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I was thinking about getting some Sentry Pylons with Focused Death Rays from Forgeworld and seen that they used to have a competitive list. Are they still just as good in a competitive environment or have they fallen in power? Also which book has their rules?

Thanks all!

I think Alex Fenell's version just came in 3rd at a big GT if I recall correctly.

Alex came in third just this last weekend at an event with some real killers and some strong lists. Pylon-star is absolutely a thing.

Listen, anything in any miniatures game which bypasses probability altogether, will be strong. Pylons don't have to hit, skipping straight to trying to wound, with often huge volumes of very high quality, strong shooting.

I'm also a huge fan of them outside of competitive play, as a couple, solo Death Rays, make fun, and not over-powered backfield units.

If you're interested in them, I say go for it. I use mine constantly.

Thanks for the comments. I've been debating on throwing down the money and getting a Warhound Titan or 3 Sentry Pylons. I'm still trying to decide what to get. On one hand it's a Titan to start a Titan Legion but they soak up points and I couldn't see it being great in a competitive environment especially the one I'm at, sub 2k points. But at the same time it's a Titan, they're always awesome to have.

Titan would take longer to put together and paint I imagine.

Definitely. But I'm planning on getting an airbrush to help with that problem. I think really my biggest issue with Sentry Pylons is that I'm afraid I'll spend all that money and then FW will nerf the hell out of them with the next book they are in. Just like the normal Pylon.

I don't know about your local community, but around here Titans would be disallowed from any kind of tournament play... and most pick-up games would never have an answer for one, so my vote would go Pylons just because they're perfectly acceptable in every level of play.

So far I've gotten the go to use one of a Titan from the TO. Exact quote, "Yeah it's fine. I mean it's 720 points out of the 1850 you are given. It'd weaken your army on the objective game due to only 1130 left. Plus we have Wraithknight spammers and I'd love to see that Titan wreck them. Lol."

spacemarine542 wrote:
So far I've gotten the go to use one of a Titan from the TO. Exact quote, "Yeah it's fine. I mean it's 720 points out of the 1850 you are given. It'd weaken your army on the objective game due to only 1130 left. Plus we have Wraithknight spammers and I'd love to see that Titan wreck them. Lol."

Man... that logic though. :-p Oh no, 720pts is invested in something 95% of pick-up gamer's can't scratch! :-p I wish we had a community like that. I'd own a Tau'nar Supremacy Armor soooooooo fast.

There was some debate a while ago about whether or not IC joined to a sentry pylon unit would be allow to fight back in assault, was that resolved?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

spacemarine542 wrote:
So far I've gotten the go to use one of a Titan from the TO. Exact quote, "Yeah it's fine. I mean it's 720 points out of the 1850 you are given. It'd weaken your army on the objective game due to only 1130 left. Plus we have Wraithknight spammers and I'd love to see that Titan wreck them. Lol."

Man... that logic though. :-p Oh no, 720pts is invested in something 95% of pick-up gamer's can't scratch! :-p I wish we had a community like that. I'd own a Tau'nar Supremacy Armor soooooooo fast.

Honestly I probably won't really field it in pick-up games, just tournaments. Assuming I decide to go with the Warhound. I was thinking about being ultra-cheesy and running 2 conclaves with it and spam invisibility on it with Prescience.

torblind wrote:
There was some debate a while ago about whether or not IC joined to a sentry pylon unit would be allow to fight back in assault, was that resolved?

Considering it has still be placing at major GTs, both NOVA and ITC, I would say competitive judging in general has decided those ICs can fight back. Though I also believe models in b2b with the Pylons themselves to still auto-hit them.

I believe Nova rules it as the ICs (with the pylon) can swing, but the enemy AUTO hit the ICs AND their pylons. So if you throw durable models at the star, the pylon star can teleport away once using the relic. Then, if they get locked in combat a second time, they are "stuck" there for the rest of the game. The ICs damage output in h2h isn't that great and they don't have H&R. The weakness of sentry star is locking them in combat. If the enemy knows how to play against the star, the star becomes a lot less effective.

TLDR, it's competitive - but it's a lot less effective when the enemy knows how to counter play against it.

I've never seen a battle report with them, what's the targeting priority for that first turn?
-Try to cause as much damage to as many things as possible with all three Pylons firing on different targets?
-Or everything focusing on one target, the enemy's primary threat, to neutralize it so you don't have to worry about it for the rest of the game?

So I started thinking and realized I should probably be a bit more responsible with my money until I get more back. I bought the Sentry Pylons. What else do you throw in the list to make it work? I remember reading anrakyr and retribution phalanx.

Anrakyr will be your Warlord for the Relentless and helps out if you're charged thanks to Counter Attack. Orikan rerolls stuff, Destroyer Lord does stuff.
Just make sure you consistently have the majority T7. Also have fun vaporizing any deathstar.

Do people still use the Retribution phalanx?

Here's my list that I built for Sentry-star.
Necrons Sentry-star 1848/1850
Combined Arms Detachment:

1x Destroyer Lord w/ Nightmare Shroud, Phase Shifter, and Warscythe
9x Immortals w/ Gauss Blasters
10x Warriors
3x Wraiths w/ Whip Coils
3x Wraiths w/ Whip Coils
6x Tomb Blades w/ Nebuloscopes, Shield Vanes, and TL Gauss Blasters
3x Sentry Pylons w/ Focussed Death Rays

Formation Detachment:
Royal Court:
1x Anrakyr the Traveller
1x Cryptek w/ Solar Staff and Phase Shifter
1x Orikan the Diviner
1x Lord w/ Veil of Darkness, Warscythe, and Phase Shifter

Comments or Criticism? I was trying to shoot for the Majority Toughness rule to go into effect and everything get T7.

I was at local ITC format tourney yesterday, a Pylon Star player played against a Magnus Rehati war sect army G1.

Magnus casted Treason of Tz on the Pylon Star, then used it to draw a beam line thru its own models pretty much blowing itself up. Pretty devastating and ridiculous.

Ouch!

To defeat that the Sentry-star player is going to have to deploy just the Sentry-star or otherwise make sure the Sentry-star does not have line of sight to any of the Sentry-star players units.


To beat Magnus it looks like the Sentry-star is going to have to start thinking about allying in silver bullets.

1) Culexus
2) Renegade Knight with the Twin Icarus Cannon
3) Riptide
4) Ork Tractor Guns
5) the Masque

He drew the beam line thru the Sentry Star models itself, killing pretty much everyone in the star itself.

Yeah Culexus would work but Magnus and friends can just fly around him.

Riptide with sky fire is alright, but to go thru 7W T7 and 3++ re-roll 1st is still tough.

The masque will live for one turn tho haha

col_impact wrote:
Ouch!

To defeat that the Sentry-star player is going to have to deploy just the Sentry-star or otherwise make sure the Sentry-star does not have line of sight to any of the Sentry-star players units.


To beat Magnus it looks like the Sentry-star is going to have to start thinking about allying in silver bullets.

1) Culexus
2) Renegade Knight with the Twin Icarus Cannon
3) Riptide
4) Ork Tractor Guns
5) the Masque

If the goal is to just down demon FMCs then ork tractor guns are hilariously cost effective.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
He drew the beam line thru the Sentry Star models itself, killing pretty much everyone in the star itself.

Yes, but you do understand that the Sentry Star cannot fire if it has no legal target to begin with. So there must be some other unit besides itself that it can draw line of sight to in its own army. Once there is such a unit besides itself in line of sight then it has permission to shoot. Otherwise it cannot shoot.

col_impact wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
He drew the beam line thru the Sentry Star models itself, killing pretty much everyone in the star itself.

Yes, but you do understand that the Sentry Star cannot fire if it has no legal target to begin with. So there must be some other unit besides itself that it can draw line of sight to in its own army. Once there is such a unit besides itself in line of sight then it has permission to shoot. Otherwise it cannot shoot.

Its not making a shooting attack, per se. You're targeting a "point on the table" and drawing a line. Its the same reason Pylonstar can get around jinking units... who couldn't at that point jink as they weren't the "target" of shooting.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

col_impact wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
He drew the beam line thru the Sentry Star models itself, killing pretty much everyone in the star itself.

Yes, but you do understand that the Sentry Star cannot fire if it has no legal target to begin with. So there must be some other unit besides itself that it can draw line of sight to in its own army. Once there is such a unit besides itself in line of sight then it has permission to shoot. Otherwise it cannot shoot.

Its not making a shooting attack, per se. You're targeting a "point on the table" and drawing a line. Its the same reason Pylonstar can get around jinking units... who couldn't at that point jink as they weren't the "target" of shooting.

If it's not a shooting attack, then what rules are you using to have permission to fire the death ray? The movement phase? The psychic phase? The assault phase?

col_impact wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

col_impact wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
He drew the beam line thru the Sentry Star models itself, killing pretty much everyone in the star itself.

Yes, but you do understand that the Sentry Star cannot fire if it has no legal target to begin with. So there must be some other unit besides itself that it can draw line of sight to in its own army. Once there is such a unit besides itself in line of sight then it has permission to shoot. Otherwise it cannot shoot.

Its not making a shooting attack, per se. You're targeting a "point on the table" and drawing a line. Its the same reason Pylonstar can get around jinking units... who couldn't at that point jink as they weren't the "target" of shooting.

If it's not a shooting attack, then what rules are you using to have permission to fire the death ray? The movement phase? The psychic phase? The assault phase?

This weapon is based on older rules where you are literally aiming at the ground and you just happen to be hitting models between the two points. The rule even includes keywords of "to fire" and "friendly"

"To fire the focussed death ray, nominate a point on the battlefield anywhere within its range, then nominate a second point within 3D6" of the first. Draw a straight line (considered to be 1mm in width) between the two points. Every unit (friendly or enemy) underneath the line suffers a number of hits equal to twice the number of models underneath the line."

The rule is now forgeworld only, since GW changed Doomscythe's gun to a blast instead of this odd beam like gun.

There is an issue as to how many hits per unit it can cause if it draws a line through two units. But most major events have their house rule set up to fix that.

Yep it can mook itself

That necron player was quite upset. Pylon Star is pretty much almost auto lose against Magnus or Cabalstar