Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon/Chapter 17X

Before Chapter 17X
In Chapter 14, let both Palla and Catria die. Remember to watch for the many reinforcements.

In Chapter 15, remember to run quickly from Gharnef. Then, remember to get the treasure at the bottom right corner.

In Chapter 16, choose whether you want to keep Xane or not. I find him not worth the trouble...also don't bother sending anyone to the left side. Arran and Samson are horrible anyway, unless you want to let one just wither away at the top 4 reinforcements until he dies.

In Chapter 17, remember to take the left side out before the right side. Also remember that the manaketes are difficult but give good exp. Be sure to watch for the reinforcements and also to check the secret shop on this map.

At the end of Chapter 17, make sure to have less than 15 units for the gaiden.

Prisoner of Helena
"At long last, Altea was free again. Marth took the League to Helena Castle in the north, an old fortress and key supply point during Doluna and Grust's occupation. There he meant to seize the last of the enemy's gold and provisions but Grust would not give up the castle without a fight..."

This battle features many new ideas. Thieves and long ranged units are advised most. Especially thieves.

At the beginning of the chapter:

For the first turn, don't bother trying to lure in the ranged units. They won't go for the bait.

All units should move forward. You might want to consider leaving them out of enemy range, but this is up to you. On the enemy's turn, all knights and cavaliers will rush toward you, and after the turn, dialogue appears:

First thing to do is clear the immediate Knight/Cavalier problem. This is easy since your whole main army should have advanced.

You are probably wondering about Etzel, who happens to be the recruitable character for this chapter. You gain him by clearing the chapter before killing him, like the chapter with Horace.

There are a whole bunch of rooms that seem to have some interesting stuff in them...hmmm, use your thief to check them out.

Use the save orb if you want, then use the thieves in the next few turns to check out the left three rooms.

Let us start with the top one and move down.

Yay for us, first room contains chests. This one contains a Warp. Let's go to the next room down.

Enemy ambush! Manakete, pretty simple still. There's only one of him.

Moving logically down to the third and final room, we are greeted by a mage and a chest. A poleax resides in the chest. Yay for us, now to go to the rest of the map.

On turn 10 however, the enemy seems to have different plans. Three paladins spawn on the bottom. The forefront paladin wields a Killer Lance, something you might not want to mess with. I suggest luring them in and then using long ranged attacks.

If you lured them in, then the turn you finished killing them will also have three more of the same paladins spawning in. This would be Turn 14.

On Turn 17, three more will appear. Same deal as before.

Turn 17 yields the last reinforcements of the battle. Now we can go back to raiding the west side.

The northwest room seems to be a good spot to raid first. Bring out thief over and open it to find a bishop with Elfire and a chest containing a Longbow.

The next corridor may pose a small problem for some units. It seems that they are infested with long ranged units. Simple enough however, just lure in a few at a time. Then, heal from the rough damage then lure in some more.

Note: A good place to safely pick off one unit at a time if you are scared of losing a unit is the small indent in the wall. Use the danger button to find how far away you can be before you are attacked then quickly rush the unit into the indent. Kill a few units then retreat/heal and then continue.

When the immediate enemies that attack you on their free will are gone, you are left with a sort of trap. An archer resides behind the walls, but to attack him you need either a longbow or to just regularly attack.

However, there is a small problem. A manakete is waiting at the bottom to attack your ranged unit if you decide to do the latter. Also, a bishop is also waiting to kill your unit.

Below, a sniper with a dangerous killer bow is ready to take out any unit with a critical. Use a cavalier to kill him fast. However, this will trigger the hero to attack you along with a weak cavalier. Actually, the hero is pretty weak too, no need to worry about him.

Now, we reach the part with Etzel in our path. Selecting him with A yields us the following information: He won't move. Yet he has a tome and will attack.

In the course of testing this out so as to put it in the guide, I had a near encounter with a sniper. Turns out that if you approach the hallway Etzel is in with a ranged unit, you can trigger the door to open and the sniper to attack you through the walls.

With this piece of information, feel free to pick the archer off. Also, kill the two mercenaries that will rush right after you trigger the door to open.

Also, take out the mercenary above, then put some units around the lower-left door. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID AND OPEN THE DOOR WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE AT LEAST TWO STRONG UNITS NEARBY WHO STILL ARE ABLE TO MOVE THIS TURN.

There are three units behind the door, a knight and two bishops. Combined, the two bishops can team on your thief and kill him pretty easily.

Open the chest in the same room for a weird sword called the Wo Dao.

At the end of all this, the boss should be the only one left along with Etzel.

Leave Etzel alone and make sure to pass him without getting in his range. There is a chest to the southwest of the boss, open it to get a Wing Spear. Yay for us.

Time for boss...ranged attacks work well on him. Of course, Wing Spear or using a Rapier does too.

Seize the gate, save, and it's back to the regular chapters.