Shotgun Guard (Q2)

"These loyal troops have an automatic scatter gun prosthetic."

- Quake II Manual

In Quake II, Shotgun Guards are one of the three Stroggified humans who wear pale green armor. Shotgun Guards are equipped with a Shotgun. They are in between the Light Guard and Machine Gun Guard regarding strength. The Shotgun Guard acts and moves like the Light Guard and the Machine Gun Guard. Despite having low health, the Shotgun Guard can inflict major damage if it hits you at close range.

Behaviour and Attacks
When spotting an enemy, The Shotgun Guard will fire its Shotgun which can deal up to 24 damage if all the pellets hit the target. In comparison to the Light Guard, this is rather a significant amount of damage.

The Shotgun Guard can fire in a quick succession and if left alive, he can do a lot of damage in a short period of time.

Sometimes, when a Shotgun Guard crouches to avoid incoming bullets, he may also return fire from his current position. This is very common in Quake II Mission Pack: Ground Zero.

Strategies

 * Alone, the Shotgun Guard is a very easy kill, although more difficult than a Light Guard as its Shotgun is quite difficult to dodge. The Shotgun Guard still has little health and can easily be killed with any weapon before he can deal any serious damage.
 * A group of Shotgun Guards are also equally easy to kill, although be careful as they can easily destroy a player if fought at close range. Stay away from them, then destroy them with the Machine Gun or an explosive between them. If you have low health and encounter a large group of Shotgun Guards, lure them out of the room one by one and grab your shotgun. Shoot them down as soon as they come in, otherwise they will shoot you.
 * With other Enemies, the Shotgun Guard can do some major damage if you ignore it. While you're fighting other enemies, a Shotgun Guard can get close to you (or you get close to it) and inflict some major damage on you. To get rid of it, use an explosive such as a Grenade against it, the explosive will gib it and inflict splash damage on nearby enemies. You can also get it in between the player and a stronger enemy so that the Shotgun Guard is killed in the cross fire but attention isn't taken off the more lethal bigger enemies. The explosive will gib it and inflict splash damage on nearby enemies.
 * Sometimes a downed Guard of any of the three classes (Light, Shotgun or Machine Gun) will perform a final attack before actually dying, which can be dangerous if your health is low and you're right in front of him. Either avoid the attack or take a few extra shots to gib the body.
 * In the Ground Zero mission pack Guards will often run away from the player and hide behind a corner or a stack of boxes in an attempt to ambush the player.

Death Message

 * Player was gunned down by a Shotgun Guard

Trivia

 * The Shotgun Guard has two shooting animations. In one of them, he fires the shotgun with his right arm pointing straight forward, then swings his arm to the left, and reloads the shotgun with his left hand. While in the second animation, he holds his shotgun with second hand, both of his arms are bent like in idle position, but  turn his upper half slightly to the right, so the gun points forwards, and then shots and immediately reloads. The second animation is shorter and allows the Shotgun Guard to fire faster. However, the first animation of him firing with just one arm is more likely to appear.
 * The Shotgun Guard is the only enemy in the entire game who uses a Shotgun.
 * His shotgun's attack damage is the same as the Shotgun in Quake. Meanwhile, the Shotgun in Quake II does 2 times more damage.