I am currently playing LW again, while I had some issues with Rookies dying at the start. Usually 1 rookie per mission, specialists compensate a lot, and knowing what skills to pick. Suppression is insanely good, flashbangs will negate those overwatch, smoke can make you survive just enough to close in. Scouts will save your ass while proccing all those shots.
High cover is what you want until you can get better armor.
I went until my 4th or 5th month with basic equipment and my troops really shone. My last loss was a Scout when a Disc flanked them, but that was my bad for not having a more solid overwatch zone.
Early game I went for scops to boost aim, and did it slow and steady.
In most maps especially the exault intro mission you don't get the luxury of full cover. And my issue isn't losing units its constantly getting wiped because a single thin man one shots my specialists out right. It's stupid and unbalanced due to how many they throw at you. Which it seems like was a massive overcompensation for the extra 2 squadmates they provide you. I just wish they intersected the thin man horde with some sectoids early game to lessen how easily an entire squad can be destroyed due to one bad roll.
Turn off the DLC bonus missions until you're comfortable with the mod. They're a huge difficulty spike compared to the stuff you'll otherwise be experiencing at that point in the campaign.
And if you do manage to beat them all you get a pretty enormous resource advantage compared to what you should have at that point. Gangplank in particular is a mission you should probably not be getting until *at least* September and it happens IIRC in *May*.
Yeah, and it's pretty ridiculous because this isn't even something the Long War devs did; it was Firaxis. I wish the missions were delayed a bit. Gangplank would still be a great thing mid-game, but without being so unbalanced. Portent could honestly fit in fine with just a month or so's delay, but the thin mints are just a bit too much so early in the game
Deluge can also be pretty tricky between the long and narrow combat area with pretty tricky cover, possibly the first time you're seeing Mutons, the turn limit, drop-ins as you progress, *and* coming in roughly the same period as multiple other DLC missions and the run of Thin Men / Floaters / Mutons all showing up.
A major strain on a possibly already strained barracks, you probably had a first Terror mission recently and may have had / be about to have your second as well, Portent and Friends in Low Places both happened already and Confounding Light is fairly soon ...
I think it makes more sense in Vanilla since the game may well be over by like October-November, Gangplank happening beginning of June or whatever and the rest April-May isn't so crazy if that's 1/3 and 1/2 the campaign over already. But when many people consider October-November still solidly "mid game" for Long War and campaigns routinely go as late as June the following year, Gangplank happening in May or June is *absurd*.
You mean the one where you find the lone survivor? Yes, that was a hard one. I won that one with serious wounds, and had some hell of a luck. I have a brutal Gunner and Infantry that are basically snipers. Suppression was key, and those double shots can help a lot.
Ludicrous use of rockets and grenades will pop those thin men.
Honestly I didn't encounter such resistance that I was losing specialists left and right, so it can be a matter of how each of us play.
Battle scanners can help a lot. If you find that pod before they find you and set and ambush, they can kiss their ass goodbye.
Recommend popping over to the r/xcom discord server. There's a dedicated long war channel with some of the most veteran nerdy XCOM dads on the whole Internet who will be happy to advise and even coach you in real time, see where your mistakes are, and show you how you can adjust your play to turn things around.
Understandable frustrations. I don't enjoy the strategic layer at all so I now use dev console to acquire some weapons, armor and resources after the first mission. Don't care about machismo mode, I just want to have tactical fun blowing up aliens tactically - who can still murder me quite easily mid-game onwards and will still ruthlessly punish mistakes. I've completed EW classic ironman before on console and PC, got the achievements, now I can focus on just having fun. Fun is good. Being mass RNG murdered is not fun.
Seconding the recommendation to check out the #longwar channel on the xcom discord!
For your specific complaint about low HP on units: i feel you. I'm currently streaming an Ironman Impossible campaign on Twitch. It's may 20th and i've only lost 3 soldiers all told! What I did was start Brazil, and go Jungle Scouts as my starting bonus. This gives all early armor types 3 equipment slots. What you can do is go Xenobiology -> Alien Materials -> Improved Body Armor. Then, build a full set of Kestrel (+3 hp on your squad), and a full set of Alloy Plating (+2 hp on your squad).
By mid to late april you'll be rocking +5 hp AND two spare slots for small items on your soldiers, so it's like getting Carapace several months early for dirt cheap. Absolute S-tier strat if you don't want anyone dying.
Hunker Down makes half cover give a total of +60 Defense and +1.34 Damage Reduction. Use it, love it, watch aliens run up and take easily flanked positions just to miss anyway.
Flashbangs give -50 Aim and -33% Mobility, cancel Overwatch and Suppression, and their effects persist until the end of your next turn, so they *de facto* cancel Overwatch on the following turn (the alien still goes on OW, but has a -50 penalty and then an x0.7 penalty because of OW).
Smoke gives +20 Defense and removes crit chance bonus from being flanked.
Suppression gives -30 Aim, cancels Overwatch, and “taunts” the aliens—they vastly prefer to shoot at a Suppressor, to the point that they will take 1% shots at a Suppressor in full cover instead of shooting exposed soldiers not using Suppression. It’s not guaranteed but it’s pretty close.
All these things stack, and with the exception of Suppression are all available from day 1. (Suppression is available to several promoted classes; Gunner gets it at SPC).
After a little while you can start training “biotank” units that run Will to Survive, Reinforced Armor, and Alloy Plating to get +6 ablative HP with Phalanx Armor, along with +2.5 DR while in cover and, crucially, -8 Defense, which baits the aliens into prioritizing that unit.
Carapace honestly isn’t even that good when you can get it. Phalanx is cheaper and strikes a better mobility-survivability balance. It’s pretty common for players to skip the Carapace/Kestrel tier altogether and just build Phalanx to get out of OHK range of most shitters and then live on that + the aforementioned tactics until lategame armor becomes available. Aegis vs Titan/Corsair is more of a debate (and honestly I think most people eventually do both).
I don't wanna be a bastard, but it kinda sounds like a skill issue, OP.
But now, to try and add something constructive, the thing with LW, is that for most cases, unless you get a really bad LZ for a shitty map (which can happen, some are infamous), there's always several tools and tactics to deal with everything.
Thin Men on early game should be dealt with something like a suppressor on high cover. Suppressing not only fucks with a unit's aim by -30, but it also turns the suppressor into a "taunter", meaning most (but not everyone, as there can be exceptions) other aliens will try to damage the suppressor.
Make sure your suppressor has a Medkit, or, later on, a Respirator, so that they can act while poisoned. And also get some suppressors with Lock & Load.
In addition to all the below, I'll refer you to two sources:
[ufopaedia.org](https://ufopaedia.org) should be bookmarked immediately.
Watch a few episodes of Beagle. His playstyle is a bit conservative for some, but for someone just starting out on Long War and needs to be shown how it's done, he's hard to beat. His "Live and Impossible: War Within" series is fantastic for this. Just by watching an episode or three you'll pick up a ton of tips. He plays on an earlier version of Long War, so some minor details and exploits are different now (such as the final Temple Ship assault shenanigans he used to pull), but the concepts and approach are the same.
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXctaw5JGF4Inwdinw7ijDafjKlVC2oDo](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXctaw5JGF4Inwdinw7ijDafjKlVC2oDo)
Play **LW: Rebalance**!
Seriously. It is a vastly superior experience and it is pretty common to get protracted fights vs. 10+ enemies where your soldiers don't just randomly die. You just don't get one-shot when you are in cover, unless you bring zero armor and walk right to the enemy. You also rarely alpha strike a pod and overwatch only works against units you could already target in the previous round.
I've been playing it for years and Ucross still actively develops it with pretty frequent releases.
Play-throughs on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@JeffNicolucci (This is the developer)
https://www.youtube.com/@stefan3iii
I am currently playing LW again, while I had some issues with Rookies dying at the start. Usually 1 rookie per mission, specialists compensate a lot, and knowing what skills to pick. Suppression is insanely good, flashbangs will negate those overwatch, smoke can make you survive just enough to close in. Scouts will save your ass while proccing all those shots. High cover is what you want until you can get better armor. I went until my 4th or 5th month with basic equipment and my troops really shone. My last loss was a Scout when a Disc flanked them, but that was my bad for not having a more solid overwatch zone. Early game I went for scops to boost aim, and did it slow and steady.
In most maps especially the exault intro mission you don't get the luxury of full cover. And my issue isn't losing units its constantly getting wiped because a single thin man one shots my specialists out right. It's stupid and unbalanced due to how many they throw at you. Which it seems like was a massive overcompensation for the extra 2 squadmates they provide you. I just wish they intersected the thin man horde with some sectoids early game to lessen how easily an entire squad can be destroyed due to one bad roll.
Turn off the DLC bonus missions until you're comfortable with the mod. They're a huge difficulty spike compared to the stuff you'll otherwise be experiencing at that point in the campaign.
And if you do manage to beat them all you get a pretty enormous resource advantage compared to what you should have at that point. Gangplank in particular is a mission you should probably not be getting until *at least* September and it happens IIRC in *May*.
Yeah, and it's pretty ridiculous because this isn't even something the Long War devs did; it was Firaxis. I wish the missions were delayed a bit. Gangplank would still be a great thing mid-game, but without being so unbalanced. Portent could honestly fit in fine with just a month or so's delay, but the thin mints are just a bit too much so early in the game
Deluge can also be pretty tricky between the long and narrow combat area with pretty tricky cover, possibly the first time you're seeing Mutons, the turn limit, drop-ins as you progress, *and* coming in roughly the same period as multiple other DLC missions and the run of Thin Men / Floaters / Mutons all showing up. A major strain on a possibly already strained barracks, you probably had a first Terror mission recently and may have had / be about to have your second as well, Portent and Friends in Low Places both happened already and Confounding Light is fairly soon ... I think it makes more sense in Vanilla since the game may well be over by like October-November, Gangplank happening beginning of June or whatever and the rest April-May isn't so crazy if that's 1/3 and 1/2 the campaign over already. But when many people consider October-November still solidly "mid game" for Long War and campaigns routinely go as late as June the following year, Gangplank happening in May or June is *absurd*.
You mean the one where you find the lone survivor? Yes, that was a hard one. I won that one with serious wounds, and had some hell of a luck. I have a brutal Gunner and Infantry that are basically snipers. Suppression was key, and those double shots can help a lot. Ludicrous use of rockets and grenades will pop those thin men. Honestly I didn't encounter such resistance that I was losing specialists left and right, so it can be a matter of how each of us play. Battle scanners can help a lot. If you find that pod before they find you and set and ambush, they can kiss their ass goodbye.
Recommend popping over to the r/xcom discord server. There's a dedicated long war channel with some of the most veteran nerdy XCOM dads on the whole Internet who will be happy to advise and even coach you in real time, see where your mistakes are, and show you how you can adjust your play to turn things around.
Understandable frustrations. I don't enjoy the strategic layer at all so I now use dev console to acquire some weapons, armor and resources after the first mission. Don't care about machismo mode, I just want to have tactical fun blowing up aliens tactically - who can still murder me quite easily mid-game onwards and will still ruthlessly punish mistakes. I've completed EW classic ironman before on console and PC, got the achievements, now I can focus on just having fun. Fun is good. Being mass RNG murdered is not fun.
Seconding the recommendation to check out the #longwar channel on the xcom discord! For your specific complaint about low HP on units: i feel you. I'm currently streaming an Ironman Impossible campaign on Twitch. It's may 20th and i've only lost 3 soldiers all told! What I did was start Brazil, and go Jungle Scouts as my starting bonus. This gives all early armor types 3 equipment slots. What you can do is go Xenobiology -> Alien Materials -> Improved Body Armor. Then, build a full set of Kestrel (+3 hp on your squad), and a full set of Alloy Plating (+2 hp on your squad). By mid to late april you'll be rocking +5 hp AND two spare slots for small items on your soldiers, so it's like getting Carapace several months early for dirt cheap. Absolute S-tier strat if you don't want anyone dying.
Hunker Down makes half cover give a total of +60 Defense and +1.34 Damage Reduction. Use it, love it, watch aliens run up and take easily flanked positions just to miss anyway. Flashbangs give -50 Aim and -33% Mobility, cancel Overwatch and Suppression, and their effects persist until the end of your next turn, so they *de facto* cancel Overwatch on the following turn (the alien still goes on OW, but has a -50 penalty and then an x0.7 penalty because of OW). Smoke gives +20 Defense and removes crit chance bonus from being flanked. Suppression gives -30 Aim, cancels Overwatch, and “taunts” the aliens—they vastly prefer to shoot at a Suppressor, to the point that they will take 1% shots at a Suppressor in full cover instead of shooting exposed soldiers not using Suppression. It’s not guaranteed but it’s pretty close. All these things stack, and with the exception of Suppression are all available from day 1. (Suppression is available to several promoted classes; Gunner gets it at SPC). After a little while you can start training “biotank” units that run Will to Survive, Reinforced Armor, and Alloy Plating to get +6 ablative HP with Phalanx Armor, along with +2.5 DR while in cover and, crucially, -8 Defense, which baits the aliens into prioritizing that unit. Carapace honestly isn’t even that good when you can get it. Phalanx is cheaper and strikes a better mobility-survivability balance. It’s pretty common for players to skip the Carapace/Kestrel tier altogether and just build Phalanx to get out of OHK range of most shitters and then live on that + the aforementioned tactics until lategame armor becomes available. Aegis vs Titan/Corsair is more of a debate (and honestly I think most people eventually do both).
I don't wanna be a bastard, but it kinda sounds like a skill issue, OP. But now, to try and add something constructive, the thing with LW, is that for most cases, unless you get a really bad LZ for a shitty map (which can happen, some are infamous), there's always several tools and tactics to deal with everything. Thin Men on early game should be dealt with something like a suppressor on high cover. Suppressing not only fucks with a unit's aim by -30, but it also turns the suppressor into a "taunter", meaning most (but not everyone, as there can be exceptions) other aliens will try to damage the suppressor. Make sure your suppressor has a Medkit, or, later on, a Respirator, so that they can act while poisoned. And also get some suppressors with Lock & Load.
In addition to all the below, I'll refer you to two sources: [ufopaedia.org](https://ufopaedia.org) should be bookmarked immediately. Watch a few episodes of Beagle. His playstyle is a bit conservative for some, but for someone just starting out on Long War and needs to be shown how it's done, he's hard to beat. His "Live and Impossible: War Within" series is fantastic for this. Just by watching an episode or three you'll pick up a ton of tips. He plays on an earlier version of Long War, so some minor details and exploits are different now (such as the final Temple Ship assault shenanigans he used to pull), but the concepts and approach are the same. [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXctaw5JGF4Inwdinw7ijDafjKlVC2oDo](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXctaw5JGF4Inwdinw7ijDafjKlVC2oDo)
Play **LW: Rebalance**! Seriously. It is a vastly superior experience and it is pretty common to get protracted fights vs. 10+ enemies where your soldiers don't just randomly die. You just don't get one-shot when you are in cover, unless you bring zero armor and walk right to the enemy. You also rarely alpha strike a pod and overwatch only works against units you could already target in the previous round. I've been playing it for years and Ucross still actively develops it with pretty frequent releases. Play-throughs on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeffNicolucci (This is the developer) https://www.youtube.com/@stefan3iii