Gunner in Sir, We Have an Orc Problem: Fast but Shallow

Last reviewed: 12 September 2026 · Newest game update reflected: 2026.08.18.12.05 (18 August 2026). The gunner fires twelve times faster than the cannon and stops ten times sooner. That trade is the whole turret, and it is also why this site's own pages have never fully settled what job the gunner is supposed to be doing.

The numbers

From the player-measured sheet by the Steam user Mrlazy, self-dated 31 July 2026, reproduced on the all turrets page. Both figures at the extremes are worth noting together: 24 shots per second is the fastest rate listed for any turret, and 12 DPS is the lowest damage figure among the turrets that carry one.

Why the fire rate is a trap on paper

The all turrets page uses the gunner as its worked example for why penetration outranks rate: with a penetration of 3, a burst aimed into a deep column stops at the third orc, and everything behind that orc is untouched no matter how many rounds arrive per second. The FAQ page frames the same thing from the player's side — people call the gunner weak because its per-shot damage is small, when the actual limiter is how shallow each shot reaches.

The practical consequence is a placement one. A gunner is at its worst pointed into the thickest part of a wave, and at its best where the column is already three orcs deep or fewer, which on most maps means behind whatever is doing the thinning.

The role this site has not settled

Three pages here describe the gunner three slightly different ways, and the difference is real rather than sloppy:

• The all turrets page groups gunner and tesla coil together as the turrets that clean up leaks.
• The turret roles page says the gunner "sits awkwardly" in the power category, and reports a Steam strategy guide arguing that once upgraded, its sheer volume makes it function as reliable horde-thinning firepower.
• The glossary records the disagreement directly, calling it debated between cleanup and power.

Nothing in our guides resolves that, because nobody has published a measurement of where the crossover sits — the turret roles page says outright that it cannot tell you at what upgrade level a gunner overtakes a cannon in practice. Treat the role as unconfirmed and read it off your own build: if your gunners are firing into a deep column they are cleanup at best, and if a slow or a burn is thinning the column first they may well be doing power work.

The gunners-only clear

The strongest single piece of evidence for the gunner as a primary turret is on the 4.2 page. A player called Exebri replied to that level's discussion thread with a screenshot claiming the level can be cleared with nothing but gunners, posted 5 August 2026. That page is careful about it, and so is this one: the linked item is an image rather than a written method, nobody here has verified it, and the most likely reading is that 4.2's chokepoints are narrow enough that a penetration of 3 covers their width.

The same thread contains the counter-detail. Broseidon, who cleared 4.2 with a four-turret squad per choke, mentions that he had spare gunners on some chokepoints that were not actually doing anything — the same turret, on the same level, both sufficient and surplus depending on where it stood.

Where players placed gunners

On 5.2, Sulphuric_Glue put a small gunner-plus-cannon wall behind the first lip and a full line of gunners and cannons at the second, and jeffk114's laser setup uses its bounce fence specifically to make orcs trickle around corners into cannon and gunner fire. On 4.2, one gunner per choke handles whatever the flamethrower and laser have not finished. On 5.1, the harder-achievements guide summarised on the all achievements page notes its bottom two cannons and machine guns went largely unused.

In the orc flow mechanic page, the player John groups cannons and gunners as the turrets for punching holes in large groupings and picking off units, which is the same position stated a different way.

The synergy that is easy to miss

The flamethrower's listed effect includes a chance not to consume pierce on the orcs it burns. Since the gunner's pierce budget is only 3, that chance is worth proportionally more to a gunner than to any other turret in the game — the turret roles page makes exactly this point when it says a flamethrower placed in front makes gunners and lasers behind it noticeably stronger. If your gunners feel like they stall against a column, the cheapest fix documented on this site is a burn in front of them rather than another gunner beside them.

What we have not confirmed

The role question above is genuinely open on this site, and we are not picking a side. We also have no upgrade-tier data — no figure for how gunner penetration or damage grows, and the 3.2 page only tells us that a cannon-and-gunner line stops scaling at that stage, not at what tier it would stop. Exebri's gunners-only clear remains a screenshot we have not reproduced. Neither logged patch on the update history page mentions the gunner.

Sources on this site

Stats and the penetration argument: all turrets. Role framing and the flamethrower synergy: turret roles. The recorded disagreement: glossary. Placement evidence: 4.2, 5.2, all achievements, orc flow mechanic. The "weak turret" misreading: FAQ and myths.