Update 101: Lemme get this straight, you just realized you have two ears?

♪ Anxiety ♪


Constance gets access to Warlock, since I prefer Black Tomefaire and doubled Bolting charges over the +1 range of Valkyrie. She'll still be alternating between the two, though, since I want her to also get Uncanny Blow from mastering Valkyrie.

Mercedes gets the all-important upgrade to Bishop.

I opted to make Caspar a grappler instead of a warrior.

Black Tomefaire and Black Magic Uses x2 for Ms. Arnault.

Who knows, maybe +4 Crit Avo and +2 Crit will serve Dimitri well for Reunion at Dawn.

Still have some spare renown, so Adan gets to be propelled back to Sword S+.

I have Adan swap out Faith for Brawling Prowess, and—this one took me a while to decide on—swapped out Axebreaker and Movement +1 for Swordfaire and Sword Crit +10.
♪ No music ♪


And, just like that, it was time.
♪ A Vow Remembered ♪


If you can fight, pick up a weapon! Everyone else, hurry up and evacuate! We have the goddess's protection on our side. We have nothing to fear. Victory will be ours!
Professor. Are you ready?
Almost.
Well, hurry up. I don't need to tell you that the situation is dire. We have some support troops from the local nobles, but the army we're facing is immense. No matter how you look at it, we're at a disadvantage. To make matters worse, the enemy is being led by Edelgard. Do not underestimate how extraordinary her abilities are.
They're here. At long last.
It seems this will be a battle to remember. About time.
I'll never give up, no matter how outnumbered we are. I'll fight to the very end!
Hm, I should have made a move on the Imperial princess before things got this far. It could have changed everything.
We have the goddess's divine protection on our side. All that's left is to try our best.
All we can do is fight as best we can. Though...if I'm being honest, I'm really scared right now...
We can't just hand over the Kingdom and the monastery. We'll stop her, no matter what it takes!
Your Highness. You do not seem...well.
Hah! Unwell, you say? What's gotten into you?
Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm so happy I can hardly contain myself.


And the chance to answer their pleas has arrived, at long last!
Don't lose control out there.
Hahaha! I'm always in control, Professor! And I'll stay in control until I have the pleasure of killing that woman.




...
♪ No music ♪



♪ Roar of Dominion ♪


It's never not stressful, reaching this map.

This map's Maddening changes are...weird. There's no new initial enemies, just existing ones getting moved around. Two lower axe users get moved up to the central area, and the axe user near our spawn area...moves one tile to the right. I dunno why, either.

The team that'll be defending Garreg Mach. Note that Constance is back in Valkyrie, instead of Warlock.

I've noted this before, but it bears reiteraing: make absolutely sure that you are okay with Dimitri and Adan's inventories now, because they will be stuck with them for Reunion at Dawn. In addition, make sure you've got whatever battalion you want for Adan set up now, because you won't get the chance to change it for Reunion! Sadly, Dimitri is forced into using a level 1 version of his personal battalion in Reunion at Dawn, which does not help matters.

In general, it's worth just loading up every unit you have with weapons you want repaired, since any item in any unit's inventory—even if they don't participate in Reunion at Dawn—will get repaired to full uses after you finish this map. For weapons that require rare materials (namely mythril and Agarthium), this is a godsend.

I sadly broke the Lance of Ruin already, necessitating repairs—and the use of three umbral steel—but hey, that means I can use it as much as I want for this map in particular.

Randolph has terrifyingly high Str, but the rest of his stats are surpisingly weak for Maddening.

Edelgard, weirdly, has -1 Spd, -1 Def, -1 Res, and +3 Cha compared to her stats as the Flame Emperor last map.

Hubert is here.

As is the Death Knight.

Get ready. This is the last time we'll be seeing this version of The Battle of Garreg Mach.





The most immediate eastern threats have been dealt with.



Getting Mag means you did not fail.

Yessssssssssss.

Dedue draws out that armored knight, plus an off-screen cavalier.


Been a while since we last saw Ruined Sky. Bet you forgot that it's effective against fliers, huh?


Annette dances for Sylvain so that he can do the exact same thing again.

Ingrid and Dimitri (to the left) just move up.

Same with Caspar.



Do not underestimate Ladislava, because on Maddening, she's got a fucking brave axe. On Normal/Hard, she only has a normal silver axe. Sure, her Hit suffers because of it, but against pretty much everyone that isn't using swords, she still stands pretty good odds of killing them.

Case in point.

The ballista connects, though as you can see, it does not deal much damage to Ingrid.

Ballista users with Poison Strike still get to apply Poison Strike, though. That's not fun.

Hits.

At least our armored knights can withstand some punishment.









The armored knights, unfortunately, lack Lancebreaker, so they're kind of easy pickings for the pegasus knights.

That one was terrifyingly close to being able to attack Constance or Ingrid or...well, anyone in the center, really.


'Course there's Physic.



Oh, sick, thanks, Manuela— Hey wait a minute, where the fuck did you get Physic?!


Our allies might not be the best at direct combat, but they've got gambits.

Hits.





Felix moves this cavalier out of Lysithea's way.


Dedue does the same to this armored knight.

Hey, man.


Good seein' ya.

As was the case before, killing the Death Knight spawns our own reinforcements, which in this case includes Catherine, sporting noted amazing weapon Thunderbrand.


That was pretty risky—if Caspar had missed even one hit, let alone both, he'd run decent odds of being defeated.

This is where I realized that I'd forgotten to put Axe Prowess on Ingrid, so her Hit with axes is abysmal.

That's what Lúin is for, though.



Ladislava is worth keeping distance from, given that brave axe, but...honestly, without an axe prowess, she has just truly abysmal Hit with it.


It's over!



If even one more of those had been a crit...


Sylvain and Dimitri do not stand any chance of actually hitting this guy, so Constance has to step in.


Ladislava lacks Lancebreaker, so you can just chuck lances at her, and she'll probably get hit by them.


Mercedes to the rescue.


Not enough to be a kill, but...


That's what Annette is for.



Hits.

Misses.


Hits.





Godsdamn—



I may be mad that I cannot get Physic on Manuela as a player unit, but I welcome it here.

Catherine remains an incredible terror.

Wow, that was fairly lucky.



Hits.





An incredibly dangerous manuever, but...

Constance has Rescue now.

Saving Ingrid from certain death profits Constance very nicely.

I move several of my units westward, since we need to deal with those flying monsters.

Constance, thankfully, can pull Ingrid along for the ride.


You're in my way!






Hits.

The splash damage got Mercedes, annoyingly.


That hit.

This warlock, amazingly, can't be one-rounded by the monster.

And the other one...only moves one tile forward, weirdly.

It is incredibly annoying that enemy units can heal monsters.





I don't know why that warlock used the fire orb instead of a normal spell, but it hits.




Right, you, die please.


Wow, only one damage per hit? Aegis Shield doing work, I guess.



Yep, Sylvain got the privilege of having the Immortal Corps this battle.


At this point, I had Constance call upon the heavens' wrath to smite that guy, mostly because I was getting tired of wasting time on pointless siege weapon attacks.

Apparently the sheer magical might of that attack rubbed off on Balthus.



Anyway, Constance not only wipes out this thing's second HP bar, but inflicts an armor break on it.

These three advance into dangerous territory.




Hits.

This does not kill the cavalier.



That does, however.

See, that at least makes some kind of sense.




It's over!



One monster down.





Ingrid takes Gradivus from Dimitri, so she can chuck it at the monster.


That's a lot of damage for a short axe, good lord.


Dimitri then takes Gradivus back from Ingrid to take his turn throwing it.

Alright, time for this guy to—


Well, that's new. Once you pass the southernmost walls on Maddening, two monsters will spawn near Edelgard.

Sure hope they don't pose any problems for Dedue, Lysithea, and Felix.


My man.



You just had to go over there, huh?

Well, that's...not good.





Man, these green units are on the ball today.



For lack of anything better to do, Mercedes hits both Adan and Annette with Stride.

Adan is just barely able to reach Hubert with the levin sword+. Won't do much, but why not?



Constance pulls Annette down a few tiles.


With Annette's dance, Adan can punch Hubert's stupid face in.

Punching Hubert's stupid face in spawns in Shamir and a sniper, decidedly less impressive than Catherine and her cavalier.


Felix hits the monster with a sword, immediately breaking an armor tile.



The amount of Spd Dedue is getting is astounding, even keeping in mind his class choices.



After the two monster reinforcements spawn in, a pegasus knight will spawn in every turn, with their spawn position alternating between Edelgard's left and Edelgard's right.

Defeating Hubert has also convinced Randolph that now is the time to move.

Miss.

Shamir and the sniper aren't that interesting, but at least they can hit these flying monsters' weakness.

Oh hell, I need to take these two out before they reach the pink tiles behind Rhea, that's a defeat condition.



You fuckin'...

Oh, and because it's Maddening, the infinite pegasus knight reinforcements can act on their spawn turn. I gotta finish this shit soon...



...Oh. I may have sold Shamir short.

I did not sell this sniper short, though.



Time is of the essence now.


Try this on for size!


Flashy.


Ingrid gets a dance, so she can fly down and kill that last siege weapon jerk.


I'll send you flying!


That helps a lot, Caspar, thank you.

Adan pulls Ingrid back, out of the range of that pegasus knight, who would be almost-certain death even if Ingrid was at full HP.


That's one HP bar.


A crit would've been nice...


Dedue uses a gambit on the monster. It not only depletes an HP bar...

It also pulls aggro to him—importantly, it keeps the staggering blow from potentially hitting Felix.

Sylvain gets to act as bait for that pegasus knight.

Dimitri moves towards the pegasus knights.



Really gotta wrap this up before these jerks swarm me.

Jesus christ, Catherine can double the pegasus knights.

Not the best odds of hitting, though. That first crit was a big miracle.

Great work, monster.

Lancebreaker paying dividends.

Too close to Lysithea, too close to Lysithea, too close to Lysithea! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!




Oh, hey, another enemy with a Maddening-only brave axe.






Dedue's having a hell of a good time on this map.


Hits. It is really dangerous for Felix to engage any enemy right now, so this ballista is very helpful.





It's over!





The ballista hits, and kills the dark bishop.

Sylvain again gets the job of being bait.


You're not going any further than that, lady.



That was a foolish gamble for Randolph, in my opinion.


That is...not the kind of level you need going into Reunion at Dawn.

That was even more foolish than Randolph.

Oh well.

Oh, that's not good...

Feh...


New plan.

Move Dedue to this spot, where only one monster can reach him, and use Healing Focus.


For the western side, I instead opted to have Adan use Fire on this fortress knight.


Take this!


Sylvain gets a chance to show off, before the end.

The dark bishop, due to the lack of a ballista attack from Felix, does not die this tusrn.

Sadly, Catherine bites it on the first attack from Randolph on the enemy phase.


Pegasus knight still dies, Dimitri still gets the same shit level.



The plan works perfectly, as the other monster loses interest in my eastern units.

Oh, Edelgard is on the move now...

Actually, no, wait, that's really helpful.




That's a really pathetic combat forecast for Edelgard.

No crits, so who gets the privilege of defeating Edelgard?


Constance uses Bolting to get some free EXP before things end.

That was not worth it.

Screw it, let's let her get just another round of combat in.

This will be over soon.


...Sure.






Well, that's about the extent of the EXP and rounds of combat I can squeeze out of this map.

Let's finish this.

Before we do, though, since this is the last time we'll be seeing this version of The Battle of Garreg Mach, here's the battle dialgoues I haven't shared yet.
You're late. I... We are all tired of waiting.
Now, let's separate that sick head from your neck, shall we?
Heh. You never were one for patience.
"We"...?
Here she is—Her Majesty—looking pleased as a dog with a stick. What exactly happened to make you this way?
I'm simply seeing through a promise I made to myself a long time ago.
Isn't this much force excessive? Thanks to you, my own long-held ambitions are nearly destroyed.
If you don't want them to be destroyed completely, I suggest you turn tail and flee.
Somehow I forgot to post that one during the Verdant Wind version.
So, House Nuvelle has chosen the path that will lead to its ultimate demise. How pitiable.
As you say, I have forfeited my claim on being a noble of the Empire.
That is why you must permit me to challenge you in combat, that I may establish a new House Nuvelle.
As you wish. Let's see if your resolve is a match for my own.



♪ No music ♪


Phew, that's over with.

Farewell, Part 1. That's the last time we'll be going through a full playthrough of you.

Next time: the thing I'd been dreading the most this entire LP.

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