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Sorry to find faults in your post again Prej, but its not always the best idea to send rookies as bullet shields for commanders.

It can work well but when your rookie gets mind-controlled/beserk its not hard to miss a target right next to you. Therefore later on in the game when i lost a few elite members i simply get rookies only using mind-probes and stun launchers. (laser pistol in belt just incase) until they get a bit of exp under thier belt.

Although rookies are less likely to go beserk when a Officer is nearby they may still get Mind-Controlled and shoot your team.

Oh and an absolutely great tactic for stunning aliens in a UFO, especially a small one is to simply chuck in a few smoke grenades and camp near the door. Also whats really great is if you get a unit who is amazingly fast, give him a power/flying suit and a stun rod and stun the aliens one-by-one as the smoke grenade gives you cover from thier attacks, (helps to chuck in about 3 and wait a turn first) but you have to try and guess where the aliens are as they are in slight cover also (i think).

And the heavy laser rifle is actually still really really useful later in the game if you manage to train a unit to be an excellent sniper, the heavy lasers power actually beats the plasma but does not have auto-fire although both have the same accuracy and same TU cost and similar damage with the laser narrowly beating the heavy plasma. However the laser negates its disadvantages by requiring no ammo, which means no reloads and you can take a shot whenever you want.

A sniper in a power suit makes a great unit, especially in terror attacks as you just put him on a high building and take pot-shots at any enemy. However you can also use a heavy plasma rifle just as equally as you usually get loads of em along with clips. Once I had a dude shoot through 2 windows and hit a snakeman on the other side with a plasma rifle, the snakeman was about to decimate two troopers who both missed (yeh they almost deserved to die). But it was just a nice aimed shot, missed two civillians as well who were one hex away from the aimed shot.

He's now my favourite sniper. Picks off targets he cant even see. Not only that when theres a fence or something blocking the way he simply shoots it so my other team-members can pass without wasting ammo.

My all-time favourite HWP is the Plasma HoverTank. You dont need to buy ammo for it as it automatically reloads 255 ammo everytime and its got great movement. Fusion Tank is good as well but not enough ammo for the big battles.

Now heres a great tip. Ever been stuck in that situation where one of your team-members misses an alien and doesnt have enough time units to move away properly or they are blocking the door/window so none of your other teammates can shoot or fire through to the alien?? Well there are two simple tactics, one is to try and throw a grenade over the team-mate (never tried so dont know if it works), all you do is what you do to units near chyrsalids...... stun em, stun em real gooood. All they do is fall down and you can either simply move and fire at the alien or just wait another turn in a safer position until you get more TU's. And if you need your unconcious person back into the battle just stim em back to full health.

I always keep around 6 stun rods to the strongest people in my team so there is never a case where an alien kills a person in a bad position or has to kill a mind-controlled team-mate/beserked or paniked.

Also My-Q, I hardly ever use psi-amps for Mind-Controlling, its far easier to make em panic and when they panic they can drop thier weapons. Also if you stun a mind-controlled unit then you wont get it at the end of a mission so it is easier to panic them and then stun-em.

But now as a final tip. Always have one unit in the team with a demo charge at least. They come in usefull everywhere, whether it be blowing up walls or blowing up aliens. Its so fun dropping a demo charge through the hole of a UFO Roof. (Note you might have to use a demo-charge to make a hole in the roof in the first place).

Grenades work well through holes as they are lighter and can be chucked further but a demo-charge just has that nice feeling of, mmmm overkill........