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So, I want to add some sentinels to my Guard army but.. I'm not quite sure how to equip them.. Should I use Scout or Armoured Sentinels? What weapons should I give them..?

How long is a piece of string?

It very much depends what else you have in your force. Sentinals are fairly cheap, mobile, and pack relentless heavy weapons - but on the other hand are pretty easy to kill.


If you've got a lot of AV12 (generally Chimeras but also Basilisks, Wyverns and Hellhounds) in your army, Armoured Sentinals are probably better - they provide cheap extra AV12 which provides a further challenge to your opponent's reserves of S6-S8 firepower to kill. They are also quite hard to kill in assaults - at least by opponents without power fists, meltabombs, or monstrous creatures, and provide a nice way to lock down a big mob of gaunts, bloodletters, or other infantry who'll struggle to hurt them.

Missile Launchers, Multilasers or Lascannons are good for flinging shots across the board, whilst heavy flamers make for a half-decent close-quarter counterassault unit.

In other armies, the scout sentinals are probably better. Their key trick is to march on and either burn out a fragile heavy weapons unit, or to pick on side and rear armour shots on vehicles. The latter are well suited to Autocannons & Hunter Killer Missiles (they're probably only going to get one shooting phase before being gunned down - H/Ks at least ensure they're a good one).

Armoured has a higher chance of surviving, but since neither of them are durable, you may be better saving points and hoping the cheaper option is more efficient. Unless you want a wall of AT-ST's, in which case go armoured.

I'd go for either Autocannons or Missile Launchers on them, as those guns are quite versatile, and the guard can always do with some more 48" range guns. Unless you see a lot of heavy armour, in which case some Lascannons may be more appropriate.

I enjoy the standard multilaser, if you have fast attack slots to fill drop 3 individual one down and target enemy transports with em. It's not a lot of points and they do ok.

Also as mentioned about they are amazing at tarpitting hoards of troops especially since they generally suck at close combat and will usually miss their one attack keeping them locked in as long as possible.

I think heavy flamers or multilasers are the way to go. How many Sentinels do you plan to run? If you have 6 the Emperor's Talon Recon Company is really quire good. 6 outflanking Armored Sentinels with preferred enemy vs a unit and orders has proved to be a very effective backfield disruption unit for me. If not outflanking I use them as an assault deterrent and screen for my other armor with 3 heavy flamers per unit. Most units don't want to charge them because of the nasty over watch and potential to get stuck in combat for a long time, yet a squad of 3 has a big footprint and is hard to get around if you want to assault something behind it.

An interesting tactic I've heard of is using the sentinels for mobile cover for your chimeras and other vehicles as they will almost always block 25% view of a vehicle. The armored sentinels work especially well for this as they are relatively survivable. So you pay 45 pts for a cover save and a relentless heavy weapon. Other than that I have bad luck with sentinels so my opinions on them aren't particularly useful.

The last time I fielded a squadron of lascannon sentinels they spent 3 turns missing all but 1 shot, and the 1 shot that hit rolled a 1 to wound. The game ended with them being an utter waste of points.

With BS3, the Multilaser and heavy flamer are the way to go. More shots, more hits.

I was thinking of adding 3-6 Sentinels because I like the models ^_^ Maybe 3 wth heavy flamer and 3 with multi-laser or autocannon?

Autocannons, autocannons, autocannons.

One tactic I've seen used is take a full squad of 3 Armored Sentinels, and position them in such a way that anyone shooting at the unit from about a 180 degree arc will fire at AV12.

I think the only meh options are the lascannons (mediocre BS with one shot weapons) and missile launchers (same thing). Armoured can run plasma cannons, which is fun, but only makes an expensive unit more expensive that still tips over to a stiff breeze.

Best to run them cheap with dakka. Multilasers, autocannons and heavy flamers are all sensible choices based what kind of shooting the rest of your army has.

I prefer Armored Sentinels with plasma cannons. They look sweet and BS3 doesn't hurt the blast template as much as it would a lascannon. I usually run one or two just to add more AV12 and to annoy people.

In my experience, Sentinels only really function with a couple different loadouts. The basic AV10 Sentinel is so absurdly easy to kill that its hard to see worth using, but equipped with heavy flamers and sent outflanking they can sometimes function "ok", but will be pointless against many foes. The AV12 sentinels I think have more use. I prefer them with Lascannons and run in conjunction with large numbers of other vehicles. In this role, they can aid in stressing an opponents AT by getting more hulls on the field with a gun that commands some respect but that you dont feel bad about losing either, making your opponent waste resources on weeny units. At the same time, they make good roadblocks against assault units, if they arent equipped with AT weapons you use your cheap 50pt sentinel to tarpit for eternity.

Autocannons on the Armoured variants are the way to go with them, they make a good supplement for your Heavy Weapon teams. Use them for fire support.

In all honesty though, as with many things in the Guard codex they are just a waste of space.

If you are in two minds about how to load them out, magnetise them. It's a very easy job on the sentinels as long as you are happy to choose between armoured and scout. The weapons just stick on the side, so putting a magnet in there is child's play.

 Lukash_ wrote:
Autocannons, autocannons, autocannons.

One tactic I've seen used is take a full squad of 3 Armored Sentinels, and position them in such a way that anyone shooting at the unit from about a 180 degree arc will fire at AV12.

This. Armored sentinels are best run with autocannons. Maybe a single plasma cannon in a full squadron of 3.

Scouting sentinels are usually best kept cheap. Heavy flamers or multilaser all the way. The problem is if you plan on outflanking and you run heavy flamers and show up on the wrong side of the table you've just wasted 105pts on a free kill-point for your opponent.

Armoured are It really, if you can swing 6 of them off ebay (not that hard) you can give them a formation with orders, preferred enemy against a unit, and out flank, which effectively makes them better than the scout sentinels in every way for all of 5 points more.

I'm also a plasma junky on principle so i'll say Pcannon. Preferred Enemy Pcannon is truly foul for quite a lot of targets. Otherwise Armoured HFlamer or Multilaser is a good all rounder, which the sentinel has to be since it's not excellent at anything.

Armored and with plasma cannons.

Armored can tarpit in CC.
Plasma cannons don't miss, they may overheat but...1/6.

When it comes to armament on armored sentinels, I really want to like the Autocannon, but the small investment over the AC to get the Lascannon, gets you a gun thats a little more threatening to a wider array of critical threat targets (and makes them better decoys and opportunistic harrassment units) while to me the Autocannon and Multilaser are a wash (AC is better against tanks and has a longer range, ML is better overall against infantry and MC's and is equally as good or better at engaging AV10/11 vehicles) and paying for the AC seems somewhat wasteful (as opposed to being a free swap).

My problem with PC's is that, with only 2HP, that Gets Hot issue makes it overly punitive in Sentinels.

I always forget about the Gets Hot for vehicle nonsense. Who thought that was a good idea? I hereby rescind my point about giving sentinels plasma cannons.

 Blacksails wrote:
I always forget about the Gets Hot for vehicle nonsense. Who thought that was a good idea? I hereby rescind my point about giving sentinels plasma cannons.

Methinks someone on the GW team encountered the PlasmaCutioner a few too many times

It wasnt even all that great before. Powerful but absurdly expensive, now its cheaper but will kill itself over a 6 turn game XD

I now want to field an entire army of nothing but Autocannon Sentinels and rifleman dreads.

Autocannons for days.

Actually, there's an idea. Why not allow Sentinels to have a second heavy weapon?

Then you can have even moar autocannons.

Give them hunter-killer missiles as stock wargear?

 Blacksails wrote:
Actually, there's an idea. Why not allow Sentinels to have a second heavy weapon?

Then you can have even moar autocannons.

Overkill. Two heavy weapons on two hullpoints only works if you're a flyer.

A heavy stubber or two would be welcome though. Would make sense too.

No upgrades. The best use I ever had for them was as suicide bombers. Charge an elite cc unit and watch them explode. I killed a lot of Genestealers that way.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
No upgrades. The best use I ever had for them was as suicide bombers. Charge an elite cc unit and watch them explode. I killed a lot of Genestealers that way.

Unfortunately that only works for lightly armored units. Try that with a unit of sternguard and see if it works (it wont). It seems like a lot of people are against the PC upgrade. While I wouldn't upgrade a whole unit with em (especially multiple units), I can definitely see the benefits of putting a potent weapon like that on a low priority target unit like sentinels. Anyway if a plasma vehicle if going to cook itself, better a sentinel than an expensive LR Executioner. Also I can see the cheap sentinels as a great platform for HK missiles. When a low expectation unit does something awesome it's like twice as rewarding IMO.

Lastly, why on earth don't sentinels of either type come with the option for a heavy stibber in addition to the primary weapon? In my opinion the heavy stubber should come stock as a secondary weapon. Especially on the armored ones who are already stupidly overcosted. Its certainly not overkill and a 5 on the pen chart wouldn't render the model useless. I'm sure nobody will argue that additional dakka would offer the sents some much needed help.

Or that underslung chainsaw option could be an optional weapon too.

I give them plasma cannons but only because of my personal fluff for my army. I have vet squads with max plasma, executioners with plasma sponsons and plasma sentinels. My army usually kills itself before the enemy does but it's a fun army to play especially against my friend's orks. It's nowhere near competitive though

I just wish I could swap the front heavy bolter on the executioners for another plasma cannon.

I like plasma cannons and autocannons personally.

Mostly so that they can put a dent in anything HOPEFULLY before they can shot to gak a turn later.

If they manage to wipe out an obliterator squad with a small blast but can lascannon'd immediately after...c'est la vie