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So assuming you have a haemi in your army and another HQ that is not a haemi(an archon, succubus, the baron, duke or lady mays) I was thinking this:
If you want another pain token, instead of taking another Haemi, or maybe you already have 3 and you cannot take another, take a unit of 3 Wracks.

The wracks cost 30 points and come with a pain token. You start the game with them deployed with your other HQ who then leaves and takes the token with him/her

From the old codex, a haemi cost 35 points. Now they are 50 points with a pain token, so the cost of a pain token is around 15 points. That would mean your wracks after losing their token are wasting 15 points and a troops slot.

The wracks also open up the possibility to take a venom or raider, which are great buys even if you dont have anything to ride in them.

You then have a 3 man squad of troops that you hide in cover or in a vehicle. You can even assualt with them or whatever. They have T4, so they wont suffer too bad if the transport they are in blows up.

I know a lot of people dont like running extra squads to sit on the board until late and claim objectives, but this squad is 15 points after taking into account the pain token they provided. At that cost you can run them around in cover all day and if anything shoots at them, they have wasted some firepower, if anything assaults them you are either striking first or at I4 and you have 6 attacks that hit and wound on 4+. If you find a shooting squad you can even assault them, getting 9 attacks and hopefully staying around a turn to deny that unit its shooting phase.(a lot to ask of 3 wounds with a 6+ armor save, but it might happen, especially against TAU or guard)

I wouldnt rate it as highly competitive, you might give up an extra KP or waste a few points. But I wouldnt list it as friendly only. Sometimes you just want that pain token for your scourges or hellions with the baron or some CC unit with your archon. It is fun to have 3 models that cost almost nothing running across the battlefield and seeing what you can get out of them. As troops they also just might be able to claim an objective and win the game.

hmmm... neat idea. I always run Haemonculi for the free tokens, but I hadn't ever considered running wracks (or Grotesques for that matter) for the same effect in an opposite direction. I don't know that I would ever use the wracks, though and like you said, it's not a waste of many points, but points are something I'm ALWAYS short on. I'm always trimming 9-man wych squads down to 8 and little things like that to get in under the point cap for a game. So any waste of points to me is not even considerable. There is also the fact that as a DE army, you need to be all about speed. Your army needs to be designed to strike quick and hard. It takes time to detach and reattach, and if any of that means that your unit can't move, shoot, or assult this round, then this idea has cost you more then just 15 pts. It's 15 pts + probobly rendering a unit useless for a round.

Just my 2 cents...

3 Wracks
+
Baron
+
Mandrakes
=
Shoota unit inside cover with offensive/defensive grenades

Well it could limit a squads effectiveness for the 1st turn charge, but most smart opponents are going to deploy in a way that prevents your from getting the 1st turn charge anyway. If you are giving them a vehicle you can still make it depending on how you deploy. If you are working with the baron and hellions/scourges you can charge anyway.

Wracks dont get a lot of love on this forum and I dont see why. Wyches are better but IMHO its mainly because of the unit leader and the wargear she can take. Wracks are more resistant to shooting and more effective in CC against some targets, for the same cost.

They don't get much love because they can't do anything against vehicles.

Vs Infantry
Wyches = Good
Wracks = Excellent

Vs MC
Wyches = Good
Wracks = Good

Vs Vehicles
Wyches = Good
Wracks = Poor

Wracks are excellent agains't infantry because of Liquifiers and Poisoned Weapons (which may give them rerolls).
Wyches are only good agains't infantry due to their S3 and no poisoning.

Wracks and Wyches are both good against MCs, Wyches because of their Invuln and Wracks because of Poison.

Wracks can't do anything with Rear AV11 or more, Wyches don't care about AV.

wyches are only good against vehciles if you pay for the haywire grenades.
they also only fare well against MC if you equip the leader well or take shardnets.

I think it might be nice to do that with a liquifier. The 3 wracks can wander around or hop in an extra transport. The enemy has to either deal with them or risk an AP 1 Flame Template showing up at the worst time.

@Cabbeen

You need at least 5 wracks for a Liquifier.

I think keeping them as cheap as possible is essential if you are going to strip them of their pain token.

Without the PT they are essentially ork boyz with higher I, poision weapons and no shooting attack.

The problem is, you would still need an IC to ferry the pain token to another unit. It's not like Wracks can join a squad of Wyches and leave them the token. Though the idea isn't a bad one, I don't know if it is something I would want to do.

But there's plenty of ICs to go around to do the ferrying.

The only issue with this is doing too much shuffling, and depending on doing the shuffle, creates problems with some missions and reserves tactics. Wracks are pretty neat on their own, especially with Furious Charge and being able to reroll poison assault wounds, so people shouldn't confine them to limited roles such as pain token hopping.

O I like wracks, I am just trying to find additional uses for them.

I keep thinking about taking the baron with some scouges or hellions but I always want to give them a pain token to start the game so they are harder to shoot to hell. Using a haemi that I will then leave behind on first turn seems expensive and wasteful. A loney hamei is pretty useless, even if you take a liquifier for him. It is even worse if you already have 3 haemis running around in your raiders without pain tokens

I'm a big fan of starting the game with Lelith joined to a unit of 3 Wracks, near a unit of Bloodbrides with a Haemonculus. Lelith can detach from the Wracks, attach to the Bloodbrides, then the whole unit can take off if in a Raider with two pain tokens on turn 1. You could do the same thing with an Archon and Incubi. The Wracks then hide for last turn objective claiming/contesting.

Part of the reason wracks don't get much love around here.....is because there is no wrack model.

Converting a vehicle is one thing.

Converting an entire army of models is quite another.

I agree with that completely .

I hope (fingers crossed) that when the Talos, Cronos, and Flyer models are released, those will be looked at more as well, rather than every list having 3 Ravagers.

Dashofpepper wrote:Part of the reason wracks don't get much love around here.....is because there is no wrack model.

Converting a vehicle is one thing.

Converting an entire army of models is quite another.

I actually had a much easier time converting my wracks than I did my venoms. A lot more fun and I like the end result better too.

I do this is my Wych list and find it pretty helpful. I run 4 units of Wyches in Raiders, 2 minimum sized units of Wracks in Venoms and 2 Haemonculi.

The Haemonculi start with 1 unit of Wyches (disembarked next to their Raider), turn 1 the Wyches take the token, jump in and move up 12", while the Haemonculi jumps in with the Wracks (and their Venom moves up 12" as well). Turn 2 you should be in assault range of something, so you move everything up again and have the Haemonculi jump out by himself (with the token) and join the squad of Wyches without the token. Remember that you can always conga line a couple of Wyches out the back (as in they jump out the side of the Raider) to get the Haemonculi close enough. You won't be able to Fleet the turn you do this but it not normally an issue if you pick your targets properly.

Doing this means I don't need to take a Haemonculi for every Wych unit I have, because either way they end up with one before they hit combat. This frees up a slot so I can take the Duke, an HQ with reasonable punch and a Shadowfield but mostly he makes sure I get a good Drugs roll.

The main issue of course is reserving. When going second you often don't have a choice or you get smashed turn 1. Depending on the list I'm facing (and the Drug role I guess) I either just have 2 units of Wyches go without the initial Pain Tokens and start the Haemonculi with them in the Raider, or I declare 2 units of Wyches + Haemonculi outside of their Raiders (I have a spare one as well from a Trueborn unit which had to cut 5 points) and do the same trick as I move on to the board. The second option is probably only going to work against Drop Pod/Deep Strike based lists who rely on short ranged firepower though, in most cases the reason you are reserving is because they have heaps of long ranged shooting and fluffing around near your board edge defeats the point of reserving in the first place.

Even once the Haemonculi steals the Wracks' token they are still useful. 30pts lets me take another Venom, and as a bonus they make it scoring. With 4 units of Wyches and Trueborn pushing forward (+ Ravagers) they aren't very attractive targets in most cases and it means I don't have to worry about keeping my Wyches alive/getting them back to objectives on my side of the board.

Oaka wrote:I'm a big fan of starting the game with Lelith joined to a unit of 3 Wracks, near a unit of Bloodbrides with a Haemonculus. Lelith can detach from the Wracks, attach to the Bloodbrides, then the whole unit can take off if in a Raider with two pain tokens on turn 1. You could do the same thing with an Archon and Incubi. The Wracks then hide for last turn objective claiming/contesting.

finally someone who either like my idea or has used something similar in the past.

Dashofpepper wrote:Part of the reason wracks don't get much love around here.....is because there is no wrack model.

Converting a vehicle is one thing.

Converting an entire army of models is quite another.

Fair enough. There are plenty of proxies available and converting wasn't that hard. I made ~30 of them out of Crypt Ghouls and Flagellants; didn't take that much time, really. Given that the "official" models have no ETA, were supposed to be metal, and now may be resin (*vomit*), I'm glad I did it. They are my favorite troop choice overall, particularly for MSU units. Wyches w/ Haywires are sweet, but hard to beat 5 wracks with a liquifier for a cheap, useful unit.

Skarboy wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Part of the reason wracks don't get much love around here.....is because there is no wrack model.

Converting a vehicle is one thing.

Converting an entire army of models is quite another.

Fair enough. There are plenty of proxies available and converting wasn't that hard. I made ~30 of them out of Crypt Ghouls and Flagellants; didn't take that much time, really. Given that the "official" models have no ETA, were supposed to be metal, and now may be resin (*vomit*), I'm glad I did it. They are my favorite troop choice overall, particularly for MSU units. Wyches w/ Haywires are sweet, but hard to beat 5 wracks with a liquifier for a cheap, useful unit.

I am really loving mine, they look decidedly evil. I went for flagellants with Kabalite torsos and DElf corsair arms. A few fabious bile bits here and there for special guys.