Shadow

## Type-31 Infantry Support Vehicle

The Type-31 Infantry Support Vehicle, more commonly identified as the Shadow, is a Covenant ground assault/transportation vehicle that was first seen by UNSC forces in 2531.

## Overview & Background

The Shadow is a multi-troop armoured transport vehicle of the Covenant military and the predecessor to the Type-42 Spectre. It's design, which is similar to that of the UNSC Warthog, consists of 3 major components: the chassis, the wings and the turret. The chassis is the largest component, housing the vehicle's gravity propulsion drive, cockpit and shade turret gravity mount. The Shadow's original chassis design sported heavy armour plating, making it considerably heavy vehicle for its size. The propulsion drives at the time were too weak to support the immense weight, so much so that the Shadow was unable to hover. This necessitated the adoption of an open canopy design; while this exposed the driver to enemy fire, especially snipers, the vehicle could now hover. Despite this, the current Shadow still retains much of the original design's armour plating, making it one of the tougher, and slower, vehicles of the Covenant fleet.

The Shadow sports two stabilizing wings at either side of the cockpit. These wings balance the vehicle out while hovering, as to prevent it from flipping easily. While the combined width of the wings make the vehicle hard to manoeuvre in tight areas, it also makes them considerably hard to dodge, allowing the Shadow to splatter enemies with relative ease. The wings are wide enough to double as passenger seats, allowing the Shadow to carry up to two passengers (one for each wing), further increasing its defensive capabilities. Passengers are offered no additional protection, and as such, the Shadow has to remain mobile as to avoid the passengers from taking enemy fire.

The Shadow features Type-29 Shade Cannon as its primary armament. Like its stationary counterpart, it consists of a concave gunner seat hovering on an anti-gravity mount at the rear of the vehicle. Attached to the front of the seat is a heavy plasma cannon that fires 2 plasma bolts per shot, which can easily kill unarmoured infantry and are powerful enough to destroy lightly armoured vehicles in several shots. However, the slow movement speed of the bolts means that they can be avoided by faster vehicles, and are generally inaccurate when fired at longer ranges. Gunners manning the Shade are also exposed to enemy fire from all sides excluding the front, which is protected by both the heavy plasma cannon and a plasma barrier, the latter of which reflects all ballistic projectiles but shorts out after absorbing several plasma bolts.

## Gameplay Information

### Advantages

* If passengers are armed with heavy weapons, they can defend the Shadow much better
* Turret is effective against most infantry

### Disadvantages

* Relies on allies for self defense, as the player is only able to drive it.
* A lot slower than the Warthog.

## Trivia

* The original first appeared in the pre-release of Halo but was later included in Halo 2 instead as the Type-46 Infantry Support vehicle "Spectre," which would later become the Type-52 Infantry Support Vehicle known as the "Brute Prowler."
* Also shares the same name with the Type-29 Troop Transport in Halo 2.

## Gallery

Shadow being driven by an Elite Major while an Elite Minor operates the turret.A Shadow under attack from a Gauss Warthog.A damaged Shadow.Shadow turret reticle.Shadow turret firing.