Alien grenades are great, bur on this playthrough I am only going to use human tech. The memorial screen is going to be huge.
human grenades/explosive do the job just fine (if you use high explosive mod its actually a bit too easy- lately I've been leaving it off).
The heavy cannon/machine gun (i am using mods), and rocket launcher with large rockets/incendiaries for some of the terror creatures are must also (but you already know that). I actually think the man-made weapons are not too shabby
Albeit I don't like using TFTD damage ruleset (the one with 50%-150 damage), instead I use defense/enemy unknown ruleset where the weapons do 0-200%. Some of the terror creatures are nearly impossible to kill with TFTD damage ruleset.
Also once you can afford use x1 tank for scouting (you don't necessary have to deploy its guns), but at least you can build up some elite troops before loosing them and a tank can be replaced.
ps. look at the bright side,
Greasy should now be eligible to receive the
'Star of Valor' for being only survivor.
And your points for the mission and the stuff you will carry home. Sure, it's an easy way to ensure, nobody will get killed of your men. But I really don't want to imagine what happens, when your nice grenadier is being shot, while surrounded by comrades, e. g. in Skyranger.
Yeah i usually score poorly in terror mission -200 to about 300 on average. But I try to keep it above 0.
I don't think I ever had the grenadier shot in the skyranger. I have always seemed to manage to eliminate any aliens visible from skyranger, then deploy smoke grenade. Move out on turn 2 amid smoke. My scouts (all have +55 in reaction), aliens also tend to move after 1st turn so this reduces any potential reaction fire. My grenadier is usually second/sometimes third to step of skyranger.