The Army

Army Level 10

Our level is going to start going up in Chapter 2, where we'll actually be challenged. After the next battle we'll gain additional options for equipment so we will no longer be a ragtag band of beast tamers and berserkers and ninjas using short swords. So far everyone has been doing a splendid job slapping the enemy to death, with Peter and I doing most of the killing. Pretty soon I'm going to open things up and allow you to choose your gear when I get more options.

Unit Spotlight - Witch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3jt5ibfRzw

Witches are support magic characters. They can place debuffs on the enemy, buffs on the friends, and even change battlefield conditions (i.e. make it rain, increase the power of a given element, etc.) Witches are best served by using spells of their own element - so a fire witch will want the stun spell, earth petrify, etc. The special witch in T.O. is a carry over character who appears in every Ogre Battle game: Deneb. She isn't a normal witch, she's actually a separate class, but serves a similar function. To recruit her, we'd have to be at the right place at the right time and sell certain things...it's grindy. Our resident army Witch is Kay. Who chose the character name Velika for some reason. She is of the earth element and will have poison/petrify at some point, but right now she wields stun.

Not much has changed, but you have been useful in keeping Vice in check. You're going to get a new staff pretty soon.

You've gotten some more kills and are almost caught up to me. Right now you're standing at 11 kills, less than 20 to go!

It's very nice watching your dude raise that Phlanka in the air to axe them questions. What are your dreams? What is your favorite color? Do you want to see my new axe? How does it taste? Oh you're dead...

Even though you do not have an axe, another Berserker is a nice thing to have. But soon you will have a Phlanka, just like Sagar.

You serve a similar purpose to everyone else right now; namely corralling guys so Peter and I can finish them off. Things will change as soon as we start getting close to the required kill count and your shield will be needed in the battles to come.

One time, in battle, you speared two dudes at once. Your spear is handy for attacking from a distance and skewering two dudes in a straight line. Nothing can tough you as of now, but if you're going to use hammers that will change.

I've had it up to HERE with this tower shield crap. I put your shield and sword in the wrong item slots and keep mixing them up in the attack menu. So you've gotten some more kills when you didn't need to and didn't do damage when I wanted you to. You have 4 kills, quite unnecessary.

I'm slashing things left and right, getting kills, and being useful. Good news is that I'll be done killing things shorty and can return to being a support unit while everyone else does all the work. I have 18 kills, whoa-nelly!

You saved Sisteena's ass back in that one battle, she was about to die and you topped her off. So kudos. Otherwise you haven't had much to do, since the enemy does 1 damage per strike.


Battle Report:

To change things up a bit, I'm going to separate the battle descriptions from the story, so you have further control over the content you consume.

Our first battle was in a lake of some sort and the enemy commander was a knight. He was rolling with a variety of generic units, even a wizard! However, we swiftly defeated his ass and a little too soon.

Gameplay note: Most battles have a requirement to kill the leader. If you kill the leader, the rest of the enemy retreats. This is useful if a player wants to manage their Chaos Frame (more on that later) or is getting whooped badly and needs an out. Most of the time you can just kill the leader and be done with it. However, I wanted to wrack up some more kills for the terror knights, but Gage gets the deathblow on our enemy's leader. Damn it, Gage! I accidentally equipped your shield in the wrong slot, so my weapon selection is all messed up and your sword is the second choice. I was going to just push him with the tower shield.

The next battle is in a swampy place, which was a huge pain in the ass to navigate since most male characters can't move through water and the place was filled with it.
Gameplay note: Water is a huge hindrance. Most characters have to get around it somehow, either by moving around or jumping over the water tile. Some characters have innate abilities to deal with this: Amazons and other classes can move into water, Ninja can walk on water. There are items in the game which allow characters to walk on or through water, but they aren't until much later.  Units on ground tiles next to water have a large advantage over the unit in or on the water. Many characters in my first playthrough met their end while in or on a water tile.

The enemy leader was a beast tamer named Ganb. He calls in two Griffons and had a few lizard men at his disposal. Normally if I had not over-leveled this would have been a tough battle where the Griffons and Lizard Men would have been giving me trouble. One of the Griffons got a little too aggressive and was counter-attacked to near death, which Ganb did not like and retreated in fear of his babies dying. I think I just fucked up his recruitment quest, but whatever, we don't need his smelly hide. (FYI: You need to defeat Ganb himself in order for him to be recruitable.)

Our final battle for this chapter is at our destination. We deployed at the top of a very large hill against an army made up entirely of soldiers.
Gameplay note: Characters have the option to target things beyond your weapon's shooting range and will hit the target if you are at the proper elevation.

So this battle heavily favors the player, if they have ranged weaponry, which we only have one archer, but the enemy is so far below us it doesn't matter. I did the smart thing this time and put Peter and myself in the front and let the enemy attack them. Soldiers are terrible and everyone died quite quickly. It was almost a little too easy...

The Story So Far
The Duke has given us a mission: Go to Baramus or whatever the town is called and convince some 5000 decrepit old people to revolt against Gargastan. It might be tough, but hey, we're the heroes of Griate! What can go wrong?

Denim and Lans have a heart-to-heart where Lans lies and says he actually gets scared in battle...yeah right. Right? RIGHT?

This time Leonard decided not to join us in battle; it's okay, because I was sick of his insane low-level high stats, kill-stealing ass. First we encountered a Knight in a swamp. We swiftly show him that no matter what his king decided to do (i.e. put more troops on the front line), they'd still get curb-stomped by BADASS army. Next we encounter a weird guy, his name is Ganb. Yeah...Ganb. He's a beast tamer, but not just any beast tamer. He has a couple of griffons with him. Griffons are flying creatures that are tough and have long-range abilities. After his beasts become endangered, he retreats.

Finally we reached our destination. To greet us, some Gargastani soldiers come out and decide to fight us on low ground. They didn't know we were coming and the battle seems a little too easy. After wiping up the battle field, our three favorite guys try to convince all of these old people to revolt. Things aren't going so well. Vice is a very convincing person, why DON'T you want to live like a man? Leonard grabs Denim and goes outside for a smoke break. According to Leonard, the Duke knew the people wouldn't fight, so he had a contingency plan and it's all told in a flashback for some reason...

The Duke wants everyone to destroy the town and make it look like the Gargastans did it, this way every single group that has even a remote issue with Gargastan will want to fight them. This is a great plan with one tiny little baby bitty flaw: you must murder many innocents and stain your hands with blood. This brings us to something important; Denim doesn't automatically refuse or decline, we get a dialogue choice. Unlike many of the previous choices, this one will affect the story and where our hero goes.

Do we follow orders and participate in the butchering of the weak or do we refuse this asinine order and fight for our right to party?


Oh, so if Duke Ronway told you to plug your butt with a pinecone, you'd do it?    I don't know, seems like a lot of work killing 5000 people.                It would certainly give a sudden influx in budgetary money from medicare