Brain Fertilizer

I'm on day 9.
I've fought 37 battles, with 2 Bloodcat encounters.

My main guy is level 6, as is Shadow.
My team is now:
Me, Shadow, Barry, Buns, Dmitri, Fox, Dr. Q, Ira, Igor, MD, Maddog, and Spider. Wolf has been hired, but is in transit.

I forgot to tell you:
My original team was me, Shadow, Barry, Igor, and MD. Of course, I got Ira right after the first battle, then picked up Maddog pretty quickly afterwards on my first trip to Estoni. I got Dmitri a day after clearing Drassen, too, per normal. I stuck with those guys while I saved up to extend Shadow's contract. I was trying to hire Buns (whom you have to get before Fox; if you get Fox first, Buns won't work for you), but Buns was unavailable due to being "on assignment" (just a little detail the game has to increase verisimilitude and increase the challenge somewhat). So I hired Spider first. By that time, I had enough money, and had just taken Cambria so had enough income to add to it, that I was able to hire the rest in quick succession, over less than 30 hours. I'll probably stick with this crew for a while, until after I add Shank and Dynamo.

I decided to go without Flo...it takes so long to get her to a good marksmanship, and despite having teaching skill, her leadership is so low that she's not much help. Her lack of strength really slows things down. Even if you work hard to get her up to 70+ Marksmanship and 30+ Leadership and 70+ Strength (which you won't get to until the game is 85% done and all you have left is Meduna), her Dexterity and Agility are still woefully lacking. On top of horrible Health. Not worth it. At least Ira has good Dexterity, adequate Leadership, and useful Medical from the beginning, to go with her horrible Marksmanship and weak Strength. Her Agility and Health are below average, yes, but not horrible. And she seems to learn faster than Flo anyway.

I don't know why people consider Ira a "mule" (only good for carrying stuff around and other non-combat functions, like healing and training). She learns to shoot well pretty fast. Load her up with a long-distance-weapon and let her have the first scope and laser sight. You won't get the easy hits you'd get by giving it to someone like Buns or Shadow, no...but it helps her improve rapidly, especially if you don't use her as a distant sniper as much as just a regular fighter, making sure you give her lots of easy 'head shots', which raise Marksmanship faster.

I haven't decided what to do with Shank yet. Let him die off quickly (like Hamous) once he arranges the gas in Estoni, or continue to try to improve him. His Wisdom is so low, and he has all the same problems of general low stats as Flo. But he is good with throwing knives, and I've had a few battles where I was able to kill the first 4-5 guys just with thrown knives (in the later stages of the last time I played, before starting over with this crowd). I didn't let Hamous die deliberately this time, and I don't think I'll let Shank die, either. I don't want to play so cold-bloodedly, and maybe he will be useful as my first real 'mule', until his Marksmanship is good enough to make knife throwing useful.

We'll see.