Legionary Zombies

Legionary Zombies are the second new zombies encountered in the Roman Empire. The zombies enter the lawn in the Tortoise formation across multiple rows.

Suburban Almanac Entry
The Legionary Zombies are sick of walking around in the ‘Tortoise’ formation. Really? Tortoise? The most powerful army in the world walks around as a TORTOISE?! Well, that’s sure to stem fear into plants… Why not the ‘Hammer’ formation, or even the ‘Brick’ formation. Everybody fears a hit from a hammer or a brick. Last thing you do to an enemy is throw a tortoise at their face! It's reasonable to assume they're quite live-id.

Implementation
The Legionary Zombies enter in columns of 3 to 5 and rows of 3 to 5 in the Roman Tortoise formation. Shields are held overheard by all Legionary Zombies in the row behind the first. This provides immunity to the Legionary Zombies and other zombies underneath from catapult plants' projectiles and splash damage. The first zombie has his shield held vertically, which protects zombies against straight-firing plants. Unlike Camel Zombies, a group of Legionary Zombies will not have status effects applied as a group. If a zombie reaches a plant, it will start stabbing it with its sword and the zombie behind will place his shield down. The same will happen if the zombies become misaligned for any reason. Therefore, the gladiators will become vulnerable to attacks once they reach the front lines. However, they are still dangerous due to their large numbers and high health.

Strategies
Multi-hit and area of effect plants are crucial for taking out groups of Legionary Zombies behind their shields. The Aspearagus, Laser Bean and Fume-shroom would all be very useful for this. The Aspearagus would be preferable to the Laser Bean, as it deals double the damage, which would be very valuable due to the high health of the Legionary Zombies themselves. Unlike other multi-hit plants such as the Bloomerang, the Aspearagus also pierces through and deals damage to any number of shields.