Bethany Plays: RD Chapter 3-12 Battle: Last roll of the dice

I'm not sure how clear it is in image form, but it is raining this map. This won't affect us mechanically like FE7.

DEAR ASHERA THAT IS A LOT OF GUYS

The Crimean Army has no commander, but the Holy Guards are led by Sigrun. Sigrun has no Authority stars, so there is no tangible difference, but it's neat that they listed the pair separately.

Here are Sigrun and Tanith, exactly as we left them last chapter. We're lucky they don't seem to move, Jill's the only one who can handle them.

Kieran does move, if we stand in his range. It's really easy to stay out of his range if you have trained him.

This guy and the man standing next to him have Physics.

Want. Yes, generic, the GMs have way too many. Want.

Also, there's some generic tier 1s stuffed in with the tier 2s. I'm not certain why, they just seem to be making things easier and/or making it harder for the Dawn Brigade to get valuable EXP.

Tauroneo starts on this wing and would desperately like to be literally anywhere else.

Jill takes over.

Meg weakens a kill for Laura-

...Mild spoilers, this entire mission is just me wishing I didn't put Adept on Meg.

Micaiah orders the yellow units to hide in the corner. I really cannot afford to lose any more EXP than I already am for killing Tier 1 units.

You have to use a Silver Lance to take out a Tier 1 unit are you-

You missed on a 96.75%.

"The sorties appear to be launched by a single horsewoman and armour knight, although vague reports of a dracoknight appear above the horizon."

Sanaki is inside that carriage, then, keeping out of it. (These tiles are considered "Horse" and "Carriage" in the terrain menu).

They actually sent someone. One less pegasus knight is OK with me.

Well, so much for that guy. (He doesn't actually go down, Meg can't naturally double him and thus only hits the twice).

...OK, this can stand, but I really need some Strength.

And, well, a lot of other things, apparently.

Yes, that thing in the middle is a ledge these guys can choose to climb up.

Fiona's Imbue doesn't even fully cover her.

At least these two seem to work as a Support pairing.

If my calculations are correct, this one Heal will ensure that Micaiah and Fiona tick over into enough Support points for A Support before endgame, considering how long this battle took. It'll be close.

...You know, when responding to that prompt, that response seems a little conceited.

Dangit, I forgot to prepare to try and get a Strength up, tunnel visioned in on the Support Conversations.

At least I've got two caps now.

A kill for Laura!

Jill, meanwhile, is making her mark count.

...That was supposed to be the last two uses of that Hand Axe.

Ah well. Melee combat will begin after the first enemy.

Some soldiers Fiona weakened have run away to consume this Vulnerary.

Generals are coming in to make Fiona's life terrible.

Look, it's Strength, just gimme gimme gimme!

Even when it's not a General, Fiona is one point shy.

At least the last Hand Axe was thrown at a guy.

This guy does not deal damage at all, but his position is comical.

With an archer below and a javelin man above, everyone else comes to attack me in melee!

...This pegasus knight decides to not do that. I don't really have the womanpower to do something about this.

The other pegasus comes for Jill, thankfully.

And that's enough EXP for Jill to reach her third tier!

The poor dragon really doesn't make it out well in the head department. How does the dragon even see? To make its life even worse, Jill has more armour.

Still not enough Speed to double Sigrun. She's good for everyone else, though, and we really need a third tier right about now.

And there's a few more people to finish off, too.

Someone else got the Vulnerary, while they're at it. Turn order in this map is weird.

And of course that Thunder mage didn't go a round. Especially not before Jill acted.

Now then, here's the Steel Poleaxe guy. It is looking exceedingly unlikely that Meg and Fiona will get to this guy.

Let's start by clearing some space.

Hahaha, that was totally necessary.

Resistance capped. Also Speed. This Micaiah is going to cap like nobody's business when it's her turn on the BEXP. (Although HP cap is beyond her.)

...Actually... given the distance to most her caps, I think she might wind up capping in the level 15 ballpark.

Laura broke a Light weakening someone for Meg.

Meg used it well.

Jill kills this guy and chooses not to move. I was considering sending her to the west, but down that path turned out to be way too much Jill usage. I probably should've sent her east for the Steel Poleaxe, though.

These guys continue running to the east. The priest, of course, stands on the edge of the formation.

Still no Strength, argh. This turn took me way too long to care at this point, it's a three stat level, it has HP and Luck, and the Defence is nice too.

Tier 1 Armours, giving Meg like 15 EXP a head. Not to sound offensive, but I need this EXP badly, guys. Lore wise, why are Begnion and Crimea throwing the unpromoteds at us?

Time for Jill to face this. I think it hit.

Not like she's that worried about it, after oneshotting the wielder.

The pegasus attacked the priest. He didn't die, but Physic won't save him for the next go.

...Jill can no longer stand in the Steel Poleaxeman's range, since he has moved. This is why I probably ought to have moved Jill last turn.

Meg weakens this guy for Fiona.

...Come on, Fiona, we really need all hands on deck...

Pulled through!

...And that is some BEXP I can hand out. I think I'll be fixing Fiona's Strength for next time.

And Micaiah heals Fiona's counterattack damage. Hoping for the best...

Laura heals up Meg's damage.

Jill decides to take out this guy in particular.

Neener-neener.

That 20 HP is going to save you, I'm sure.

...Ah shoot I forgot to trade off Meg's Wind Edge.

That's...

A lot of Wind Edge. Please don't adept this guy, I need you to stop killing so we have more time to give EXP out.

Meg isn't that set for BEXP, but I guess...

Finally, she stopped getting encounters.

And Fiona one-rounds a tier 1.

Jill gets some EXP too. Yes, her Luck increased despite having her Luck capped in Tier 2. Dragonlords are one of three Tier 3 classes that have a Luck cap increase over Tier 2- the other two are Trueblades and Silver Knights. Funnily enough, only the women in all three cases.

Fiona gets more Strength.

This one guy is having a really bad day.

Jill gets her SS Axes. She can also get S Lances, but considering she hasn't touched a lance since B Rank, I don't see that being a thing. I mean, we only have three Axe users.

The priest really wanted to contribute.

One HP off a oneshot...

And two level ups for her efforts. This one is a lot better than the last one.

I do not canonise this, but on this last turn, I throw a Short Axe at Sigrun to show off her boss dialogue.

Sigrun, as it turns out, knows Shiharam.

I don't think this question gets answered. I assume Sigrun was told Jill's physical description.

Haar and Sigrun are acquainted, you see.

This is a cool detail that I didn't remember got filled in. We saw Haar mention he had a contact in the pegasus knights, but the fact it was Sigrun did not come up. Although that does bring a new dimension to the fact Tanith landed the final blow on Shiharam in this version of the story...

Jill is not proud of what is about to happen.

Sigrun has hopes.

Jill chooses her country over her morals. As much as it rankles every fiber of her being.

This really doesn't make it sound good.

I know I've been talking about how scary Sigrun and Tanith are to the Dawn Brigade as mobile units, but this really shows off how... bad Sigrun is in other contexts.

What Jill actually does with her turn is snag this spare weapon.

It's the last turn- I'm down to two kills left. I tried giving one to Fiona and got 99 EXPed. Ah well, BEXP is probably for the best on that next level up.

Micaiah scores the final kill and also fails to level up.

I'm not entirely convinced on how the battle we just participated in led to this situation. I think we're just meant to pretend the battle was non-canon and Micaiah went straight from the opening position to this.

It's time for Micaiah's secret plan.

And not a moment too soon. Your sacrifice will be remembered, General Maiel.

"Not you, Leonardo." Although with Lughnasadh, I think he might still do some damage if he was lucky enough to hit.

It's a little tricky to see, especially without motion, but the Daeins are pouring something down this cliff.

WHAT THE HELL MICAIAH?

(Also, can someone confirm/deny the efficacy of an oil trap in rain?)

Sigrun is on "get the Apostle the hell out of dodge" mode. There's a screen flash as Sigrun changes to her "holding Sanaki" model.

And Tanith calls for meatshielding. I did call the Holy Guard that in PoR, I guess...

It's admirable, but I'm not really entirely fond of imagining you three immolated.

Tanith is not listening.

...What Wind mages?

Tibarn just swoops across the screen here.

Well then. Bet you weren't expecting to see the return of this side of Tibarn. Quite honestly, PoR Tibarn pre-Ike wouldn't bother with the warning.

Sothe is more worried about Tibarn being here than his imminent death. Which, to be fair, is probably a realistic concern in this case.

Micaiah stops her plan immediately to spare Sothe.

And there's Ike. Also three Phoenicians, only one of which is Janaff. Where's Ulki?

よーし、よし。
大将の言いつけ守って
ぴくりとも動くんじゃねえぞ？
おれの【千里眼】が
どんな小さな動きも見逃さないぜ。

Turns out that having Janaff here is an excellent means of enforcing a "nobody move" order. Nothing gets past his Insight.

Ike prepares to talk to a child. Honestly, he treats Mist and Rolf with more respect than this.

Er, bad phrasing.

Ike reiterates the core of Daein's dilemma. They knew, going into this, that a fight with Ike as the opponent is a fight that ends in them dying a horrible death.

And yet at the same time, not fighting also leads to a horrible death to non-combatants as well as the people who volunteered.

Ranulf really hammers home the rhetoric here. It turns out repeating the same argument doesn't result in better results.

Ike:
皇帝軍の敵は元老院だ。
デイン軍がこのまま兵を退き、
戦から手を引くと約束するなら……
見逃してやってもいいぞ？

Ranulf:
おい、アイク！
そこまで譲歩してやる
必要は……

Micaiah:
私たちは退きません。
どんなことがあろうと、
あなたたちの前に
立ちふさがり続けます。

...Honestly, I get the impression that Ike's surrender order is more than Ranulf was expecting or hoping for. Not that Micaiah does a lot of not-explaining.

Sanaki calls for the argument to come to a halt.

That's all she says, but coming from her, that's enough to get Ike out of this with Micaiah's life intact.

The laguz, on the other hand... there won't be a next time if Micaiah has to fight laguz.

The whole "fear of Lekain's wrath" thing really struggles to sell itself to the entire readerbase here, because you'd think at some point, Micaiah would at least cryptically allude to the fact that the Senate has their fat fingers in this pig. Then again, I suppose that's obvious.

Tibarn gives Micaiah a quick lesson in how serious the Apostle's Army are in battering down the Daeins.

Don't worry, we didn't just lose a playable character after that much time with him. (Also, this is where Ulki was hiding.)

Micaiah just got quite the reality shock this time.

Tibarn doesn't mean this literally. Next time, Sanaki isn't going to swoop in and save them.

Tibarn:
ったく、面倒だな。
おい！
Micaiah:
いやああぁ！
サザーーーーーッ！
……ぁ…

Tibarn:
撤退だ！

This element of Tibarn's hostage negotiating skills appears to be a localisation invention.

Ike is worried about Micaiah's sanity. Honestly, after that Sothe drop, I'd be worried about some other aspects of Micaiah's mental health.

Tauroneo, do you seriously have nothing less helpful to offer than that?

Tauroneo doesn't really feel great about the whole "fighting Gawain's son" deal. Take solace in the fact that we're probably not going to get far enough to kill him.

Ike is baffled as hell.

This is actually an enemy cutaway. Technically.

Ike is taking a Soren report.

I don't like the word 'obliterated'. I hope that we haven't just used up a large percentage of our army at once on one tactic.

...It is worth noting that we never actually see generic Crimeans or Begnions fight for Ike again. (But Kieran is somehow still alive.)

There was no animation for igniting the oil, but this alone is probably doing some serious damage.

隊長以下数名の騎が無事です。
生き残りはしたものの、
油によって翼をだめにした天馬も多く……
……最後に火矢を
浴びせられなかっただけでも
いくらかましというところですね。

Soren confirms the lack of oil ignition. He implies that the Daeins were planning on introducing fire by fire arrow, which explains how Tibarn's trick saved them from that.

"Awful" is putting it lightly.

Skrimir is ready to go for the gut. Which, I mean, kinda fair.

...

I think it's a little late for that.

Lekain is not expecting Daein to come out of this alive.

Sanaki is concerned about what Micaiah is up to. Such a cruel tactic as oil and fire usually requires active malice to go for, and Daein doesn't have that. There's a blank spot that Sanaki isn't aware of, and she really wants to find that hole.