Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Chapter 9: Gallia

The Greil mercenaries are outnumbered and overpowered in the battle at gebal castle, when all seems lost, two Gallian warriors turn up and rescue the group. They reveal that they are to escort the mercenaries to the capital, Lethe, a feline cat, expresses her hatred of humans and Soren retaliates by insulting the laguz by calling them sub-humans. Angered by this, Mordecai transforms and attempts to attack Soren, but is blocked by Ike, who gets hurt instead. Soren continues to battle and prepares a wind spell but is ordered by Ike to stand down which he reluctantly does. After being forgiven the group prepares for a laong march into the heart of Gallia.

Base preparations
Once again make sure that each character has a ranged and an iron and steel version of thier weapon, don't forge anything however. If durability is running low sell the weapons so that you can buy new ones, if you got it, sell the red orb from chapter 8.

The bonus experience this level should be little or maybe none, bonus experience you do have should be used to level up Soren and Rhys so that they are at an equal level to Boyd and Oscar. Once again your judgement is neccessary for any support or info conversations you watch. After all this is done, save the game and leave your base.

Battle
This level requires you to split your groups into two groups: one to deal with the enemies on the beach nad to visit the houses and another to defeat the boss and his guards and to seize the castle. The group for the beach should include Boyd, Soren and Rhys; while the seize group should consist of Ike, Titania and Oscar. Reposition the group to allow easy access for the routes intended. Once this is done take a look around the map, save the game and start the mission.

At the beginning of the level Rolf and Mist rush up to the group and persuades them to let them participate in the battle. You can use them, but be careful as they are both extremely fragile and easy to kill. If you do choose to you them put Mist on Ike's team and Rolf on Boyd's team. Once that's done send Ike's group as far South-west as they can go and make Ike direct Lethe and Mordecai to Avoid. This will allow maximum experience for your group. Then move Boyd's group towards the beach, making sure that neither Soren, Rhys or Rolf are in the nearby fighter's attack area.

Make steady progress with both teams. In Boyd's group, use Boyd to deal with melee enemies and Soren to deal with the ranged foes. If either Soren or Boyd doesn't finish thier opponent off, you can use Rolf to deal the killing blow, be careful about counter-attacks, however. Use Rhys to heal any weakened units while avoiding enemy attack ranges. Eventually, Boyd's group will face two bandits that appear. Hopefully you can visit the houses before they smash them, if not don't fret and just kill them. Though be wary of thier venom weapons which will poison you on contact which will do damage to that unit every turn. Once all the houses have been visited and all the enemies on the beach have been killed head south to reinforce Ike's group.

Ike's group should dominate unless under-levelled. Refrain from using Titania unless it's to rescue Mist or to finish off a ranged enemy. Eventually Reinforcement will emerge from the castle and the group will be under serious threat. don't worry, however as you can block off the path as the tree's have a two spaced gap in between at one point, plug up this gap with Ike and Oscar and use Mist to heal them from behind and then rescue her with Titania. Once the aggressive enemies are defeated deal with the mages near the chapter's boss, Kotaff. Make sure your not in his range, however, as he is quite strong. Once the mages are out of the way use oscar to attack Kotaff from afar and finish him off with Ike's blade. The turn after Kotaff's defeat, seize the castle and complete the level.

If you talked to her in chapter 3, Marcia shows up. Talk to her with Ike and she'll join your squad. I wouldn't recommend using her as she is very weak throughout the game.