There are two types of return fire, the kind your guys dish out to the enemy, and the kind the enemy throws back at your during your own turn! If you are going to win at this game you NEED to understand return fire.

GHOSTS

Some of your characters can return fire during the enemies turn, learn which of your team can do this and position them accordingly. When weighing up the risk factor, take a look at your characters weapon stats to check the return fire hit damage percentages. The important thing though is to have your return fire guys up front in the heat of battle! Also remember that more than one of your team can return fire in the same move. This is a powerful way to destroy or weaken the enemy before it's even your turn to move. Use this feature to your advantage by keeping your team closely packed - but only if there are no rocket enemies about!

ENEMY

The bad guys will also make use of return fire when it is your turn, so be careful not to leave anyone with poor health within range, retreat them! Remember you can check the enemies weapon class to anticipate what kind of damage is coming your way by return fire.

This one is a little bit obvious, but you can save your team health from a lot of damage by using cover well. High walls for example are extremely good for throwing frags over, while the enemy cannot even shoot you. Less cover is afforded by bushes, but they will definitely work to your advantage, so jump into a bush any-time you can. One of the early skirmish missions absolutely demands that you understand and use cover properly, or you just will not progress.

Keeping your injured squad members alive is obviously key to success, but managing the injuries takes tactics. Either have your medic just behind your front line to step in and heal the attacking members, or keep a mental note of where medic packs are dispersed and retreat them back to pick them up. During missions where you can only take a limited number of Ghost with you, you'd be mad to leave the medic behind.

Ever noticed your character looks like he just went radioactive, with a shimmering light travelling up his body from foot to head? That's because the special temporary Power ability has just become active. Your character earns this by killing the enemy etc. You can actually see how close he is to powering up by looking at the colour of the power bar on his information screen, the closer the darker shade is to the top, the closer that special ability is. There is a percentage shown too. These are usually quite powerful, like rapidshot, and can cause major damage to your enemy, so use it wisely and don't waste it. You'll see the new option listed on the attack screen, so control your rapid clicking "a" finger and use the new selection wisely.

Persistent Elite Creation (PEC) points are those stars you get awarded at the end of a successful mission. Remember this includes the skirmish missions that you unlock as you proceed through the campaign, so don't leave the skirmish mission until you have finished the campaign! You can then distribute them amongst your characters to increase there health ceiling, or even unlock new weapons. There are 16 levels to rank up. Personally I like the medic, the guy that puts out the sentry gun, and the chain-gun guy (Richetr), so I like to power them up first. Chain-gun dude has awesome return fire!

Some times it is difficult to remember what traits and special abilities you have gained with ranking up, so just go the character information screen and click on the profile pick to see the traits, and click for full details.

Command points are strictly in-mission points that you win by controller command point zones. Once you achieve a certain number of points powerful new options are available to you, such a air strikes. To use these you must back out to the menu screen by putting the cursor on a empty map square and pressing A to go to the Options screen. You will definately want to dominate all Command Zones to win missions using this feature, and not all missions do.

There are 6 Ghosts in your team all with different attributes and weapons. It is important to learn within the first few missions their strengths and how to deploy them, running in randomly without any strategy will only result in failure! Rather than go into depth about their strengths, special power ups etc, here's a guide on how to best use each member of the team.

In order of my own preference, here they are...

Richter Richter is the squad gunner, and like Haze he also carries grenades, so the same applies to him - good for multiple enemies. He is a very strong character to have along, his machine gun is awesome, and because his return fire is 100%, and can fire upon multiple enemies in one round, he is a superb support guy, protecting your front line. Richter is probably my favourite character.

Banshee Banshee is Recon and she is awesome for one thing in particular, her first weapon upgrade is a knife, as it is LETHAL! It scores 20 hit points everytime, but she does obviously have to be standing right next to the enemy to use it. This is practice does not turn out to be so hard, especially if the level has lots of corners she can hide behind. Banshee is my second favourite character for this reason.

Mint Mint the Engineer's strong point is that backpack he lugs around with him everywhere - from that he can deploy a Turret! The turret can turn and attack from any angle so place it wisely and it can really tip the balance of a firefight in your advantage. Its return fire capability will save your Ghosts from certain death several times. For this reason alone, Mint is my third favourite Ghost. Later on he can earn an EMP gun, which can prove very useful against turrets and drones.

Saffron MEDIC!!! When squad health bars start depleting and there are no health packs lying around, Saffron is your saviour. Some missions are restricted to fewer than a full squad, Saffron is one Ghost your will want in EVERY selection. I find that having her a square or two behind your front line keeps her close by for a quick healing session to your front line. Watch out though because the enemy will sometimes specifically target her, so she may have to self heal in one turn.

Duke Duke is the Commando and his most important aspect is that he carries the missile launchers. I forgot about this and tried (and succeeded) in a mission that involved about 6 vehicle destructions without Duke! So remember this, Duke is the guy for missile launchers!

Haze Haze is the team sniper, but I found him just as useful for the grenades he can carry. Grenades can cause damage to multiple enemies by selecting to attack an "area" rather than a specific enemy. So, if a mission has multiple enemies who make the mistake of grouping up together, ripe for a grenade, then make sure you get Haze into the thick of it. Of course, his sniper rifle is awesome for long range shots, while the grenades need to be used very close in, so a character of extremes! Finally, only equip him with light weight armour to keep he movement range up, just remember to have a medic on standby!