Telika: ...I want more words!!!...
W2 is one of the games I found where I am not okay living with the mistakes I made and fixing it as I level up, which is one reason why I restarted so many times. It took me a bunch of times to figure out I wanted this character to use these stats and this character these stats, etc. so I had it all divided up as functional as I could make it. Yeah, it is a forgiving skill system, but, it is also more rewarding the more precise you are, which is another reason I love it so much, you can really feel the difference between pretty-good, good, quite-good, very-good, exceptional etc. A few more points is worth a lot, IMO.
I don't know what else you've figured out. It doesn't make much sense to create any characters that have anything but 4 or 8 intelligence. I guess you can go below 4, but I think you are just screwing yourself out of valuable skill points if you do that. 1 character with 8 INT and you will have a good number of extra skill points and be able to cover all of the skills in the game with your team.
I like having my field+medic and surgeon as the same character. I also really like having my sniper by my animal whisperer because it keeps the animals out of the combat zone/line of fire/harms way almost all of the time.
If you want to have Scotchmo in your party, wait until you get him to train any lockpicking, and then go back and lockpick the things you missed once you have him. Also, you can give him a trinket that lets him animal whisper, and then have him animals whisper the rat statue and get +1 to his INT and then he will be gaining more skill points per level than he would with his 3 INT. Once you get him to level 10, you can give him his 1 point in INT to up his skill points per level, then drop the trinket+rat and give him a better trinket, if you want to do it that way.
Don't underestimate luck, power gamers will tell you it is a dump stat, but I've found it to be extremely useful and rewarding. It might also seem that things like combat initiative are of primary importance, where I don't really think they are. Pay attention to all of the influences stats give on character creation. From 1 level to the next might not be worth getting opposed to a different stat. And it is also the sort of game that doesn't reward jack-of-all trade types. Okay, it might work a bit for 1 character, but it is much more beneficial to have certain characters built 1 way with stats, and another character built completely differently. It's all about character planning, know who you want to do what and start them off accordingly.
As far as starting combat with sniping, etc. I've found it depends on the encounter, what is best to do. Some encounters having every single one of your rangers in a good position is crucial, sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it makes sense to start with everyone in a designated position and get 1 snipe shot off on 1 target, sometimes it's best to focus-fire with everyone shooting at once to start the encounter, and then run a few of them back into the position you want them in once their turn is up. Sometimes it's best to "pull" enemies with a melee/close-range character back to where everyone else in your party is positioned. Each encounter has different things going for it. Some it is best to focus on different targets, some ti is best to eliminate a certain target first.
I think the best tactic to get more "opportunity shots" is by starting the encounter farther away than you might think to normally. Keep your rangers at a distance, go up close with 1, run them back, and you will get a turn in which to "pass" with your awaiting rangers, essentially. Use this opportunity to put them into ambush mode, and, when you get the enemies back to them, they'll open fire. You just need to create your puller character to have a lot of movement speed. I made the mistake of not thinking my melee character would need to move around a lot because she'd be in the front lines, but it actually hinders her more than I like because a lot of time she's missing out on the fight because enemies have moved past her and she can't catch up.
There are so many tactics (it's not like JA or anything, but, still pretty great and accessible more than a lot of heavy-tactics games.) Sometimes it is best to use burst fire for 6APs, run 3 spots for cover (9AP.) Sometimes it is best to do two standard shots for 4APs a piece (8AP) and save the last AP for the next turn. Those are just random examples of course. I find it useful to have multiple weapons of the same type for each character, each with different AP useage, that way you can really fine-tune AP optimization and get a variety of tasks done.