Welp, just had the first losses of the caimpaign. Sadly, one of them (although only a lieutenant) was a genius with special perks so powerful I'd pick her over a hero unit any day. She was a ranger with rupture and hail of bullets, fully specced for the melee/combat path (including run and gun). Once she leveled up she would have had enough AP for her squaddie special perk... death from above. Multiple times she used her heavily customized shard gun (with +1 slot from a breakthrough) to one-shot an advent from a mile away with a shotgun. RIP Icepick, you will be missed. The other loss was mostly unimportant strategically, but he was a bonded soldier and I was attached to him so it hurt anyway.
The mission was one of those missions where you just know its going to be trouble. It was a rescue mission with the evac point a mile away through uneven terrain. Dark events were double hacking resistance, and lost world (also seemly glitched for me to never end). The warlock made his first appearance in the mission, heavily upgraded mind you. He could summon spectral zombies from the other side of the map and the objective timer didn't pause. I hope that's a glitch because otherwise its bullshit. Then when he entered LoS the round timer paused but I assumed it wouldn't so I played too recklessly, running up Icepick without much support. I also didn't realize that
flashbangs don't work on the warlock, even tho he has mind control. But I refused to kill my own troops, as I usually do, and it was just a sharpshooter so it ended up OK.
And I messed up by forgetting when a stunned Archon was going to be unstunned (resulting in the death of Valentine). While the glitches were annoying, the ultimate outcome of it all was still avoidable. And the campaign thus far has been remarkably without glitches or slowdowns for an Xcom first release, so I'll just take it. The warlock was killed and all Xcom bodies recovered for burial. I would definitely describe him as the most dangerous of all chosen I've encountered, but I've only fought him and the hunter once, while the assassin has been on my back all game. I haven't felt much about the other two chosen except vaguely liking them, but I definitely have a grudge against this warlock fucker.