Exactly.  *laugh*  A double was all I could do, and it didn't make it.

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Carefully placed assaults and out-activating them should leave them with little chance bunkering against necrons. I've played several games against Pulsar where he bunkered and we realised afterwards that it ws never going to work, as I just drew out all his activations with monoliths then pounced with clippingish assaults to avoid supporting fire, and took out the onion a layer at a time.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Overwatch, overwatch, overwatch... I would suppose.

Clustered Eldar in cover are going to be hard to "clip", I would think.  Certainly you can try to hit one formation at a time and try to take them out piece-meal, but terrain and such are all going to have a say in that.

Perhaps you could post a simple battle report to show how your games play out some time?

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Certainly overwatch is their best bet, but cover works both ways. With enough monoliths it is usually possible to assault from an angle the overwatching units can't see, or if they are popped up monoliths (or an obelisk formation in a less silly/extreme list) just sustain fire at them. The necrons can affort to wait, the eldar can't.

In the games we tried out monolith spam there was no infantry on the table until the eldar were out of activations, and usually none at the end of the turn, because as you found out, with this many portals you can usually get off the board after assaulting.

The teleport placement of monoliths is key to breaking the bunker. Basically, they go behind terrain where the eldar can't sustain at them. If they decide to move to shoot, they'll need to double to get back into the bunker, and if not, they end up spread out to be dealt with once the eldar run out of activations.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Oh yeah, about the "C'tan Bomb":

If I'd been smart, I would've put the two Immortals in one Warrior Phalanx and made that my BTS instead of letting The Nightbringer be it... then I could've really used the "Bomb" with impunity.  Without that loss in Turn 2, the game would've been tied going in to Turn 4 and I think the Necrons had a good shot at taking the win.

I have no problem with the Necron criticals, but, I feel, to reflect the importance of the C'tan to the Necron command structure that, similar to the Siegemasters, any C'tan in the army should *always* count as a BTS goal target, in addition to any other more expensive formations.  That way, the "C'tan Bomb" isn't *quite* as attractive, which, in my mind, would be a good thing.

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Nice batrep.  The Eldar always seems to be better equipped to handle the Necron and my tourney list from a couple years back did exactly what Chroma suggested - I turtled up around the objectives and crushed Corey's army (losing 2-1 only when I pulled a rookie move and lost track of what turn we were on   )

I actually have never taken UNbroken Necrons off board before.  It initially struck me as an abusable power but after thinking on it I am left with the feeling that the Necron player is just letting his Monoliths hang in the breeze.  Since Necron formations count as destroyed when offboard I don't believe it is the end-all-be-all maneuver.  I'll have to tinker with that tactic on my next game to see if it can be exploited.

I would like to see this same list used against a non-Eldar army just to satisfy my curiosity.

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Not a bad idea. Whenever I've used the c'tan bomb it's never been my BTS, I always had a pimped out phalanx instead.

Oh yes, the c'tan bomb is another horribly effective way of breaking bunkers.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Placing the objectives in a triangle gives the incentive to bunker up, and in doing so the Scythe could finally become a viable choice

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

That I can definitely see... there needs to be *more* of a drawback to that than just the drop in Strategy Rating.

Zombo, could you post a "usual" Necron 3000 point list that you'd tend to use over in the Necron Dev section?

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I think you're still pushing it... *laugh*

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The Warpies had a Blast marker, there was Monolith support nearby, etc, etc...

Hey, we'd lost our C'tan, we're just tin men!  *laugh*  It was a lot of hits and a lot of failed saves... on paper, I thought my odds were decent enough to try it and that I'd get a kill or two in to, even if losing, savage the Aspect Warriors.

Straight "paper", I should've lost two and a half Warriors... ten FF4+ against Armour 4+... luck was against me.

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bunkering up can work, but you have to be very luckly, good placement of the Monoliths is the key to cracking it, the C'tan bomb is an evil way to do it as well.

we have played quite a few games with these kind of lists just to see what would happen, bunkering up puts all the pressure on the eldar player and one mistake or bad overwatch dice roll and your finished.

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Isn't that almost the case for all armies vs Necrons... regardless of "onion defence" or not?

Despite the recent losses for Necron, I'm starting to feel that the point values for Monoliths and Obelisks, especially as "upgrades" are a little off... +75 per Monolith and +50 per Obelisk might be good to examine.

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I wouldn't say it's the case for all armies. In my experience, beating Eldar with necrons is about defeating their manouverability. Some armies are better suited to the static game, e.g. guard. Overwatch fire from a mechanised or leman russ company isn't something anyone wants to face!

Objective placement is key for necrons. Against armies that excel at movement I cluster, in order to force them to bunker instead. Against more static armies I spread them out and teleport monoliths behind buildings etc to force them to move to reach objectives.

RE: the upgrade points costs - if the monolith upgrade cost any more than it does now I'd just go back to using singles, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. If the obelisk upgrade cost more I wouldn't take it at all.

I don't think the problem is the monolith costs any more, I think it's the phalanx cost. 225 is just too cheap for 6 necron warriors. The price doesn't really take portals into account.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread