Does Fire Emblem encourage animal cruelty? [Commentated] FE10 HM 0% growths chapter 3-E

Описание: This is chapter 3-E of my FE10 HM 0% growths playthrough, commentated by Mekkah and me. It is completed in 3 turns. Janaff gains 9 WEXP and ends the chapter at S +65 strike. Ulki gains 8 WEXP and ends the chapter at S +67 strike.

This chapter is certifiably bonkers; it felt like 80% of the planning and testing went to getting the 3 NPC kills needed to reach the target of 80. That said, there is a lot of funky stuff that can happen, which obviously isn't in this video and would've been too incoherent to cover in commentary.

First, everything funky involving Skirmir's NPC beasts. Skrimir's starting army consists of 5 tigers and cats each. The tigers are slow enough to get doubled by enemy warriors, but they are very tanky and too heavy to be rescued by paladins. The cats tend to double most enemies, but they are frailer and movable by paladins. Of these starting NPCs, I observed that 2 tigers and 1 cat had "cowardly" AI - that is, they like to rally around Skrimir rather than attacking an enemy within their range.

This behavior became very difficult to account for on turn 3, when I needed them to clean up the enemy paladins baited over by the sacrificed NPC cat. A number of the beasts would just run next to Skrimir instead of attacking, so if I baited over 3 paladins, a max of 2 of them would get killed. That's why my setup involved sacrificing a non-cowardly cat at 2HKO HP or less, ideally at poor biorhythm, matched up against paladins ideally at good biorhythm. If I bait over no more than 2 paladins, the cat usually has 3 chances to get hit.

Turn 1 is pretty predictable with the stat roll profile that I used. In addition to the warriors doubling a tiger, I also required a cat to ORKO an enemy fighter (the one I stat checked). This lets a tiger weaken an enemy paladin for Tanith to kill on turn 2. The fighter almost always dies to the cat, but he has some pretty wide variability in his possible stats, and there was one test run where he high rolled bulk and caused the plan to fall apart. So on subsequent runs, I always checked his stats, but I never saw him roll bulk that high again.

Second, everything funky involving Tibarn's NPC hawks. Sigrun rescued the left-most hawk because that guy cannot attack an axe paladin on turn 1 and canto back near Tibarn, so he usually attacks a swordmaster. If the hawks don't combo down an axe paladin, not only can they enter healing AI, but they will start cantoing all over the place and introduce chaos. They might even decide to chase Mordecai or Ranulf. So on turn 1, we need the 4 other hawks to neatly combo kill the 2 enemy axe paladins.

The enemy targeting priority after that can vary greatly, depending on the NPC hawks' bulk and biorhythm rolls. Because of that, I just let them fight it out. Sigrun wielding a Brave Lance deters the enemies from attacking her. There is a small chance that the ball of hawks ends up too far right and in range of multiple reinforcements, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

Last, everything funky involving the core strategy with the blue units. The most common reset point is actually Haar failing to enter Resolve range by turn 2. He needs to get hit 3 out of 4 times by the trio of generals. This setup is intended to consume at most 5 Hammer uses, leaving it just short of breaking. Once in Resolve, it was pretty rare for Haar to die on turns 2 or 3 from getting chipped down by enemies.

As I said in the commentary, Ike doesn't strictly need Adept. There are 2 halberdiers and a swordmaster that he usually doesn't double. In this video, one halberdier low rolled speed, the other decided to attack Haar, and the swordmaster got Adept ORKO'd. If all 3 attacked Ike, they could box him in and screw things up, so Adept helps to prevent that scenario.

Stat checks in 3-E:
Sniper L15: Has neutral or better biorhythm on turns 2 and 3
Halberdier L15: Rolls 21 def and any HP, OR 22 def and 40 HP - somewhat likely
Warrior L13: Rolls 22 spd instead of 21 spd - pretty likely
Warrior L12: Rolls 22 spd instead of 21 spd - not very likely
Fighter L20: Rolls 36 HP, or 13 or less def - extremely likely
Swordmaster L17: Has bad or worst biorhythm on turn 2
Lance paladin L16: Rolls 40 HP or 20 def - pretty likely
Sniper L16: Rolls 20 def instead of 21 def - pretty likely

I needed 1 out of these 3 stat checks to conserve a Hammer use:
Lance general L15: Rolls 26 def instead of 27 def
Lance general L16: Rolls 19 spd instead of 20 spd
Axe general L14: Rolls 41 HP or 25 def

I wanted, but didn't need, 5 enemies to have decent biorhythm:
Lance general L16: Has neutral or better bio to hit Haar
Lance general L16: Has neutral or better bio to hit Haar
Lance general L15: Has neutral or better bio to hit Haar
Warrior L15: Has neutral or better bio to hit NPC beasts
Warrior L14: Has neutral or better bio to hit NPC beasts

Itemfinding in 3-E: Rescue (50% and 44% = 69.2%)