Lefina has defensive supports, or you can just toss the offending units into the Hiryu. It can take the hits. Of course, this is all assuming they're close enough to benefit from this, which is very unlikely on the first turn of real combat in the first playthrough.
Of course, it could be worse. You could have tried to "win" that fight. Which is actually a lot easier than it sounds, but takes forever and a day.
P4 - Just finished the semester. Looks like I'm gonna have to hunt down S. Link Tease now, though to him I say "I most certainly can catch you, so you can just go and regret taunting me now" S.Links... feel like their progression has actually gotten slower than it was in P3, and with less in the way of time to do them in. Definatly, more tricks to streamline the process, but the process itself just doesn't work as well without those tricks. Ah well, at least I figured out how it's supposed to work, so I have most of what I need to max them on a replay now. Only other thing I need now is to find the rest of them. Questions in class are also tougher, with a decent chunk of them being things I haven't heard of before. Though, at least now when I miss something, it's something I feel is kinda interesting or at least feel like a proper idiot for not catching as opposed to a vague 'oh, how the hell is someone who isn't Japanese supposed to care/know about that?' Oddly enough, same with cooking lunch, except the only thing I've screwed up there so far is some Japanese dish that I've never heard of before. My confidence in my culinary skills remains unfoundedly high due to this.