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Hi guys,

I am building my first IG army and am trying to lover its cost as much as possible so I am buying battleforces. What do think about sentinels?

Armored or Scout? Which one can be used and are they worth their point costs? What weapon is the best? What purpose can sentinel follow? Is it possible for sentinels to be competitive?

They can be useful. I'd either go for a scout sentinel with a las or autocannon or an armoured sentinel with a plasma cannon.

I personally go with Armoured because I think they look cooler but in terms of functionality, it's better to grab scout sentinels and have them outflank.

Outflanking scout sentinels with one of the three vehicle-popping weapons (autocannon, missile launcher, lascannon) is almost certainly the best use of them. A trio in a squadron aren't as mobile as a vendetta and won't hit as often with lascannons, but also can't be taken down by a single lucky shot. They make a great way to get some autocannons up in the side and rear armor of enemy vehicles though, and unlike lascannons and the vendetta there are no autocannon platforms that compete for the same FO slot.
Armored sentinels with plasma cannons aren't too bad if you enjoy AV12 saturation and blast plates for the blast plate god. Some people swear by them as tarpitting units too, but I dunno how useful tarpitting is if you're going to play IG..hmm...
...Actually their tarpitting might be good for blob lists, enter an assault that the power blob is in and try to have the blob break morale and fall back, so that the enemy can't sweeping advance them, and can be countercharged (possibly with re-roll attack and furious charge if you have priests and straken). Might be worth thinking about.

The issue with the sentinels really is that the vendetta exists nowadays, and for the majority of purposes a first turn scout move or outflank from a vendetta with plasma or melta vets inside will throw a spanner in the enemy's works much more efficiently than the sentinels ever could.
If you don't like vendettas, though, feel free to use sentinels. I don't think they're top-tier, but I don't think they're outright bad. They're just much less sexy in the "outflanking anti-tank role" when compared to the sextuple-lascannon jets.

The only negative aspect to a sentinel is that you 'coulda had a Vendetta (V-8)'

Is it just me, or is the frequnecy of sentinel threads increasing?

the last one was literally four days ago:

edited: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/365973.page

Polonius wrote:Is it just me, or is the frequency of sentinel threads increasing?

the last one was literally four days ago:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/50/18.page

Er...that's a link to page 2 of the 40k tactics forums.

Sorry:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/365973.page

It was on page two somewhere...

Here's the thing with an outflanking Vendetta


It is more than 6" long. In the newest FAQ it states that you can not have part of the model hanging off the board. for a Vendetta to outflank, it has to move more than 6" so it can only fire 1 TL lascannon shot on the turn it arrives.

The scout sentinels can fire all of their weapons the turn they arrive.


I do not think that the Lascannon is worth the price. Since you are only BS3 you will want more shots rather then better shots and it is quite a bit cheaper as well.

scouts with autocannons mostly

can also give them hunter-killer missiles (for a BS3 outflanking multi-shot)

and armored with multi laser (just keeping it cheap to tarpit) or plasma cannon.

I love sentinels and always try to include some (I wish we could have more fast slots, so many cool things there)

I don't find sentinels competitve but they do have a nice role as a tar-pit. The armoured sentinel does better as a tarpit but its another 20 points. As for equiping them, the autocannon is probably one of the better choices. The plasma cannons nice but you're adding up costs to a flimsy unit which isn't a good idea.

Sents are great if used properly.

in mech armies, you have better targets on the table and they can attract alot of attention against some armies that need front armor facings to resist autocannon fire.

for infantry guard, they can follow the blobs in, providing mobile cover and a tarpit against many-attack low str targets, or a block against tougher things since they can't be tank shocked.

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 use as a CC tar-pit, but it does make a great fire-support platform.

Depends on the meta.

Armoured sentinels are great in cc against normal troops, they can hold up a squad of infantry like no mans business

My favourite is a squadron of two scout sentinels armed with autocannons and hunter killers. The outflank with the help of an astropath and go for side/rear shots. Yesterday (warning - anecdotal evidence ahoy) mine outflanked behind a ravager, shot and kicked it to death, then got charged by some wyches. They held them up until the last turn, kicked two of them to death and made the squad flee off the board. Not bad really.

They are the only unit that I feel a HK is useful on. You are paying a points premium for getting the shot in the right place at the right time.

Id say scout sentinels with multilasers/autocannons and perhaps a hunter killer are the best choise.

Against rear armour 10:
Multilaser: 3 shots 1,5 hits 75% to affect the vehicle 25/50
Autocannon: 2 shots 1 hit 67% to affect the vehicle

Against side armour 11:
Multilaser: 3 shots 1,5 hits 50% to affect the vehicle
Autocannon: 2 shots 1 hit 50% to affect the vehicle

Against side armour 12
Multilaser: 3 shots 1,5 hits 25% to affect the vehicle
Autocannon: 2 shots 1 hit 33% to affect the vehicle

Now i havent factored in the glace/pen chanse or the chanse to blow it up only to affect it and to disrupt it.

Overall id say that multilaser are most effective on outflankers, they are cheaper and can at only +5pts equip a HKM (compared to AC SS).

Armoured Sentinels with Multilasers/Autocannons are quite useful on tying up dangerous units like Zerkers or something other nasty unit. DE are esp funny to charge because they are having reallly tough times against it in CC. And autocannon/multilaser/hkm hurts their vehivles alot.

Ofc Vendettas are more powerful but some people actually likes to not play the OP Meltavet/Vendetta combo just to show actual "general-ship".

Outflanking autocannon scout sentinals. Nuff said. Want to annoy the sit back and let the tanks do the work player? Sentials pop the rear armour, and they go down. Massive annoyance, sometimes a game winner.