Game has a very nice level of challenge, where it seems hella hard but actually there are solutions and finding them is very satisfying.

finally beat the game, took me 39 hours and a ton of save scumming.

Man, I hope a tub of KY is included in every melee ranger's standard load out because those poor bastards must go in to every battle wondering if this is going to finally be the mission where they get brutally sodomized to death.

By far the worst of all the specs no matter how cool it is to ninja things. Zipping around like a hummingbird on coke always exposing people to needless fire because he has to go chase things down. Just no point in risking pulling extra packs when he could be sneaking around spotting for the sniper

**** extraction missions.

Finished an ironman commander campaign. Might try legendary but that difficulty was beyond me in XCOM 1 at least. I dread trying to do the 8 turn protect the device missions on legendary. The legendary retaliation missions can't be any fun either I'd imagine.

Never really had much issue with extraction missions. Those are all 12 turns which is plenty of time compared to the Protect the Device missions that sometimes only give you about 5-6 turns if an Andromedan, Sectopod, or Gatekeeper is blasting the device for 10-12 damage a turn.

had my first mid mission rage quit. missed 6 straight shots on a muton. it ended poorly.

That's not until late game protect the device missions though. Before that I find them a lot easier then most other timed missions. On my legendary game I found retaliation missions to be the most annoying ones by far. Especially early game. That faceless can turn and attack you all at once on enemy turn is really annoying. Seems like if a faceless civilian is in attack range there's a % chance they will turn and attack even if there's no active enemy pod.

I just ****ed up an extraction mission, which meant several A team members are in custody.

Also with extraction missions that 12 turns is an absolute hard limit.

On other missions you can complete the main objective and then spend turns after killing aliens, or if things go south you can abort the mission using SR.

So you might only have 6 turns before the pod kills the device, but if you can pull them away from it before then, the time pressure is alleviated.

Scanners are your friend on early game retaliation missions

Can't really afford to bring scans with just 1 item slot on basic armor.

You dont need a ton, and I think you get two scanners for each slot. Put one on your phantom ranger and you're good to go.

I use some scanners on retaliation missions once you get 2 items slots but they just don't seem worth it before that. An extra flashbang is usually more important early game. It means you have to make sure to stay far away from civilians or evacuate them if you go near though which can make it pretty obnoxious to navigate the map safely.

The reason I mentioned it for retaliation specifically is that it reveals the Faceless long before you are in range to get your **** wrecked by it.

I've been enjoying this game much more since figuring out the basic controls, lol. Think I've only lost one soldier my last few missions.

I finished my first ironman normal last week. Game gets pretty really easy once you learn a few of the basic tricks so I'm looking forward to start getting my commander game. I finished the run with 4 dead and 3 failed missions with two of the deaths coming on the final mission

The game has some seriously awesome good and bad fight moments. Game is way more fun than it has any right to be even with all the graphic, lag, and load issues.

I may have missed something with intel/relays because I ran in to a pretty ****ty spot in my game. Game was basically over, all research complete, engineers all sitting around with nothing to do, and I'm just smashing every mission, all I need to do was come up with 60 intel to make may last contact so I went home base to sit on it until I had enough. Got a rescue a scientist mission and Im pumped to wrap the game up with my 120 reward.

5th turn I spot a sectopod and light it up falling just short of the kill but I have Q few guys on overwatch so I'm feeling good. Sectopod charges, overwatch miss, overwatch miss, overwatch hit, but he's now so close that when he dies his explosion takes out the truck if the scientist in it :/. Mission failed, lost contact in Africa, and now I need 150 Intel with now way to get except sitting at base earning 8 every 15 seconds or so dreading any mission pop up because they'll be a huge waste of time

I still have no clue why I couldn't just connect to Brazil from Mexico instead of having to go through Europe and Africa.

Favorite moment of the game was when I toying around with a melee ranger with bladestorm. He goes in for a kill and manages to pull a pack a mile away which is three snakes. First one wraps him up and pulls him in so now I just assume he's ****ed since he's way out of position. Bladestorm triggers on the wrap up and just grazes the snake, mortally wounding him but not dropping my guy. Next two snakes are forced to run past and the ranger one shots them both with bladestorm.

Also kinda sucks that on ironman, after the game is complete there's no way to look at your crew. I wanted to use my character pool as a "hall of fame" for my surviving starting four members and I can't go look at them. Never paid attention to what ironman actually does. If I had known it was deleting saved I would have done it before the final mission

so yesterday i decided to continue this run after this debacle of a mission. Two days after the mission i complete predator armor. so frustrating.
run is going well now though.

I love Blue Screen rounds on a sniper. 13-15 damage vs sectopods, mecs, turrets, gatekeepers, and archons is sweet. Unless Archons get a dodge for a graze they get one shotted. Pistol shots do 9-11 I think, too.

EMP bombs for 10 damage (bypasses armor) is nice as well with something like a 1 in 3 chance to stun for two turns as a bonus.

BSR are one of my favorite items in the game. Make things more hack able too

You should be specing your BSR sniper as a gunslinger, it's +5 to each pistol shot so you can lightinghands/faceoff/fanfire a gatekeeper or sectopod for 30 damage in one turn.

I like pistol spec'd sharpshooters okay but I love a rifle spec'd one because Serial and Kill Zone are amazing. I do pick Lightning Hands on all sharpshooters though.

I think I'd rather have Dragon rounds or AP rounds on a pistoleer.

Soooooo.... I haven't seen anyone mention it here but I just discovered a life hack for cheesing faceless

Problem with pistol builds is that they are really weak until you get rounds, which takes a long time.

Just finished the game, disappointing there was really only one fun mission (the ufo). Evac missions especially were really annoying since it took 5 extra min to move everyone to evac zone after killing everything.

I must be the only person who really likes exac missions.

The UFO event and final battle were both amazing to me. Unfortunately most of the "amazing" part was due to going in to both events blind and most of the excitement came from the **** show of being completely unprepared and desperately trying to find a way to win. On the second run threw on both they were cake