Whirlwinds

[Grey Mage]

But against gaurd, orks, nidz, and eldar I find the whirlwind is far more useful, especially against horde orks.

 

The fact that it can be S5 against marine style armies is nice, and means that its still worth the 85pts 3/5times.

 

I like them so much Im buying a couple more for a supression force.

[Cameron Magnus]

I have used my whirlwind against Eldar Tyranid and Guard everytime I play them and sometimes Tau too. In two turns it can make up its points but not just in kills.

 

My opponents send everything they have at this baddie once it starts shooting, saving my other tanks that are more important to my front line strategy.

 

I do tend to dedicate a speeder squadron or Bike squadron to bailing it out occasionaly and sometimes to no avail but the opponent either dedicates a unit to destroy it or it crushes his infantry.

 

A second one may be a good idea.

[Combo]

only one guy i know runs a whirlwind in his army and it is his only vehicle. becuase my army has a drop podded dread designed to suicide in and take out a vehicle he has never yet had the thing survive unharmed in the first turn( out of all the games ive played ive only failed to kill it first turn once, and I blew its missile launchers off so it really didnt matter much)

[Cameron Magnus]

well Combo

thats what happens when you dont support your armor.

[Miscellaneous Marine]

There are 4 reasons I run a WW.

 

1. Cheap pie plate

2. Eldar are very prominent where I play. Same with guard.

3. 3 x Vindicators is cheese.

4. it has the range and indirect fire ability to take out targets of oportunity in or behind cover.

[Joshta]

85 pt is dirt cheap!

str 5 ap 4 is Neat!

Pie plates are leet!

Indirect fire is the cheat!

 

I have more but give me a sec....

[Giga]

I keep thinking of getting a whirly or two into my regular list.

 

What keeps me from doing it is the fact my regular opponents mostly play marines, necrons and tyranids with lots of monstrous creatures.

 

The whirlies just don't seem so useful against that. :/

[waaanial00]

Well as I started this thread I figured that I would give you an update. It would appear that I was being lucky with the Whirlwind. In the one game I played against hoard it completely missed each time (damn those blue painted orks ) and it has not really taken the chunk out of MEQ that I needed it to.

 

It is being redeployed at present to recharge its batteries. It will appear at the same time as more of my group migrate to Guard. It has found its replacement in a much more impressive model (thunderfire). I hope that this lives up to the hype but I can certainly say that in my all commers list this will be right down the bottom of my list with my 3 Lascannon Predator and scout snipers.

 

Wan

[Terminus]

What's wrong with scout snipers?

[greatcrusade08]

:) Yeah seconded, whats wrong with scout snipers.... grrrrr :P

 

GC08

[waaanial00]

Dont match my style of play and have never, I repeat NEVER, killed a single enemy model in over 5 games of playing them. Ergo MY scout snipers suck and therefore are at the bottom of my to take pile. If they work for you thats cool but they dont for me

 

Wan

[greatcrusade08]

Fair enough :) , though if you believe in Karma it may be worth taking them for a couple of games in the future :P

 

GC08

[Terminus]

Unnecessary hijack.

 

If you're having problems hitting with one whirlwind, then all you have to do is bring a second. ^_^

 

Man, I wish we could bring squadrons of them.

[greatcrusade08]

oops, we seemed to hijack this thread a little, i have a discussion thread about scouts here, if anyone wants to join in.

 

Ill let the OP get back to his whirlwinds now ^_^

 

GC08

[ShinyRhino]

And here's MY update on Whirlwinds...

 

This past weekend I brought one with me for a 2000 point tourney. Against a Chaos Marine army, it was useless. I landed hits on a Noise Marine squad three times, and got one casualty total. The Noise Marines were just too hard to wound, and when I did wound them, they made their saves.

 

Against Space Marines, I kept firing out at Scout Snipers. Bombed a few, but scattered mostof the time off-target.

 

Against IG though, I think I wiped out 50% of his troops with it! The S5 AP4 combined with solid scatter rolls bombed the Guard troops into submission. I was smoking 4-6 models per volley. I felt kinda bad, since my podding Dread had distracted all his vets and his Russ Executioner for the whole game. The Dread just wouldn't die!

[Firedrake28]

Yup, just played in a tournament this weekend as well (1500 points) and my two Whirlwinds were a godsend. The two most common armies were Tau and Tyranids, so they were great for pinning units of Tau infantry and blowing huge pieces from units of Genestealers and Gaunts.

[Twin .44]

Waanial, thanks for the quote. You made my day sir :D

 

Now on to whirlwinds. I use them with two tactics. One is rain of fire, and the other is rain of irritation.

I run two of these things. i used to think they were the most useless things in the game. In my rain of Fire tactic, I hold a chapter master in the middle of the field with a rhino, a vindicator up front and the two whirlwinds a little bit behind the chapter master. This works best in table quarters against horde armies but is definitely not limited to such. doing this, In one turn I killed about 40 orks and a battlewagon. Then the tacticals came to life.

 

with Rain of Irritation I run two of Whirlybirds (preferably in some kind of cover) and two units of sternguard in a drop pod with something else in a third Drop Pod to get two down in turn one. This works pretty good in Dawn of war but this works in just about any scenario. The idea of this is to surround (preferably front and back but boxing works just as well) the enemy in guaranteed death. what this does is throw off what the enemy wants to kill. The pinning Pie Plates or the 20 crazy dudes that just dropped from the sky and makes any save damn near useless?

 

To run whirlwinds, you have to have supporting squads, or run it as a support of a squad. have three rhino's surround the WW to give it cover and drop a Pie while advancing to an objective. Don't forget, Heavy support is exactly that. Support!

[ShinyRhino]

To run whirlwinds, you have to have supporting squads, or run it as a support of a squad. have three rhino's surround the WW to give it cover and drop a Pie while advancing to an objective. Don't forget, Heavy support is exactly that. Support!

 

Exactly this. The key to using mine well recently was to treat it as "extra fire" in support of the units that were moving in. Against Guard it was Bikers and the podded Dread. Both were in little danger of annihilation from a scatter. The Dread is a small target to hit directly, and the bike were T5 so harder to wound with 3+ saves. Once you get "danger close" you can move on to another target with the Whirlwind, or drive it away to do crazy things like tank shock or contest an objective.

 

If you rely on Whirlwinds to be your main killy units, you're in for a rude surprise, especially against MEQ.

 

The three Rhino deal isn't a bad idea, though remember that you're not firing indirect if you move the Whirlwind that turn :)

[Koremu]

one thing people seem to be forgetting is that it is a barrage weapon, when the enemy takes a wound he has to take a pinning test at -1 (ordnance). Admittedly, this rarely happens against space marines or necron or anything similiar, but in one game the Whirlwind managed one wound on a necron squad of 15. They were pinned and didn't get to rapid-fire the Grey Knigt Terminators that had deep struck right next to them.

 

Another thing that people miss about the Whirlwind is that there are a lot of situations when it's perfectly valid to roll it about and use it as a straightforward assault gun. Ordnance Barrage weapons don't have to fire indirectly, and Direct Fire allows you to use your BS to reduce scatter, which with a BS of 4 is highly significant.

 

Just don't put it right out in the open where everyone can see it.

[Brother Icipher]

Like many others, I too have been a longtime fan of the Whirlwind. Personally, I think that either a Whirlwind (or a Vindicator, or Thunderfire) is almost mandatory these days due to the sheer prevalence of horde armies that are swarming about all over the place. Large templates are death to hordes, and the Whirlwind is one of the cheapest pie-plate delivery systems available. The downside is that they are pretty disappointing against anything in power armour, which is when you switch them out for a Vindi or a Thunderfire.