Whips and spears on a thug for repelling?

[Sombre]

Repel from a whip with capped damage 1 won't get through the enemy armour and so won't repel anyway, I believe.

Remember repel needs:

Longer reach than the attacking enemy
High attack value in order to pass the roll to 'hit' vs their def
High power to beat their armour and deal the 1 damage
Low enemy morale for them to fail the check they get when they take that 1 damage and not attack you

So basically it sucks. It does improve stuff like pikemen and spearmen vs the morale 9 barbarians, because they have bad morale, shorter weapons and virtually no protection. But even there it isn't as good as having a ranged weapon. So you can see even in an ideal situation it's pretty rubbish.