Ur'un Nefer, the Flayer Lord

[BossGorestompa]

[Fluff pending]


[SIZE=2]

Name                WS  BS  S  T  W  I  A  Ld  Sv
Ur'un Nefer          4   1  4  4  1  2  3  10  4+
Flayer Dreadcastes   4   1  4  4  1  2  3  10  4+

Composition:
Ur'un Nefer
4 - 19 Flayer Dreadcastes

Unit Type:
Infantry (Character; Ur'un Nefer only)
Infantry (Flayer Dreadcastes)

Wargear:
Flayer Shard (Ur'un Nefer only)

Special Rules:
Ever-living (Ur'un Nefer only)
Rending (Ur'un Nefer only)
Fearless
Deepstrike
Infiltrate
Move Through Cover
Fleet
Reanimation Protocols

Flayer Dreadcastes
Those Flayed Ones attracted by the mighty suffering of the Flayer Lord are irrevocably driven further into insanity, their forms wracking and twisting into more horrific abominations of their former perfection. Once their gaze befalls Ur'un Nefer they are immediately damned, for they are thereafter joined in the Flayer Lords eternal battle against Llandu'gor's curse, and may never again find their way to the charnel palaces of the Flayed Ones; their only remaining absolution is utter obliteration in battle, a feat that few foes can achieve.

One unit of Flayed Ones may upgrade one model to Ur'un Nefer for +45 points. A unit including Ur'un Nefer may then be upgraded to Flayer Dreadcastes for +3 points per model. Flayer Dreadcastes gain the Fearless, Move Through Cover, and Fleet universal special rules. Additionally, when arriving from reserves, Flayer Dreadcastes may re-roll the scatter dice when arriving via deepstrike, and may re-roll the dice to determine which table edge they arrive from if arriving via outflank.

Flayer Shard
The sole fragment of the terrible C'tan, Llandu'gor, contains within the power of the very curse that Ur'un Nefer has battled for countless millennium. Upon rare moments of celerity when Ur'un Nefer released upon the battlefield, the Flayer Shard can be honed into a terrifying weapon.

The Flayer Shard counts as a Resurrection Orb. Additionally, once per battle, Ur'un Nefer may expend the energy contained within the Flayer Shard to allow his unit to re-roll any failed Reanimation Protocols rolls; however, doing so means to risk once again exposing his mind to enduring insanity. If used this way, Ur'un Nefer must pass a leadership test on 3d6 or be removed as a casualty with no saves of any kind -- the Crypteks set to oversee his mental stability are readied to teleport him into his tomb the moment he shows signs of faltering.

[jy2]

I like your character. It's good to see a character that gives you an incentive to use flayed ones. However, here are a couple of suggestions.

1) S6/T6? That's pretty high for a non-MC. Also, though you are using a destroyer lord as a base, he isn't jump infantry which makes it somewhat of a weird combo. I suggest reducing it down to S5/T5 and reducing the cost.

2) Cost. He is too pricey while providing only modest benefits to the army. I don't see him being used much, especially at that price. I recommend you lower it to maybe 145-150pts. Thus can be justified by reducing S & T to 5.

3) Flayer Dreadcastes are too expensive. There wasn't really an incentive to use flayed ones originally, and now at these inflated prices, I still don't see a reason to really use them. I would charge no more than +4 or +5pts for the Dreadcaste upgraded.

4) Finally, after all I've said, there still isn't much incentive to use your HQ or flayed ones. I would give this little special rule to make him more "attractive".

The Flayer Lord: In a Necron army with Ur'un Nefer, Flayed Ones or Flayer Dreadcastes can be taken as troop choices (or 1 unit of Flayed Ones/Flayer Dreadcastes can be taken as a troop choice).

[BossGorestompa]

I concur he is over-costed, but it was a fate I felt better about than turning the Dreadcaste into under-costed Samurai. I've been thinking on this and ways to balance them while remaining cost-effective, and am planning an update before the end of this contest.

My initial thought was, the cost of the Dreadcastes themselves encourage running a unit of 5-10, and at the cost of a unit of Deathmarks, they seemed to be a fair price for Move Through Cover, Fleet, and Samurai-esque combat abilities on top of preexisting FO goodness. What I neglected to consider (until after I posted) was including the cost of the character as well.. which pushes the unit a bit too far to be worth fielding. The incentive was to run a small-ish unit that could move quickly through terrain and reach their prey unmolested, and then quickly dispatch all but the toughest of opponents.

S/T 6 was the original statline I arbitrarily wrote down, I thought I did change both to 5. I initially used a DLord as base, then moved to a Flayed One as base, and apparently only partially adjusted the statline :3

One consideration that I am leaning towards is including Ur'un Nefer as an upgrade character (with the exact statline of FO), rather than an HQ. As an HQ I could make him nearly free to play, and not increase the cost of the Dreadcaste at all, and he would still be undesirable because he does not unlock a Royal Court. Other considerations were to allow re-rolls for both outflanking (incoming table edge) and deep strike (scatter dice). On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I don't necessarily want a tonne of special rules pinned on these guys, so perhaps a simple but eloquent change could be devised instead....

More on this later, hopefully I'll be back to make some changes today. Thanks for the feedback!

[Alaros]

if he is meant to go with the dreadcastes, and they have move through cover, shouldnt he have it as well? doesnt the whole unit need to have the rule to use it?

[Spittle72]

if he is meant to go with the dreadcastes, and they have move through cover, shouldnt he have it as well? doesnt the whole unit need to have the rule to use it?

All Independent Characters have the move through cover and skilled rider special rules.

[BossGorestompa]

Updated, and I think much more appealing.

I replaced the unit's ability to ignore casualties until combat resolution (which was quite broken given the way it was worded) with Fearless. I think this will help to compensate for the unit's low initiative score by preventing them from breaking in combat until utterly defeated. Second to this, I changed Ur'un Nefer to an upgrade character, meaning the benefit of his Resurrection Orb cannot be removed by singling him out in combat.. a very nice way to mitigate further losses due to being being Fearless! Finally, I included all of the above incentives for fielding the unit -- special rules that make them overall more mobile, both whilst arriving from reserves and moving about the tabletop normally. Their price, I think, adequately represents their benefits without making them undesirable.