- All abilities, including grenades, are on cooldowns, so don't be afraid to use them when you need to.
- Early on you will be able to use the same units for every mission, but later on they will be limited to one use per set of missions, so make sure you keep a decent roster going.
- Overwatch is very powerful, but works differently than games like Xcom. You set up an overwatch cone, then you will fire on anyone who moves inside that cone for as long as your ammo and the points you committed to overwatch hold out. Note that you can proc overwatch on a single enemy unit multiple times, so you are able to shoot strong enemies several times with one overwatch. The cone limits your coverage area, of course, but enemies tend to charge around stupidly and predictably anyways. Additionally, there does not seem to be any aim penalty for overwatch shots.
- Healing grenades are best used to revive fallen soldiers.
- Soldiers can be downed twice, and will be picked up with one of their health bar chunks missing.
- There is a short grace distance at the end of your movement range that allows you to move a few extra yards as long as you end up in cover which can add up when moving long distances.
- Missions with timers tend to be obvious, and if you aren't in one then it's often worth just sitting still for a few turns to recharge your cooldowns before moving on. There's nothing worse than coming across an emergence hole just to find everyone has grenades on a five turn cooldown.
- E-holes seem to close on their own after three turns.
- Always destroy secondary targets before taking on large foes; even basic enemies can mess you up, especially those with melee attacks of opportunity.
- Always hire all new recruits, and immediately fire them if you don't need them. Hiring costs nothing, and firing them auto-strips them from their gear which may be better than the ones you naturally find in-mission. For example, Snub Pistol got upgraded variants that are impossible to loot from chests etc, but will come equipped on new recruits at certain levels.
- Frag grenades are infinitely better than healing grenades.
- Scout's Proximity Mines can be used to close E-Holes before they open, similar to grenade planting, but you can just throw them from afar.
- Focus gear gives you increased crit chance until you crit every turn, not every mission.
- Usually new recruits come at equal or higher levels than you can level up your old recruits, so try to feed all the kills to your heroes.
- All melee kills (Bayonet/Chainsaw) are 1-hit kills, so try to spec for the skill that makes them free. However, mid-game enemies onwards have some kind of melee protection to prevent this, so you can usually trigger them by moving close to them, and then going for the kill. The UI will show if an enemy has melee protection or not, usually with a red circle + some small exclamation mark, similar to going into enemy's Overwatch cone.
- Berserker is the 1st tough enemies that you will come across. Easiest method to take them out is to shoot them once, making them berserk, and then one-shotting them with the melee skills since Berserk removes their melee protection.