Gir-Tab

*"Although memories of another time still flit to the surface, he can barely distinguish between friend or foe."*

## Description

**Gir-Tab** is a biomechanoid Variant, and the game's 4th sequential boss. Its appearance is that of a large, scorpion-like creature with a flamethrower for a tail, a laser cannon replacing each claw, and a third cannon on its back.

Athetos created Gir-Tab by first cloning himself with one of Sudra's Rebirth Chambers, and then making biomechanoid modifications to the clone.

Gir-Tab is the most verbally capable Variant, and is notable for having helped Athetos decipher the Sudran language for use with the Passcode Tool.

Gir-Tab Has 1,800 Health

## Battle

Trace confronts Gir-Tab in the middle-right portion of Kur.

Gir-Tab will fire volleys of energy projectiles from its claw and back cannons. From time-to-time, it will also leap at the player, getting in range to attack with its flamethrower tail. Gir-Tab's weak underbelly should be the primary target for Trace. While his cyclops eye is also a weak-point, Gir-Tab keeps it closed and invulnerable most of the time.

After defeating Gir-Tab, the player will be able to enter the next room containing Katrahaska and will also be able to turn on the Repair Drones.

## Strategies

Gir-Tab is perhaps the most tedious boss fight in Axiom Verge, due to the fact that you have to play defense much more than you can play offense. Learn Gir-Tab's attack patterns, and he becomes much simpler. However keep pace because he will speed up his attacks when near death.

* The most straightforward strategy to this battle is to crouch low and use either the Nova or Voranj to hit Gir-Tab's underbelly. Watch for Gir-Tab to get low to the ground and use short hops to jump over his low shots. Pay attention to the height of the oncoming fire because he will sometimes switch it up with a third shot at medium level. There's not much to say about his flamethrower attack. Keep your distance and wait for it to end. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat and he will eventually go down.
* The above strategy can also be done with the Hypo-Atomizer. However, the weapon is fairly unreliable because it must align perfectly with a small part of Gir-Tab's underbelly in order to hit. A way of bypassing this problem is to start crouching far away from Gir-Tab and slowly moving toward it while crouching. The perpendicular shots will eventually start to hit the weak point, forcing the boss to fall back a little and thus keeping him aligned with the shots. That technique also gives you space to work with, which is useful when dodging series of shots.
* Another strategy is to start with the above and, if you're feeling confident, go on a suicide attack to hit Gir-Tab's underbelly with powerful blasts from the Kilver. If you have weakened him enough, you will be able to finish him off.
* Similar to the above strategy, you can start off by diving Gir-Tab with the Kilver or Laser Drill. Take off a major chunk of his HP and quickly move to the right side of the room to finish him with the "straightforward" strategy above.
* The Inertial Pulse weapon trivializes the fight as it has the ability to pierce targets. However, obtaining it before defeating Gir-Tab requires a very precise jump in Zi involving the use of knockback from an enemy to make a jump that would otherwise prevent access to Absu.
* After Gir-Tab starts using his Flamethrower, he becomes much faster and does things out of pattern, if you feel like he doesn't attack down, start being aware - but still shoot - because he will start to shoot down afterwards, so be aware, in the second half of the fight, he is unpredictable.

## Etymology

*Girtab* is the Sumerian word for "scorpion" and is the traditional name for the star constellation Kappa Scorpii.

## References

1. ↑ Steam Trading Card description
2. ↑ Taken from this post on Reddit. See also Wikipedia article for Kappa Scorpii.