Did you know that the plural form of monolith is "Holy Shit, There's Two of Them!"
You see, in the 40k universe, fighting the Necron is supposed to bring with it a kind of dread...a certain hopelessness. Now, I myself would have translated this into the game rules as maybe a -2 to enemy moral checks, but the guys down at GW came up with a better solution, just make the army so f'ing powerful as to make the opposing player feel hopeless.
In my most recent battle, I fought against the Necron, 2 squads, 2 lords, 2 monoliths with what I thought was a terrifying rendition of the new chaos rules. Here's what I learned:
For every 4 necrons you kill, one (on average) will actually die. The necron's normal get back up thingee combined with the monolith's ability to let them get back up combined with the resurrection orb means that if you kill 20 necron, only 5 will actually die.
Getting Necron into hand to hand is useless. You get them into hand to hand, the next round they pop out through the monolith and rapid fire you at close range.
Attacking the monolith is useless. It hovers so in hand to hand, you'll need 6s. It has a 14 Armor value all around so, you basically need strength 8 and up weapons to hurt it, and it never lowers that value or allows people to roll extra die. Monstrous creature? Too bad. Bright lance? Too bad. Thought the game was fair? Too bad. By the way, the number of things that can destroy the monolith goes down every round as you're being wiped out.
And as hard as one monolith is to deal with, two of them are impossible. If you concentrate everything, you may kill one, but the other one, and the necrons (let's not forget about them) will wipe you off the face off the planet.
So, here's my question. Anyone? Anyone at all, ever managed to win against a necron army wth 2 monoliths? In two weeks, I'm playing in the tournie at ICon and I'm sure I'm going to face this army. I can't even think of a way to design a chaos army to beat these guys. I could play Eldar, but I don't think they'd fair much better. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.
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9 comments:
Ignore them (painful I know) and concentrate all your fire on the troops. Knock down the whole squad! Then go to the next squad. When you hit the magic number *poof* everything else goes away anyway.
Sounds great except for two things. First off, the magic number happens after the necron get their next stand back up again. I know. I've checked the errata and the codex. So basically, it's destroy up to the magic number, they roll to come back, they roll to come back through the monolith, and then if they fail all of that, they disappear. That's not much of a chance really.
Second, if the two squads are near each other, they simply come back into the other squad. There just has to be a necron of the same type nearby. If all you're playing is Necron, Necron lords, and monoliths, that's never really a problem. I destroyed 18 of a 20 man squad. 15 of them came back into the other squad.
I hear the "ignore the monoliths" argument alot, but I think that only works when someone's playing a diverse necron army. If everything is the same you are doomed.
I agree the only way to beat it is ignore it. I played against an army like that and the guy was a jerk and hid his warriors behind terrain most of the game and attempted to bring down my army w/ the monolith's I shoot everything near me power. Luckily I had 2 deep striking IG vet squads with max plasma, 2 reg infantry w/ flamers and command squad w/ max melta. Killed entire squad which forced him to teleport into the firing lanes of my entire army. You got to ignore the monoliths and focus all your fire power on a squad at a time. It won't happen in one turn but he ll phase out eventually b/c the army is inflexible tactically. Keep that as your focus and then every so often shoot a missile or lascannon at the monolith cause if you get lucky you'll def win and it ll make you feel good.
Hey, I followed your comment on my blog back here. I've never faced two monoliths but I have dealth with one really easy- singing spears with my Eldar. I have 5 in total- 1 on my farseer on 4 on my warlocks. I use the speed of the jetbikes to get up there, throw the spear and then 6" back behind cover if there is, if not assault even if I need "6" to hit. If I was playing marines I'd probably try and send up an assault squad with melta-bombs (even without the 2d6) along with a chaplain for litanies of hate on the charge.
From an eldar perspective of brightlances without the lance due to living metal it is too much of a long shot. Maybe harlies with rending?
Only other idea depending on the army you play is to go super assault heavy with power weapons- with so few warriors & lords try to hit them all at once and go for phase out?
An interesting question?
My new tactic involves a letter writing campaign to games workshop detailing how I, a Necron player, love my monolith/warrior/lord combo so much that I no longer have to buy pariahs, destroyers, etc..
They will then see the marketing of these other models as paramount and in the new codex will nerf the monoliths thereby allowing me to defeat them with my squads of Eldar, Chaos, and Marines (which I actually do play).
Rending doesn't work on the Monolith either. I used to play necrons and the thought of only taking 2 squads of Warriors is stupid. I also play 'Nids and I will tell you that every game I have every played with 'Nids against Necrons=DEAD NECRONS.
Against a 'Lith heavy army, I take 2 Sniper Fexes (carnifexes with venom cannon & barbed stragler). The VC gets 2 str 10 shots and the BS get 1 str 8 large blast. I have never seen my Monolith or anyone elses last more than 2 turns with this combo.
The sad true that many players don't realize is that Monoliths are big point sinks and only good at teleporting. Their fire power is not that great.
Necrons can't get up from a sweeping advance, so here is where 'Nids vs. only 2 units of Warriors hurts. All you have to do is win combat and sweeping advancwe them and not even the Ressurrection Orb can help them.
So, that's the weakness. You have to force them to lose the moral check in hand to hand. Okay, that works for me. At least I've got something to work with.
You are sure about this, right? The Necron codex reads like a flowchart of second chances so I never quite know what to do with the rules. According to the wording under the resurrection orb, a unit within 6" of the orb "may attempt 'We'll be back' rolls even if they were damaged by weaponry that causes instant death or close combat weapons that allow no Armor save" (15). Do the rules on sweeping advances put them outside this rule?
Yes I am sure. The Res Orb only protects against insta-kill and CC weapons that ignore saves. Sweeping advance says that the unit can take no part in the rest of the battle. In most cases, when you Sweeping advance a unit, it is more than 6" from another model of their same type and therefore are not eligible for "We'll be back".
However in the case in which a like-model is nearby, they still cannot come back as Sweeping advance says to remove the unit entirely (i.e. no laying them on their sides for "we'll be back").
This is one of the only reasons that I stopped playing Necrons. they are too vulnerable to CC. That is why I shutter at the idea of using 2 'Liths and only 2 units of Warriors. There is too much chance of being phased out with so few units.
Thank you Red Locust. Seriously, one of the guys I play with pulls this crap on my after he gets tired of getting beat fair and square once too often. It's like, "oh yeah, well here's an unbeatable combo for you then."
So, basically, if you're fighting necron force a moral check, and if you have stuff that will lower their chance of making that check, all the better.
Of course, if they make the morale check, they will still rapid fire you next turn... In any case, there is hope.
Now if I can just figure out how to beat Dark Eldar in Cities of Death.
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