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You can read everywhere that wyches are considered to be crap. The main problem about them is, that they are easily killed outside from CC and once they got into CC, they lack of punch.
I always field a squad of wyches, cause I like my models but usually they are just chaff to hide my succubus, which can actually do something.

In the fluff they are arena champions who can take on nearly everything. In the game they can just handle guardsmen and firewarriors (if they survive overwatch). So how can they be made valuable again?

I think the fact, that they are easily killed by ranged weapons is fine as it is. Dark Eldar are always ment to be the glass hammer army. But they need more punch.

What do you think about the following:

They always wound on 4+. This should represent their experience in finding the weak spots of their opponents and would make them the cc counterpart of kabalites.

For special weapons I can think of:
- shred for hydra gauntlets
- rending + concussive for Shardnet and Impaler
- rampage for razor flails

So what are your opinions?

Reduce point cost to 6 points per model and everybody would be ok with it.
Orks are 6 Points per model and are just fine with it.

Or give them some way to avoid overwatch. Their 4++ available for overwatch would help a little bit.

Or give them 2A base (again like a ork)

Or give them poisoned weapons 4+. Would help a lot as well.

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Reduce point cost to 6 points per model and everybody would be ok with it.
Orks are 6 Points per model and are just fine with it.

Or give them some way to avoid overwatch. Their 4++ available for overwatch would help a little bit.

Or give them 2A base (again like a ork)

Or give them poisoned weapons 4+. Would help a lot as well.

Well, giving them poison special rule is basically what i suggested. I think reducing them to 6 points would just make them a horde unit, which i dont find to appealing for DE. I like the glass hammer approach and we have enough horde armies (Orks, Nids, IG-Conscripts). It also doesnt match the fluff.

The 4++ for overwatch is a small helpfull buff, but i think their biggest issue is the lack of punch in CC.

They should have WS5 basic, higher for the more elite Wyches - this also scales better with the Succubus being WS 9 (?) and all her super elite and dangerous Wyches being er WS4 for "reasons"

Poison attacks works well and fits with the fluff.............Llieth is notable IIRC for "not" using it........

If you don't like the horde approach, WS5 (as already suggested) is a good thing. Also make the special weapons more usefull. -1A for enemies in base contact is always a good thing as it helps out to survive longer.
Shred, or rending would help a lot as well.

I guess 2 out of the following three: WS5, 2A base or poisoned 4+ would make them worth 10 points.

Well, the thing is, they can be WS5. Or A2. Or even S4 - "essentially wounding on 4's".

The issue is that these are all potential combat drugs.

I'd agree that WS5 is not unreasonable for 'super elite units' but you could say much the same about aspect warriors, who also top out at WS4. I'd be fine with Bloodbrides and squad leaders being WS5 base, though - at the moment their +1 attack isn't quite enough to justify not being troops.

I'd be a big fan of extending the invulnerable save to work against overwatch. More than anything else, it's losing 2 or more models on the charge in that buggers things up for wyches; Power from Pain helps a bit but not enough.

We house ruled the invuln save to work throughout the assault phase, it really does wonders for them.

I agree if the 4++ was for overwatch what would be good.

I think the razor flail should have rending

What is a wyche?

I'd settle for +3 on power from pain chart, rending and a 5+ inv all the time.

Just throwing my two cents in. This is probably a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but I like the idea of wych cult units having "fighter levels" and being able to select from "wych combat styles." Wyches would be level 0 or 1, blood brides would be one above that, and Syrens and Succubae would be one above that. For each level, you'd get to pick a combat style which would give you rules such as...

*Rending
*+1 to their dodge save, and let it work against overwatch or simply deny the enemy overwatch
*Let them benefit from two drugs at once
*Enemies in base to base get -1 attack, etc.

Simply making wych weapons more interesting and useful again might help, but I'm not sure their 5th edition incarnations would help *enough*.

Giving them poison (or something similar) makes sense to me, but I'd worry that it would be stepping on the lhameans' toes a bit. Plus, poison usually makes for a less interesting fight in the arena.