I played the first mission and didn't like it. Maybe I'm not understanding something but if one of your guys dies, the enemies will all just put multiple overwatch pointing on the guy so if you go and try to save him you'll die and you only get one overwatch disabling shot for like 9 turn cooldown, so if there's 2 guys you can't disable both. Like either I'm missing something or that seems pretty busted and basically if someone gets downed, might as well restart.
Also didn't like that you couldn't skip cutscenes during missions on restarts and movement seemed kinda slow and clunky.
Idk, last tactics game I played Mutant Road Zero and this seemed a lot worse.
Yeah, you have to be really careful with placement and resources so that your units can cover for one another. Don't space them out too far, flank where possible, don't have everyone's frags on cooldown, etc. The 2nd or 3rd mission is a timed rescue (15 turns). Restarting that a bunch taught me a lot about how to play.
Not sure what I would do in the situation you describe. You don't have to use the disabling shot to break overwatch (I think), but that doesn't mean you'd be able to do much else.
Controls are fine. I didn't immediately understand how the executions work, i.e. that you have some limited control over which cover they enter right after, but outside of that I haven't had issues with movement. I do use KBM though.
I also like how relatively short missions are. Hope they don't bloat them up going forward.
I found Phoenix Point much clunkier and just too much to deal with. That one I bailed on very early.
edit: meant to quote myself to make a correction, ended up editing instead and deleting most of the post
edit2: I had it open in another tab, for whatever reason