Effortposts Around Chapters We Like (From Custom Campaigns)

Chapter 14: Capricious Valkyrie (Shackled Power)

This is a pretty standard midgame seize map from Shackled Power, but it’s got a lot of really cool stuff going on with the lake in the middle. Prosel, the main lord and the guy who seizes, can waterwalk like a pirate, and also uniquely has the ability to shove other units. And for this map only, Peirhok the wyvern lord is playable as a guest unit with really good bases, so even if you aren’t using Eileen the early peg, you still have him to lean on. There’s also Cadence, another recruitable enemy peg in this map who flies over the water and can be recruited by either Prosel or Eileen. And if you’ve been using Clint the pirate or Bast the guerrilla, they can waterwalk too, so you overall have a lot of different options for moving around the lake.

In particular, the combination of Prosel’s waterwalk and shove makes for some super cool plays. It allows you to drop Prosel basically anywhere in the water and have him shove a flier to reach otherwise scary enemies from a safe distance, especially for taking out that fleet on the right. Making good use of these mobility tools really lets you approach this map from a different angle, while also not being the entire identity of the map since there’s the entire landlocked portions as well.

Going along the edges of the map is relatively standard, but you can’t just ignore it since there’s multiple valuable side objectives to acquire. In the bottom right is Vicks the recruitable sniper, the lieutenant chilling on a mountain has a stealable crook seal (thief/pirate/guerrilla promo item), there’s a unique armory that sells gold weapons up at the top, and there’s multiple villages that not only give you good items, but are linked to unlocking a gaiden chapter after this. On turn 6, a warrior miniboss and his two buddies spawn up at the top to go destroy the villages, so you have to be quick to catch them, as well as to steal the warrior’s energy ring.

The boss area is pretty interesting to approach, since Sicilis, the valkyrie boss for whom the chapter is named, has a purge tome and is guarded by three stationary generals. If you get close enough to her, she’ll also trigger some additional reinforcements to spawn, so you need to have a good plan for taking her out and seizing quickly while also not dying to purge, or letting her break it and equipping her with a better weapon. If you spread out accordingly though, you’ll be able to approach the throne area from both below and from the right, so you’re rewarded for really covering the whole map. That’s ultimately what I like most about this chapter, since it’s got two very distinct sections that encourage using different mobility types for each one. It would be one thing to have a map that’s just the lake and a map that’s just the land section rushing for villages, but this chapter merges both of them into a fun and memorable challenge.

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