Soldiers (LWR)

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In General

XCOM soldiers are those who risks their lives going on missions. On mission squad setup screen, an arbitrary mix of soldier classes (and SHIVs) can be chosen for the task at hand. Soldier slots can be scrolled with arrows when squad sizes above 6 are available, e.g., on all UFO missions.

XCOM starts with 12 unique soldiers and a random soldier from their starting country. They also start with 0-4 SHIVs (depending upon difficulty). This means a starting barracks size of 13-17.

Of the initial 12 unique soldiers: 3 will start at LCPLs, 4 at SPECs, and 5 as PFCs (rookies).

Each XCOM soldier costs credits to recruit which vary based on how the campaign is progressing: Recruiting Soldiers.

When recruiting the base gender of the recruit is 1 woman to every 3 men. (This number is determined by a value in DefaultGameCore.ini)

Classes

Like the base game, soldiers are divided into classes. Soldiers start out as Privates (analogous to Rookies), where they have no class, and when they progress to Specialist (equivalent to Squaddie) they are assigned a class. You have some control over which class the Private is assigned to; when a soldier becomes a Specialist, they will be assigned a specialism of Tactical, Weapons, Marksman, or Support. You can then choose between the two classes for each specialism by choosing the appropriate perk. When assigned to become a MEC each specialism creates one MEC class.

Specialism	Soldier Classes	MEC Class
Marksman	Sniper	Jaeger
	Scout
Tactical	Infantry	Marauder
	Assault
Weapons	Gunner	Goliath
	Rocketeer
Support	Medic	Shogun
	Engineer

Starting Roster

Outside of 1 random PFC and 1-4 SHIVs, this is the starting roster of every LWR campaign (with the exception of campaigns using the Fresh Recruits second wave option or start bonuses that affect it).

Guaranteed Starting Soldiers (LWR)
Name	Country	Rank	Supraclass	Health	Mobility	Will	Aim	Special Perk
Stanislav Orlov	Russia	LCPL	Tactical	7	14.6	37	68	Natural Killer
Estela Morais	Brazil	LCPL	Marksman	6	15.3	30	68	N/A
Albert Komarov	Russia	LCPL	Weapons	6	15.3	20	69	N/A
Liora Yosef	Israel	SPEC	Tactical	5	16.0	37	63	N/A
Chloe Girard	France	SPEC	Support	5	16.0	23	68	N/A
Finlay Burns	Scotland	SPEC	Support	7	15.3	40	61	N/A
Yuna Saito	Japan	SPEC	Weapons	4	15.3	41	64	N/A
Hank Miller	USA	PFC	Tactical	8	15.3	41	63	Relentless
Jacob Kowalski	Poland	PFC	Marksman	7	15.3	39	64	N/A
Owen Roberts	United Kingdom	PFC	Weapons	6	15.3	25	67	N/A
Cameron Wilson	Canada	PFC	Support	6	16.0	43	63	N/A
Hans Graf	Germany	PFC	Marksman	6	14.6	26	70	Practiced Ease

Special Reward Soldiers

While many missions offer soldiers as a reward, some council missions give unique soldiers with preset classes, stats, ranks, and perks. Some ranks scale with month.

Special Reward Soldiers (LWR)
Name + Nickname	Country	Rank	Supraclass	Health	Mobility	Will	Aim	Special Perk(s)	Mission of Origin
Shaojie 'Chilong' Zhang	China	LCPL	Tactical	6	16.6	32	61	Ex Triad	Friends in Low Places
Annette 'Vicieuse' Durand	France	SGT	Support	5	15.3	59	63	Driven By Pressure, Mind Fray, Psi Panic, Mind Merge	Deluge
Peter 'The General' Van Doorn	U.N	CPL-GSGT	Weapons	8	15.3	36	67	Cool Under Pressure	Van Doorn Extraction
Glenn 'Freaky' Friendly	U.N	LCPL	Support	7	15.3	32	66	N/A	Van Doorn Extraction
Matthew 'Alecto' Hawkins	USA	TSGT	Marksman	5	16.0	48	62	Countercharge, Kinetic Blast	Furies
Fatima 'Tisiphone' Tariq	Egypt	SGT	Tactical	4	14.6	52	65	Mind Fray, Psi Inspire, Mind Merge	Furies
Said 'Megaera' Tariq	Egypt	SGT	Weapons	5	14.6	50	67	Countercharge, Psi Inspire, Mind Merge	Furies
Anton 'Vector' Smits	Netherlands	SPEC	Support	7	16.0	38	68	N/A	Portent
Patrick 'The Plumber' Carlock	USA	LCPL	Support	8	15.3	26	64	N/A	Carlock Extraction
Jake 'Snake Eyes' Green	USA	LCPL	Marksman	6	14.6	48	69	N/A	Hutch Extraction
Jamie 'House' Watson	USA	LCPL	Tactical	7	16.0	38	66	N/A	Hutch Extraction

Tactical Advice

The Long War Rebalance classes are all designed with certain roles in mind, and they work best if they have other roles that synergize with them. For example, a Gunner's ability to Suppress works well with an Assault, as the Gunner can pin an enemy and prevent it from overwatching while the Assault moves up for a flank. Alternatively, a Medic can cancel out overwatch fire for the Assault using Concussion Grenades with Smoke and Mirrors, allowing the Assault to move up, providing cover with a Smoke Grenade afterwards.

The roles your soldiers are designed to fulfill, i.e., your build composition, are far more important than the individual strength of a soldier and their abilities. If your Engineers, Rocketeers, Infantry, and Goliath MECs are all built to use explosives for the role of cover destruction and AOE damage, you may have to build your Shogun MECs as something other than more explosives.

See also

Long War Rebalance: Soldiers
	Soldiers Assault Infantry Rocketeer Gunner Sniper Scout Medic Engineer
	MEC Troopers Marauder Goliath Jaeger Shogun
	Officers Psionics Gene Mods S.H.I.V.s