Chapter 27.

This map, despite looking complex due to the use of 3-10 range spell tomes by the opponent and a race towards the chests, is more or less a calm before the storm, especially considering how many broken units we have at our disposal right now. The only real issue is the awful movement speed due to the snowy weather.

On turn 4 Louise gets a very, very close call, dropping to 1 HP. Next turn, the weather clears up. setting me up to intercept enemy thieves.

On turn 9 I get a scare, because the boss can dish out INSANE damage with a siege tome. I think for a short moment about which unit is the best suited for this, and the end result is Pent taking all five hits of the tome to break it and let other units to come in.

On turn 10, the snow comes again, and Harken shows up as an enemy unit, whom I quickly manage to recruit. He has a Brave Sword, and a really fucking insane statline. At this point I am ready to ignore half of the enemies on this map – the only issue left is wasting all the Purge uses that the boss has, and to not forget to pilfer the chests. All signs seems to show that the unit best suited for this is Pent, with his high resistance, solid avoid and weapon triangle advantage. To kill the boss though, I will have to move in with my physical units, because the boss's resistance stat is too fucking high for even Pent to damage him. What's even worse, is that this boss has a motherfucking crit chance, so I have to slooooooowly bring Ninian to the fray to set up Ninis' Grace for safety. Sain with the +10 Res buff is able to break through, and after mostly non-exciting 24 turns, I move Hector to seize the throne.

As for the statboosters available on this map, I feed Speedwings to Sain, and Talisman to Hector.

Current army: Hector (lv20), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv4 pr.), Priscilla (lv3 pr.), Sain (lv13 pr.), Raven (lv7 pr.), Ninian (lv16), Isadora (lv2 pr.), Rath (lv1 pr.), Hawkeye (lv7 pr.), Pent (lv7 pr.), Louise (lv4 pr.), Harken (lv7 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath, Farina, Fiora.

Missed: Wallace

Chapter 28

The infamous Battle Before Dawn. The goal is to reach Zephiel as fast as humanly possible, and not let him die. With some (read: a lot) of luck, there is a possiblity to recruit both Nino and Jaffar. But honestly? It is not worth risking the entire run to this. Furthermore, there is a way more important secondary objective – Boots. A stat boosting item granting +2 to the movement stat.

The army lineup I choose to go for this chapter is as follows: Hector, Matthew, Priscilla, Sain, Raven, Ninian, Hawkeye, Pent, Harken, and Oswin.

I immediately make my way through the left side of the map, taking into account the problem called Maxim, the secondary boss of the chapter who has jacked up stats to hell. Beating his ass took me one turn longer longer than it should though.

I manage to intercept the thieves without issue though, and I do obtain both a Brave Lance and the ever so broken Boots. I send Seth to extract Zephiel, then I give him to Oswin to have someone who can safely carry him before Ursula will start smacking him with Bolting.

On turn 9 Raven sadly fails to dodge twice and dies during the enemy phase.

I “fail” to rescue Nino. The word “fail” is in quotations for one simple reason – I didn't even fucking try. This locks me out of getting Jaffar, but who cares.

Around turn 12 I am in a proper place to just escape to the entrance with Zephiel held in arms. Yes, this does mean I give up on a few items – a Rescue staff, Delphi Shield and Earth Seal, but at least I won't fucking game over.

At the end Jaffar is left intact, so I assume he is alive, just on the run from... well, everyone, provided he handled the death of Nino fine.

Current army: Hector (lv20), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv4 pr.), Priscilla (lv4 pr.), Sain (lv13 pr.), Ninian (lv17), Isadora (lv2 pr.), Rath (lv1 pr.), Hawkeye (lv8 pr.), Pent (lv8 pr.), Louise (lv4 pr.), Harken (lv9 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath, Farina, Fiora, Raven, Nino

Missed: Wallace, Jaffar.

Chapter 29

After the infamously inconsistent chapter, it is time for a different kind of hell now. Ton of siege tomes, sleep staves, and silence staves are here to wreck my army. And it is a rout chapter to boot, so no janky “skip to boss” thing is available. I will have to grind my way through... and do so slowly to not get overwhelmed by statuses. It will be hell.

And hell it is, as evidenced by me losing Harken to the magical onslaught merely on turn 3. I “love” siege tomes. This is the moment where I realize that this may become the very end of this run. I go a bit YOLO to eliminate the threats as well as I humanly can, even exposing Hector – since any further death can be very much fatal the entire run. However, there were very little options for me to rescue myself from this, and ultimately, Hector dies to a powerful Bolting hit from a distant enemy Sage...

There is little to say here now. I didn't think to stock up on pure waters on the one chapter where I could safely do so – and this sealed the fate of my army. Even if Hector lived, I would need way too much luck to not have at the very least half of my army slaughtered.

The Fatal End

I tried my hardest to go through this mess of a run with way too little experience to handle it properly, but it was certainly fun... and I will certainly try again in the near future to go through this, with the experience I've gotten from this run. But for now, I think I will go for something calmer – like FE6 Normal mode Ironman challenge, or FE8 Difficult? Maybe I will also livepost my attempt now on the microblogging side of the Fediverse... probably not, but still.

#PlayReport #FE7Ironman

Chapter 17

The first thing we see is Merlinus joining our band, providing us with a convoy capabilities. Sadly we can't just buy some iron weapons from him for us to just get by for now.

Step one of the master plan – figure out who can we even bring to fight. By this I don't exactly mean who can survive – I mean more something like who can I give enough weapons to even get by. I would love to use Kent now for example – but I just can't give him enough items to make it work.

Ultimately, I decide on this lineup: Hector, Oswin, Matthew, Priscilla, Sain, Lyn and Wil. If I had more weapons, I would bench Lyn for safety, yet here we are.

Hector, Sain and Matthew will spearhead the assault, Oswin will guard the rear, and the other two... well, they will do something, I guess?

I try to move out quickly to secure at least some of the good items and not let the two recruitable characters to die. I manage to handle things just enough to get the bottom two chests, containing Unlock staff and a Hero Crest. Sadly, I do screw up things a bit and lose Wil by letting him fight a tiny teensy bit too much on the enemy phase. Apparently he wasn't that good at dodging.

The top chests sadly got pilfered, so I won't be able to promote Oswin just yet, and losing a silver sword does suck ass. I also fuck up a yet another side objective – that is keeping at least one green soldier alive – which locks me off a gaiden chapter. I get to properly recruit Raven and Lucius though, so it isn't THAT big of a deal.

After a certain point, I have to send Oswin back to the entrance, to hold off Cavaliers and Nomads. They all dealt no damage to him, which gave me the opportunity to do a bit of a degenerate grinding strategy, by letting the enemy Nomads to simply break their weapons on Oswin. Afterwards, I stepped in with Raven to mop up the remaining enemies and safely feed him some XP. In the meantime, I set up Sain to dodge tank the javelin hits from the boss, to provide him with some extra XP for free.

Due to this strategies

Current army: Hector (lv13), Matthew (lv17), Oswin (lv17), Priscilla (lv6), Lyn (lv6), Florina (lv8), Kent (lv6), Sain (lv4 pr.), Raven (lv7), Lucius (lv4)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil

Chapter 18

Time for a battle on top of a ship. Primary objective: Survive.

Secondary objectives: Steal Elysian Whip and buy a truckload of weapons, mostly iron ones. I am really struggling to properly equip my army after all, and thankfully there is a very accessible armory here, so...

Teritiary objective: Steal Guiding Ring from the boss of this chapter. I am not sure if it is even possible for me to do so considering the current state of my army and shitton of reinforcements to care about, but if I'll manage to do so, I will happily take it – then use it on Priscilla later on, since she definitely needs the extra stats, and some ability to defend herself will also aid her utility.

I bring Hector, Oswin, Matthew, Priscilla, Sain, Florina, Raven and L

To set up some funds in a proper way, I sell the Unlock staff, as well as Eliwood's still unused Rapier, netting me extra 3750 gold to spend on cheap weapons.

I begin the map, set up a decent formation, then the Pegasus Knight holding the Elysian Whip crashes on Raven for some reason instead of attacking weaponless Oswin. Fucking hell.

I manage to survive the onslaught for the mandated 11 turns, killing most of the enemies with my strongest units.

Current army: Hector (lv14), Matthew (lv18), Oswin (lv17), Priscilla (lv7), Florina (lv9), Sain (lv5 pr.), Raven (lv7), Lucius (lv5)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil

Chapter 19

Finally something that looks a bit calmer. From the get go, we get Dartz, a Pirate, and we can also recruit Fiora here.

Generally there isn't much to talk about this map, except for the fact that it is a fog of war map, and the boss is a pretty darn tough bastard.

Speaking of the boss, I hoped to weaken him with Florina. End result? She got doubled and died. Fuck. One of my favourite characters dead due to me being an utter fucking idiot.

Still the map has been completed within 15 turns, which allows me to go onto a gaiden chapter. Now, the question is, whether or not do I want to go there. I check what do I have to gain from this, and I decide to not accept the side quest. Silver card sure is powerful, but I do still need to manage my weapon count nothenless.

Current army: Hector (lv14), Matthew (lv19), Oswin (lv18), Priscilla (lv7), Sain (lv6 pr.), Raven (lv9), Lucius (lv5), Dart (lv9)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina

Chapter 20

Oh god oh no I have to bring Eliwood and Lyn aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Eliwood is currently completely and utterly useless. The plan is to hide him in some kind of a safe space, then work my way through while hopefully not losing the Guiding Ring on this chapter... yeah, right, I have no clue how do I get to it in any reasonable time. Granted, the goal is to recruit Legault here, but intercepting him in time will be a massive undertaking. I prepare Raven to promote in this chapter, hopefully he will get one more level under his belt and gain the power to use Axes.

I move Eliwood back for safety, and assault the entrance corridor with Sain. Sadly, I am forced to move back before I will get wrecked, meaning that getting Legault is pretty much not possible. During the tactical retreat, I lose Lucius in a stupid way.

Counting in reinforcements, the amount of enemies is absolutely staggering. I manage to promote Raven at level 10 during the fight, getting me a new solid frontliner.

I manage to get a blue gem and brave bow from chests, with rest of the items failling victim to enemy thieves.

Around turn 18 I manage to finally approach the actual boss of the chapter. I defeat him in two turns with Sain.

Current army: Hector (lv16), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv19), Priscilla (lv8), Sain (lv8 pr.), Raven (lv1 pr.), Dart (lv9), Fiora (lv7)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius

Chapter 21

Another fog of war map. Yay. There is an arena here, which is an interesting sight to be honest. A high risk, high reward gambling machine. With some effort I will be able to level up most of my army to obscene levels, which is amazing.

I also finally get Ninian the Dancer, who gets the stats of Nils from Lyn mode.

After getting rid of reinforcements and any other enemy that could threaten my arena abuse masterplan, I get to working. I am using the fact that there is a glitch where Ninis's Grace buff does not wear off when the unit is rescued, so I can just keep on going into the arena with the obscene +10 to both Str and Res. I also go for wagers below 750 gold, so that the enemies will be weaker – ergo, safe enough for ironman setting.

Since I've had to field him, I bring Eliwood to level 10 so he won't be a total liability for chapters such as this one. He's still crappy, but at least he will be able to be promoted to a mounted unit later in the game – and the promotion bonuses he gets are pretty darn solid all things considered. I also level up Fiora to level 12 and promote her with the Elysian Whip available in this chapter, to get a solid enough flying unit after I lost Florina 😢. Fiora also has really good resistance stat, which will be extremely important against magic units. All the dancing and healing also provided Priscilla and Ninian with a decent chunk of XP.

You may ask why not go all the way through up to level 20 here. And the answer is simple – too much time and too much risk. Arena abuse is tedious, and most of my non-benched units don't really need that extra exp much – and the higher you go, the more you risk fighting against enemies with silver weapons, while you are forced to roll with just iron ones. And as for money, I will get more on the way through.

After this, I get a close call with Sain because I forget that the boss of this chapter has a motherfucking Killer Axe. Merry Critmas. I manage to setup a steal of a Hero Crest in response, and finish the boss with Raven.

Current army: Hector (lv16), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv20), Priscilla (lv12), Sain (lv9 pr.), Raven (lv3 pr.), Ninian (lv12), Fiora (lv1 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood (yes, he is still very benchable), Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius

Chapter 22

After lots of plot development, we are thrown right into a yet another defense chapter. This time, we have three recruitable units available to us. Isadora, a Paladin, joins us from the start, which means we have a yet another strong unit to use – even if not as overpowered as Sain. There is also Rath, the Nomad from the Lyn mode, that I forgot whether I can promote yet or not, and Heath, an enemy Wyvern Rider, who is another solid unit thanks to the hard mode bonuses.

I can also get a Knight Crest, which means I will finally have a chance to promote Oswin into a General... provided I won't fuck up anything on the way. I will also have to try and reach the chest with Brave Axe in time... tho knowing life, it is a hard ask. Isadora comes in with an Angelic Robe, which I immediately use on Hector.

After a short while, Heath comes in range of Hector's Talk command, and so I recruit him. Next turn, Heath is dead. This is the moment where I realized that I am an utter idiot to not stock up on Pure Waters. Still, I at least manage to bring Rath home, and I find an opening for Sain to bumrush the boss of this chapter to rob him off the very important Knight Crest, while the rest of the army went into a turtle formation.

On turn 7 I manage to both intercept the enemy Thief, netting me the Brave Axe, and to kill the boss, getting the promotion item and and finishing the chapter early. That felt gooooooood.

Current army: Hector (lv16), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv20), Priscilla (lv13), Sain (lv11 pr.), Raven (lv3 pr.), Ninian (lv12), Fiora (lv1 pr.), Isadora (lv1 pr.), Rath (lv8)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath.

Chapter 23

It is time for a desert chapter. Or in other words... pain. Most of your army will walk extremely slow, with only mages and fliers being more or less unaffected, and cavalry units are slowed times four instead of just times 2 that you would expect from most units. Not only that but as soon as one starts this map on Hector Hard Mode, fog of war comes in. And we have to rout every enemy while also attempting to find some hidden items and hopefully steal a valuable Guiding Ring to finally promote Priscilla. The only saving grace is that there is only 8 turns of reinforcements to deal with.

Other than routing the enemy, we also “need” to protect Pent... but the thing is that he is insanely powerful by himself, and as such we don't really have to be scared about him. We also can recruit Hawkeye here, who is a Berserker.

Bosses on this map are somewhat scary – Killer Axe can oneshot most of my units with a crit.

As for the Guiding Ring... well, Pent murdered that guy who had the ring. Yay. Another Guiding Ring missed.

At the end of this chapter we get Afa's Drops, which can increase the growth rates of one unit. I use them on Raven.

Current army: Hector (lv17), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv1 pr.), Priscilla (lv13), Sain (lv11 pr.), Raven (lv4 pr.), Ninian (lv13), Fiora (lv1 pr.), Isadora (lv1 pr.), Rath (lv8), Hawkeye (lv5 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath.

Chapter 24

Can we fucking stop with the fucking fog of war already????

Anyway, we can recruit Wallace here. I don't think I exactly want to, especially considering I have a beefy Oswin available to me, but I guess I can. The more important thing though is a village with an Earth Seal to save – a promotion item that works for nearly any single class... including Troubadour, and Priscilla REALLY needs to get promoted ASAP.

There is an Arena on this chapter, which can allow me to boost Rath to respectable levels and promote him, but I am not entirely sure that this is worth the effort. He is a little bit too behind, and soon I will get Louise as an bow user – and she has some pretty solid stats and can also use Brave Bow.

On the first turn, I rush to the Earth Seal village with Sain, to prevent reinforcement brigands from wrecking it. I also manage to buy some steel weapons and a couple of Swordreavers for future use.

On turn 3, I move Oswin too far forward, which activates Lloyd too early, putting me on a very tight clock for reaching the village. As soon as I will kill Lloyd, the map will be over, and the Earth Seal will be gone.

Lloyd is a problematic boss. He has a magic sword, which means that he is targetting Resistance, and he has a high crit rate, so my units are at a severe risk of dying. Granted, at a two range, there is no chance of crit, but that doesn't mean he isn't dishing a truckload of damage and doubling most of my army nothenless. I have to play risky and eventually I deal the last hit with Matthew. It was pretty darn stressful.

As for Wallace, noone recruited him, but he didn't die, so he doesn't count as a death I think? I'll mark him as missed I guess.

Current army: Hector (lv17), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv1 pr.), Priscilla (lv14), Sain (lv11 pr.), Raven (lv4 pr.), Ninian (lv14), Fiora (lv1 pr.), Isadora (lv2 pr.), Rath (lv8), Hawkeye (lv5 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath.

Missed: Wallace

Chapter 25

A seize chapter... except we are to seize three forts. FE4 anyone?

During battle preparations, I immediately use an Earth Seal on Priscilla, because as I've said multiple times, she needed that for quite a while already.

I can recruit Farina here for a small sum of TWENTY THOUSAND GOLD. I guess she is a yet another flyer, and she can promote from the get go... provided I will get that Elysian Whip from this village, which does not seem like an easy task on this layout to be completely honest. My best option seems to be intercepting pirate reinforcements with Fiora it seems, and this works far more briliantly than I thought it would.

By turn 5, I have already seized one of the castles and obtained an Elysian Whip for future use. On this turn, Farina has spawned, and then I've realized I don't have enough money to recruit her. Happens.

I am advancing really, really smoothly too. There is little standing in my way that can survive my attacks, or even damage my units in the first place. That is, until I get into the aggro range of the boss, who dishes huge damage and will be really hard to fell, forcing me to fall back for a moment. With combined efforts of Hector, Oswin and Hawkeye, he dies on turn 8, leaving nothing much other than weak generic enemies.

Farina eventually dies trying to navigate to Hector, which is mildly unfortunate. For her, not for me, she did kill a few enemies on the way and I didn't have money to hire her anyway.

Fiora is able to singlehandedly destroy a huge regiment of monks on the right side of the map, making handling this way easier than it should be.

Eventually I get past all the enemies and capture second fort, and then the third one falls soon after.

Current army: Hector (lv19), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv2 pr.), Priscilla (lv1 pr.), Sain (lv12 pr.), Raven (lv6 pr.), Ninian (lv14), Fiora (lv3 pr.), Isadora (lv2 pr.), Rath (lv10), Hawkeye (lv6 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath, Farina

Missed: Wallace

Chapter 26

Time for a very scary chapter – I am forced to field both Eliwood and Lyn, and they are both very much out of position. Furthermore, my army is split into three regiments. On a more positive note, I get to use Pent and Louise now, who are both really fucking good. The village here has a Hammerne staff, but I don't think it is exactly feasible for me to go for it.

During battle prep, I promote Rath to give him a little bit extra power and utility

The turn one plan is simple – promote Eliwood ASAP, then get Lyn to safety using Fiora.

I have made an attempt to use fiora to get Eliwood to safety... but the end result was Fiora dying to a nomad. Didn't check the ranges correctly, and the end result was fatal. This is pretty darn painful, cause lack of a flying unit hurts a whole fucking lot.

At turn 8, I am getting overwhelmed due to being spread so thin. It is really hard to defend against so many flying units. Rath gets close to dying, but thankfully Pent comes with a Physic Staff, allowing me to heal him. Ultimately, I manage to survive for all these 11 turns without any further casualities.

Current army: Hector (lv20), Matthew (lv20), Oswin (lv3 pr.), Priscilla (lv2 pr.), Sain (lv12 pr.), Raven (lv6 pr.), Ninian (lv15), Isadora (lv2 pr.), Rath (lv1 pr.), Hawkeye (lv6 pr.), Pent (lv7 pr.), Louise (lv4 pr.)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy, Rebecca, Kent, Lyn, Dart

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Heath, Farina, Fiora.

Missed: Wallace

This is as good time as any to finish this blogpost. We are nearing the endgame, and I am excited to see if I will prevail against the remaining few chapters... Including the infamous Battle Before Dawn.

#PlayReport #FE7Ironman

Chapter 9.

In this chapter we obtain Wallace – an Armor Knight, who is instantly ready for promotion. In Lyn normal mode, you are forced to promote this guy. In my playthrough, since the master plan to obtain a busted Paladin failed, I am kinda forced to promote this guy, since I can't transfer the Hero's Crest into the Hector mode. Pain. Furthermore, since I've lost my cavaliers, I will have to actually use Wallace for progress, which sucks, cause he is not a mounted unit – ergo moves slowly.

I am forced to move annoyingly slowly in this chapter to properly protect my units, because there is a solid amount of really, really annoying reinforcements combined with fog of war. Ugh. And by annoyingly slowly, I pretty much just turtle at the start, with Wallace soloing the northern reinforcements, and rest of the army handling the southern flank. After this initial wave I begin my offensive on turn 6, cleaning up the remaining enemies and advancing towards the boss.

The boss has 1-2 range weapons – Javelin and Hand Axe, and since he has 10 Str, he hits like a truck, while taking little damage thanks to his 10 Def. If only I still had Sain... Instead, I pretty much have to bring Wallace into the fray to weaken the boss, then I finally finish the last hitpoint of his with Lancereaver wielded by Lyn for a more poetic finish and a little bit more potential survivability for her in the Hector mode. She now has 7 Str at level 10, which is bit disappointing to be honest – but not below average. Florina though, got to 8 Str on this map while still on level 6, which is pretty great.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv10), Florina (lv6), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv5), Serra (lv3), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv8), Matthew (lv2), Lucius (lv5), Nils (lv3), Wallace (lv1 pr.)

“Dead” units: Kent, Sain.

Chapter 10

It is time for the finale of the Lyn mode – the battle against Lundgren.

This map has a gimmick where on some turns there is rain, during which all units move so slowly that you wonder what's even the point of playing the game.

There is one interesting thing here – an Energy Ring from the village, letting you get a permanent +2 to either Str or Mgc, depending on the class. The question is – who the fuck do I use this ring on? If Sain was still here, he would be an obvious candidate, as pumping powerful units full of drugs stat boosters is really great in this game, but now I don't have a clearly good option. I decide to spend the ring on Florina, as having a solid flyer for the early Hector mode sounds like a really good idea to be honest.

Florina got another +1 Str on level up, making her pretty darn formidable now.

Wallace together with Lucius killed Lundgren, and Lyn comes in to seize the castle gate and finish the chapter... and the entire Lyn mode part of the game.

The following units will retain their stats for Hector mode: Lyn (lv10), Florina (lv7), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv5), Serra (lv4), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv8), Matthew (lv2), Lucius (lv6), Nils/Ninian (lv5), Wallace (lv2 pr.)

“Dead” units: Kent, Sain.

Chapter 11

It is time to start Hector Hard Mode – where the game starts for real now. And let's be honest, I am going into this chapter practically blind. The fact that I have no vulnearies scares me here. I quickly overextend Matthew, and end up with him dead. That will certainly have annoying ripple effects, since I will have no access to a thief for quite a few chapters. I lose a Red Gem, which sucks a bit, but oh well.

And then I miscalcuate and die just before I can use a dropped vulneary.

I think that definitely counts as a skill issue.

What now?

So, this means I will hav e to go through a yet another attempt at this Ironman challenge. I am considering two options here – go through Lyn mode once fucking again, or decide “fuck it” and discard the useful Lyn mode bonuses.

I have decided to rush through Lyn mode once again, because I want to have ultra strong Sain as Paladin – however, writing the full recap here yet again would be honestly pointless, so a shortened version is all what I will do.

Lyn mode quick recap

So, again, main focus on training Sain with some exp going to Florina and Lucius, while making sure to not die to a 1% crit this time. I got Sain to level 15 before promoting him to a Paladin – this will give me a busted early game unit for the HHM, unless I will botch things yet again 😂. Florina didn't really get any Str, however I still decide to use an Energy Ring on her, since she is still a valuable flying unit. I didn't use Lyn much this time, so she basically exists to be benched now, since using her in HHM without extra Lyn mode levels is pain.

Forgot to take note of the levels of each unit, but the important ones are Sain at level 1 promoted, Florina at level 7, Lyn at level 4, and I think that's it?

Chapter 11 once more

Okay, now that I know how this chapter works, I have to figure out a way to get vulnearies ASAP. I ignore the chest with the Red Gem for survival reasons, and I take the much safer top route at the start. And Hector dies once more because he missed a 75% (which is in practice 87.5%) chance to hit an archer like 10 times in a row. Yay.

At this point I think there is no point going through Lyn mode again, and again, and again... I can get through it very consistently, to the point that I don't want to waste time considering how inconsistent this chapter is. So I decide to cheat the ironman rules and repeat the chapter again and again until I won't get fucked by accuracy rolls.

Is my attempt illegitimate now? Yes. Do I care? No. I am here to see janky consequences of my actions, not

Two attempts later...

Finally Hector decided that not missing Archers is a good idea. I accidentally estabilish a steal loop, and I decide to use this opportunity to grind Matthew way too much. I grind him to level 13 and then a little bit more, when I decide that I am already losing my mind, so I just stop.

Eventually, after somewhere around 100 turns, I obtain the remaining vulnearies and rout the remaining enemies.

Current army: Hector (lv4), Matthew (lv13)

Chapter 12

Time for more, erm, traditional Fire Emblem gameplay now, not an obscene puzzle that was the previous chapter 🥴. We get a shitton of units from Eliwood's side of the map – Eliwood the Lord (duh), Marcus the Paladin, Rebecca the Archer, Lowen the Cavalier, Bartre the Fighter, and a familiar face – Dorcas the Fighter. We also get Oswin the Knight and Serra the Cleric – another familiar face!

Out of these units, we will certainly want to use Marcus and Dorcas. The first one is a powerful prepromote, and Dorcas has some exp under his belt.

The question is, how do we approach this map in the first place? The biggest threat are the Pegasus Knights – a relatively obscene amount of flyers at this stage of the game, which forces me onto defensive for now. Here I very much see that levelling up Matthew paid off greatly, cause he can now hold the line against flyers on this map... Yet I still misplay and lose Serra, which will make things way more difficult until I hopefully get Priscilla. Yay.

When there is only one passive enemy left, I dawdle a bit to get a solid amount of vulnearies for everyone, as well as an extra Iron Axe for Hector.

Current army: Hector (lv5), Matthew (lv14), Eliwood (lv1), Marcus(lv1 pr.), Rebecca (lv1), Lowen (lv2), Bartre (lv2), Oswin (lv9), Dorcas (lv6)

Deaths: Serra

Chapter 13

The army is no longer split in two, which makes things way, way easier. The Pegasus Knights are still scary, but are manageable now. I am also relying a lot on Marcus to push through.

I can recruit Guy here by talking to him with Matthew, but it does pose a risk due to him wielding a Killing Edge. I manage to do it correctly though without any deaths.

I do move way too slowly to rescue the second village on the map, losing access to a gaiden chapter – however, my main focus now is to stabilize.

Current army: Hector (lv7), Matthew (lv15), Eliwood (lv1), Marcus (lv2 pr.), Rebecca (lv1), Lowen (lv2), Bartre (lv2), Oswin (lv9), Dorcas (lv6), Guy (lv3)

Deaths: Serra

Chapter 14

Finally, the battle preparations screen. I can now safely bench Eliwood so I won't have this, to put it bluntly, liability to worry about.

I start the chapter with two problems. Problem number 1 – I have to get to bottom village ASAP, or otherwise I will be without a staff user for way longer than I am comfortable with. Problem number 2 – I will have to deal with an entire regiment of enemies attacking me from the back.

Problem number 2 is the easier one to solve – I will let Oswin deal with these five units, making sure beforehand that he has some vulnearies. I will also leave Bartre at the back to speed up killing enemies.

To solve problem 1, I will need to formulate a proper attack plan to get to the village in time. There is plenty of red units on the way, with swords, bows and spears, and tanking it all will be a challenge... Except that Hector has 13 def now, so he can take no damage here now. After I've checked all enemy units, it seems like Hector can almost solo this map, but still.

I try to rush in and lose Dorcas, cause apparently he was too good at killing enemies, and he couldn't dodge for shit. I predictably fail to recruit Erk, and then I lose Bartre due to a slight miscalculation. I am certainly a competent Fire Emblem player.

Other than that, the big problem I have is that Wolf Beil, the personal weapon of Hector, is almost wrecked at this point.

Current army: Hector (lv9), Matthew (lv15), Marcus (lv2 pr.), Rebecca (lv2), Lowen (lv4), Oswin (lv11), Guy (lv3)

Benched: Eliwood

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre

Chapter 15

A random-ass defend the throne chapter that for some reason is a Hector mode exclusive. Sealen, the boss of the map can drop a Dragonshield, allowing me to potentially boost defense of one of my units by 2, however getting to him can be tricky. The chests contain a Silver Axe and a Mend staff, both pretty worthwhile to get. However, it is tempting to just let Hector turtle forever and alone and finish the map this way, since most enemies can barely scratch him, especially with the throne's +2 Def bonus. I hide Guy and Rebecca in the bench and start to wonder about Priscilla's safety. However, I decide that there is no point in discarding these heals, with how strained my army already is.

After a single turn I realize that going for these chests is a lost cause, though.

After a few turns I am forced to sacrifice Lowen, and ultimately I realize that the side objectives of this map are frankly impossible in the current state of my army. I am now extremely glad that I've put the effort to level up Matthew with the steal loop cheese, cause he is now powerful enough to singlehandedly keep up with all the enemies at the current stage of the game.

Priscilla sadly only consumed a zillion vulnearies, which is sad. I make a mistake by leaving Marcus with sword instead of lance equipped, and I lose him along with several powerful weapons.

I should have just tanked everything with Hector.

Current remains of the army: Hector (lv10), Matthew (lv16), Rebecca (lv2), Oswin (lv12), Guy (lv3), Priscilla (lv3)

Benched: Eliwood

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus

Chapter 16

A huge issue now is that I am running out of weapons. I need swords, I need lances, and most importantly I need axes. The fact is though that I get a few returning faces now – Lyn (oh no), Sain (oh fucking yes), Kent (fine), Florina (how the fuck she'll even stay alive?), Wil (okay sure I guess he exists). The only reason I am not fielding Guy for example is the fact that I can't give him a weapon to wield.

I realize that I fucked up Lyn mode finances, so I can't stock up on weapons just yet. I sell Wil's Iron Bow to buy an Iron Axe that I will eventually pass to Hector, and rush forward to rendevouz the armies... with exception of Wil, who pretty much has to function as a fodder at this point, baiting enemy flyers. However, he miracolously survives the initial onslaught.

Current army: Hector (lv12), Matthew (lv17), Rebecca (lv2), Oswin (lv13), Priscilla (lv4), Lyn (lv5), Florina (lv8), Kent (lv6), Sain (lv2 pr.), Wil (lv3)

Benched: Eliwood, Guy

Deaths: Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Bartre, Lowen, Marcus

Time for a break

I feel like I have finally equalized. Sure, I've lost Marcus and a shitton of weapons, but at this point I finally have a solid army that can take enemies on, provided I won't hose myself completely by running out of weapons, which seems increasingly likely.

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#PlayReport #FE7Ironman

Here is where the Ironman challenge comes in. It is a self-imposed challenge that takes away your ability to reload. Every mistake is permanent – every lost unit, every missed item, there is no turning back. And if you game over for any reason... well, time to start from the very beginning.

This is actually my second attempt at this – I've lost Hector on my first try on Chapter 15, then I've realized that I ain't gonna fuck around with Lyn normal mode again, which is a tutorial consisting of TEN chapters. I've found and applied a patch that unlocks all modes of play from the get go – so I am starting with Lyn's Hard mode, in which the only difference is that I am not forced to go through movements forced on me by the tutorial windows once again. As for what will follow the Lyn mode... I think I will go for Hector Hard mode for maximum pain possible in this game.

Prologue

Simple map, nothing to say except that I've predictably used one vulnearly and less predictably Lyn got a strength level up.

Chapter 1

Sain and Kent join in this chapter, and they are immediately powerful units by the virtue of being Cavaliers. 7 movement, ability to use both swords and lances, good stats, and absolutely broken promotion into Paladins later on. I will want to try to reach level 10 with at least one of them before the end of Lyn's mode, since they can use the sole promotion item available in this mode, which would be otherwise wasted on an Armor Knight named Wallace.

I decide to focus more of my efforts on Sain, since he has more strength. This does require me to shuffle around my items a bit, since Sain starts with no sword to dispatch the enemy axe units, but still.

Sain got two pretty mediocre levels, but oh well.

Chapter 2

This is the first chapter I can do boss abuse on. There is a source of infinite HP for me – that is, forts regenerating HP – and the boss is sitting on a throne, which also regenerates HP. But I am a busy (and slightly impatient) man, and I ain't got time for spending few hundred turns on this map.

Other than that, this chapter is pretty uneventful. Lyn gets her Prf weapon, Mani Katti, which is solid enough for this stage of the game, and that's about it.

Chapter 3

We get a Pegasus Knight (for some reason shortened as Peg Knight which deals me psychic damage, especially considering obvious yuri undertones involved here) named Florina, and an archer named Wil. T he first unit is a relatively solid flyer, but requires a bit of training – the second is your average archer – that is to say, meh at best.

I buy one iron lance and two iron swords here.

Lyn levelled up strength here, which is actually nice, and ahead of average.

Chapter 4

Ah yes. A mission to protect an NPC – and yet in practice you can kinda go out and kill all these bandits. There is a recruitable unit on the enemy side – Dorcas, who is an axe unit that can't hit a stationary target – and since there aren't too many enemy lance units at this stage of the of the game, he is further disadvantaged by the weapon triangle mechanic. Yay. Still, a new unit is a new unit.

Cavalier duo destroys most of the bandits on their own because they are just that good... tho Sain's level ups are not exactly impressive at this point.

Kent got a bit too close to getting wrecked though, and Dorcas surprisingly hit every single hit he tried to make, so that was interesting.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv6), Kent (lv3), Sain (lv6), Florina (lv3), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv3)

Chapter 5

Finally, a cleric to save our waning amount of vunlearies!

Sain's level ups caught up to the expectations, and he's the expected paragon of destruction now. I buy a javelin in the armory for Florina, and Lyn got an absolutely garbage level up – literally just HP+1.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv7), Kent (lv3), Sain (lv7), Florina (lv3), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv3), Serra (lv1), Erk (lv1)

Chapter 6

In this chapter we are introduced to Rath, a Nomad and Matthew, a Thief. Both of them are really useful units – Rath is a mounted bow unit with actually respectable stats, and Matthew is a Thief.

We also obtain Angelic Robe, a consumable item that permanently increases max HP of the unit by 7. I give it to Sain to make him even more busted.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv7), Kent (lv4), Sain (lv7), Florina (lv4), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv3), Serra (lv1), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv7), Matthew (lv2)

Chapter 7

The plot moves forward, and we get two new recruits – Lucius, a Monk, and Nils, a definitely normal Bard with no supernatural origins involved. Both units are solid, tho Lucius is very likely to fall off without being spoonfed some XP.

Bard is a reskinned version of a Dancer class that is commonly found in FE games – as dumb as it sounds, they allow other units to move twice (relevant: https://youtu.be/eaSBkLgwgAo). Needless to say, it is an extraordinarily good effect.

Florina is getting great level ups.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv7), Kent (lv4), Sain (lv8), Florina (lv5), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv3), Serra (lv1), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv7), Matthew (lv2), Lucius (lv3), Nils (lv1)

Chapter 7x

The first gaiden chapter, which of course I am embarking on cause, you know, more XP.

Sadly I can't steal an extra lockpick from this chapter because of insufficient speed of Matthew, but it doesn't matter in the long run.

Sain has almost hit level 10 on this chapter, missing out by 1 XP. However, it doesn't really matter much, cause it is pretty much settled at this point that he will get that promotion into Paladin in time.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv7), Kent (lv4), Sain (lv9), Florina (lv5), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv4), Serra (lv2), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv7), Matthew (lv2), Lucius (lv3), Nils (lv1)

Chapter 8

An annoying chapter, solely beause of the ballista right in the middle threatening Florina. Still, she can go and get the village in the top right corner of the map, while still keeping herself safe from the ballista. Rest of the army will just rush down, with Sain leading the fray.

I have seriously overextended Kent and put him out of commission though – which honestly sucks, but well, I will get him back on chapter 15. Still, this will make the rest of Lyn mode a bit harder, and Kent will be with just level 5 and somewhat average stats... and then Sain got critted by the boss, wasting all my effort levelling him up. Fuck. There goes my godly Paladin with an insane strength stat.

After losing Sain, I have no clue how to proceed with this map. I put out Lyn forward, thinking to myself that in the worst case I will just restart the run. This didn't happen.

At the end of this chapter, I have the following units: Lyn (lv8), Florina (lv5), Wil (lv3), Dorcas (lv4), Serra (lv2), Erk (lv1), Rath (lv8), Matthew (lv2), Lucius (lv4), Nils (lv1)

“Dead” units: Kent, Sain.

I need a break.

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#PlayReport #FE7Ironman