I started playing about a week ago and have been grinding pretty steadily. I also sunk 20 dollars for 3200 hp or whatever the rate was for the steam sale. I have 2400 hp left and have only spent hp on roster slots so far.
Previous to this most recent patch I was able to feel like I was making significant progress as I played, but now it feels like I have hit somewhat of a wall.
It may take a little bit but your best bets for a long time will be OBW (Black Widow (O)), Thor/Ares, and Patch which may take some time to build. As far as the * heroes, I find storm to be extremely useful. If you cap out her red skill and green skill, she is an AP loop queen on the Thorned Rose map. Only requires 5 red AP to destroy all the environmental tiles. In 1 or 2 turns you get 5AP of every color. Add OBW to the mix and you can steal/heal like crazy then use Storms green AP skill to continue the AP collection. Having a strong attack character like Thor/Ares adds good balance and you have every color tile represented.
Everyone has a different approach. In the beginning IM35, storm, and black widow were a good combo to earn ISO and rewards at the beginner level. I would focus on leveling your OBW, Thor/Ares with ISO. You can win Thor in some of the prologue missions, so getting additional covers is fairly easy. Plus these are ** heroes that will always be helpful.
Never spend iso on recruit tokens, if thats what you mean. The chances of getting something good are extremely low, and you need the iso for leveling your guys.
I bought 5 tokens and got a Thor, model 40, and 3 venoms. Obviously the venoms are worthless but I cant level my Thor up any further without more covers.
Is the best course of actions to just continue grinding anything I can and saving iso for when I eventually do get covers?