I’ll preface this by saying that, funnily enough, my XP abuse in chapter 6 barely had an impact - since it was concentrated on support units that have no contribution in battle. It did give me some leeway with how I position them, but overall it has barely impacted my playthrough. Honestly I’ve gotten waaayyy more use out of that early Brave Sword, ah ah ! Uriel onerounds assassins with it.
Okay, let’s talk Avanni.
She’s INSANE, and carrying my army on her back.
That’s her by Gaiden: The Unforgiven. Look at that B/W/L !!
I wouldn’t say she’s juggernauting given she’s can’t enemy phase at all and will actually explode if more than one non-mage enemy targets her, but her ability to delete anything with extreme accuracy on player phase has relieved so much pressure.
Somehow she didn’t contribute that much to chapter 7, but that’s good because it also lets me pretend her pilfering 150XP from chapter 6 didn’t ultimately matter - she’d have caught up to level 20 and promotion there dealing with eggs and gorgons anyway.
Starting from chapter 8, mentally adds “also Vani swept a third of the grunts on her own” to every recap.
Chapter 7
Oh, goodness, I hate those damn gorgon eggs. I swear one of these days I’ll just memorize the entire map layout and that will be it.
I don’t have anything to say about this chapter because I didn’t employ any big brain strat or changed my playstyle in any particular way: have the right side join with the left side ASAP, swarm the tunnels there to reach Isla in time, restart the chapter four or five times learning the layout, recruit Belphoebe. I kept the master scroll specifically for her, immediately correcting her shaky aim with that 4 extra skill!
Chapter 8
Oh, this one is interesting ! The green units can technically reach the destination by themselves before the time limit, but with how narrow the map is your own army will likely slow them down.
This is actually a good thing, as it gives non-combat units a time to shine. Figuring out how to rescue, take and drop them closer to the goal is a fun puzzle, and the addition of riders from the starting point gives those left behind something to do.
Normally I HATE linear maps with very narrow corridors where everyone steps on each other’s toes because it means 2/3 of your army is vestigial and sits on their ass for 90% of the map, but this chapter makes how you ferry everyone across meaningful and I like that.
Also dear Naga that’s more gold than I’ve seen in my life.
I had stopped my previous playthrough of B route at the start of Chapter 8, so everything from now on is brand new for me.
Chapter 9
Grismond holding a silver card clued me on the secret third path:
Given that there are two assassinations point and he’s flanked by his bodyguards, I imagine ending the map that way only kills either Agnea or Francis depending on the side you pick ? Gosh, this hack as a whole is so open, and that’s what I looove about it !
“Let’s see… do I have any siege weapon ? No ? No warp either… But then…?
Oh! Oooh…”
Of course, that meant reaching those ballistas before the archers empty them in my team - we all know how light on ammo those things are. I had the Sleep staff on Renaida’s backpack for that occasion, but as it turned out I didn’t need it after all: a longbow and good songs did the job. In fact, it helped me end the map ‘early’ with a 12 move shenanigan from Vani.
Then, using the power of the silver card, I literally spent 40 minutes selling EVERYTHING (that isn’t unique of course !) in my inventory and filling my chosen 13 squadmates’ backpacks with premium gears.
This is my team at the start of the Gaiden:
Lol, tiny arms. He grew a lot of strength in the first levels and then stopped completely.
You’ve seen Myron and Travond already !
Managed to reach level 20 and promote her on the very last turn of chapter 10 !
Who doesn’t like a defensive beast ?
I SWEAR HE’LL BE GOOD EVENTUALLY. Fortunately for him, with reaver spear he has complete WTA coverage, so he still pulls his weight.
Direly mid, would be benched if he weren’t a main character. Swordreaver not being sold yet hurts him even more.
I slept on her on my first playthrough, definitely shouldn’t have. Spear is an excellent weapon type with 1-2 range over swords and access to axereavers since chapter 9. She flies, she has good bases and respectable growths.
Between her and Vasara, I value her extra points in Skill that damn much. The Saints know extra consistency is welcomed in this hack.
Now with extra hit rate ! I wanted her to have a support with Renaida, but somehow they always end up on opposite sides of every map…
Perfectly useable right out of the box, with dual weapon ranks in a hack where good gears is extremely meaningful, and the con to back it up ? Sign me the hell up ! They even come with above average bulk too !!
Chapter 10
A very vanilla and straightforward experience by Eligor’s Spear standards, but I’ll take it. It has a few neat twists with the split army, pegasus thief and green unit anyway.
Speaking of the first and third of those gimmicks ! I had a conundrum: Vani’s archery is direly needed to kill all those very dangerous mages on the top side, yet she also has to speak the the green unit… How do I reconcile that ?
The answer was Rescue staff.
Deploy Renaida at the bottom, clear the top side with Vanni (body count: falcoknight and pegasus on turn 1, both sages from the middle on turn 2 by hugging the wall to bait them on enemy phase, the paladin killed in one shot with a critical hit on the longbow, then both the siege tome druid and berserk staff bishop), then Rescue her to talk to the green units. While I’m at it, Rescue Skylar too to pick the chests !
Say hi to Eligor for me.
It might sound slow, but I was done with everything and finished the map right as the wyvern showed up, as you can see.
This gaiden sounds super cool ; I’m still in the preps, made a pause to write all that: out of curiosity, how many turns do you need to repair every village ? I wanna know how much of every supply I need to buy…
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