Venom Soldiers (German: Giftgewehrschützen) are soldiers who are armed with a Venom Gun. They wear heavy coats and gas masks, which protect them from a retaliatory attack with a flamethrower. If they are encountered in close quarters, they will quickly inflict massive damage.

Strategy

• Like their flamethrower cousins, they are very resilient to damage with 150 hit points; similarly they are also immune to one-hit kills from backstabs, headshots and snooper rifle, immune to fire, and can't lose their helmets. They should be taken care of before facing other enemies.
• The best way to dispatch these enemies by using the Mauser Rifle from a long distance or fight fire with fire by using your own Venom, when confronting them at close range.
• FG 42 can be used at mid-range, scoping with this weapon is not necessary.
• The Venom Gunners are the first primary targets that should be eliminated before dealing with other foes that are much less threatening.
• However even using the Mauser rifle or MG 42 can be dangerous, because as long as you are in his sights, he will fire at you with little delay, regardless of the distance. But keeping a distance from them is always a good idea, due to the Venom gun having a large spread and inaccuracy at longer ranges.
• Venom Gunners and Flamethrowers are unafraid of the player's heavy weapons and unlike other elite human enemies, they will rush into close-quarters battle with the player no matter what. Also, the Venom Soldiers do not need to reload their weapons, unlike Black Guards equipped with the Venom Gun.

Location

Venom Gunners are only fought in Ice Station Norway. One appears in The Dig on the highest difficulty.

Trivia

• The Reich Heavy Troopers seen in the Metro: Last Light's Developer Pack DLC resembles the Venom Gunners. They often use similar looking 12.7mm Gatling Guns, too.
• The Venom Gunners and Flamethrower Troopers are the exact same NPC (AICHAR_VENOM in the game files).
• Venom Gunners and Flamethrower Troopers have the ability to kick coded in them, but only NPCs with FG 42s are allowed to use the kick functions, so they never do it in-game.

Gallery

Venom Gunners normal and snow variants.

Snow variant of The Venom Gunner