Since I heard about XCOM 2 coming out I have been playing a lot of XCOM: Enemy Within again. Currently playing a round of Classic Ironman... going pretty good... even though my Memorial wall is filled with "only" 33 dead. :
5 of which had goten nicknames, one Sergeant, one Lieutenant, one Captain, one Major, and one Colonel. Especially the Captain, Major, and Colonel was a pretty tough blow. I am playing it on Ironman because I know if I was not I would most likely be savescumming like hell.
Atleast half, if not 2/3rds, of these 33 dead was compleatly my fault. Due to me over reaching my self,
"oh what harm could it do if I went there", "I really want that meld!", or what ever. I get a bit to impulisive at times, which can compleatly screw with my actual nature of trying to be slow, methodical, and defensive, as possible. I also have a big problem with not retreating and leaving the mission when things go bad, I tend to stick it out and thing
"oh I can still win this, even though half my guys died on the first wave of enemies" or something. And sometimes I do win against the odds, but other times I do not... and I am sitting there wondering why I did just not pull back and leave the mission. I am to stubborn at times... clearly. XD
But when it works it can be pretty cool. In one mission, during this run of the game, my current Colonel sniper and a rookie (they had Carapace armour and laser weaponry), managed to kill 2/3rds of the enemies after the other 4 in the team died against the first 1/3rd of the opponents... all hail Squadsight and Double Tap! I know some people worship at the alter of In The Zone, but I like Double Tap a lot more... my Snipers steal enough kills as it is, so if I ITZ'ed my snipers instead, then my other soldier classes would possibly lag behind even more. As it is DT snipers tend to usually have double the (if not more) amount of kills then my other classes´, and their kills per mission ratio is higher as well.
My 5 nicknamed dead in this run:
Sergeant Alan 'Flash' Donaldson, 6 missions, 11 kills.
Death during mission: 'Operation Vengeful Star'. Cause of death: EXALT Operative with an Assault Rifle.
Lieutenant Maricruz 'Congo' Ruiz, 9 missions, 8 kills.
Death during mission: 'Operation Vengeful Star'. Cause of death: EXALT Operative with an Assault Rifle.
Captain Bessie 'Athena' McKenzie, 11 missions, 23 kills.
Death during mission: 'Operation Vengeful Star'. Cause of death: EXALT Operative with an Assault Rifle.
Major Iris 'Fast Lane' VanDyke, 9 missions, 23 kills.
Death during mission: 'Operation Defiant Chant'. Cause of death: Thin Man with a Light Plasma Rifle.
Colonel Shaojie 'Chilong' Zhang, 12 missions, 27 kills.
Death during mission: 'Operation Blind Mountain'. Cause of Death: Mechtoid with a Mechtoid Plasma Mini-Cannon.
(Yes, Zhang died... I facepalmed at my own stupidity when that happend XD )
Both Vengful Star and Blind Mountain, as seen above, where pretty bad missions for me, since 4 people died in each. Blinding Prophet was also another mission where 4 died. In Fading Pyre, and Black Throne, 3 died. Then I have some several missions where 2 died as well.
Amongst the living I currently have two Colonels, and one Major... in total I have 6 nicknamed soldiers (out of 20 total, I felt I had to raise my normal total of 12 to 20, due to how many where dying and being injured for me).
My favorit is:
Colonel Dmitriy 'Specter' Ilyushin, Ukrainian Sniper, 22 missions, 62 kills.
He will probably not get to go with me on the final mission when that finally comes around, due to that he has been injured so many times that his Will is down to only 56.
The two other favorits are:
Colonel Alessandro 'Arcade' Moretti, Italian Heavy, 17 missions, 49 kills.
Major Erin 'Black Widow' Mitchell, Canadian Sniper, 9 missions, 20 kills.
Specter and Arcade are currently the only guys I have who have been on more then 10 missions. But I have a few guys who are up-and-coming, those 3 other nicknamed soldiers...
'Dozer', a Chinese heavy, 9 missions, 15 kills.
'Septic', a Japanese Assault, 5 missions, 15 kills. And finally
'Vampire', a South African Sniper, who I am currently unable to check how many missions and kills she has due to her being on a Covert Operation (I always send Snipers to them, due to Gunslinger... normally it would be a Colonel Sniper I would send, since Gunslinger + Double Tap = mmm-good! But due to how many people I have had die on me I decided to not do that in this particular run of the game, not yet atleast, do not feel like putting my best guys at risk like that since they have no armour on when sent on Covert Operations).
Things has changed pretty drasticly now though. I finally got my hands on Titan armour, and have had it for maybe 3-4 missions now I think. And I can feel how things have stabalized for me (as of yet though... I have not advanced the main story forward much yet, so I have not come across some of the stronger opponents yet). Think only one person has died since then, and only 2-3 people have actually been injured enough so they had to be hospitalized for a few days. But who knows... sometimes I do stupid impulsive and reckless moves... it is XCOM after all. XD