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OK so here's my dillema i play necrons and i use the monolith from time to time and looking over rules and everything my friends and i have reached a disagreement on how to resolve this the portal of exile on the monolith says its resolved as a shooting attack and i roll a d6 and any model within that many inches and that can draw los to the portal need to take a strength test and if they fail they are removed as casualties and should they have no strength stat they pass automatically. so using the other weapons on the monolith like the particle whip does it mean i cant use the portal as well because it would technically resolve as a snap shot due to the ordinance rule? my issue with that is if the monolith can fire all weapons because its a heavy tank and if all the attacks are resolved at once why couldn't i use it.


please keep it nice since this is my first forum post ever and i've only used the monolith a total of 4 times

I would recommend looking at page 13 of the Basic Rule Books and what weapons are restricted from firing when effected by the Snap Shot Special Rule, very interesting that they use the monolith as the example case to explain the restriction.

I have and that's where i am having an issue with the rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The rule for the portal reads that it is resolved as a shooting attack but seeing as how i don't use a ballistic skill to use it i just roll a d6 and say ok anything within los and that many inches make a strength test.

I see;
The long and short of it is simple; any shooting attack which does not make a To Hit Roll falls under the 'can not be fired' restrictions found within Snap Shot.

This restriction exists to address a handful of Special Rules that can be found on weapons, all with a common element of being able to ignore the disadvantage that comes from having to Snap Shot in the first place. As the core of the Snap Shot Special Rule is to force you to test against a Ballistic Score of 1, any attack that bypasses this test would be made even more powerful over their 'standard' counter parts. It is obvious the writers thought this advantage would not be fair and would ill balance the game, given how often a rule informs us that a model can only Snap Shot as a trade off or out right negative outcome in other scenarios.

I did notice you mentioned ordnance, which would need to play a part obviously to force the portal to Snap Shot in the first place.

To answer this one as quickly as I can because I should of been asleep hours ago, we need to look at page 71 of the Basic Rule Book and page 47 of the Necron Book respectively. Page 71 informs us that any vehicle firing an ordinance weapon applies the Snap Shot Special Rule to all the other shooting attacks. Page 47 informs us that the Portal is a shooting attack and even provides us with a profile to be used to carry out this 'shot.' As the Special Rules involved with the portal have us simply skip the To Hit portion of an attack, and resolve everything else differently as well, it triggers the restriction on page 13. This conclusion is supported heavily by page 13 using the Monoliths portal as the example of one such weapon forbidden to fire Snap Shots.

NO! Don't know what the question is but I saw Necrons so the answer is no!

* goes reads the thread*

Think you have your answer already. On the subject of resolved at once yes they are, but the ordinance restriction applys regardless, or the rule would never do anything

But wouldn't the fact I can easily fail the roll and always get a one or
Something mean anything and I'm seeing the same answer with everyone but now that it also is a heavy tank can't it fire all weapons as though stationary? And now how do I resolve shooting if I indeed intend to use the portal. Can it be fired and then the arcs at normal bs or could I roll the portal possibly fail and then shoot all other weapons.

All shooting from a single unit is simultaneous

Being heavy has no effect, at all, on ordnance

You declare what weapons will fire before rolling snything

Honestly the way it's resolved kinda screws me because the blast is great for me and so is the portal it just seems like I could fire everything and fail miserably.


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So can I fire everything or not because I don't see the advantages I'd have if I did.

No, you cannot fire the Portal with the whip. This is very clearly and specifically stated(The example that you cannot Snapfire the portal).

The advantages you are not seeing is firing the Portal while firing the whip; not that they matter, the rules say no.

How do I resolve shooting then.

Deek; as you have been told, you cannot fire anything as a snapshot if it doesn't roll to hit. Ordnance makes you fire everything as snapshot.

deekthegreat wrote:
How do I resolve shooting then.

Through the rules on pages 12-19 of the BRB.

And following the weapon type rules found on page 51.

And further following the Vehicles & Ordnance weapons rules on page 71(which is not in the past tense, it is present).

So you declare which weapons you are firing, if at least 1 of them is Ordnance then all other weapons Snapfire(Hellstrike missiles on the Valkyrie cause a rules hiccup here as it is both Ordnance and not Blast, and they would be 2 Ordnance weapons fired together; but I digress); Weapons that do not roll to hit, are Blast, or are Template cannot be fired at the same time as the Ordnance weapon, as those weapons are precluded from snap shots.

deekthegreat wrote:
How do I resolve shooting then.

You dont fire the Ordnance weapon if you want to use the Portal.

Thank you for your responses I now know that I have to pick the one to fire each turn. That being said it's an honest mistake for a player who's new to the game.

I thought in the Monoliths entry it said all weapons fire independent of each other meaning you could ignore the snap fire restriction.

They are heavy which gives them a modified form of relentless.

This thread gave me a bit of a headache. Glad i dont play necrons just so i don't have to deal with monolith rules.

 Mythra wrote:
I thought in the Monoliths entry it said all weapons fire independent of each other meaning you could ignore the snap fire restriction.

You thought wrong, it is only Heavy.


Rotary: there is nothing Wrong with the Monolith's rules

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Rotary: there is nothing Wrong with the Monolith's rules

Unless vehicle rules give you a headache normally, ofc. :-)

We still get people trying to have passengers fire normally from a transport that moved over 6'', and some that would like to fire normally since it's Fast, Opentopped or what have you.

End User Error.

The fault Lies not in the rules in those situations but in the Schools.

The Rules are Clear in all those examples(The Modifying rules do not modify the passengers).