Chryssalid (EU2012)

1st Appearance	{{{appears}}}
HP	8/8/8/8
Aim	Melee
Defense	10
Will	120
Movement	20
Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible

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, dashing straight up to your soldiers without considering whether they can still attack in that turn. This reduces the power of the Chryssalid dramatically, as they have a habit of dashing up to point blank range and ending turn, giving you easy hits.

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. Chryssalids hatch at the beginning of the aliens' turn and can move and attack immediately after emerging. This can be a nasty surprise if you've not been keeping track when a slow, lumbering zombie you thought you were a safe distance from suddenly turns in to a 20 move chryssalid and covers the distance easily.

Chryssalids are at their most dangerous in terror missions, where they can convert civilians in to zombies and if you advance too slowly you can find yourself overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

During missions such as larger UFO assaults or the alien base, where enemies are activated only when you get within sight range, Chryssalids can be extremely dangerous, as instead of falling back to cover, they will take their free move to surround your closest soldier, and then attack as soon as the alien turn begins.

Chitin Plating, made from dead Chryssalid bodies, is the best defense against their melee attacks, providing 4 HP as well as 50% reduced melee damage. In larger terror missions it is an almost essential piece of equipment for your front-line assault soldiers.

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.