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This game answered a critical question for me.

Q: How many lascannon shots does it take to down a Monolith?
A: 18 (duh!)

For batrep purposes, we played 1850 lists and rolled random mission (Alpha Cleanse).

My Blood Angels:
Reclusiarch, JP, BoltP, Frags, TermH - 232
- 12 DC (only had 11 models, so sucked it up)
- 3 Tac Marines (2 vets), 2 assault, and 1 dev went to DC
5 x 6 Tac Marines, Las/Plas, Nekkid Vet - 130
2 x 8 Assault Marines, 2PlasmaP, Vet w/Fist - 216
8 Assault Marines, 2 Flamers, Vet w/Fist - 218
2 x 6 Devs, 3 HvyBolt, Vet w/ auspex - 155

Jayden's Necrons (best I can remember)
Lord, Veil/Orb - 200
Lord, Destroyer, 4+ inv save, night-fight globe, warscythe - 190
16 Necron Warriors - 288 (orb Lord w/ these guys)
2 x 10 Necron Warriors - 180
4 Scarabs w/ vehicle fields... whutever - 64
3 Wraiths - 123
4 Destroyers - 200
2 Hvy Destroyers - 130
Tomb Spider - 55
Monolith - 235

I get to choose table quarters and select one with best firing terrain, while denying him the same - however, there is a hill in the middle of the board.
He wins deployment roll and elects to place first, placing his Monolith mostly behind the hill (it's too big to fully hide), in a Pushback maneuver.
It's ok, because I deploy my units in shooting/countercharge formation with assault units behind cover, shooting in them.  At this point, I really have more shooting than he does - so I want to make him come to me.
He deploys rest of his units with 3 warrior blocks in center supported by the spider and backed up by the hvy destroyers, behind monolith (he was gonna make me roll lots of target priority checks) - his destroyer lord and wraiths to my left flank, destroyers and scarabs to the right.

I win turn 1, elect to go first.  It's alpha cleanse, so I could really use the ability to go last - but the Monolith is open to 4 of my lascannons and I would like to take it down  before it ever becomes a factor.

Note: I have no pictures, nor tactical drawings, so I'm gonna highlight it for you and give you my thoughts.  Also, for background's sake Jayden & I play all the time, but this is kind of a first for both armies - he's never played his Necrons before, and I've never played my BA against a competent opponent.

BA Turn 1:
Like I said, 4 lascannons on the monolith - but 1 rages (no big deal, I move them to my right table quarter... start early).  Move 2 assault units up the right side, shielding from the monolith.  And here I make my big tactical blunder - I knew I had the shooting advantage and even deployed to take advantage of making him come to me... but looking at all my assault troops, I decided to go after him anyways (le sigh), and I moved my DC out along my left flank - towards his wraiths.
Lascannons bounce all off the monolith, doing nothing.  Other shooting (after WBB rolls) nets me... 1 Necron Warrior, woohoo!

Necrons Turn 1:
Moves everyone pretty much in the direction they were already headed.  Both flanks go up their flanks, center advances.  Lord veils to my extreme right, to shoot las/plas squad that moved into that quarter. Spider makes a scarab.
Monolith particle whips my DC, kills 2.  Lord shooting kills all but one bolter marine. Destroyers kill two assault marines.  That was about it.

BA Turn 2:
His Destroyer Lord looks to be right at assault range, so I move the DC to him.  The right assault squad moves to charge the Orb Lord.  Other two assault squads move into center, behind hill so they cant be rapid fired by his warriors.
Shoot 4 lascannons at Monolith, got a pen - but 'lith was partially obscured by mountain, and he got his 4+ roll (jerk).  My roll of a 4 would have killed it too!  Instead I get weapon destroyed... for yay.  Other shooting kills a few warriors, 1 hvy destroyer (gets back up).  So far, my "shooting advantage" isn't materializing. Oh yeah, my lone marine shoots and kills a warrior (this becomes a theme).
Check assault range to Destroyer Lord... 6.5"  That's going to leave a mark.  Assault squad hits Orb Lord, kills 4, lose 3 to Lord - his unit holds.

Necrons Turn 2:
Same style progressions as before, Orb Lord veils out to shoot at another assault squad in center.  Wariths and Destroyer Lord up to my DC.
'Lith particle whips again, but it deviates off table.  His other shooting (destroyers & hvy destroyers) isn't spectacular - I make saves, and lose 2 guys.  Orb Lord & Co kill 3 assault marines.
Wraiths & Lord assault the DC, killing 3 - I fail to do a damn thing back... stupid invulnerable saves.

BA Turn 3:
My DC is hosed and I know it.  Bah.  Hopefully they can last a while.
I shoot the crap outta his Lord squad (8 casualties), and down his hvy destroyers with Hvy Bolters.  4 more lascannon shots bounce off the Monolith.
Assault his destroyers with 1 assault squad (kill 2, lose 1 - they hold), his lord with my shot up squad (I whiff it killing 1, and he kills my squad!), while a whole squad goes after his right-most warrior squad that has advanced into my range (kill 5, lose 1).  In the DC fight, I lose 2 to the Wraiths (duh) and 2 more to the Lord - put a wound on the Lord tho... have 2 DC and Chaplain left.

Necron Turn 3:
WBB rolls for him suck this turn.  Only 2 Warrs in the Orb Lord stand up (outta 9), so he 'Lith's them - and 1 more comes back (this unit is no longer scoring, hooray).
He shoots a las/plas squad - kills all but the lascannon (holds). Spider makes another scarab, but takes a wound doing so (important).
Lose last 2 DC, Chaplain still ok.  Still do nothing back.  I finish off his Destroyers, kill a few more warriors.

BA Turn 4:
Squad that finished off his destroyers moves to the spider - I want to kill him so that none of the warriors will get their WBB rolls.
4 more lascannons into the monolith... nothing (I'm starting to think I can't roll higher than a 4 for pen rolls).  Assault squad puts a plasma wound on the spider's squad - but since the spider already has a wound, he can't take a scarab casualty, and the spider dies.
Finish off warriors in that fight, kill both scarabs - both line up to go after his last warr squad (only that, his wraiths, & Monolith are still scoring).  Chaplain takes 1 wound, but lives.

Necron Turn 4:
Veils to right behind my 2 assault squads - shoots and kills 2 out of 4 from one squad (leaving them with 2), and moves the other warr squad over as well - shooting and killing 2 in the other assault squad (leaving them with 4).  Monolith moves to dead center in front of my lines - shoots all squads in 12" kills a couple..
Chaplain finally dies.  His squads move to behind some cover, so I can't shoot them.

BA Turn 5:
My squads are starting to break - I have 6 still scoring units to his 3... but mine are getting really fragile at this point.
3 more lascannons into the Monolith - and I start throwing dice.
Shoot & kill a couple warrs from my hvyB's but that's it
Assault and kill 3 warrs, but he kills 3 back - I made 0 saves (my assault unit is no longer scoring).

Necron Turn 5:
Lord veils down to my lines (almost scatters into my units) to try and get more to non-scoring.  Destroyer Lord & Wraiths move to engage my left flank - 2 very fragile scoring units there.
Orb Lord & Co shoot and kill most of a squad, 'Lith does a particle whip to get the rest of another (down to 3 scoring).
Finally his big goof... tho don't know that it was that huge - he really had no other choice, as his destroyer lord & wraiths come up .5" shy on the charge.
I kill 1 more warr (down to 5).

BA Turn 6:
Hvy B's on right rage - so I move them into the right quarter, HvyB's on left wipe out the Wraiths. 1 lone lascannon that fell back prev round finds some inner resolve, and pen 6's the monolith... about damn time, too.  Rest of shooting whittles a little at the Orb Lord.
In assault I kill 2 more warrs, but he finishes off my squad. 

He's down to 3 warrs, with 3 that can WBB.  I have 3 scoring units (Tac squad of 5 - by his Destroyer Lord, Tac Squad of 3 - right in front of his Orb Lord & Co, Dev Squad of 6 - 11" to the right of Orb Lord & Co.)

Necron Turn 6:
He gets 1 warr back on WBB - so they aren't scoring.  He takes 2 of my remaining units to non-scoring/dead status - but can't do the third...

I pull off the exceedingly close vic, claiming 1 table quarter to his none...

WHEW.

General Notes:
Normally when Jayden and I play, he plays slightly better than I do (I can get caught up in the moment), but his dice hate him - so I win. This was not the case in this game.

In general, he made about 80% of his saves, and I made between 55-60% of mine.

I made the one big tactical blunder early on. But I also completely spaced the Necrons Phase Out rule (he had 13 Necrons left on table at end of game - Phase Out number of 11) - had I remembered that, I would likely have ignored the monolith as much as possible and just gone after his troops.

I thought it interesting that he pretty much came straight at me, rather than minimizing my fire lanes and making me come to him. He is used to armies that go after the opponent (orks & emperor's children), but also has Tau... so I don't know.

Anyhow, random thoughts, comments, & questions are always appreciated...

For my first game into Necrons, it was about what I expected. I knew I would make some mistakes as I don't quite understand the finess that might be needed. I look at the army as a whole and I see a ton of 24" or less shooting range and next to zip in the way of assault. I look across the table and I see a bunch of lascannons and heavy bolters. Unless I wanted to die to a war a attrition, I would have to get close. So I did. I was agressive with my viel lord unit, and it paid off pretty well. If you cant get with in 12" you might as well not have moved in the first place. I tried to slow down an assault unit with scarbs, and they did ok, but I didn't expect them to win. Not when the P-fist vet sarge can take down 2-3 bases on his own. For this game I figured St.John would bring either his all infantry blood angles or imperial fists, of which tank busting scarbs are pretty much pointless. But I brought them anyway, they are in the list and I wanted to bring my current tourniment list. I'm pretty sure St.John had no clue I was bringing Necrons.

I knew I had to get my destroyer lord into contact with the Death Co. That unit alone could have ran wild through my lines with little chance of getting taken down, between the chaplin, the powerweapons/fists that vet sarges brought with them and 4+ feel no pain, they spell doom for necrons in HTH. No WBB rolls unless there is an orb near by. And as there is only two ways to reliably kill the DC, with CC weapons that allow no saves or S8 shooting, I had to take the fight to him. Well Necrons are a little short in the CC weapon department, and rather short in the S8 catagory with only the Monolith and heavy destroyers. My best chance was to try and get the destroyer lord in there. At T6 and 3+/4+I save he had the best chance to stay alive and with a S5 warsyth, he could bring back the hurt. The three wraiths went along for the ride just to give a little extra punch. What else were they supposed to do?

The list originally had one unit of 20 warriors and one unit of 16 warrors. Before coming down to the game, I split the group of 20 into two units of 10. As I was able to get one of the units to contribute to the fight pretty much all game, the other had a long walk and didn't really do to much. I'm left wondering if I should have left the two units of 10 as one unit of 20.

The tomb spider had his place, I think... maybe. I was hopefully going to use him as a counter assault unit because of his T6 and monsterious creature status. However when producing scarbs the unit takes on wierd shooting/wound allocation characteristics. I'm thinking that I might want to try and take the gun option instead of scarbs next time, or just throw him out of the list... but he looks so damn cool and one game is not the tell all end of things.

Funny enough, we calculated VPs for fun and had it mattered the game would have been a draw, but you must play to the mission objectives at the end of the game, he had one more scoring unit than I had. I had one chance to tie it up, to make two of three WWB rolls to keep my last 10 man squad at 50%, I got one... Those are the breaks.

The game was fun and a challenge. I look forward to finishing painting up the Necrons and playing a few more games with them so I can understand them better for when I have to play against them. But I already feel their attraction leaving me. Not enough armor for me to play with.

Also, I didn't expect the monolith to last until turn 6 with that many lascannons on his side of the table. I thought it would be a non-factor by turn 3 at the latest. Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes you don't.

Psst, it wouldn't have been a draw. You had 1340(-ish) VP's for kills, I had 1425(-ish). That is a draw. However, I had the table quarter as well... 462 VP's = 550-ish pt vic.
Yes, it would have played a lot differently had we played VP's instead of straight quarters - a lot different.

It was a good, fun, and educational game all the way around.

S. John- i have a couple of questions based on your army make-up (im playing a similar-in a way- BA list). It looks pretty damn scary on paper. There are just two things im curious to ask about.

1: I used to play 2 assault squads- but now only bother with 1 cause they were always giving away VP. They did great damage. But almost always just enough or just not enough. How did the three squads fare? How much of those 650 VP survived ? (and can you remember how much damage they did?)

2: I'm currently playing fat squads as opposed to 6 man. I am doing this cause I find they are more able to claim objectives. But- your 1850 has 10 claiming units vs my 8.

In hindsight- what would you recommend/change in your list (if anything)?

1: I don't know that I would form the basis for any conclusions about how one of my units did for VP purposes based off of this game, because it was an Alpha mission, and we both did things in that game specifically to make the opponent's unit non-scoring, as opposed to trying to claim VP's.

In comparative terms though, I lost all of 2 squads, plus over half of the 3rd - which would give up 542 VPs. They killed/claimed VPs for...
Wounding Lord - 100 VP
Contributing to Lord's unit going under 50% - (worth 144, I give them half of that, so) 72 VP
4 Scarabs - 56 VP
4 Destroyers - 200 VP
Tomb Spider - 55 VP
1 x 10 Warr squad - 180
Got other 10 Warr squad under 50% - 90 VP
Claimed 703 VPs to losing 542. Not bad... not great, but not bad.


2: I run 6 man to maximize the amount of shooting I get, and so that one squad succumbing to the Black Rage is no big deal. 4 x 6 man squads are harder to make non-scoring and deal with than 3 x 8. Oh yeah - my army has 11 claiming units... nothing in the current rules prevents Death Company from claiming objectives, just that if bonus VPs are awarded equal to the squad's cost (like Take and Hold), then 0 are awarded.


3: For now, I change nothing - I also have an alternate list in which I drop 1 assault squad and 1 dev squad to run 2 Tornados and 2 Baal Preds, but I like the all infantry feel of this army. If I find myself getting outmaneuvered by extremely mobile opponents, then I may try out the second list.

Thanks for the feedback. See- thats what I found happened. They did LOTS of damage- but almost always gave up their VP. Its a bit theory hammer on my part but its something like a 33% trade off. *Goes off to think more*

Maybe we need to take it to the YMTC but as far as I remember the classification for the DC can only fall under ICs no? Im referring to the back of the book and scoring units. I remember not being able to fit the DC into any category other than ICs- on account of the chappy- which cant claim. Thoughts?

For my first game into Necrons, it was about what I expected. I knew I would make some mistakes as I don't quite understand the finess that might be needed. I look at the army as a whole and I see a ton of 24" or less shooting range and next to zip in the way of assault. I look across the table and I see a bunch of lascannons and heavy bolters. Unless I wanted to die to a war a attrition, I would have to get close.

Seems like you understand the dilemma of going Warrior-heavy. Their guns are most dangerous up close, but being up close is in turn dangerous for you. That's why I think Immortals are still the ideal choice for a veil unit, as the gauss blasters' range lets you keep a little distance between yourself and the opponent. I usually field a second Immortal unit to give me a more effective firebase at 24".

Personally, I think you only want as many Warriors as you need to keep phase-out at a decent level. It's your Immortals and Destroyers that really deal out the hurt at range.

I knew I had to get my destroyer lord into contact with the Death Co. That unit alone could have ran wild through my lines with little chance of getting taken down, between the chaplin, the powerweapons/fists that vet sarges brought with them and 4+ feel no pain, they spell doom for necrons in HTH.

I have a heckuva time dealing with DC also. Although I think everyone does these days. I usually try to tie them up with Scarabs for as long as possible (I never field less than 10 in a unit), then concentrate my firepower on the rest of the BA. They'll chop through the Scarabs, but hopefully by then I have the upper hand in the game and can play keepaway from the DC as much as possible. I don't like h2h Lords at all...on paper they look good, but they're almost always underwhelming.

Posted By stjohn70 on 02/03/2006 10:01 AM

This game answered a critical question for me.

Q: How many lascannon shots does it take to down a Monolith?
A: 18 (duh!)

 

Yikes, May I suggest loaded dice. I think it was just bad rolls. Average for me has been about 7 las cannons for monolith. Of course if you have Tau and use those grenades  they have. they good a good chance on taking them out with one shot. I forget the grenade. Some sore of grenade used for vehicles only. Works well on them.

Sounds like a haywire grenade to me. But to be honest I'm not really sure on that. My lascannons usually take at least a good 1/2 dozen times to knock out a monolith. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

It's a good battle report.

Yea, Tau Fire Warriors can have the poor man's version of the haywire grenades (ECM Grenades, I think). Monoliths are skimmers though, so you still need that 6 to hit with the close combat attack. Railguns are still more effient IMO