I'm playing it now and doing much better than before. I'm using Volug and Sothe a smidge, but Nolan and Edward are doing a ton of killing too. Getting out there and killing everything really does prevent them from getting at my mages!

WHO PUTS A BALLISTA RIGHT AT THE START OF A MAP

Not me.  I'd put 2 priests with Berserk staves and one Sage with bolting though.

Oh man look at all these hostages I have to save! Fiona's troops are dying in droves!

This part still isn't as hard as the last one.

Typically I can easily save all but 1. The problem is that if you don't commit your fastest movers to running to save them, they don't get across the bridge fast enough. Honestly you only get BXP for saving them so who cares...

BXP is a precious resource!

I only lost one hostage so far. Holding the bridges is going to be tough.

I beat the game just fine and didn't use my BXP until the end of the game, and mostly wasted it on trying to get my Laguz to be actually useful. BXP is great, but losing 1-2 units on that map won't really make a difference.

You'll get plenty on Normal and Easy modes.  Don't worry too much over it.

Yeah, but.... but it takes like 300 BXP just to get 100 XP! And that's in the first tier at level ten!

But you're a smart player and a smart player never wastes BEXP early on (remember: last 5 levels only).

Also:

The Bonus EXP required for a full Level up (in Normal mode) is: (50 × Character's Level) + 50