Whirlwind is OP. It's a nice random button to press when you've been out-manoeuvred, but having one card trash a position that your enemy has spent many cards achieving is really strong, and being able to save your own move cards 'till after you've played it makes it stronger still. So to weaken it a little, it could additionally take all move cards from both player's hands and randomly re-distribute them. Step moves wouldn't be affected, which would make Nimble Strike stronger still, but that's another problem. Whirlwind Enemies could randomly grant move cards to the enemy, say a 1/6th chance each of a Shuffle, Walk, Run or Dash. They'd still lose their position, but they wouldn't be left so helpless.
Dear Amoth, There are two Weaknesses in your position, sir: 1) Being able to save your own Move cards until after does not make Whirlwind OP. Because there is nothing to stop your opponent from saving his back also. Indeed, this is what most smart players do, 2) Whirlwind trashes the caster's position also. I have personally experienced the thrill of watching a whirlwinder lose his crap when it placed my warrior adjacent to his wizard without a sachet of personal lubricant in sight. I think that it is an annoying card, to state my own position, but it is not OP in any meaningful sense. Also the weak block cards can disable it Outright. Warm Regards, Zhizz
Ah, but... 1) While nothing stops the enemy from holding onto move cards, much discourages them, and the decisions are not symmetric. The player with the Whirlwind knows they have it and intend to play it. Their enemy can only guess, and holding move cards against that risk costs them the position they could gain from playing them. 2) Ignoring held move cards, Whirlwind randomises position advantage. The caster has the option of only casting it when they feel their position is disadvantaged so that on average they will gain. Of course sometimes they will be worse off but that doesn't contradict the average effect. 3) A weak block saves only the character who holds it, it doesn't stop the Whirlwind outright. To more fully block a Whirlwind the whole team must hold (and use up) block cards, and still the caster's team may be moved somewhere advantageous.
Block is awful vs WW, it might be an improvement if it was unblockable. Immovable effectively does counter WWE sometimes, but not always WW (since I'd prefer to remain where I was relative to the other team), and it's not dependable. amoth, I agree 100% with the holding move cards thing. It's a guessing game and the non-WW player can only lose or tie whereas the WW player can win or tie. Neither of your ideas really sounds "right." If WW could randomly give my move cards to my opponent, and I'm playing Elves vs his Dwarves, then I potentially stand to lose a lot more by playing it. If the goal is simply to weaken WW, I think it'd be better to merge WW and WWE and make it burst 3 (one square bigger than smoke bomb) and targetable like smoke bomb or possibly add some randomization to things. So depending on positioning it might be possible to hit the entire enemy team (like WWE, or your own guys like WW vs enemy team that all has Immovable). Example of randomization: characters at the center are guaranteed to move a lot (unless Immovable) but characters 1 square away move on a 2 or better die roll, 2 squares away move on a 3 or better etc. 3 squares 4 or better, 4 squares 5 or better, 5 squares 6 only, 6 squares no effect. There's a few potential variants of that theme that might be fun and could be balanced. Instead of ground zero moving 100% of the time, maybe it's an "eye of the storm" kind of thing so they never move, but potentially do change facing. Then there's another variant of this targeted whirlwind that can't be targeted, like Cleansing Presence (vs Cleansing Burst). In general, I'd like to see more untargetable spells that emanate from the caster and potentially move/maze/"fling"/burn/shock/freeze etc characters that are in range.
Compare: As it stands now, your dwarf-wielding opponent will wait until your elves have expended their movement before casting Whirlwind. Afterwards you are left stranded out of place while the have probably saved some Walk moves. With move shuffling, your opponent is more likely to play Whirlwind when either both or neither of you hold move cards. Either both are stranded out of position until the next round when your racial movement advantage reasserts itself, or you both probably have some move cards. Both of these circumstances are better for you than the above. Yes, they could play a move shuffling Whirlwind at the start of a round and remove your racial movement advantage, but to complain about that when it is better than the current situation is to implicitly compare my proposal with the option of banning Whirlwind altogether. Also, it seems to me that stout dwarves should fare better in high winds than spindly elves. (They should cope better with the encumbrance of heavy armour and cold weather too, but that's another matter.) Your opponent would be foolish to play a move shuffling Whirlwind when they hold move cards and you do not. Conversely, they would most like to play it when they have moved and you have not, but you can readily avoid this case - it only comes up naturally when you are holding a static defensive position, and even then you can make null moves as a precaution (at the cost of delaying what other actions you might have taken with those turns). I have some ideas to fix the unwarranted precision of Winds Of War, but i won't share them as they feel overcomplicated. Also, i've thought of a simpler fix to Whirlwind Enemies: change it into Whirlwind Allies...
As for elves deploying Whirlwind against dwarves - yes, move shuffling would definitely reduce it's value. Either wait until your elves hold no more moves, or suffer.
I personally prefer the idea of whirlwind having an area effect, something more like a MassMaze. Overall the greatest problem is the ability to ignore LOS. With that in mind though, I guess it diversifies the game quite a bit. Randomizing an already random card would only agitate the community further. (don't quote me on that!)
The extra layer of randomisation would tend to make the card fairer. While the range gets broader (one player might get the good position and all the move cards), basic stats says that two layers of randomisation are more likely to produce a middle result than one, similar to the way the sum of 2D6 clusters around 7.
