hawk700

I hate mind control too, and confess to occasionally using save/reload when I get pissed at results. I mean, if aliens have mind control capabilities, why do they bother with weapons at all? They should just sit behind a fortified door and mind control us one by one, and have us kill each other off and/or commit suicide. Nevertheless, the tactic I prefer to deal with it, is to disarm each soldier at the end of each turn. Mind-controlled troops are too stupid to look in their backpack for a weapon. Thus, you can arm the trooper, fire an aimed shot, return the weapon to backpack, and move on to the next soldier. Of course, this means forgoing reaction fire each turn, so I will sometimes play Russian roulette, and keep some of the soldiers armed. (Note, in the original X-com, the X-Com Utility made it possible to disable mind-control altogether. IMO this made for a much better game!)

I agree that scouts are useless, as Riflemen can perform that role just as well. Heavy Weapons are useful in supporting positions. Granted, they generally cannot move and fire in the same turn. But put them in a good firing position for long range fire, and/or wait for the enemy to come to them. Although their 'to-hit' percentages are low, they fire so many shots that they often get kills, and when failing to get kills, they often suppress the enemy. The 4 classes I use are: Rifleman, Sniper, Heavy Weapons, and Assault. Assault is good for close quarters situations, where their shotgun packs a solid punch. Assign soldiers with high TUs to this role, as they are best at using the shock baton and take prisoners. Tactics for taking prisoners: equip the stun baton the turn before, so you don't waste TUs, have 1 or 2 riflemen throw carefully placed stun grenades, and then rush the alien with the Assault trooper.