Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Part 6: So many new people

In which Marth moves to the last holdout against the Dolhr aggression and we get a bunch of new recruits.




Chapter 4: Battle in the Lea

The introductory text states that Marth's group has grown large enough to be called an army. This is neat, but we only have 17 people right now... I question their definitions.

Moving down from the mountains, Marth reaches the relatively flat grassland between the mountains and Aurelis proper, and of course gets attacked by enemy destriers from the Grust/Dohlr/Gra alliance.

This is the first time we get to see the battle preparations screen. I spend some time exploring the options here. I get to pick 14 units to come along of our 17 total on this mission, so a few people will be benched. Wrys is right out, he had two level ups with no stat growth so Lena gets to be my healer forever as far as I'm concerned. Bord will stay behind, he's still only level 2 and that's going to get problematic as things go on (unless it was Cord? I'm getting their names mixed up already. I'm writing this after the fact...) And Jagen will stay behind as well, I don't need him soaking the experience for the people I want to keep around longer.

Oh neat, I can combine identical items to restore uses, so if I have an Iron Sword at 5 uses left, and an Iron Sword at 35, I could put them together and have just one Iron Sword with a full 40/40 uses. That's handy. Probably.

There's the option to re-class units. Hmm, that's interesting, and probably involved and complicated. I bet I could spend too much time trying to figure that out. In fact, I've actually looking into it a bit online, and while tempting, I think I'll mostly stick to the original unit types this game with the possible exception of Cain/Abel. I like both Cain and Abel, but it might be more interesting to change one of them to not a cavalier. On the other hand I like the idea of a pair of mounted knights charging into battle, so maybe I'll keep them too.

Hey, there's an armory in this screen where I can buy some basic items, so I don't have to rely on finding the shops on the maps for everything! Specifically it sells Heal staves so I can go wild healing people to level Lena and not worry about running out of healing at a critical time. Also in the armory is the option to forge? This is new to me. Hmm, it looks like I can spend money to increase an individual items statistics, like taking an Iron Sword and making it hit slightly harder than any other Iron Swords. Interesting as well. We'll see if I remember to use that at all...

I can look at the upcoming battle map too, and swap positions so that people are deployed in better ways (slow people up front! Cavalry in the back! Etc.!)

Ok let's get this started.

The enemy boss is Bentheon, and he starts the fight boasting about his Ridersbane and how it will make short work of mounted units. Alright Cain and Abel, you two stay away from the bad man.

I progress through the map pretty steadily, sending Cain, Abel, Caeda and Barst up north while the rest of the army moves west. There are a bunch of rivers on this map so I have to navigate by bridges except for Dorros and Caeda. Abel hits level 7 and gains HP, Skill and Speed, then Barst gets to level 4 and only gets HP. Boo Barst, boo. Caeda reaches level 5, and gains skill, speed and luck.

One of the enemy cavaliers in the west is a named unit named Matthis. I'm able to have Lena talk to him and learn that he is her brother.

She is shocked and hurt that he's on any battlefield much less this one, but he says he was forced to enlist or face a death sentence back home, where things have gotten worse and worse since their kingdom of Macedon joined with Dohrl. Matthis himself doesn't actually like warfare. Lena implores that if Matthis is going to fight he may as well fight for a cause like ours, and he agrees to join us.

That dashing hair!

(Good timing too, he takes out the last of the Macedon cavaliers we were fighting around him.) The conversation wraps up with Matthis wondering that Lena hasn't met her one true love and settled down yet, and she stammers that she doesn't know what he's talking about. He ends by pointing out there are "Plenty of thieves that would steal a girl's heart." Ironic, considering Lena showed up with the thief Julian to begin with.

Matthis can also talk to Marth.

Marth seems to scare a lot of people...

This is what, 3 people Marth has threatened when they try to talk to him?

Ok, maybe it's just Matthis' imagination...

A villager had explained earlier that the rapier is very useful against mounted or armored soldiers, and that only princes can use them. Matthis explains that the prince of Macedon is a tyrant who puts the most scared soldiers on the front lines on purpose, and threatened with his rapier a lot. But he's glad Marth is a nice prince, and he won't get the prince of Altea and the prince of Macedon confused again!

After we clear the cavaliers, Marth is able to visit a nearby town where he meets a green haired mage named Merric. Merric and Marth seem to know each other. Merric explains he has been studying magic in Khadein but when he heard about the war he came back to look for Marth. We get our first mage!

Green haired Mage! I always like green haired mages...

Merric quickly hits level 2 as I use him to eliminate some armored enemy knights with his magic (which they have very little defense against), gaining HP and speed.  Castor hits level 4and gains Strength and Skill.

I eliminate all the enemies except the boss, but there's an arena here. I know in the Gameboy Advance Games the arena is the only way to really grind experience for your units, since otherwise the battles are fixed with a certain number of enemies, so I'd like to try it especially for my low level people to catch up a bit. It's a bit tricky to get the hang of though. You go in and wager a certain amount of gold, and then fight a one on one battle with a random enemy (without losing weapon uses so that's nice at least). If you get killed in the arena you're dead in real life, so if you're about to lose hit the B button to back out of it. I'm not good at it and have to restart a few times (but I used a save point before starting so I don't have to do the whole map again at least). And it's hard, it looks like the more money the wager is for the harder the fight. And it's a set wager when you enter the arena. But I can cycle the wagers by cancelling out of the enter the arena screen, then going back in at least...

Anyway, it takes awhile and several resets, but eventually I get Lena to level 4 healing everyone, gaining Luck and Resistance, while Cord hits level 4 gaining only HP, Gordin gets to level 3 and gains HP, Skill and Defense, and Julius gets to level 4 gaining HP, Strength, Skill and Luck. Good job Julius.

After the fight a village elder thanks us for freeing their lands, and tells us that Captain Hardin and Lady Nyna are waiting for us in a fortress in the Northeast of Aurelis. He gives us a silver sword to take to Hardin.


Chapter 5: Champions of Aurelis

The introductory text explains that Aurelis is a kingdom comprised of all the plains in the Northeast of the continent. Aurelis is the only kingdom to have held out against Dolhr's assault, but only by some miracle. By the time Marth arrives, Dolhr's ally Macedon has cared up big chunks of the kingdom, and Aurelis is on its last stand. But Hardin, the king's younger brother, refuses to give up the fight, and is holding out for aid. The people call him the Coyote.

Fortunately for Hardin, Aurelis has been close since its founding with the nearby realm of Archanea, and Archanea has sent aid in the form of Princess Nyna, who has been rallying people against the invaders. Unfortunately she's running out of people to inspire when Marth finally arrives.

The battle begins with Hardin and Nyna conferring. Hardin has seen Marth and both are relieved the Alteans are here. Hardin will ride out to join us and work with us to retake the castle.

One of Hardin's people is named Wolf, a mounted archer unit, and Wolf has awesome purple hair. The others are Roshea and Vyland, a pair of cavaliers at levels 3 and 1 respectively, and Sedger, another mounted archer (called a Horseman).

That hair though!

This map gives me some trouble. Hardin's group starts off rather west of us and across a river. To cross that river, I have to go north across another river to reach a bridge. Meanwhile in the northeast are a group of enemy cavaliers and a named enemy mage (Wendell, I can recruit him with Marth). The first attempt goes well enough until I forget how far cavaliers move, and two of them run across the bridge behind my frontline units and kill Lena. Unacceptable. I restart, but this time even though I'm more careful at the bridge, I don't kill the eastern cavaliers fast enough, and one runs behind my eastern lines and kills Lena. Poor Lena.

My third attempt goes much better. Marth is able to talk to Wendell this time. Wendell introduces himself to Prince Marth as a pontifex of Kadein, the City of Magic (where Merric was studying I believe). The city was taken over by a different pontifex over the objections of Wendell and his allies who favored peace, and the city allied itself with Dohrl. Wendell wants our help to thwart the ambitions of that pontifex, Gharnef.

Everyone survives, and I even spend a few turns ambushing enemy reinforcements coming out of some fortresses up north in order to grind a few easy levels. However due to my frustration I forgot to record the various level-ups I got, but I remember Barst got a terrible no stat growth level. Come on Barst, do better. I also didn't take many screen shots. I'll try to do better about that in the future, but I would like some feedback on what type of screenshots are good. Just the dialogue? Level up screens? Shots of the battlefield at key moments? All or none of the above? (Thanks in advance!)

There's an armory where I am able to buy steel weapons for the first time, the second tier weapons above iron. They hit harder but are heavier, so it's harder to get a double attack with them.

After the battle, the Aurelis King (that's how he's titled in the dialogue) thanks Marth and says Princess Nyna is on her way to talk to us, but that there are still enemy soldiers inside the castle. That will be next chapter!

So after this chapter, I saw a note in the Chapter 6 that if I finish it with a total of 15 units of less in my entire army, I will get Chapter 6x. There are various optional chapters with the x designation in Fire Emblem games, known as Gaiden chapters. I don't think I can get this one though, unless I can take 15 units on the next map and get 10 of them killed off, since I have 25 people right now... So I may miss that chapter until I try a hard mode run or something like that.

I'm still undecided on the reclassing thing. Navarre for example is a really great myrmidon, he's super speedy, hard to hit and he often is able to do the double strike where he hits twice... but his strength is pretty bad, so he's hitting twice at 3 damage each time for 6 total when Barst hits once for 8 or 10. Maybe it's a good idea to have Navarre be a fighter like Barst of a cavalier for a level or two and try to increase his strength? The hard to hit thing is amazing, he survived 3 javelin attacks from enemy pegasus knights (I couldn't block them) when he only had 3 HP remaining, but to be useful he needs to deal damage too. Anyway, I'm debating, and I reserve the right to reverse any decision I make on this at any point. It's my game to play after all!

Anyway, next time, on to Castle Aurelis! And possibly killing half my army deliberately! But probably not that second part!