seki108

Oops, I never wrote anything for Stage 72.  I'll do a short thing, I suppose.   I might do another, intermission post later, since I haven't started the next stage due to not knowing for sure what to do with something.  

This stage introduced a new variation of the annoying sheep mook, the giant Red sheep.

With 2000 armor, L size, and over 15,000, these would be annoying HP blobs in other circumstances.  Adding in a danmaku field that keeps my units from getting within 4 spaces of it (unless it moves closer) just adds a layer of annoying.  Giving it a Post-Movement with a long range can be quite deadly if you packed too many units close together.......or if two of them fire on the same area.  It would have been bad if they got next to another unit (since they have Support Defend level 4), but it never happened this stage.

With how highly accurate both the black and the white sheep mooks are, having enough units damaged could lead to a minor case of swarming.........though the main thing that kept happening was them either shooting down the healing that was going solo, wasting the Alerts (100% dodge) of a unit, or double hitting the ship.   This was also the main attraction of the first part of the stage, Hisoutensoku, to deal with at the same time.

As per Super Robot tradition (at least in SRW terms), Hisoutensoku is bulky unit with high damage potential, boosted further by a high level of Prevail+ (as HP drops, Accuracy, Evasion, Defence, and critial hit rates increase).  While this is more inflated as an enemy boss, the main reason for it's survivability and damage output against you is it's LL size. 

Like SRW, FMW goes by a size scaling system, with each level difference creating a 10% difference.  For example, LL units have both 10% damage increase and a 10% accuracy decrease against size L units;  L units meanwhile have a 10% damage reduction and a 10% accuracy increase.   Since most units are size M  (two less that LL), most had a 20% damage debuff.    While a skill "Ignore Size" can be purchased, it usually isn't worth for M size units it since this is literally the first enemy in 72 stages this big (aside from the optional battle against the Palaquin ship on stage 40); it can be useful for size S (and the one SS) unit though.                Most finishers do have a build in "ignore size", but Hiso still has it's natural bulk.

After almost beating Hiso (but not finishing it), it shuts down, but the spirit inside it seems to have been awakened by Sanae's cries (or her just generally being in danger).  Still have a few stages to wait to find out what really happens, since the translation LP is on Stage 69.   Anyway, onto the main boss of the stage, Giant Catfish.  Yep, despite being nothing more than a dream of Meiling's (presumably) in the fighting game that introduced it, having an antagonist that can essentially bring life to dreams makes Giant Catfish a real threat.

While it has less Armor and HP than Hiso, it is also LL size, two MAP attacks, and has 3 spell cards to boot (essentially, 4 HP bars).  It's overall gimmick seems to be bogging you down, with each spell card activation shaving off some of your front units HP............adding to that, each spell card makes the amount of HP required to take any action become higher.    Thankfully, at this point in the game, it's perfectly possible to take down two spell cards in a turn, even with only halfway upgraded units.     It would have been a different story if I didn't bring enough units with healing spells (which a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the cast has) and a unit with Bonds (every units back 2000HP), but that is usually necessary for emergencies at this point.

The one Giant Catfish attack I have a video of.  It seems that they took a cue from the game that created it, making his attacks kind of generic (in both name and design) but hard hitting