FE3H - Maddening Blue Lions Chapter 17
Chapter 17 - Blood of the Eagle and Lion
We make our preparations to march onto Gronder Field. While Dimitri's drive for revenge burns strong, it does feel like there is a bit of wavering to it, when it comes to the fast approaching fact that we are to be facing former classmates in the upcoming battle. Well... of the number of classmates there are remaining that can be counted on a single hand, anyways. I have a Paralogue open, but I figure I should wait a month as I feel like I should get another Paralogue open up next month, so I can clear them both out on one weekend combat session. As such, we just build up weapon skill for Rikka, and do a few meals here and there for emotional support. Annette now has S Reason for Range +1.
I have 2500 renown on hand, and decide to just upgrade to improve EXP gain, as opposed to helping me gain additional skill for axe/authority/brawl.
Dedue is now a War Master, so now I have two Battalion Wrath utilizing characters with both Dimitri and Dedue.
Statue Upgrades:
Exp +10%
Certifications:
Dimitri - Archer
Dedue - War Master
Battle: To War at Gronder
Hm... the corpse of Dimitri's stepmother was never found at the scene at the Tragedy of Duscur. I do wonder what that implies with regards to what really happened. In any case, it looks like the messenger to the Alliance was intercepted and killed, preventing efforts for Kingdom and Alliance forces to band together, leading to this battle being a three way one, as destined.
Deploy: Rikka, Dimitri, Dorothea, Ashe (Petra), Lysithea (Marianne), Hilda, Ingrid, Sylvain, Flayn, Annette (Dedue)
The enemy generals have pretty big stats. Claude and Edelgard also have sky high attack stats. However, the general enemy placement is a bit similar to that of Chapter 7, so some similar strategies can be used.
As with Chapter 7, I open up the map by taking the center hill. One difference here is that I know that there will be some enemies that will be ambushing my team from the top of the map immediately, so I use a mix of Stride, Rescue, Blue Lion Dancers, and repositioning skills in order to move rapidly to get all my units past the small stream in the top side of the map and to cleanly take over the central hill. Dimitri and Lysithea holds the line at the bridge to the river at the top, as Battalion Vantage Wrath is easily able to keep the approaching Paladins and Pegasus Knights at bay.
The opening few turns of fighting are fierce on this map, as I end up taking both armies on at once. After all, Dimitri did say to kill every last one of them. The empire Assassin who has about 70 evade and Keen Intuition is no match for Annette's gambit, which simply ignores all their evade and OHKOs them. This triggers Edelgard to set the hill on fire.
Claude's forces approach, and I slow them down by having Dorothea drop a Gambit dealing a bit of chip to Claude and stunning 5 enemies. Hilda is then able to swoop in and take Claude out with an Apocalyptic Flame. I keep the Pegasus Knights coming in from the left at bay with Annette's range 5 Excalibur and a Curved Shot with Rikka, while using Rescue with Flayn to keep Annette out of Hubert's reach. On the next turn I'm able to clean up with most of the enemies leaving just a few Demonic Beasts and Dark Bishops around with Edelgard.
Edelgard does a lot of damage with her attacks, so I am forced to approach vs her. I chip her down with Rikka, using a couple of Windsweeps then finish her off with Dimitri, winning the battle at Gronder once again.
Two Divine Pulse uses. One because I was expecting Paladin reinforcements from the top, but instead got Pegasus Knights and a Warrior. The Pegasi were able to fly past Dimitri and KO a unit behind him, while the Warrior tanked a 72 Damage crit, and killed Dimitri. The second pulse use was because Dorothea missed an 80% accurate Gambit that I was using to stun Alliance enemies.
Resets: 0 (1)
Divine Pulses: 2 (43)
Roster:
Rikka - L36
Dorothea - L38
Dimitri - L37
Lysithea - L37
Ashe - L37
Annette - L37
Flayn - L37
Hilda - L36
Sylvain - L35
Ingrid - L35
Petra - L34
Catherine - L33
Dedue - L31
Dimitri is still prepared to chase after Edelgard, despite approaching Imperial Forces, but the one who stops him is... Fleche? Fleche shows up and attacks Dimitri, for revenge for Rudolph. Dimitri actually looks to be ready to give up his own life to satisfy Fleche's revenge, but instead Rodrigue takes the hit for him, costing him his own life. It turns out the promise that Rodrigue had made at the time of the Tragedy of Duscur, was to the late king Lambert, to watch out for Dimitri should his life be lost. Rodrigue's death, followed by Rikka's words of console break Dimitri's craze for revenge, and starts him down a path of healing and to search for a new purpose for life.
