My opinion of this French Revolution-themed visual novel/tactical strategy game keeps rising as I work my way through the campaign. Once you get past the fact that the main army commanders are all teenage girls, there’s a decent story there, and the battles are just over the top.
The current campaign has us coming to the rescue of one of our artillery generals who found herself surrounded behind enemy lines. The smart thing to do would have been to withdraw and cut our losses; instead, our protagonist, headstrong Pauline Bonaparte, chose to perform a daring rescue.
She won the battle, but now found her army in the same situation — surrounded and behind enemy lines. She orders her army to scatter and find their own ways through the mountains to safety. Pauline and a wounded Desaix have to make their way down the mountains with enemy cavalry pursuing them and enemy camps in their way.
After that, Desaix collapses and is taken away for medical leave. It’s unclear if he’s coming back.
Although Pauline does regroup with the rest of her army, she is being dogged by enemy forces led by enemy commanders Brigitte (who holds a well-defended fortification on high ground), Anne (who liked the taste of failure in the last update) and Léonore, who leads some heavy cavalry on a flanking attack midway through the battle.
The battlefield had a trio of defense fortifications we could man, an artillery stand perfect for Paulette, and several muddy footprints that mark where enemy reinforcements will enter.
I started Paulette near the stand, sent spy master Adélaïde and heavy cavalry Murat to guard the north approach, Pauline and Aimée and some infantry regiments to handle Brigitte’s armies, and all the rest along with the mounted healer to defend against the armies to the south.
I had to save and restore a lot. When Brigitte sent her armies down, I had to pull Murat off the northern defense, leaving Adélaïde alone to handle whoever turned up. It turned out to be three cavalry. I started sending Pauline up to help, but she killed them all. Then she went to handle Brigitte’s reinforcements. And lastly, she took out Brigitte herself.
I’d had my artillery moved to focus on her position, but her fortified and elevated position let her shrug off our attacks, while giving her a perfect opportunity to retaliate. I found that she would cheerfully wipe out my artillery and cavalry while taking little damage.
Adélaïde, being a proud spy master of the Secret du Roi, snuck in behind and assassinated her where she stood.
With the threat from the east gone, it was a simple matter to focus on Anne’s forces to the south and win the battle on the eleventh turn, all conditions completed (Kill Brigitte, survive eleven turns, wipe out all enemies). 42 enemies killed with a force of 14 and no casualties on our side. La victoire est à nous! Viva Adélaïde et le Secret du Roi! 胜利是我们的！
The enemy commanders withdrew and the game says we will never see them again, though I’m not so sure.
Pauline and her army, though free for the moment, now have to make their slow way through a winter storm. New recruit Laure, whom we met in Paris and found us in the field while testing out a new carbine she developed, suggests we camp at her home village, not far away. Unfortunately, her village believes her to be a witch, and not only that, it is occupied by bandits.
Tired and short of supplies, Pauline turns her army to take on the bandits.
