Whirlwind is fantastic

[Fly Casual]

I've seen several posts about the whirlwinds lackluster damage, range, and ammo types.

I suspect many are overlooking the utility of the pinning special effect. If two whirlwinds are adjacent when firing they each cause "pinned" on their non fearless infantry targets, reducing move speed, and disabling overwatch. This can set up another units attack (ie assault marines), or prevent a melee enemy from closing with your devastators.

Whirlwind is barrage and blast. It does best damage against multiple models, so fire these weapons first. Use on high model count, low armor targets for decent damage. They do not require line of sight, so range 3 is pretty good considering this.

Some matchups will be poor for the whirlwind due to immune to psychology preventing pin effect. But generally whirlwinds in a pair is a great utility unit.

Try em again!

[GreenBeanN1]

Range 3 for an artilery unit is a bit unfun (read boring). Add the two almost the same weapons.

My changes:
The incendiary missile launcher is range 2-3 (anti infantry)
The vengeance missile launcher is 3-4 (anti early/mid armor)

So it cannot defend itself close range. Can act as artilery due range 4 has a sweet spot at range three.
Now the unit is much more fun in my opinion.
It is still subject to change but it is unlikely these basics will change anymore.

[Fly Casual]

Whirlwind is durable enough and cheap enough to risk using it in front of a dev squad. It seems you think the unit is both precious and soft. It's somewhat durable and doesn't require line of sight. Use other units and cover/concealment. Range 3 is the best SM get. Similar to Vaul sentry, and other arty. Only AM has longer range. R3 is standard arty range.

[Warlok]

You folks go to extravagant lengths to desperately employ the Whirlwind...

[Rorik Chaldean]

I really want the SM to get a version of the Basilisk.

[Stardustfire]

hard call, TT Basilisk got 136 inch range (when a normal games board got 72x48) , Whirlwind 48, and that you can call a long range tank already....

[Warlok]

Snipers can also pin. And they do more actual damage. And they do not need to be together in groups to cause it. And for the cost of two Whirlwinds I can field a sniper and Devastator squad... if I manage to kill the target, I have no need to pin it with the inferior Whirlwind.

[Foxassassin]

I feel like if the trait could stack for extra damage, it might help them out, maybe one or two extra times, that way making artillery batteries would justify how weak they are.

Still feel like the fire rounds are bugged. I've only had a handful of times where they did more than the default weapon.

[Zer0 X]

Problem is, Chaos where a large amount of their actually good units are fearless [immune to pinning] or a vehicle [the whirlwind can only pin infantry], same for Orks where a lot of the infantry are supporting units or fodder outside of Meganobz and Tank bustas admittedly if they have a good chunk of Meganobz then yeah pinning them to keep them back can be vital but ideally you never let your opponent see your megas before springing them, a very large chunk of late/midgame Necron units just don't care and probably appreciate the 17% ranged damage reduction, there is literally nothing actually worth pinning from the Sororitas, Ironically EVERY SINGLE SPACE MARINE infantry is susceptible to pinning so its fully situational there, almost same with Nids but some bigger ones do have fearless, Imperial guard.....if they honest to god leave anything actually worth pinning besides Bullgryns in a spot where it'd be worth pinning them then im sorry but I don't think they would be able to survive against you regardless, I personally think they are best used against Tau to prevent them from easily rearranging their lines, and if you do plan on using it to stop them from retreating and are sure you can push into their battle line....be damn sure you can break them because if they think they can hold then there probably wont be much movement from them.

[Jey]

Originally posted by Warlok:

Snipers can also pin.

No.

And for the cost of two Whirlwinds I can field a sniper and Devastator squad

No. a Whirlwind has the cost of a squad of scouts (40), while the Devastator is more expensive (60)

[Warlok]

Originally posted by Jey:

Originally posted by Warlok:

Snipers can also pin.

No.

And for the cost of two Whirlwinds I can field a sniper and Devastator squad

No. a Whirlwind has the cost of a squad of scouts (40), while the Devastator is more expensive (60)

Oh wait, yeah, thinking of support battery units.

The group I play with all view Whirlwinds the same - wildly disappointing. Produce & research other units and you're better off. The devs should play other 40k strategy games where the Whirlwinds are actually useful in terms of damage, rather than just situational effect.

[Stardustfire]

its the exchange lists the devs made up that bite the WW hard. its use in TT is to deal with chaff up to higher armoured inf, but it is super effective because it can hit alot of UNIT (not only Modells) with its Big Template. The Problem is that the devs translated all AoE Templates in 2 differnt "Explosive" Traits that both still only affect one Unit on one Tile and are mostly gimped to death on top by the dmg dividing calculation (what i mean with that is that a very lucky dice role streak vs weak armored Units in TT kills several complete Units, In Gladius you mostly max half the Modells of the target unit)

[Warlok]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

its the exchange lists the devs made up that bite the WW hard. its use in TT is to deal with chaff up to higher armoured inf, but it is super effective because it can hit alot of UNIT (not only Modells) with its Big Template. The Problem is that the devs translated all AoE Templates in 2 differnt "Explosive" Traits that both still only affect one Unit on one Tile and are mostly gimped to death on top by the dmg dividing calculation (what i mean with that is that a very lucky dice role streak vs weak armored Units in TT kills several complete Units, In Gladius you mostly max half the Modells of the target unit)

As a tabletop person (assumption) I wonder how you might adjust the unit.

My own ideas:

-Range 4
-Incendiary rounds do decent damage to unarmoured infantry, set hex Ablaze for 2-3 Turns. Units in Ablaze hexes take fire damage (Burn) per Turn they occupy it.
-Anti-Armour rounds do somewhere in the realm of Basilisk damage versus armour. These rounds have a 2 Turn cool-down after they get fired.
-move Whirlwind to Tier 3.

All else as current.

[Stardustfire]

the 2 basic rocket types have the basic frag/krak stats, exept there much larger AoE, thats why i sayed the WW got the short end of the stick with the devs state translation, becasue what differs it from a simple frag/krak Grenade/Basic Rocket is only Translated into "put x more Modells into the dmg calc."

[SomeGuy1]

it's rough that a unit with the Blast effect, which does more damage the more models the target has and so you want to fire first so it hits the most models, also applies an effect that gives the target more defense (so you want it to be fired last).