Shield-Bearing Mook

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A mook that carries some sort of a shield that protects him from standard attacks from the front. He may be able to do a Shield-Bash and can often protect other mooks with the shield. Usual ways to dispose of him are: attack him from the back or from the side; hit the shield enough times so that it breaks; use some sort of a special attack to break the shield or knock it out of their hands; hitting the enemy with an area-of-effect attack such as an explosive that the shield can't deflect; wait for him to drop his guard, usually to attack, and then quickly counterattack him.

A variation of Kung Fu-Proof Mook. Very often an Elite Mook. See also Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me / Shields Are Useless, Heavily Armored Mook and Armor-Piercing Attack.

Examples of Shield-Bearing Mook include:

Video Games

• This is a staple trope of Beat'Em Up games. More specific examples are needed.
• "Angels" in Devil May Cry IV have shields. They can protect themselves and bash as a counterattack. Usual way to deal with them is to break the shield with hit-n-run tactics, then finish them off with a combo while they haven't repaired it yet.
• In Singularity some soldiers carry riot shields around. They can be aged to dust or grabbed out of their hands.
• World of Warcraft: Not exactly a mook, but one of the bosses in Grim Batol switches between weapon sets, and one of them is a huge shield that protects him from the front.
• Kingdom Hearts: Defender Heartless. They are invincible to melee attacks from the front, so the only methods to attack them is to aim for the back or spam magic attacks at them.
• God of War has these.
• The Mega Man series has the recurring Sniper Joes (whose shields block most shots), Metools (whose hardhats do the same), and Shield Attackers (an airborne version). Some games have other enemies protected by some measure of shields; in most cases, you have to wait for them to start attacking before you can actually destroy them.
  • Mega Man Legends has one type of enemy that hides behind a shield; you can dismember their shields with the correct weapon, otherwise you have to wait for them to drop their guard.
  • Mega Man X 8 gave X, Zero and Axl guard breaking attacks (charged shot, 3 hit saber combo or 8 rapid fire bullets, respectively) to deal with the increased number of shield bearing mavericks from previous games.
• Metroid Prime 3 armed some of its Space Pirates with energy shields; you could rip these off with your Grapple Arm.
• The PlayStation 2 game based on Transformers Armada had shielded Decepticlones in later levels; their shields could be destroyed with sustained firepower.
• Donkey Kong Country 3: Koin and Koindozer. The former have to be defeated in order to earn DK Coins for every level, while the latter are exclusive to one level where they Shield-Bash you into Bottomless Pits.
• Dark Nuts and Black Knights from The Minish Cap. They have a shield and a sword. They charge at you, but swash away any sword attack you may try to get in. The key to defeating them is to roll around (they are rather slow to turn around), then deliver massive hurtage from behind.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has Lizalfos and Aeralfos, who must be stunned or shields destroyed in order to kill them, and Darknuts, who are defeated via superior swordsmanship or by taking out their outer armor with bomb arrows.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword gives these to the huge Moblins; one with a wooden, one with a banded shield. The ones with wooden shields can be chopped up or blown out of the Moblin's hand, but the only recourse for the banded shields is to climb them and jump over.
• Metal Slug: One of the regular mooks carries a shield, and only lets his guard down when he tries to slash/shoot you. One level lets you play the Battleship Raid with one of the three, he tends to survive the longest.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: One monster in Yugi's deck (Big Shield Gardna) is a man crouching behind a ginormous shield, with very high defense and ridiculous attack.
• The more action based Resident Evil games tend to have versions of whatever mooks they use that carry metal SWAT style shields to hide behind. In 4 and 5 enemies carry large wooden shields, which provide some protection, but break apart piece by piece when shot with bullets, and can be pierced outright with high-powered weapons such as sniper rifles.
• La-Mulana has Masked Men, ubiquitous Mooks whose shields block frontal attacks.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance has shield-bearing mooks. You have to either grapple their shields and pull the from their hands, strike them in the back or charge up a special move to bypass them.
• Some enemies in Magicka have armour which must be destroyed (doing so reverts them to being normal, unarmoured mooks).
• Plants vs. Zombies has Newspaper Zombies (weak shield, gets pissed when you destroy it), Screen Door Zombies (strong shield), and Ladder Zombies (medium-strength shield that can be placed on your defensive unit to bypass it). All three can block shots from the front, but are vulnerable to lobbed-shot attacks, fumes, and spikes.
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (and Sonic the Hedgehog 4) has Crawl, a crablike robot who blocks all attacks from the front and from above with his shield.
• In Flashback: The Quest For Identity Player Character and some opponents use Force Field devices. When used, these completely protect from frontal attacks, but only for a few moments.
• Jackals in the Halo series have a large circular energy shield on one arm to defend from frontal attacks. It completely deflects bullets, but can be disrupted by sufficient energy weapons fire or a melee attack. There's also a small slot in the corner for the Jackal to stick their weapon through; their bodies can be targeted through this gap if you have sufficiently good aim.
  • Halo: Reach added skirmishers; who are also Jackals but for some reason have smaller shields on both of their arms that doesn't really protect them.
  • Hunters have a forearm shield to guard their weak points, in addition to being heavily armored in general.
• One of the Superpowered Mooks types in TimeShift are equipped with an impenetrable arm-mounted energy shield. Explosives can damage them through the shield, and freezing time causes the shield to disappear entirely.
• Enemies with bulletproof riotshields appear in Modern Warfare 2 and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. They're completely impervious to frontal attacks, and must either be flanked from the sides or taken out with explosives.
• The rarest type of zombie soldier in Doom 3 carries a large, bulletproof metal riot shield.
• Centaurs and Slaughtaurs in Hexen carry missile-deflecting shields. You have to wait for them to lower them to attack again. The Heresiarch has a similar, more powerful mechanic, but it doesn't take the form of a literal shield.
• The shield-bearing giants in Anor Londo in Dark Souls. Unlike most other shielded enemies in the game, this renders them invincible from the front.
• Time Crisis has guards with riot shields and Darth Vader-style helmets.
• Shield Soldiers in Commando are bullet proof from all directions and must be taken out with grenades.
• The Wired Gunner in Bionic Commando.
• Gladiators in Quake 4.
• Various enemies throughout the Castlevania series. Some have shields that don't seem to do much, others can only be damaged if an attack reaches a non-shield area, and others still can completely block attacks with their shield. Examples of the latter are the dead crusader, which will block all attacks coming from the front, unless it is preparing to attack or is surprised, and the final guard, which is vulnerable normally but can get in a defensive stance that makes it invulnerable.
• Cerberus Guardians in Mass Effect 3 are otherwise-normal mooks that carry large shields and slowly yet inexorably advance on you until they're in range to shotgun you. However, their feet are exposed, and there is also a thin slot in the upper center of the shield to allow them to see you that you can shoot them through (in fact, you gain an Achievement for killing 10 of them in this manner). Alternately, you can stagger them with certain powers, use Pull to rip the shield out of their hands, or just use a weapon that can punch through the shield.

Real Life

• Real Life example: The ever-indefatigable Roman legionary. All of the main-line soldiers were equipped with huge tower shields to protect against enemy projectiles, and the whole formation could transition into a "tortoise" (testudo; forward rank locks shields to the front, those behind place them on their heads) for added protection to the whole group.
• Another Real Life example: Spartans. Also intersects with Elite Mooks.
• Medieval infantry, equipped with thrusting spear and shield. Better than levies and forced peasant conscripts and able to keep cavalry at bay, but not necessarily match for dismounted knights with two-handed swords and poleaxes.