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Nick speaking,
In this New Necron Codex Review, we are going to take a look at the Necron's one and only tank, the Necron Monolith. Lets face it, the Monolith is an amazing vehicle! Armour fourteen all round, no bonus dice roll from weapons like melta, and no reduced armour from Lance weapons.
The Monolith's Power Matrix crystal not only has a nice strength nine ordnance template, but you can choose to teleport qualifying Necron models through it for an extra WWB roll! Even if you do manage to get through the armour, it's almost impossible to destroy the Power Matrix, as a weapon destroyed result just reduces the Gauss Flux arc attacks by one, and it can still be used with Crew Stunned or Shaken results!
The Monolith is also classed as a skimmer that just floats to the ground if it's immobilised, so basically you have to Wreck or Destroy it if you don't want to waste your shots!
Oh and it can deep strike!
Popular Internet wisdom is that you should ignore the Monolith and go for phase out, and they would be right! Of course, we as Necron players have to start taking advantage of this Internet advise! In forth edition I hardly used the Mono, but now in fifth edition, I don't leave home without it!
With only a 24" range the large blast isn't that great, unless you deep strike it in! I tend to give my Monolith a different mission for my army! Either to Deep Strike to contest along with my Scarabs and Destroyer Lord, or as a WWB factory at the back ranks for any downed Destroyers or Warriors.
So what is wrong with the Monolith? Well I remember when the Mono could only be hit in CC on a roll of a six regardless, and this is one big disadvantage at the moment as it can now be hit on 4+, even if it moves. So watch out for those Razorback Power fists!
I would like to see the range of the Blast template at 36", and something that makes your enemy need a six to hit it in CC again. The chances are though, that we will see a points cost drop and a rules nurf. Just look at what they did to the Eldar Falcon! After all if we are going to only have one tank choice, GW will want to start selling more of them, maybe we will end up having squadrons of Monoliths?
Or...
Will we get more tank choices in the new Necron Codex?
Monoliths are incredibly durable, in fact the most durable vehicle in the game by a long shot. Even Land Raiders can't come close- the fact that they are hit on a 4+ in close combat is irrelevant, because almost nothing can actually hurt them. (Power Fists still need a 6 just to glance you, and even mighty TWC Fists need 5s to pen.)
ReplyDeleteTheir problem is that they only put out mediocre firepower and make you much more vulnerable to Phase Out. Deep Striking into the middle of an enemy shooting army can be quite amusing as you start spamming out d6 shots on every unit, but in the end even that isn't going to do all that much damage, and the ordnance template is a decent gun, but not really any better than a Battle Cannon. (It's somewhat more likely to hurt vehicles thanks to S9 and AP1, but still isn't very reliable.) Even as games scale up to 1850/2000, where taking a Monolith or two is no longer an auto-lose condition, you're still better off investing in Destroyers of one type or another, a second Lord, Scarabs, Immortals, etc, all of which bring more firepower and more survivability to the table.
I had a few games against Power fists with furios charge, S9 ouch!
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