The Grimleal

The Grimleal
Game	Fire Emblem Awakening
Objective	Rout the enemy
Units Allowed	Chrom + 9
Units Gained	Gregor Nowi
Boss	Chalard
Script	Chapter script
Previous	Incursion or A Strangled Peace
Next	Emmeryn
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“Chrom and Lissa learn their sister is to be put to death, and launch a rescue mission. On the way, they battle the Grimleal: the fell dragon's loyal followers.”
—Opening Narration

The Grimleal (Servant of the Evil Dragon in the Japanese version) is Chapter 8 of Fire Emblem Awakening. This chapter takes place in Border Sands.

Villages

The villages here offer these items:

• Rescue - top right
• Master Seal - left
• Second Seal - lower right

Quotes

• Nowi: GET AWAY FROM ME!
• Avatar: What in blazes?! The girl is a dragon!
• Chrom: By the gods, she's a manakete... I never thought I'd see one.
• Avatar: Hmm... Perhaps she doesn't need our help so much as we could use hers...

Script

The script for this chapter can be found here.

Strategy

Subjective: The following part of this article is based upon the editor's personal experiences and opinions, and therefore may not be applicable for all readers.

This is the first chapter where terrain will really affect how you will manoeuvre your units around the map. All units will suffer a movement penalty with the exception of mages and fliers. Mounted units will suffer a tremendous movement penalty. Luckily, the terrain also affects the enemies so take note of the mages because there are no fliers, and then prioritize killing them first.  

You will immediately notice Gregor and Nowi appear around the middle of the map.  They are out of range of a rescue staff, but if Gregor pairs up with Nowi, she can move north to a space where no enemies can attack them. Next turn, move the pair north more until they join your army and can be used strategically.  

Work your way south slowly, making sure to visit all 3 villages since they offer extremely useful items.  Take out the cavaliers, myrmidons, dark mages, and barbarians that have brought the fight to you by using mages and flyers to carry the stronger units. Once all these enemies are dispatched, that leaves the slew of enemies surrounding the boss. There's a dark mage with a wind tome so be careful how you deal with that one, but otherwise just kill the myrmidons and barbarian. Note that one myrmidon has a killing edge which gives the enemy a high chance of pulling a critical hit. It's best to take this enemy down with a ranged attack.

Finally, kill the boss. He doesn't move at all so face him when you're ready and after you've collected all the treasure from the villages. Be aware that the boss wields a nosferatu tome. This allows him to heal himself by half of the damage he dealt to you. To counter this, have a unit wait in his attack range and then they'll attack the boss by counterattacking. On the next player phase, use all your units to finish off the boss.

Trivia

• As Awakening includes classes that can utilize both physical and magical implements, it is not immediately apparent as to which classes qualify as mage classes for purposes of desert movement. The Tactician tree, despite having access to tomes, is not considered a mage class for this purpose; on the other end of the spectrum, the War Monk and War Cleric classes, by virtue of being the advanced forms of the clearly-magical Priest and Cleric classes, are considered mage classes even though their means of offense is the axe.
• Despite taking place entirely in a desert, this chapter does not offer any hidden treasure, a departure of typical desert chapter practice. The same is also true of the following chapter.

Gallery

Chapter 8 concept art.
Initial map outline with notes on player and enemy placement, terrain, etc.

Chapter 8 concept art.
Playtest version of the map, with text labels to indicate terrain types.