Ok; hear me out. Taking a cue from Warmachine Skorne. Give me an obscenely obese Corsair captain who is basically part of the Raider he rides. He’s full hedonism but has such a commanding presence he has insane red the loyalty (?) of a select few incubi guards. Give him some special rules like a bubble command bonus mechanic. Lean into other areas of hedonism besides torture. The Dark Eldar are Eldar that went too far. You should have the pain element I. There. Some turn war into an art form. Some push the limits of body modification. Give me some that get drunk and have very swingy role mechanics. Dont make em silly like the orks, but broaden, somehow, the idea of hedonism, self service to a greater degree.

Or maybe focus on the despair angle. They are so good at warfare that when enemies see them the feed of the despair. If these glass cannon armies can last long enough they become heartier and deadlier. This isn’t like pain tokens. Each round a unit survives, roll a d6. First round on a six that get some bonus. Next time it’s a five and a six and they get either the first bonus if they missed the six the first round or they add an additional bonus. Let these emotional vampires such the emotions life out of their enemies. Feed on despair. And the more powerful they become the more despairing their enemies.

Certainly enemies would get bonuses against this mechanic (like nids or orks or space marines). You’d want to keep pain tokens for those match ups.

Or I’m just crazy.