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I'm getting conflicting responses all over google search. Some say they're as strong as a Knight. Some say they can take down titans. So... yeah, how strong are they in lore? Anyone know?

I read Severed cause I was interested in severed necrons but it was mostly lychguard combat. You know, small scale infantry stuff. The only big machines were like 5 Seraptek Heavy Constructs that got destroyed at the beginning of the book. And they kinda only shot a giant door so no idea how strong they are in lore either.

So... could any of you guys regale some tales of Monoliths and Obelisks in various necron-related books you read and how they fared against, you know, your typical spehs mareens squad that wipes out entire hive fleets with a warp drive.

I can't think of a lot of books that really spend a lot of time demonstrating the offensive abilities of monoliths. Generally, I get the impression that they're meant to be roughly knight-tier. That is, a titan should reliably win a fight against them, but said titan can't safely ignore them. Obelisks are, if I'm not mistaken, more lethal but less flexible.

That said, there's a brief moment in a necron novel where a fleet of (9?) monoliths is used as a very brief deterant against an indomitus crusade fleet. Which, even if they did virtually nothing and then got instantly wiped out still suggests a bit more presence than 9 knights could muster... Maybe. Comparing monoliths in a space battle to knights is pretty apples-to-oranges.

when the necrons pull out monoliths in the commisar cain novels, it is real brown pants moment as presented.. in "caves of ice" it is implied that a few monoliths and a fairly small force of Necron troops completely wiped the floor with a mega-gargant and several tens of thousands of orks (including various vehicles, battlewagons, etc). hard to be sure about the numbers though, since it happened at a distance from the guard defensive lines, and the necrons are only just barely glimpsed through the smoke and snow kicked up by the ork horde.

later, in "cain's last stand" the necrons make another appearance and end up wiping out a multi-regiment chaos force of corrupted sisters of battle and guardsmen. while it happens at night and while the same chaos army is attacking the surviving loyalists, it is heavily implied that the massacre was done by a fairly small force, though monoliths do get mentioned.

There is a short story about a discovery of a stone artifact by an Inquisitor and Tech-Priests, or similar party. While researching the artifact they discover that it consumes power. They keep feeding it power (It might somehow prevent them from stopping), and the "stone artifact" grows into a Monolith and starts spitting out Necrons from it's portal. All it needed was a source of power to self-assemble, contact a tomb world and get the fight on.

 Insectum7 wrote:
There is a short story about a discovery of a stone artifact by an Inquisitor and Tech-Priests, or similar party. While researching the artifact they discover that it consumes power. They keep feeding it power (It might somehow prevent them from stopping), and the "stone artifact" grows into a Monolith and starts spitting out Necrons from it's portal. All it needed was a source of power to self-assemble, contact a tomb world and get the fight on.

Sounds pretty cool, do you know the story?

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There is a short story about a discovery of a stone artifact by an Inquisitor and Tech-Priests, or similar party. While researching the artifact they discover that it consumes power. They keep feeding it power (It might somehow prevent them from stopping), and the "stone artifact" grows into a Monolith and starts spitting out Necrons from it's portal. All it needed was a source of power to self-assemble, contact a tomb world and get the fight on.

Sounds pretty cool, do you know the story?

It's from the 3rd edition codex. Found aboard the space hulk Unholy Harbinger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In Hellforged a monolith gets blown up by throwing a Krak grenade into the portal.
In Fall of Damnos Sicarius takes one out by sticking a melta bomb to it...

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I can't think of a lot of books that really spend a lot of time demonstrating the offensive abilities of monoliths. Generally, I get the impression that they're meant to be roughly knight-tier. That is, a titan should reliably win a fight against them, but said titan can't safely ignore them. Obelisks are, if I'm not mistaken, more lethal but less flexible.

That said, there's a brief moment in a necron novel where a fleet of (9?) monoliths is used as a very brief deterant against an indomitus crusade fleet. Which, even if they did virtually nothing and then got instantly wiped out still suggests a bit more presence than 9 knights could muster... Maybe. Comparing monoliths in a space battle to knights is pretty apples-to-oranges.

What makes you think obelisks are stronger than monoliths? They're impossible to find any information about other than the bog standard codex entry.

mithril2098 wrote:
when the necrons pull out monoliths in the commisar cain novels, it is real brown pants moment as presented.. in "caves of ice" it is implied that a few monoliths and a fairly small force of Necron troops completely wiped the floor with a mega-gargant and several tens of thousands of orks (including various vehicles, battlewagons, etc). hard to be sure about the numbers though, since it happened at a distance from the guard defensive lines, and the necrons are only just barely glimpsed through the smoke and snow kicked up by the ork horde.

later, in "cain's last stand" the necrons make another appearance and end up wiping out a multi-regiment chaos force of corrupted sisters of battle and guardsmen. while it happens at night and while the same chaos army is attacking the surviving loyalists, it is heavily implied that the massacre was done by a fairly small force, though monoliths do get mentioned.

Thanks I'll check it out.

Aren't Obelisks C'tan pokeballs? Surely by that measure alone they're more of a threat.

 Gert wrote:
Aren't Obelisks C'tan pokeballs? Surely by that measure alone they're more of a threat.

I thought Obelisks and Tesseract Vaults were different, albeit similar vehicles.

The Obelisk was originally a smaller version of the Monolith, equipped with a particle whip, from the Epic army list.

It was made into a bigger anti-aircraft Monolith when it was added as the alternative build for the Tesseract Vault.
Why does the Obelisk need bound canoptek constructs and have disintegrating living metal like the Vault? Don't ask questions! Just Forge The Narrative!

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I can't think of a lot of books that really spend a lot of time demonstrating the offensive abilities of monoliths. Generally, I get the impression that they're meant to be roughly knight-tier. That is, a titan should reliably win a fight against them, but said titan can't safely ignore them. Obelisks are, if I'm not mistaken, more lethal but less flexible.

That said, there's a brief moment in a necron novel where a fleet of (9?) monoliths is used as a very brief deterant against an indomitus crusade fleet. Which, even if they did virtually nothing and then got instantly wiped out still suggests a bit more presence than 9 knights could muster... Maybe. Comparing monoliths in a space battle to knights is pretty apples-to-oranges.

There is such a thing as a Megalith, which is a giant Monolith capable of deploying normal Monoliths. This appears to be a titan-grade threat and sounds like a much more credible option for holding up a warfleet momentarily. Probably just looks like a Monolith on ship scanners.

Don't monoliths get used as ship to ship weapons on starships?


I think Monoliths are one of those things that have a single name for a concept instead of a specific machine. Which would explain some of the fact that they change in size and power and abilities between authors.

GW books can often be rather like on some design/detail descriptions - which I put down to a deliberate choice to describe a thing in a general sense so that when the model changes the story still fits.

I'm confused.

Does Canoptek Leeches on the Obelisk definitively show that Obelisks are stronger than Monoliths? Cause the logic here is, those massive dedicated repair robots embedded onto the hull suggests significantly higher regeneration rate than the Monolith therefore should beat the Monolith in a fight right?

But then... it is my understanding Tesla weapons are terrible against vehicles. So... what's an anti-aircraft specialist weapon doing with anti-infantry weapons?

So... are we sure that Monoliths are Knight equivalents instead of baneblade equivalents?

Can Obelisks trap a C'tan into it against its will? Or does it need a pre-captured C'tan installed to become a Tesseract Vault? I think Trazyn uses Tesseract Vaults like actual pokeballs? Mid combat capture and stuff.

Stormsurge v.s. Monolith or Obelisk. Who wins?

Stormsurge cos T'au shooting is an affront to god.

roboemperor wrote:

Stormsurge v.s. Monolith or Obelisk. Who wins?

The true strength of the Monolith is not it's firepower, but in it's capacity to act as a conduit to forces from a Tomb World. Left to it's own devices, it can just act as a portal and spawn whole invasion armies.

The thing to keep in mind for the Monolith?

Within the game, things capable of confidently tackling a Monolith are fairly plentiful, even if one can’t fit that many into a single list.

But within the background, Monoliths are pretty common within Necron forces, because of their role. And the things which can reliably take one on are rare within their forces.

And so, background wise? Monoliths in most situations are a significant problem. Able to deploy further Necron units, whilst not only shrugging off most incoming fire, but rapidly repairing any telling hits you manage to land. Add in its own not inconsiderable firepower, unpleasant ability to arrive just where you don’t want it, and it’s a horrific thing to face.