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Well, one of the Necron's few competitive lists left actually uses 3 monoliths.


3 monoliths against Tau is simply suicide, but that is one army that also isn't the most competitive out there.

Grey Templar wrote:Well, one of the Necron's few competitive lists left actually uses 3 monoliths.


3 monoliths against Tau is simply suicide, but that is one army that also isn't the most competitive out there.

Indeed, just yesterday I faced off against a triple Monolith list, and even with 8 lascannons and 2 Demolishers, I only managed to destroy one Monolith. I eeked out a last minute win due to phase out, but yeah....

It should also be noted that I am now at a compromise between the ignore and kill it at all costs factions. I'd say that you should shoot at it until you inflict some kind of crippling damage on it. For me that damage was immobilizing both of his Monoliths in a positions where they weren't a threat.

After his Monoliths were redndered in effective, it was just a matter of manuvering for a final strike at his warriors to force a phase out.

The Acolyte wrote:

Marthike wrote:

The Acolyte wrote:

Marthike wrote:Easiest way and a sure way to kill a monolith is get a GK librarian with warp rift. Flamer template which does auto pen on it lol.

and if that didn't work assault with termis which should have a good chance to bring it down.

Otherwise lascannon, rail gun, OR ignore it. You can pretty much kill all his warriors with something with a large blast template.

Out of curiosity how can you hurt the monolith with S4 termies with force weapons when monolith is AV14? Unless you have a D10 its pretty impossible.

I would suggest try to cause phase out as both chaos and tau are long range enough to ignore the monolith as it only has a 6" move and 24" range so you can effectively stay away from it all game untill you kill enough necrons to phase them out.

hammer hand + deamon hammer = S10

make deamon hammer mastercrafted 5 point.

Take terminators so he can't really hurt you.

In the necron codex when it says only one D6 can be rolled for pen does that affect psychic powers that add a extra D6?

It affects everything. The rule says 'attacks may only roll one D6 for armour penetration rolls even if they would normally get more'. Nothing can ever have more than S+D6 armour pen against a monolith.

As for the Daemonhammers. If you have 2 in a squad (which seems to be what most players are running). Monolith will pretty much always be moving 6" and its a skimmer so you will hit on a 4+. So half your attacks hit. Furthermore even at S10 daemonhammers you need a 4 to glance and 5 or 6 to penetrate. So only 1/4 of your attacks from Daemonhammers will actually do anything and a 1/3 of them will be glancing hits anyway. So those 2 guys will hit with only cause 1 damaging hit and 1/3 of the time it will be a glancing hit. And even penetrating hit only have 1/3 chance of causing a wrecked/explodes result.

So using law of averages 1/2 x 1/2 x 2/3 x 1/3 = 1/18 Therefore only 1 in every 18 hits from a daemonhammer will destroy the monolith. As a GK termie has 2 attacks you need 9 terminators with daemonhammers to effectively kill a monolith (I doubt many players have that many guys with hammers) - On a final note, you also have to pass the psychic test for hammer hand which is 5/6. bringing the final chance of destroying the monolith to 5/108 so about 22 attacks or 11 terminators.

Anything hit by an deamon hammer auto shakes so it can't shoot, and it can only move 6 inches so I can just run up an try again. If I can stop the monolith from shooting then A necron army is pretty much useless because monolith are the only things that do the kills and the destroyers.

2 squad keep the monolith useless and the dreads shoot the destroyers.

Marthike wrote:

The Acolyte wrote:

Marthike wrote:

The Acolyte wrote:

Marthike wrote:Easiest way and a sure way to kill a monolith is get a GK librarian with warp rift. Flamer template which does auto pen on it lol.

and if that didn't work assault with termis which should have a good chance to bring it down.

Otherwise lascannon, rail gun, OR ignore it. You can pretty much kill all his warriors with something with a large blast template.

Out of curiosity how can you hurt the monolith with S4 termies with force weapons when monolith is AV14? Unless you have a D10 its pretty impossible.

I would suggest try to cause phase out as both chaos and tau are long range enough to ignore the monolith as it only has a 6" move and 24" range so you can effectively stay away from it all game untill you kill enough necrons to phase them out.

hammer hand + deamon hammer = S10

make deamon hammer mastercrafted 5 point.

Take terminators so he can't really hurt you.

In the necron codex when it says only one D6 can be rolled for pen does that affect psychic powers that add a extra D6?

It affects everything. The rule says 'attacks may only roll one D6 for armour penetration rolls even if they would normally get more'. Nothing can ever have more than S+D6 armour pen against a monolith.

As for the Daemonhammers. If you have 2 in a squad (which seems to be what most players are running). Monolith will pretty much always be moving 6" and its a skimmer so you will hit on a 4+. So half your attacks hit. Furthermore even at S10 daemonhammers you need a 4 to glance and 5 or 6 to penetrate. So only 1/4 of your attacks from Daemonhammers will actually do anything and a 1/3 of them will be glancing hits anyway. So those 2 guys will hit with only cause 1 damaging hit and 1/3 of the time it will be a glancing hit. And even penetrating hit only have 1/3 chance of causing a wrecked/explodes result.

So using law of averages 1/2 x 1/2 x 2/3 x 1/3 = 1/18 Therefore only 1 in every 18 hits from a daemonhammer will destroy the monolith. As a GK termie has 2 attacks you need 9 terminators with daemonhammers to effectively kill a monolith (I doubt many players have that many guys with hammers) - On a final note, you also have to pass the psychic test for hammer hand which is 5/6. bringing the final chance of destroying the monolith to 5/108 so about 22 attacks or 11 terminators.

Anything hit by an deamon hammer auto shakes so it can't shoot, and it can only move 6 inches so I can just run up an try again. If I can stop the monolith from shooting then A necron army is pretty much useless because monolith are the only things that do the kills and the destroyers.

2 squad keep the monolith useless and the dreads shoot the destroyers.

Until you realize that the gauss flux matrix can fire anyway...

Bit of a damper for you. The Monolith can fire whenever. Even if it's stunned, immobilised, shaken or stirred (i know two are the same thing).

As Tau you should have no problem, unless your are the victim of unlucky dice. Railguns do it every time.

Don't shoot the monolith, shoot the crons and make them phase out.

coolyo294 wrote:You invoke God's name and hope he smites it.

XD

ChrisWWII wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Well, one of the Necron's few competitive lists left actually uses 3 monoliths.


3 monoliths against Tau is simply suicide, but that is one army that also isn't the most competitive out there.

Indeed, just yesterday I faced off against a triple Monolith list, and even with 8 lascannons and 2 Demolishers, I only managed to destroy one Monolith. I eeked out a last minute win due to phase out, but yeah....

It should also be noted that I am now at a compromise between the ignore and kill it at all costs factions. I'd say that you should shoot at it until you inflict some kind of crippling damage on it. For me that damage was immobilizing both of his Monoliths in a positions where they weren't a threat.

After his Monoliths were redndered in effective, it was just a matter of manuvering for a final strike at his warriors to force a phase out.

thats the idea behind the triple monolith list.


it makes it so you can't ignore them and go for phase out. you actually have to deal with the monoliths.

it doesn't always work, but its about the best Crons can hope for. that and Destroyer lists.

XV88's are a must in any Tau list.

For the price of a hammerhead you can get 2 Broadsides that have twin-linked railguns.

Thats 2 str10 hits instead of 1.

true, but remember that hammerheads have one of the only pie plates Tau have access to.


and it rarely takes more then a couple of Railguns to drop a tank. a penetrating hit has a 50% chance to kill a tank.


the flexability of the Pie Plate is good. it also has BS4 so the trade off of not being TL is mitigated. the difference is that Broadsides are 8.3% more accurate then the BS4 hammerhead.

That's without factoring in markerlights as well.

Markerlights + Rail cannons (that now hit on a 2+) = shockingly short lived monoliths.

Hu, I didn't think I'd get this many replies :O.

I total love that pic. I think i have on my loptop somewere....

Grey Templar wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Well, one of the Necron's few competitive lists left actually uses 3 monoliths.


3 monoliths against Tau is simply suicide, but that is one army that also isn't the most competitive out there.

Indeed, just yesterday I faced off against a triple Monolith list, and even with 8 lascannons and 2 Demolishers, I only managed to destroy one Monolith. I eeked out a last minute win due to phase out, but yeah....

It should also be noted that I am now at a compromise between the ignore and kill it at all costs factions. I'd say that you should shoot at it until you inflict some kind of crippling damage on it. For me that damage was immobilizing both of his Monoliths in a positions where they weren't a threat.

After his Monoliths were redndered in effective, it was just a matter of manuvering for a final strike at his warriors to force a phase out.

thats the idea behind the triple monolith list.


it makes it so you can't ignore them and go for phase out. you actually have to deal with the monoliths.

it doesn't always work, but its about the best Crons can hope for. that and Destroyer lists.

Don't rule out the Wraith-based lists. I took a Wraith-list against my friend who has been playing Crons for years and he told me "you can't pull any list I haven't done already," I told him what list I was running, he tailored against it (DA All-terminator list with updated FAQ) and I STILL got more kills than him. He got a lucky phase out, but my destroyers and Lords were eating him alive. This was the same day he triple-killed all of 'my' monoliths-so don't assume he was just having a bad day. The wraithwing, when done correctly, is absolutely murder. Nobody expects a CC based Necron army-woe is he who ignores CC crons...

Railguns, or Ignore it and go for phaseout.

Strength 10 hits are the best way to smash a monolith.

Tau: Railguns on broadsides, probably the best way to knock down a monolith effectively.

Chaos: Vindicators, strength 10 and Ordnance means you roll 2d6 and pick the highest versus the heavy armour of the Monolith. Guaranteed to hurt.

Also Obliterators can work, but probably not as well as the vindicators.

I love how everyone focuses so much on killing the Liths

The lith is a flying building with mediocre armament and so slow it's unreal.

It is very tough, but then it's supposed to be

It really isn't that hard to maneuver around for the more mobile armies, or obliterate with heavy weapons fire for the compensation-cannon disposed (looking at uyou here, guard..). It will take an ungodly number of hits sometimes to take down, but frankly those shots would be better served dropping into the troops

If the necron player walls up all the time shake him up with outflankers, drop pods, fast skimmers coasting over the wall to drop troops/shoot stuff up etc

I rarely bother with a monolith at less than 2000 pts. It's a huge pointsink that rarely makes it's points back or does anything useful beforfe being immobilized in my backfield.

creeping-deth87 wrote:Honestly, no race excels at killing heavy armour as much as the Tau do. Rail guns are your answer for any heavy tank/vehicle.

As for CSMs, as someone already mentioned, use las cannons.

I have heard that before but where do you get lascannons from, is there a set or do you have to find it on like eBay or something?

I think we've pretty much gotten all the answers we'll get- there's an aweful lot of repeats here.

So, in short, Str. 10 good for killing Monoliths, due to AV14 and Living Metal. Still difficult.


Better option, ignore 'liths, kill Warriors and other Necrons for Phase Out.

It's easy to bring down monolith. Just use powerfull tanks or anything that can bring a world of hurt on armor ( you can even try melta bomb is cc ).

Brother Coa wrote:( you can even try melta bomb is cc ).

No, you can't.

Ignore it and go for phase out or use something really good at taking out heavy armor.

Gavo wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:( you can even try melta bomb is cc ).

No, you can't.

Why not?

Melta bombs do work, look at the wording of melta bombs; living metal does not expressly prohibit them from working. RAW defeats RAI, especially against 12 year old codices.

The trick is getting your melta bombs onto the monolith. Best suggestion would be delivering an assault with a land raider, but then you're spending 240 points (plus melta bombs) to deal with a model that costs 235 points. If it works out in your favor, awesome, you've gained a huge advantage... if not, then you're really screwed.

Obviously, tau broadsides are a fantastic option; but so are commando squads (6 man firewarrior or stealth squads with emp grenades).

I am definitely in the 'kill the monolith' camp, It's a huge tactical and psychological blow to your opponent, and even glancing blows will make some necron players start to turtle. With tau, specifically, your opponent will know that your broadsides/hammerheads pose a threat to his monolith, and the trick is, use it to your advantage.

The units that shoot at the monolith with the greatest frequency will most likely become the units that the necron player fixates on. Don't be afraid to use your broadsides or hammerheads as bait to draw his troops into a pincer where your stealth/crisis squads can chew them up with high strength/low ap fire (PR, FB). Meanwhile, your secondary monolith killing crew (commando squad, second broadside squad, or backup hammerhead) can move, unmolested into a kill position.

The same applies to Chaos. Obliterators have some chance of damaging a Monolith, and range 48 deep striking lascannons are definitely going to draw attention. Now, with chaos, you have to have a bit more finesse when you're sneaking up on a monolith with melta bombs. The best way to do it is with misdirection. Use the oblits to draw the attention of a squad close to the monolith, and use your melta-toting troops to assault that squad. Chaos > Necrons in close combat, and the strategy works if you can initiate the assault on your turn and win it on his. Khorne Berserkers are excellent for this... That way your consolodate move gets you a little closer, hopefully close enough that you can move and assault on your next turn, to deliver those meltabombs.

Of course, these are both tactics that rely on some knowledge of your opponent, and aren't universal... but you asked how to destroy monoliths, so here's two more rounds in your chamber.

Look, we've had the debate on melta bombs and whether or not they work on living metal again, and again, and AGAIN. The same arguments have been thrown out again, and again, and again, but just to make life interesting...

junk wrote:Melta bombs do work, look at the wording of melta bombs; living metal does not expressly prohibit them from working. RAW defeats RAI, especially against 12 year old codices.

RAW beats RAI, but specific beats general. In general, the meltabomb gets 8+2d6 armor penetration. However, the Living Metal rule says that you only ever roll S+1d6 to penetrate it, with the condition that you still get your 'roll 2d6, pick the highest' you get for ordnance.

Living Metal is more specific than melta bombs, and thus overules them.

But wait! I hear them cry, grenades don't list a strength, so that means that the penetration of a meltabomb is a number that you get from adding 8 to the result of 2d6!

Now, this is a valid argument. The BRB does not describe the number you add to the armor penetration roll as the grenades' 'strength'. Of course, it's intended to be its strength, but RAW and all that....

Now, there are two possible camps to follow.

Option A: THe meltabomb has an implied strength of 8, and against the Monolith rolls 8 + 1d6 for armor penetration.

Opetion B: The meltabomb has no strength, and since the Living Metal special rule makes all penetration strength plus 1d6, the meltabomb must add its strenght (which is 0 due to not existing), to 1d6, giving it an armor penetration of 0+1d6.

I haven't played 40K recently, but (as a Necron player) I seem to remember Eldar and/or Dark Eldar lances treating AVs above 12 as 12, which makes them very efficient in cracking Monoliths open. If I am wrong I am sure someone will correct me

J

use broadsides with something like this
1 team leader w/ TA, TL, and SMS
2 regulars w/ TA & SMS

for best results, get ^ x3

proceed to nuke a big vehicle every turn

Jiraiya wrote:I haven't played 40K recently, but (as a Necron player) I seem to remember Eldar and/or Dark Eldar lances treating AVs above 12 as 12, which makes them very efficient in cracking Monoliths open. If I am wrong I am sure someone will correct me

J

You are indeed correct, but the Monolith unfortunately negates the lance special rule.

ChrisWWII wrote:Now, there are two possible camps to follow.

Option A: THe meltabomb has an implied strength of 8, and against the Monolith rolls 8 + 1d6 for armor penetration.

Opetion B: The meltabomb has no strength, and since the Living Metal special rule makes all penetration strength plus 1d6, the meltabomb must add its strenght (which is 0 due to not existing), to 1d6, giving it an armor penetration of 0+1d6.

BRB Page 63 - Melta Bombs 8+2D6

They're also not AP1

So although they can glance the 'lith with their maximum roll of 14, I wouldn't bother.