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so.. reserves rule for Necron warriors..

Necron Codex:" Any warrior units in excess of the minimum required by the Force Organisation chat for the mission being played may begin the game in reserve whether the Reserves special rule is in use or not. Whey they arrive they must emerge from Monolith portal. If there is no Monolith when the units become available, they will be forced to wait until a Monolith becomes available."

Now what will happen if you happen to play a Dawn of War mission and you don't have a monolith in your army?
Warriors in reserve cannot enter the game at all?

Have a read of the FAQ - you can hold warriors in normal reserve where they walk on OR in "special" reserve via a monolith.

Warriors in reserve don't have to enter via a Monolith. You merely have to declare which ones ARE coming in via Monolith, and (IIRC) if the Monolith is destroyed, so are they. They also have to be in excess of your two compulsories.

Anything at all can be held in reserve and walk in on your table edge.

This is from the Necron 5th edition FAQ:

Q. Can units of Necron Warriors enter from
reserve as normal or must they enter via a
Monolith?
A. If the players hold any units of Necron
Warriors in reserve, he must specify if they are
going to enter the game through the Monolith or
simply walk in from their own table edge, as
normal. If units of Warriors are using this rule
and all available Monoliths are destroyed, the
Warriors count as destroyed and may therefore
trigger the Phase Out of the on-table portion of
the army.

Should answer your question.

also, the warriors in reserve via monolith applies when you want to use the power matrix. ie, you can't deep strike your monolith on on say turn 1 and fire your particle whip if there's warriors in reserve. the wars have to come in either from the table edge in turn 2 or via the monolith in turn 1. that's my reading of it; correct me if i've made any errors.

In Dawn of War, on turn 1, warrior units can either be brought on the table or placed in reserve.

Warriors placed in reserve can come on either by the table edge or through the monolith. This has to be declared when the warrior unit is placed in reserve.

Of course, if you want them to come in through a monolith you would need to have one in your army.

If a unit of warriors is to come in through a monolith, the monolith must be on the table.

You would roll for reserves as normal. If you are bringing a monolith and a unit of warriors on the table in the same turn (because the both rolled successfully for reserves) you would bring the monolith on first and then bring the warriors on through the monolith portal.

This could be done even if the monolith deep strikes because the monolith can use the power matrix to teleport necron units even if the monolith moved.