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It's a surprisingly strong list. Lost to it in one of our local league finals; last year, IIRC. Just beat it in the Ard Boyz finals this year, in part because my opponent decided to charge Abaddon with The Deceiver.

A lot of the theoryhammer responses to Necrons fail to account for the LOS-blocking qualities of multiple Monoliths. You can literally hide the C'Tan and entire units of Destroyers behind them in the early game, and protect your Warriors with them late. Ork Rokkits aren't doing anything to a Monolith, and the C'Tan only comes out to play once the Kans are in charge range. It's one of those lists that doesn't sound so bad when you hear about it; and then you play against it and it feels like you're swinging your perfectly-honed sword (tournament army) against a frickin' steel wall.

SW, SM, and BA shooty armies run afoul of the same issue. The 'liths can be a moving wall, pivoting to protect the Destroyers & C'Tan from most of the enemy fire while allowing the Destroyers to peek around the side and rip up 2-3 enemy vehicles per turn. Meanwhile the Missiles & Meltas are bouncing harmlessly off the 'liths.

IG is more dangerous, as they bring more lascannons, and can get them TL on Vendettas and infantry squads under orders. But against IG you can play more aggressive, since you're not worried about losing HTH. The only thing really scary in HtH is Straken; and while IMO he's amazing and wonderful, he still squishes like a kitten against a C'Tan.

It's not a world-dominating army, by any means, but it is surprisingly tough, and presents some bad matchup issues for the presently more popular guns (missiles & melta) and units (assault terminators, thunderwolves both die like chumps to C'Tan). Certain other armies, unusual ones which bring multiple long-ranged S10 (like Tau) find it much easier to fight. It can be a bit luck-dependent. Most armies don't bring a lot of lascannons nowadays. If the few they have get lucky immobilizing or destroying 'liths early, the list tends to lose. But they have to roll lucky to do so.

Norade wrote:The Ork list isn't really theory hammer as I've seen it used to great effect before. If the C'Tan is moved to fight Kans then the Dreads try to Wreck the Liths, if that fails then Klaws come out and aim for a kill or some of the Kans get pulled off to do it.

If I can't see the C'Tan to shoot it then my Rokkits get to start whittling down Destroyers as even one or two dead or forcing them into larger squads works.

I'm not trying to say it's an easy win, but it's one of many lists that have all of the tools to defeat this one trick Necron list and still compete versus other lists.

I'm not saying I entirely disagree, but I'll take exception to the "many" part. Also, try running the math on how many Rokkits you need to be shooting at Destroyers with cover saves to do anything. They're almost worthless.

That Ork list you posted is certainly an all-comers list which is capable of taking on min-maxed 'crons, though it'd have to be decided on the table. The combination of AV14 and Skimmer Dodge makes the Monliths more resistant to deffrollas than any other vehicle. The rollas, and nob squads with 4 powerklaws on top of the Dreads and squads of Kans makes for a LOT more S9 and S10 attacks coming out of this list than the vast majority of tournament lists.

As I said earlier in the thread, this kind of build beat me for a league title not long ago, and held its own against me at the 2010 Ard Boyz final too. I beat him (in part because he got cocky with the Deceiver against Abaddon), but I couldn't get full points/the phase out because he pulled the exact same trick of reserving the warriors and bringing them on in a corner behind a wall of monoliths.

This kind of list would have been seen as broken and unfair in 3rd or 4th edition; now it's the main way Necrons can compete at all, but it's pretty darn good.

Probably Deceiver, 2 monoliths, 2x10 warriors, 2x3 Destroyers, and five Scarabs. Alternately, you could take a Rez Orb/Veil lord and add more Destroyers or a squad of Immortals.

I've seen Tomb Spiders do really nasty things as long as they keep the number of scarab swarms in the unit equal or less than the number of spiders. Majority toughness and wound abuse FTW! Even a single spider spawning a single base can be nasty; hard to shoot down, and it can spawn as a way of gaining assault distance in a given direction.

40kEnthusiast had at least one batrep with close-combat-crons using a ton of them, a C'Tan, and a pile of scarabs.

Aman wrote:Wonderful! Can you give a reference or a solid argument? The 2004 FAQ says the ability doesn't, but it's not in the latest FAQ (inexcusably). Did they alter it in later editions of the codex??

Yes, as Mondo mentioned in your thread in YMDC. The current wording on Living Metal makes clear that you only ever get 1d6 + weapon strength. The only exception to that is Ordnance, which still only adds one die but gets to roll two and take the higher one of them. Fire Dragons can only ever kill a monolith on a Glancing 6. No need to be so aggressive with folks when you already know that you're using an outdated copy of the codex. Yes, GW should have added the wording changes to an Errata section of the Necron FAQ, but the fact that they didn't isn't the fault of anyone here.

Even if TH worked, only the FD exarchs have it, so you're saying that either two exarchs both rolled 6s to penetrate, or your opponent cheated and played the whole squad as having TH.

Also not clear on what you said about Holofields. The standard Eldar transport (Wave Serpent) can't take them. The HS tank, the Falcon, can (and makes a decent choice to carry squads of up to 6 Fire Dragons), but it costs ~185+pts and takes away slots he could be using for Fire Prisms, which would give him S9 or S10 (combined fire) shots.

The Grog wrote:As for the Monolith and LOS, I believe the flying base stick that ships with the model is maybe an inch tall. More than low enough to block anything.

It doesn't actually come with one at all. In 4th edition all Skimmers had to be mounted on flying stands and didn't block LOS. In 5th they're mounted on whatever they come with (which is nothing, for Monoliths), and block LOS however they actually do. So Monoliths are walls blocking a lot of LOS.

Aman wrote:Actually, another player - experienced - mentioned that about Exarchs only having the ability sothe guy checked his book bc he wasn't certain and read the passage aloud, and they confer the ability onto their squad.

Thanks for the correction; just double-checked my codex and you're right. I must have forgotten since it's so long since I used it. Usually it's overkill for normal vehicles, and it's useless against the Monolith, so I can't remember the last time I saw anyone take it.

Aman wrote:It was a casual game. Since I haven't played much lately I warned him in advance that I'd forget my own special rules and we sort of muddled thru. In the end we both forgot phase out and lots if other little things.

Aman wrote:I'm just looking for info that GW is supposed to provide as the authors of a large complex game system. You're mistakenly reading aggression into the equation. The game systems are so large that boards like this are necessary to get thru a game at all. Getting a straight and reasonable answer on 2-3 rules that determined the game result has taken time and effort. Personally, I like my game results to revolve around skill and a little luck, not about knowing - or not knowing - the rules.

Well, I think there's a bit of a disconnect here. Any complex game requires some practice and understanding to get a representative result. When folks are still in the "learning & making mistakes on the rules" stage, they usually wait a bit before condemning the game or dismissing tactics described by experienced players.

I hear you. Since the DE finally got their update, Necrons are the most outdated book, and the FAQ missing errata (which errata go back to when they were doing "stealth reprints") is just terrible.