FE3H - Maddening Blue Lions Mercedes's Paralogue

Paralogue: The Face Beneath

Deploy: Rikka, Mercedes (Ingrid), Caspar (Petra), Flayn, Dorothea, Annette (Gilbert), Lysithea, Dimitri, Sylvain, Hilda, Ashe

Mercedes and Caspar's Paralogue. The Death Knight was spotted in the Sealed Forest, and Mercedes wishes to meet with him to confirm something, so we end up in a fight.

This is another map where you have units far separated from your other units, however, unlike some of those maps Caspar and Mercedes are in some immediate danger. I pretty much have to defeat a lone Wolf with just Caspar and Mercedes as there is not much space where they are at to retreat or hide, and eventually enemy reinforcements will show up from the top of the map, and it will be very bad for them to get caught by those enemies.

In a bit of preparation in expectation of this map, I intentionally left Caspar to the end of Part 1 to recruit so that he'd be as high of a level he can without me actually using him. Conveniently, it does mean that he is able to tank a doubling from the Wolf if needed.

To fight off the wild Wolf at the top of the map, I give Caspar Almyran Mercenaries so that he can use Fusillade at E rank Authority, and I gave Merceedes the Blutgang, an Evade Ring, and a Magic Staff. I throw on adjutants for both characters in order to help with Gambit accuracy and damage. I open things off by having Mercedes on a forest with the Evade Ring. The Wolf has a 35% chance to hit, but if it lands both hits Mercedes dies and I'll have to Divine Pulse. Mercedes is able to dodge both, so we are safe for the first turn.

Next turn, I have Caspar drop a Fusillade to perform a Barrier Break and stab the Wolf with the Blutgang for about 50 damage. The turn after that, I have Caspar punch the Wolf to take out the first HP bar, then use a Resonant Flame from Mercedes to draw away its aggro, once again creating the situation in Turn 1 where the Wolf needs to hit 2 35%s. Mercedes gets hit once, but is able to dodge the second hit, and I am able to take out the Wolf.

While this is happening, the rest of my forces head upwards through the left side of the Sealed Forest. I deal with the Demonic Beast on the first turn, then move on to sniping down the Armors and drawing in the Dark Knights on the left side of the map. Some of the enemies do start running upwards towards Caspar and Mercedes instead of down towards my main army, so this forces me to have to rush a bit faster through the area in order to catch up and draw their attention back downwards. Still, some units were getting a bit too close, so I had Lysithea warp Sylvain up ahead and hit a couple Dark Mages with an Assault Troop to impeded their movement.

The battle gets a bit aggressive for a turn as the remaining enemies on the map start to move towards my position in the center plaza on the map. I still hadn't safely rescued Caspar and Mercedes out from the top area of the map, and I know that enemy reinforcements will be showing up soon, with some Dark Knights spawning to my immediate left. So I needed to clear out enough of the approaching enemies, notably the snipers from the bottom right, take out one Demonic Beast and Barrier Break against another, and hope that I put my units far enough away from the left side of the map to not get spawn sniped by a Dark Knight, but not too far as to put them in range from the Heroes coming down from the top right.

Hilda scores a crit to OHKO an final HP bar of a Demonic Beast wiping out all 132 HP in one go, and Byleth makes use of the Dancer Battalion. Through this, I am able to take out the Snipers and handle the Demonic Beasts, but did I make it out of Dark Knight range?

Yes. By exact length.

Once the reinforcements were sprung, the rest of the map is a simple clean up job. Flayn drops down a Resonant Flame on the Dark Knights to stun them for a turn and force them to throw attacks for 0 damage at her, while I dealt with the remaining enemy forces on my, then I finished up the reinforcements as they made their way down towards me.

Two Divine Pulse uses for this map. One because while trying to kill the Wolf, I had to pulse to correct Mercede's held weapon. Another because I tried to attack some rattled Dark Mages with Caspar, but then realized he'd still get 2x hit and be killed if I did that.

We are able to clear the Imperial forces, and Mercedes gets her opportunity to talk with the Death Knight, allowing her to confirm that the Death Knight is her younger brother Emile. He gives Mercedes the Rafail Gem, showing that even how he has become, he does care for his sister.

Resets: 0 (1)
Divine Pulses: 2 (33)

Roster:
Rikka - L32
Lysithea - L33
Dorothea - L33
Dimitri - L33
Annette - L33
Ashe - L33
Hilda - L32
Flayn - L32
Sylvain - L31
Ingrid - L30
Petra - L30
Catherine - L29
Seteth - L26

Mercedes - L27

I find that I don't need two characters with Fortify on the roster, and have decided to focus on Flayn as she also has Rescue utility.