Monolith Issue

[soshi kenpachi]

So in the 3 months I've been playing, I've played BA for 2 months. I started playing with a friend who grabbed the necrons when I grabbed the Tyranids. Tyranids facerolled the Crons, then I read up on the Blood Angels and started working on a BA army. During my army switch he got a monolith and a Nightbringer. Haven't won a game against him since. I grabbed a librarian to run as a baby mephiston... then I noticed the cron codex said you only ever roll unmodded strength+1d6. So... yeah. Sanguine sword does nothing. So... Lascannons are the only thing I have that even have a chance of getting a pen. So it deepstrikes in, shoots down a Stormravens with its power matrix, and then proceeds to hover around to maximize the number of targets for its silly d6 attack.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch the Nightbringer rushes up to deal with any infantry units with template weapons that can threaten his warrior units while Pariahs go to town on my dreadnoughts. Yes, he runs Pariahs to take out my termies(when I ran them) and my dreadnought because they do pretty well at cutting through them. Fun fact, though: he's going to replace the pariahs with ANOTHER monolith once he gets the model. Meanwhile, his 3 units of warriors sit back and let the heavy hitters do the work, and shoot up any units that try to rush them. I get through one unit, then get blasted before I get to the second. Either way, his army is effectively a nightbringer, a monolith, 7 Pariahs, 5 destroyers, and 3 wraiths. he keeps the warriors in cover far from battle.

 

For the record, my army consists of 2 AoBR sets(converted the dreads to furioso librarians, and one termie squad into Termie Sanguinary priests), A Devastator Squad, Commander Dante, a JP Librarian, with a JP Captain that I'm thinking about switching Dante out for. I learned a little too late that Dante is for JP armies.

 

So... here I am. Once I can get rid of these 2 models his army falls apart. So how do I do it?

[soots]

why wouldnt sword work?

living metal only applies to weapons that either subtract its armour value: ie lances or weapons that gain additional dice for armour penetration: ie meltas, chainfists, mc attacks

as to the night bringer, sword + librarian would instant kill him

[Corby]

Right , I'm a necron player/Blood angels player myself so I'll give you some advice. Ignore the monolith if you don't have the tools to deal with it. It only has a 30" range for ( 24" range and 6" movement) for its Particle whip. Secondly with both a nightbringer and a Monolith thats over 600pts in 2 models. You should never be getting into combat against the nightbringer as you should have the mobility to outmaneuver him. The nightbringer can only move a maximum of 12" a go , whether from standard movement + charging or standard movement + running. He should never catch you. Also he is spending points on pariahs , which don't have the necron rule , and are terribly expensive. Thanks to this combination , your friend mostly likely has a really low phase out number. (The phase out rule is when the necron player has less than 25% models with the 'necron' special rule left on the table , he automatically loses as army disappears.

 

 

So to summarise: Ignore the big expensive guys and outmaneuver them. Focus on killing the warriors and force him to phase out.

Oh and:

 

why wouldnt sword work?

living metal only applies to weapons that either subtract its armour value: ie lances or weapons that gain additional dice for armour penetration: ie meltas, chainfists, mc attacks

as to the night bringer, sword + librarian would instant kill him

 

That would only work if the nightbringer was drained using a force weapon.

[Chairman_woo]

So in the 3 months I've been playing, I've played BA for 2 months. I started playing with a friend who grabbed the necrons when I grabbed the Tyranids. Tyranids facerolled the Crons, then I read up on the Blood Angels and started working on a BA army. During my army switch he got a monolith and a Nightbringer. Haven't won a game against him since. I grabbed a librarian to run as a baby mephiston... then I noticed the cron codex said you only ever roll unmodded strength+1d6. So... yeah. Sanguine sword does nothing. So... Lascannons are the only thing I have that even have a chance of getting a pen. So it deepstrikes in, shoots down a Stormravens with its power matrix, and then proceeds to hover around to maximize the number of targets for its silly d6 attack.

 

 

If a powerfist works, then sanguine sword works. You strike at S10 rather than "modifying" your own strength ;). Also Vindicators shouldent be ruled out if only becuase its the only ranged s10 you can throw at the thing (tho I would have thaught it might often be better off just trying to kill all his "necron" units so the monolith just goes away.). Lascannons certainly beat a poke in the eye too tho I find they can be a little hard to come by in most of my BA lists (far from impossible I just find they dont fall in my lap like meltas and Sang Sword do).

 

Also I think Mephiston will laugh at the nightbringer (unless hes the annoying one that can just run out of CC before you smack him upside the head but I think thats deciver)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I would use a generic Librarian or Mephiston... They will take care of your problems quickly.

 

0b ;)

[Mattsama]

Yeah, Strikes made with Sword are 10. No if ands or buts. Did he point out that it wouldn't work, or is that your interpretation??

[soshi kenpachi]

He read the rule and we both interpreted it the same way. I'll inform him Sanguine Sword works then. Still, if power fists 'Double the strength' I thought that would be a modification. It just seems... strange.

 

As far as not being able to catch me, see above. I'm not working with a lot here, and I only have 2 JP units... that also happen to be ICs. I have librarians that have WoS. Other than that, I'm running tac marines and a devastator squad.

[thundrchickn]

my interpretation of what you have leads me to believe you make a squad of termies into sanguinary priests. 5 sagnguinary priests in terminator armor? please tell me you wrote that wrong. that would mean your paying 250 points just for the priest and then another hundred and something for the armor. What point level are you playing. I've ran 3, 2, and 1 priest combos over the last month and I've settled into 1 for mech and 2 for JP/infantry.

 

I'd drop all of these priest for 2 JP versions, use the termies as regular termies if you have the points later on. your priests should stay with your squishier infantry. utilize cover like crazy because thats what JP list do. your S10 libby swings will glance a monolith on a 4 but like the other guys said he has a low phase out so ignore it. Since your oponent sounds new to the game try to lure his night bringer away with either the captain by himself or the regular termie squad. When he over commits to one side with that you can JP across out of cover into assault with your troop and easily smash them for endgame by turn 3 or 4 easily. If you have the money I'd recommend drop the termies altogether and take anoth JP squad to give this tactic a little more durability and/or better outmanuever the nightbringer to draw him farther from his troops.

 

another thing you can do is put your libby in your devestator squad and deploy it somewhere stupid(but in cover) as bait for the nightbringer. Unload on him with the squad and he'll have the mindset "I need to kill them before they shoot my 300 point nightbringer pieces" he'll come after you and you want it to be somewher in midrange but definately closer than your jump troops. You can shoot him all the way on his travels towards you, when he attacks he'll probably make the mistake to go after the squad and your libby can force weapon him with one shot.

 

 

so change your sang priest lineup

think about another troop choice over terminators but if you like em keep em

fight the shooty stuff and shoot the fighty stuff

your JP troops will easily annhilate his troops in cc so use cover to get there because his shooting could annhilate your troops

[Corby]

He read the rule and we both interpreted it the same way. I'll inform him Sanguine Sword works then. Still, if power fists 'Double the strength' I thought that would be a modification. It just seems... strange.

 

As far as not being able to catch me, see above. I'm not working with a lot here, and I only have 2 JP units... that also happen to be ICs. I have librarians that have WoS. Other than that, I'm running tac marines and a devastator squad.

 

 

I think the models you have available make it generally difficult to tailor to an anti Necron list . Can you lists the specific equipment each model has?

[Corby]

my interpretation of what you have leads me to believe you make a squad of termies into sanguinary priests. 5 sagnguinary priests in terminator armor? please tell me you wrote that wrong. that would mean your paying 250 points just for the priest and then another hundred and something for the armor. What point level are you playing. I've ran 3, 2, and 1 priest combos over the last month and I've settled into 1 for mech and 2 for JP/infantry.

 

I'd drop all of these priest for 2 JP versions, use the termies as regular termies if you have the points later on. your priests should stay with your squishier infantry. utilize cover like crazy because thats what JP list do. your S10 libby swings will glance a monolith on a 4 but like the other guys said he has a low phase out so ignore it. Since your oponent sounds new to the game try to lure his night bringer away with either the captain by himself or the regular termie squad. When he over commits to one side with that you can JP across out of cover into assault with your troop and easily smash them for endgame by turn 3 or 4 easily. If you have the money I'd recommend drop the termies altogether and take anoth JP squad to give this tactic a little more durability and/or better outmanuever the nightbringer to draw him farther from his troops.

 

another thing you can do is put your libby in your devestator squad and deploy it somewhere stupid(but in cover) as bait for the nightbringer. Unload on him with the squad and he'll have the mindset "I need to kill them before they shoot my 300 point nightbringer pieces" he'll come after you and you want it to be somewher in midrange but definately closer than your jump troops. You can shoot him all the way on his travels towards you, when he attacks he'll probably make the mistake to go after the squad and your libby can force weapon him with one shot.

so change your sang priest lineup

think about another troop choice over terminators but if you like em keep em

fight the shooty stuff and shoot the fighty stuff

your JP troops will easily annhilate his troops in cc so use cover to get there because his shooting could annhilate your troops

 

 

Except a Str 4 libby can't wound a T8 Model. In fact the majority of the infantry detailed in the Original post come with weapons that can't even damage the Nightbringer , let alone a monolith. To the Op , Perhaps deepstrike your terminators near his warriors? It may catch your opponent off guard and allow you to devastate his warriors before help arrives. As said before , perhaps use one librarian as a 'proxy' Mephiston ( Mephiston would see off the Nightbringer no problem , as long as the pariahs were not within 12"). Maybe your friend will allow you to proxy several different models for your army?

[soshi kenpachi]

Oh, good lord. I'm silly but not silly enough to spend 2 elites slots and 425 points on 5 Termie SPs. I run 3 mainly to keep wide Blood Chalice coverage. They're termies because I had the models to convert, and as stand alone models they do a bit better with the armor(proxied them otherwise once). JP SPs are the end goal. He'll let me run proxies as necessary, but that generally leads me to mess things up. Example: I threw a 500 count card box and said 'That's my stormraven. I want to see how it does' and I kept forgetting about it because it didn't look like a stormraven. That ended well.

 

As far as the libby, I run him with a JP with Sanguine sword and smite(for anti MEQ fun).

[Corby]

Oh, good lord. I'm silly but not silly enough to spend 2 elites slots and 425 points on 5 Termie SPs. I run 3 mainly to keep wide Blood Chalice coverage. They're termies because I had the models to convert, and as stand alone models they do a bit better with the armor(proxied them otherwise once). JP SPs are the end goal. He'll let me run proxies as necessary, but that generally leads me to mess things up. Example: I threw a 500 count card box and said 'That's my stormraven. I want to see how it does' and I kept forgetting about it because it didn't look like a stormraven. That ended well.

 

As far as the libby, I run him with a JP with Sanguine sword and smite(for anti MEQ fun).

 

 

I see. How about deepstriking a Sanguniary termie priest and a 5 man termie squad near his warriors? he doesn't seem to have a high phase out number , and you really need to take advantage of that. Generally against footslogging armies C'tan will perfrom well. There isn't much you can do against it to be fair. Try some missle launchers and hope for the best. But Ignore the monolith. You don't have the weaponary to deal with it.

[Frustrashun]

I'm mostly a Chaos marines player, but I'm in the process of building a BA army. One of the local players in the 40K scene here (although recently moved) plays 'Crons. He had a bad habit of running two or three monoliths and the Deceiver (which is actually far worse than Nightbringer - I could one-shot him with Typhus, but Deceiver can detach from assault before assault attacks are resolved, so good luck get him stuck into CC).

 

I mostly learned to ignore the monoliths and focus on forcing a phase out. The problem was I tended to run Khorne/Nurgle lists that had a hard time catching up with all the damn Destroyer hovering around. 'Crons are relatively weak in CC, but the problem is actually getting into CC with them, while you maneuver into CC range they're able to shoot you into oblivion. Template weapons work well. Plasma, battle cannons, demolisher cannons, drop enough plates on the 'Cron warriors and you'll force a phase out in no time.

 

If you're insistent on destroying the Monolith, a Furioso dread with 2x Bloodfists would work wonders, something like 4 or 5 attacks on the charge at S:10, you have a very good chance of putting some hurt on the Monolith. Of course, it's the whole getting it into range issue.

 

As for Nightbringer, you can deal with him fairly well with an assault termi squad accompanied by a librarian, this is the basic approach I use with my CSM. Any monstrous creature, I just maneuver Typhus and a squad of Nurgle termis to deal with it, Typhus works wonders with his Manreaper (poisoned force weapon, mmmmm). An Epistolary with Sanguine Sword does much the same thing, use one psychic power to activate Sword, then use the other for the force weapon when he connects with Nightbringer. Dead C'tan.

 

The main thing is it seems as though your list isn't very good at dealing with 'Crons. In my experience, you have to tailor your list specifically to deal with 'Crons, which requires lots of nasty template weapons. BA actually could deal with 'Crons fairly easily. Two outflanking BBQ Baals. Your opponent wants to have his warriors sit back and stay in cover? Fine, outflank and torch him with Baals, then run a Vindi or two up the middle with their 12" move and fire a 24" demolisher cannon shot. If that doesn't take out at least two full squads of warriors, then something is very wrong. But, again, you need a heavy mech list to do that and you have a jump list (same problem I have - I prefer assault armies over mech, and this is Tankhammer 40K now in 5th ed).

[Brother Nathan]

against crons id go vindicators, and maby a few out flanking flame strorm cannon mounted baals, then go killing warriors. and dropping a few regular furiso dreads with fists/talons near his rear guard warrior squads. realy you want to kill as much before the mono enters play and starts bringing them back and porting them round. vindicators auta do wonders they properly kil most necron units bar ctan. and thats where mephy comes in;)

[vahouth]

He read the rule and we both interpreted it the same way. I'll inform him Sanguine Sword works then. Still, if power fists 'Double the strength' I thought that would be a modification. It just seems... strange.

 

I noticed that you say you read the rule from the book.

I would suggest that you also check the Necron FAQ from the GW site, since it explains a lot.

Check page 3 for strength modifiers.

[Redo]

He read the rule and we both interpreted it the same way. I'll inform him Sanguine Sword works then. Still, if power fists 'Double the strength' I thought that would be a modification. It just seems... strange.

 

I noticed that you say you read the rule from the book.

I would suggest that you also check the Necron FAQ from the GW site, since it explains a lot.

Check page 3 for strength modifiers.

 

Exactly...

 

You should have little problems with the monolith if you attack them with Hammers and Fists. S9 usually does the job with multiple attacks in a round or two. But your best advice is to crush the warriors in CC. They do not get WWBB rolls when they fail their LD roll and are subsequently caught as they flee in a sweeping advance. They all die and are quickly reduced to a phase out.

[Drachnon]

Actually after reading the monolith living metal rule I don't see how you thought it would affect weapons and abilities that change strength. The living metal rule only mentions weapons that lower AV and attacks weapons that get additional AP dice.

But as mentioned above I would advice aiming all your attacks at the necron warriors + the lord with ressurection orb if he has one.