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Slowly getting back in to 40k, and was thinking about my old miniatures. I still have some armored sentinels still around from 5th edition-- and still have enough las- or plas-cannons to equip them entirely with either one. Is there still much of use for them these days?

I can probably de-convert them in to scout sentinels if I wanted to as well.

Yes. They're as usable as the rest of the decent units in the AM codex. So that's to say they're still a have-not codex, but Sentinels can be used reasonably effectively.

If you have access to the Mont'Ka or Cadian Supplements, there's a nice formation that allows you to use a bunch of Sentinels [at least 6?] and furthermore grants outflank to all Sentenels, even Armoured Sentinels, which is pretty damned good. I think there's a rule that helps to mitigate overheat rolls, but I might be confusing that with a different formation's bonuses.

Anyhow, with Scout Sentinels I'd typically go for Outflank and use Multi-Lasers. High ROF mitigates poor BS, and cover saves are less valuable against them. I'd be typically hunting things in cover that I couldn't otherwise gain LOS to, or plinking the rear AV of a vehicle. In any case, the decent S / ROF combination is most valuable to me.

With Armoured Sentinels, I generally prefer Plasma Cannons, because I like Plasma Cannons, and they're hard to get elsewhere in the army, except for Russ chassis. Particularly with the Talon [?] formation, the ability to hit things with Plasma that the Russes can't gain LOS to it really handy. Against units in cover, hopefully they're bunched up which helps with low ROF. Even against vehicles, they at least have the chance to explode them. Scatter give you a better than 50% chance to hit a largish target, and you're shooting rear armour...

I prefer my lascannons on Vendettas, as I think they're the most points efficient / versatile platform for them, and I have one. I also like putting LC's on infantry squads, for orders / survivability.

Some people swear by Autocannons, but I put AC on any infantry unit that doesn't have a Lascannon. They're so cheap I put them everywhere. Since I already have a decent number of AC / MuL on other sources, I would typically pass on equipping Armoured Sentinels with them. The advancing Chimera / Vets are already fulfilling that weapon role.

If I had no Lascannons sitting back, I'd consider using LC's on Armoured Sentinels if they're front-line advancing with the Chimerae [not outflanking] and I wasn't using a Vendetta, and I wasn't expecting to be able to get up close with Meltaguns... but there could be a case made for it. Like, if you needed to be killing vehicles on your first turn, hoping on explosions kind of thing, the Lascannons would be your best bet for an Alpha Strike. If you need to eliminate someone's Monstrous Creature of Doom, or a Super-Death Vehicle, before it can weak too much havoc on you, a Lascannon is the best tool we'd have for the job. They're also passable as flyer hunters. Piss poor odds to hit, but if you do, at least you're likely to deal damage. AC's are crap vs FMC, that typically have a 3+ save or better. At least you force them to jink.

Yeah, the Emperor's Talon formation.

It consists of 2-4 full squadrons of 3 sentinels, can be either armored or scout (meaning, you can have 6-12 sentinels in it). One of the sentinels becomes an Ld8 commander able to give Orders to the other sentinels, and all of the formation gets to declare a single enemy unit on turn one to become their Preferred Enemy for the rest of the game.


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Is something liek this excessive? IE extra armor on everything?

Emperor's Talon Detachment: 750 Pts
-- Armored Sentinel Squadron:
---- Armored Sentinel Commander: Plasma Cannon, Extra Armor, Recovery Gear, Augur Array
---- Armored Sentinel x2: Plasma Cannon , Extra Armor
-- Armored Sentinel Squadron:
---- Armored Sentinel x3: Plasma Cannon , Extra Armor
-- Armored Sentinel Squadron:
---- Armored Sentinel x3: Plasma Cannon , Extra Armor
-- Armored Sentinel Squadron:
---- Armored Sentinel x3: Plasma Cannon , Extra Armor

Without the upgrades it'd be 600 points flat, which could fit in to a lot of lists I suppose.

Extra armor in my opinion is a waste on sentinels. At 2hp and flimsy armour a penetrating hit is usually a dead sentinel if they are trying to destroy it.

If your models are small enough, camo nets give a nice boost to survivabilty if you can position them well.

Auger array is a waste without the units to utilise, and works better on scout variant to drop units on the half way line reliably.

So basically the camo nets are about the only upgrade you'd recommend?


Hmm. What about smoke?


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I suppose I should tkae this to the list section at this point? Seeing as I'm playing around in army builder and looking through the books.

Smoke launchers I wouldn't recommend.

Indeed, they're pretty glass cannon, even for AV 12 on the front. Plus, you want the shots, not the survival. Given they should be able to come on with decent LOS to "Something" You could probably skip the smoke.

Camo get expensive, and depends on your terrain. I'm very aggressive with Sentinels, so I'd forego cover to get better LOS, so I don't think I'd pay the points for it. I'd rather have more boys than toys, as the saying goes.

If you're using that many Sentinels, you might want to diversify the load out. For example, if you face a lot of transports, you'd do well to have some Multi-Lasers for cracking the transports, then the Plasma to roast the guys dumping out...

Camouflage Netting is definitely worth it though.

Yeah thought about that when I was making my last revision to the idea.

Here's the last thing I came up with:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/716844.page

Which is 9 plasma cannons, 6 multilasers, 3 heavy flamers in a 1000 point list. Thinking on it, I can probably get away with dropping camo nets to get another couple of full squadrons-- one scouts and one armored. Which would be much more impressive probably, come to think on it-- 24 sents instead of 18, at 1000 points.

Heavy Flamers I get nervous about because I cannot guarantee they'd be in range. I'd be all over more Multilasers or Autocannons.

Hmm, that's true.

In that case--

4x squadrons of armored w/plascans
1x squadron of scout w/camo and autocannons
2x squadrons of scouts w/multilasers

Something like that? (sadly, 12 plascan armored sents and 12 multilaser scout sents is 1020 points, so dropped a squadron and added some upgrades to get to a flat 1000)

Exchanging one or two squadrons of plascans with lascans is an option too as they're the same price, giving a wide range of fire options, but I like having metric fethtonnes of little pie plates of plasmatic death to throw around.


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Alternativey
3x armored platoons of 3x plascans
1x armored platoon of 2x autocans, 1 multilaser
4x scout platoons of multilasers.


-or-

3x armored platoons of 3x plascans
1x armored platoon of 3x heavy flamers
3x scout platoons of multilasers
1x scout platoons of 1x multilaser, 2x autocans

These two are designed to maximize the amount of sentinels put on the field at the expense of upgrades, they do look attractive....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Camouflage Netting is definitely worth it though.

Depends. If you're buying a survival upgrade instead of just more [X], then you'd better be getting more survival per point than just taking more [X] that has additional HP, more guns, can have additional units to force overkill on units etc.

A basic Armoured Sent is 40 points and Camo is 15 (a 37.5% price increase), so you need to save more than 37.5% more hull points from having camo netting than not. The difference between a 4+ cover and a 5+ cover is ~33% while the difference between a 3+ and a 4+ is ~50%, so if you can get a 4+ cover all the time and boost it to a 3+, then yes, camo is better on 40 point sents. But what about if we gave them guns? Like, expensive guns? Plasma cannons or lascannons that raise our price to 50 points per sent. Then you've got a 30% price increase, which now means you only have to be able to get a 5+ (which camo would turn into a 4+) to make it worthwhile. Getting a 4+ is difficult, finding a forest or another unit to put between you and your target is not.

What camo does, is improve your survivability by 16.7%, assuming you have a cover save. No Tau, No Close Combat.

If you have a 55 point model, and you upgrade that to a 70 point model, 21.4% of the model's new cost [15/70] goes towards scenario specific durability increase.

So, even in a scenario in which you get a cover save, Camo isn't efficient for it's point cost, and adds nothing to offence, which spending more points on Sentinels would have the added benefit. You increase both durability and firepower by buying more Sentinels, at an efficiency greater than buying the Camo in a scenario specific situation.

More mechs, less toys is the way to go.

One caveat! If you plan to use substantial outflanking, you may wish to give camo to the guys that are starting on the board, 1st turn, if you have left-over points. If you're tabled, it's game over,[wo]man. Further, you might be interested in finding a way to ensure your reserves arrive on time. I don't know what to suggest, in this case, but timely reserves will be critical if you're going full Sentinels.

One, cheesy, suggestion, would be to take a CCS from the Cadian Supplement, which you can take all on their lonesome. Snap up a set of advisors, for something to potentially do in the psychic phase, reserve shenanegans, and hey, a dirt cheap pieplate that hits about 10% of the time if you have direct LOS is nothing to sneeze at. You could also drop bombs wildly, hoping for the best and aiming for the middle of a clump...