Makes sure you get Vyse as soon as you see him. Cause Vyse is awesome.

For the people who said it is sometimes better to not have a full team: only under the following scenario IMO.

If you find yourself with people who don't really move from starting position because it would just take so long to get them up into position and you're using others, try leaving them out initially, and then you can spawn them in at any base whose flag you capture for 1 CP (they show up the following turn).

Oh and on that subject, make sure you take out enemy bases that are getting reinforcements if possible, because you deny them all those people that were going to come in. Even if your guy gets wasted on the counterattack it's worth it (unless they touch him and kill him for good ).

Yep I learned early on to take minimal troops into the battle and only call more up once I had captured a base more advantageous to my mission.

I levelled up Shockies and scouts at the same rate. I don't know what level she gets it but once Rosie gets her...damn I can't remember the name of the ability right now, but once she gets this ability she can run into a hail of bullets and take very little damage. Rosie is the BEST.

Get the 'Behind Her Blue Flame' DLC and play it as soon as you have confidence in your abilities (it's not an easy set of missions). You get a very nice present that you can give to your favourite Shock Trooper.

I think like everyone says: location location location. Use cover well and make sure your troops' lines of sight after each turn are most advantageous.

NEVER forget to take an engineer, especially when you are going to be using your lancers and tank a lot. The engineer re-stocks troops with their grenades, lancer shots and tank rounds. And of course the engineer is essential for doing running repairs on your tank.

I mostly focussed my tank upgrades on offence and armour (tank HP). Don't bother with upping the defence of your radiator because you should never allow your enemy the chance at taking shots at your radiator, if you do then you're toast and you'll have to re-start the mission.

Once you get your second armoured vehicle you can use it as a sacrificial lamb, because once it gets to zero HP it auto-retreats.

Snipers have their uses, but only once their accuracy gets to an A rating. A less than A rating means you miss your mark too often.

lancers can take a lot of heavy artillery and grenade punishment, without suffering much.

With my tactics, which were probably a little cautious, most of my misson ratings were B & C. With a few A grades.

Doing skirmishes is THE way to get easy money and XP to really max out your troop experience and equipment upgrades. Do them multiple times and make sure you figure out how to get an A grade for each skirmish to get the maximum benefit (and take out as many tanks and leaders as possible in the process). Sometimes the tactics to get an A ranking are not what the game sugests. With early skirmishes the A ranking requires you to complete the mission in the first round, which normally means using the scout's superior movement abilities. But using a shock trooper or lancer for some easy tank / leader kills helps get the bonus money and XP.

Sometimes it's better to sacrifice an A ranking to get all of the leaders and tanks because the overall money and XP bonuses they get you more than make up for the difference between an A and B rank.

There is just so much to this game that the strategic and tactical advice could fill up a book, and everyone has their own view on what works best. That's why the game is soooooooooo great.

Oh and have a MINIMUM of two separate save files, so no matter how badly you screw up the chapter you're on it doesn't have to trash your overall progress. I had a ridiculous number of save files going but that's just how I am.

Oh I already have 3, believe me.

tips? , well try to use scouts more and ALWAYS ALWAAAAAAAYYYSS blow out the thing that the enemy uses as a cover, then go near them and aim at their heads.

Snipers are good if the enemy isn't in cover but if he is in cover, use a grenade to destroy it then attack him don't attack anyone while they are in cover its too time consuming and plus they most of the time evade it.

another thing don't stick the tanks butt wide open it will take only one RPG attack to kill you.

oh and i seriously gotta stop doing this

By the end of the game you will come to realize that Alicia is so OP she can finish a lot of missions by herself if you give her enough 'order' boost.

Level up scouts and shocktrooper first. Level up Lancers next, your lancers isn't extremely important until you get to your first real boss fight. Then they become very important.

Tanks aren't very good other than for specific tactical purpose such as blocking route or protecting vunerable troops. In general if you can do something with a tank for 2 CP you can do the exact same thing with a troop for only one CP.

Engineer are pretty much useless late game. I've only ever use them midgame.

Sniper are HORRIBLE until you up their level to reach elite status. their accuracy is crap and they have poor amunition, I suggest you level them up only after you've gotten to late game and can afford the xp.

Alicia, Rosie and Largo on every mission for their extra CP.

Vyse is killing god, second only to Alicia is usefulness.

Some character actually gets worse once you unlock their full potential

Always visit the old man in the graveyard after every mission (once you are able to access him) since he teaches you orders and you want to bug him until he teachs you awaken.

Couldn't disagree more about tanks.

Tank vs. tank is foolish if you have a lancer that can do the job, but mortars are another story. Ridiculously good for taking out multiple soldiers behind sandbags.

Plus on defense it can just sit there mowing down enemies that try to run past.

[edit:  on second thought, I think that "couldn't disagree more" is pretty exaggerated.  I think I just gave the phrase "specific tactical purposes" too narrow an interpretation -- most of the time you'll use troops rather than tanks. 

[Also, that "if" in the "if a lancer" is extremely key.  Plenty of times a lancer would get slaughtered while a tank can just roll on in.  I know you guys surely know this but I had to clarify.]

[edit2:  P.S.  You think snipers are bad?  What about lancers?  You can't trust them to be more than like ten feet away from the target and still hit, at low levels. 

[And I LOVE engineers, I don't know what you're talking about.  They're almost as mobile as scouts, resupply all their lovely grenades, clear whole minefields, repair my tank to let it keep soaking damage ... and then repair the sandbags I just blew to hell so my guys can hide behind them.]

lol yea I've already had one guy get a bad stat once the scouts leveled up.

Don't worry too much about baqd stats. All the coolest characters' "bad" stats aren't all that bad. I mostly 2nd the opinions about Vyse, But rosie was always my Shocktrooper babe.

I just about alweays balanced out my Shockies and Scouts in most missions, but occasionally I took more Scouts.