The Heavy Trooper is a type of enemy soldier that appears in Spec Ops: The Line.
A heavy trooper descending on Walker. Walker hallucinated this particular one to be Lugo.
Background[]
They are heavy assault soldiers of the 33rd Infantry that wear a menacing balaclava and large jury-rigged black armor cannibalized from ballistic and armor plates. They are typically equipped with a M249 SAW light machine gun, but two of them in Chapter 14 use AA-12 shotguns, which makes them among the 33rd Infantry's heavy hitters.
They were first seen in Chapter 7, with one gunning down civilians affected by white phosphorus mortar fire, and potentially another one in the same chapter. After that, they appear in chapters 10, 11, 13, and 14.
Both heavies in chapter 7 can be avoided, but the first one is fairly tricky to avoid as it involves a lot of patience. Chapter 10 features two. Chapter 11 features four, with three gunned down by a Browning M2A2 HMG, but before then, Walker hallucinates another to be teleporting around a room filled with statues. Chapter 13 and 14 feature two. So all in all, there are only twelve Heavy Troopers in the game, with ten having to be fought.
Strategy[]
Fighting them head-on is ill-advised, as they can easily withstand high amounts of damage while also dealing out high damage themselves.
The best way to kill them is to take advantage of their slow speed and inability to take cover, such as pelting them with grenades, using blind fire, or concentrating fire on them via Squad Commands.
Heavy Troopers also have a long reload time with their M249 SAW, and as such is when they are most vulnerable. Their slow speed also makes them a prime target for sticky grenades.
Trivia[]
- The Heavy Trooper wears an "Ulbrichts Witwe Zenturio 05", one of many German helmets in use by the GSG 9. As to why the Heavy Trooper may be wearing this is unknown.
- Heavy Troopers can take the most damage before dying out of all the human enemies encountered in the entire campaign.
- Like Bayonet Runners, these soldiers cannot be knocked to the ground by melee.
- Heavy Troopers are involved in multiple hallucinations that affected Walker's sanity.
- In Chapter 11, a heavy trooper appears to begin teleporting while attacking Walker.
- In Chapter 14, Walker hallucinates another one as Lugo.
- All Heavy Troopers are possibly officers, as they can be heard ordering their fire teams (or other nearby soldiers) to give them covering fire. However, it is possible that due to their vulnerability as a result of their slow speed and inability to take cover, the 33rd simply has regular soldiers provide cover fire on request.