RD Chapter 3-1 Combat: Going on Strike

We begin with Soren's as-yet-unstated plan in medias res, with these three Begnions. I don't believe this is a part of the Mugill map we fight on.

They are the enemy with which you are at war. You have bigger problems.

As opposed to any other day?

いつもだったら、
見張り中でも酒の１杯や２杯は
大目に見てもらえるんだがな。

Normally, Begnions can nip at the sake while they work without much consequence. The presence of the laguz has made this more difficult.

Siege situations are very much in favour of the defenders, unless the attackers have enough of a supply line that it can become a test of endurance.

Three cloaked figures enter the area.

Oh, hello. Why did we send Lethe and Lyre in with Mist?

Oh, this got darkly relevant.

Mist is a master of social engineering.

The greedy bastards swallow the food hook, line and sinker.

Rule #0 of warfare: Never trust a cloaked stranger.

Soldier:

おまえたちをここに遣したのは
誰なんだ？

Mist:

白いお髭の素敵な将軍さまです。
強そうで威厳があって…
やだ、わたしバカだから
お名前を忘れてしまったみたい。

Soldier:

バトラー殿だ！
あの方は、昔から
細かい心配りをして下さるのだ。

Soldier:

そ、そうだな。
おい、戻ることはないぞ。
差し入れは、この部隊へのものだ。

Mist:

よかった～。
じゃあ、まず
お酒と食べ物を配りますから
みなさんを集めてもらえます？

The soldiers ask Mist who sent her. Mist gives them a vague description with no name, but the soldiers recognise which commander she is talking about and that it is in-character for him to distribute additional foodstuffs. Either Soren has one hell of a scouting operation or Mist pulled off the mother of all cold reads.

Count your blessings it was just a sleeping draught. Or don't- I'm sure a death at our hands would probably be better for the drugged Begnions than whatever their superiors will give them for this.

Now we have a foothold, we cause mayhem and get to the gate controls to let everyone else in.

Ike:

これで見張りは
全員やったようだ。
ご苦労だったな、３人とも。

Lethe:

私たちは何もしていない。
すべて、ミストの手柄だ。

Mist:

そ、そうかな…

Lethe:

…しかし…
こんなにあっさり
ひっかかるとは……

Lyre:

ベオクは不便な生き物ね。
こんな単純な罠…
わたしたちなら、ぜぇったい
ひっかかったりしないわ。

Lethe:

リィレ！

Lyre:

本当のことじゃない。

Ike:

だからこそ上手くいった。
問題はないだろう？

Lyre:

…ま、まぁね。

Soren:

…ぐずぐずしている
時間はありません。
後は、次の見回りが来るまでに
守備部隊を始末し、門を開けないと。

Ike congratulates all three girls for their successful operation, but Lethe assigns all the credit to Mist. Lethe then remarks that it was a pretty easy job, and Lyre adds that laguz would never have fallen for it. Lethe scolds her, but Ike points out that it's good we were up against beorc, so there's no real problem, is there? Soren's final comment is that we have to open the gate "before the next patrol", which I assume means "before the people we just knocked out are due to clock out of their shift".

The Greil Mercenaries. Heard of us?

We have two- untransformed- laguz.

Well, crap, reinforcements. We'd better worry about that.

...Is this legit the first mission with a time limit in this game? Huh. Maybe I'm thinking of Defend conditions. So anyway, we have to beat this map in 12 turns with three characters, one of which is unable to secure her own kills.

Just with the torches, we can see 11 enemies, and there are a lot more hidden by fog and eventual reinforcements. Although... we do have two Partner units...

Lethe! She hasn't gotten much out of her training with us in Part 2, but remember how last mission, Skrimir was capable of using his Laguz Stone to transform when he ran out of juice? I left Lethe with Nealuchi's half-used Laguz Stone to give her two transformations to help us out while on Roam AI. In my experience, that's exactly the number she needs. She won't use the Olivi Grass, though.

What do you mean, wasted EXP? Non-player units still get progress towards weapon ranks and transformed laguz EXP is terrible!

Lyre... there's no sugarcoating this. Lyre is one of, if not the worst playable character in the series. In addition to the shaky stats of her ilk Wendy, Sophia, Meg and Fiona, she conforms to the terrible mechanics of the laguz, and the cat tribe laguz at that. About the only character I could say is worse is FE3/12 Maria, and that's a character who joins you literally right next to the final boss without much in the way of inventory or weapon ranks.

I'll see what I can do, but I won't get much use out of her as a yellow unit with no inventory. Note: "not much" is not "zero".

Titania heads south, and notices this building has an open door.

Oh, uh... we should probably mention that we're actually working for the-

...OK, yes, we're fighting whoever you want us to fight.

There are three armours hiding out in the fog here, and to maintain the integrity of the challenge run, we need to make sure the boys are not standing in this range once Mia and Mist have made their moves.

This could've gone better.

Mia gets an Adept proc and gets him down low enough for Mist to handle.

Not that she needed the help.

...Strength... and Speed... it'll do.

All right, so this is the amount of the field that is reachable by the enemy this turn. On the plus side, that archer to the north is not being blocked by the boys at all, so this range is absolute.

This is the formation I choose. Rather than spread out like last map, I elect to combine my men into taking up less space.

Lethe comes to assist Titania with the armours. This is probably the best move she could have made. I'm not sure where Lyre went.

Since this archer didn't go for her, she didn't melt at the first sign of trouble. That's a good sign.

I still don't get swinging a Hammer upwards.

Exemplary.

Mia draws the attention of the north armour.

Vantage means she gets to walk over, and Swordmasters walk faster than Generals. She doesn't pull enough out of her bag of tricks to kill the armour, though.

These two armours challenge Lethe to a game of helping her Strike rank.

This guy, despite clearly having access to Lethe's third side, challenges Titania instead. It does not go well for him.

There's a path of thickets up here, and this is where the bulk of the enemies Mia and Mist have to deal with will come from. Especially since there's very little stopping Titania from handling the east.

Fighting those generals has quietly given Lethe her S Rank Strike! There is no popup notification for it and the game is kinda confused on this matter too- technically speaking, it hasn't applied her S Rank Strike weapon yet. I don't actually realise this yet, so I don't screenshot her actual Claw on her inventory page. If you cross-reference with her stats earlier, you can notice that her Atk reflects being equipped with an 8 Might weapon- correct for A Rank Strike, but not for S Rank.

Titania deals with this guy cleanly.

And then stands here, to challenge this armour. There's a Torch hidden on the square to my south. Dealing with these guys is more important.

Now to figure out how to manage this chokepoint.

Well, Mia pulled out all the stops to deal with this threat, at least.

Tch. Mist can't finish off this guy.

I chip anyway.

The boys nudge their way closer to the combat. Reinforcements will appear in the starting position, so I need the boys to hide someplace else once I've found room.

Lethe attacks this guy, and if I had been more attentive, I would've caught on that something was fishy about her damage output. I think I assumed she got S Rank Strike before attacking this guy in particular. I had bigger problems, too.

This guy had choices about where he stood to harass me. This spot is the dumbest choice he could've made.

This is not a kill, annoyingly.

It's always the ~30s. Titania's not concerned.

...That is a rather lot of dudes.

A Longbowman challenges Mia. This guy is going to be hard to grapple with considering our ranged options are Mist.

At least he's not annoying.

That's him dealt with. Mist's swing here feels very casual.

I'd like her to take a few less hits, but oh well.

Well, I can't finish him off, but this guy jumped out of nowhere and mist Missed. Er, missed Mist.

5 TP, that's pretty close. I think, if she chooses to attack that armour, she reverts. Also worryingly, she can choose to attack that Thunder Sage up near Titania.

Hm... tempting.

Ultimately, I decide that, as dumb as this looks, Mist needs to do this. Mia needs to kill that Warrior before he becomes a problem for the men.

Wouldn't it be funny if she crit? That did happen on a failed attempt, but I passed up on that for this excellent level.

Also this one for Mia. That's everything a growing girl needs except Res. Res is important much later, but Mia always has time to make it up.

Titania finishes the armour to make sure they don't have any funny ideas about running to some kind of safety.

The Thunder Sages can't reach Lethe.

And there's a safe hidey-hole for all the men to stand in. I dropped Rolf north of Gatrie, and only realised too late this was possible Longbowman range. Luckily, there's a pillar preventing that from being reality.

...Oh, Lethe reverts before fighting the armour.

She uses the other Laguz Stone.

Frustratingly wasteful, but there's worse that she could've dealt with.

Titania kills the Crossbowman and Class Changes. It's time to see our first (homegrown) Tier 3 unit!

Titania isn't particularly affected, because of her design as a Greil Mercenary. She gets a Crest on her horse's flanks, like most promoted Paladins do, but I do not recognise the design.

(On further research, this appears to be the official crest of the Greil Mercenaries. The little symbol it has in the artbook here is the largest version of it I can find. Even the massive family tree, which does have the crests of the major countries, doesn't include the Greil Mercenaries'.)

Tier 2 -> 3 promotions have a formulaic set of stat gains: +2 to everything, +4 to HP and the non-dominant stats between Str/Def and Mag/Res, and if you're a girl, +1 to Str/Def just because. Men don't get +1 Mag/Res or anything, it's just unbalanced like that.

The Longbowman sets his sights on Mist and finds them equally obscured.

And Titania begins the hatchet throwing.

Hey, Counter saved me a Hand Axe use! That's nifty!

And this was around the point that I properly realised that Lethe wasn't using S Rank Strikes before. I wonder what caused this glitch (other than a non-blue unit getting a new weapon rank) and why it fixed itself.

Four reinforcements appear from a door up here. One of them spawns in a fogged tile.

Mist backs off and heals Mia, to prepare her for what lies within.

And Mia finishes off this archer before he annoys me.

The boys start making progress towards the corner to hide in, dropping off all their passengers at last.

Rolf... hesitates at this house. There's something important for me to show off, and because of... circumstances, I had to do a hodgepodge effort in this manner. I'll explain in greater detail once I actually do it.

Titania scouts up here for enemies.

Lyre has gained enough TP to transform without using an item, and runs up behind Mia to do so.

That's an excuse for these guys to waste her TP.

Mia got one Adept on this guy. Probably for the best.

And the starting position reinforcements!

Before I forget, here are the boss's stats. That dude has a Killer Lance, we've gotta be on our toes! I'm not sure how well Mia will handle him, and unfortunately it looks like boss duty is going to be in her hands.

Mia doesn't get anything on this guy.

...Bad time to notice she's starting a biorhythm downer. (You can also see that she has a Bond with Ilyana right now- that's an effect from Transfers, she doesn't have one naturally.)

Mist can finish off the armour.

Sure, get the crit on the second blow.

Titania takes out a ranged unit as she readies herself for these enemies.

This position allows her to bait both armours while being ready to go south and handle those reinforcements if the cats fail. Rolf and Ike stand in front of the house- for the purposes of the blog, visiting this house needs to be the last thing I do.

The cats are generally successful on their turn, and are also smart enough to go for the halberdier that brought a Short Spear. Unfortunately, the second this becomes an endurance contest, they lose.

Rommit has become our problem!

46.56% hit odds of having a 26% chance to murder Mia on the spot. And Mia's got a lot of bulk to chew through!

Not the worst outcome in the world.

At least Mia got an extra damage up.

And a higher damage stat.

And to add tension, Mia also has this guy poking at her. He's not likely to hit, but it would be ideal if he didn't.

Well, what did you expect Titania to do to these guys?

And there's a nice competent level to start off her promoted career.

This guy gives Lyre a challenge.

And some more reinforcements. Lethe and Lyre can't handle these. Their position also means that Lethe couldn't escape even if I ordered a retreat.

This is the TP situation. When you add the TP they're due to lose for starting Partner Phase... yeah, they're not surviving. Luckily, them dying while yellow does not make me lose them later.

All right, let's break out the Wo Dao, and-

Well... at least he's almost gone.

He did not deserve to go like this, but like hell am I allowing him more swings than necessary at Mia.

Well, I've gotta finish the rest of your army. Then we'll talk.

Rommit: When did sub-humans learn to wield swords? Impossible! I can’t believe my eyes.
Ike: You underestimate them.

They could if they wanted, but they don't really want to.

Rommit: A female sub-human? Oh… Those fools! They were tricked!
Lethe: I’m a soldier, beorc. Prepare to die.

Oh, Rommit is a sexist, too. Though I do suppose this is the only way he realises what happened to get to this point.

Lyre: This is no fun… Where’s Captain Ranulf? I don’t feel like fighting without him. Whoa, hey!
Rommit: Die, sub-human!
Lyre: AHHH! What are you doing, you crazy human!

I wonder... is this Lyre's first combat situation? She's fresh in the army with PoR and there's not much hostility in Gallia over the three years.

I changed my mind on the Titania situation: It'd be more helpful if she handled this side and Mia handled the reinforcements.

Lyre takes the axeman and loses her shape.

Lethe finishes him and keeps it.

Well, that was an alarmingly close Miss.

The Longbowman goes for the trinity and takes a shot at Titania.

Imagine having 0% hit odds against every blue unit on this map.

Lyre gets onerounded by the soldier.

Luckily, these two aren't worth BEXP alive, either, so this is nothing but some extra Strike.

And the swordmaster, rather than give the last of Lethe's TP a go, swings at Mist.

Good thing she dodged the archer!

I'll take it.

Mia takes out the archer.

And Mist hides and uses her Heal Staff.

This guy is a threat to Mist, I can deal with the other guy next turn.

Rolf and Ike have to step back to avoid interfering.

And Lethe loses shape. She's dead. I wasn't giving her the 3-use Stone to transform and handle this one guy. When I said "two and exactly two", I meant it.

Well that's nice.

Sorry about that, Lethe!

And Titania finishes up this guy.

Aw, we didn't see Sol naturally.

Mist heals her up, then.

Sol got buffed to triple damage, like many Masteries, and the healing from Sol is total. If Titania is proccing Sol, she's getting full health. Unless she's finishing an enemy with 1 health. That's an annoying clause.

This is technically our last action coming up, so Ike visits this house. Funnily enough, at no point in this map was a woman in place to visit this house naturally.

Ike is... concerned by this woman. Interesting how the visitor has a response.

And we received a Seraph Robe. So what's so special about this house?

<<

What if Rolf visits the house instead?

He talks back!

Well, not that we've seen. ...I probably shouldn't be talking about that.

This line... it's so innocuous, but...

Rolf calms her down nervously.

Yeah... this NPC is definitely a coward.

Rolf has a double-take and stares at this woman more thoughtfully for a few moments.

Rolf thought he recognised her. He decided he believed wrong, and departs.

Oh yeah, this is a mid-mission house, and I need an item.

Just casually lampshading the weirdness of village treasures. Or is it?

Rolf... refused?

I wonder if this lady knows why.

Visiting this house with one of the three brothers (Oscar, Boyd and Rolf) will deny you the Seraph Robe, but it will unlock a special Base conversation next chapter. It turns out that I have never given up the Seraph Robe on my European save data, and don't have that Base conversation unlocked in the "rewatch any Base conversation" library this game has this time around. If you're curious what Oscar and Boyd have to say to this woman, Serenes's records on Village conversations in this game are completely empty. 

In the course of checking the Extended script for nuggets, I came across the Japanese versions of both conversations. It turns out that this woman recognises Oscar and Boyd but not Rolf, and once she does so, the brothers decide to leave before she can so much as offer the Seraph Robe. I think I like the choice to make Rolf do the visit most, for reasons that'll become more obvious when we watch the base conversation.

Mia gets one last level up on the way out.

With everyone dead, we can lower the gate for the Gallians to finish the fight.

I like the implication that the time limit is not for the reinforcements from Begnion's side making our life difficult, but Skrimir getting too impatient and breaking position. I think we're supposed to believe it's the former, but this is still cute.

Ranulf thanks Ike the next day. This is important for one major reason.

For now, though, Ike demands that the praise for the victory in Mugill go to Soren.

So yeah, some friends of Ike's have shown up.

Muston! Muston? Weren't you in Daein?

Muston is here to do business with us. Ie: We get the Market back!

Ranulf was not informed Ike had agency in this decision.

Ike knew he needed extra weapons than what we packed. When he says "called some other friends", he's not kidding: in addition to Ilyana (who stays with the Merchants), Brom, Nephenee, Heather and Haar have been added to the roster. I assume the justification for this is that there's no good opportunity to give these characters back to the player later on, so they just got tacked on here.

Brom has some battle conversations to address later on, but he does not appear in any plot cutscenes or Info conversations in a meaningful capacity, so I invite you to pretend that rather than join this war party, Brom went back home and continued farming for his family. The only real reason I can see for him leaving Crimea is looking for Meg, and Brom knows she should be in Daein.

Ike went above and beyond for his buddy.

Fair's fair. Ranulf came to our aid when we needed it most. Now it's Ike's turn.

This would be so wholesome if it wasn't so dangerous.

106 EXP total for both kitties. Lethe ended very close to a level up, but still. That is a full turncount, though.

Next time: We get a simple battle to break in the newbies.