Birth of a Holy Knight
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Birth of a Holy Knight (Japanese: 聖騎士誕生 Birth of a Holy Knight) is the prologue chapter of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. The chapter chronicles the short-lived Verdane invasion of a relatively defenseless Grannvale, Sigurd's movement to defend Yngvi and rescue its Lady Edain, his rise as a Holy Knight of Grannvale, and the beginning of his slow descent into a grave predicament.
Plot
- Main article:
Birth of a Holy Knight/Script
While the bulk of the armies of Grannvale are off to war in Isaach, the country itself is largely undefended. Grannvale's former ally Verdane takes advantage of this in a surprise assault led by Prince Munnir, storming the country and assaulting the dukedom of Yngvi. In response to this news and the threat facing Yngvi's Lady Edain, neighboring Chalphy's Lord Sigurd convenes what few knights remain in Chalphy to depart to aid Edain. As the fight passes, others arrive to support him - first Azelle of Velthomer and Lex of Dozel, both against the wishes of their family, then Quan, Ethlyn and Finn of Leonster. Meanwhile, at Yngvi, Midir of the Yngvi knights is gravely wounded by Munnir in attempting to protect Edain, allowing the Verdane forces to seize the castle. Munnir takes Edain back with him to Yngvi, leaving DiMaggio in charge of the Grannvale effort.
Upon reclaiming Yngvi, Sigurd finds Midir, who informs him of Edain's capture and volunteers to assist despite his injury. Meanwhile, at Evans Castle on the other side of the border, Gerrard of the Verdane army learns of Dimaggio's failure and orders that the bridge across the Jun River be restored, and that the remaining forces move in. At this time, Duke Arvis of Velthomer arrives from the north to observe the situation; he finds Sigurd and entrusts him with a Silver Sword, a gift from King Azmur, then departs. Sigurd eventually seizes Evans Castle; finding Edain was not there, he establishes a headquarters there and prepares to sortie directly into Verdane to find her. Filat arrives as a messenger arrives from Belhalla, delivering the news that Sigurd had been appointed a Holy Knight of Grannvale for his efforts and commissioning him to guard the Verdane border.
Chapter data
| Chapter Data | |||||
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| Conditions | Unit Data | ||||
| Victory: Seize Evans Defeat: Sigurd dies or Chalphy Castle is seized |
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| Map dimensions: 62 columns by 30 rows | |||||
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| Army | Commander | Affiliation | Units | Castles | Guardian | Notes |
| Sigurd's | Sigurd | Player | 4 | Chalphy | Arden | Home castle |
| Evans | Munnir*/ Gerrard |
Enemy | 32+15 | Evans | Gerrard | Main objective |
| Yngvi | DiMaggio | • Seized by Munnir on turn 1; DiMaggio then becomes the guardian. • Once seized by Sigurd, the west bridge will be lowered and 15 additional units will appear from Evans | ||||
| Yngvi | Midir | Partner | 1 | Midir | ||
| -- | Arvis | Partner | 1 | -- | -- | • Appears once Sigurd seizes Yngvi. • Does not have a faction, castle, or phase, and moves at the end of Evans Phase. |
Character data
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New units
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Available characters
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Item data
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In addition, five villages are present on the map, which can be visited to obtain up to 5,000 gold each.
Castle data
While the town can be visited from the Chalphy or, once conquered, Yngvi castles, the arena and armory are unavailable. The other four facilities—the blacksmith, pawnbroker, supply, and augury—are normally accessible.
Event data
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Unit data
Evans
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Reinforcements
Once Yngvi has been seized, 10 Barbarians and 5 Hunters emerge from Evans Castle.
Yngvi
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Arvis
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Major units
Evans
- Main article:
DiMaggio
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- DiMaggio is the guardian of Yngvi Castle and a sub-boss affiliated with Evans.
- Main article:
Gerrard
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- Gerrard is the guardian of Evans Castle, and the boss of Evans after Munnir leaves.
- Main article:
Munnir
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- Munnir is only present in the chapter for the first turn. He departs after a cutscene where he defeats Midir at Yngvi, and as such is unfought.
Yngvi
- Main article:
Midir
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- Midir is the guardian of Yngvi Castle and boss of Yngvi before being defeated by Munnir in a cutscene.
Arvis
- Main article:
Arvis
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- Arvis appears on the turn Yngvi Castle is seized, and departs after Sigurd talks to him. He will actively seek out Sigurd and will only attack enemies which get in his way.
Strategy
Castle Yngvi
Sigurd's party sets out to save Castle Yngvi from a Verdanite invasion, but there's nothing they can do as Munnir will crit Midir out of the way and seize the castle at the start of the first Evans phase. For the time being, they need to fight their way over through the many Barbarians and Hunters.
Sigurd himself is actually quite powerful. He, starting in a promoted class and having Follow-Up, one-rounds the Lv1 enemies on the map with impunity and can take three hits before dying; combined with his weapon triangle advantage over the Barbarians and +20 Hit/Avo from his authority, and he is quite capable of soloing his way over to Yngvi by simply dodging enough hits. He should prioritize killing Hunters whenever possible, as they do not suffer weapon triangle disadvantage against Sigurd, and are thus more accurate against him. If he takes too much damage, however, he does need to fall back as his death is a Game Over.
Alec is a relatively mediocre Cavalier. He 15 Atk and Follow-Up can two-round most enemies on the map, but struggles against the Lv10 Barbarians on the map that take four rounds to kill due to their higher Def. His bulk is comparably bad, only being able to survive two hits. His Nihil skill is useless for this map, as no enemy has a skill it can negate.
Naoise is another mediocre Cavalier. Unlike Alec and Sigurd, he lacks the Follow-Up skill, preventing him from doubling his enemies no matter how fast he is compared to them. However, to compensate, he does have 21 Atk, Accost and Critical. Critical doubles Naoise' Atk for a strike, enough to one-shot the Lv1 enemies and cripple the others, while Accost issues an extra Attack command; both can be quite powerful, but with his current stats, their activation rates are low. His bulk is also better, but not to Sigurd's level; Lv1 Barbarians exactly three-shot Naoise, but he can survive two Barbarian hits and one Hunter hit at once. One hit from Naoise and two hits from Alec is exactly enough to down a Lv1 Barbarian, Brigand, or Hunter, so the two should be kept together to collectively kill an enemy each turn.
Arden is a bad Sword Armor. He lacks Follow-Up, but has Vantage, a skill that is mostly useless on him in regards to this map. He needs three hits to kill anything, and while he is high Def allows him to take 5-6 hits without dying, his Avoid is bad, causing him to get hit often. While he is initially assigned to guard Castle Chalphy, there is little reason to keep him there; the only real threat to the castle is a Lv1 Barbarian to the west that is in range of both Alec and Naoise and can thus be killed on turn 1; thus, Arden is better off getting off of the castle to help chip the Brigand burning the nearby village; the chip allows Naoise to deal with this Brigand in one fewer turn without help from Alec.
The nearby village will begin burning, thanks to the enemy Brigand. He takes his time wrecking the place, however, and only after ten turns of inaction on your part will the village be completely destroyed. However, the sooner it is saved, the greater the payout; 5000G for an undamaged village, minus 500G for each turn it was being attacked. Some villages, such as the southernmost one on this map, give out items or have special events associated with them when visited; these items and events are unaffected by the amount of damage the village has received, except if the village is completely destroyed, at which point that item/event is lost forever.
On turn 2, more player units join, this time at the top of the map, quite convenient for killing the nearby Brigand on the village.
Azelle is a decent Mage. His attacks target the Res stat, which for physical enemies, is low. His damage output is exactly enough to kill Lv1 Barbarians, Brigands and Hunters in two hits; while he can one-round the Barbarians and Brigands with Follow-Up, he is too slow to double the enemy Hunters. Additionally, his durability is terrible and he will die to two hits of anything on the map. He should prioritize attacking at 2-range to avoid being counterattacked by 1-range enemies, or run up to enemy Hunters and attack them up close to avoid counterattacks.
Lex is a solid Axe Knight. His Paragon skill grants him double EXP, and Vantage can save him in a pinch if a wounded enemy tries to finish him off. His accuracy, however, is a bit shaky, particularly against Brigands that are destroying villages, who gain +20 Avo from the terrain. His durability is also great, surviving three hits from most enemies like Sigurd.
While Sigurd's party continues pushing towards Yngvi, Azelle and Lex should focus on clearing out the nearby enemies; Lex baiting out enemies and softening them up while Azelle roasts them with his magic damage. If either of them take damage, they can wait on the nearby Church tile. Churches fully heal the unit on top of them at the start of their turn, at the cost of 5G per point of HP recovered; if you can't afford a full heal, you will be healed for as much as your funds permit; broke units get no healing whatsoever. The same applies to Castle healing, be it guarding a Castle or being inside the Home Castle; Castle healing is capped at (20% of Max HP)-1 per turn however, but the same interaction occurs with units too poor to afford part or all of the healing.
On turn 3, even more player units join, this time just south of Chalphy. These units are the reason Arden was safe to walk off of Chalphy earlier if the nearby Barbarian was killed; any other enemy unit that could threaten Chalphy would simply not arrive in time before these units showed up to defend Chalphy if necessary.
Quan is a powerful Duke Knight. Along with Sigurd, Quan is also promoted, and he and Sigurd will be the only promoted units you have a for a good while. Quan has Adept, which gives him an (AS + 20)% chance to attack twice in a row; while not a perfect substitute to Follow-Up, if Adept activates, the second attack occurs before the enemy has a chance to counterattack; with his powerful Steel Lance, an Adept proc allows Quan to kill an enemy without getting counterattacked at all. Even if he doesn't proc Adept, his whopping 32 Atk is enough to cripple any enemy hit such that other units can easily pick up the kill. His durability is also great, withstanding three hits like Sigurd and Lex.
Finn is a mediocre Lance Knight. He has a bad matchup against the many axe-using enemies in this map and the next, but later plot circumstances effectively require that Finn be trained up or the player will have a bad time later down the line. His Follow-Up does allow him to double the axe-using enemies, but he is too slow to double Hunters. His bulk is also on the lower end, only being able to withstand two hits. His Miracle skill jacks his evasion through the roof when his HP is low; +10 Avo at 10 HP, scaling all the way up to +100 Avo at 1 HP, but these buffs only last one turn and deactivate at the start of his next turn. It should be noted that Miracle activates as soon as Finn takes enough damage, even during combat; while there are no such enemies on this map, later maps contain enemies able to strike more than once per combat. Additionally, Miracle evasion is "invisible"; it is not reflected on the combat forecast and the enemy is unable to factor it into their calculations on Clever Mode.
Ethlyn is a mediocre Troubadour. She is the first healer recruited into the party, and is thus necessary to keep units alive without resorting to retreating to castles or churches. Her heals restore 18 HP, enough to make a wounded unit serviceable again, but her healing in the long run is quite bad. While she is not meant to be a combat unit, she does have Critical to occasionally deal moderate damage to an enemy that attacks her; her bulk is also serviceable, given that she withstands two enemy attacks.
Quan and Ethlyn start off as lovers; this means they give each other +10 Hit/Avo when within three tiles of one another and, if they enter combat while adjacent to one another, the spouse in combat gets a +20 boost to their crit rate; for Ethlyn, a unit with Critical, this boost is additive with that of Critical. Additionally, Ethlyn and Sigurd are siblings; this grants the +20 boost to crit rate while adjacent, but unlike lovers, siblings do not grant each other extra Hit/Avo.
Sigurd's party should continue their attack on Yngvi; if any of them are too damaged to fight, they should retreat to get healed by Ethlyn. Quan's party should move south to back Sigurd up, while Azelle and Lex continue clearing out the enemies in the north.
Once the initial situation has stabilized, it is time to move on to other objectives. Take out the Brigand on the southernmost village; that village contains the valuable Speed Ring, that grants +5 Spd to whoever holds it. The trade command does not exist; to transfer items between two units, one unit must sell it to the pawnbroker, and the other unit needs to buy it from the pawnbroker. As the Speed Ring takes 20k to buy out of the pawnbroker, whoever plans to hold onto it for the next few maps should be the one to visit the village, unless that unit is Midir (who is recruited after Yngvi falls). Finn usually wants this item, as he needs it to reliably double in the next map, while Sigurd can use it to increase his Avo and solo enemy armies more reliably. Meanwhile, Lex and Azelle should NOT move towards Yngvi; they should instead focus on securing the remaining villages, as they are unlikely to arrive in time to be useful in Yngvi's conquest, but are in position to go after these villages that are out of the way.
Afterwards, it is time to recapture Yngvi. Defending Yngvi is the first instance of an recurring enemy formation best described as a "three-man guard". These formations are all over the game, and they behave very similarly; they do not move at all while the boss, on top of the castle, is alive, but will begin aggressively moving to attack whatever is near once the boss is dead. Their lack of mobility, initially, makes them fairly easy to pick off, however, and their behavior also means their movement ranges can be mostly ignored if one does not intend to fight them yet. DiMaggio is on top of the castle, and as such, he gets +30 Avo and castle healing. However, he's not much of a threat; all he does is be bulky and hit you fairly hard, but not hard enough to one-shot your units if they are fully healed. He also lacks 2-range, but Azelle takes way too long to reach him and Quan's Javelin has horrendous accuracy anyway. Just have Sigurd besiege the castle until he goes down.
Castle Evans
Once Sigurd seizes Yngvi, the remainder of the Evans army will emerge on their next turn. Instead of wastefully waiting for that to happen, have all non-Sigurd units continue to move towards the left side of the map. Additionally, Midir joins the party, having recovered to full HP after being crit earlier in the map. He is a middling-to-bad Arch Knight, who is unable to fight back at close quarters. He is exactly fast enough to double the remaining enemies on the map, and has Follow-Up to do so. He also comes with Accost to allow him to continue firing upon his enemies, very appreciable against 1-range enemies as the extra attacks are effectively free damage. Midir has no doubling issues in the short term, but he does have trouble doubling later on once faster enemies show up; the Speed Ring can help with that, but overall other units benefit from it more in the short term, in regards to consideration for Midir to visit the village and grab the Speed Ring immediately.
Arvis spawns at the top of the map at this time, and moves to hand a Silver Sword to Sigurd, and leaves once he does. He is comically invincible; not only are his stats absurdly high, his Recover Ring fully heals him each turn; nothing on the map can kill him, and anything that tries gets cooked by his 70 Atk. As he can speak to Sigurd on his own turn, there is little reason to have Sigurd go out of his way to do so; it is sufficient to simply leave Sigurd in Arvis' melee range, and this can easily be achieved by having Sigurd fight on the front line, and Canto towards Arvis after attacking once Arvis is sufficiently near.
The bulk of the enemy Barbarians and Hunters have been beefed up to Lv5; this gives them +1 Def and +4 HP, requiring units like Alec and Naoise to get a few levels in Str to continue killing them in a timely manner. Additionally, Sigurd now requires 2 Str level ups to continue one-rounding with his Steel Sword, but speed-ties the Hunters with his Iron Lance; a single Spd level up or the Speed Ring enables him to continue one-rounding without picking up his Silver Sword just yet; remember he can swap back to his Steel Sword during Canto to keep his evasion up. Otherwise, as long as the entire army retains cohesion and either preforms hit-and-run attacks to stay out of enemy range, or rushes in to kill as many enemies as possible, the player's units should survive without too much issue.
Gerrard sits alone atop Castle Evans. He is mostly just DiMaggio, but with higher stats and a Hand Axe to do damage at range. Sigurd can still handle him easily with Ethlyn's healing, but it's recommended not to kill him too quickly, particularly if other units have the HP to deal some chip damage to him. In FE4, EXP gain is determined solely by the level of the units in combat; while most of the enemies were Lv1 or Lv5, with DiMaggio and a few Barbarians being Lv10, Gerrard is massively overleveled at Lv20. While this means he gives out a truckload of EXP to whoever kills him, it also means that anyone who damages him and lives gets a ton of EXP too. This EXP, typically about 25 EXP per combat, is almost as much, if not more than actually killing some of the enemies on the map, so it may be a good idea to let as many units as possible get some licks in on Gerrard for the EXP before moving in for the kill. Once he dies, seize with Sigurd to clear the map.
Etymology and other languages
| Names, etymology, and in other regions | ||
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| Language | Name | Definition, etymology, and notes |
| English |
Birth of a Holy Knight |
From the title of the song "Prologue: Birth of a Holy Knight" in Fire Emblem Heroes. "Holy Knight" is the byname of Sigurd, and also that of his Crusader ancestor Baldr. |
| English (unofficial) |
• Birth of the Holy Knight |
• Used in earlier fan translations. |
| Japanese |
聖騎士誕生 |
Birth of a Holy Knight. Along with the above, "Holy Knight" is additionally the term for the Paladin class used in dialogue in Japanese. |
| Spanish (Spain) |
Nace el caballero sacro |
Birth of the Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| Spanish (Latin America) |
Nace un caballero sagrado |
Birth of a Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| French |
Naissance d'un chevalier sacré |
Birth of a Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| German |
Geburt eines Heiligen Ritters |
Birth of a Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| Italian |
Genesi del sacro cavaliere |
Genesis of the Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| Portuguese (Brazil) |
Nasce um cavaleiro sagrado |
Birth of a Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
| Traditional Chinese |
聖騎士誕生 |
Birth of a Holy Knight; from Heroes. |
Gallery
Map of the chapter
| Birth of a Holy Knight | • Lady of the Forest → |
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