Haemonculus Ancient Sniper

I am tinkering with options and potential builds. Todays consideration is

Haemonculus Ancient with a Hexrifle and a.n. other piece of arcane wargear. Pop him into a unit for some cover and basically use him to snipe out independent characters in opposing units - if I can inflict a Wound on a character, then I have a fairly considerable chance of picking up a Pain Token.

Next issue I have is

1. What unit to put him in as a shield?
2. What other piece of arcane wargear and what other wargear would you suggest?

Anyone done this? Does it work? I'm actually thinking of popping him on a quad gun behind a defence line

First, I wouldn't bother making it an Ancient. A standard Haemonculus would do (I've done this before too).

The best unit to put it with is one that will soak fire, maybe some Wracks sitting on an objective?

Of the other options, I'd go for either:
Dark Gate - to truly deal with anyone who gets too close.
Vexator Mask - mostly useless, but on the off-chance it prevents someone attacking you in combat, could be worth it.

Thanks - the appeal for the Ancient is the BS 5, giving me a (slightly) better chance of hitting.

I am definately going to give it a try, might catch a few people by surprise

I've got an acothyst in my current campaign list kitted out with a hex rifle, saves points vs regular haemy who has the same BS. Just sayin'.

but if you take the haem in a unit with the acothyst, you can fire off 2 hex shots!

Guess how I'm running him now

and, as the hex rifle isn't *'d, I can take 2 haems and an acothyst!

Or if you pay 720pts, you can have SIX haemies and SIX acothysts w/hexrifles in min size wrack squads.
...not entirely sure that's worth it, unless you're going for Venom Spam.