Bethany Plays: PoR Chapter 26: Clash on the big field.

We have bad news to act upon.

And getting to Ashnard as fast as possible is our chosen action.

Between Crimea, Gallia and Phoenicis, our army has gained twice as many soldiers as the troop that Begnion gave us. I'll... I'll pass on being the judge on that.

Daein still has a massive army, though. Because Daein is full of soldiers for Ashnard's ambitions.

And this is our practical concern, for how we'll be getting to Melior.

I just love how simple this title is.

Ashnard is excited that Crimea has gotten so large.

Even though that technically means his odds of succeeding have dropped.

The Black Knight assures Ashnard that his odds of success are still exemplary.

Still?

The whole army, or just part? We have three encounters against this part of the Daein army still to go, which soldiers are members of the third battalion?

This is a new name. Bertram is a member of the Four Riders, and we'll meet him as our chapter boss, so I'll talk more about him then.

The Black Knight doesn't seem to be a fan.

Would the Black Knight betray Ashnard? Hm... probably, honestly. Ashnard seems like a really easy cause to defect from if you're not 100% satisfied with the ideology.

This is one heck of an exchange.

And the Black Knight does as Ashnard requests.

He also wasn't present for this moment, and inquires about it.

Apparently, Ashnard wrote her off entirely and has more or less forgotten her.

But his memory can be jogged. Petrine's already been thrown down with the rest of the trash to him.

I do not believe this came up in the version of the conversation we saw.

Petrine's soldiers have finished the job, but without Petrine, they're not sure what the next step is. Better to be safe than sorry, and "leaving alive" is the safe option.

Ashnard is satisfied that, even in death, Petrine is still following his orders as given.

"Last chance, kill or spare?"

Ashnard tells him to do whatever he feels appropriate, so long as it is not "bring her to me". Rajaion, as a reminder, is Ashnard's mount.

There's a bit of an introduction before we jump into the map sequence, but it's not a particularly interesting one. Suffice it to say we're with the Crimeans again.

So what's our plan for this situation?

Yeah, we have to do something. And there's no mentioning whether we can actually cut their supply lines, especially with the Black Knight.

Bastian is impressed. In his own way.

Not that Geoffrey is fond of offering the enemy praise.

Lucia is sick of the bickering.

Ike tries for the triple on "just charge in".

Titania shoots him down.

Soren adopts his strategy, but slightly changes it to make it more workable.

Fort Pinell is the larger fortress.

Tibarn and these Gallians can do distraction duty.

Ah, the old cat and mouse gambit.

Confidence! Say, where's Elincia?

Jill as MVP... I mean, sure, I guess. Would've thought Marcia.

A Support for the main run, bringing Lucia to Chapter 25. Not that we'll be getting much use of it, but Ilyana/Lucia's [+0.5 Def, +2.5 Hit, +5 Avoid] is better for Ilyana than Mia's Support is.

Lucia might just be gay in general. Both her other Supports do involve her turning down the flirtations of men...

Nice and formal, as Lucia is used to.

And Ilyana promptly starts feeling faint.

Lucia is a "gets worried quickly" kind of person.

Her idea for Ilyana is to try and get her into a fit enough shape to not collapse all the time.

I don't know why, this line is adorable to me.

In-universe, it seems pretty horrifyingly out-of-breath.

Ilyana needs food badly.

Burned by Zihark, probably.

For Ilyana, the answer is "anything".

"I don't want to find you lost someplace and wasting away even further."

...One Info conversation today? Turns out there is a second one I missed.

This Crimean has come to Ike for advice.

The answer is never "sacrifice yourself".

And Ike says as much.

"Look, I want you to at least try to try."

You know, this is rated as a two star conversation, but...

Yeah, this is, like, the basics.

Back to the drawing board, Tormod.

Now wait until you meet the people who have plans other than "charge in blindly."

Ike: Pats head condescendingly.

And here's the other one. We presumably need to have recruited Reyson, despite the fact I don't think it matters to the subject matter whether he joined as a soldier or came in later as a lore expert.

We're seeing Reyson see Tibarn off to Nados.

Luck boosts your Avoid by 24 points, Tibarn, don't count it out!

Tibarn apologises for letting Leanne get taken.

Reyson's happy Tibarn did what he could/should. And yeah, Leanne seems pretty likely to be alive, but not well cared for.

Also Reyson can sorta sense her, despite the Chaos.

Yeah, let's get this done as fast as possible.

Ike is curious about Reyson's power.

It's a racial ability to laguz. Although it's not a widespread one.

Tibarn's is very weak, for example.

Obviously. If magical, then herons can do it best.

It's, like... one of them has to be the best, but they're all pretty blegh.

And of course the dragons do it better.

The laguz have so much more variety than the shapes they take.

...Eh, you did account for that, Ike.

Time for Tibarn to fly off.

Good luck!

...I have no idea what this means.

Nor this. I don't think this is that different from JP, in which case ???. Still not sure why I had to have Reyson recruited for this. Do note there was an Ike/Reyson today, but I'm not sure it helped.

More level ups. No caps this time, we've got plenty as it is.

...You look different today, Elincia.

Where did that come from? The Ike in the drawing seems relatively unsurprised.

Ike is actually gobsmacked, and before Elincia can fully get what she wants to say out-

Ike notices the pegasus. Now.

Elincia is descended from a pegasus knight, and studied the appropriate skills to become one should the need arise.

Yeah, we saw how they reacted when Elincia was within 50 kilometres of danger, imagine her on the front lines.

As much as they can oppose her, ultimately, they respect that they must defer to her.

Lucia respects Elincia's skill and talent. If you remember back to Chapter 5, Elincia did mention this among her talents.

We just never bothered letting her find a pegasus, or at least a horse.

These are Crimean treasures that Elincia now bears, heirlooms from her pegasus knight ancestor.

Having waited years to finally get the chance to see the combat they were born for.

Such an inspiring figure, now joining us at last.

May Princess Elincia's morale-boosting prowess carry on to the battlefield itself!

The armour, same way everyone else did. The flying horse, though...

Renning's last action was to ensure that Elincia lived on, prepared to take on his mantle when the opportunity came.

He seems like a pretty reasonable man. Remember the whole blood feud between Renning and Elincia that forced her to grow up in secret? Yeah, this Renning doesn't seem the sort to see that necessary.

Especially since he seems to have been a better fatherly figure than Ramon, for want of a better term.

Elincia admits that she might be a tad underlevelled.

Same as Rolf and Mist, honestly.

And she's a healer, too. So she doesn't even have to fight if not necessary.

As long as she can join us, that's good by her.

Don't worry, these two will be on the case!

Ike accepts her aid on the chin.

WITH ELINCIA!

Meet Bertram. He doesn't seem like a very talkative fellow.

And our map for the day. Take note of the lack of any cover or terrain features.

This map is Chapter 4, the sequel.

This number of soldiers appears to be larger than normal. Eh...

There are some reinforcements. I think there are more if you don't go as fast as I wind up going.

Ike is ready for any number of soldiers.

19 spaces. 19. There's like no way you have enough people to fill this up. We bring every woman and Ranulf for the Lethe B Support. If you're playing casually, I'd recommend bringing Haar, Geoffrey, and some laguz if you're wondering who to have as the backup.

So now, we have Elincia, and she's underlevelled. How so, though?

Hm, those stats are pretty low-ish. Elincia is the most likely candidate for PoR's entry into what the Fire Emblem community calls the "Est"- a low level unit recruited late with high-ish growths to become a powerful unit if you want to invest the effort. Elincia can do a pretty good job no matter how much you invest into her, partially because of being a pegasus who can use staves, and also her personal weapon Amiti, the infinite use Brave Sword. You only get Amiti if Lucia, Bastian and Geoffrey are all still alive, though- fairly easy for us. Amiti is also the thing giving her +3 Def/Res- she'll have that so long as Amiti is equipped.

One other thing to note about Elincia is that she has both kinds of Bond Support available to her. She provides the "defensive" version we saw on Tanith and Marcia (the negation of all crits) to Ike and the Crimean characters- including Kieran! Elincia is also the All Girls run's only example of an "offensive" Bond Support: If she is standing next to Lucia, both characters receive a +10 Crit bonus. We won't be using it often, because Lucia, but still worth knowing.

And lastly, Elincia is the last recruitable character in the game with a Support list. There are five more possible playable characters, but only two of them join your run no matter how you play. It's just a question of which two.

Elincia picks up some levels. She doesn't stand a chance of getting to level 20 and capping this run, but we're going to get our use out of her nonetheless.

Also, I finally get around to forging this special weapon.

We bear the strength of Ingrid! I think an Aymr axe would be wasteful with this party, though- we already have the Shiharam axe and that's still in good condition. If not pristine.

Wide open fields and the enemy more than doubles us- although if we brought the whole 19, it'd be a lot closer. Bring it.

Bertram repeats Petrine's trick of having a magical weapon and the Daunt Skill, but he brought a backup Spear for any tricky mages looking to take advantage. The Runesword casts Nosferatu as its magic spell, complete with the health leeching effect. It's also droppable, and you bet we want it as pristine as possible for Mist.

This guy has a Sleep staff. Also a Physic, but that's more expected than otherwise.

This guy has a Brave Sword. I'd recommend exercising caution with how you get him moving.

There's a bit more exposition when the map starts, presumably because the game expects you to base Elincia up a little bit or something.

Bertram continues to be untalkative.

It's unnerving this guy.

...Not that this would be any more reassuring.

"Who the hell is he?"

So we know who he is. Ish.

The Four Riders serve the role of Ashnard's direct flunkies, but the power level between them is heavily divergent.

Four persons of highest ability, I wonder if that's an Ashnard thing or if its always been there. Again, Ashnard hasn't mentioned anything about finding a replacement for Petrine yet.

And who doggedly pursued us through the early game and the Daein arc.

Who has... a history.

Bryce was a member of the Four Riders alongside Tauroneo and Gawain. The fourth member of the Four Riders at the time was a man named General Lanvega, who comes up in Radiant Dawn but does not appear in person. He has elected to sit this war out on moral terms, incidentally.

The Black Knight is, of course, a member of Ashnard's Riders. What, were you expecting four horsemen? No, Bryce is a General too. In fact, so is Tauroneo, and Gawain is also a footsoldier...

Yeah, that one. I know he's just called "Black Knight", but...

Yeah, how many Black Knights are running around?

So who exactly is Bertram?

He is a knight who just... appeared after Crimea fell and Ashnard took a liking to.

"Ashnard took a liking to" means "strong".

No one has ever seen Bertram without his mask. Although unlike the Black Knight, you see his mouth and chin, so maybe you could draw from that?

~~Fun fact, dataminers did exactly that with an unused portrait that matches Bertram's exactly without the mask.~~

There were out-of-universe theories, before Radiant Dawn came out, that the Black Knight was in fact not a real person but some kind of animate suit of armour. ~~Ironically, the Japanese version of Radiant Dawn proved them right.~~

One thing I will say about Bertram, though- he's definitely a man of flesh and blood.

Ike doesn't care.

Well, so long as he can still be hurt by common weapons. If not, then we're in trouble.

Let's get started. This enemy range readout depicts an archer. I just happen to not be able to reach his range.

Marcia and Tanith are luring enemy swordmasters. I decide to station Tanith here- the range highlighted depicts one holding a Killing Edge.

Ike sends the Reinforcements Tanith summons over here, to hopefully distract the Sleep staff.

Pictured: the range of a Sniper in the back. Elincia would like to not be in range of it.

Oh hey, I have a Rescue Staff.

Elincia calls Ilyana over from her starting position. Look how deep into Sniper turf she is! (Yes, that's the Black Knight's warp sigil. It's a consistent warping sigil across the whole Tellius duology, and if you look closely it's also Ike's entrance animation in Smash Bros.)

Ilyana charges boldly forward and assassinates this sniper for Elincia. You'll notice she's doing it from the left- there's a Feral Tiger to the north that will attack her if she does it from the right, and I don't have enough confidence in Ilyana to take those reasonably.

Mist makes sure Ike is off the battlefield. This is a Seize map, so I'll need to put him down eventually, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Titania can do it later, even.

Warriors having high HP means Swordmasters, with their low Strength and low Sword Might, might actually not oneround.

Calill can take the kill. I'm not 100% certain why I'm grinding her Wind. Probably so I can maybe use that Tornado tome in the end?

Everyone else just bundles up. Something about formations, defensive lines? The most I bothered with was making sure Elincia and Lucia were adjacent for their Bond.

Ranulf is going to stand in the corner and not contribute to the map. As long as he survives, he's already done everything he came to this map to do.

This guy whacks Elincia for a good chunk of her health.

This is how much Elincia did back with all four of her hits. She's a bit behind in Strength. Also no crit with the Bond. Probably for the best.

Jill misses the Sword Paladin and lets it live as a result.

The bow paladin is drawn in to Nephenee. This opening play has basically been "me not remembering Nephenee has no 1-2 spear on her person".

Oh, the Warriors are coming to Nephenee too?

Good news: Nephenee crit the Killer Axe dude.

Bad news: She appears to have almost been consumed by him.

Double crit on these Holy Guards! I wasn't even expecting them to have gone this way and attracted the attention of these swordmasters!

Reminder that Nephenee has Provoke and that's why she took the brunt of that turn. Mostly for me too.

I know Titania is weaker than everyone else, but this is ridiculous!

The fact that this screenshot comes directly after the last one implies I had Titania commit to this attack, and also that she missed one of her hits. Can I count on Titania for anything?

Now Elincia crits. I think Brave hits work unusually in Path of Radiance, especially if you start combining it with Adept and so forth, so I don't know whether I want Elincia to get all four hits for WEXP or just up to the third. What I can say is that Amiti has more WEXP than the Brave Sword, at least.

Speaking of WEXP, Mist is really on top of her Sword rank. I think this is also a crit.

Calill sets this Feral on fire.

Lethe Smites Nephenee up two squares.

Jill kills the Paladin in front of her.

So Nephenee could go up and get rid of this Meteor sage back here.

Mia crits this tiger. I'm going to assume she couldn't finish it otherwise.

Astrid is going to bait this Feral.

Tch, can't oneshot this guy.

...Well then. Don't need to bait this guy forward if I can Bolting him.

Tanith killed a swordmaster and moved forward. Turns out that was into Sniper range. Dangit.

At least I get to show this off. This is what I mean when I say a defensive Bond protects from crits. Not that I fear a crit from this guy.

Marcia stands here. There's not a ton of places Marcia can stand and make Tanith safe, so might as well enjoy the Bond. In hindsight, perhaps the square to Marcia's immediate left would've worked.

Nephenee caught this guy in her Provoke aura. She gets his Silver Sword.

Lethe gets the other one.

...Oh.

These Generals are surviving Marcia.

This guy throws his spear at Tanith.

...OK, I resume my original belief. I don't think it was possible for Marcia to position herself to stop this happening.

Tanith survives.

There's a Physic staffbot back here, so Marcia not killing those Generals bites.

Astrid deals with this Feral just fine.

I said something about not having Ilyana deal with tigers?

This is why. I'm fairly sure Ilyana is strong enough to not be weighed down by Bolting, but still.

Yeah, I'm good with not getting hit by this one.

So, Ilyana would like to not be in this situation.

Marcia deals with this Sniper, so Tanith is no longer in significant danger.

Tanith deals with the Physic bot. The Generals are now going to die, even if that's not immediately.

Yay Magic? Dangit, Tanith.

Nephenee goes to bait that Paladin down there, while Jill prepares for some reinforcements that appear up here.

Lethe runs over here to Smite Calill up.

...Which doesn't help.

I think this is me quietly admitting that Lucia will never be used again, right here.

I just need all hands on deck over here.

Yes, that means you. Although I don't actually commit to this attack. Probably for the best, a lot of units could kill a Paladin.

I have no idea where this Sniper comes from, but if Tanith is anywhere close, it's good to have him out of our hair.

Even Elincia lends a hand! 9 damage to a Sniper.

And a solid level.

I love how one of my best tiger-killers is Mist.

Titania, with Mist Support, weakens this tiger.

...Well, that speeds things up. Sorry for whoever was supposed to kill it.

Astrid deals with the Paladin.

Ilyana, instead of healing Tanith or herself, gets rid of the Sleep staff bishop.

The paladin finishes himself on Lethe.

Mia was in range of some wyverns.

I'm fairly sure this is a crit frame. It's certainly not a frame I've seen often.

Speed cap. Also all the other stats.

Tanith weakens the Generals this time.

At some point I will heal Ilyana, I promise.

Elincia got attacked by this guy. It's nice Ilyana wasn't targeted.

OK, so the third wyvern didn't get baited. I need to consider who will get that job.

Marcia finishes this Spearman.

I see Marcia and Tanith are both in bait range. Lethe finishes this wyvern Mia did not kill.

Here are the reinforcements Jill was preparing for. Nephenee doesn't one round the other one, but at least she does this one.

Jill can handle the other one.

This arrow has been horribly abused by this slope.

...Yeah, no, Elincia is not killing this one even with a weaken.

Although it does turn out Calill could feed it to her, conveniently.

...Oh, right, Adept.

So much for that.

Ilyana looks at her combat stats versus Bertram and readies herself.

Yes, fine, I will heal her. (Bertram is probably going to Spear Ilyana.

And Ike is now dropped. The map will be won next turn.

Elincia heals Titania for the EXP.

Look how far behind Lucia is. Also how far away she is from the enemies.

Yep, Spear.

Bertram continues to not be particularly informative.

And Ilyana is back into danger health.

And Tanith attracts the attention of this wyvern.

Marcia finishes this General with a redundant Guard.

And Mist once again goes sword to sword with her arch-nemesis, the cavalier.

And she's hit S Swords now. I think in PoR, this means she can't get S Staves. Meh.

Elincia will not be contributing to fighting Bertram, it turns out. If she does, she does have dialogue.

Bertram: ……Gu…guuoo…

Elincia: …Eeep…

Bertram: …Gu…oo…OOO…

...Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

...So, uh, Mist adds another of Daein's Four Riders to her kills.

Bertram seems surprisingly OK with the whole "being killed" thing. You can also see this in his Ike quote:

Bertram: …Perissssh…Perissssh…

Ike: So you’re Bertram, are you? Sorry, but I can’t perish right now.

Bertram: …Me… Kill…

Ike: What?

Bertram: Kill… me…… KILL… M-ME…

Ike: What’s going on? Are you mad?

Bertram: …Gu, gu… GUAAAA!

Ike: Ah!!

Strength, Luck and Resistance are all capped.

15 Might. 26 Magic. Heals Mist for the damage she does. 1-2 range. Yes please.

Lucia gets one last kill to see her off. I know it's a wyvern, but...

Doesn't even dodge.

Titania weakens this guy for someone. I consider my options carefully, and then realise...

You know, we have to see the Sage's Knife animation here, don't we?

It is not a remarkable one.

And this is how Calill holds it.

Ilyana heals Mia with Elincia's Mend, despite the fact she's close to a level.

We pick the level up mid-mission instead.

And we're done!

And here's our second error, this guy. We haven't met a faction that wears green armour yet.

He's a Crimean soldier. In Fire Emblem history to this point, generic friendly soldiers in cutscenes are represented by green palettes of their class. Apparently Path of Radiance was considering following suit until changing into the white, black and red armour of Crimea, Daein and Begnion. This fellow seems to have not gotten the memo. Maybe he's the guy we tutorialised to at the start of this mission.

We won't be pursuing the fleeing soldiers. They can live to fight again.

Someone stop tickling Ashnard.

...More soldiers!

Hafedd is just a generic chapter boss.

Oh, thats who we fight in the final chapter.

This does not reassure Bryce.

This says a lot about the kind of man Ashnard is.

...Honestly, yeah, if this fails, we're kinda golden.

Bryce just cannot parse this. This flies in the face of all military logic.

But that's Ashnard's plan. He wants us to get to Endgame. He wants to fight us himself.

But, importantly, that is not the same as wanting Daein to lose.

Well, that's one way to think about it.

We've outdone everything Ashnard planned for, however many things that might be.

This is what is called the Sorting Algorithm of Evil- the way all fictional villains send soldiers just strong enough for the heroes to actually defeat. This is a bit of a necessary evil of writing, because if the villains sent the enemies too strong for the heroes too early, the story would be very short and very boring. Here, though? Ashnard appears to have done it deliberately.