Conquered next two sectors.
No pictures but Holy heck this is fun!
In a certain way it’s better than Jagged Alliance 2, as you can pull off the plans you whip up on the spot much more consistently.
The RNG is not unfair and if you manage to leverage the enemy into your comfort zone and out of their advantages - it’s a walk in the park.
Now, I do know this is only the first part, and likely it’s just there to ease the players into the core mechanics and as such it’s actually doing a marvelous job.
Already after the first skirmishes I feel much more confident about what the skills of my mercs can allow, and while it’s quite obvious the debt it pays to the newest X-Com, it still is very much its own thing.
What sets it apart from the competition is the amount of details in place in the game world and that actually reacts to the player’s actions!
Buildings and their surroundings are made of/decorated with hundreds of smaller parts that gets damaged, moved (apparently with proper physics! I saw a bunch of cosmetically looking boxes of trash being tossed around oh so believably by the buckshot from a double barreled shotgun), interacted with and used to gain tactical advantage.
Not only that but the graphic design is superb. Everything is easily readable and even in case of confusion the key O on the keyboard put the camera overhead and marks clearly the types of terrain.
The thing that pays off the most is the silent/stealthy pre-positioning of the Mercs before the combat starts. Word of advice - get close. Combat has been scaled down to a much more closer range that JA2 did.
Take your time, gain vertical advantage, spot the area, get your situational awareness as total as possible, and plan a couple of turns ahead.
And get closer still! I really need to stress this.
Yes, after the first shots there’s the delightful chaos and the right amount of fog of war that makes further turns very exciting, but the game never shy away from giving the player all the possible information regarding the local battleground. The best thing so far is the super clear indicators of how many enemies the Mercs see, how many actions points they have and their actual physical condition - all in a very contained and very readable side bar UI.
Oh and never forget Overwatch. It’s a crucial feature of a successful engagement.
Negatives?
Only smaller things: for instance I found odd that apparently-flimsy-looking thing are capable of absorbing absurd amounts of punishment. Like some seaside wooden-stick fences impervious to 7.62 mm NATO rounds. And not just one.
Or the occasional point-blank 3-rounds burst to the face from a 9mm Uzi literally just grazing the enemy cheeks.
But you know… sith happens. 
I will never complain too much about these things.
In any case in nearly 3 hours of gaming I had massive amount of fun with very very little to complain about.
I could write dozen of lovely small actions/happenings/details that left me giggling and with a very wide grin on my face.
