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Morning DakkaDakka,

Would an armoured sentinel armed with a lascannon and hunter killer be worth the 80 points?

That seems like a lot of long range anti vehicular armaments on an admittedly flimsy platform.

Or maybe outflank lascannon scout sentinels for an even cheaper disposable tank popper.

So my question is how well do these tactics work, should I even bother with sentinels.

Sentinels are the best! (this is probably not true, but I am biased )

The most common use I have for Sentinels is to use either AC armed Scout Sentinels or Plasma Cannon Armoured ones.

The AC Scouts (as you have identified with the Lascannon ones) outflank and hit side/rear armour and harrass vulnerable support units. Use cover as much as possible or accept that they are going to probably die if they do not kill their intended target. I have just begun to up gun a few to lascannons as well and it is working reasonable well.

Harrasment is the name of the game with Scouts I find and they will either go ignored (until they strike) or get a response disproportionate to their 40 points.

These have one games for me, most memorably for me when my opponent had hidden his Grotz in a KP mission (only troops counted), whill attaching my force with a blocking force of Kanz. A lone Sentinels popped up adjacent to the grots gunned a couple down and then stamped on one to win combat before running them down. My opponent then diverted 2 units to deal with it, reducing the pressure on my troops and enabling another victory to the Imperium.

The PC Armoured models advance in support of Leman Russes. Heavy infantry hate Battle cannons so they really have (having underestimated) Plasmacannons vapourising them. I'm really beginning to like these Sentinels AV12 is not to be sniffed at especially when it is cowering behind a big tank.

I used 6 in my last tournament at 1500 points (2x AC Scout, 2x Las Scout & 2x PC Arm - Fear the Sentinwall!), admittedly because it was easier to paint 4 more than I had than more guardsmen, but they really did perform well above their cost and the tactical flexability they provide is a real boon to a slow moving IG force.

Sentinels are great for Outflanking, simply because 3 Mulitlasers or Autocannons in your opponents flank is not something they can ignore.

For 105 (or 120) is a cheap enough price that you can take a unit, Outflank it, and completely forget about it- as long as the Sents get into some cover, it'll be disproportionately hard to kill them.

If they kill them, great. Hopefully that means less bullets coming towards your more important stuff.

Finally, I'm not sure if Stelek was the first to utilize this, but I saw it one YTTH a while ago. Armoured Sentinels walking behind Chimeras for the Obscured, and can supplement your Multilasers nicely while being fairly sturdy against non-Meltaguns.

Chimeras are too low to cover the hull/above legs bit. I have found quite a few opponents not willing to give cover for this as 50% of the hull is not covered and other similar bs.

Of course with posable legs you have the choice (if you so choose) to model them at a low hieght to avoid this problem. But then you also reduce your own LOS.

Copy....



Paste:
Of Sentinels and armaments:

Scout sentinels:
Pretty much any of the Weapon options are useful for Scout sentinels; but what you take changes their role.

Multilaser, Autocannon, and Missile Launcher: All three of these are best used for outflanking and hitting Side/Rear armor of enemy tanks. They are also Generallist all-around weapons that allow you to both threaten and effectively deal with Objective camping enemy infantry and Heavy weapon infantry siting in the enemy back-field.

Lascannon: sole purposed for anti-tank; again outflanking is a wise choice as hitting side/rear armor will increase you chances to get a damage result.

Heavy Flamer: Pure anti-troop, only problem with it is the incredibly low range and threat of having your AV10 open-topped walker assaulted. Still a very good way to shift objective campers, especially when said objective is in cover.

Armored Sentinel; There are only really 3 good weapons for the Armored, and 2 of them are for using it a CC Tar-pit:

Multilaser; simply because it is free, it is also still a good generalist weapon but you cannot outflank with it, so you must maximize your mobility to get the Side-armor shots.

Heavy Flamer: If you have ever fought a SM Dreadnought you know how hard it is to crack an AV12 Walker in CC, but the A-Sent makes it worse by coming equipped with Extra armor. These are all reasons why the A-sent are almost a better option for the heavy Flamer. The only problem is that you cannot outflank into the enemies back-field with it.

Plasma Cannon: the only way you can even take a PC on a sentinel is when it is armored. It is also one of the best choices because it does the same average damage to vehicles as the AC, yet generally does more damage to infantry. I would not take a PC on and A-sent that I was planning to primarily use as a CC tar-pit, but it does make a great fire-support platform.

All that said I currently Field 2 Plasma Cannon A-sents(not in Squadron); They are a fantastic back-up to my Plasma-cutioner(LR-Executioner with Hull HB+Plasma Sponsons); if they happen to take a Weapon Destroyed, they become Tar-pits; if I am playing against a Fast army and haven't taken out all their transports far enough back, they become tar-pits(generally after taking a few out/nixing the transport at danger-close range). They are the second most aggressive portion of my army, right behind the 3-way Tie Between Harkers outflankers, my Chimelta, and Valkyrie Plasma Delivery System(VPDS); although Harker and the VPDS generally spend the first few turns off-field, when they come in they immediately set about killing.

A scout sentinel is cheap has a good chance to destroy a lot of transports and can assault the transport if it fails to destroy with shooting. It can also tie up some of the less powerful troops in close combat such as IG-vets. Kill the chimera and assault its contents if its in range.

You can also assault and tie up units like broadsides and battlesuits who camp in the corner or at least force your opponent to deploy them differently by having the sentinel in outflank.

The problem with scout sentinels is that in annhilation theyre pretty much free killpoints and they die to pretty much any shooting. I always outflank mine.

I generally arm my scout sentinels with autocannons as whty have a good chance to pentrate AV11 if i cant get a shot in the rear on a vehicle.

I havent run armored sentinels a lot so cant comment much on them.

notprop wrote:Chimeras are too low to cover the hull/above legs bit. I have found quite a few opponents not willing to give cover for this as 50% of the hull is not covered and other similar bs.

Of course with posable legs you have the choice (if you so choose) to model them at a low hieght to avoid this problem. But then you also reduce your own LOS.

This is scary to me, since I was kind of thinking about doing a sentinel + chimera army. Is this a widespread attitude?

A sentinel model is just about 3" high, and a chimera is just about 2" high, so how can that not be 50% cover? The rules just say "model" not "hull" or "legs." How can somebody claim that the legs aren't part of the model?

It should work and I have seen much talk of it but the propblem is that most of the mass of the model is on that top 1".

I'm not au fait enough with the rules to say if it is right or wrong, but this did come as a suprise.

Only the best players I played against in a friendly tourney brought this up (eventual 1st and 2nd placed as it happened). 40k rules are non specific enough that I was cool with it but did mean that my Sentinels were out in the open and it did cost me a 1VP loss in one game - arg!

You can get cover to roughly 50% of a Sentinel behind a Chimera fairly easily: 30% of the "Body" of the Sentinel is below the hull in most standard builds(i.e. the legs are not Fully Straight up, nor down as low as possible); this means that more than 50% of the total silhouette it hidden.

However; The entire weapon mount will be beneath the Chimera meaning that the Sentinel will not be able to shoot over it(No LOS along the weapon). If the Sent is modeled high enough up for LOS to be achieved, you will only have about 10% of the upper body hidden(along with the legs) making more than 50% of the Silhouette visible.

However Off-set to the Chimera in both cases is an effective cover-provider for the Sents.

Pictures will be edited in momentarily as i have 2 sents in 2 poses with a 1/2" height difference, and a Chimera handy for photos.

Tall Sent w/LOS:

Short Sent w/no LOS:

Tall Sent, Off-set: Note: the only reason this one is obscurred is because of the Chimera's turret.

Short Sent, Off-set: This time the Silhouette is just barely over 50%.