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Yes.. i want to field a small unit of sentinals. Why?

- Damn cheap point wise
- Cool looking
- Lots of choices

I'm not 100% sure on what i wish to take.. someone help me here!

I was thinking armored sentinals with lascannons for Anti-tank duties but i'm not 100% sure..

What I was thinking of doing was mounting an HK missle on my scout sentinels along with missle launchers. This way I can attempt to take out armor with the HK, and then use the missle launchers for anti-armor should those fail or small template anti-infantry should they succeed. 48" range isnt that bad considering the board we play on is 49"inches wide. Just my thoughts on the subject.

I think the absolute best use of a sentinel is as a sentinel bomb.

Get it up into close combat, potentially do a little damage, then explode and cause a STR3 hit against everything in 6". Great way to take down Orks, IG, hormogaunts and genestealers.

Lascannon sentinels are good tank hunters, they can get good shots at side and rear armor.

No ones going to laugh at you for taking sentinels, they can be tough little sods.

First are you going to be sitting back and shooting or getting up close? If your sitting back shooting then the Armoured Sentinel is probably for you (If your up close then the side armours going to be on show). Personal favourite flavour is the plasma cannon it roasts most things.

If your getting up close then next question is are you going to out flank or scout?
If your going to out flank then ether stick with the multi laser or take flamers if you want to kill infantry and take LasCannons (and possibly HK's) if you want to hunt tanks
If your scouting you'll mainly be using them as a general screen for your army a mix of weapons works best (assuming you take 3 then 1 multi laser, 1 heavy flamer and 1 missile launcher) they can take over a ruin. Take camo-nets as once they into the ruin they'll be sitting there

I personally like the Heavy Flamer sentinel a lot, and the Armored Sentinel can become invaluable for its ability to bog down elite CC units.

That's how I view the Sentinel; a close-support unit that can be used most effectively in the counter charge. Let's face it, IG players don't really need more gun mounts; there's dozens of vehicles to mount any array of weapons that you require. Where they fall short is in close-in combat inferiority, and that can be compensated for quite well by the proper use of armored sentinels.

Well unfortunately if you go with armored sentinels they really aren't cheap. That said i usually field 3 of them with plasma cannons. They combine good range, decent front armor, decent weapon options, and are not open topped.

3 with plasma cannons comes out to 225 points with no other upgrades (that's only 5 points less than an executioner with plasma sponsons) but then again they always seem to have an impact on the battle.
They aren't perceived as a major threat like a russ, valk, or hellhound variant in my experience.

They are also decently tough in close combat with armor 12 on the front requiring that the enemy be at least s6 to hurt them or use grenades which hit on 6s.

I personally field three armored sentinels as a fire platform behind my gunline. Not only do they work as a mobile firing platform and countercharge unit but when you need to move forward to say contest an objective then you can move the sentinels without disrupting the fire of your line. They are extremely useful, but if you want to ensure that they survive then take armored sentinels, those twenty points go a long way.

Unfortunately, the rest of the guard codex has better options for everything sentinels can be used for. As usual, I think if you're going to use them, look at what the rest of your list brings (in terms of AT, AP, blast, etc firepower) and fill the holes. As I think they are an overall weak choice, I'd go with something cheap...scout sentinels with multilasers or autocannons get a good number of high power, decent ranged shots and can therefore threaten just about anything. Autocannon is probably the best choice, with multilaser a close second. The str 7 and 48" range is a bargain upgrade for 5 points.

Tri wrote:No ones going to laugh at you for taking sentinels, they can be tough little sods.

First are you going to be sitting back and shooting or getting up close? If your sitting back shooting then the Armoured Sentinel is probably for you (If your up close then the side armours going to be on show). Personal favourite flavour is the plasma cannon it roasts most things.

Actually, I think a lot of people will view it as a silly choice. If you want a cheap version (multilaser) of either the scout or armored sentinel, you might as well buy chimeras for your troops (even if the troops don't sit in them). AV12, two weapons, faster, can tank shock and can transport scoring units.

Anti-tank duties (lascannon) are better handled by vendettas. Same fast slot, cost the same as about 2.5 lascannon sentinels but has better armor, speed, firepower and transport capacity.

Yeah, the more I consider it, the more I see that the toughest weapon to efficiently spam in the IG list is the nice, mid-strength autocannon. 120 for 3 of the guys doesn't seem too bad, although they're dying on 3+ pen rolls due to open top and squadron rules, which really hurts.

sourclams wrote:I personally like the Heavy Flamer sentinel a lot, and the Armored Sentinel can become invaluable for its ability to bog down elite CC units.

That's how I view the Sentinel; a close-support unit that can be used most effectively in the counter charge. Let's face it, IG players don't really need more gun mounts; there's dozens of vehicles to mount any array of weapons that you require. Where they fall short is in close-in combat inferiority, and that can be compensated for quite well by the proper use of armored sentinels.

I just don't see this line of thinking working well. IG is supposed to be about "shooty"...lots of shooty keeps most of the enemy from reaching you, and then finishes off whatever reaches your line after you sacrifice a squad or two to it. Most assault-based armies I see have the spped to choose where to hit, so they'll avoid sentinels, or are strong enough to easily blow them apart. That, or the limited AT shooting they have is directed to take them out prior to charging.

I have several of them, and actually built more right before the new codex came out hoping they'd be improved. I think they were, slightly, but were rendered obsolescent by new additions to the codex the handled everything sentinels do better and cheaper.

Grimaldi what exactly are you comparing them to? I'll go through your options.

VS Vendetta. Yes theres 20pts different but then you went on to say it could carry a scoring unit. Fair enough but that means that it cost more total then the Sentinels. Now on to the them attacking armour. If the both out flank (or even if the Vendetta DS) your moving so the Vendetta can only use 1 of the 3 Las-Cannons where as the Sentential can use all the Las-Cannons and could even fire HK missiles. So the tank your attack is more likely to die and less likely to turn round and murder you for trying.

Vs Chimera. Ok you have 2 weapons how many attacks do you get in Close combat? None and you get attack on you rear armour in CC (mobile Sentinels only get attack on their front armour... hope you brought something with Str4+ (or str6+ for the armoured), if not your stuffed). You also must remain stationary to fire both weapons so no major advantage there unless you don't move.

My preferred option is to field 2 or 3 Scout class machines with Autocannon. Pretty cheap with a good chance of hitting with some shots and S7 can do decent damage to heavy infantry and vehicle flanks.

My biggest problem with Lascannon armed sentinels is the relatively poor odds to hit with a single shot weapon. I would tend to leave the LC to infantry with orders, or Vendettas.

Heavy flamer sentinels with a HK missile...yummy. I think Sentinels belong outflanking, getting up close and personal, and I must reiterate....I think the sentinel bomb is the best use of a sentinel.

I prefer autocannon sentinels. Side armor w S7 still works nicely. I have seen someone at my area use the Plasma cannon sentinels to a good degree of effectiveness.

How many sentinel can be in a squadron ? if 3 then i would take 9 of the buggers,Lascannon or Flamer depending what theme i would go with.

Sentinel squads are 1-3 models. I really like the outflanking scout sents for side armor killing as well.

The reason I went with armored plasma cannon sentinels is that my list had a definite lack of ap 2 in it for killing heavy infantry. They seem to mesh well with copious amounts of av12 to 14. This seems to draw dedicated AT fire away from them towards russes and other tanks.

As for the vendetta being able to become scoring its a valid point. Also I don;t really factor in the cost of a squad its transporting due to the fact that the squad has the option to get in it, or not depending on the situation even it said squad has its own dedicated transport.

The bigger loss I think is not being able to load up on hellhound variants, all 3 are very solid, have great speed and g=can fill a role in the list. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers
~Volkan

I think armored sentinels with creed allowing them to outflank could be a pretty effective surprise to CC units

I personally like Plasma cannon toting Armored Sentinels.

3 AC sentinels with camo that outflank, then sit in cover behind an enemy are great. Orks, Nids, and marines must send a unit back to deal with them, and no one wants to turn to expose rear armor to the rest of your army.

Are you playing pick up games ? Is this a tournament list ? hummm.

Are you just playing friendlies ? The best reason for fielding sentinal squadrons is that a lot of the IG fluff has them in. I love 'em. My ASL have six (4 LC & 2 PC), my heretics & renegades have two (flamer & chainsaw) and I have two to put togeather for my Valhallans (I only build for fluff). If you like 'em, play 'em. You know that they will sometimes not be competitive. Don't worry, it's only a game.

it depends who you are fighting. against orks and especially nids take heavy flamers. against vehicles/ monstrous creatures take the lascannon with a HK missile.

Personally, I'm thinking Armored Sentinels with a Missile Launcher and Hunter Killer missile would be a great support unit. It has versitile weapons and functions. Frag templates for anti-horde, and an amazing 6 S8 shots for anti-tank. On top of that, I'd imagine they'd be able to handle thinned out melee units like Orks, and run down any non-melee units they come across (Tau and Gaunts come to mind). I don't think there is anything in the Guard 'dex that packs that much versitility for 75 ppm.