Chryssalid (EU2012)

The Chryssalid is a savage murderous insect. Standing at about 5 feet, Chryssalids serve the alien forces as terror agents, though sometimes they can be seen defending structures of importance to the aliens. They are the fastest ground units in the game and they use their deadly claws to tear up your squad members. Perhaps the worst thing about them is that they can inject a venom into your operatives that effectively zombifies them, turning them into a thrall for the aliens, though that is not all. They also inject the victim with a Chryssalid egg. After 3 turns the egg will hatch and the new, fully adult Chryssalid will tear its way out of the zombie ready to inject more of your soldiers. (Or civilians where present.)

Tactical Advice

A priority when facing Chryssalids is to stay well away. If your squad members can hear Chryssalids running around you should put your squad on Overwatch. If a Chryssalid or two moves within your range a few extra hits before your turn will really help you in the fight.

Chryssalids have heavy armour but they usually charge at your squad out in the open, sometimes the fact that they often ignore cover is enough to negate their large amounts of health. However you should be sure you have enough firepower to take down the whole group, keeping up with technology will surely help you in this regard.

However, for all their dangers there is one game mechanic that really makes Chryssalids suffer. Dashing. Chryssalids will often often completely ignore the moving and action mechanics of the game, often dashing straight up to your soldiers instead of slowly advancing so they can still attack by the end of their turn. This reduces the power of the Chryssalid dramatically, as you can often easily kill Chryssalids because they can do nothing to defend themselves.

As always, keep a sniper or two around to quickly finish them off when they appear.

Note that killing zombified soldiers or civilians no longer hatches a Chryssalid. They will only hatch after 3 turns.

Notes

• Chryssalid corpses can be used to create Chitin Plating, which protects against melee damage, this can help against Chryssalids a lot. Unfortunately it has no visual effects on the soldier wearing it, wearing Chryssalid shells would probably look really cool.
• The removal of time units have severely crippled Chryssalids as they can no longer rely on their movement speed alone. This has slightly hurt their reputation as the most iconic alien of X-COM as they are very foolhardy and defiant of the new movement mechanics. They are at their full glory in the 1994 original X-COM.