Hardest/Toughest Chapters outside of History Maps

[Emblem Blade]

Hello everyone, it's been about a full year I believe since I last showed up.  Yes, outside of History Maps which provide some of the more infuriating challenges, particularly those that end up giving you characters or the required scroll to release a character's unique weapon, which Chapters in the Story gave you a hard time or perhaps the hardest time?  Personally for me, I've had two, Chapters 12 and 15.  As one who does both Hard/Casual and Hard/Classic to test how good I'm with each character, those two gave me some serious headaches to where I wondered if the game meant to be that serious.

Chapter 12 comes as a serious difficulty spike for the unprepared.  You need to take out both sides forts to clear the chapter, however if you choose to defeat/take over one side before the other or simply not balance out both sides, it can cause trouble.  Either one side gets buffed or the opposing elder brother can be defeated quicker and if either royal sibling gets defeated, it's a game over.  There's also the in-game timer, over time (not the 60 minute timer) both Ryoma and Xander actually lose HP so you can't stall for time as one is bound to be defeated before 60 minutes is reached.  There's also enemy reinforcements that try to take over your forts or others who randomly spawn to alert the opposing side's leader which can summon more reinforcements that should be stopped.  The map is pretty big and unless you did some serious grinding, getting around while keeping the advantage is not easy.  Oh, the armored enemies also can stall you for time that's another thing.  The odds are against you basically.  I barely cleared the chapter getting enough kills to get Anna's Memento while Ryoma (who had the lowest HP of the two) had just a few hit points left.

Chapter 15...  Yeah, pretty big map.  First, while defeating the boss is rather easy, what he does is not funny.  After the initial dialogue ends, Gharneef summons two Sages, one the far upper left and right corners of the map who spam long distance lightning to damage your army and the lightning only stops once both are removed.  This is not funny since even your more heavily magical resistant characters take hefty damage and with a total of what I remember to be 8 units, only your playable four can be commanded to heal and healing constantly while retaining some staff usage isn't too great at the moment.  Topping it off is the distance gap, making non-mounted units a bit slower to get around if you use them.  Between reaching the Sages and healing your team to avoid losses, you have two enemy forts on each side that you can either take over or ignore and some very durable dragons (if not using anything that does bonus damage to them).  After defeating what one would guess was Gharnef, it's revealed that it was just a shadow copy and the real one appears somewhere else.  Fighting the copies is pointless as they simply revive and regain HP over time until their casters are gone which they disappear when the Sages are defeated.  Making it a bit uglier, the real Gharnef brings in enemy reinforcements while you deal with the Sages.  Think that you can reach the place where both Gharnef and his original copy are?  Too bad for you, you have a few Archers ready for you.  I had nightmares with this place since I only had two healers on my initial run, Lianna and Sakura (both as two of my four playable units outside of Marth and Camilla) so the first challenge was to avoid losing anyone to the lightning and I barely made it to Tiki on time who was on the far opposite side of the map as my two healers were close together when the game told me to rescue her.  Then I to heal everyone else since the damage kept racking up (by this I mean my other units not named Lianna and Tiki had less than 40% HP) and get everyone back to their original destination since they kept running back to an ally base to heal.

Which Story Chapters gave you the worst memories to remember?

[Thany]

Chapter 13 made me so nervous, 3 killing machines that chase you a majority of the map doing huge damage is terrifying. and very scary when they just chase you. im lucky to have not lost a unit

[Anomalocaris]

The only two times I recall losing were Takumi's map, where I was dicking around racking up kills and didn't realize I was actually on a time limit until it was too late (though I didn't have to restart, I had enough time from the last checkpoint to clear the map), and 12, where Xander killed Ryoma because again I dwadled too long and didn't realize I was (essentially) on the clock until it was too late.

[Emblem Blade]

3 hours ago, Thany said:

Chapter 13 made me so nervous, 3 killing machines that chase you a majority of the map doing huge damage is terrifying. and very scary when they just chase you. im lucky to have not lost a unit

Chapter 13 is pretty sketchy in that you have a brainwashed Corrin, Xander an Ryoma literally trashing your ally bases just to get to you but at least you have two things going in your favor outside of an easy battle against the idiotic and plainly 'must-be-killed' Iago who can be killed by any swordsman with relative ease.  The only issue is keeping all three alive if they are spread out from each other considering the Mages and Archers that spawn after Iago returns.

1. Your playable allies unless given an order will target Xander and Ryoma and take over that base and continue to keep it under their control for some time.  This gives you, the Player some time to gain considerable distance while they deal with those two.  At least until Corrin shows up in your path that is...

2. A decently leveled Hinoka/Cordelia paired up with someone like Frederick or Takumi (as support) can wall Ryoma alone and possibly defeat him.  Chrom or Lucina at least around Lvl 20-30 at the least can take on Corrin 1-v-1 and win without needing help.  Xander is still a tank as you most likely won't have anything to grant bonus damage to mounted units in general.

2 hours ago, Anomalocaris said:

The only two times I recall losing were Takumi's map, where I was dicking around racking up kills and didn't realize I was actually on a time limit until it was too late (though I didn't have to restart, I had enough time from the last checkpoint to clear the map), and 12, where Xander killed Ryoma because again I dwadled too long and didn't realize I was (essentially) on the clock until it was too late.

Takumi's map is frustrating since you have 20 minutes mostly and the fights against Takumi and Oboro alone take some time each.  You can cheat and defeat the messengers with Hinoka/Chrom or Hinoka/Lucina to deal with the Samurai.  I usually leave Freddy and Robin to guard the ally base since a physical and magical team can usually defeat any mix of enemies that try to ruin the day by taking your vital base.  Sakura's AI (like Lissa and Elise) prompts her to follow one of your playable characters around the map.  Unless she's told to 'Guard' or 'Pair-Up as Support', she'll try to stay by the side of one of your four characters (mostly the one you are playing as currently.)  Even after she takes down an enemy or takes over an enemy fort, she'll resume following someone else.  The first Sky Knight raid is near the middle fort of the western/left side of the map so keep her posted there so she can defeat the two Sky Knights quickly.  The only problem is that while Takumi isn't too hard, Oboro brings back memories of being hard on Lunatic/Classic back in Fates meaning that you'll be wasting some time just defeating her.  I would mention how training Sakura before Chapter 7 is actually useful but this isn't the topic to cover her under.  And yeah, Chapter 12 not only has the 60 minute timer but an in-game timer that causes both opposing leaders HP to drop over time which is bad news for those who don't pay attention to the HP of every enemy unit on the map as they might fail the chapter for taking too long.  I suggest taking Robin or Elise  or both for Chapter 12 to help defeat the enemy Armored units quicker or else you'll be relying on critical-hits which take time.  Just make sure to set Elise' mission to targeting an enemy (base) or else she might just follow you around the map which isn't really needed all the time.

[CmdrQuartz]

You don't have to defeat Xander, Ryoma, or Corrin in chapter 13. Just defeating iago will cause them to switch allegiance . Just scatter your allies, take a fort or two on the way to Iago and you'll be fine. Should also be noted that you can change a characters default actions in autobattle menu before starting a map. I have everyone set to do nothing if no orders are given so they don't go running off for whatever reason and stay put after healing, taking a fort, or killing a target.

[Thany]

Oh I know, Its not like I lost any of these history battles. (Except for chapter 12 but im pretty sure everyone didnt realise about the invisible time limit, but otherwise not that hard) but chapter 13 is pretty scary when being chased. (lord knows my units nearly died alot when battleing)

[Emblem Blade]

Update from playing through on Lunatic/Classic, outside of Chapters 12 and 15 still being a pain, now I'm finding Chapters 7, 11, and 20 to be more difficult than normal. 

Chapter 7: Other than the time limit being 20 minutes still, Oboro is being more stubborn and I ended spending even more time trying to defeat her.  Came closer to failing the chapter because of her and Takumi being stubborn Hoshidians.

Chapter 11: Saving the Myrmidon on the upper right corner isn't easy, not with a crap ton of Archers and Armored foes blocking each gate which makes using either Cordelia or Camilla (or both) incredibly difficult if anyone was trying to speed their way to the unit in danger.  Getting to Xander is even harder since there's more enemies and I'm guessing most players units probably aren't high enough to quickly dispatch the Knights and Great Knights in the way unless there was some level grinding (unfortunately Leo joined the chapter prior and Elise might not be up to the task and both are best for removing 'Armored' enemies), plus Xander is facing Soldiers and Mages (the latter being the worst enemies for him).  It also brings back the horrid memories of Lunatic/Classic Awakening (minus the 'protecting the ally bases) due to incredibly strong enemies in general swarming your allies.

Chapter 20: Tree of Life isn't that bad...but now we get more Lightning spamming Sages who are quite the distance away which is never funny.  The Shadow clones of our characters make surviving and protecting the base even worse since there are four Shadows in the first wave an possibly more if the Sages aren't removed quickly.  They also take an absurd amount of punishment and unless one comes prepared for said Shadows, the battle can become tedious, as I found out the hard way.

 

Also, should I open another topic asking which History Mission (as in individual missions per map of the four character related ones) are the hardest for everyone since it's quite clear that a number of players struggle with a certain type of mission?