Whirlwind tactics

[deity12]

In my opinion whirlwinds are the most underrated tank in 40k.

sure, they are useless against MEQ's, but against most other armies they are worth their points several times over:

Tau: large blast barrage killng fire warriors on 2+ with no save, yes please!

Tyranids: Gaunts are sooo painful in large numbers, killing on 2+ and let me share a story:

24 hormagaunts (out of synapse) with ridiculous upgrades come out from reserve, 1 whirlwind blast kills 14, pins them and makes them run off the board, yay!

Orks: boys are ridiulou and very hard to kill in large numbers, whirlwhind does that and ard' boys, NO SAVE!

Eldar: eldar are primary targets for the whirlwind because it denies most saves and wounds on 2+ ever had stupis guardians or rangers (grrr) hiding in cover, claiming an objective and due to say 2+ cover if the rangers go to ground they are just about impossible to kill, fire the whirlwind shot which ignores cover and BANG most are dead within the first go at them.

Dark Eldar: just about the same as eldar except they are even more fragile.

And, the whirlwind had 24 inch range and barrage so there will be no hiding from it. Most opponents willl totally ignore the whirlwind because its only 85pts and by the time they realise how dangerous it is it will be to late, and furthermore it is pinning so it can slow enemies down. oh, i forgot guard but thats obvious since their troops are so fragile and have such poor morale.

 

Does anybody have and opinions or experiences with the whirlwind they would like to share?

[Jackelope King]

In my opinion whirlwinds are the most underrated tank in 40k.

sure, they are useless against MEQ's, but against most other armies they are worth their points several times over:

Tau: large blast barrage killng fire warriors on 2+ with no save, yes please!

Tyranids: Gaunts are sooo painful in large numbers, killing on 2+ and let me share a story:

24 hormagaunts (out of synapse) with ridiculous upgrades come out from reserve, 1 whirlwind blast kills 14, pins them and makes them run off the board, yay!

Orks: boys are ridiulou and very hard to kill in large numbers, whirlwhind does that and ard' boys, NO SAVE!

Eldar: eldar are primary targets for the whirlwind because it denies most saves and wounds on 2+ ever had stupis guardians or rangers (grrr) hiding in cover, claiming an objective and due to say 2+ cover if the rangers go to ground they are just about impossible to kill, fire the whirlwind shot which ignores cover and BANG most are dead within the first go at them.

Dark Eldar: just about the same as eldar except they are even more fragile.

And, the whirlwind had 24 inch range and barrage so there will be no hiding from it. Most opponents willl totally ignore the whirlwind because its only 85pts and by the time they realise how dangerous it is it will be to late, and furthermore it is pinning so it can slow enemies down. oh, i forgot guard but thats obvious since their troops are so fragile and have such poor morale.

 

Does anybody have and opinions or experiences with the whirlwind they would like to share?

A pie-plate with weak damage and awful AP. This is what passes for ordinance in Codex: Space Marines. Yeah, the range is nice, and indirect fire is nice too (so the thing'll probably survive for plenty of turns to shoot). But it's only one shot per turn, and one weapon (so glancing hits can neuter it, and it's only AV11). The ability to ignore cover with the alternate-fire mode is nice, but do you really think you can get enough models under that plate to make up for only having one shot? Especially when it's basically just a giant Bolter hit at S4AP5 (when ignoring cover)? I'll usually take a pass on this thing, but I'd recommend it over a Thunderfire.

 

As an aside, to fix this tank, I'd bump the points up by 5 and make the Whirlwind Ordinance 2. Double the number of potential hits per turn and this thing starts to look attractive. As is, I'd pretty much always rather have a Dakka Predator for the same price. More shots, duality against armor.

[deity12]

true, it is weak, but theis a S5 AP4 is very effective against horde/footslugger armies who tend to just run up screaming WAAGH and all the rest. i have had nothing but good experiences with the whirlwind, but thats probably because i play lots of orks and roll well with it. there are many different opinions on the whirlwind and i have a positive one, but it doesn't work so well with some people at all. but against eldar it is AWESOME, but there is no way you can possibly guarantee you will be playing an army like that. but pinning is nice because no other marine units have it(and you must take the pinning at -1 modifier because it is barrage).

i personally think its on par with dakka predator.

[spartan249]

It's simply way too weak to be a serious consideration in a 1500+ point game. Hell, I'd venture 1000+ games. I'd rather have some land speeders than a whirlwind, and save my heavy support slots for dreadnoughts or a raider.

[Mysticaria]

Yeah, I can't get onboard with this. The play environment is heavy with 3+ saves, and this a waste of points in that environment. Also, as a nid player, I never ever feared a whirlwhind. I was actually happy to see them, because they weren't a real threat and they just stayed away from the battle killing a couple gaunts now and then. Can't see one ever earning its point back, let alone changing the tide of battle.

 

-Myst

[Grey Mage]

Awful AP? AP4 is far from awful. Despite the large number of marine armies out there AP4 is fairly respectable- the OP listed a long list of things itll kill.

 

And as for ignoring cover- sometimes thats alot better than AP. Knocking down scouts from a 2++ to a 4+ helps move the unit quite a bit.

 

More shots? No, I think not. The shots on a dakka predator are limited by two things- its ballistic skill and the actual number of shots it fires. A whirlwind can easily get 16 shots against a bottlenecked or tank shocked infantry unit- as opposed to the maxed out 8 of a predator.

 

Against vehicles- well it always hits side armor, wich is generally weaker, and it always gets 2d6 pick the highest to penetrate. Ive taken out alot of Chimeras and Trukks with this tank.

 

And lets not ignore the value of an indirect fire- hitting troops 'safely' out of sight on the other side of a massive building is quite useful, and saves you several turns of hunting them down. Its won me tournaments by taking out that objective camping squad behind the large terrain peice in the back.

 

And of course, theres cost-benefit analysis. Against a tactical squad youll likely get 6-7 hits, wound 3-4 times, and kill a marine, maybe two, each turn you do so. Kill 6 marines over the course of a standard 6 turn game and youve made back your points in kills. Pin them once and you might change the face of your game. Devastate a single squad of fire warriors turn one and youve probly done both.

 

But hey, I love the fact that my Whirlwind(s) are so under appreciated. Why? Because then itll be as unexpected as the napalm thats burning through their troops.

 

Want to talk about an Awful unit? How about that bog standard Dakka Predator with its large gaping lack of mobile firepower, crappy side armor and desperate need to expose itself to enemy fire in order to function in the least. Now theres a waste of 85pts.

[Hellios]

I would also like to point on if you play on a 6 by 4 uf you can hide the Whirlwinf behiund say a building on the other side of your deployment from where the rest of the army is it can pretty much do what it wants without worry... unless the walk over to it, deepstrike or flank next to it... if they do any of these things they now have at least one unit that is most likely out of range of doing anything for a while... unless it is something like Mawloc, swooping hawks that can go back into reserves or something really fast like a valkyrie or vendetta.

 

Also as long as you can get 5 turns of shooting against a squad on foot (a bit of an iff) even against MEQ you will most likely make your points back... against certain armies you will make a killing... now I'm not saying this is the only way to do it or there are not other units that can do this and might normally be better rounded... but you know that Eldar player who takes 2 10 man squads of pathfinders who sit in bushes with a 2+ cover save... Well thats 500pts right there about to go up in flames if you have a whirlwind and use the shells that ignore cover.

 

I think the key to whirlwinds is you need a board with good cover to put them in.

[The Wunup Kid]

It's not that they're useless...it's that they're heavy support in an army where competition for those 3 slots is already fierce. Yes, whirlwinds are good, even great against non-MEQ. But so are dakka preds, which cost the same number of points, take the same force org slot, are more durable and a heck of a lot more versatile. Even against hordes, the dakka pred will average 5-6 hits if it doesn't move, which is plenty effective, and is a threat to MCs and light armor. The whirlwind just can't compete.

 

My solution: make the force org choice into a Whirlwind Battery, consisting of 1-3 of them.

[Jackelope King]

Grey Mage, I'm sorry, but a lot of this analysis is misleading. I'm not trying to attack you here, so please don't read it like that. I think you're overstating the case by quite a bit.

 

Awful AP? AP4 is far from awful. Despite the large number of marine armies out there AP4 is fairly respectable- the OP listed a long list of things itll kill.

Yeah, Dakka Predators do that too, in addition to popping light vehicles and still threatening MCs.Despite what you say below, a Whirlwind is ineffective at either of those things.

 

And as for ignoring cover- sometimes thats alot better than AP. Knocking down scouts from a 2++ to a 4+ helps move the unit quite a bit.

I acknowledged that. This is a nice feature of the Whirlwind, which I didn't discount in my analysis. That said, it's not quite enough to make it more generally useful than a tank like a Dakka Predator.

 

More shots? No, I think not. The shots on a dakka predator are limited by two things- its ballistic skill and the actual number of shots it fires. A whirlwind can easily get 16 shots against a bottlenecked or tank shocked infantry unit- as opposed to the maxed out 8 of a predator.

 

...

 

And of course, theres cost-benefit analysis. Against a tactical squad youll likely get 6-7 hits, wound 3-4 times, and kill a marine, maybe two, each turn you do so. Kill 6 marines over the course of a standard 6 turn game and youve made back your points in kills. Pin them once and you might change the face of your game. Devastate a single squad of fire warriors turn one and youve probly done both.

Basic arithmetic: a Whirlwind Multiple Missile Launcher is Ordinance 1. A Dakka Predator has a Heavy 2 Autocannon + a Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter + a Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter. 8 > 1.

 

But I do understand what you're trying to say: that there are situations when you plop down the pie plate and hit 16 models because you were able to take advantage of an uncommon occurrence (supremely clumped enemy models). Sure. My mech list does that too: there's a reason I've swapped back from giving my Tactical Squads in Rhinos Meltaguns to Flamers. Tank shock + flamer template = reliable means of generating many wounds, much cheaper than a Whirlwind.

 

And all those units mentioned above are more likely to suffer more wounds from a round of Predator shooting than from a round of Whirlwind shooting, with the acknowledged exception of when they're clustered tight and especially when clustered tight in cover.

 

As for "making its points back", that's for a whole 'nother thread, but that's really a bad way to rate a unit's contribution to the game, and a relic that I don't think benefits play in the 5th Edition environment.

 

Finally, as an aside, what in the world are Fire Warriors doing outside of a Devilfish transport?! Except at very low points-values, Fire Warriors in a Tau Army sit in a transport and sip Taubrau for the duration of a battle, leaving the killing to Crisis Suits and tanks. Shoot the Whirlwind at the Kroot and never look back! I swear, some Tau players give the rest of us Tau players a bad name :P

 

Against vehicles- well it always hits side armor, wich is generally weaker, and it always gets 2d6 pick the highest to penetrate. Ive taken out alot of Chimeras and Trukks with this tank.

You're wrong on 3 counts there, Grey Mage.

1. Blast weapons resolve not against side armor, but on the armor facing the center of the marker is closest to, not side armor. (Main rules, p60)

2. Even firing the S5 shells, and hoping for a lucky scatter to rear armor, your odds of killing an enemy tank in a single shot are painfully low. 90% of the time, you will not "take out" the tank. Against Open Topped vehicles, your odds of failure drop to only 85%.

3. Further, if your blast template deviates off of the tank hull (and with an average deviation of roughly 2.33", that's pretty likely), you're hitting at Strength 2, and you can't even scratch the paint on a vehicle.

 

Thus a whirlwind is really suboptimal for popping even light vehicles. You need a lot of luck to be successful at using it as your anti-tank. I mean, I've killed Daemon Princes in the shooting phase with Kroot, but I certainly don't go around advocating for them to be the shooty unit from hell. One completed Hail Mary pass does not a viable strategy make. By the way, an Autocannon in with the same luck in the shooting phase against an ork trukk fails to kill the trukk only 56% of the time, as a point of comparison.

 

And lets not ignore the value of an indirect fire- hitting troops 'safely' out of sight on the other side of a massive building is quite useful, and saves you several turns of hunting them down. Its won me tournaments by taking out that objective camping squad behind the large terrain peice in the back.

I acknowledged the goodness of Indirect Fire mode that all barrage weapons share. It significantly increases the durability of the vehicle. That said, you're still looking at an average scatter distance of 5" on any given shot, which makes it pretty hard to reliably reproduce those results. Again, this is a Hail Mary pass. Far less so than somehow killing an enemy tank with a Whirlwind (I don't know what sacrifice you made to the dice gods that day...), but still not a very reliable means of doing so.

[Mysticaria]

My problem is not the competition vs dakkapredators, combi-predators, or devastators. My problem is that it competes with vindicators. Once you have to start thinking about cutting vindicators, it becomes a really tough sell.

 

I suppose if you built an army around hiding and staying out the way, the whirlwind has a place, but honestly it still feels really underwhelming. Part of the reason I include heavy tanks in my army is so that they will draw fire away from the rhinos. Whirlwinds can't do that if they are hiding in the back. They can't provide cover to a rhino, or even be scary enough to draw fire from anything else. Yeah, it might be able to kill a few targets, but the vindicator kills more, provides cover, draws fire, and is only 30 points more.

 

That said, I am a big fan of using underrated units. I typically champion a couple of ideas on B&C that are considered "weak" by most, so I think I know how you feel when you are saying something is good and common opinion is the opposite. I'm interested to hear any ideas on this unit that are out there, and might even try it out a few times to see if maybe I've been a little too harsh in my interpretation.

 

Technical Question: How are you guys assuming 6 hits per game? Seems to me you would have only 2-3 hits per game. You only get 5-7 turns in a game, and even then only 1/3rd of those are going to hit. Doesn't indirect fire scatter? Are you accounting for that? Oh yeah, and when you play against marines and they are all meched up, what do you shoot at for the first 2 turns? How do you earn points back when you only have ~2turns of shooting at things in the open? Seems like the marines would be in transports or would be in assault, thereby ducking shooting.

 

-Myst

[Hellios]

Grey Mage, I'm sorry, but a lot of this analysis is misleading. I'm not trying to attack you here, so please don't read it like that. I think you're overstating the case by quite a bit.

 

Awful AP? AP4 is far from awful. Despite the large number of marine armies out there AP4 is fairly respectable- the OP listed a long list of things itll kill.

Yeah, Dakka Predators do that too, in addition to popping light vehicles and still threatening MCs.Despite what you say below, a Whirlwind is ineffective at either of those things.

 

[

 

Hey I thought you advocated not taking power fists?... for that just in case... so why are you advocating the pred for MCs and light vehicles if you are taking it for an anti-infantry role... which lets face it is the main role of a whirlwind... anything else is a case of no better targets... If you have built and using the rest of your list correctly...you don't need the Whirlwind/Pred to do that... I mean my long fangs catch scratch a land raider... and in theory I could take a lascannon or two to help with heavy armour.. heavy infantry and MCs... but that isn't what my long fangs do... (and with split fire they could do multiple roles at once) I have other units for busting raiders...

 

It isn't that your points are invalid but that it depends on how you play... Hell I have the inferior DA Whirlwind in my greenwing list and it makes its points back no problem... I guess you have two issues you need to worry about... What are you fighting... and how do you keep it alive... Keeping a Whirlwind alive is the hard part and has a lot do with terrain although on a small board and against fast armies you will be in trouble (but so will that pred)... ideally it wants to sit out of LoS... now its abillioty to survive and the amount of firepower it can put out is probably better than a pred... which to work will most likely be in LoS and suffering shaken results if not worse... my whirlwind probably won't even be shot at for at least two turns if not longer if I have the cover...

 

Then you have the army... meq isn't that great for you... but with enough turns of shooting you will make your points back (and I use points because if everything in your army is making its points back (and it doesn't need to be by kills) then you will be winning or drawing games...) However as long as you have a list that can break open a good number of transports on the first two turns... you have something to shell and hit enough marines... you will kill them just like bolter fire will... you say flamers are better in your rhinos... but not if I pop your rhinos turn 1 and leave them stuck on your side of the board... then what will those flamers and multi-meltas do?

 

Now I'm not saying you are wrong... but unless you win every game you play and those games include big tournys such as GTs... I'm not sure GM is wrong... I think a lot of it has to do with your play style and your whole list... and like I said the board also matters... Whirlwinds are better on bigger boards (6 by 4) and when you have an approriate amount of terrain... if you are on a 4 by 4 with three trees and a really small hill... then yes that Whirlwind will suck... in the same way a leman russ is far better than a manticore stuck in the open on a 4 by 4.

[chaplain belisarius]

they were fantastic back in 2nd edition (along with the cyclone missile launcher!) but now they are ok...but there are nicer things to get as heavy support in my opinion (but they are very cheap!)

[thade]

I'm with Grey Mage. I occasionally field WWs as they're kind of like a very long ranged heavy flamer that I can completely hide behind hard cover. It's 90 points of "Hey, here's four to six wounds on your MEQ squad that you need to save for." Can a Dakka Predator do better? Sure, in a vacuum. But how about on a table with a LOT of LOS-blocking buildings? Now your Dakka has to pick which of my units it offers support fire. My WW can offer support fire to virtually any of my units. My Tac squad across the board needs a little more fire power? Here comes the artillery.

 

Don't discount things because vacuum-powered Mathhammer says something else is better. There is a distinct difference between how good a model looks on paper and how well a model performs on any given table. And if you haven't fielded a list with three WWs in it yet, proxy one this week and see how ridiculously fun it can be. Pinning checks for my targets at -1? Yes, please.

[Jackelope King]

for that just in case... so why are you advocating the pred for MCs and light vehicles if you are taking it for an anti-infantry role...

Duality. A Dakka Predator can threaten light vehicles thanks to range, decent strength, and rate of fire. A Dakka Predator can threaten MCs with volume of wounds. A Dakka Predator can threaten infantry with volume of wounds.

 

A whirlwind threatens infantry. Full stop.

[Grey Mage]

Grey Mage, I'm sorry, but a lot of this analysis is misleading. I'm not trying to attack you here, so please don't read it like that. I think you're overstating the case by quite a bit.

 

Awful AP? AP4 is far from awful. Despite the large number of marine armies out there AP4 is fairly respectable- the OP listed a long list of things itll kill.

Yeah, Dakka Predators do that too, in addition to popping light vehicles and still threatening MCs.Despite what you say below, a Whirlwind is ineffective at either of those things.

This is true- it is worse against light vehicles and monstrous creatures- but light vehicles are still an option, and MCs are never alone.

 

But dont worry, I understand- we just have different veiws on the matter.

 

And as for ignoring cover- sometimes thats alot better than AP. Knocking down scouts from a 2++ to a 4+ helps move the unit quite a bit.

I acknowledged that. This is a nice feature of the Whirlwind, which I didn't discount in my analysis. That said, it's not quite enough to make it more generally useful than a tank like a Dakka Predator.

Thats determined by your metagame- perhaps its more useful in my area because of the larger than normal numbers of xenos players.

 

More shots? No, I think not. The shots on a dakka predator are limited by two things- its ballistic skill and the actual number of shots it fires. A whirlwind can easily get 16 shots against a bottlenecked or tank shocked infantry unit- as opposed to the maxed out 8 of a predator.

 

...

 

And of course, theres cost-benefit analysis. Against a tactical squad youll likely get 6-7 hits, wound 3-4 times, and kill a marine, maybe two, each turn you do so. Kill 6 marines over the course of a standard 6 turn game and youve made back your points in kills. Pin them once and you might change the face of your game. Devastate a single squad of fire warriors turn one and youve probly done both.

Basic arithmetic: a Whirlwind Multiple Missile Launcher is Ordinance 1. A Dakka Predator has a Heavy 2 Autocannon + a Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter + a Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter. 8 > 1.

 

But I do understand what you're trying to say: that there are situations when you plop down the pie plate and hit 16 models because you were able to take advantage of an uncommon occurrence (supremely clumped enemy models). Sure. My mech list does that too: there's a reason I've swapped back from giving my Tactical Squads in Rhinos Meltaguns to Flamers. Tank shock + flamer template = reliable means of generating many wounds, much cheaper than a Whirlwind.

It is however not uncommon to get 6 or 7 hits with a whirlwind- particularly because of 5th eds auto-partials. 16 is an extreme case, your right, showing the potential. An average salvo from a dakkapred will get you 4 heavy bolter hits and 1 autocannon- an average of five. The difference in wounding against many opponents is nonexistant- 2+ for any of those weapons- and against MEQ its one better to wound on one hit, at most 2. I think that the larger number of hits makes up for that slightly better chance of wounding in some situations.

 

And all those units mentioned above are more likely to suffer more wounds from a round of Predator shooting than from a round of Whirlwind shooting, with the acknowledged exception of when they're clustered tight and especially when clustered tight in cover.

 

As for "making its points back", that's for a whole 'nother thread, but that's really a bad way to rate a unit's contribution to the game, and a relic that I don't think benefits play in the 5th Edition environment.

 

Finally, as an aside, what in the world are Fire Warriors doing outside of a Devilfish transport?! Except at very low points-values, Fire Warriors in a Tau Army sit in a transport and sip Taubrau for the duration of a battle, leaving the killing to Crisis Suits and tanks. Shoot the Whirlwind at the Kroot and never look back! I swear, some Tau players give the rest of us Tau players a bad name :tu:

All I can say is- I disagree. Ive shown above that with the number of hits I tend to see against most opponents were looking at about as many hits as a predator is potentialy capable of hitting- and for a pred a third of those will likely miss. More hits means more chances to wound, and again... thats without even looking at pinning.

 

Also, points values may not be as important as they were in the last two editions but there are places it pops up- many places use them for determining the winner in ties for example- and its not an unfair comparison to make.

 

And to your aside- the Tau players in my area are split on their opinions of devilfish. Many believe that the devilfish is sooo expensive for what it can do offensively that they can get a third full squad of fire warriors for its price who will actually contribute to the game. As for kroot- the one guy who used kroot extensively hasnt been to tournie in a long, long time as they simply died to everything, and usually before being effective in any way.

 

Against vehicles- well it always hits side armor, wich is generally weaker, and it always gets 2d6 pick the highest to penetrate. Ive taken out alot of Chimeras and Trukks with this tank.

You're wrong on 3 counts there, Grey Mage.

1. Blast weapons resolve not against side armor, but on the armor facing the center of the marker is closest to, not side armor. (Main rules, p60)

2. Even firing the S5 shells, and hoping for a lucky scatter to rear armor, your odds of killing an enemy tank in a single shot are painfully low. 90% of the time, you will not "take out" the tank. Against Open Topped vehicles, your odds of failure drop to only 85%.

3. Further, if your blast template deviates off of the tank hull (and with an average deviation of roughly 2.33", that's pretty likely), you're hitting at Strength 2, and you can't even scratch the paint on a vehicle.

 

Thus a whirlwind is really suboptimal for popping even light vehicles. You need a lot of luck to be successful at using it as your anti-tank. I mean, I've killed Daemon Princes in the shooting phase with Kroot, but I certainly don't go around advocating for them to be the shooty unit from hell. One completed Hail Mary pass does not a viable strategy make. By the way, an Autocannon in with the same luck in the shooting phase against an ork trukk fails to kill the trukk only 56% of the time, as a point of comparison.

1) Pg. 60 specificly states that ordnance barrage hits side armor, always, to represent the top armor value.

2) Against a predator for example this means the chances of glancing the predator are actually in favor of the whirlwind- 2d6 pick the highest for a 6 versus AV 11 as opposed to 1d6 to get a 6 vs AV 13- though the potential for two hits from the predator balances that out somewhat.

3) Thats less 'average' than youd think. 1/3 shots will automatically hit no matter what the dice rolls are. If you can see the target the average scatter overall *including hits* is 2" and depending on placement, target size, etc thats fairly reliable. Shots on vehicles out of sight tend to be by accident for me *as Ill aim at some orks and hit the nearby truck on occaision* and I value that the shot isnt wasted in such occaisions.

 

And lets not ignore the value of an indirect fire- hitting troops 'safely' out of sight on the other side of a massive building is quite useful, and saves you several turns of hunting them down. Its won me tournaments by taking out that objective camping squad behind the large terrain peice in the back.

I acknowledged the goodness of Indirect Fire mode that all barrage weapons share. It significantly increases the durability of the vehicle. That said, you're still looking at an average scatter distance of 5" on any given shot, which makes it pretty hard to reliably reproduce those results. Again, this is a Hail Mary pass. Far less so than somehow killing an enemy tank with a Whirlwind (I don't know what sacrifice you made to the dice gods that day...), but still not a very reliable means of doing so.

Im not a snackrifical person JK, its something that happens on a regular basis for me. I wouldnt come and post up advice to people saying 'hey, this happens one game in 20!". I do like to point out theres a difference between potential and average that many overlook, but with the whirlwind thats not what Im saying at all. What Im saying is in the game I play it regularly and reliably makes a large difference in how the game goes that is well above the points I paid for it.

 

Example- against gaurd today it wiped out 14 veterans from two different squads, one entire 10 man gaurd squad, and pinned another while slaying 4 members *who took cover saves because I forgot to declare the shot*. Against Daemons it claimed 23 Daemonettes, wounded two seekers of slaanesh, and kill four of the ridden seekers. In both cases I found its efforts to be exemplary, and its a preformance that Ive grown used to.

 

There are days where I cant hit anything with it, and that sucks. And on those days perhaps I would have done better with a dakkapred- perhaps not. But most games, most weekends, I wouldnt trade that whirlwind for a standard landraider. Maybe a crusader though....

 

Technical Question: How are you guys assuming 6 hits per game? Seems to me you would have only 2-3 hits per game. You only get 5-7 turns in a game, and even then only 1/3rd of those are going to hit. Doesn't indirect fire scatter? Are you accounting for that? Oh yeah, and when you play against marines and they are all meched up, what do you shoot at for the first 2 turns? How do you earn points back when you only have ~2turns of shooting at things in the open? Seems like the marines would be in transports or would be in assault, thereby ducking shooting.

 

-Myst

Because of a few things:

1) Most armies will have some form of unit that is not a in a transport- such as devastators- and/or their transport will be damageable by the WW- such as rhinos, trukks, and chimera. Of course, theres other targets too- landspeeder squadrons and vypers are not uncommon.

 

2) Yes, it scatters. The question is how much does that matter? If you fire at it scatters but remains enough on the target to get 6 hits... has that negatively impacted you in a significant way? What if it scatters onto another squad? Or actually increases the number of hits?

 

3) And I have to ask- Are the players in your area some sort of gods that they never, ever, get shot at with their marines? What do you mean thell always be in transports or assault?

 

4) And of course, units whos transport was forcibly removed from them are almost always nicely clumped- pop a transport with your typhoon, smash the squad with your whirlwind. If you want to be an effective player then you have to put each unit into context with the rest of your army after all.

 

And- I suppose it should be noted- Im a SW player. My competition for WWs is Landraiders, Long Fangs, and Vindicators. The predator is not something I normally consider- they just arent effective compared to Long Fangs. The WW provides me with the tools I need to back up my other options. In a BA force theyre far less competative as theyre having to outdo stormravens, dreads, fast preds and fast vindis... and cheaper devastators- in C:SM theyre a bit more competative- Devis cost more, the other tanks arent fast and dreads are elites.

[Jackelope King]

You know, I've read that page in the rulebook at least a dozen times, but never saw that line. I swear to God, GW has some of the worst layout and organization in the industry.

[Mysticaria]

Technical Question: How are you guys assuming 6 hits per game? Seems to me you would have only 2-3 hits per game. You only get 5-7 turns in a game, and even then only 1/3rd of those are going to hit. Doesn't indirect fire scatter? Are you accounting for that? Oh yeah, and when you play against marines and they are all meched up, what do you shoot at for the first 2 turns? How do you earn points back when you only have ~2turns of shooting at things in the open? Seems like the marines would be in transports or would be in assault, thereby ducking shooting.

 

-Myst

Because of a few things:

1) Most armies will have some form of unit that is not a in a transport- such as devastators- and/or their transport will be damageable by the WW- such as rhinos, trukks, and chimera. Of course, theres other targets too- landspeeder squadrons and vypers are not uncommon.

 

2) Yes, it scatters. The question is how much does that matter? If you fire at it scatters but remains enough on the target to get 6 hits... has that negatively impacted you in a significant way? What if it scatters onto another squad? Or actually increases the number of hits?

 

3) And I have to ask- Are the players in your area some sort of gods that they never, ever, get shot at with their marines? What do you mean thell always be in transports or assault?

 

4) And of course, units whos transport was forcibly removed from them are almost always nicely clumped- pop a transport with your typhoon, smash the squad with your whirlwind. If you want to be an effective player then you have to put each unit into context with the rest of your army after all.

 

And- I suppose it should be noted- Im a SW player. My competition for WWs is Landraiders, Long Fangs, and Vindicators. The predator is not something I normally consider- they just arent effective compared to Long Fangs. The WW provides me with the tools I need to back up my other options. In a BA force theyre far less competative as theyre having to outdo stormravens, dreads, fast preds and fast vindis... and cheaper devastators- in C:SM theyre a bit more competative- Devis cost more, the other tanks arent fast and dreads are elites.

 

Thanks for the response...

 

1- Here, everything is meched up. Can't say that I see people just dropping 10 marines out in the open too often. Maybe against SW you could catch some longfangs in a ruin. Would be good on the Ork and Nid armies here, but so are vindis. Overall I think WW is weak sauce against SM. Good call on Landspeeders though.... that would be a nice target to hit with some ordnance.

 

2- Indirect fire means you don't reduce by BS right? So you're looking at 7" of scatter there, which means to me that it will probably miss unless a hit is rolled. I know it's slightly higher than 33% but not much. Firing direct may get you that 2" scatter, but that is assuming a better than average roll. Average on 2 dice is 7. The large blast template is 5" diameter (2.5" radius) so an average scatter of 3" (with BS reduction) is still going to miss with the center hole. Yeah, you could get lucky and hit something, but still feels like slightly higher than 33% to me. I play with vindicators a lot so when I hear that Whirlwinds are accurate I'm not buying it too easy.

 

3- Not gods... but honestly... how many turns are marines out in the open? I said 2-3 turns in my original post for the estimate of how often you would get to hit them. Yeah, in a 5-7 turn game, with everything starting in rhinos or reserve (dawn of war) and assaulty troops on both sides, I really don't see them sitting around out in the open more than 2 shooting phases. I would be really surprised if that happened.

 

4- Rhino's have access points on 3 sides. Most times my ride gets wrecked I get out in a horseshoe. Most anyone would get with a large blast is 3 models, maybe 4 but I think that is generous... and that is if it rolls a hit. Let's say 2-3 wounds twice and maybe they drop one armor save. Seems like a lot of points just to force one pinning check. I suppose pinning is good enough that if it succeeds then it could be worth it, but doesn't seem like it would be that reliable. Again, need a better than average role to make it happen. I'd be interested to hear if your thoughts on pinning.

 

-Myst

[deity12]

Wow, this had turned originally from just a contriversial opinion into a massive debate. It's really good to see that some people actually agree with me! ;) (Grey mage, thade and Helios) Whirlwinds are a good choice and have part of their strength in how an opponent underestimates them which is really cool. I commonly play against an ork player who has learned to fear the whirlwind, its not the termies who get a sigh of relief when killed, or the chapter master, or the devestators, its the whirlwind. And yes, the whirlwind is very fragile but you shouldn't always hide it away in my opinion, armies that its paticuarly effective agains (orks and tyranids) will usually(from my experience) not be able to shoot them down. And yes, it does scatter but against a large boyz or gaunt squad they are usually so big that the scatter won't make a massive difference.

 

Marines which you only get 2-3 rounds of shooting against? :huh: That's new to me.

[Mysticaria]

Marines which you only get 2-3 rounds of shooting against? :huh: That's new to me.

 

Now I'm wondering who you guys play against. You are playing against marine armies that are out in the open for the majority of the game? I know you want to shout me down for making that comment, be seriously... in a mech marine army with rhinos and other armored threats... why would the marines be out in the open more than half the game? What sorts of marine armies do you have in your area?

 

-Myst

[bystrom]

2- Indirect fire means you don't reduce by BS right? So you're looking at 7" of scatter there, which means to me that it will probably miss unless a hit is rolled. I know it's slightly higher than 33% but not much. Firing direct may get you that 2" scatter, but that is assuming a better than average roll. Average on 2 dice is 7. The large blast template is 5" diameter (2.5" radius) so an average scatter of 3" (with BS reduction) is still going to miss with the center hole. Yeah, you could get lucky and hit something, but still feels like slightly higher than 33% to me. I play with vindicators a lot so when I hear that Whirlwinds are accurate I'm not buying it too easy.

 

3- Not gods... but honestly... how many turns are marines out in the open? I said 2-3 turns in my original post for the estimate of how often you would get to hit them. Yeah, in a 5-7 turn game, with everything starting in rhinos or reserve (dawn of war) and assaulty troops on both sides, I really don't see them sitting around out in the open more than 2 shooting phases. I would be really surprised if that happened.

2 - Indirect means that you don't reduce by BS IF you don't see the squad. If you see it its still reduced by BS and you get all the benefits of indirect fire. The chance of scattering at most 2" when reduced by BS is 62% when including the chance to hit dead on, scattering at most 2" when not reduced by BS is 39%.

 

3 - I know what you mean, I play mech eldar/saim hann and I really only get to shoot guardian jetbikes with them. My whirlwind doesn't do much, occasionally I get the chance to shoot eldar infantry jumping out of a vehicle. It always seem to get some kills but since I only have a limited motor pool and use each rhino chassis as a certain vehicle, I tend to prefer using it as a rhino to make a different squad more effective.

[Grey Mage]

Marines which you only get 2-3 rounds of shooting against? :P That's new to me.

 

Now I'm wondering who you guys play against. You are playing against marine armies that are out in the open for the majority of the game? I know you want to shout me down for making that comment, be seriously... in a mech marine army with rhinos and other armored threats... why would the marines be out in the open more than half the game? What sorts of marine armies do you have in your area?

 

-Myst

Ones whose rhinos die to heavy weapon fire as soon as I can make that happen- often on my first turn, especially if I get first turn.

 

And like I said- Devis are not horribly uncommon, nor are assault marines or vangaurd- none of wich are found in transports.

 

And then you get that only about half the armies at a tournament are marines, and the rest of them are far, far more vulnerable to the whirlwind.

 

Lastly- sure, you can get out in a horseshoe, but that leaves you open to more conventional heavy weapon fire in many cases- like plasmacannons. One cant be safe against everything all the time, and as the whirlwind is usually the 'lowest threat' in peoples minds theyll hide behind the vehicle- nicely bunched up. And of course, explodes results dont give one any choice in the matter.... and other races have one hatch transports *eldar* or so many mobs it doesnt matter *orks* or no transports to speak of *daemons, nidz*.

[Hellios]

Marines which you only get 2-3 rounds of shooting against? :P That's new to me.

 

Now I'm wondering who you guys play against. You are playing against marine armies that are out in the open for the majority of the game? I know you want to shout me down for making that comment, be seriously... in a mech marine army with rhinos and other armored threats... why would the marines be out in the open more than half the game? What sorts of marine armies do you have in your area?

 

-Myst

 

and I am wondering why the players in your area arn't taking out transports in the first turn or two... I mean at 1,500pts as long as I can draw LoS to them even if smoked I would expect to be able to take out 3-5 vehicles (even if smoke has been used)... some may not be transports but it depends on my target priority... but I guess if your meta is based on nothing but Melta you need to gety up close... if not I don't see the issue.

 

Assuming you don't have extra armour or the xeno versiopn... a stun buys me a turn which if I've killed enough other stuff works in my favour... immobilised... well a pure transport is now pretty much useless... (I mean you might be able to repair it but then i can shoot you again) and you can hide inside it which reduces the offensive output of the unit inside it (well in the case of marine transports) or you can get out... now my whirlwind has a target... both destroyed results have the same effect except one of them may give me the bonus of a few dead marines... but yay targets...

 

I mean the lists I play tend to play at 1,500pts... if I'm not going with a theme have a decent chance of getting glance or pen rolls against between 5-8 vehicles at AV12 or less (some of those can deal with better armour If I wish) and I can focus on one target if I really want it dead or have bad luck... and this is in the first turn before I start getting units within melta-range... and I'm not considered a WAAC player by any means... so I assume that the people who play all serious :<> can do better than that.

 

When I say a decent chance I don't mean a single guy with a missile launcher, auto-cannon or lascannon... I mean units that are actually can actually be relied on to do something even against a smoked vehicle... bad luck aside that is...

 

So at JK duality but surely that is the arguement for power fists... but in that case you are against it... Tactical squads can threaten infantry with bolter fire... (maybe special or heavy wep fire depending on what you take)... Tactical squads might be able to threaten MCs with bolter-fire combined with special weapons and heavy weapons fire... tactical marines might be able to threaten armour with spec and heavy wep fire... they can also do all those things with a powerfist... I thought you liked to have defined roles for your units?

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I think the WW is reasonable. For 85 pts, it is okay, but uninspiring. Considering the $cost of it, I think you are much better off buying the Pred. You have 4 variants and one that typically costs 130ish points. Much better points per dollar ratio.

 

With regards to the Dakka Pred, I think it is a better tank. Lets say you get your foe out of his transports and start shelling him with the WW. Each turn you kill less and less guys with it. Like in a y = √x graph. The more shots you take at a unit, the less targets you have to hit. They are harder to land the template on in the first place and when you do drop it on them, you get fewer hits. A WW will only get a few choice hits against a given squad. The dakka Pred has no such problem.

 

The dakka Pred gives you a reliable 4+1.33 hits per turn. The WW is very unMarine like with lobbing indirect fire around. In a game where saturating your foe's shooting with too many targets to possibly engage is a winning idea, adding an AV 13 unit to the mix is solid. Hiding the WW away just gives him less targets to shoot.

 

If your foe is running Foot Orks whilst knowing you bring WW, well, he is making the tank look it's best. Imagine him having all those boyz in Battle wagons with a KFF. The WW will do nothing to AV 12 and by the time the boyz are out, you'll be risking firing onto your own guys.

 

4 HB and 1.33 AC hits out performs one s5 + pick the highest of two d6, and that is assuming you even get the eye over the tank. Not very likely when firing indirect.

 

If people are using it and it works for them, cool.

It seems to me, however, that the 'work' in kind of odd situations. *If* I dismount him. *If* my scatters 2d6 template hits your unit. *If* you run Hordes and allow me to make this tank look really good. *If* you don't deploy your units in a line. *If* you don't weapon destroy it. *If* you never get a shot on the AV 11 tank and just stun/shake it. *If* my foe never closes with me.

 

The dakka Pred doesn't have this list of hoops to jump through to be successful.

 

Have you tried the dakka Pred though? I believe that you should try both for 6 games or so, then decide <_<

[Mysticaria]

2- Indirect fire means you don't reduce by BS right? So you're looking at 7" of scatter there, which means to me that it will probably miss unless a hit is rolled. I know it's slightly higher than 33% but not much. Firing direct may get you that 2" scatter, but that is assuming a better than average roll. Average on 2 dice is 7. The large blast template is 5" diameter (2.5" radius) so an average scatter of 3" (with BS reduction) is still going to miss with the center hole. Yeah, you could get lucky and hit something, but still feels like slightly higher than 33% to me. I play with vindicators a lot so when I hear that Whirlwinds are accurate I'm not buying it too easy.

 

3- Not gods... but honestly... how many turns are marines out in the open? I said 2-3 turns in my original post for the estimate of how often you would get to hit them. Yeah, in a 5-7 turn game, with everything starting in rhinos or reserve (dawn of war) and assaulty troops on both sides, I really don't see them sitting around out in the open more than 2 shooting phases. I would be really surprised if that happened.

2 - Indirect means that you don't reduce by BS IF you don't see the squad. If you see it its still reduced by BS and you get all the benefits of indirect fire. The chance of scattering at most 2" when reduced by BS is 62% when including the chance to hit dead on, scattering at most 2" when not reduced by BS is 39%.

 

3 - I know what you mean, I play mech eldar/saim hann and I really only get to shoot guardian jetbikes with them. My whirlwind doesn't do much, occasionally I get the chance to shoot eldar infantry jumping out of a vehicle. It always seem to get some kills but since I only have a limited motor pool and use each rhino chassis as a certain vehicle, I tend to prefer using it as a rhino to make a different squad more effective.

 

I thought 62% sounded high, so I computed it again. I'm getting 59% when reducing by BS. 33% to hit outright plus chance to scatter 2" or less (14/36 * .667) = just under 59%. Still, higher than I thought. Other number looks pretty close.

 

I play in GTs, local tournaments, and friendly games.... and have never seen 3-5 SM vehicles get taken out in the first round. Just doesn't happen. 1/3d of games most vehicles aren't even on the board on turn 1. The other 2/3 of the time they are usually smoked, covered behind buildings/landraiders/vindicators or just plain get bad results on vehicle damage table. Against razorspam or some other all AV11 list I've seen 2-3 get knocked out on turn one, but I have a feeling some people are overestimating the anti-vehicle output. And no, I don't typically play heavy melta. Usually its missile launchers (typhoon, CML) for getting at light transports, but have been looking at getting in some riflemen dreds too.

 

Seems like everyone is trying to justify WW as the best thing ever. I simply said... it sounds good against Orks, Nids, and others... but sounds like weak sauce against SM. I still see no reason I would ever want a WW over a vindicator against SM. That doesn't mean I think WW is the worst unit ever made. Its just not as good as other option in one matchup. Here... that is a big deal since power armor is everywhere. I imagine somewhere else where SM is less common that WW would be better. One thing to point out is that nobody here plays with WW so if I were to drop one on the table nobody would really know what to expect. They may over or under estimate its capabilities. As I said before, I am in favor of playing with units that "everyone knows are bad" so I can actually see this as one benefit to running WW. But at the end of the day, still not convinced it is better than average against SM.

 

-Myst

[bystrom]

I've never said what I actually think of the WW, I think similar to both Marshal Wilhelm and Myst in that its a very niche weapon, and its something I don't enjoy much in my army.

 

2" or less scatter = rolling 6 or less on two dice

There are a total of 36 outcomes (OC), rolling two is 1 OC, three 2 OC, four 3 OC, five 4 OC, six 5 OC, so

rolling 6 or less on two dice = (1+2+3+4+5)/36 = (3+3+4+5)/36 = (6+4+5)/36 = 15/36

So wrong on my part, I get it to 61%, but for sake of removing any errors, I'm rounding it off to 60% plus/minus 5% ;)