Well since I didn't find a mod forum or a combo mod forum Ill post this here.
SO, I start a new game with combo mod, pick a european country, easy difficulty. Nothing much happens then bam! My first combo mod mission! Eliminate all transgenants. I go for it. I deploy, cool! Unlimited smoke grenades! So then I walk for 10 seconds, BAM! A Molerman ( or something ). Prolly easy picking for my 2 guys with uzis, I take a step forward, aim my gun. ZHOOMP, BAM! Explosion! All my guys insta dead! WTF? Ok....

I retry the mission 10 times, hmm.. smoke grenades come in handy, smoke that bastard, kill him, WTF? He has a BFG9000? Is this supposed to be this way? In which window did the developer throw the meaning "Easy first mission" Away? Ok so I pick it up, sweet weapon! But uhh.. I can't use it!. Now how could a molerman who "Can't even use a door knob" Got a load of a BFG9000 and knew how to shoot the damn thing when a smart Human that CAN use door knobs can't use it? Ok so I continue on, whoops! Another molerman! This time with a pistol that instakills you.. I still haven't figured out how to kill THAT bugger.

Well what can I say, Gratz for making me finally use tactics! And what the hell? Don't EVER do that again.

Did anything similar happen to any other player around here?

Welcome to the board, Sypher21

As you've discovered, Combo Mod makes the game harder, even on the easy difficulty setting, and forces the player to set ambushes and make use of the available cover right from the beginning of the game. You are also going to lose soldiers early on, no matter what you do.

I got lucky with an earlier version. I managed to ambush a morelman with a BFG4500 before he realised my troops were there. The soldier I gave it to levelled up REALLY quickly because he was regularly killing half a dozen transgenants in each mission.