Tools of Torment: The 11th-Edition Drukhari Pain Engine Detachment

One clause, and the direction of it is the whole point: attacks that target friendly CRONOS and TALOS units with a Strength greater than that unit's Toughness have -1 to wound rolls.

So it protects your Pain Engines against high-Strength attacks specifically. Lascannons, melta, power fists and monstrous claws all get worse. Massed small-arms fire that was already wounding on 5s or 6s gets nothing worse, because its Strength is not greater than the target's Toughness.

That direction matters because it decides what the detachment is for. A Talos with a minus to wound against heavy weapons is an objective-holder your opponent has to over-commit to shift, and the natural counter is volume rather than quality.

Read the target restriction too: it names CRONOS and TALOS units only. Your Wracks, your Haemonculus and everything else in the army get nothing from the detachment rule. The 2-DP Covenite Coterie applies the same shape of protection to every Haemonculus Covens unit, which is exactly the difference between the two.

The pack states in the rule text itself that this detachment has the COVENS tag and cannot be taken with another COVENS detachment.

Three, all 1CP, and two of them chain together.

• Salting the Wound (Fight). When a friendly CRONOS or TALOS unit is selected to fight, its attacks against a battle-shocked unit have Devastating Wounds. Note the restriction: it is the Pain Engines only, not every Coven unit.
• Dividends of Agony (Fight). When a friendly HAEMONCULUS COVENS unit destroys an enemy unit, select one visible enemy unit within 12 inches; that unit makes a battle-shock roll with -1 to the roll. This is how you manufacture the state the previous stratagem needs.
• Urgent Metamorphosis (your Movement). When a friendly HAEMONCULUS COVENS unit is selected to make a fall-back move, that move does not prevent it from declaring a charge. It is how a Pain Engine peels off a screen it has already ground down and hits something that matters.

The chain is the point: kill something with a Coven unit, spend Dividends of Agony to break a second unit at -1, then spend Salting the Wound on the Talos going into it. Each failed Battle-shock test is also a Pain token.

Two, and they cover the two things the detachment rule leaves exposed.

• Gnarlskin Experimentor (20 pts). HAEMONCULUS model only. Attacks that target this unit with a Strength greater than your unit's Toughness have -1 to wound rolls. It is the detachment rule extended to the character the detachment rule does not cover, and by extension to the unit he is leading.
• Elixir of the Corpse Courts (Upgrade) (15 pts). CRONOS or TALOS unit only. This unit has a 5+ invulnerable save. Two things to be clear about, because this enhancement is widely misreported: it is a unit upgrade on a Pain Engine, not a character relic, and the pack simply grants a 5+ invulnerable save rather than improving an existing one. The Munitorum Field Manual lists it with the Upgrade label for exactly that reason.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

Tools of Torment carries UNIQUE: COVENS, and so does Covenite Coterie, the 2-DP Coven detachment. No two detachments in your army may share a Unique Tag, so those two can never be fielded together.

The trap is the same one the other two pillars have: 1 DP + 2 DP = 3 DP is exactly a 2,000-point budget, and both detachments protect Coven units with a Strength-versus-Toughness minus to wound. Stacking them looks like the obvious way to build an unkillable anvil, and it is illegal.

The evidence is first-party: the pack prints the UNIQUE: COVENS banner above this detachment and restates the restriction inside the Darkest Artifice rule text, the Munitorum Field Manual lists the tag on both detachments, and Wahapedia agrees.

In practice you choose by scope. Tools of Torment (1 DP) protects Cronos and Talos and leaves 2 DP for something else. Covenite Coterie (2 DP) protects every Haemonculus Covens unit including your Wracks and Haemonculi, and leaves 1 DP.

• Talos is a Haemonculus Covens Monster and the melee half of the pair the rule names. It is also the natural Elixir of the Corpse Courts carrier.
• Cronos is the support half, and the other Salting the Wound target. The Talos kit builds either model, so one purchase covers both datasheets.
• Haemonculus is the only legal Gnarlskin Experimentor bearer, and the character who leads the Wracks screening your Pain Engines.
• Wracks are Battleline Haemonculus Covens infantry. They do not get the detachment rule, but they do trigger Dividends of Agony and they hold the objective your Pain Engines are defending.
• The current Combat Patrol: Drukhari is close to a ready-made core here: the warhammer.com product page lists a Haemonculus, a Cronos or Talos pair and ten Wracks.
• Raider is worth one slot even in a slow list, because Wracks on foot reach the middle of the board around turn four.

One omission to note: Grotesques are a Warhammer Legends datasheet in 11th edition. The pack reprints them in its Legends section and they do not appear in the matched-play Munitorum Field Manual list, so they are not a unit to build a matched-play Coven list around.

Take it when you own Talos and Cronos and want them to survive the heavy weapons that are aimed at them, for the smallest slice of your budget. It is also the most positionally forgiving Drukhari detachment, because its centrepieces do not evaporate the moment they are seen, which makes it a reasonable entry point for a player who finds the rest of the faction too fragile.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The rule covers two datasheets, not your army. It does nothing against massed low-Strength fire, which is the obvious counter. And a Coven core is slow, so you will want speed from your other detachment.

Sample gameplan: pair it with an untagged or non-Coven 2-DP core, ideally one that supplies reach. Give the Elixir of the Corpse Courts to the Talos you intend to park on the centre objective and Gnarlskin Experimentor to the Haemonculus leading the Wracks beside it. Push both onto the point and dare your opponent to spend a turn of anti-tank on them. In the Fight phase, kill with the Wracks, spend Dividends of Agony on the next unit along, then Salting the Wound on the Talos going in.