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We just had a 30 pt cost drop.

Now they're core and eligible for lots of new goodies.

CP cost dropped to 1 a while back.

So monoliths have taken some steps towards viability. The question is have they reached it?

They can still be basically one shotted by a 5 man squad of those horrible eradicators at half range. Even if a chronomancer gives them a 5++ they have a low chance of surviving.

But they have access to more buffs now due to being core.

Being able to give it a 5++ vs mortal wounds if it's szarekhan is nice.

Anyone wanting to use one now?

It only shows, that someone at the design studio had the expiriance of necrons being OP, real or not, in his mind, and decided to "balance" them. And now it shows us that even with 30pts drops, some units are still kind of a meh.
Right now the question is, if vs non top tier armies, the drop in points for characters and other necron units, is enough to carry something like a monolith. It could be so.

They still lack their old rule of being able to land anywhere on the table and forcing anyone underneath to move, ignoring the special effects from melta and lance. As such, they still aren't worth the 300 points.

The point of a monolith is to drop in and disgorge units. You can't drop it in because it's too big to actually land anywhere that's permissible in the rules. That's why in 3rd ed, which was the last time it was usable, it had the ability to ignore deep strike mishaps.

It also had the rule to ignore the special effect from melta and lance, because the writers back then knew that if you dropped a monolith right on top of your opponent's forces, it's going to get melta'd.

Until it regains those rules, the monolith is just a slow paper weight with short ranged weapons.

...while Melta is still a thing, hasn't Lance gone the way of the dodo?

Yeah, the lance rule no longer exists. So it having resistance to lance would be moot.
Having melta resist or some sort of Armor of Contempt equivalent would still be nice though.

Agentdenton wrote:

CP cost dropped to 1 a while back.

With the new CA you get a free super-heavy aux detachment now. No more CP cost for the first LOW.

Agentdenton wrote:


Anyone wanting to use one now?

Now? I've been using one since about 3 days after the new kit landed. Awesome model. And for that reason alone it has a place on the table.

Of course I rarely follow the herd/hivemind when it comes to building forces. Rules? Yes. Popular opinion? Not so much....
And so I just rolled my eyes at its deficiencies and got on with enjoying my cool model.

The Chaos Space Marine Landraider is T9 now. If the monolith where T9 I think a lot would be done.

I know it shouldn’t work like this but if I’m gonna spend £105 on a model I want it to have decent rules and stand a good chance of lasting the whole game

mrFickle wrote:
I know it shouldn’t work like this but if I’m gonna spend £105 on a model I want it to have decent rules and stand a good chance of lasting the whole game

What did you just say you WAAC piece of gak? I'd ban you from my store!

But seriously, when these expensive models have extremely lackluster rules, and not even just slightly underpowered but massively underpowered, I wonder who GW expects to buy them. Stompas are in a similar boat.

People who like to paint and the model rather than the game, I would assume.

Which is fine, but having a useless model still isn't great, especially when it's meant to be an iconic unit that's been with the army for over a decade.

Was previously toying with getting one anyway but it's bumped up my to do list now using it doesn't feel like I'm actively mugging myself off.

Agentdenton wrote:
We just had a 30 pt cost drop.

Now they're core and eligible for lots of new goodies.

CP cost dropped to 1 a while back.

So monoliths have taken some steps towards viability. The question is have they reached it?

They can still be basically one shotted by a 5 man squad of those horrible eradicators at half range. Even if a chronomancer gives them a 5++ they have a low chance of surviving.

But they have access to more buffs now due to being core.

Being able to give it a 5++ vs mortal wounds if it's szarekhan is nice.

Anyone wanting to use one now?

I've wanted to use one for a very long time.

Navigating the table can be tough. With Nephrekh you can pick up +2" of movement. Szarekhan will get you double Living Metal all game. Don't worry about Eradicators in half range killing it. You have the agency to not allow a unit that close.

Slap on +1 to hit and go to town.

Don't let your dream be dreams.

Agentdenton wrote:
Being able to give it a 5++ vs mortal wounds if it's szarekhan is nice.

No go there, sadly. Models in SHAD do not get detachment abilities.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


No go there, sadly. Models in SHAD do not get detachment abilities.

Where is that rule again?

EDIT: NVM found it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The point of a monolith is to drop in and disgorge units. You can't drop it in because it's too big to actually land anywhere that's permissible in the rules. That's why in 3rd ed, which was the last time it was usable, it had the ability to ignore deep strike mishaps.
Until it regains those rules, the monolith is just a slow paper weight with short ranged weapons.

Brings a tear to my eyes when I see someone actually understand what the Monolith is for. The Monolith as a shooting platform is very secondary to it dropping in, disgorging units, and teleporting in Necrons to shoot or assault.

Of course, many forget that the Monolith also used to have the current Resurrection Orb rules, giving it another function if you chose to put one behind your army instead of deep striking it. This being an important function that it lost, made it pointless to start one on the table behind your army, also, someone please let Mini War Gaming know this.

Now can we get you on the rules team some how....hmmm.......

Jokes aside, I think its great that it got CORE allowing you to target it with some buffs to improve its shooting and durability, but adding CORE doesn't add anything to the actual "core" function of the unit.

You will still have the problem of finding a (strategically useful) 9" bubble to drop it so that you can teleport in units. Interesting Note, one of the stratagems does allow you to ignore the 9" rule for the target unit when using the dimensional corridor, but I think that is the one that requires you to pull the unit from reserves and not off the table. It does help as you can get closer than 9" for assault purposes, but your limited on how many times you can do it.

Combine that with the fact that your still paying 300 points and a cp (for the stratagem) for a very specific board action, and afterwards the Monolith has about 200 points worth of weapons, and not enough defense to stay on the table to any concentrated firepower, means that I doubt there will be many players willing to risk adding it to their list when making it usable will require Character, Stratagem intervention, and a teleport target unit. One last side note, I personally think its weapon strength shouldn't match its points, as its a secondary function of the unit.

 Noir Eternal wrote:
Brings a tear to my eyes when I see someone actually understand what the Monolith is for. The Monolith as a shooting platform is very secondary to it dropping in, disgorging units, and teleporting in Necrons to shoot or assault.

Of course, many forget that the Monolith also used to have the current Resurrection Orb rules, giving it another function if you chose to put one behind your army instead of deep striking it. This being an important function that it lost, made it pointless to start one on the table behind your army, also, someone please let Mini War Gaming know this.

Now can we get you on the rules team some how....hmmm.......

Jokes aside, I think its great that it got CORE allowing you to target it with some buffs to improve its shooting and durability, but adding CORE doesn't add anything to the actual "core" function of the unit.

You will still have the problem of finding a (strategically useful) 9" bubble to drop it so that you can teleport in units. Interesting Note, one of the stratagems does allow you to ignore the 9" rule for the target unit when using the dimensional corridor, but I think that is the one that requires you to pull the unit from reserves and not off the table. It does help as you can get closer than 9" for assault purposes, but your limited on how many times you can do it.

Combine that with the fact that your still paying 300 points and a cp (for the stratagem) for a very specific board action, and afterwards the Monolith has about 200 points worth of weapons, and not enough defense to stay on the table to any concentrated firepower, means that I doubt there will be many players willing to risk adding it to their list when making it usable will require Character, Stratagem intervention, and a teleport target unit. One last side note, I personally think its weapon strength shouldn't match its points, as its a secondary function of the unit.

I agree, it needs to go back to its support function with more defence to match the metas increased damage output. With that in mind:

1) give it back fly and the ability to push models out of the way to deepstrike
2) give it back the ability to pull infantry from the battlefield to itself as an action of the portal, giving a ressurection roll back to it as well
3) give it toughness 9 or even 10 and quantum shielding
4) reduce or even remove its melee attacks, it doesn't thematically fit its function (at least original one)