FE3H - Maddening Blue Lions Chapter 12
Chapter 12 - To War
Monastery Exploration
Last month before the time skip. I am able to reach D+ Armor on the first weekend available, and proceed to complete all remaining recruitments. Remaining actions are used to further improve Rikka's Sword/Brawling capabilities. I decide that I'll deal with Hilda's Paralogue after the Time Skip, and instead focus on ensuring a smooth transition, as I come up to a part of the game that people playing Maddening consider to be one of the biggest hurdles that you will need to prepare for.
Recruitment:
Seteth
Ferdinand
Raphael
Caspar
Petra
In preparation for the Time Skip, I make sure to put worn out weapons onto various characters who I'm not bringing to Chapter 12 so that the weapons can be refreshed by the Time Skip, and I make sure to outfit the Blue Lion house characters adequately for Chapter 13. Ensuring that I have access to some equipment such as Thyrsus, and my Knowledge/Exp Gems. Lastly I make sure that Byleth has the Kingdom Archers Battalion. This may or may not be for a surprise in the future.
Battle: The Battle of Garreg Mach
Deploy: Rikka, Dimitri (Flayn), Ingrid, Lysithea, Annette, Ashe (Sylvain), Marianne, Hilda, Mercedes, Dedue (Felix), Dorothea
After a string of a few easy chapters, the difficult kicks back up a bit with the final chapter of Part 1, as we defend Garreg Mach from the invading Imperial Army. The battle starts with enemies already right on us, and they're no joke. The line of Pegasus Knights right at the Monastery gates are a huge threat with how much space they cover and how fast they are. In addition, on Maddening, Ladislava starts right in the middle of the map, instead of standing beside Edelgard. While her accuracy is low, she can do a lot of damage with the Brave Axe, and can likely Quad half my team as well.
The pressure imposed by the flying enemies makes it a lot more important to play things defensively and use the Fire Orbs and Ballistas that are stationed around me to my advantage. The first order of business is to snipe out the enemy Pegasus Knights. I have Ashe man the Ballista with dancer support to start picking them off, while Lysithea and Annette man the Fire Orb on the right to OHKO enemies walking in from the right side, including an Archer on a Ballista. For the most part I retreat my units back a bit to ensure that I'm out of Pegasus Knight attacking range, while letting the NPC units distract Ladislava and the Flying Demonic Beasts.
The Death Knight moves towards you immediately on Maddening, but even so, some things never change. After a couple turns in, I am able to take out most of the initial advancing Imperial Forces, and can regroup. I send some of my units to help take care of the remaining Demonic Beasts to the left and have the remaining units start moving down the center. I use the Onager to help provoke Randolph and eventually Edelgard to start their advance, then take them out as they approach. I decide it's a bit of a pain to go after the enemies off to the bottom left and right corners of the map, and just end the battle by taking off Edelgard's head, upon Dimitri's request.
Resets: 0 (0)
Divine Pulses: 1 (23)
We win the battle, but Edelgard is done playing games, and calls in the main force, where we get thrown off a cliff and are temporarily erased from the passage of time. When we awake again, it will be in 5 years and the world will have changed.
