In which is established why non-ambush spawns can be rubbish, too.
heheheh he said impregnable
Yeah about that.....
#priorities
(is this meant to be a running joke, by the way?)
Noooo, not Roy's heavily implied love interest!
Other than the planned assassination, there isn't really anything new happening until Astore (or Astolfo) joins, who doesn't really do anything, either, honestly. Storywise, this and the previous chapters are a little redundant.
This is worth talking about, though - the dialogue seems mostly unchanged, but it shouldn't come up until a few turns into the map. In Project Ember, the Scrub Squad enters the fight right away, which means that they're not as easily ignored as in the original.
They're also accompanied by two green units. Hurray. Aren't green units the bestest thing ever. I'm literally dying from happiness right now. I wish every chapter had green units.
I know that "Gwendolyn" is her official name these days, but as a "Die Ärzte" fan, I just can't take that name seriously.
(I'd elaborate, but let's keep this PG13)
The map might look just as similar to the original as the previous ones, but it actually has the most impactful changes that I've seen so far (in map design specifically, of course - 2-3 range on almost every bow is a bigger mix-up still).
Chapter 8 in BinBla is famously very, very linear - there's one zig-zaggy path that you have to take, rescue-dropping as much as possible to let your foot units (specifically Rutger and Roy) keep up with your horsies. Project Ember changes that with two new passages: a door northeast of Lilina's cell, and a breakable wall to the LHS treasure room (with 100 HP, but still).
More obviously, but arguably less impactful, is one zig removed from the zags - normally the wall to the right of the added door goes up three more tiles, separating the first two groups of enemies from each other a bit more.
Honestly? I love all this. The center left part of the map is still "alive" despite the path around it, since the Scrub Squad starts so close to it, but it allows to carve a way to the throne that much more quickly.
Leygance has been hitting the gym - +6 Str compared to vanilla, with notably increased bulk on top of that. Like Wagner (and Debias, if we had fought him), he's much less dodgy thanks to the redesigned throne bonuses, though.
He also has full weapon triangle control if you let him, but obviouly that's something you can play around.
He is flanked by two Great Knights, appropriately armed with Silver gear. It's not a surprise that we get multiple promoted generic enemies at this point - we've seen some of those already, and chapter 8 is the last chapter of the first arc, so it makes sense that we get a couple more "outstanding" enemies.
It's not a surprise to see effective weapons, a few Killer Lances, and lots of Silver Lances even on the generic soldiers, either - that's just how Project Ember rolls.
A pair of Axereaver Knights, too, south of the Scrub Squad's location.
On the magic side, we see a new upgrade, though. I kinda like the effectiveness against dragonkin - fitting for an ice spell. More fitting than Tellius' Thunder tomes dealing extra damage against them, honestly.
One thing that annoys me a little: The Knight starting east of the Scrub Squad has a stealable Chest Key, just as normal. However, thanks to the green units (who are too fat for even Barth to rescue them), he will be drawn left right away...
...and he will be horrifically murdered because one of the green units has a Hammer to see to that. Maybe this could be fixed by adding Astore to the Scrubs? Although the Hammer might still just one-round the enemy Knight anyway, so changing that to a Steel Axe (or any other non-effective weapon) would be necessary, too.
Or just move the Chest Key to a different enemy, of course. Oh well - at least the Knight near the bottom of the map still has his Chest Key for Astore to steal.
Lilina looks like she's in a bit of a pickle, but the two Fighters are stationary, which means she can do her usual game of hide-and-seek. If she wants.
Alternatively, she can just 1v1 one of the Archers, bro. For whatever reason, she has a Fire tome equipped and she wins the duel as long as she doesn't attack first.
Taking a closer look at Lilina, she's (as most characters) a couple levels higher than in vanilla and then got a few extra stats on top of her averages. The most notable increases are Spd (+3, yay), Skl (+4, eh) and Lck (+7, huh); otherwise it's nothing too dramatic.
The dynamic "power mage vs Lugh's speed mage" seems to be intact, although I suspect that this might be true for "Lugh > Lilina", as well. That said, her base magic is four points above Lugh's (she's also 3 levels higher, but still), so if she gets to a point where she doubles most enemies, her damage output will be pretty nuts.
Next up, Lego Man is still Lego Man. Stronk, very very very tanky (but not against magic) and kinda bad otherwise. His HP (which is weirdly low in vanilla) is actually his most increased stat by far. He also comes at a level where it's very prudent to insta-promote him if you want to use him and similar to Deke, he also comes with a Knight Crest in his inventory to really drive home that point.
He's probably worse than Debias overall. -3 Spd is pretty huge when you're in an area where being doubled even by semi-fast enemies is an issue, and I don't think that Barth's better bulk makes up for it.
And Wendy might be the best out of our four Armour Knights, weird as that may seem. 14 Str is only two points behind Debias and Barth, and she's 4-5 levels lower than they are. She mainly loses against them in HP, but her other stats are on par with or better than theirs.
Interestingly enough, all three of the original Knight Trio start with a different secondary weapon rank - Bors with Swords, Barth with Axes, and Wendy with Bows. And I think the 2-3 range of bows (while still having the option to go 1 or 1-2 range, unlike Wolt and Dotty) is actually the most useful addition of the three.
Basically, I have to make amends and say that Bors is not actually good anymore. Sure, mine had a some bad luck leveling up, but still - after an admittedly good earlygame, he finds himself outdone by more and more characters.
As for Wendy - I dunno? We're close to the point where we won't see as many Soldiers as enemies anymore, and chances are that she's going to have some trouble doubling other enemy types. We'll see. I kinda have to use her, don't I?
And the last of the scrub squad, Ogier, one of the least memorable units from vanilla BinBla. Project Ember seems intent to change that and gives him a personal sword, the Cortain, named after... *googles* ...a dentist in Münster, Germany. Huh, I did not expect that. It's pretty darn strong, too - 11 Mt, 1-2 range, and targeting Res is kinda crazy. Only 25 uses though, and like with Shanna's Wing Spear, I have no idea if there's going to be a replacement for when it's going to break.
Statwise, he's quite a bit more tanky than his old self, which could only muster 5-6 Def and barely 1 Res at level 10. Compared to the rest of the Project Ember cast, he seems decent, but not too impressive. Comparable to Rutger, I'd say - slower, but more tanky, especially against mages - although Rutger could have had a level lead over Ogier if I had used him.
Finally - almost forgot to include him: Astore/Astolpho, who looks like a solid option as my main thief for the rest of the game, really. While he doesn't share the absurd Spd and Luck that Chad and Cath seem to have, his raw bulk is actually better than what we saw from the prepromoted Cath when she appeared in chapter 6. With his increased XP gain, it might be worth to feed him some levels and promote him.
Oof, that felt like a lot of pre-gameplay blabla. Let's get started, with Debias making his debut as a turncoat and remove one threat to our horsies.
The other enemies are just barely out of reach (Marcus could've chipped, I think, but what's the point). Three enemies can be a bit scary if they gang up on a single character, especially when one of them is targeting Res, but I'm going for the ol' unreliable "just charge ahead on turn one, it's not like a reset at this point is a big deal" strategy.
The Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad has to be a little careful not to pull too many enemies at once towards them. There's a decent number of already aggressive enemies on the map, so tackling that corridor right away is probably a little ambitious for only three controllable units.
So Barth sets up a kill for Wendy while staying out of the Axereaver Knights' ranges. OJ equips the Lancereaver he comes with (oh right, why doesn't he have a regular Iron or Steel sword, too? Let me be stingy with special weapons!)
Lilina goes for the 1v1 against her would-be assassin. Both characters from the main group that are hugging the left wall have 1-2 range equipped and Lilina is obviously the most frail (frailest? Sounds kinda weird) of the three, so unless I'm very unlucky with enemy movement and targeting, she should get this.
Enemy phase comes before ally phase, and the AI makes sure that I very definitely won't be able to get steal the Chest Key from that Knight. Ogier eats a hit despite his Lancereaver, but that's increased hitrates and no doubled weapon triangle from Reaver weapons for ya.
In the main group, the first two enemies go for Marcus, getting him down to only 11 HP...
...which is literally one HP above the killing threshold for the third enemy (that's 20 Atk on the Mage and Marcus has 10 Res).
C A L C U L A T E D
And, of course, Lance kills in retaliation and continues to be pretty darn amazing.
It IS kinda funny that you can just ignore the little "puzzle" of saving Lilina and have her murder that Archer without any problems.
I think it's pretty much unavoidable to have the green units steal a couple kills this chapter. As I said, they're really fat (I think only Shanna and Clarine, and Sue if I had fielded her, would be able to pick them up) and they're a lot stronger than a green unit has any right to be.
On turn 2, Wade hands over his Hammer to his bro (you can see why on the second picture) and then realizes that he should've taken Lot's Steel Axe in return for a potential one-shot. Oh well, easy kill for Sha--
--nevermind.
Zelot clears the way for Lot, who gets a nice, clean one-round-kill on the General. AND an extremely kick-ass level-up, too.
Astore gets the kill on the closest Soldier...
...and because we can't be having without an easy Shanna kill, Treck obliges and leaves his Killer Axe at his belt.
Lance goes for the last kill, which I think was save...?
Well, it is now.
That was easy.
For the Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad, the next little wave of enemies is on their way - that Knight and the nearby Mage - so they still need to be a bit careful about stepping into too many additional enemy ranges.
Ogier takes the easy path for that and just kills a Soldier through the wall. Getting low on HP isn't a big deal, since both he and Barth come with an Elixir each.
And just like last turn, Barth sets up a kill for Wendy.
Whoops, looks like I forgot to equip Marcus's Iron Lance. Buuuuuut... *elementary maths intensify*
That's 23 Atk on the Knight, which means that he would've dealt 11 damage to Lance, who would've been at 12 HP if the Silver Lance had hit him. So it WAS safe, thanks to the Def level-up that Lance got on turn 1.
In the top left, the approaching Knight decides to suicide on the Hammer greenie. I was sorta expecting him to go for Barth, but I guess he went full DSFE on us and ignored the counterdamage.
Barth is the target of the mage though...
...who then is insta-gibbed by the two green units. No Wendy kill next turn, I guess.
Easy Shanna kill!
And with that, all enemies in the area are gone, so Treck and Lance start chipping the Fighters through the door a little. Clarine has the Unlock staff from chapter 6 in her inventory, which has 1-2 range, which means that neither cav needs to waste his turn stepping away for Astore to open the door.
Just in case that the Fighters will start moving now that they've taken damage, Lilina steps out of their range. The Archer threatening that tile of her cell has been moving towards the Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad, so she's safe in doing so.
Well, it looks like I don't have a choice in handling the enemies from the corridor soon. Thank you, green units, good job.
Moving Ogier and Barth east to heal up was a bit of indeciciveness, I guess - maybe I was hoping for the green units to get killed? I really don't like working around ally's AI, especially when I can't even remove them from the picture by rescuing them.
Wendy gets a little potshot for XP in, at the very least, before the greenies will probably do another kill steal.
Well, at least the Merc doesn't insta-suicide here.
Lance and Treck continue their chipping work...
...and the greenies don't kill-steal because one of them has reached the Heal AI threshold. Neat!
Clarine opens the door, Treck gets a kill and a less stellar level-up than last time...
...and greedy as I am, I go for another easy Shanna kill.
Zelot, Lugh, and Marcus split from the main group to support the Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad a little.
Lance and Roy charge ahead a bit, although still out of any enemy range. No particular strategy here, they just happen to have good movement.
First Wendy level already! Only two stats, but I'm not one to bitch over a Spd proc. Well, unless it's Shanna and it's the only stat in the level.
Ogier gets another kill, using his dentist to avoid a counter, and Barth trades him his Lancereaver to reduce Cortain's workload.
Ha, Astore and Debias have a short convo!
Debias: Erm...
Astore: Say... you wouldn't happen to be-
Debias: N-nope, sorry, you've got the wrong man!
...oh damn, I forgot to check for a Lilina/Debias conversation! Let's see.... *Rescue soundeffects...*
Aw man, I missed out on a free Elfire tome! I'm not going to replay the whole chapter over that, though.
Lilina has to be the one initiating the convo, which makes sense, since Debias's gimmick seems to be that he tries not to be noticed by anyone.
(is there a comma missing after Debias's "why"?)
Lilina: You're here... to rescue me?
Debias: But of course! It's a knight's duty to, uh... save their master from evil!
Lilina: Debias... What sort of fool do you take me for?! You're the one who imprisoned me here in the first place!
Debias: Ah, erm... it was all a ruse, milady! I had no other means of fooling that dastardly traitorous Legance!
Lilina: .........
Debias: ...Ahem, anyways, you can have your tome back, milady. I've no need to hold onto it any longer, after all!
Lilina: I hope he means what he says...
Ah yes, the upstanding and honest Debias. Even more angelic than Ted Cruz.
Not too much going on on enemy phase...
... but this hit sends the second greenie into healing mode, too. The first one didn't leave it either and heals the last three-ish points of damage. I was hoping that the two would hold position if there weren't any enemies in their range next turn, but unfortunately they just remain aggressive throughout.
I'm a bit XP greedy here and leave the Archer kill for next turn, since he's only in range of the still injured green Knight.
The group on the right just moves forward, with Astore in range to free Lilina next turn. Lance and Roy are still just out of range of the Knight with the other stealable Chest Key.
Which means that only Wendy et al. are active on enemy phase.
And here I realize that the green units are relentless. Probably should have brought over Clarine and Shanna with their sky-high rescue stats to get them out of the way.
I did get one free tome! I believe the convo is unchanged, albeit a little nonsensical with Lilina already carrying a Fire tome while captured. The Thunder spell gives Lilina +2 Atk and +5 Crit at the cost of 5 hit and 1 AS, so it's a decent upgrade for her.
You can see Treck at the bottom of the screen, pulling the Knight with the stealable Chest Key so that Astore can get that next turn.
The Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad clears the last couple enemies in the area (with Barthe taking the Archer kill away from Wendy anyway)...
...and they start to slowly break through the 100 HP wall so that I don't have to walk all the way past the throne to get those chests.
This also puts Marcus in range to pull the guarding Mage, who opened the door below him but became passive afterwards.
Again, not too much happening on enemy phase. It's kinda typical for BinBla; most of the action usually happens in the first couple turns, then the game slows down.
And another Wendy kill! She's getting some progress with her Bow rank as well, which is nice.
Yoink! Astore gets an immediate lift into range of the treasure room, too.
As usual, Clarine and Saul have been keeping up with their heal grinding. Unfortuately, they're also keeping up their two-stats-per-level streak.
C support GET! Roy/Lilina is a Fire/Light support, which is full Atk, Accuracy, and Crit, i.e. as offensive as it gets. Definitely nice to have.
There's not really much pressure to hurry up to get to Leygance, what with eight chests waiting for Astore (and me not bringing Chad, which is something I would've changed in another attempt), so Treck just pulls the Great Knight and nothing else.
And Zelot does the same thing on the other side, carrying a Hand Axe to get some counter-chip in.
The wall already goes down on this turn, so it shouldn't be a problem to get the kills on both of the Great Knights. I'm only a bit worried about nasty kill-stealing green units.
And Astore gets to work. I think these chests are unchanged? I'll list all the items here, like I did in chapter 6, and then look up if anything was changed.
- Knight Crest
- Elfire
- Light Brand
- Killer Bow
- Elysian Whip
- Guiding Ring
- Secret Book
- Energy Ring
Actually, one change. The Energy Ring is replacing a Silver Axe. I'll contemplate about my stat boosters a little bit at the end of the chapter, I think.
That's a lot of power on that Silver Axe Knight... I moved a couple additional units from the Not-So-Scrubby-Anymore Squad forward to block the greenies' path a little, but in a way that still forces the Great Knight to attack from 2 range, so Wendy wouldn't have had any trouble tanking the hit. Neither she nor Treck double their opponents, but that was to be expected.
And the greenies can stay away from that juicy XP!
Cath's back! Around her normal time of appearance, I think. The plan here is to let her and the generic thief run up towards the first treasure room so that Astore can steal both of their Lockpicks. Bit slow, but eh.
This also means that I don't have to position Roy to talk to her right away, so he gets the Great Knight kill after Lilina chips for XP, to avoid a counter against Roy, and to save a Rapier use. It results in a genuinely bad Roy level-up. Huh.
(not that he's been growing any less than amazing so far. I'm just spoiled)
On the other side, Lugh goes for the magical chip damage....
...and Wendy fails to secure the kill.
Ogier picks it up instead - he doubles here, so this was quite safe, and he hit the first attempt anyway.
More cowardly tactics! Marcus (equipped with Wendy's Javelin because he broke his own) doesn't kill here, so that's going to be easy XP.
As is this here for Shanna. She also blocks Cath's path here, just to be sure that she doesn't run ahead from Roy too much. It'll take two turns to steal both sets of lockpicks, too, so it's nice if she and the thief don't get close to Astore at the same time.
Clarine can use Physic now! ...which I completely forgot to bring with either Saul or Clarine. Oh well, my RPG hoarding syndrome is glad.
Cath actually heals after Shanna's attack, despite being well above half HP. Not sure if her AI is programmed to be especially careful or if it's a "might as well" because she's blocked off anyway. I'd be honestly impressed with the AI if it's the latter, though.
And, next turn, Wendy picks up one kill for a minimalistic, but good level...
...and Lilina gets the other one. Can't go wrong with Mag/Spd.
More greenie retention strats, and Lilina gets ready for some enemy phase action! She actually would've survived a hit here (Javelins are rather weak after all), but that Knight seems to be completely stationary, so Lilina just goes for the kill on the next player phase.
...I'll tak Mag on a staffbot, but I'd really appreciate a couple more procs per level on my healers....
To make sure that Cath and her compagnion start running the other way, Astore takes a break after opening the third chest. Probably a little overly careful, since there's an open path westwards to the other chests, but better safe than sorry.
Roy gets rescue/dropped in the same direction, too, so that he'll be able to talk to Cath whenever.
More reinforcements! ...and a good thing that they're no ambush spawns, huh, Shanna?
It's actually all the "normal" spawns at once - two from the bottom left one from each stairway, and (screenshotted a little later) a trio from the top left.
I guess I should be glad that they didn't ambush and kill Shanna, but at the same time - spawning at the start of player phase completely reduces them to easily available chunks of XP, even though Zelot is "wasting" one of them here. But Lance is easily one-rounding any archers as they spawn and Shanna can handle any mercenary spawning from the other stairway. She's a bit lucky with her dodges, admittedly, but she could just run into Saul or Clarine's range if she wasn't.
Yoink!
Roy moves so that he still leaves a path for Cath to walk towards Astore...
...which she does, although she also moves into a somewhat awkward position. She keeps blocking the hallway for a while...
...because she decides that "one tile to the left" is the safest spot to get some healing.
I've been skipping through a lot of screenshots here, since the reinforcements really don't pose any kind of threat whatsoever, but there's one small detail that I should probably go over:
Riiiight, there's a boss to kill. And he actually has a couple lines of specific dialogue that I stumbled upon. First: Debias!
Debias: Ergh... How did it come to this?
Leygance: Hmph. I'll sever your head from your spineless neck, traitor!
Well, Debias is not going to get close enough for you to try, I'm afraid.
This, I think, is just the same normal one as in vanilla. Also Dorothy's only "contribution" in this chapter. And she misses her shot.
Leygance: Yes, you most certainly will. Have at you!
He even has some lines if one of the greenies survives to attack him! Which honestly doesn't seem to be too unlikely to happen.
The weird part is that the Hammer-wielding greenie is quite likely to kick Leygance's butt, even though he gets doubled. Two-shot vs. three-shot, gg ez.
We can't let that happen, obviously, since Leygance should be worth a lot of XP. So, Lot deals a little chip damage...
...and Lilina goes for a rather unnecessary risk, since I believe there were a couple options around that wouldn't have been one-shot by Leygance's counterattack. Very fitting to let her have the kill, though!
Leygance: I see the assassination failed...
Lilina: Legance... Why?
Legance (whoops, I'm still used to the "y" in his name): Times are changing, milady. I won't be left in the dust. I'm not like Lord Hector. He was too foolish to accept the obvious.
Lilina: Hush yourself! I will not let you insult my father!
Success! Now, this is the second level without either HP or Def. I hope this won't become a trend, because keeping a unit alive that gets one-shot by 23 Atk seems like something that will only become more difficult as the game progresses.
Other than that, I don't feel like the rest of the clean-up needs much elaboration, so I'll get back to skipping most of my screenshots.
Jesus, and I was complaining that Shanna's physical durability is shit. And I still am, really, although she's at least more likely to survive at least one hit here or there.
Ooh, this one might deserve a mention though: The first use of a Silver Lance! Just to avoid a counter, because the reinforcements are still incoming after Legance's death and I don't want to overrely on Shanna dodging 50-ish hitrates.
And another weak level-up. I'm truly not in a position to complain, but it feels like this chapter was a little worse than the previous ones in this regard.
...yeah, definitely a little worse.
Except, of course, for the unit that I'm not really planning to field once deployment slots become more rare.
I ultimately have Lugh use the freshly stolen Chest Key to speed things up a little bit - this is turn 16, and Cath is still refusing to move out of the hallway, so Astore is going around towards the chests to the left. With some trading, I use the key for two additional chests.
Finally! More than two stats! (and also Mag/Spd, so that's nice, too)
And with that last level-up, it's a wrap. A much faster wrap than chapter 6, actually - but I guess that the treasure is a lot more centralized in this chapter, so despite not bringing Chad (and Dorothy doing literally nothing means that I certainly could've without hampering my combat whatsoever), this wasn't too much of a slog. I really like the two additional paths in Project Ember, although maybe enemy placement could be changed, too, since I was still practically done with the chapter after like half of the actual turncount. Still, well done overall.
Yeahhhh, about that......
For now, Lilina learning of Hector's death (and taking it surprisingly well) is all the dialogue we get, since the first gaiden is wedging itself between this and the next major plot development. So, let's see how well Henning will match up against his infamous orignial self - next time. Thanks for reading!
LvHP Str Skl Spd Lck Def ResRoy14.8840 16 13 17 13 11 8(+7 HP)Lance13.3231 16 16 16 4 12 3(+2 Str)Wade12.4438 18 9 10 9 8 5Lot15.4338 13 12 13 8 13 11Shanna14.9725 9 12 20 13 6 11Lugh7.0224 9 12 15 9 4 7Clarine14.1929 10 11 18 13 4 6Saul13.6333 8 10 12 3 9 9Zelot */3.4735 16 12 13 7 15 6(base)Treck11.8734 12 13 11 10 15 6Debias14.3443 16 14 9 3 14 4(base)Marcus */2.8935 10 14 13 10 9 10Dorothy9.1024 13 10 10 3 5 6Astolfo10.9328 10 10 15 4 8 7(base)Lilina9.9220 13 10 11 15 3 11Gwendolyn12.8633 14 10 11 12 15 8Barthe15.7140 16 9 6 9 17 5(base)Ogier12.1333 12 11 14 8 9 7We have three unused stat boosters to hand out - a Goddess Icon, a Secret Book, and an Energy Ring. I'm leaning towards +Lck to Lance (frontliner with only 4 Lck, which will mean a lot of low% crit risks down the line), +Mag to Clarine (more range, and more damage after promotion), and +Skl to Wade (when he doesn't have Lot in support range, 9 Skl and 9 Lck mean that his hitrates can be a bit iffy). I'll think about it before playing 8x, though.