stuff go way faster, and it's frustrating that the stupid risky thing made things go so much better up until blind dumb luck ended that run. (This was a recurring thing, actually; not to say there weren't bad choices on my part, but there was a notable element of RNG-screw or RNG-mockery, such as one run where Colm dodged an 80~% chance attack that would've killed him and then died to literally the last move of the map even though it had a less than 50% chance to hit him, both in the enemy's last turn)
Thinking on it, I really should've swapped the Sharp Claw with a Fetid Claw on one of the Baels, something like that. Pretty sure the Fetid Claw would've let him kill the Soldiers, and without the level of burden the Sharp Claw imposes.
So back on my turn, I open with feeding Ross one of the Soldier kills...
... interrupt the obvious follow-up by having Ephraim get started on clearing out the Fighters...
... then feed Garcia the other Soldier, netting him a... well, it's a level, and it includes Strength, and he does need more Luck. So sure, fine.
Then a bunch of moving up happens, including off-screen placing Artur to bait out the Archer and one of the Fighters (He has a Hand Axe, unlike his friends), looking like this.
The Mercenary inconveniently proves to be placed early in the turn order, exchanging blows with Ephraim. At least Ephraim landed his coin flip.
So too does the other Mercenary go next, doubling Forde and taking minor damage in exchange. Ow.
Archer goes for Artur, as planned, and surprisingly he actually dodges the hit.
Not so much for the Hand Axe toss, even though the numbers favored him there. Oh well.
Lastly, a pair of Mercenaries pops out of the Forts over by the Boss zone.
I didn't take screenshots, but there was actually a lot of hemming and hawing here as I realized my nice little defensive formation had the inconvenient side effect of severely slowing down my entire army if things don't go really well. The original plan -the one that always worked out in my other attempts- was to have Ephraim charge on down toward Duessel this turn. The two Mercenaries are fast, tough, one of them is barely scratched, and the more injured one is blocked off by Ephraim, who I'd ideally move forward, not back.
So I start with Lute chipping the more northerly Mercenary to start with, and she gets a decent level out of it.
This is followed by Artur softening up Ephraim's Mercenary, and it's here I realize I probably should've done this the other way around. Oops.
Fortunately, Tana doesn't whiff on attacking the Mercenary Artur just softened up, so now I can start really making forward progress.
Kyle rushes forward and now the RNG decides to spite me. Ugh.
Fortunately, I've got a second shot with Forde, even though it requires breaking out his Lethal Talon (His Rotten Claw would be too weak) and has depressingly decent odds of missing.
But he landed that hit, so we're good!
Again, there's some not-screenshotted scrambling to find a decent answer -I really wanted Ephraim to make serious forward movement- but eventually I conclude the only way to keep my overall army moving forward at a good clip is to have Ephraim wipe out the Fighter in exchange, opening the way for my remaining troops to pour through the gap.
Gilliam is the first to take advantage, chipping down the Steel Axe Fighter and getting a... well, honestly, Speed and Strength are the most important stats for him. He's guaranteed to cap his HP if I level him enough, and his eh Luck isn't terribly important when most enemies do no damage or minor damage in the first place. It'd be nice if his Resist and Skill were raised too, of course, but they're definitely a lesser priority than the Strength and Speed, so this is plenty good.
Neimi goes to work on this irritating Myrmidon -note the Lancereaver- and I seriously consider breaking out the Killer Bow but it's nearly broken and I'd rather hold onto its remaining seven shots for more dire situations.
Since the Myrmidon survived, I take a minuscule risk on having Ross finish them off, and it works out fantastically.
Colm finishes off the Steel Axe Fighter, though I seriously considered giving the kill to Garcia.
Instead I settle for Garcia pinning the Archer with his bulk while building more experience. They can still shoot at Lute, but whatever.
That ends my turn.
The Archer promptly commits suicide-by-Lute, though not before getting some chipping damage in.
More worryingly, the remaining local Mercenary goes for Artur, and it turns out he can double Artur.
I really hate the Mercenaries on this map.
But before we see Artur luckily dodge the remaining attacks coming his way -of course he did, I wouldn't be posting this otherwise- the game jumps over to a Mercenary in the south exchanging blows with Duessel's green buddies.
I hate Duessel's green buddies, for a few different reasons.
Up north, the Fleet elects to waste ammo on Ross.
There's another Fleet on this map, and they both have poor Accuracy. So much so that across my multiple attempts at this map, they never once landed a hit on any of my units. I'm not really sure what's up with that, normally they're actually a problem.
In any event, the Hand Axe Fighter gives me a heart attack by going after Artur with a decent chance to hit, but thankfully misses as is obvious.
The enemy turn ends with two more Mercenaries piling out of the Forts...
... and then on the green turn, the Cavalier who got doubled by a Mercenary promptly flees to the nearest defensible terrain and uses a Vulnerary to heal off his damage.
Said defensible terrain being this Town that contains a promotion item I want. And which only provides 5 Avoid for the Cavalier.
This is infuriating, and their behavior is only going to get more obnoxious.
Worse yet, the game secretly is holding hostage another promotion item, demanding that Duessel's three buddies survive to the end of the map if you want it. While this does mean there's some benefit to their cowardly AI, it's also irritating in its own right since chance plays a heavy role in this. In some of my previous attempts, the Mercenary only landed one of his blows on this Cavalier, and with the slightly greater buffer of HP this Cavalier felt brave enough to immediately attack the Mercenary, ensuring the green Cavalier's death when the enemy's turn came around. No possibility of me doing anything to prevent it.
Come my turn, I start with having Artur heal himself, and not caught clearly in this screenshot is that he's advancing toward the Fleet.
Finger slips and I end up missing the pre-battle report for Forde going after the Hand Axe Fighter, but the first screenshot tells you the numbers and the second one shows that Forde vanished the Fighter so whatever.
Neimi softens up the remaining Mercenary, getting an amazing level in the process. I don't think she's going to miss the Juna Fruit in this run.
Garcia picks up a Torch Staff from this Village. This could be called foreshadowing for the next mission, I suppose.
Then Colm follows up on Neimi's effort and wipes out the Mercenary, primarily because all the other options were somehow more problematic -Ross would probably miss and take horrible damage, I want the Baels down south as fast as possible, Tana sucks too much to safely handle the situation, and Ephraim is already running late on getting to Duessel, while Lute needs to keep going west to handle the Fleet. (Prior runs showed that she'll kill it in one round, a feat Artur can't quite replicate without an improbable crit)
Tana flits south and takes an opportunistic strike at this Mercenary which, let's be honest, was really stupid of me, as will be illustrated basically immediately.
I end turn looking like this.
Oh look a Mercenary has gone after Tana because she's pathetically weak, and in spite of triangle disadvantage is perfectly able to bring the pain to her.
At least he can't double her.
Same for this other Mercenary, who in fact had a tiny chance of outright killing her.
On the plus side, she's at least delayed them from going after Duessel's crew, so this really bad idea has had some benefit. I honestly thought they'd ignore her; I don't have a good handle on when the AI goes 'this one is the weak link so I'll target them' outside of the 'always seek to kill your units if possible' part of their routine.
A Pirate gets in on the 'beating up Duessel's painfully weak goobers' action. At least the Cavalier landed his counterattack; this is actually going to be important in a bit.
The Mercenary who drove off one Cavalier gets started in on this guy, and notice that he not only doubled this Cavalier but if either of those had been a crit the Cavalier would've died. Low odds, but still possible.
The Fleet flails uselessly at Artur.
Only one Mercenary arrives by Fort this turn -that Wyvern Rider blocking off the eastern Fort is one of Cormag's escorts, and Cormag and said escorts began moving last turn, blocking off the Fort. I'm kind of curious if it's possible to manipulate the AI so this doesn't happen.
And lastly the Cavalier who just took a pounding flees and heals himself. Notice that his current position makes it impossible for me to Rescue the Cavalier already blocking the Village without either multiple Rescuers or a flier. This is, admittedly, slightly less of a pain in the base game since Tana and Vanessa move farther per turn and have Canto to boot, allowing them to simply scoop up the Cavalier and then immediately move onto the Village, ensuring you'll be able to collect it next turn, but even in the base game this behavior is irritating.
My turn opens with Ephraim taking out this Pirate -which is only possible (Well, aside an improbable crit) because the Cavalier landed his coin-flip hit earlier. Awesome. He also gets a pretty great level out of it, even if missing Strength and Defense is less than ideal right now.
Lute murders the Fleet, which drops a Skill Book. Hooray! Much less of a pain than in the base game.
Artur and Tana shuffle around and heal themselves; Tana is backing out of range of enemies, Artur is closing in on the fighting and the Village.
Gilliam softens up a Mercenary, relying on his mighty carapace to not care about the near-guaranteed hit back.
Kyle follows in his footsteps, but isn't quite so invulnerable, nor as fast.
And then there's moving up I totally fail to screenshot; the only stuff of note not visible in the immediately prior screenshots is that I send Garcia and Ross up north because I've done this map like five times at this point so I already know that there's going to be reinforcements up there fairly soon and almost no opportunity for Axe users to contribute in this area. (Given I don't have a Swordreaver/slayer yet)
So enemy turn opens with Colm taking ouch damage. Not lethal, but not minor. And he doesn't double the Mercenary, either.
Kyle takes some more damage, but gets a fantastic level out it. Not quite perfect for him -that would be a +2 to HP- but very close, and honestly he'll probably hit the HP cap regardless so whatever.
Then a different Mercenary goes for Gilliam, who whiffs the counter. That's... irritating.
Down south, the first shore-bound Pirate exchanges blows with a green Cavalier.
Followed by the Mercenary going for Ephraim. Luckily, Ephraim wipes him out on the counter; I was expecting to have to send one of the Baels over to finish him, which would've complicated things in general.
It also clears the way for this other Pirate to charge Ephraim, and he gets an actually useful crit timing, instantly killing them on the counter. Awesome.
Lastly for the enemy turn, this Fleet down in the south misses Kyle. I don't think it would've done damage if it had hit him; it has a similar statline to the northern Fleet, and 13 damage isn't good enough to breach Kyle's carapace.
Well, lastly aside more reinforcements; two more Mercenaries from the Forts, and a pile of Cavaliers plus a Troubadour up north where I started.
Also notice Cormag's awkward, inconvenient position. This is Monster Quest's fault for taking his Movement down; normally he'd be basically perfectly positioned for Duessel to swoop in on my turn and talk him over.
Green's turn involves a couple of Cavaliers healing...
... plus Duessel murdering the Pirate next to him, clearing the way for Ephraim to talk to him on my turn! Whew.
I open my turn by having Neimi try to soften the least damaged of the Mercenaries here, and then shrug when she crit-kills them instead. That works.
This also serves the purpose of giving Cormag someone to target who can't hit back and kill him, though it carries its own risks.
Unhappy with Ephraim's HP situation, I decide I can't afford to talk to Duessel this turn and heal him instead. This was probably a mistake.
Where I stopped him is kind of a stupid position, incidentally, as there's a Hand Axe Pirate in the bunch. Standing one tile back would've forced them to walk to a position a melee unit could then target. Though... it kinda works out?
Artur softens up this Mercenary after I double-check whether he can Rescue one of the Cavaliers. (Answer: no)
Kyle starts in on one of the Wyvern Riders, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see him able to double them and also pleasantly surprised to see him dodge their attack.
Tana, being painfully weak, does safe chipping damage on the Mercenary Artur just weakened.
Forde finishes off the Mercenary, getting a fantastic level. Missed out on Luck and only got +1 HP, but this is great regardless.
I spend a bit dithering on what to do with Colm and ultimately decide he needs to heal himself. Not shown in this screenshot is that he's helping protect Forde from the Wyvern Riders and Mercenary. You can see him in...
... this screenshot, where we see Gilliam exchanging blows with the last Mercenary on my side of the river. I don't bother screenshotting the actual combat, since nobody missed.
Enemy turn opens with a Mercenary going for Colm, but they miss and Colm immediately crit-kills them, laughing all the way. Awesome.
Over with Ephraim, Pirate number one Misses and then dies horribly to being doubled.
Pirate number two instead gets crit-killed, though I missed the actual crit effects at every step. Just take my word for it.
Back more northerly, Cormag takes the bait! And thankfully, he misses Neimi instead of hitting, let alone crit-killing her. Perfect.
Even more northerly than that, you can see I've got Garcia set up on the lone Forest tile up here, with Ross providing- oh. Wait, no, Ross is four tiles away. Wow, no wonder Garcia wasn't doing as well as I thought he should here.
I'm bad at counting range diagonally in orthogonal systems.
Regardless, Cavalier number one fails to touch Garcia and takes a hit...
... while Cavalier number two has a Sword and so lands a hit and dodges, though the hit is pretty weak.
Tana turns out to be in range of a Wyvern Rider, which I'd thought she wasn't when I set her up, and takes brutal damage and wastes two *Slim Lance uses. Great.
The surviving Fleet continues to miss shots. Whatever.
Ephraim dodges a ranged attack from Pirate number three, unsurprisingly.
Then back north the ranged Cavaliers get started, one goes for Garcia and it ends poorly for them...
... and another goes for Ross, and it's not great for that Cavalier either.
The enemy's turn ends with even more Mercenary reinforcements from the Fort.
Also note the Wyvern Rider that tried to retreat to a Fort. That was kind of convenient, honestly.
And on the green turn this jerk heals himself while blocking Ephraim's access to Duessel. Really? WHY?
I hate Duessel's goons so much.
Kyle solves the problem with a Rescue, but this is costing me -he's not going to be able to help in the east until like the last turn. Ephraim talks to Duessel-
What's going on, oh honored teacher of mine? Why are Gradosian soldiers trying to kill you?
His Majesty has been acting weird lately and I've finally reached the point where I just can't keep quiet on it. Originally they were demanding my surrender so I could be dragged home in chains, but then I saw Valter flap in and ever since they've been calling for my head.
So politics, basically.
And everybody wonders why I'd rather be a wandering ronin than a king.Hah! No, boy, I get you, but duty calls whether you like it or not. I'm proud to serve, but parts like this? They make me wistfully fond of when I didn't have to deal with this kind of crap.
Talk later, fight now.Oh, yes, of course Kyle.-and now Duessel is perfectly positioned to go talk to Cormag!
Which won't be happening.
Instead, I open with Artur chipping down the Wyvern Rider that went after Tana...
... and have Tana talk to Cormag, confident that if nothing else I can have Neimi vaporize the northern Wyvern Rider and blockade everyone else with bodies.
REVENGE!!!
Wrong route.
Oh, right.Ahem.Oh woe is I, for I rely entirely on Glen to make hard decisions for me and am now faced with orders to take in-or-kill Duessel even though he's a glorious and loyal paragon of the Empire. I have no idea what to do.Eh, angsting over, let's just kill him since that's my orders.
Stop! As I'm an expy of Caeda, I shall stand down your murderous self by declaring that if you want to kill Duessel you'll have to kill me first!Wait, hold on. Is self-sacrificingly insisting you'd rather die before those you care about a thing you do in general, like Caeda does repeatedly throughout her games?Well, no. Just this one time. I'm mostly more of a 'I refuse to stand by when I could be protecting my friends. By murdering their enemies.' sort of gal, honestly.So you're really just doing this because you're broadly kind of similar to Caeda with the blue hair and Pegasus-riding and whatnot, and at one point in Sacred Stones' development I was the coin-flipping Myrmidon with a weakness for the ladies rather than Joshua filling that role, which would've made me a Navarre expy in this situation.
Well, I mean, if we're going to ignore the fourth wall, sure.But in this situation, I'm a loyal soldier of the empire who's struggling to cope with making hard decisions because I've spent my entire life letting my brother handle those for me, with this situation being hard because my loyalty is, all by itself, pulling me in opposing directions, with not a shred of suggestion in my personality that I've got a chivalrous streak...... and you're supposed to somehow help me bypass my internal conflict driven by my deep loyalty and limited experience in thinking for myself by expressing a suicidal sentiment?Look, I didn't write this script, and the fact that you're even here makes no sense. Don't worry about it.But it's shameless repetition that's losing out on an opportunity to meaningfully explore my character, a mythology callback that only functions as one if you're aware of a quirk of this game's development history, all while I have a genuinely compelling struggle worth exploring! It's a huge missed opportunity, a waste of potential!Are you going to start sticking your lance in red people already or not?This doesn't even have anything to do with our Support Conversations! The C and B ranks are about us doing a flier buddy system because we both hate Archers, with me being respectful of your position as a princess and you insisting I should be informal with you, and the A rank actually is exploring my struggles with my broken loyalties!... I'll be over there, ignoring you.The other route's revenge plot is shallow, but it's at least connected to my closeness with my brother and-Shut up already!
And indeed, after some dithering I have Neimi vaporize the Wyvern Rider.
Up north, I foolishly have Garcia break out Fiendcleaver to melee this Cavalier. It goes well, but I really ought to have stuck with the Hand Axe. Not to mention moved Ross first, but I honestly didn't notice he was out of range until writing this post.
Ross finishes off the Cavalier Garcia attacked, which is something.
Down south, I take a risk and have Cormag try to finish off the wounded Wyvern Rider. Thankfully, it works out, though this was a more dangerous decision than I'd realized at the time.
Forde heads north and heals himself...
... while Gilliam gets started on doing damage to a Mercenary.
Then it's the enemy turn, and this Mercenary goes for Cormag, doubling him. Admittedly it's only six damage a hit when Cormag has around thirty HP, but there's that crit chance. This could have killed Cormag by itself. And then there's the Fleet to consider...
You can also see that I had Duessel drag off one of his goons on my turn.
Gilliam continues shrugging off damage.
Ross takes a hit but manages a counterattack. Ow.
The Fleet takes a shot at Cormag, but as I said earlier neither Fleet ever hit one of my people in these runs so Cormag is fine.
Ephraim successfully baits out the last Pirate.
Ross continues exchanging attacks, but this time dodges.
I'm not sure why this Cavalier targeted Ross instead of Garcia, given Garcia is stuck with a melee-only weapon right now. It's convenient, but confusing.
And one more attack on Ross, bringing him dangerously low but netting him quite the nice level -the Defense is particularly timely.
Neimi draws out another attacker, surprising me; I hadn't realized this Cavalier could reach her. She's fine, though, and this is actually convenient.
Followed by the actual final attack on Ross.
Seriously, I have no idea why these two ranged guys went for Ross instead of Garcia.
The Troubadour heals someone, which is kinda annoying. (This is before the healing started)
And lastly even more Mercenaries pour out of the Forts -nothing happened on green's turn.
I open with getting Cormag out of danger, with the plan being this Fleet will die. It survives for the turn, which is mildly irritating but oh well it's fine.
Tana backs off and heals herself, positioning herself to help with the Village next turn.
Ephraim murders the Hand Axe Pirate.
Gilliam murders the Mercenary he's been exchanging blows with -you can also see I had Duessel and Kyle drop off their Cavaliers and move forward.
Neimi gets started on softening up the Cavalier that came after her.
Artur softens them up further, and gets a fantastic level. His Luck is worryingly low, but if he manages to keep propping up his other defenses I won't mind much.
Then Colm snags the kill, netting him a level as well. A... not very good level. He really needs Strength.
Over more to the east, Forde charges into the mess of Cavaliers and exchanges blows with one of the Sword Cavaliers, who are the primary reason I've got him helping up here.
Garcia I gamble on going for a crit-kill with a Killer Axe, now that I've seen the Troubadour can undo somewhere in the vicinity of an entire attack from Garcia or Ross, but alas, no crit. And Garcia takes a highly improbable hit. Argh.
Ross heals, because he's in way too much danger right now.
And then it's the enemy's turn, starting with a Mercenary wasting his time provoking Duessel into chopping off 2/3rds of his HP. Nice.
And hey, turns out Duessel's green self was more or less exactly what he looks like in my hands. It's a pretty neat design. I like how his fur is clearly pulling from his hair and beard color, somewhere in the vicinity of dark pink or purple. Sort of odd how his human head hair is brown, but eh. He looks fine, overall, and I guess him and Garcia can commiserate on The Problems With Having Brown Hair. (Whatever those are)
The second Mercenary isn't any brighter, but he is luckier, avoiding the retaliation.
Gilliam is also invincible.
Up north, Ross starts getting targeted, and the RNG continues to spite me.
At least Ross dodges this guy.
The Fleet continues to be useless. It can't even hit Duessel's goobers!
Duessel continues to be invincible, though this is also where I admit I'd meant to have him wielding his Silver Bow so he'd kill these two and loot their stuff this turn. I'm behind my timetable even more, now.
Up north once more, Garcia gets flailed at and now I'm really irritated I didn't just stick out the Hand Axe.
Really irritated. And baffled as to why now they're going for the safe attacks, but not earlier.
A Cavalier surprises me by going for Colm, but it's no big deal.
I like how in this shot it looks like Colm is holding the Javelin and is letting out a war cry or something like he's about to attack.
Lastly, the Troubadour heals a Cavalier. No reinforcements, no green turn shenanigans.
Cormag makes another go at the Fleet, and finishes it off this time.
Ephraim Rescues the last in-the-way green Cavalier, allowing Tana to retrieve this Hero Crest -which is important, because to my surprise it turns out Baels use Hero Crests to promote, and the game isn't really designed to pass out Hero Crests for 4+ units. (Three Baels, Joshua, and though I won't be using her this run, Marisa) There's only three Hero Crest users in the base game. I'd figured Baels used Knight's Crests, since they're loosely equivalent in role to Knights.
So yeah, I'd have been mad if I beat this mission without getting this Hero Crest. Gilliam isn't far off from promoting, after all.
Duessel gets started on looting gear from my enemies by Bowing them to death. The Horseslayer might be useful to Vanessa at some point.
Gilliam moves north and Kyle takes his place, chipping down this Mercenary. This is actually convenient, assuming the Mercenary doesn't retreat, as he'll kill himself on Kyle on the enemy turn and so Kyle will then be targeted by another attacker, getting more done in less time.
Forde softens up a Sword Cavalier some more...
... which lets Lute finish them off, giving me the option of moving Ross if I want. Huzzah!
I end up using Colm on this Cavalier to soften them up, considering the risk minimal and the potential to pass the kill to someone else worth it.
I actually intended to give it to Artur initially, but eventually I decide to have him head over to be ready to contribute against the Cavaliers in the east, not to mention keep Lute protected with their love, and have Neimi take the kill instead.
Garcia tries to soften up this Cavalier, but gets an improbable miss. It caught me so badly off guard I didn't manage to catch the actual 'miss' text.
I settle for having Ross chip them, irritated he doesn't get to land a finishing blow.
Enemy turn again, and it opens with more pointless flailing against Duessel. Thanks for the free experience for him! (Not that I'm ever going to use him, probably)
... wait a second, this is the guy who was supposed to kill himself on Kyle. Aaaaargh, why did he do this?
Seriously, the flailing is pointless.
Though never mind my idea that Kyle would be getting in two useful actions this enemy turn. Ugh.
Aaaand now Duessel is outright pinned by Mercenaries. That's... inconvenient, given I'd been planning on having him kill the Cavalier for his Killing Edge. Admittedly I don't really care about Killing Edges with how things are going to go down...
Back up north, Ross continues to get picked on by Cavaliers. Not sure why, given he has weapon triangle advantage and all. Why not go after Forde? Forde doesn't have weapon triangle advantage and has similar Defense to Ross right now.
A pleasant surprise is the Luna Shaman coming out to kill himself on Duessel, who was in absolutely no danger. Even a crit wouldn't be a threat.
See? Nobody else here could hurt him.
Ross continues to get targeted, it continues to baffle me.
Actually, now that I'm thinking on it, I'm wondering if Monster Quest actually modified the AI routine some. Maybe that's why I've been caught off guard by AI behavior in Monster Quest so often?
Troubadour does her thing, and it's my turn again. The last turn of the mission, in fact. With a lot of people left to kill.
I'd really hoped to kill the Boss, but this has been a mess and I've had people die on so many other attempts I just don't care enough. It's not like he'll drop anything other than experience.
I open with having Kyle finish off the Mercenary who attacked him last turn. Huzzah, no RNG-screw!
Ross finishes an enemy...
... and Forde exchanges blows, taking minor damage.
Neimi softens up the other Cavalier...
... which lets Garcia secure the kill.
Artur softens up the other one...
... and Lute wipes 'em out, getting a fantastic level out of it!
I spend a bit trying to find a way to get Duessel to kill the Cavalier down here, and give up on the idea, having Duessel just straight-up kill someone anyway. It's not a waste of experience when nobody else is going to get it regardless, and hey, Poison Axes are unlimited-use.
More importantly, it opens the way for Gilliam to take out the Mercenary I'd intended Kyle to counter-kill earlier.
The only thing of interest that happens on the enemy turn is Ephraim getting a great level out of being attacked by one of the Mercenaries. The other two Mercenaries are apparently still in retreat mode, and the Boss and Cavalier don't move.
Mission done. The Boss freaks out because killing Duessel is taking too long, decides Valter is liable to kill him for Failing Him For The Last Time, and flees on a ship... which doesn't explain why the regular soldiers stop mattering. Or how. Do they surrender? They certainly couldn't have fled, not unless they're supposed to have taken the same boat the Boss did.
Regardless, I'm past this mission.
Finally.
I get a Knight's Crest for keeping Duessel's dudes alive to the end, which normally would be quite appreciated but in Monster Quest is kinda eh.
After the mission, I look over everyone and decide to toss the Skill Book I got at Gilliam -Gilliam can't possibly hit the unpromoted Skill cap at this point, and while there are other characters who are likely to be wanting a Skill Book in the end, nobody else is as close to guaranteed as Gilliam is. And anyway I'm a bit tired of him whiffing at times.
You can also see the Hero Crest is in white, indicating it can be used; like I said, Baels use Hero Crests.
So weird.
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See you next mission.
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