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Ive been looking at this unit for a while but havent done any playtesting. I've seen people talking about running a "sentrystar" with Vail and relentless jumping all over the table but is this the best way to use them? Running the star runs around 800 points for potential turn one tabling/ crippling against someone not ready for it . But against someone who knows whats coming it might not be as effective. Would pylons work well alone parked midtable zapping anything that tries to come near? or do they need the character support?

The Sentry-Star can easily win back its points in a single "Teleport + Shooting"-move.
This power comes from the Focussed Death Ray.
That is because if you hit a Tank and 5 Marines, the Tank will get 12 hits and the Marines get 12 hits.
12 S10 hits will kill anything and that is coming from just ONE Sentry Pylon.

The other options are just bad.
Gauss Exterminator used to be nice, but can now only hit Flyers thanks to 7th edition. I'm not paying that amount of points for some anti-air.
Heat Cannon is nice, has an okay range and good damage but is surely not worth the gigantic amount of points.
FDR itself is also really expensive if you take it outside the Sentry-Star.

edited

Depends. Does your enemy know about Sylons? If yes, then you need some mobility else he knows how to out-maneuver them. If he doesn't...he's screwed

In general, you only need to hit 2-3 models under the line to pretty reliably destroy most vehicles in the game. 4 or 6 S10 hits are just super mean.

I also think you need to talk to any TOs or friends you are playing with to find out how best to play their rules since they were definitely written for 6th and don't work easily in 7th ed.

The rules for the Sylons actually work in the same way as before. Some people / TOs just decided to change the rules and thus nerf the Sylons in 6th.

So... Everyone's going to just tell the OP to run the dubious interpretation of the rules where you tot up all the models underneath and hit all of them twice that number of times then?

What opponents are you people fighting who don't call bull on that?

changemod wrote:
So... Everyone's going to just tell the OP to run the dubious interpretation of the rules where you tot up all the models underneath and hit all of them twice that number of times then?

What opponents are you people fighting who don't call bull on that?

How is that bull when its the exceedingly clear RAW?

I think the Sentry Pylons are on the OP side and may deserve a nerfing, but there really is no ambiguity over RAW.

The Senty Star is on the points and power level of a LoW. It is fair to play in metas which have LoWs but seems unsporting in metas that aren't playing LoWs.

col_impact wrote:

changemod wrote:
So... Everyone's going to just tell the OP to run the dubious interpretation of the rules where you tot up all the models underneath and hit all of them twice that number of times then?

What opponents are you people fighting who don't call bull on that?

How is that bull when its the exceedingly clear RAW?

There really isn't any ambiguity to the concept that if you're doing 14 S 10 hits to a single model, as well as another 28 S10 hits split between two other units with a single shot fired by a single just over 150 point model you're abusing a technicality. It's the exact words, sure. Whoop de doo.

It's perfectly clear what the unit does, and encouraging someone new to it to play it wrong is just going to piss his opponents off and convince them the forge world being overpowered thing floating around is true.

changemod wrote:

col_impact wrote:

changemod wrote:
So... Everyone's going to just tell the OP to run the dubious interpretation of the rules where you tot up all the models underneath and hit all of them twice that number of times then?

What opponents are you people fighting who don't call bull on that?

How is that bull when its the exceedingly clear RAW?

There really isn't any ambiguity to the concept that if you're doing 14 S 10 hits to a single model, as well as another 28 S10 hits split between two other units with a single shot fired by a single just over 150 point model you're abusing a technicality. It's the exact words, sure. Whoop de doo.

It's perfectly clear what the unit does, and encouraging someone new to it to play it wrong is just going to piss his opponents off and convince them the forge world being overpowered thing floating around is true.

If you follow the RAW, how is that playing it wrong?

I play RAW unless the rules in question are nonsensical (in this case they aren't but see for example psychic shriek) or an OP situation is created that requires house rule intervention to have a decent game (in this case an OP situation is being created depending on the meta).

It's sensible to see the Pylon Star as OP in a meta where LoW are not allowed, but its on par with LoW if they are allowed.

What situation are you getting that many hits? When I face a Senty Pylon I spread out and deploy my units in curves so a line can only intersect 2 models max.

We normally play it raw here but then again 9 serpents or ad lance aint that uncommon...

All of the above posters should go back and delete all of their comment. If you truly hold dear your sentry pylons, all this attention just hurts FDRs which inevitably leads to wreckless flailing of nerfhammers.

That would imply that FW actually updates their stuff in a reasonable time-frame.
Which would be a good thing, since I want my Gauss Sentry Pylon and Gauss Pylon to actually be able to shoot at non-Flyers and not be ridiculously overpriced.

Kangodo wrote:
That would imply that FW actually updates their stuff in a reasonable time-frame.
Which would be a good thing, since I want my Gauss Sentry Pylon and Gauss Pylon to actually be able to shoot at non-Flyers and not be ridiculously overpriced.

I think the rule should be that FW stuff can only be allowed that has been updated to or is current to the edition of rules that you are using.

col_impact wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
That would imply that FW actually updates their stuff in a reasonable time-frame.
Which would be a good thing, since I want my Gauss Sentry Pylon and Gauss Pylon to actually be able to shoot at non-Flyers and not be ridiculously overpriced.

I think the rule should be that FW stuff can only be allowed that has been updated to or is current to the edition of rules that you are using.

Impossible to do as this would massively disadvantage some armies while heavily favoring others, as well as suddenly devalueing whole armies.

 Sigvatr wrote:

col_impact wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
That would imply that FW actually updates their stuff in a reasonable time-frame.
Which would be a good thing, since I want my Gauss Sentry Pylon and Gauss Pylon to actually be able to shoot at non-Flyers and not be ridiculously overpriced.

I think the rule should be that FW stuff can only be allowed that has been updated to or is current to the edition of rules that you are using.

Impossible to do as this would massively disadvantage some armies while heavily favoring others, as well as suddenly devalueing whole armies.

Then the customers would be complaining to the right party (Forgeworld) to fix the issue.

The onus should not be on players to accept outdated stuff into their current games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Sentry Pylon got OP in the shift from 6th edition to 7th edition.

One possible corrective measure is to time-capsule the Sentry Pylon and have it work as it did in 6th edition, which would include Skyfire that worked on ground models and not being able to be granted relentless (as in 6th edition rules)