A Murder of Monoliths |
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Chroma
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths  Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 3:39 pm |
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Location: Montréal, QC, Canada
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As you know, my gaming group has been doing a lot of Necron playtesting lately. ?One more of my friends has fallen to the Necrons and we had a couple of games giving him his first taste of fielding the metalheads.
Anyway, in post-game discussion the following army idea came up and I was wondering how people would try and deal with it? ?We're going to give this a shot at lower point values to see if it's as devestating as it looks.
Rules Used
Phalanx 225 points
Monolith 75 points
Army List
A Murder of Monoliths - 2980 points
Tomb Complex
Phalanx 1 - (BTS goal)
1 Pariah
2 Immortals
Phalanx 2
1 Pariah
Phalanx 3
1 Pariah
Phalanx 4
1 Pariah
Phalanx 5
1 Pariah
Monolith 1
1 Obelisk
Monolith 2
1 Obelisk
Monolith 3
1 Obelisk
Monolith 4
1 Obelisk
Monolith 5
1 Obelisk
Monolith 6
1 Obelisk
Monolith 7
1 Obelisk
Monolith 8
1 Obelisk
Monolith 9
1 Obelisk
Monolith 10
1 Obelisk
Monolith 11
1 Obelisk
Monolith 12
1 Obelisk
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Chroma
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 4:02 pm |
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Location: Montréal, QC, Canada
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| Quote (Hena @ 04 June 2006 (15:56)) | | I'd probably convert one monolith to 3 lords for phalanxes to allow them better wbb. I'd wonder about the staying power of the list. Pure phalanx isn't that though. Against horde armies (orc, nids) that does look scary. |
Phalanxes automatically come with Lords...
And the army actually has a lot of shooting attacks, enough to break a lot of formations just from BMs.
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corey3750
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:00 pm |
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Location: Baltimore MD
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This list came up before as an agrument against the Necron, so I demonstrated the easy defense against it:
Deploy your entire army in Mutual support range, tightly together. This would make any assault by the necron suicide.
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Chroma
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:13 pm |
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| Quote (corey3750 @ 04 June 2006 (17:00)) | This list came up before as an agrument against the Necron, so I demonstrated the easy defense against it:
Deploy your entire army in Mutual support range, tightly together. ?This would make any assault by the necron suicide. |
In local parlance we call that the "turtle" defence.
To that I'd place eight of the 12 Monoliths around them in support range of each other, but not within 5cm of each other, and, if I went first, co-mingle attack with a Phalanx out of a Monolith on the flanks. ?If the enemy goes first, they are going to, unless they have massed artillery, break/kill two Monoliths before the attack happens. ?If they engage one of the Monoliths, they might destroy it and lay some Blast markers around, but they'll most likely be picking some up as well.
Obviously we haven't played this out yet and it should be interesting, though perhaps brutal on opponents, like the Termagant Terror. ?My main concern is that Monoliths are so cheap at the moment, even at 75 points, to allow this kind of army to happen.
The above army has *17* activations... even if the Monos just float around and shoot it's brutal!
And, don't get me wrong, I *love* the Gauss Flux Arc rules, that's not at all what I'm complaining about.
And what do the Necrons care about committing suicide... They'll be back!
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Hojyn
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 7:50 pm |
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| Quote (corey3750 @ 04 June 2006 (17:00)) | This list came up before as an agrument against the Necron, so I demonstrated the easy defense against it:
Deploy your entire army in Mutual support range, tightly together. ?This would make any assault by the necron suicide. |
One could also argue that any successful intermingled assault by the Necrons would be a disaster for the defender. I wonder if spreading your formations out so as to give too many targets might not be a valid tactic...
But against this army and its numerous "weak" activations, perhaps it is the best thing to do.
To that I'd place eight of the 12 Monoliths around them in support range of each other,but not within 5cm of each other, and, if I went first, co-mingle attack with a Phalanx out of a Monolith on the flanks. ?If the enemy goes first, they are going to, unless they have massed artillery, break/kill two Monoliths before the attack happens. ?If they engage one of the Monoliths, they might destroy it and lay some Blast markers around, but they'll most likely be picking some up as well. |
I'll admit that in theory, the list has a terrifying potential.
There are a few downsides, however:
- All of your Monolith formations are very easy to break: fire, destroy Obelisk, bam! you're broken. Sure, the Monolith will be back next turn, but broken Monolith can't lend their support in assault. And you'll inevitably get a few "6" on the teleport dice rolls as well;
- Basic Phalanxes are nice but rather small and not that tough. And don't forget that destroyed formations never come back (Phalanxes are quite easy to finish off once broken);
- This army will indeed probably be brutal against horde armies, but I've found that in practice it's quite difficult to get more than 4-5 FF attacks per Monolith, and at FF5+ that means you hit only 1/3 of the time. Also, since you can't declare combined assaults (no Commander), you'll almost always be outnumbered, especially if you declare an intermingled assault.
But this is all theory, and I'm really looking forward to see your battle report.
The above army has *17* activations... even if the Monos just float around and shoot it's brutal! |
What kind of Monoliths are you using? ?
?Mine only shoot 1 AP4,/AT4+ shot each... I wouldn't call that brutal.
The 17 activations are more worrying+though... especially with teleporting units. It means you can easily afford to keep 4 or 5 Monoliths in reserve and teleport them near objectives in the last turn, and that sounds like a rather unfair tactic.
My main concern is that Monoliths are so cheap at the moment, even at 75 points, to allow this kind of army to happen.
That's probably true. How come you always come up with devious army lists like this one or the Termagant Terror? ?
?
If this should really prove to be a problem, I can see two possible solutions:
- upping the Monolith' cost to 100 (don't really like that one as I feel it would then be too expensive);
- making it compulsory for Monoliths to be accompanied by 2 or even 3 Obelisks. But at 175 or 215, the formation would be quite costly and further reduce the options of Necron players.
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Hojyn
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:17 am |
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| Quote (corey3750 @ 06 June 2006 (01:25)) | Spreading out your formations just basically begs the Necron to destroy your army in detail.
Yes, if they manage a successful assault against your ENTIRE army, it would be bad.. but then you'd have to roll so amazingly poor it's unlikely.
It works even better if you have some scouts in your list to put out pickets to keep them from charging your main straight off, even if you lose initiative.
And, if you play with the rules that allow you to go on Overwatch when you garrison, you can Garrison most of your army around your Blitz Objective, and when the Necron make their assault, they come under Overwatch Fire.
It's not a sure thing either way, but playing that kind of army, and this counter-tactic to it makes for a rather boring game... exceptionally bloody and brutal, but ever so boring. |
Actually, that's one of the biggest faults of the Necron list: it always plays the same, and there aren't many efficient counter-tactics so the opponent always plays the same too.
Now don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed all of my games with the Necrons, and I think Flogus (my usual opponent) has as well, but most of our games have been decided by one big teleported assault against massed troops on Overwatch behind a screen of scouts in the first two turns.
But I guess this is inherent to the Necron nature and I believe it is pretty much the same situation in WH40K.
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Chroma
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Post subject: A Murder of Monoliths Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 1:33 pm |
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| Quote (Ilushia @ 06 June 2006 (13:20)) | | This is potentially quite useful if you're playing completely under book-rules... If you're using the 'stalled assault' experimental rules then it'd be a FANTASTICALLY bad idea to choose to assault their entire army (You should virtually always get wiped out completely by their fire. If you don't something very weird is going on) and it prevents you from being able to call supporting fire if you do get wiped out. I'd much rather take their supporting fire, get wiped by it, but wipe them with my supporting fire as well then loose to them for only mild to moderate casualties. |
Even with the "stalled assault" rule, major co-mingling isn't a bad idea.
The entire enemy army is *not* going to be able to get within 15cm of the attacking Phalanx, especially as the Necron player would be best served by just attacking the weaker flank of the group of co-mingled enemy formations, just barely getting into fire fight range of units on the ragged edge of the first formation on the flank.
The enemy can only respond with 5cm and 10cm counter charges (watch out for the 10cm counter-charges potentially dragging a surrounding Monolith into the fray, especially if it's got a Blast marker on it! Did this to a Necron opponent with my Eldar on the weekend when he co-mingled *five* of my Eldar formations... though he was only using two Monoliths and a Phalanx to try and pull this off... and lost...) and is *highly* unlikely to be able to get all the co-mingled formations into fire fight range.
I still want to see this in play and see if overwatch/turtling is able to throw off a Necron attack like that.
And, just to let you know, I do agree that it would be a boring, if bloody, way to fight... but some people who take armies to tournaments only care about winning, not having fun *with* their opponents, and I'd rather they not have an easy (well, easy aside from collecting Chaos Androids!) way of doing it with Necrons.
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