Chapter 12 is a return to the sea... only this time, the entire ocean freezes along the way. Turns out it is Flora's doing, and Camilla and her retainers have tagged along too.
The map's gimmick was rather... meh to be honest. For the first three to four turns, your units are trapped on the ships, and you have to wait for a Dragon's Vein tiles to pop up so that you can create ice bridges to connect the ships and make it over the ice. Technically, you could easily clear this in a few turns by having a flying unit reach Flora and take her out since the mission is to simply take out the boss, but I ended up taking the long way out.
I accidentally put Saizo within Camilla's range, causing her to fly towards him. She did a good chunk of damage to Saizo, but I managed to debuff her, then switched into Orochi the following turn. I weakened Camilla with Rinkah, but she got hit pretty hard, so I had to throw in Sakura to heal her. It was a tense moment since Camilla would take out either Sakura, Rinkah, or Orochi, but she went for Orochi. Oh god, that moment. Camilla had the damage to kill Orochi in one blow, but Camilla's attack missed! The RNG luck was on my side this time around! Camilla then proceeded to finish off Camilla in one hit. This the second time Orochi managed to achieve such a lucky kill right when she was about to die (first time was in Birthright when her husband, Hayato, performed a Dual Guard against Keaton's attack that would've killed her in one hit, and then Orochi proceeded to finish off Keaton in two hits).
Going into Chapter 13... holy cow, Cyrkensia has been destroyed! Wow, seeing its theatre damaged gave me the same feeling I had like that one scene in Mulan when the group walked into the damaged town. Xander and Ryoma are apparently there, thinking one or the other was responsible for its destruction... but they don't know the real enemies responsible for this are Vallite soldiers. We try to point them out, but Xander and Ryoma don't see them because they are invisible, so we end up having to engage them in battle to convince them.
I failed the first attempt because the enemy units ended up swarming Corrin after I used the Dragon's Vein tile to lower the tide, so for the second attempt, I didn't either bother using the Dragon's Vein tiles and simply proceeded on the left hand path to take out Xander, then retreat and place the obstacle to prevent the enemies from entering that side for the time being, then take the right-hand path to take out all the enemy units there. That way, once I reached the center, I wouldn't be swarmed.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Keaton and Kaden join you in this chapter. My favorite foxy beast kin is back! Surprisingly didn't use them here as much as I thought I would though. I ended up taking out Xander by using Saizo to weaken him, then had Takumi receive a boost from Azura to knock out Xander in two hits. I didn't even bother taking out Ryoma though. Though's crit percents were pretty scary, not to mention he could pretty much take out almost all my units thanks to that speed, so I only took out Scarlet and then traveled all the way back to the left-hand path to proceed into the center section, avoiding Ryoma in the end.
We try to talk things out with Xander, but he still doesn't seem to be too convinced. Ryoma, on the other hand, was enlightened by Azura, Takumi, and Sakura about the issue, so he's beginning to understand us more (but just a little bit though). We also see Scarlet's interaction with us for the first time, and I'm surprised she didn't join us right away considering she stated that she supports us, but it's understandable since Scarlet explains she and Ryoma need to head back to Castle Shirasagi first. We also see Ryoma getting all flustered about Scarlet's plan, and Sakura and Takumi call him out on that.
Honestly, it's dialogue like this that makes me question why one earth Ryoma and Scarlet can't S-Support each other.
Moving on to Chapter 14, we see Xander arriving back at the castle as he is greeted by Iago. After he departs, Iago converses with Hans on the note that Xander might've been convinced to join Corrin's cause. Leo meets up with Xander and tells him something's off about Garon. We then see obvious signs that Garon is possessed as he looks up at the Anankos statues and says that both Hoshido and Nohr will be destroyed. We also see that Leo is starting to believe in our cause because of what we told him back then and how it matches up with Garon's situation now.
Anyways, we arrive at the same location where Conquest Chapter 10 takes place (oh god, the memories), and Elise and her retainers meet up with us. We also see that Silas has arrived with an army to take us down.
I'm glad the map was much easier than Conquest Chapter 10 this time around. Keaton and Kaden took care off the first batch of Paladins to the center right, while Kaze and Beruka took out the Cavalier and the Fighter around the center at the beginning. I took care of the first batch of fighters on the left side, and the two Generals on the top right were eventually taken down with Beruka's help thanks to the Hammer. The two Generals and Cavaliers close to Benny were taken out by baiting them over to my location and using Beruka, Hinata, and Hayato to take them out. I then baited the Archer on the other side so that Elise could reach Benny and talk to him so that Benny could join our army. Once the right side was done, I proceeded to the left. Corrin tanked up the first batch of units there, then proceeded to have my other units finished them off. I also baited the first Mercenary on the ship so that Elise could get across and talk to Charlotte in order to recruit her. Once that was finished, I used the Dragon's Vein tile with Takumi to recreate the events of Chapter 10... this time, so that I could take a shortcut to return to the other ship and finish off Silas. Unfortunately, taking out Silas didn't finish the chapter for me, as the game just had to send in more reinforcements right when it was about to be over, but it was still doable nonetheless.
And good lord, this chapter is where you really see the unit balance being so out of place. Arthur, Effie, and Elise first arrive at levels 9, 8, and 7 respectively. Effie and Arthur didn't help me
at all this chapter because they were so under leveled compared to my other units (most of my units were around Level 15 at this point). As for Elise, Sakura was already a War Priestess by the time I got Elise. Benny and Silas were the only units you gained here that came in at a reasonable level. Benny is Level 15, while Silas is Level 18 with both his Sword and Lance proficiencies already at Level B. Charlotte is also Level 10, so just like Effie and Arthur, she was vastly under-leveled compared to my other units. Looks like I'm going to need to do a lot of grinding to make Arthur, Effie, and Charlotte useful.
still looks half assed though
