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I've been working on a couple SM army lists, and one of the areas where I'm having trouble nailing down a choice is heavy support. In my local meta it's mostly IG infantry, ork mobs, mechanius and some eldar, but mostly the first three. So when I'm looking at heavy support, the kind of firepower a vindicator supplies seems a bit more than what I need, particularly since for just a bit more than points I'd spend on it, I can bring two whirlwinds, or one whirlwind scorpius (which I'm unsure of how effective it will be, though if the IG guy shows up with his tanks again, krak missiles with barrage will be nice, and I think it can ID guard and most orks). Any advice on how those units work out on the tabletop?

The Whirlwind is more likely to be ignored, which can be super helpful as it might survive to make its points back.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The Whirlwind is more likely to be ignored, which can be super helpful as it might survive to make its points back.

But than some other stuff won't survive to make the points back.

 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The Whirlwind is more likely to be ignored, which can be super helpful as it might survive to make its points back.

But than some other stuff won't survive to make the points back.

Good point! In order to counterbalance this, I suppose you need some cheap/fast 'in your face' threats to draw fire, and hopefully get something done as they play bullet catch.

I feel like it really depends on your meta. In my experience, one Vindicator almost never survives long enough to do much of anything. It's slow, easy to kill, and has range issues. It can be ignored until it has to be taken out. When it's time to kill it, it can be smacked by a guardsman w/a PF. It needs to be closer than you'd like in order for it to kill anything and it doesn't have the survivability I feel like it needs. A common refrain is "But every shot directed at the Vindi is a shot not going anywhere else!" That's not necessarily wrong, but I feel like a Vindi is too costly to just be a bullet magnet. On top of that, like I said, most decent players can so easily mitigate a lone vindi that there's almost no point.

That said, Whirlwinds tend to be useful vs. horde armies and not so great against other things (where the Vindi can fire at just about anything and have an effect). If you don''t face many of those, it may not be worth taking. They don't hit as hard but have better range (I think they do anyway. It occurs to me that I can't recall quite what the range is now) so theoretically, the fact that the WW is also easy to kill isn't as big a deal as it doesn't HAVE to move towards the enemy.

Generally speaking, I always say if you're only going to take ONE tank ... Predator all the way. If you're taking a WW, you need at least TWO. For Vindicators, you need THREE before they become really effective.

I can't think of many scenarios where I'd rather have a Whirlwind than a Thunderfire Cannon, so I guess I vote Vindicator. Demolisher cannonsare always nice to have. You just have to do your best to protect their squishy side, which is not all that easy with Eldar jetbikes going all over the place.

Tycho wrote:I feel like it really depends on your meta. In my experience, one Vindicator almost never survives long enough to do much of anything. It's slow, easy to kill, and has range issues. It can be ignored until it has to be taken out. When it's time to kill it, it can be smacked by a guardsman w/a PF. It needs to be closer than you'd like in order for it to kill anything and it doesn't have the survivability I feel like it needs. A common refrain is "But every shot directed at the Vindi is a shot not going anywhere else!" That's not necessarily wrong, but I feel like a Vindi is too costly to just be a bullet magnet. On top of that, like I said, most decent players can so easily mitigate a lone vindi that there's almost no point.

That said, Whirlwinds tend to be useful vs. horde armies and not so great against other things (where the Vindi can fire at just about anything and have an effect). If you don''t face many of those, it may not be worth taking. They don't hit as hard but have better range (I think they do anyway. It occurs to me that I can't recall quite what the range is now) so theoretically, the fact that the WW is also easy to kill isn't as big a deal as it doesn't HAVE to move towards the enemy.

Generally speaking, I always say if you're only going to take ONE tank ... Predator all the way. If you're taking a WW, you need at least TWO. For Vindicators, you need THREE before they become really effective.

WW range is 48 with barrage, so twice what the Vindi has plus it doesn't need LOS. Plus I have a predator to help cover/draw fire from it, and if I switch from the standard WW to the relic Scorpius, it gets better armor and better anti-armor (and maybe the same anti-horde, 2 or 3 small blasts vs one large blast seem to be roughly on par with one another).

If you have access to the three model Whirlwind formations they're pretty brutal SW ones got Shred as their formation bonus, solid Markerlight hunters that.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
If you have access to the three model Whirlwind formations they're pretty brutal SW ones got Shred as their formation bonus, solid Markerlight hunters that.

I've considered it. ATM I've only got the parts to field two, so I'd need another one and I'd need a land speeder (or likely two land speeders, since I'm also giving a lot of thought to the raptor wing formation and it's ability to bypass my horrible luck with reserve rolls). I suspect it might be a bit overkill for what I'd need, since if I was in game with a point limit high enough to field that, it'd be high enough to field a skyhammer, and that plus two whirlwinds is already going to be very unkind to horde armies.

 Battlegrinder wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
If you have access to the three model Whirlwind formations they're pretty brutal SW ones got Shred as their formation bonus, solid Markerlight hunters that.

I've considered it. ATM I've only got the parts to field two, so I'd need another one and I'd need a land speeder (or likely two land speeders, since I'm also giving a lot of thought to the raptor wing formation and it's ability to bypass my horrible luck with reserve rolls). I suspect it might be a bit overkill for what I'd need, since if I was in game with a point limit high enough to field that, it'd be high enough to field a skyhammer, and that plus two whirlwinds is already going to be very unkind to horde armies.

What's your Psychic prowess like?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

What's your Psychic prowess like?

I don't take any psychic stuff right now, and the only one I'm likely to take in the future would be maybe taking one unit of PAGKs.

I'm probably going against the grain here, having you count on luck but if you can get it Divination -> Skryer's Gaze can make reserve rolls less of a problem.

What army are we talking here? Just basic codex marines? If so, what chapter tactics are you using? And can we get an idea of what else is in the list?

Big fan of Whirlwinds. It'd be nice if they had a couple of optional missile types, but the two kinds they have currently have a fair bit of utility, especially now that people have started using infantry again.

In my experience, a Vindicator will lose its cannon in Turn 2 and become a 130pt Storm Bolter.

The Scorpius probably offers the best of both worlds here; it's got the higher front armour and the power to threaten light vehicles off the Vindicator, and the indirect-fire and range off the Whirlwind.

snykyninja wrote:What army are we talking here? Just basic codex marines? If so, what chapter tactics are you using? And can we get an idea of what else is in the list?

Yes, basic codex, usually running raptor's chapter tactics. The rest of the list isn't really nailed down to any firm degree, the only aspects I'm sure about is that I don't want psychic stuff and I don't want terminators (as I dislike the general concept and models, respectively). Everything else is up in the air and liking going to see a fair bit of experimentation.

The main issue I'm having with WW vs Vindi is that there seems to be some role confusion. I'm already looking at other options for anti-armor (either Terminus or skyhammer annilation with multimeltas/grav, or even both) that should be effective, so more high strength, low AP weapons doesn't seem like something I'll need, whereas the WW or Scorpius has longer ranged anti-horde/anti-MEQ punch that dose fill a gap in my capabilities.