extruding/pushpull a large array of circles

[pleasehelp]

Hi All,
I need to design a 'stencil' of sorts - but it just needs to be an array of circles separated by a constant distance. its an array of 200 micron diameter circles separated by a distance of 500 microns each (between centers).
Its super easy to make this array, but when I try to 'pull' it into the third dimension, or extrude the array, I get an 'invalid' error. Or the highlighted objects just get 'unhighlighted' (for the lack of a better word) once i hit enter after selecting them all.
Also, I made the entire array into a 'block' of easiness.
Any help is hugely appreciated!
Thank you!
Mukul

[BIGAL]

Go the other way maybe make 1 extrude then array.