Finally had the time to iron man (no reloads of any kind except because program failure, and I only had one
in the whole game) this game through on superhuman. I just had to share it with
someone - and who is better than a bunch of fanatics who seem to do it regularily?
In the end the hardest part seems to get an alien who'll give you PSI abilities. If you don't want to reload at all during a battle, attacking a sectoid ship with leader (at least a medium ship) is most likely suicide - unless by pure luck you happen to have 80+ (or 70something+) PSI power for most of your guys without knowing it.
(Yup, I know you can field test you teams by feeding them to sectoids and getting home those guys who aren't falling for PSI attacks - but I've found the financial cost is too big, as you are unlikely to get anything in return.)
So most likely one will get PSI powers from a small ethereal ship. Still it will be hard. Ethereals are higly resistant to stun blasts (at least it seems so, took 4 direct hits the last time!), and as you need stun balls to capture it, your team will be highly vulnerable to PSI control. In the iron manned game I lost the whole team and the skyranger to just one puny and very lucky Ethie.
I've found I've developed a callous tactic. I name those soldiers who don't have a chance of developing into good ones "XP" for "expendable". They are always walking forward and opening doors. They take the first alien fire - then guys with goor Reaction (55+, 59-60 when available) jump in and take the credit. And yes, I'm firmly in the Reaction First camp. Small ships are financially the most important in the game - when money still is an issue - and guys with big reaction survive going through doors.