Thin Man (EU2012)

1st Appearance	{{{appears}}}
HP	3/3/4/6
Aim	65
Defense	0
Will	15
Movement	15
Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible

The Thin Men are agile, quick, and elusive alien creatures. Designed to look human so that they can successfully infiltrate society, Thin Men are responsible for handling the more secretive operations of the alien invasion. (Though some aren't exactly subtle, such as planting huge alien bombs in the middle of urban centres.)

Their human-like appearance doesn't fool XCOM troops, who have no trouble identifying Thin Men as hostiles.

Thin Man Armaments

Weapon	Damage	Critical Chance	Terrain Damage	Range	Reaction Angle	Reaction Range	Size	Abilities
Thin Man Plasma Light Rifle	4	10	125	27	200	NA	Large	Suppression 20%

Abilities:

• Poison Spit: The Thin Man spits a poisonous glob that decreases the aim of your soldiers by 20% and damages their health by one point each turn. Can be cured by medkit. Fades away after a while.
• Leap: Allows the Thin Man to jump incredibly high, allowing it to scale entire buildings and take up an elevated position. Very dangerous against Snipers who are unable to fire.
• Last Gasp: The Thin Man explodes, leaving a poisonous cloud that will poison any soldiers that move within it, can void a small area of cover. Only activates when Thin Man dies.
• Thin Men have an unexplained ability to deploy directly in to a mission area on some missions, seemingly dropping out of the sky.

Tactical Advice

Thin Men use a Light Plasma Rifle, which does much higher damage than a Sectoid's Plasma Pistol. On Classic try to make sure your troops have enough HP to not be one-shot by a lucky hit. Thin Men's high movement means you have to be very careful of flanks from them. If they have a low hit chance they will often use Poison Spit for a guaranteed hit, which will do 3 damage over 3 turns and wreck your soldier's aim. If they have a low hit chance on a soldier equipped with a Medikit or wearing Titan Armor, they will often use suppression on that soldier to reduce that soldier's aim for the turn. While their HP is nothing remarkable, it is enough to survive a grenade on Classic. Finally, beware of their leap ability, which they can surprise rooftop snipers with. Be careful when fighting around a building where you don't have the roof covered because Thin Men can leap on to the roof and then drop in for a flank on the next turn.

The Council Missions will almost exclusively be Thin Men, so before engaging these missions, it is reccomended to give your troops either Medikits or Titan Armor, both of which will make them never use posion spit (though it is also a decent strategy with more armored/high HP soldiers to be spat at, making Thin Men 'waste a turn' on what will only end up being 3 points of damage. However, since the spit attack rarely, if ever, misses, they problably will not leave cover for this). In the Escort and Bomb Disposal missions, Thin Men will periodically appear in the mission area. They will drop out of the sky (the game will show you where even if you can't see it) and then immediately go on overwatch. Dropping in counts as a move, so any troops on overwatch who see a Thin Man appear will take a shot (though on rare occasion where only one drops during Alien Activity, this may not happen). They will also appear in all Asset Recovery missions, save for the helicopter crash (which will be all Mutons) and the one at the truck stop (all Sectoids). In all other missions, they will appear for most of the game, but will apper less and less once Mutons and their iterations seem to replace them.

Their capture yeilds Light Plasma Rifles, which themselves are arguably the best weapon for fighting Thin Men (damage is sufficient, and the +10 Aim is helpful, as a Thin Man's high move rate means they are almost never out of cover once a squad is activated). When you know you are going to fight them, you may also consider taking Scopes as inventory items (for example, for Assaults with Titan Armor, or Support with Deep Pockets, with the other item being a medikit), especially with their Foundry upgrade. Total, that's a +20 to Aim with +10 to Crit Chance, plus flanking/out of cover for when they drop out of the sky during Council Missions. The subsequent interrogation reduces time for UFO Tech Research, which directly helps in researching/building for the Firestorm interceptor, and indirectly with late-game armor, several Foundry projects, the EMP Interceptor weapon (and thus, sellable and useable reasources), and the Sattelite Nexus.

As Council Missions will always appear about once a month, and their low HP and damage rates, Thin Men-infested Council Missions are excellent places to train new Psionic soldiers, as Mind Fray cannot miss, and with Iron Will and New Guy purchased, unsuccesful Psi attacks are rare, and in all but Impossible difficultiy, Mind Fray will be 100% fatal.

V.I.P. Escort

In V.I.P. escort missions Thin Men will aim for the target you are trying to extract, regardless of whether or not there is an XCOM escort soldier at their side. As well as regular groups seeded on the map, extra Thin Men will periodically drop out of the sky on you on your way back-- but only as the VIP moves, so you can place your troops ahead of time to intercept. Be sure to scout with soldiers before moving the V.I.P. to the Skyranger; the entire mission will be a bust if the V.I.P. dies. They don't appear to ever use their Poison Spit attack on the V.I.P., even though with their 3 HP (on all difficulties- only with Damage Roulette activated might a VIP have a chance of surviving a hit from a Plasma shot), it would be sufficient to kill them, or force your soldiers to potentially move out of cover to heal them. Fortunatley, they will only begin to target the VIP once you have reached them and are able to control them.

Bomb Disposal

In bomb disposal operations, it is not rare to see an entire alien force consisting of purely Thin Men, though there may be Sectoids in the first or second month. Some thin men will venture away from the main bomb and protect its power sources but you will find the highest concentration of Thin Men protecting the bomb. Just be sure to quickly dispatch the Thin Men before the bomb goes off and deactivate it. More Thin Men will drop down from the sky after disarming the bomb, so if you have time, take up defensive positions and go on overwatch before deactivating it.

Asset Recovery

Notable in that maps include a reversal of several escort maps, such as the pier and the Astronomy/Monitoring Station. Additionally, these mission will only be non-wandering Seeded groups, allowing you to take your time moving through the map. Lastly, you do not need to actually find the Mission's asset (Astronomy Station: telescope. Truck Stop: hidden inside the last 16-wheeler is a big metal... something. Pier: crates inside the last building. Highway: crashed helicopter, just outside the acessable area, at the far end of the map) to win, merely kill all aliens.

Notes

• The Thin Men are one of the few aliens in Enemy Unknown 2012 that do not have a direct 1994 equivalent. However, their reptilian eyes, fangs, scales around the neck and wrists, autopsy reports, and use of poison suggest a strong conceptual link to the Snakemen.
• Thin Men are caricatures of Sid Meier, head of Firaxis. He has a history of showing up in games by Firaxis.
• In the Game Over cutscene, the Spokesman (Mind Controlled by a Sectoid Commander) announces the shutdown of XCOM while a Thin Man grasps his shoulder. This may be a refrence to earlier games, where it is implied that withdrawn countries are thusly easily infliltrated, then Mind Control techniques are used on their leaders and populace.