Thracia 776 Playthrough - Chapter 7
Chapter 7 - The Shield of Thracia
Turns: 12 (128)
Resets: 3 (15)
Leif is on the run, and we are being pincered between pursuing knights from Munster from behind and bounty hunters and brigands in front. We take the time to plan out our course of action. Augustus convinces Leif to swallow his pride and seek the aid of Thracia at the border castle of Meath. While Thracia is considered a sworn enemy to Leif, for the deaths of his parents, Augustus convinces him that Thracia and the Empire are not truly allied with each other, and they are more likely to help Leif than let the invading Empire troops in across the border. Once Leif is safe, he plans to make a move towards Tahra, to help out the rebels there against the Empire. While Augustus does not agree with trying to head to Tahra, Leif insists as Tahra helped shelter him from the Empire for years, and he refuses to abandon that which was a second home to him.
On to the map, this map is mostly a straight path down with one fork. There's a narrow path to the left side that is densly packed with Brigands, and a more open pathway on the right with has one group of Myrmidons. The one tricky part about this map is that I need to recruit Shiva, who is with the Myrmidon group. What makes it tricky is that you need to talk to him with Safiya, who shows up at the bottom side of the map, along with Finn, and takes quite a while in order to reach up to talk to Shiva. This means that I cannot pass through freely through the Myrmidon blocakde because I cannot kill Shiva, and he most definitely can kill some of my units with potential Killing Edge crits.
It is possible to have everyone just go towards the left side of the map, but it takes a long time to get through that way, so instead I have most of my characters go towards the right side. There is a spot where you can create a choke point against the Myrmidons, where I can leave Dalsin to tank hits from the enemies to buy time. Meanwhile I have Karin visit houses, then fly downward to meet with Safiya and Finn in order to pick up Safi to go over the mountains and get closer to Shiva. I slowly whittle down the Myrmidons while I wait, and capture the ones holding a Killing Edge and Silver Sword. Using Lara as capture bait also helps to distract them and causes them to run backwards towards Finn who can easily mop them up with his Brave Lance.
By Turn 2, Munster forces start to flood in from the top of the map to pursue. Initially, the game spawns a set of Cavs every turn, followed by a couple sets of Mages, then lastly Soldiers and Armors. For the most part, I will only need to worry about the Cavs. A lot of them have Javelins and Rapiers and it is necessary to fight them off as I wait for Karin and Safiya to be able to recruit Shiva. Fortunately, their accuracy is not the greatest, making it fairly easy to avoid tank them. Howver, it's also possible to just have Asbel sit on a mountain range, providing +5 Def, +30 Avo and dump magic all over them, which I do. Use of Holy Water also bolsters his Magic allowing him to easily 2HKO them using Fire. I also take the time to steal a few Rapiers while I wait for Karin to get in position to recruit Shiva as there often ended up being one Cav alive from attacking into Asbel.
Took a couple reset for mismanaging how to set up my choke points. Took another for trying my luck in the arena, only to get an enemy who could OHKO me before I could yeild, who lands the 40% accurate killshot. But eventually made my way through, and even got to get about 5 rounds in safely in the arena while I wait for everyone to regroup at the Escape point. Escaping with a unit will trigger an event where Hannibal and his platoon show up and drive away the Munster army, and from there it's home free to clear the map.
Leif tells Hannibal of how he ended up at the border and that he plans to go back towards Tahra to help out the rebels in the area. Osian, Halvan, and Ronan are here, who got caught by the border guards of Meath and they are set free. Hannibal provides us with one of his knights, Callion, to help act as a guide and join our forces as we head towards Tahra. Coipre, who we rescued back in Chapter 3 also pays us thanks for reuniting him with Hannibal, providing us with a Warp Staff.
