Editing Flayed Ones

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[[File:FlayedOne5th.jpg|250px|thumb|right|"I'm gonna show you the world, Herbert. Thank you for your face, by the way."]]

''"To those who have turned their faces away. To those who are faithless and wretched in their jealousies. To those who have denied us. To those who have denied me. I will wreak vengeance. I will wrench your souls and break your bones. I will cast hunger through your accursed existence. Down the eons, you will not forget. I will grant you this gift from love turned aside and make you like me, break you in my image as you have broken me. I shall cast the fear of myself into you and all of your kind. I am Llandu’gor. I am the hunger. I am the flayer, and from this moment, you shall be too." ''<br>--The Curse of Llandu'gor the Flayer

'''Flayed Ones''' are [[Necron]]s who go about wearing the bloody flesh of their victims. victims of the Flayer virus, a program error where they develop a desire to reclaim their flesh and blood existence [[Grimdark|by devouring the flesh of the living]] (And since they don't have any kind of digestive system, the eaten flesh just falls down through their ribcages)<br>It's the end result of the [[C'Tan]] known as Llandu'gor the Flayer, who was not sharded like the others, but completely destroyed.  Still, he had enough warning to curse the Necrons who killed him to suffer the Flayer virus as a last "fuck you;" they spread the virus to others, who spread it still further, and so on for quite some time until the other Necrons caught on.  

Flayed Ones are basically the Lepers of Necron society, feared and ostracized for their disease. Although instead of sending them to a Leper colony, the Necrons simply try to kill them to prevent the spread of infection before it fully emerges (that's disease control in [[Warhammer 40,000]] for you); the ones that don't die end up in a weird subspace dimension where they hang out with other Flayed Ones until they sense bloody battle, at which time they warp out, kill everything with a pulse, and warp back there again once they're done. The "clean" Necrons don't mind this so much as long as the Flayed Ones fuck off as soon as the battle is up.

This new lore comes from the Fifth Edition Necron [[Codex]].  In Third Edition, Flayed Ones were just close-combat specialists who liked to play dress-up with the skins of their slain foes.  The reason for this, just before the release of the 5th edition codex, was [[Grimdark|the Flayed Ones were Necrons who retained their emotions and went insane.  The causes were either being AWAKE, IMMOBILE AND ALONE during the 60 million year long great sleep or that they wanted to reclaim their old bodies and that was their warped way of doing it]].  Unfortunately, their models and their lore were not updated well  -- they went from "pray we kill you ''before'' we flay you" to "dance party."

===The Bone Kingdom of Drazak===
A nice piece of story from the 5th Edition Necron Codex tells of a legendary [[Tomb World]] named Drazak (located in the Ghoul Stars) or alternatively the Bone Kingdom. It's a world populated almost entirely by Flayed Ones, who are ruled by Valgul the Fallen, a Necron Lord who is immune to the Flayer virus. The world is devoid of living creatures, so the Flayed ones roam around fighting each other for scraps of rotten meat and bone. Every few ''months'' Valgul rises from his throne of bone and announces a Time of Bounty, where they launch fleets to raid nearby planets to collect flesh and blood of the living to sate his subject's hunger. Which leaves the questions '''a)''' Why anyone would stay on those nearby planets, '''b)''' Why nobody has preformed [[Exterminatus]] upon Drazak yet and '''c)''' Why the Flayed Ones return to Drazak instead of crusading across the stars.<br>All three questions are answered by one word: [[Grimdark]]. 

== On the tabletop ==

They used to mostly suck. They were, and still are, Elites (one of the most competitive slots in the Necron army), they have one of the few 4+ armor saves in an army of [[MEQ]]s, they could only do close combat but only have Initiative 2, they can't take transports, and they couldn't score, though they can now, thanks to 7th Edition! What they could achieve was based on their cheap price (same price as [[Necron Warrior]]s), large squad size and their ability to Deep Strike and Infiltrate; basically, you fielded them along with Warriors and [[Scarab]] Swarms if you wanted to play Necrons horde-style...

But never again will the Flayed Ones be one of the prime examples of bad design - the 7th Edition Codex is arriving, and it heralds a new time for our favourite robot lepers. While their statline remain unchanged, they now count as having two seperate melee weapons, which give them 4 Attacks instead of 3. This of course is pretty good, since their point cost are unchanged... But it doesn't stop there. Oh no. Not only were the Flayer Clawsmade seperate weapons, they gained Shred and AP 5 as well. Fuck yes. Throw ten Flayed Ones into some Guardsmen and unleash ''50'' Bolter hits with Shred. Remind your opponent to bring a handbroom to remove his mutilated hordes easily.

Maynarkh Dynasty/"Dark Harvest" supplement from Imperial Armor also fixed most of their problems their own way. They can be Troops so as not to fight for an Elites slot, being Troops gain Objective Secured, and they can buy Flensing Scarabs to reroll failed to-wound rolls for a turn.

== See Also ==
* [[Never Forget You]], a sad story about a Flayed One.

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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Necrons]]