Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Currently it's a pretty untalked about vehicle as far as marine vehicles go. Lots of folks rag on the land raider or predator but the whirlwind is largely ignored. The issues are fairly clear
cut but for those of us who didn't play prior to 5th I will educate.
Back in the day marines had two large pieplate guns the vindicator and the whirlywind. The vindicator was the heavy hitter with better armor and short range while the whirlwind killed infantry for cheaper and had long range and ignored cover. Enter the modern space marine army and the thunderfire cannon. And now the whirlwind is totally out of a job. Everything it can do a whirlwind is worse at, the whirlwind really only advantage is that it's mobile and that means little for a vehicle that measures it's weapons ranges in feet anyway. So ol whirly has basically been out of a job ever since the tfc came to codex marines, non codex marines have still the same old decision to make between whirlwind and vindicator but for the blood angels and dark angels I feel it's only a matter of time.

So I propose the following to solve the whirlwinds problems:

1) drop the whirlwind from codex space marines. It's now totally redundant as a choice in their codex and they clearly aren't making use of it anyway

2) buff the whirlwind to make it a more tempting and unique option for space wolves/ba/da's as atm they would much rather take the vindicator due to power creep and the death of blob armies or blobstars.

What needs to change beyond that and to be more specific I leave up to the panel if interested contributors to this thread but things can't remain as they are as the whirlwind basically never sees a table anymore.

The selling point of the Whirly is its low cost.
As a DA player I don't know the cost of TFC out of my head, but 65 points is kind of the cheapest unit one can get - besides scouts with a 5 points difference.

If you got the points - TFC is better. If you don't, why not?
I don't think the Whirly and the Vindicator are fighting for being included in a list - it's pretty much what you want to target. A Whirlwind can deal more damage with Ignore Cover than a Vindicator to light infantry for sure.

The tfc is 60 points and it has a vastly superior statline to a whirly, and the reason the vindicator and whirly fight for space is because their both hs choices.

Well in my datafiles the TFC costs 100pts. That's a good chunk of points more.
It is better for sure, but more expensive.

And as said, the Whirly and the Vindi have different uses, although they are in the same slot.
Fire a Vindicator at a group of cultists in ruins.
Fire a Whirlwind at a group of cultists in ruins.
Which will inflict more casualties?

 Thairne wrote:
Well in my datafiles the TFC costs 100pts. That's a good chunk of points more.
It is better for sure, but more expensive.

And as said, the Whirly and the Vindi have different uses, although they are in the same slot.
Fire a Vindicator at a group of cultists in ruins.
Fire a Whirlwind at a group of cultists in ruins.
Which will inflict more casualties?

Fire a Vindicator at a group of Terminators in the open.
Fire a Whirlwind at a group of Terminators in the open.
Which will inflict more casualties?

On a serious note however, the way I see it there's two ways to improve the Whirlwind that immediatly spring to mind.

1. Let them be squadron-ed. Yes, it's cheap at 65pts but that's an entire HS slot you've taken up.
2. Give the launcher a bit of a boost. Heavy D3 would be a nice touch (with the appropriate points raise), or even let it have Skyfire rockets similar to the Praetor*

*I know FW has rules for such a unit but they should be put into the standard Codex as well.

Make them at least S6/AP4 (Guard heavy mortar status), d3 shots optional. Squadrons would be good. As to the Hyperios the problem is that single-shot AA weapons are effectively worthless when they're not spammable because of jink, move from a one-shot krak missile to something that's AP1 or AP2 and ignores Jink and it'd be a bit more useful.

Let them show up in squadrons of 3.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Make them at least S6/AP4 (Guard heavy mortar status), d3 shots optional.

Even just having d3 shots would be nice, giving it the ability to generate tons of hits against infantry blobs. It would have to come with a price bump, but would be something to consider.

The problem with the current whirlwind is that it fills exactly the same roll as the TFC... but the TFC does it better. The only niche it fills is "I need some more anti-infantry, but I can't quite afford a TFC, so I'll take a whirlwind". Giving them more distinct weapon profiles would balance them out better - give one significantly higher S and AP, but less ability to generate lots of hits. The Whirlwind doesn't necessarily need a S or AP boost, but it would benefit a lot from more shots. A Barrage 3 Large Blast weapon could potentially generate way more hits than a TFC.

Also: I like the idea of making the whirlwind a cross-functional artillery and AA tank. Give it the Hunter missile

higher strength in my opinion. and extra range.
i play lots of thallax and the vindicator is my primary target because its cannon insta-kills my guys on a 2+
so i recon make it; Range 70" S6 AP5 Ordinance1, Barrage, Large Blast.

reasons:
it's supposed to be the SM's moble artillery so it should have slightly better range than a thunderfire cannon.
it should have better range than a marine portable missile.
the imperium can make an HK missile which has infinite range.
it 's primary targets are infantry, killing with over-pressure so any pressurised armour type should be able to negate it.

i dunno, i always liked the whirlwind. maybe im biased.

Infinite caps out at 72" on large boards.

Whirly needs the minelayer missiles back. That stuff was cool and gave fits to Skimmer armies.

Give a slightly less powerful missile launcher option to the Razorback?

 Valkyrie wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
Well in my datafiles the TFC costs 100pts. That's a good chunk of points more.
It is better for sure, but more expensive.

And as said, the Whirly and the Vindi have different uses, although they are in the same slot.
Fire a Vindicator at a group of cultists in ruins.
Fire a Whirlwind at a group of cultists in ruins.
Which will inflict more casualties?

Fire a Vindicator at a group of Terminators in the open.
Fire a Whirlwind at a group of Terminators in the open.
Which will inflict more casualties?

Exactly. Whirwind and Vindicator target two different types of enemys. WW does better against light infantry and Vindicator does better against heavy/elite infantry.
Take what is better against what you suspect you will go against.
THerefore they are similar in usage, but different in their targets. Thats why, imo, a WW is a different choice with a different focus and does not really compete with a Vindicator.

Increase the cost of TFC from 100 to 150. BAM! Whirlwinds have a place.

Allow a Whirlwind to Overwatch-fire its launcher against enemies charging a friendly unit within 12". And make the launcher twin-linked at least. Give it the option to buy Superkrak missiles (S8 AP 3, small blast).

Give it AV 12 like the Hunter/Stalker.

 SirDonlad wrote:
higher strength in my opinion. and extra range.
i play lots of thallax and the vindicator is my primary target because its cannon insta-kills my guys on a 2+
so i recon make it; Range 70" S6 AP5 Ordinance1, Barrage, Large Blast.

reasons:
it's supposed to be the SM's moble artillery so it should have slightly better range than a thunderfire cannon.
it should have better range than a marine portable missile.
the imperium can make an HK missile which has infinite range.
it 's primary targets are infantry, killing with over-pressure so any pressurised armour type should be able to negate it.

i dunno, i always liked the whirlwind. maybe im biased.

Swap the ranges on the thunderfire and whirlwind, problem solved.

 TheSilo wrote:

 SirDonlad wrote:
higher strength in my opinion. and extra range.
i play lots of thallax and the vindicator is my primary target because its cannon insta-kills my guys on a 2+
so i recon make it; Range 70" S6 AP5 Ordinance1, Barrage, Large Blast.

reasons:
it's supposed to be the SM's moble artillery so it should have slightly better range than a thunderfire cannon.
it should have better range than a marine portable missile.
the imperium can make an HK missile which has infinite range.
it 's primary targets are infantry, killing with over-pressure so any pressurised armour type should be able to negate it.

i dunno, i always liked the whirlwind. maybe im biased.

Swap the ranges on the thunderfire and whirlwind, problem solved.

That is making a lot of sense to me.
Although i'd still like to see that increase in strength for the whirlwind

Thunderfire cannons i feel were invented to replace the WW and GW forgot to take the WW out of production :-P

Some chapters don't get the TFC, so they still use the whirlwind.

Let the multi-launcher actually work like one, d3 templates would be nice.

Give it the option to fire 3 krak missiles OR the one template it already has.

 dracpanzer wrote:
Let the multi-launcher actually work like one, d3 templates would be nice.

Give it the option to fire 3 krak missiles OR the one template it already has.

NOW THAT! makes sense! 3 templates is OP but 3 Krak missiles OR a template seems to be fine to me. But then again the WW goes from Mob control to Anti Tank.

Exorcist used to have the option of d6 krak or d6 frag missiles, it wasn't really broken back then.

At the very least, I would want the Whirlwind to be twin-linked. That right there would solve a few issues, since it could now reliably hit what you would want to shoot at. Perhaps give it a rule like the Scorpius has where, if you don't move, it gets extra shots. Unfortunately, multiple barrages are just tedious to resolve (especially if you add twin linked to the mix), so maybe something like, if you don't move, then all hits under the blast are doubled?

Maybe be abel to take a Squadron with WW, hunters and Stalkers. Up to 3.

vote for the sky fire rule and also the Chaos Space Marine variant called the Maelstrom or Squall or what ever fruity tropical storm name.

Instead of the classic whirl wind load out, the chaos version is a rhino with 2 top hatch havoc missile launchers, 2 optional side sponson havoc missile launchers, and the top hatch can have 2 more havoc missile launchers. (35+12+12+?+?)

Hell call it the Diablo! or El Nino

Any way CSM can get sky fire missiles on a predator or rhino?