Necron codex review 1st heavy (or the most not suprising thing ever)

A Monolith is a monumental vehicle, constructed from the same living metal as all other Necron vehicles. Its role on the battlefield is transport craft, heavily armored “tank” and Necron power icon. It sows terror and destruction as it ponderously moves across the battlefield. It houses a large crystal at its centre that pulses with a sickly green light. This is the Power Matrix. When used it activates either the ordnance weapon system or the dark portal in its front section to transport Necron units into battle.

This is what we are supposed to think the Necron Monolith is doing.  It is really just sitting in storage.

Wow, now that sounds imposing doesn’t it. Sadly, this really isn’t the case. The Monolith was and is a big cool model, but it was never (more so now) that scary. It has sadly gone from iconic and almost everywhere to nowhere. Why? Well it fell under the old codex/new codex variance. This is when something is over used or crazy popular with a previous codex and then gets downgraded (and then underused) in the new codex.



Well I’ll start with the new Monolith. It is a heavy support choice, is a skimmer, has armor 14 on all facings, is BS 4, is armed with four Gauss Flux Arcs, a Particle Whip, an Eternity Gate, and has living metal. It can deep strike (and has to if kept in reserve) and is Heavy. All this stuff brings this a cost of a bicentennial in points. That seems fairly cheap for all this stuff right?

Gauss Flux Arcs- are the side guns on this thing. They are 24” S 4 AP 5 heavy 3 gauss weapons. They may fire at different targets than the other weapons.

Particle Whip- is the big scary gun as it is 24” S 8 AP 3 ordnance 1 large blast. Hooray a shorter ranged battle cannon!

Eternity Gate- allows for units to teleport into battle or is used as a weapon. As a teleporter, a Necron (non vehicle) unit can blink out of existence and walk out from the portal at the front of the Monolith. They count as disembarking from a vehicle that moved at combat speed. As weapon it has a D6” range is S X AP- and heavy 1. It basically forces all models within D6” of the portal to take a strength check. If they fail, they are removed from play. Now this is models and not entire units. It also cannot affect models without a strength value. It can also never be destroyed via vehicle damage, so I guess that is good? Seriously, who is shooting with this thing? It cannot be destryed via vehicle damage. I guess that means if the flux arcs are destroyed, the particle whip is destroyed and it is immobile....then a weapon destroyed or  additional immobilzed result will not destroy the Monolith? is that really ever going to happen? Probably a one in a million chance there.

Heavy- just means the Monolith counts as stationary when firing weapons, even if it has moved. People also think this is some cryptic 6th ed. rule thing, but it is just a rule for the Monolith. Stop chasing 6th ed.ghosts people.

Now this thing has armor 14 and that is nifty, however, in the world of 40K melta that really doesn’t matter. Sure living metal will hopefully keep stunned and shaken effects away, but it sure won’t stop a ½ range melta gun from slagging this thing.

Then there is the potential for deep strike mishaps. The Monolith is never going to get where it needs to be quickly. Thus the deep strike option is almost mandatory in games. This can help get units across the board much quicker as long as the Monolith survives the fall. This thing has a huge foot print and the potential for a deep strike mishap is pretty substantial.

Sure it can move and fire all the weapons as well…..but not really. If you fire the particle whip, which is all you are firing since it is ordnance. That or fire the four gauss blasters, I mean gauss flux arcs at a few targets. Heck you could also try the portal of gimmick to pull people into the void, but with a horrible variable range, I wouldn’t even bother.

The Monolith has gone from semi-hero to zero in a single codex release. This is not totally surprising. It happens with every new codex. What was old and popular is now either useless, over priced or has been replaced with something better. A rant for another day sorry.

Ok let’s do a quick look at the old Monolith. The first thing is that it is 35 points more expensive. It also had a living metal rule that negated all extra dice and lance weapons when rolling for damage. Yeah, it neutered melta, lances and monstrous creatures when it came to armor penetration rolls. That right there is worth the 35 points if not more. It deep struck like a drop pod only better. If it was on top of models or less 1” away, those models had to move. The Monolith landed safely. The particle whip was also a strength 9 weapon. It also could never be destroyed, since it was tied to the power matrix. It also had a fun little rule that made the center hole of the large template awesome! If the center hole landed over a model, that model had to take a S 9 AP 1 hit. That hit could not be allocated to someone else. Did this ever come into play? Sometimes it did, but not very often. The flux arcs were a random amount of shits, D6, but they shot at every unit within range ( 12” then). Yes variable shots do suck, but not when it is at every unit within range and  at strength 5! The teleport ability also gave a chance to repair Necrons that used it.

Now there were some down sides with the old Monolith. You could teleport or shoot the whip, but not both. You also had a range of 18” for teleportation. If a unit was outside of that, then they could now use that ability. The new codex Monolith has no range for teleportation. It can also teleport and shoot the particle whip I the same turn.

The old Monolith was an annoyance at best. It was never a real scary unit, well if you had brain one. You ignored it and just focused on killing Necrons for phase out. I loved the fact I could drop it in force enemy units to move, shoot some short range quasi-heavy bolters and hold/ contest an objective. That wa sback in back in the 4th ed. days. That is what I really used it for. I never really killed anything with it. This new Monolith doesn’t even seem to be able to do any of that.

The armor 14 is fun and all that, but without something to counter lances, monsters and melta, it is a giant suck fest. The flux arcs are barley an irritation. Sure the range is longer, but they only hit one unit. If they could hit every unit, then they would be fun (sure it would have to cut the range, but still). The deep strike problem is a big minus for me. Why does this not act like a drop pod or spore? Who knows, but it makes the Monolith that much more awful. Sure it is only a couple hundred points, but those can be put to use somewhere else and for something better. The Exile Portal is a tremendous joke. The Monolith kind of is now too. A shame since I like the model and have two (one all but finished, but I stopped since I abandoned my Necrons soon after 5th released).

Oh Monolith…..I’ll miss using you and lament what you have become.