Epic army lists are generally written with the Tournament Scenario and 2000-5000 points in mind. At larger scales or different scenarios you should always feel free to modify the list.

0-1 limits should generally be considered to be 0-1 per 5000 points, so for a 9000 point battle you should feel free to take a couple of large harvesters.

reguarding the AA issue , would making a alternate obilisk set up with AA be viable? Ie same thing in terms of stats but instead of current weapon, a 30cm AA 5+ weapon? that way it could be easily used in current formations and loss of a ground weapon balances out the AA aspect.

meh? or am I just crazy?

That's a great suggestion, except I'd suggest just adding AA5+ to the existing stat line (45cm AP4+/AT4+/AA5+) and trialling that at the existing points cost to see how it goes.

yeah, that would do quite well. i definitely dont think dropping their main-gun to take AA is a good idea. giving them a more flexible gun also allays my current "obelisks arent very good compared to monoliths" fears somewhat, and makes more sense than spyders having it.
though i do worry it will flood the skys above the crons with flak (and fearless teleporting AA is nasty)
maybe just a 6+ otherwise as it stands, my normal army list would have just got 4 free hydras

_________________
~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

I think if they ALL got it, ya maybe only 6+. that way its not totally reliable but still is there and makes the all obelisk formation look better. but I still think 30cm AA is fine, as 45 AND the regular gun at 45 is... =0 a bit much i think.

I think I'd prefer to stick with the Pylon as the source of AA and if a change is needed, give it 2 firing options (as mentioned by Matt-Shadowlord I believe).
Pylon AA4+ TK(1) or burst fire 3xAA5+

Giving Obelisks AA seems too good to me. All teleporting formations could have a built in AA defence. That seems too powerful.

I did have an interesting thought the other day though after reading The Fall of Damnos. Could Necron players use there Pylons to attack enemy Space Craft? It could absolutely ruin some Marine drop pod armies but it would reflect the fluff of Pylons and make life interesting. This is only a silly idea really as the game mechanics don't support such a thing.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

that suggestion does nothing to address my problems with the pylon

my single biggest complaint about necrons is that their 33% is under enormous pressure from expensive and vital formations.
necrons need a supreme commander, because as a mediocre SR teleport assault army, they will need to retain quite heavily at the beginning of the turn
necrons need AA fire, because their broken formations are doubly vulnerable
all options for all of these things are in points heavy (and quite breakable) formations from the war engine allottment.
pylons are incredibly vulnerable to breaking, and once broken are virtually assured to never get a shot off ever again. if they where DC3 engines (with a small price rise in the process, 225, 250 at most) and i'd be fairly happy with them. as it stands, they struggle a little against anything that can so much as put a BM on them. and why are they double-dipping on the restrictions? if they're war engines, leave them in the WE section, dont make them also take support options. or better yet, leave them as support and remove them from the WE section entirely
warbarques, who aside from having the stupidest name in the history of language, arent nearly worth one and a half baneblades. frankly, i am not sure they're worth much more than 1 baneblade, living metal or not.
and the c-tan are too darn expensive for things that tend to pop at the slightest provocation.

and yet, we're required to take some or all of these things as a matter of course, because without them we have no access to supreme commanders or anti-air

if you could make abbatoirs the supcom like you can warbarques, then that would help, but why not let a lord have the option?

and of course, a non war engine AA option would be much appreciated

_________________
~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

what he said ^^ +1 all good and need.

I think that if you did everything that Jaggedtoothgrin suggested, the Necrons would become an army that wins a lot more games than it loses.

As a background to my comments, I've played over 30 games with Necrons in the last 12 months. I absolutely do not claim to be the world's best Necron player - they are a hard army to master once your opponents figure out how to keep them away from important areas/formations.

By the nature of the army, Necrons tend to win big or lose big - there are very few draws with the undead metal zombies. I like this and I don't believe that too many changes are required to make/keep the list balanced/playable and fun (for both players).

I particularly struggled against massed air formations of Ork Fighta Bommerz (especially when the Speed Freek list was designed to beat my Necrons during a campaign game which is fair enough as I designed my list beat him ). 6 formations of Ork FB's basically guaranteed my Orb would be broken. Even so I still made a game of it and we both played a memorable game. With JTG's suggestions, I believe I would have won easily against an army that was designed to beat me.

I like some of the suggested changes and I get why some think they are necessary but I think they would make Necons unbalanced and too powerful.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

I'll be honest; Necrons are scary shit.

Now I'm by no means a great player, but I've never drawn one of the two local Necron players, let alone won. Neither has anyone else. Necrons are an army that is difficult to play correctly (Jim had a 40k 'cron army at one time, and had an advantage here; the translation went very well), but even more difficult to beat once it is played correctly.

The only change I'd reccomend would be to go back to a TK(d3) AA shot, though pushing that past Marine players is well nigh impossible. But then so is changing the predominant SM playstyle, it seems. Certainly the thought of T-Hawks being swatted down like flies would change the incentives to make Air Assault heavy armies. But I digress.

I really see no reason to increase AA cover for an already very powerful army. Keep it as a design flaw; maybe add some lighter AA to a variant list, like the Tomb World list.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

as onyx said, people tend to mass in cheap aerial units when playing agains necrons, with many litle formations and nearly no AA such an army can pin down the most important formations in the necron army denying any posibility of winning to the necron player. so i think obelisks having a 30cm 6+AA seems a good idea. not only to avoid that problem, but to make obelisks bit more appealing.

i dont think theres a real problem in necron armies with the 33% allocation rule, 3 pylons and a warbarque or a harvester and a pylon seems fine for me as long as we get some other type of non-warengine AA. but i must addmit that im a +1 that warbarque is a bit overpriced. the abbatoir should have an upgrade to SC, not only would allow to have a harvester without losing SC but could make abbatoir bit more appealing, as everybody preffers the aeonic orb without doubt.

last but not least, the destroyers are seeing no play due to their high cost, this seems the most complicated to solve problem because decreasing their cost may make them too good. at 375 points (400 with lord) they usually become the most expensive unit in the army, being only 6 stands thats giving an easy victory point to oponent. maybe at 350 points they could see more play as an infantry formation with 2 immortals and a spyder goes to 365 points. if a lord is added they will still be the most expensive unit over the infantry so players would have to decide wether they increase the infantry unit size or not use the lord on the destroyers.

What do you guys think about the following? most are things for the tomb world list (cus that's the necron list i use) so remember that when taking these into context. Just idea's so....

tomb spyder - make necron and cost 2-3 points to bring back. Makes a entire formation of them more then one use.

obelisk - AA 6+ 30cm. - see above.

Lord - staff of light- FF MW attack, War scythe - CCW MW attack. I think think it opens up some more options for the lord, or maybe even the gold lord.

Ctan - not in the list

tomb complex - first one free for tomb world list. - the list has a Strat of 1 and nothing to balance that fact out.

custodian phalanx - swarms 0-1 per tomb spyder, or at least 0-4 to add.

warrior phalanx - 2 extra warriors for 50 or 75 points.

guass pylon network - cheaper or squads of 1.

I'll comment further later, but I'm definitely not giving obelisks AA or giving tomb spyders necron

_________________
http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Tomb Spyders with Necron scare me. Not a good idea for the sake of balance. THis is simply because you can regenerate the regenerators (aside from lords, which are characters and therefore unavoidable to a degree). If you want your formation retain that ability, be more careful with what shoots you.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

bah, I think getting one tomb spyder back instead of 3(or hell even 4!) warriors back , in a formation with NO WARRIORS is fair. And you have to realize that you dont get one back for free at then end of the turn due to them costing more points to bring back then the auto one point they get at the end of the turn. Nids can do this, and they some how magically grow giant killing things in seconds! , EVERY turn!... sigh, rant off...