I go half & half between teleporting and deploying.  We play with hills and a Pylon has a difficult time getting a LOS anywhere from the deployment zone unless your lucky on the terrain set up.  Sometimes teleporting is the only thing that makes them worth while.

I do like keeping them back on my tomb complex though.

You bring up another good point, however: the Pylon CANNOT cover the entire board.  It is 120 directly across the board and even when you are dead center there are avenues to bring aircraft in on either side of the board (as long as they land, anyways - but these are the ones we're talking about, right?).  More often than not, because of your opponent's deployment or terrain or both you end up with something like this.

Sure, it isn't ideal, but it certainly doesn't preclude activation of your opponent's units.

Two Pylons makes it impossible to avoid the flak cover for sure.  However then you are stuck with 400 points on your back line (13% of your total) that may or may not have a shot at ground units and certainly isn't maneuvering to assist.  Add the fact that there is NO other option for countering aircraft (no interceptors, no other AA) and you are looking at a so-so situation.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

From a purely asthetic perspective, I much prefer 3 monoliths as the basic formation. Three monoliths just feels right for a monolith formation. Then those three core monoliths can have satelite obelisks orbeting as an optional extra. It gels with the whole "triple redundancy" thing of the Necrons, and it mirrors the apocalypse nightshroud formation.

My argument against changing the Pylon
I disagree with Hena that function trumps all.  The fluff defines the unit and we need to adhere to that a closely as we dare.  Obviously shooting spacecraft out of the sky would be unnecessary, but this is a monster of a weapon with a tremendous range.

I agree that three Monoliths feels better as a formation than one Monolith and two Obelisks.

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3 Monoliths definately feels better, but gamewise it's a severe crippling of the basic necron tactics. I'm not saying that's unwarranted, but it is a major hit on the flexibility of the army.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Oh come on! Only if you put it in the corner there - even then the board is effectively shut down! You mean if you put it in the worst possible position you can find it only covers over half the board? Move it even a smidge over towards the middle and you can easily cover the whole board:



That's - to all intents and purposes - the whole board! What, I can land in my deployment zone? I could deploy them there than you very much. And if you are dead center then you CAN cover literally the entire board - easily!

The range definately is a bit silly. Sometimes the fluff needs to take a back seat to balance.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

You people realize this army is no more 'broken' than the Biel-tan list was at publishing, right?  Why would you want such a radical change?  It's dumbfounding.

Three Monoliths as a core would change the Necrons completely.  It would effectively make it a different army.  I would bet Corey would never go for it and I would loathe it.  I'd be shocked if a majority of Necron players would want it.  It would also strain people's ability to field an appropriate number of models.  

On the other hand, it is common -almost standard- for the Monolith to bring 1-3 Obelisks in tow.  It solves the (perceived) popcorn problem, and still allows for three Monoliths if that is what you truly want.  It is also an incremental change.

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LI, no offense but you really don't have the experience with or against the Necrons to make make some of those statements.  I can tell you after playing with them and against them for YEARS that the Pylon is frequently circumvented - planes fly right past it's range.  Why?  Because often times the only place where it can be safely placed / have any reasonable utility is in the corner or on the edge.  The only way to cover the board the way you describe is to center your most fragile formation in your deployment zone where every enemy formation can take a pop shot at it.  If teleport it dead center the only thing you will get is a broken or destroyed Pylon on the 1st activation.

...hydra has reduced range to what it "should" have, clearly for game-balance reasons. Indeed, many wide-arc AA weapons such as those mounted on aircraft have wildly differing stats for game balance reasons. The air-game has a different set of rules.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

moscovian- i don't have a problem w/ the points the way they are for the pylon. sure they spend most of the game broken, but that's because they are a good unit and needed to be dealt with
just for the record, reread the plethora of pylons thread by chroma. all you haters should so the same. a lot of people there thinking the pylon is either weak or fine the way it is.... even you zombocom      

I'm catching up on reading this thread but a few things to say right off the bat:

1.) The Pylon.  If you don't like the stats, blame Games Workshop.  I have said it before, many, many MANY times:  it is a direct translation of it's 40k stats.  It is in no way over-powered, if anything it is UNDER powered, but I'm not going to pump it up.  It is a paper tiger, nothing more.  99% of it's power is in the psychological edge it gives you. Anyone who tells you differently has to have been amazing lucky in it's use, because in all the years I've played with it, i've shot down exactly 4 flyers.  More to the point, that is the ONLY Anti-Air the Necron army has.  If you don't like it, don't use it.  

2.) Necron's are not merely machines, but they aren't very creative or intuative.  The only fully sentient beings amongst them are the C'Tan, or a VERY few Necron Lords.  They are straight forward and brutal, but only when under the command of one of the few sentients are they adaptable in war.  That's the reason for the the variable strategy rating.

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Necron Army Champion
"Do not come whining to me because you are weaker than your enemy." - Alexander Corvinus

I was commenting purely on aesthetics. I personally find it bizarre that the formation was built with a minimum of one - you and I have even been over this together and done away with 1+ unit formations in the Inquisition list - but that's neither here nor there.

LI, no offense but you really don't have the experience with or against the Necrons to make make some of those statements.  I can tell you after playing with them and against them for YEARS that the Pylon is frequently circumvented - planes fly right past it's range.  Why?  Because often times the only place where it can be safely placed / have any reasonable utility is in the corner.

That really depends if I'm bringing thunderhawks or fighta-bommers to the table, doesn't it?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

That's a fairly weak defence there. The hydra and virtually all aircraft AA weapons diverge for balance reasons from their 40K counterparts. The TK(D3) is not necessarily a true translation of Titan-killer or Destroyer abilities in 40K (sometimes this translates as TK(1) in Epic for example). Equally, 360-degree fire is normally associated with a reduction in range in Epic, as with the hydra. Reduce the range by 30cm and make the AA shot TK(1) and you'd solve both problems I have with this unit. This might necessitate a drop in points - fine with me.

I'm not suprised you've not shot down many aircraft. My Grey Knight Thunderhawk simply wouldn't take off until that thing was dead. I could not take the risk, because the thing has an effective range of anywhere on the board I'd want to land and has about a 40% chance of shooting it down and killing everything inside.

to be honest, the changes LI proposed aren't that bad. at 90 cm range it wouldn't change much to how they are deployed/used.
that being said, i still don't think forcing someone to change play styles (think) is good enough reason to change the unit.

My opinions on the matter have changed over time.

Corey: Given the number of people complaining about the Pylon, isn't it worth considering dropping to TK(1) and 90cm, and maybe drop to 150 points? Would that really stop it representing the background? It'd still be by far the longest ranged and most powerful AA in the game. It'd make taking 2 pylons less overpowering certainly, and taking 1 less expensive for something that never does anything.

Moscovian: I'm against obligatory monoliths + obelisks because players shouldn't be forced to used non-canon units if they don't want to. That's another reason I'm against them as a core formation too.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread