FE3 Book 1 Low Turns - Chapter 13: Battle of Aritia

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MoogleBoss

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Published on October 29, 2015 5:43:33 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3bwIZD4EQc

Game:

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (2002)

Duration: 8:38

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9

Completed in 4 turns (57 total).

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Quite an interesting map. Marth has 2 characters to hire, though there's a total of 3 recruitable units on the map. Out of Alan and Samson, only Samson can be recruited by Marth on turn 2, so Samson is the one whose village we end up visiting. He's better too - there are plenty of mounted units with great mobility outdoors (most of them fliers), while foregoing the training of Oguma left the party without a reliable foot unit for indoor maps, of which many await us after this map. Samson is far from perfect, with his base stats just being 'good enough', but he's better than base Astria, so we end up using both of them together. After being recruited by Marth, Samson rushes after the enemies in the vicinity to grab as much exp as he can get.

One problem we face here is Samson's village and Chainy, the unique chameleon character, forcing Marth to travel in opposite directions. Since the village won't chase after Marth on enemy phase but Chainy will carry out exactly that, I have Minerva open the door to Chainy and two really nasty heroes, allowing Chainy to move closer to where Marth is. What this accomplishes is that by turn 3 Chainy will be in such a place where he can cross the sea (a really unique ability for a non-flying unit) and recruit himself while talking to Marth who was previously warped unto the same island as the boss to seize on the following turn. Such a decision ends up saving plenty of turns.

The strategy is mostly reliable enough and would be even more reliable if I had a slightly bulkier Minerva (say, with two extra points of defence). On turn 1, Minerva will be attacked by two heroes and likely also all three dracoknights, which is a bit too much even for her physical durability. Boosting her resistance to withstand the thunder sword hero doesn't completely erase the problem, either. She has to dodge some of the attacks period (the dracos are less accurate, obviously, but heroes can occasionally whiff too, which lifts the burden immediately), and that's where a bunch of resets always come from.

Another reason to repeatedly reset is the fact that the boss packs a mean Killer Lance. It's only got 20 crit, but it's enough to make having anyone take a hit from him really dangerous as nothing in the army really withstands a 3HKO. Sheeda may have the highest luck in the party, but it's unwise to leave her in the boss's range for the turn 3 enemy phase counter because there's a general right next to the boss and he's almost equally bulky - no killing him and he's ready to kill Sheeda if the boss had failed to crit her. Minerva may have much lower luck, but can withstand a combination of the boss and the generic general attacking her in tandem, so she's the one I end up relying on. The resets springing from this situation were way too numerous in spite of 20-ish displayed crit being seemingly low.

Since the resets are already a bit too much, I had to play it safe for the other sub-strategies of this clear. After the door to Chainy is opened, Minerva retreats and heals herself immediately, keeping the heroes out of range of her and the rest of my units (most of whom are doubled and 2HKO'd by the silver sword hero). Abel can lure the tougher hero more safely, and the thunder sword one is easy tank with MBarrier and Pure Water when you've taken care of the other threats.

For the safety of everyone on the map, my fliers deliberately stay away from landing anywhere close to the boss's area. All the cavs and horsemen rush to the west where Samson is chasing some enemies, and we really don't want them to come back and threaten our fliers with arrows and chip damage, especially since fliers are the only ones who can damage the boss, and they need to co-operate to make it all work out. I have Paola block the general mook's way to Sheeda, letting the latter engage the boss in combat at full health on the final turn. Sheeda has to dismount and dish out the (hopefully) last blows with her Armourslayer, finishing Minerva's job earlier. As for Minerva, after taking the power ring, she has sufficient strength to dent the boss nicely even without an effective weapon, which says something knowing the boss's bulk. She can also finish the boss on the last turn if there has been too much whiffing on turns 3/4 as regarding the bosskilling. She can kill a horseman otherwise, if she gets a free turn with no important objectives to attend to.

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