Lunatic as a first FE run ever

[Florete]

Golden Gaffe gives pretty similar EXP to EXPonential Growth, as well as essentially infinite money. 10 times through it is easily about 5-7 levels per character for about 10 characters.

Not in my experience on Lunatic. Especially at the lower levels his characters will be at, enemies in EXPonential Growth with mostly be giving full 100 exp level ups. Golden Gaffe does not give that, it's about the money. It still gives reasonable experience and, depending on how many units he used, might be about 3-4 levels per, but that's hardly making Lunatic easier than Hard mode. Talk about a gross exaggeration.

[Tables]

Well, I'm estimating. Maybe not easier, but certainly it'd be pretty close. Lunatic gets easier the further in you get, and grinding early will kill that early difficulty. I haven't done Golden Gaffe on Lunatic, maybe you can't kill all that many enemies, but I seem to remember it giving way better EXP than EXPonential growth to me on Normal at least.

[Florete]

I haven't played on Normal, but I don't see how anything could possibly give you more experience than EXPonential Growth on Normal mode where increased experience gains mean you are likely getting 100 experience per kill for quite a long time. Maybe if you were grinding it out post game with really high internal levels? But not where he is now.

And either way, Lunatic will get hard again at Ch 16. I don't want to say how because our TC doesn't seem to have reached there yet, but while Lunatic gets easier for some time, it certainly does not stay that way like other FE games do.