FE8 - No Mounts Low Turn Counts Run: Chapter 14 - Queen of White Dunes

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MoogleBoss

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Published on October 26, 2013 1:33:13 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu8eXWdYXlY

Game:

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (2004)

Duration: 16:14

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15

Chapter 14 is completed in 7 turns (83 total).

QoWD, also a tough map to do infrastructure-wise. Navigating the map is difficult with the doors and openings that are often blocked by enemy units (who are nothing spectacular in terms of offence and durability, but just strong enough to OHKO / 2HKO Tethys), and rescuedrop chains involving Tethys are the key to achieving a lower turn count.

Counting squares and theorycrafting, I quickly saw that an 8-turn clear is rather easy to achieve, but I wanted to see if any more turns can be shaved off. A 7-turn was a result of a good amount of planning and work.

This being an infantry only run, moving Tethys around turned out to be a lot more complicated without the innate Canto re-move. With Canto, Tethys can always end the turn on the ground since she can be picked up from behind and thrusted into the frontlines. In this case, Tethys always ends up lagging behind the units she dances, so she has to spend some turns being carried by somebody (in FE Thracia 776, you have the mechanic of giving a unit to somebody the same turn you lift them up, and I kinda miss not having that in this challenge). I believe she spends just two turns being carried.

The main idea is rather simple. I rely on Ross to function as my entire frontline, giving him the first dance from the start and having him drop Eirika just behind him, where she can recruit Rennac next turn. Rennac takes 10K to be recruited since it's not L'Arachel doing this, but frankly speaking, deploying L'Arachel would make it harder to keep the party moving at the same pace, and I don't really need the money anyway - there's no chance I can visit the secret shop in this chapter, and there's little point to do it when I don't have any fliers to promote.

Rennac starts the chapter in an interesting position as it allows him to technically be the unit capable of moving further than anyone thanks to where he is recruited. However, all 4 enemies in the immediate room would have 2-range against him, which he cannot counter, and his durability, while higher than Colm's, does not really permit him to take a hit from the knight and continue moving forward. I have Rennac fill in a support role instead, opening the Hammerne staff so that Moulder and Artur can get the Barrier staff repaired and continue spamming it while the frontline continues moving, and then he operates as my rescuebot, delivering Tethys and Eirika to Ross.

Some help is needed to prevent the enemies blocking the way from doing so. Garcia and Dozla smash a wall and bait a Sniper. They cannot quite double him (Garcia misses one point of AS) so Dozla needs to crit him on one of his attacks. Then there will be an armour blocking the way, whom Dozla will have to crit, doubling. Oh, and Dozla needs to crit the very first AK we engage when we open the door to the first room. Berserker utility huh? Dozla turns out to be quite useful.

Meanwhile, Gerik continues his training unpromoted by baiting a bunch of Mages to attack him at 1-range, whom he OHKOs. Saleh follows him for an opportunity to spam staves a bit, later opening two chests containing some not too important stuff (who needs shopping at this point?). Gilliam hangs back around the starting point and gets some experience + a Guiding Ring that I don't really need unless I decide I want to have both Knoll and Moulder promoted (Summoner Knoll could turn out to be useful with all those flying Phantoms).

The bosskill is actually not that hard here. Ross has a decent enough hit and around 25 crit against the boss (whom nobody can double on this run) with the Swordreaver we get at the start of this map, and he even gets a great level-up afterwards.

Artur needs to use Barrier twice to hit A staves in the next chapter. How will the desert go? I'm about to promote the rest of my unpromoted units.

Challenge playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c26lYu02EA8IaBJcmStZg47

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