Playing on Hard Classic difficulty. Currently fighting a massive three fronts battle where there are two ally factions on the left and right side of the map. Two of these allies are named, and I want to keep them alive. But they just keep Leroy Jenkinsing right into the enemy. It's infuriating. I've fought this same battle three times in a row, plus endless Divine Pulses to move back in time. Restarting a fourth time. I'm going to have to put my flyers and calvalry on the left side so I can sweep enemies before these stupid allies can Leroy themselves to death.

Path and chapter? Doesn't sound like any of the Golden Deer maps, but I have actually found the ally AI to not be completely awful and infact helpful at times. Chapter 12 is a good example where they assisted in killing the monsters. Sounds like you're better off letting them die though. If there's a reward for keeping them all alive it's probably just a stat booster.

Final month of the Black Eagles non-Church Run, before the timeskip happens. They are two imperial generals. At the start of the map they basically do say that you'll have to support them. But they still Leroy Jenkins straight into threats as big as the Death Knight without any care in the world that they will get one shotted. 

I play in casual mode, but not using a unit that dies. Except in a training battle, where I dont want to overthink about every move in these battles, just spam my troops to earn xp.
Paralogs and main missions, however, I play like it was in the classic mode.

Im missing only some classes. The master classes options are focused in calvary or flying. there are few options for foot units. And if you decide to keep as sniper or assassin, you feel that there is something missing, because most units are master classes and a few are not...

New Game+ is so insane! You start off back at level one, but get refunded all your renown, while keeping your statue upgrades. There's a ton of things you can spend renown on in New Game+. New Crests, way faster training, instant Professor level upgrades, etc! The DLC for this game is going to be so good!

Beat the game this weekend, 38 hours. I am glad I went with casual, the later battles are crazy hard. Solid game, 8/10. The last battle, in particular the final boss, was a meh. Very fun game. I am looking forward to a NG+ play. Sounds like it speeds everything up quite a bit.

After 70+ hours I finally figured out how to make monsters get the red stun, where they drop ore. Each square of the monster is a shield, and you have to break all shields in order to get a stun. You break shields by attacking the same square with two different characters, and dealing high damage. The first attack cracks a shield. The second attack with a different character breaks the shield. I think gambits crack or break all shields that they land on.

There are a lot of shields that nullify certain damage types. Especially in hard mode. This makes a lot of gambits tricky to pull off. Can you get your good Gambit character in range without putting him at risk of dying to an attack on the enemy turn? If you can use your Gambit will it deal any damage at all? A lot of time the answer to those questions will be a no. Especially for me, since I didn't have Flayn in my party to use her rescue ability. 

Another problem is that enemies will turn to face you everytime you attack them at close range. So you can walk up behind an enemy to hit its rear shield and it will turn around as you attack it negating the damage to the shield.  

It doesn't help that I'm playing in hard, permadeath mode. 

Spending renown on support means you can almost instantly recruit characters.

I'll admit, I was a bit bummed by the end of the game, cause I had convinced myself--

Starting a new game+, I actually feel like I'm enjoying the game much more now, as I have an actual clear idea of what classes I'll have time to master and what kind of pathway I want for my characters.
Getting to start over with a fresh cast of characters and see the game from a new perspective is working really well for me too, even in part 1.

I'm a purist so won't use new game+ once lunatic mode drops. More fun for me to start from 0 and build myself back up again. Plus that would make the game easier with your units gaining weapon ranks faster. On my first run, despite using just 14 units, only 3 of my units reached S rank in anything and that wasn't until the very end of the game. I've seen other people using ng+ with multiple units at S/S+ rank quite a few chapters earlier. I suppose this means I'll never actually see S+, but eh, it just gives weaponfaire skills which most Advanced/Master classes have by default anyway.

I did also but the only damage nullification I can recall was for magic. I was playing Golden Deer so maybe it's different for other paths. I can say with certainty though that yes you can use gambits without risk, because once all it's shields are destroyed it'll be unable to move the following turn if you don't just kill it right then and there. Outside of the rare magic damage nullification, gambits always deal damage.

Pretty sure that's not true, the position of it's shields don't change when you attack, the way it's facing doesn't matter.

I gotta say I do like they way monsters are in this game, effectively being minibosses than regular enemies like in previous games. Before I encountered them I felt gambits were just a cheap gimmick for cheese killing bosses, and they still are for that lolz, but against monsters and their shields there's a nice bit of depth there. To effectively kill them (destroying all shields to get forging material) I gotta stop and think carefully about my positioning and order of attack especially when fighting multiples at once. I also like that they give reason to have users of all weapon types on your team as they commonly have a weakness to one of them.

I think most reviews are in by now so unlikely, but then again I didn't think it would increase from 88 either. 89 is a fantastic score for a non-high profile series so all is good either way.