Enemy defense in Chapter 1 is really high, to the point that Violet can barely damage them. Also, one of the lancers was able to double Elise. I think you got the Hard and Lunatic difficulties mixed up, Chapter 1 of Hard was much more difficult. It would also be nice to have an opportunity to save after curing Violet and Elise, just so you don't have to spend time re-doing what is more or less an interactive cutscene (I don't even think it is possible to lose) if you lose in Chapter 1 (like what happened to me when I got crit by the boss).
Seems in my reshuffle of the difficulties I accidentally doubled up on the easy/hard changes (since I realized that where I did have them would potentially not have changes viewable in preparations), and forgot to remove the extras in the first chapter, so the units were getting double the buffs they should. It's fixed for the release coming in a few minutes.
Also, you can save on any turn so long as none of your units have moved yet, just by opening the menu like you would to change options or check the objectives. I'll make a note of that in the quick SRPG Studio primer I have at the beginning and in the tutorials.