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Ok i know that the monolith is hard to kill. But the following thing happened in a 2500 point game i played.

I charged into a monolith with a chaos terminator (berzerker) he had furious charge and demonic strength.  Ok i understand that they did not give me the charge strength for the furious charge, and also they did not give me the dice for the chainfist, but they tried to tell me i could not use the demonic strength either??? Thats just to much BS for me to swallow (even if it is correct). I paid for the model to be strength 5. It was no bonus or any other thing his strength was 5. Ok needless to say they did not allow me to use it. Whats the correct ruling? This is a bit much. These monoliths can deal out a serious amount of damage but the only thing that does anything to them is las canons (maybe) and haywires??? I know a powerfist can but only on sixes. When people take two of these and im not playing eldar its just crazy trying to kill them. Heck even wth eldar haywire i only hit on sixes and can only pen on a 6?  Its a bit much compared to other very expensive vehicles like the land raider. 

Its capable of more damage its bettter at taking hits (shooting and cc),it heals the units that go through it, it deepstrikes. And its cheaper than a raider that i would rarely take because of how weak they are????   Or i can play a templar raider thats even more points but its more like a monolith???  I was thinking should it not be a few more points considering the mass of advantages?  i dont understand how its cheaper than something that does much less? aren't points the balancing key to this game?? I mean they have jacked up the points of assault canons because there nasty, they raise points for Da teminators because they are better equipped and can do more? So why is this so cheap and its nearly unstoppable??

 

No book with me but pretty sure furious charge would be ok. IIRC Monolith negates armor pen modifiers (or similar like lance rule), not straight strength modifiers. two different things and why powerfists still get double S versus a monolith. Could be wrong though.

Also, keep in mind thatt with furious charge and powerfist, you would only be S9 on the charge (wasn't sure form your post whether you knew that or not).

It was a chainfist But yes it would also only be strength nine. They did not allow me to take the charge strength (putting me at the eqivalent of a las canon). They do allow the strength of the powerfist to work but just not the demonic strength. Its only a plus one but it could make a huge differance.
The other question i have is how about haywire? I know they work but skimmers cannot take penetrating hits so does that make the roll of a 6 on haywire worthless/glance only also??
Really the more i play against these the more i feel there a bit cheap. I understand that its their only transport but come on. In theory the powerfist would not work either becasue it mentions base strength only in the cron codex?

the monolith cannot move fast enough to benefit from the "skimmers moving fast" rule. it can be penetrated by any weapon which can beat it's armour value.

Don't skimmers that deep strike count as moving more than 6 inches? If so, then the monolith can use the glancing-only rule on the turn it deepstrikes.

No furious charge strength, no extra die for the chain fist, no demonic strength, no plus one for tank hunting, no x2 for stikk bombs, and some would even argue that you wouldn't get the double strength for the powerfist. The rules are pretty clear, no bonuses, no extra penetration, doubling of dice. BASE strength +1d6. Period.

Posted By Lordhat on 03/16/2007 5:42 PM
No furious charge strength, no extra die for the chain fist, no demonic strength, no plus one for tank hunting, no x2 for stikk bombs, and some would even argue that you wouldn't get the double strength for the powerfist. The rules are pretty clear, no bonuses, no extra penetration, doubling of dice. BASE strength +1d6. Period.

Actually, some of those are debatable.  The problem is that the most specific (and recent) version of the rule specifies that any weapon uses its unagumented strength + 1D6 when penetrating a Monolith, not any model.

When shooting, this is very clear.  When assaulting, it is not, because few weapons have a specific "unaugmented" strength.  In practice, a CC "weapon" hits at the strength of the model, which may be affected by modifyers prior to being the strength of the weapon.

Bottom line is that it is a poorly written, unclear rule, again because few CC weapons have strengths unto themselves.  However, RAW would seem to lead towards allowing strength bonuses in CC (not pen bonuses), which is hardly unfair, as all attacks hit on 6+ unway.

(So, by this reasoning, powerfists, daemonic strength, and furious charge, yes, stikk bobmbs, chainfist, and tank hunting, no.)

Best thing to do when going against a monolith laden necron army is to discuss how the modifiers are treated before the game begins. It saves the hassle right as you assault it and come to find out that the necron player wants to eek out every last ounce of cheese from it.

I agree with Swize. powerfists, daemonic strength, and furious charge, yes, stikk bobmbs, chainfist, and tank hunting, no.

I guess Monoliths must be filled to the brim with cheese, just waiting to be squeezed out.

I'm not sure why anyone would interpret it the way they did.  All the rules say for monoliths is:

No lowering the armor (Bright lances, blasters)

No extra armor penatration dice (chainfist, melta)

You find the weapon strength, you hit it, you roll 1d6 for armor penatration.  The end.  Demonic strength, power fists, etc, all they do is affect weapon strength.  They do not lower the armor, they are not adding extra armor penatration dice. 

The only place I can see this being confusing is Tankbusta bombs, where they don't get an extra armor penatration die - they just double their result.  They're still only rolling one die, and the monolith rule only says you do not get the extra dice.

Posted By lambadomy on 03/16/2007 11:18 PM

You find the weapon strength, you hit it, you roll 1d6 for armor penatration.  The end.  Demonic strength, power fists, etc, all they do is affect weapon strength.  They do not lower the armor, they are not adding extra armor penatration dice. 

The only place I can see this being confusing is Tankbusta bombs, where they don't get an extra armor penatration die - they just double their result.  They're still only rolling one die, and the monolith rule only says you do not get the extra dice.

You seem to have the first printing of the codex, Yes there was a stealth update.

The second printing and the FAQ specifically mention stikkbombs, and doubling of dice.

Posted By Lordhat on 03/16/2007 5:42 PM
No furious charge strength, no extra die for the chain fist, no demonic strength, no plus one for tank hunting, no x2 for stikk bombs, and some would even argue that you wouldn't get the double strength for the powerfist. The rules are pretty clear, no bonuses, no extra penetration, doubling of dice. BASE strength +1d6. Period.





I beleive the FAQ states that no "bonus penetration" of any sort is to be used. This wouldn't affect furious charge or demonic strength as these skills do not give bonus penetration dice or values. only the chainfist's extra penetration dice would be affected.

Powerfist  Double the users str so you cant hit it with power fists aswell. Well you could but it would not be str 8 for a normal marine it would stay at str 4

Posted By beef on 03/17/2007 12:57 PM
Powerfist  Double the users str so you cant hit it with power fists aswell. Well you could but it would not be str 8 for a normal marine it would stay at str 4

Incorrect, by RaW they would.

As Swize said earlier: "the most specific (and recent) version of the rule specifies that any weapon uses its unagumented strength + 1D6 when penetrating a Monolith, not any model."

As powerfists dont double the weapons strength but doubles the models strength, powerfists are indeed eligible to gain 2x the models strength to affect the monolith.

Ok sorry for being dumb but a regular oppomnent plays necrons and firled 3 mono in a 1500pt game. How would I argue my point?

Are you saying by RAW it does not apply to powerfist? He always brings an FAQ out to prove his point? Does GW still do the necron faq's?

You might try pointing out that penetration and strength are not the same thing. A powerfist is a weapon that has a strength equal to twice the model's strength.

Damn it seems so simple so why has he got away with it? maybe I am stupid or that damn FAQ he had said something else? Anybody know if the FAQ says different?

I think people interpret the following from the FAQ that strength and penetration are one in the same. Which as Centurion pointed out, they are not.



So, with the bold type on the word "ANY" it makes it seems something other than it is, a well written FAQ...

Dont pay attention to the bold word "ANY" and pay attention to the word penetration.

Judging by all the threads I read online, necron players apparently both wittingly and unwittingly use this misinterpretation of the rules to their advantage quite frequently.

Here is the necron FAQ in its entirety:
us.games-workshop.com/errata/assets/necrons_faq_v4-0.pdf

Yes, I can see how that FAQ would be confusing. It's talking about bonus penetration, but it uses the word "doubling". It's obviously talking about doubling penetration dice - stikkbombs, etc, not doubling model's strength for a power fist. The way you'd argue this against a necron player who's trying to say power fist is str 4 is by pointing out this whole rule is only referring to "extra penetration dice". Not strength. And of course it answers my confusion about stikkbombs, though it was pretty obvious just by the spirit and fluff of the rule that the stikkbombs would get no bonus

Of course, that's easy for me to say, being relatively new to the hobby and having never played against a necron monolith in my life...

Thanks Hellfury, I will have to play that Necron guy again on wed and use this argument

In my experience (and feel free to add) the best units for taking down a monolith are:

IG Lascannon heavy weapon squads
Lascannon Preds
Lascannon Dev/havoc squads
Swooping Hawks with Intercept
Fire Dragons
Chaplains w/ furious charge and power fists
Broadsides
RailHeads
Fire Prisms(1 or many)
Basilisks(rarely miss ordance)
Zap Gunz

I have always been on the other side of the "monolith" discussion. As I've listed there are a lot of ways to take it down relatively easy. Now if it moved fast and ignored stunned results... B)

You forgot:

Zoanthropes with Warp Blast

I gotta go with wraithguard. Far and away the easiest way to deal with a monolith.

5 WG jump out of a WS and hit a monolith from close range. They can't be fortuned, so you expect roughly 10/3 (or just over 3) of them to hit. From those three, you should get 1 glance and 1 penetrate.

As a necron player (in a current league, I don't play them that often), I'm afraid of wraithguard with both my monolith and my C'tan.

Posted By Tiderian on 03/18/2007 11:21 PM
I gotta go with wraithguard. Far and away the easiest way to deal with a monolith.

5 WG jump out of a WS and hit a monolith from close range. They can't be fortuned, so you expect roughly 10/3 (or just over 3) of them to hit. From those three, you should get 1 glance and 1 penetrate.

As a necron player (in a current league, I don't play them that often), I'm afraid of wraithguard with both my monolith and my C'tan.

I assume you mean guide when you say fortuned....so why couldn't they be?

 

 

Guide is cast at the beginning of the turn before movement (and disembarkation). If the wraithguard are inside their transport at the beginning of the turn, they can't be targeted by guide (or fortune or doom).

Posted By Flavius Infernus on 03/19/2007 8:22 AM

I assume you mean guide when you say fortuned....so why couldn't they be?

Guide is cast at the beginning of the turn before movement (and disembarkation). If the wraithguard are inside their transport at the beginning of the turn, they can't be targeted by guide (or fortune or doom).

Stick a farseer in with them!

I was thinking he meant the power just couldn't work on them. Thanks for the clarifacation.

I don't see any reason why a chaos marine armed with a powerfist with both daemonic strength and furious charge would not have a str 10 attack on the monolith (or anything else for that matter) if it were a chain fist... too bad so bad, no extra dice for penetration, but the rest of the bonuses add to your personal strength, its just the powerfist only doubles your basic strength. So you tack on the daemonic strength and furious charge afterwards.

Those are additions to strength, not to the penetration roll. The pen score has 2 parts: the d6, and the strength of the weapon or model striking it. Tank Hunter, chainfists, meltas, and MC status modify the d6; it's this that is disallowed by Living Metal. The rule says nothing about precluding strength modifications. Otherwise, you'd have to discount Daemonic Strength and the like.

Meh, play it like a true Necron. Nothing over STR 0 as anything else is a bonus to penetration.

:-)

Also leave off the d6, since it adds as well, right? LOL