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I was wondering what the Necrontyr looked like before the transference, and looking at the Triarch Praetorians, I noticed they have tails. That seems like an odd addition if they didn't originally have a tail, of course it also seems like an odd omission for the rest of the Necron. Maybe only a portion of the Necrontyr had tails, and it was a portion that didn't usually see combat, like say it was a mark of gender. One gender fought and ruled and the other gender was domestic and not heavily involved in outward facing society. The only exceptions being the mates of the triarch, who became the special executors of their will.

If their current form is any indication, I imagine they had large flat faces, barrel like torsos, and stood slightly stooped. Given their homeworlds unstable sun, they probably had skin with dark pigments, possibly even scales or chitinous plates. At a guess from the teeth, it looks like they were herbivores, which makes the flayed ones even more grotesque to the other necrons. What do you guys think?

Seems like a reasonable argument. One would imagine that a species practicing biotransferrence would make their metal bodies resemble their biological ones. It would probably make it easier for transferred minds to take control of and operate the metal bodies if they were proportioned like their old ones.

On the other hand the Necons saw their bodies as diseased prisons. You could also make an argument that they'd pick the physical form of a species they felt was more 'perfect' in a fit of self loathing.

I'd personally go with the first explanation, but it could go either way.

Alternatively, I'd suspect that if you're about to make an army of soulless warriors, you'd make them in the form of something your culture considers strong, terrifying, or martial.

If anything, the Overlords would be the best indicator of what they looked like before transference, having the luxury of taking a body without the constraints of being intended for warfare.

Any extrapolation on how they looked is kinda of moot. Did they have skin? If so, did pigmentation serve as their main form of UV defense? Why the Hell couldn't they devise a technological counter to radiation - or just live beneath the surface of their planet?
The Necron origin story has a huge load of holes. I wouldn't worry much about it.

The Necrons being a sick, dying race on a single, irradiated world is no longer their origin. They are now (in their prime) the masters of a galactic empire that puts all other space-empires to shame.

Imotekh doesn't have a tail and he's a dude.
Orikan does have a tail and he's also a dude.
So it's not a sex thing.
Given its presence in Crypteks and Praetorians I'd imagine that either there was a caste (or castes) of Necrontyr that had kept or developed tails or that the tails are symbolic and represent something like wisdom.
Maybe some combination, perhaps all Necrontyr had small vestigial tails and long ones were considered a sign of wisdom, and so smart guys and guys the Triarch think you should listen too were given long tails like Buddha statues with big earlobes.

And I don't think they were Herbivores, front facing eyes is typically a predatory adaptation, and if I recall correctly the Flayed One Lord from Fall of Damnos can remember enjoying hunting when he was still alive. There's also the time they decide to go hunting Space Marines in their own locked down Fortress Monastery, which they probably wouldn't have bothered with in they had been herbivores.

Not only did Necrons have tails back in the day they also had a second mouth completely devoted to eating farts. Fact

Ghazkuul has spoken, end thread.

Might just be a power-coupler.

Might be a comment on their perceived uber-masculinity.

Might be that they did have tails. We have no idea what a living Necrontyr looked like.

Maybe only their females had them? Maybe the Praetorians are like an elite, all-female Necrontyr combat unit.

Maybe the Cryptek designing the bodies prior to Bio-Transference was akin to Bob Ross, and just wanted to have some happy little tails, right about there?

Might just be a weird metal body thing. Destroyers didn't really exist with the necrontyr. They were fused into machine to be better weapons. The tail thing might be for stability?

Of course they had tails- any humanoid with a spine have them. We have tails, Eldar certainly have them, Tau as well, and probably even Orks do. It's just fused and stuck under the flesh.

Perhaps the tail served as a kind of weapon (not unlike the mechadendrites of the Adeptus Mechanicus) that certain warriors (the ones who would become Praetorians) had installed. A cybernetic weapon, so to speak, that attached at the base of their spine. When they transferred, their new bodies incorporated them.