Chapter 5: Mother and Child
Well, not going to comment on the plot here so as not to spoil it for anyone that may be reading this and hasn't played FE5 before (though I'm not sure anyone is). I do, however, get Nanna back, and Eyvel is with her, and they are in an... interesting situation to start. This is a fairly standard bit without much deviation in how you can do it, so I'm going to just say 'everything worked out' here, as the only real way to get screwed over is if Nanna's staff happens to miss healing Eyvel (god damn you FE5... I forget, did FE4 do this too? It wasn't anywhere near as bad if it did).
Meanwhile with Leaf's group, we engage the first group of enemies and a mage curiously decides to capture Lifis instead of doing anything useful, and I return the favor and capture him back, 'lol'. We continue north around the ring and run into a group of 6 mages just as I pass the point that triggers the next story event, causing life to get a whole lot harder for Eyvel. Unfortunately, Nanna's staff DOES miss now, leaving Eyvel with 4 HP and unable to survive another hit, so I have to rush Lifis over to unlock the door to them after killing just two of the mages. The door unlocks, I get Nanna, and I'm left with two promoted enemies with killer weapons to fight as well as 4 mages (FE5!!!!). I cobble everyone into the best defensive stance I can manage, and Lifis manages to dodge a 42% killing blow from a mage and everyone lives another turn. Whew.
The combined hits of Asvel and Fergus take down one of the promoted enemies while everyone cleans up the mages. Lifis gets an amazing no stat level up because I guess dodging that attack robbed him of all his good RNs for the level. I trade both the Baldo and Hezul scrolls to Machua and have her take out the remaining promoted enemy, and she gets a good level up as a result of that.
Next up? A group of archers and a meteor wielding bishop. I'm feeling pretty good at this point as the hardest part of the level is definitely over, but I can't let my guard down yet because crap can still happen. I mob the archers, take out Bandol with Fergus and Asvel, open the door to outside with Lifis, give Karin the chest keys, and send her after that chest outside.
Asvel tanks the meteor shots and everyone moves in and cleans up the soldiers. Not hard. Next, last, and most annoyingly is a small 2 square corridor that you effectively can't go on the left side of because there's a Dark Bishop with 26 attack power that can hit you there, and a sniper with a silver bow waiting on the other side with two mages. Luckily proper positioning makes it possible to kite the mages up away from the sniper, letting you kill them and safely put Dalshin in range of the sniper to draw him out. A few seconds later and he bites it. I then have Asvel chug my pure water and send him to draw out the dark bishop and the regular bishop, who he can now survive against comfortably. Machua brave swords the dark bishop down, gaining another awesome level up, and Asvel and Fergus kill the regular bishop.
I claim the two chests they were guarding and have everyone escape for the win.
Yet again FE5 continues to defy my expectations and not horribly slaughter me, though it DID come close with the Lifis incident. I'm surprised at how well I'm doing, actually, which is in some ways relieving and some ways disappointing because I know when I DO actually get my ass handed to me, it's going to be a much harsher blow because of it <.<
--
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2664/7b7aaa038007832d461b28c.jpg