Crusher

XENOMORPH - TIER 3
Crusher	Evolves From: Hunter Evolves To: N/A Role: Make use of your armored front crest and your massive body to shield and tank bullets. Eat up explosions without flinching thanks to your thick hide. Charge your foes down and stomp on them to dislodge every single bone in their body. Guides: This one.

Overview

Little larvae, do you like to:

Get shot alot?
Use your head to break things?
Run over people or knock them down?
Run into explosions or large groups of people?
Be a literal bodyguard for squishier aliens?

Then maybe being a Crusher is for you! Read on, little larvae:

The Pros:

With your armoured head, you can, with good luck take alot more punishment than other castes, giving you both a support and offensive role
You're great at stunning and crowd control
Your charge can break barricades, walls, and most barriers
You have one of the best, if not THE best tackle ability in the game
You're highly resistant to explosions; this makes you a great minesweeper
You can defend chokepoint and the like very effectively
You work great in a team, you go getter you!
You can knock marines over if you charge into them, stunning them and normally badly hurting them!

The Cons:

You're vulnerable to attacks from the back and sides
Armour piercing ammo and attacks do more damage to you, and defeat your armour with ease (obviously!)
You're slow (when not charging)
You're a big, fat target
Crashing into something sturdy can stun you if you don't break it, which can lead to your death
Your charge constantly drains plasma when in use
You have no tail attack
Your slashes are pretty weak
You do poorly in wide open spaces

Playing a Crusher

You are the Crusher. Your task is simple - crush the enemy! You're a classic tank caste, with the ability to soak up lots of damage thanks to your hardened carapace armour which deflects a good percentage of shots fired at you.

You also have the ability to charge, which uses Plasma, and effectively lets you move much quicker. With your charge activated, you build up momentum when you move. The more tiles you move uninterrupted, the more momentum you build up until you hit your maximum speed, at which point you will flatten pretty much anything in your path apart from solid walls and some objects. It takes practice to understand the limitations of the ability and how best to use it. If you see the 'BONK' action appear in the chat, then whatever you have hit is unbreakable by charging.

You also have the ability to stomp. Stomping ability allows you to crush any enemy you are standing on with your large feet. This causes an insane amount of damage, and is good for quickly disabling vital targets.

One downside to being a Crusher is that you move slowly when you're not charging. Also, you're a big, juicy target. Don't let your Plasma run out or you may struggle to escape as the Marines simply storm after you, blazing away. You also have very weak melee attacks and may struggle to cause any real damage.

It's a bad idea to go off hunting solo or without support, especially in somewhere without weeds. If you want to run away but marines are chasing you, you'll either have to try and charge away, letting them shoot you in your vulnerable back and sides, or moonwalk (more on this later) and hope you can get to safety. Marines run faster than you when not charging, so it's entirely possible for them to chase you down and end you once you're hurt.

Abilities

Abilities:	Description:
Rest	Used to rest and unrest. Xenos heal faster when resting on weeds.
Regurgitate	To devour, drag target with one hand then click yourself. Beware the devoured will be dissolved in 5 minutes and regurgitating them doesn't reset the timer. If the devoured is armed with a knife, they can cut their way out from the inside, leading to you being gibbed.
Stomp	When activated you'll need to use the middle mouse button and it'll stomp the tile directly below the crusher. Useful for crushing marines who fall over. Costs 50 plasma.
Toggle Charging	Toggles being able to charge. Charge is activated by moving.

Crusher Techniques

Moonwalking - While holding a direction arrow, spam click in the direction you would like your head to face. (rip your tendons) This is a very important crusher tactic, and allows you to retreat while letting your armoured head protect you.
Hit and Run - Run in, use your stomp, run out again. Useful for when the enemy is behind barricades you cannot break with one charge (plasteel barricades and the like)
Demolition man - get a good charge going, and smash through as many lines of enemy barricades as you can.
Run em down! - If you hit a marine at moderate to high momentum, you will knock them flying and cause serious damage. You can use this to take out dangerous individuals, such as smart gunners or M5 RPG users. Just be careful they don't dodge your charge and you overextend yourself!
Trample - If you move over a prone marine while charging, you will run them over, doing serious damage and potentially breaking bones. You can utilise this by timing your stomp to knock someone down just before you get to them. One thing to keep in mind - captured hosts in nests can often be accidentally trampled by you and potentially die if you keep charge on around the hive. Best keep if off there, eh?
Fuck you sentry!- If you charge into a sentry at high momentum, it will be automatically knocked over, but you will also be stunned. If you've taken a burst from the sentry while charging, you may be at low health, so always do this with backup in case marines guarding the sentry take advantage of your prone state!

Crusher Tactics

Crushers are invulnerable to mines, but the overlay from minesweeping (the white one) prevents any sort of moonwalking using a simple click, leaving crushers vulnerable after blowing it up for a good 3 seconds.
Sentries still pose a significant threat to you, and should not be taken on alone. Their bullets easily pierce your armour. Unupgraded, one burst from one will nearly put you in the grave!
Flamethrowers are dangerous to you because of your slow movement speed when not charging.
A direct hit from an armor piercing rocket will put a serious dent in your health!
Don't die for the wrong reasons. While it is noble and normally doable to shield a critical hive member while they get dragged to safety, it would be a waste for you to die say, shielding a young runner, especially if you both die!
Knives and machetes pierce your armour. When not charging, marines can get into melee range quickly. Tackling is your friend here.
Don't slash when you could be tackling! Unupgraded, your slashes are like gentle kisses. It's much better for you to tackle someone and let a Ravager slay them then try slashing them yourself!
If you know you're going to be charging into somewhere with a sentry or a large group, don't do it on anything other than full health. Remember you will have to get back to safety with potentially multiple angry marines firing at you!
As a Crusher, you need to have a team of sisters behind you that can utilise the gap you're going to smash in the enemy defences. A Crusher can often survive without a single injury even after bulldozing from one end of a building, back out the other side, and through an entire squad of Marines. The chaos and devastation you wreak is unmatched by any other caste. What was once an impregnable FOB suddenly becomes an Alien overrun death zone. New hosts can easily be easily captured if Hunters, Carriers and Runners follow you in.
Team up with other Crushers, pick an approach line, and charge! This wall of solid muscle and rage is enough to send most Marines scattering for cover.

Reading and Sources

Let's Crush!