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Hi all,
I was wondering how to make use of two necron monoliths with the newest codex and rules. Based around 1500-2000pt games.

Any suggestions would be helpful, such as other units to play with both monoliths, how to make best use of etc.
Also I would appreciate any further responses to my last topic:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/490086.page

81 views and no replies. Ok, I'll give this a go.

Monoliths are one of the great, iconic Necron units. They are larger than a building. They were the original superheavy before Apocalypse rolled around. No Necron player worth his salt in 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition would have been caught dead without his trusty Monolith.

However, and it pains me to say this, times have changed.

6th, and especially with the newest FAQ, has not been friendly to the Monolith. AV14 is just not as scary as it once was. No more "My Monolith with Living Metal doesn't care about your pesky glances." Glances now hurt and kill. Further, "Heavy" type skimmers don't get a jink save for moving. Worst of all, Doomscythes and Annihilation Barges have hit the scene. They are better, faster, more efficient, and more adaptable for fewer points and fewer dollars.

That said, the Monolith is still far from useless in 6th. They can still dominate an area of battle like few other units. Strength 8 large templates still put down the hurt. They still put the fear of god in opposing player's eyes when they land their almost-stompa sized frame on the table. They can provide movable cover for your advancing infantry and fragile units.

The best feature of the Monolith is its ability to bring troops through its portal, either from reserves or from the table. This can provide an invaluable advantage to quickly changing the balance of power from one side of the table to the other mid-game, especially when 20 strong Warrior units with Orb-Lords are involved. I suggest running them with lots of infantry to make the most of their portal ability. Another great use is with C'Tans, who are normally horrifically slow. A Monolith half-way up the table is a great way to slingshot a nasty monstrous creature into battle quicker.

My advice as a long-time Necron player: If you already have 2 Monoliths, use them. Why not? If you do not already have Monoliths, save money and buy Doom Scythes and an Annihilation Barge or two. They simply work better with the new meta and the new mobility-based advantages of the revised Necrons.

The monolith can be used to provide support fire and move troops around with the portal. It's heavy, so it can fire all it's guns, but moves slowly. Use the portal to attack death stars and other issues.

Keeping nercon troops out of melee is a really good thing.

Out of all the heavy choices, if you want tough ranged support and utility, the monolith is your choice. Good nercon players use them as opposed to the doom scythe, since army synergy is better than hurr durr flier kill something when it arrives.

Thank you!
That is exactly what I was looking for. I already have two monoliths, as well as 76 warriors, and C'tan of the nightbringer, so that works out pretty well I suppose. I will have to try out using them both, but at least we have a good casual group to play around with tactics and lists, so thanks for pointing me in the right direction,
Enjoy your wargaming

To be fair, the Monolith doesn't get a Jink save but if it did I would flip so many tables in rage.

Buildings, flying or not, should never get cover saves.

Do consider running are warrior squad as large as possible and attaching a destroyer lord, him conferring preferred enemy to the unit makes them amazing, and I swear by it. Stalkers be damned.

it has the same issue the lemon russ has the main gun is ordnance so if it fires the main gun it fires everything else at snapfire. sad but true

I hear what you're saying about the jink saves, and it's understandable, but I get the impression monoliths can do OK without.

The warriors with d lord is what i was planning to do, yeah, prefered enemy, should work out pretty well.

However, I don't think the monolith can only snapfire secondary weapons. Apparently, because it counts as "always stationary" it can still fire all weapons. This is because it doesnt actually move, it sort of just disappears from one spot to reappear in another.

Thanks for the replies.

FireboltNecron wrote:
I hear what you're saying about the jink saves, and it's understandable, but I get the impression monoliths can do OK without.

The warriors with d lord is what i was planning to do, yeah, prefered enemy, should work out pretty well.

However, I don't think the monolith can only snapfire secondary weapons. Apparently, because it counts as "always stationary" it can still fire all weapons. This is because it doesnt actually move, it sort of just disappears from one spot to reappear in another.

Thanks for the replies.

If you fire the whip, you have to fire the secondary weapons as snap fire. The whip is ordinance.
You can't use the portal of exile if you use the whip either. You may still teleport units however, as that is a different device to the portal of exile.

A particle whip is an ordinance weapon.

PG 71. Vehicles and Ordinance Weapons: "a vehicle that fires an ordinance weapon can only fire snap shots with their other weapons"

I think a C'tan shard with 'Lord of flame' near a Monolith is great.

It's been my experience that most Monolith's get taken down by close range Melta rather than a long range Lascannon.

Lord of Flame really makes those guys regret getting close to them by making them explode maybe.

It's expensive but it's a good way to protect your heavy units. Throw 'Writhing worldscape' on there and that dude is useful.

Celtic Strike wrote:I think a C'tan shard with 'Lord of flame' near a Monolith is great.

It's been my experience that most Monolith's get taken down by close range Melta rather than a long range Lascannon.

Lord of Flame really makes those guys regret getting close to them by making them explode maybe.

It's expensive but it's a good way to protect your heavy units. Throw 'Writhing worldscape' on there and that dude is useful.

Honestly, I consider Lord of Fire to be one of the least useful skills the C'Tan can bring. All it does is give the Melta a 1 in 6 chance to take a wound, and the shot still goes through even if the melta gunner gets killed from Gets Hot.

IMO, the only real benefit to pairing a C'Tan with a Monolith is that the C'Tan gets a walking wall of cover, and so won't drop to sheer volume of fire before it can get in nice and close to the squishy bits.

What models hit when they roll a one?

 Monster Rain wrote:
What models hit when they roll a one?

Blast and template weapons.
No idea if there are any blast weapons that have the melta rule though.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
What models hit when they roll a one?

Blast and template weapons.
No idea if there are any blast weapons that have the melta rule though.

Devil dog is the only one I can think of.

I was mainly asking in regard to this:

 azazel the cat wrote:
All it does is give the Melta a 1 in 6 chance to take a wound, and the shot still goes through even if the melta gunner gets killed from Gets Hot.

Huh. My mistake. I was under the impression that Lord of Fire caused an additional role for its effect.

Doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible deterrent because it's only a 1 in 6 chance.

Terrain pieces.

Monoliths are heavily overpriced now. Removing the deepstrike immunity was a completely stupid move. F-ing biggest vehicle in the game and no deepstrike immunity? Sure. Well played.

I'm happy I was able to sell mine for a very good price a few months ago.

Well, they had to do SOMETHING.
They were the most broken vehicles in the game... but I agree, they have been over-nerfed.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Huh. My mistake. I was under the impression that Lord of Fire caused an additional role for its effect.

Doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible deterrent because it's only a 1 in 6 chance.

However it also works against any and all weapons that use fire or flame in their description as well. Even before 6th I have had LoF work well for me but 6th edition meta has sen a rise in the number of flame weapons with over watch, so it has become more useful. It negates the attack of the weapon as well as killing the model or destroying the gun. Allot of weapons aimed at the C'tan are melta due to it being T7 and it is one of the cheapeast options on an already base cost expensive model.

I'll concede that the comparatively low price of Lord of Fire is a strong selling point for an already overpriced model. But that facet is unrelated to its actual function as a deterrent. And I don't think Lord of Fire negates the attack from a flamer, as there is no to-hit roll required for templates. So the Gets Hot might kill the model, but I believe the flamer attack still goes through.

 skoffs wrote:
Well, they had to do SOMETHING.
They were the most broken vehicles in the game... but I agree, they have been over-nerfed.

Just apply the current (useless) Liquid Metal rule to the old Monolith with the current pricetag and you're fine. Guns would still be crappy as hell, but it would still be a nice support. Right now, you pay for a Land Raider and get a premium transporter.

Oh wait, I forgot, Space Marines already get all the new melta immunity stuff. Seems logical xenos can't keep it.

Effing marine favorism.

 NecronLord3 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Huh. My mistake. I was under the impression that Lord of Fire caused an additional role for its effect.

Doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible deterrent because it's only a 1 in 6 chance.

However it also works against any and all weapons that use fire or flame in their description as well. Even before 6th I have had LoF work well for me but 6th edition meta has sen a rise in the number of flame weapons with over watch, so it has become more useful. It negates the attack of the weapon as well as killing the model or destroying the gun. Allot of weapons aimed at the C'tan are melta due to it being T7 and it is one of the cheapeast options on an already base cost expensive model.

If you want to kill a C'tan, drown it in low S fire. Due to T7 and a bad save, it will easily drop.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 skoffs wrote:
Well, they had to do SOMETHING.
They were the most broken vehicles in the game... but I agree, they have been over-nerfed.

Just apply the current (useless) Liquid Metal rule to the old Monolith with the current pricetag and you're fine. Guns would still be crappy as hell, but it would still be a nice support. Right now, you pay for a Land Raider and get a premium transporter.

Oh wait, I forgot, Space Marines already get all the new melta immunity stuff. Seems logical xenos can't keep it.

Effing marine favorism.

Only Stormravens as far as I know. I wish Land Raiders had melta immunity...

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 skoffs wrote:
Well, they had to do SOMETHING.
They were the most broken vehicles in the game... but I agree, they have been over-nerfed.

Just apply the current (useless) Liquid Metal rule to the old Monolith with the current pricetag and you're fine. Guns would still be crappy as hell, but it would still be a nice support. Right now, you pay for a Land Raider and get a premium transporter.

Oh wait, I forgot, Space Marines already get all the new melta immunity stuff. Seems logical xenos can't keep it.

Effing marine favorism.

Only Stormravens as far as I know. I wish Land Raiders had melta immunity...

New SM flyer also has it (as if flyer wasn't already enough, eh...) and something else I can't recall now.

Land Raider should not have immunity due to their excellent weaponry and the assault ability. You wouldn't be able to get them at all unless you played Necrons

And Black Templar LR currently have blessed hull, which makes them immune to lances, iirc.

For some reason, I am somewhat annoyed by this.

To be honest, though, BT can need some extras given their current strength.

I've been thinking about this over the course of the day.

The main reason I don't see myself using Monoliths is that they compete with the Annihilation Barge in the same Heavy Support section, and I would say that those barges are the best 90 points you can spend in 40k.

I'll echo what whitenbeard has said in the 2nd post.

Yes, the monolith is now somewhat overpriced for what it does (main reason I can tell is to get necrons to buy all the new HS option models). However, you can still get use out of it. I have found that large blast has been very helpful (since necrons on a whole don't get many options for blast templates, stalkers being the other decent choice, but the one gun vehicle kinda puts me off). Combine that with the physical size, armor 14, and 'str test or die portal' and you will often see your opponent react to it. Last game I used two of them in a 2k+2k team battle, and they soaked up so much str 8/9 fire it was fantastic. Also, being able to teleport units back in if a scythe goes down before unloading, or taking a unit out of danger or to rapid fire enemies on an object near the end of the game is pretty sweet.

Again, I totally agree: if you really want to use them, or already have a monolith or two, go ahead and use em. If you are thinking about buying them, get A barges, doom scythes, or Spyders first, they tend to be more useful overall. Personally, I don't like the doomsday ark, so I don't think I would use that over the monolith unless I had a very particular build in mind.

Just my 2 cents

 Sigvatr wrote:



Oh wait, I forgot, Space Marines already get all the new melta immunity stuff. Seems logical xenos can't keep it.

Effing marine favoritism.

I wounder when they will give marines a weapon that ignores inv, now that Necrons don't have that unique rule they should really give it to the marines right ?


A tactic that sometimes works well is with 2-3 monoliths and a c'tan with the deception power. You can deploy your army on one side of the board and monoliths on the other. Then you can redeploy some and bring the rest in through your monolith moving all or most of you army to counter their set up.

Yeah it would be pretty cool if the ponderous eldrich mountain were in some significant way more durable than the particularly large troop transport. Really feels like someone dropped the fluff ball on that one.

Yeah you'd also have expected their mobile teleporting footholds to have something ensuring accuracy, but I guess it is just a game at the end of the day, but that doesn't really explain why they try to make some things as tedious as possible.