All-Girl Challenge - Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon - Part 1: Two-unit army

Hey, it's Robin again.

After years of not creating new content for my gaming blog, I am now back, and will write about more All-Girl challenges in Fire Emblem games.

 

This time, I'm taking on Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. I've finished the game a lot of times already, but it's on the lowest difficulty. I set it that way since I want to get Frey, the best cavalier in the game by experience, and to train Marth to be strong enough upon reaching Chapter 1.

 

Now, I'm trying Hard 1*, and we have to note that without the Prologue chapter, we won't be getting Norne, so I already lost one unit, and an archer. But thanks to the reclassing system of the game, I can find the perfect unit to be the archer instead.

The maximum lineup per chapter from what I remember is 15, so we will list all the ladies, and see who we will be using.

Caeda
Lena
Athena
Maria
Minerva
Linde
Midia
Palla
Catria
Est
Tiki
Elice
Nagi

That's 13 in all. I did not expect the female roster to be that small. Looks like I will be using all of them. I will also be adding Julian to the roster since I need a thief unit to deal with locks. He's not bound for fighting anyway, even in my previous playthroughs. There are no female thieves in the game, so that is for consideration. Add Marth, and that makes 15 units.

What I always do in this game, is to let other units die, to be able to access the gaiden chapters. I will be doing it also in this game, but I will be keeping Bantu on the bench until the recruitment of Tiki, then I'll just let him die too.

 

Chapter 1 

 

 

 

Marth's homeland was invaded, and his sister Elice helps him escape, but she gets left behind. Marth flees to Talys, where Caeda lives. One day, pirates attack the castle. Caeda asks Marth for help to liberate the castle.

Ah, pirates, the recurring enemy in Fire Emblem. It's always pirates or bandits. In this game, they can't destroy villages. Only thieves can do that.

Checking my team, it's only Caeda and Marth that I am keeping from the units. The rest of them are guys. I let them deposit their items to the convoy, and charge to their deaths. I'll have them compiled on a separate post, as to not flood the playthrough posts with their death images.

Now, fighting an army with only two units at level 1 is difficult. All enemy units have axes, which means Caeda will have the weapon triangle disadvantage. Well, at least she can double enemies, resulting in her scoring more kills than Marth. Marth can't even double enemies. Worse, there's no stock of vulneraries at the beginning, so I have to rely on forts to heal.

Marth visits a village, and would you look at that, a free heal staff for Lena! I wonder who actually uses Wrys when Lena is there. (That line that he says is the same line in FEH, when he messes with your white summon orbs.)

Battling through the pirate mob is difficult, and now comes the harder challenge: fighting the pirate boss himself, who is on the castle tile, healing him every turn, increased defense, and increased dodge.

I have to waste some turns healing at the nearby fort. I have to plan this well.

Trying to bring down the boss is difficult without a healer, and the damage of Iron Sword and Iron Lance is too small, it will be healed off immediately. I have to rely on the critical attacks of Rapier and Wing Spear, and by luck, Caeda landed a crit. She can also double with Wing Spear, leaving Gazzak with 5 HP left. Marth finishes him off which finally ends Chapter 1.

 

 

Chapter 2

Marth gets help from Ogma and his three men. They free the port which was turned into a hideout for pirates. Marth begins his journey to go back to his home and free it from the invaders.

 

 

 

 

 

"Hooray for more troops!"

"But they are all guys."

"Hooray for more free weapons!"

The chapter was tough at the beginning because of the pirate mob, and there are also cavaliers which brings trouble, as they are bulkier than the pirates.

More units to feed to the enemies, and the duo is kinda surrounded too, as the pirates, hunters and cavaliers are on the west, and more enemies to the north. Blocking won't do much either, as the pirates can move a few tiles on the water.

To go through this level, I used the units to distract the units to the west, while clearing the units to the north. Darros is an instant recruit, which means another free weapon.

Fighting off the pirates is easy, but stopping the cavaliers is not, as they were able to breach through the bridge, so I have to rely on the defensive tiles. 

They're tough, so I have to rely on the Rapier and Wing Spear to fight them off. After defeating these two, we can now slowly march to the enemy base. Here comes the next obstacle: two hunters, and one of them is Castor.

Castor can be recruited by Castor, but there is another hunter who can one shot her. How will I recruit Castor for a free bow, and not get Caeda shot down?

I had Marth go attack the other hunter, take hits from both of them, and on the next turn, Caeda recruits Castor, while Marth finishes off the other hunter. Thankfully, they deal low damage to Marth. Another free bow!

That leaves the boss unit, Gomer, who wields a Hand Axe. An easier boss than the one in the previous chapter, as Hand Axe has a lower hit rate, and my units are already trained well for this chapter. That is one good thing in maintaining a small army.

Thanks to Caeda's nice speed stat, she can double everyone. Her attack is kinda low, but I hope she'll get better growths.

Here are their stats for the first two chapters of the game. I'm off to a great start, I'd say. I just hope Marth can start doubling even more enemies.

Marth liberates the port, and sets off. Along the way, he will be passing through a bandit hideout. That's where the next chapter will take us.

Next up, we'll start having another unit, and the best part, a healer!

See you in Part 2 of this challenge.