This Saturday I played two (quasi) back-to-back games of 40K of 1000 points in teams of 2.
The first was Chaos-Chaos vs. Necron-Necron. My Necron forces were composed of lord with orb & veil with 5 immortals, 2x10 warriors, 4 scarabs with disruptor fields, and a monolith. My teammate had essentially the same set up but opted to pick more immortals and scarabs instead of the veil. The Chaos forces consisted of several rhinos full of possessed, plague marines, a few tac squads of chaos marines, a land raider with khorne berzerkers and some terminators who would teleport in.
Set up was opposite table edges with 5 objectives scattered around a large building. Other scenery lined the edges but really did not play a part in the whole game.
Turn 1
Necrons: the monoliths edging up on either side of the board with the scarabs boosting up onto the top of the building. Immortals moved up with my monolith. We each kept a unit of warriors in reserve.
Learning point 1: Necrons in reserve must declare at the beginning of the game how they are going to arrive: monolith or table edge. IF they choose monolith AND the monolith door is blocked or the monolith is destroyed then that reserve unit will NOT arrive and is considered destroyed for phase out and victory point purposes. Table edge choices come in as normal. (source: Necron FAQ)
Shooting: my monolith landed a hit on the land raider, exciting, I rolled a penetrating hit, breath taking, I rolled a god damn 2 for damage, DAMN IT!
Learning point 2: Ordinance weapons require tanks to remain stationary to shoot. Necron monoliths ignore this rule. (source: Necron rulebook)
Learning point 3: Ordinance weapons add +1 to their damage rolls. Which would have meant weapon destroyed, which is important because tanks can only move 6 and fire one weapon or stay stationary and fire everything. (source: main rulebook)
Everything else was out of range.
Chaos: they move up. The land raider moves and takes a shot at my monolith, luckily nothing happens. One group of marines (with flamers?) assault the scarabs and wipe them out with combined flamer and regular beat-down technique.
Turn 2
Necrons: we decide to hold back with our 3 objectives and keep shooting from afar. The land raider is out of range. My teammate opens up on the marines and reduces them to a man. Being marines they don’t run for their lives (even robots take this ‘panic’ test to representing them making a tactical retreat. So does this mean space/chaos marines don’t have the wherewithal to make a tactical retreat?). My teammate pulls my warriors back through his monolith to keep them from being charged next turn.
Chaos: the rhinos move forward and the land raider opens both lascannons into my monolith and immobilize it. This is were learning point #3 would have been important because it was the second roll that the chaos player took me out. Had the weapons destroyed option happened I would have been free to float around. On the other side of the building the empty rhino moved up to essentially blockade the monolith as 6” skimmer movement is not enough to actually clear a rhino. The terminators teleport in a little ways from my monolith and immortals.
Rant point 1: why can’t skimmers end their turn on terrain pieces? It isn’t like they are LANDING on it! They are skimmers, when they end their turn they are still FLYING THROUGH THE AIR. If I want to park right over a damn building or tank or whatever, why the hell not? It would represent the flier flying over the enemy. This should apply to jet bikes too. /shrug
Turn 3
Necrons: my warriors come in and my immortals, monolith and my teammate’s immortals open up into the terminators and kill one of them. 22 BS4 S6 shots with 20 BS4 S4 shots into 6 guys and we kill 1. Sigh. My teammates monolith door is currently blocked by my warriors and he rolls for his own warriors to come in. See learning point 1. This is important because what if you have one monolith and roll for 2 warrior reserves to arrive? That would be lame if your own troops killed themselves so the FAQ states you can choose BUT at the beginning of the game. His troops come in on the table edge. We open into the rhinos with no effect. We pull back from the terminators to avoid being shot at. Remember my scarabs? They attempted to run off and pop one of the rhinos and failed.
Chaos: terminators open fire into my immortals and kill 4/5 (lord has a res orb). The land raider takes out my monolith (now 235 points of road block). By now chaos has the possessed out of the rhino and running at us. Meanwhile, on the other side of the board my warriors consolidate onto an objective while my teammate attempts to destroy things with his particle whip and misses. Scarabs get stomped, there were no survivors, we’ll play a robot dirge for them then recycle their bodies for new scarabs.
Turn 4
Necrons: ALL of my immortals get back up (because you can’t keep a good robot down). We all open fire into the possessed and terminators with a little more success this time. Monolith on the other side continues to be unable to hit anything. That rhino was the BANE of the monolith’s existence. Everything else consolidates their positions and get ready to be charged.
Chaos: terminators shoot and kill three of my immortals. Possessed charge into the warriors and my allies lord. The battle is really lackluster as he kills 2 and we kill 2. The land raider parks on top of an objective.
Turn 5
Necrons: my immortals fail to get back up this time and things look bleak for the robots: land raider on top of one objective, we have another with troops on it. Near the terminators and possessed is contested. Another near the monolith and rhino are contested. Far off on the other table edge is the last objective with that one marine from the squad that got wiped out and a rhino full of normal marines. Having no other choice I teleport my remaining 2 immortals with the lord out of combat and land them near the objective and open fire into the chaos marines and kill off a handful. Combat is lackluster again. If my unit survives we tie the game.
Chaos: combat is lackluster, chaos marines open up into my immortals and lord who miraculously fail all of their saves.
Victory chaos.
Aftermath:
Could the monolith have rammed the rhino? Without looking at the rulebook I recall you get +1 per 2” traveled, +1 for each point of armor. Rhinos are 12 on the side vs. 14 monolith moving 6” so that would be 8+D6. On a 4+ you would be penning… Then again I don’t think skimmers are allowed to ram? Food for thought really. I would have tried to fly over it and just take the damn dangerous terrain test. I mean just don’t roll a 1 and you’re fine.
I should have kept moving up and opening into that land raider with my monolith and the immortals. I have castling up in a corner. I like walking slowly forward and mowing things down with Necrons. If I get caught in combat the monolith is there to teleport me out and allow me to rapid fire right back into you. Combined with my immortals tromping along with me I think I could have glanced/penned the land raider to death and claim that objective.
That would leave the terminators but those are the bane of our existence because we tomb spyders and heavy destroyers to combat those… and nothing else. Since I never take heavies and the tomb spyders only have WS2 S10 A3 I2 I’m not hitting much and the terminators still have a 5+ invulnerable save. What do you do? In a 1000 point army I’m very reluctant to bring any of the C’Tan to the table given that they would take up 1/3 of my points. Also we have been trying to play with adeptacon rules so you get 2 troops and only 1 of everything else. Then again a 300 point C’Tan would be pretty hard to beat, even against greater demons…
4 comments:
In a 1000 pt list I would leave the C'tan at home and rely on other units to win the day for you. Don't give up hope with your Monolith!! They are still nasty for their cost. The only downside for them is their speed which I must say is definately lacking.
As far as the game went I appears that things definately didn't go your way in terms of rolling. With Necrons it seems the best way to take down your opponent is to do something akin to Tau, and focus fire all your guns on select targets to destory a single unit at a time. I think that having the Monolith lash out at the Land Raider is a decent choice, but I still think that if you were given a clump of infantry or something equivalent I would shoot those first. Land Raiders as a Nid player are actually annoying rather than scary. They are annoying in the fact that I can only kill in in Close Combat or with a Zoanthrope Warp Lance shot. The latter usually will pop it in one turn but if I fail or succeed that leaves my Zoans up for bait for the insides of the Land Raider. Try and bait your opponent to charge with his Land Raider and assault you then use your Monolith to pull your unit out and then proceed to unleash the Monolith Ordance blast over the infantry!! I have seen this tactic work to amazing effect.
With objective based games you need troop choices to capture and secure objectives. I know with Necrons this is very frustrating since you have only 1 choice for troops and they are freakin expensive! That being said however remember to focus you attacks not on his elites, or fast attack but on his troops! If you deny your opponent the ability to capture/hold objectives you deny his ability to even secure a victory. The end result will either be a victory for you or a draw at worst.
Terminators are annoying and the best solution that I have in dealing with them is to shoot them not with big guns but rather quantity of guns. It appears that you tried this but they managed to secure some amazing saves. Meh... that happens. However, sometimes I have seen a whole squad of terminators fall to the smallest of guns!! Do NOT meet them in close combat if you can!
Land Raiders also have some unique rules that are different than other tanks. They have the ability to move any distance and still fire one weapon using the onboard computer. I don't know if the Chaos have this ability as well but I think they have some form of it.
Some food for thought... I actually played a game last Wednesday too.. I will throw that report in as well.
Funny you should mention it: my fellow necron player once had his SM army against Imp Guard. His entire terminator squad was felled by massed laspistol shots.
To answer one of your questions, skimmers can ram. So you could use your monolith to ram a Rhino if you wanted. Also, I would think that you should use your Monoliths' attack on a Rhino rather than a Land Raider. For me personally, I'd rather shoot something that I know that would more than likely be destroyed.
Have you ever thought about use Heavy Destroyers to increase your mobility? In combination with your teammates Monolith it could have good synergy.
The problem with Heavy Destroyers is that they are essentially normal Destroyers with a bigger gun but only one shot. Granted it is BS4 S8 AP2 but Heavy D's generally get targeted really quickly by the enemy, are expensive, and come in units of 1-3 as a heavy choice. So in this 1000 point game where I only get one heavy, I'll be taking the monolith.
In larger games another heavy choice as heavy destroyers could be useful. I've just never had any success with them given their cost and only 3 shots (I would need 6's to open a land raider and 4's for a rhino) BUT 36" shots are pretty nice.
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