Way, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy late, but since I'm playing through Ephraim Hard Mode for fun right now - if only to say I did it, thought I'd weigh in.
You should comment on how I probably missed some obvious super easy way to deal with Phantom Ship and the two hours I spent trying to deal with it were thus wasted.
Maybe I just got obscenely lucky, but for me, this level was completely overhyped. Normally I screw around and deploy my favorite characters, and so silly things happen like "train all 3 Pupils simultaneously", and "bring in fodder character to build supports for the support archive". But pretty much based entirely on Phantom Ship hype, I stopped playing around and took FE8 "seriously" and did things I never usually do, like use Seth and Duessel.
What I did really only depends on one thing, having an even passably competent Tana (or really, Vanessa too, I guess). My Tana was probably Level 9 or 10 which I admit is probably higher than yours could have been since I haven't added on a "clear as fast as I feel I could" requirement like you did, but at the same time, Tana has been getting so badly RNG screwed this run, that might not even matter. I think she only entered the chapter with 1 STR over her base stats. Really, the only thing Tana needs to be able to do is one-round the Mogalls semi-reliably. By this, I mean, she's usually going to encounter them in packs of 2. Mine had an annoying tendency of being able to one-round one with a Javelin, but not the other. But this still works (provided her RES lets her survive the extra hit she could take).
I also dragged Colm, Natasha, and Joshua around, but they were (mostly) immaterial, with potentially one exception - Torch. Colm with Torch, and Natasha with a Torch Staff is actually pretty useful here, if only to negate the Fog of War and make your Player Phase more productive. My basic strategy was, at the very beginning, use Torch to reveal the upper and bottom left areas, and then send Tana into the upper left to deal with the Mogalls there, and Cormag (who might have had one level over his base, but I don't even think he had that, I recruited him pretty late into Chapter 10) goes south to handle the Gargoyles. Cormag can't double, or at least mine couldn't, so I just threw the Killer Lance on him. That makes his job a bit more luck-based than I'd like, but not overly so, I think he can deal with not getting any crits, you probably just have to use an Elixir to heal him to keep him alive through the next enemy phase when they'll attack you again.
Ephraim, Duessel, and Seth just clog up the planks when the ships merge and clean up with Javelins and Hand Axes, while the other ground units follow them from behind, trying to keep as much of the map revealed for Tana and Cormag to deal with reinforcements as they come. Really, the entire strategy I had was dealing with the reinforcements immediately so they couldn't really get to a point where they're overwhelming. By the time the massive amount of Gargoyle reinforcements show up from the left, the middle ship should be nearly cleared, and safe for you to basically pour into it as you wipe up the remaining units. From there, I had most of my units flee over to L'Arachel (who is completely safe and Dozla can handle the like... 2 enemies they'll encounter) while Seth and Duessel turned and met the gargoyles, with occasional support from Ephraim and Cormag.
...Ahahaha, somehow I went over the character limit. Part 2 next post.
--
xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
GotD (219/384) Melee v FFX