Warrior Phalanx

Saves: Toughness +7

Senses: Sees normally in total darkness

Phalanx Protocols. While the phalanx is above half Vitality, its massed fire Suppresses whatever it targets: creatures in a zone it fired on this round make a Willpower Save DC 13 or are Pinned until the start of the phalanx's next turn.

The Ranks Reknit. Once per round, at the start of its turn, the phalanx regains 10 Vitality as fallen warriors reassemble and step back into rank. A creature may spend an action destroying a section of wreckage; each section destroyed this way permanently denies one use of this trait.

Marching Wall. The phalanx moves as one body, ignoring difficult terrain and stepping over its own dead. Area, flame, and blast effects deal double damage to it, and while it is below half Vitality its Gauss Fusillade loses one damage die.

Gauss Fusillade. Massed flaying beams converge on one target. Ranged Attack: +6 to hit, range 60/180 ft., one target. Hit: 3d8 + 4 energy damage, and the target loses 1 Defense as armor is flayed away (until repaired). Any cover the target is using is degraded: Heavy Cover becomes Light, and Light Cover is destroyed.

Implacable Advance. The phalanx walks forward up to its full speed in unbroken ranks, ignoring difficult terrain, then makes one Gauss Fusillade attack. It cannot be forced to stop or scatter by Suppression during this advance.

Morale: Does not make Morale checks. It phases out only when tomb command deems the engagement inefficient — usually after the party has spent everything they brought.

Tactics: The phalanx is terrain that shoots back and heals. Walk it forward without cleverness and make the party solve it with area weapons, wreckage destruction, and objectives, not attrition. Pair it with a Lord or Technomancer to make the reanimation math openly unfair.

Loot / Evidence / Hooks: Intact gauss flayers and necrodermis fragments are heresy to hold and a fortune to the right Magos.

A Warrior Phalanx is a moving wall of machine-dead infantry and layered gauss fire — an argument about territory made of green light. It does not maneuver so much as arrive.

Use this enemy when the encounter needs an unbreakable line: a corridor the party must not let advance, or a firebase they must somehow unmake.

Horde-scale Vitality, massed armor-stripping fire, group reanimation, immune to morale and Suppression psychology, slow but unstoppable.

Phalanx Protocols. While above half Vitality, the phalanx's massed fire Suppresses any zone it targets; Willpower Save or Pinned.

The Ranks Reknit. Once per round, the phalanx regains a slice of Vitality as fallen warriors reassemble, unless their section of wreckage was destroyed.

Gauss Fusillade. One massed attack against a target or zone; armor and cover both degrade under sustained flaying beams.

Implacable Advance. Moves as one body, ignoring difficult terrain and stepping over its own dead.

Morale: None; it phases out only when tomb command deems the engagement inefficient, usually after the party has spent everything.

Tactics: The phalanx is terrain that shoots back and heals. Do not maneuver it cleverly — walk it forward and make the party solve it with area weapons, wreckage destruction, and objectives, not attrition. Pair it with a Lord or Technomancer to make the reanimation math openly unfair.

Full Stat Block Priority: Medium