Astra Militarum: More Competitive in 8th Edition?

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**Horst**

Peregrine, I still think Sentinels have a great place in any list, because for 35 points they're a fairly durable unit for the Engineers secondary in ITC. If the objective is behind some LOS blocking terrain, just park the Sentinels on it, and they'll almost certainly survive since they're much harder to damage with most indirect fire weapons than anything else.

If you find yourself with some points left over in an army list after taking what you want, there's really no better way to spend 35 extra points IMO.

**Peregrine**

Sure, in an ITC list if you're playing by that set of house rules, and even then you're still talking about the cheapest possible option and not upgrading them with bigger guns. Cheap Sentinels are ok for a few things, my objection is to trying to put expensive guns on them and turn a cheap utility unit and FOC slot filler into a bad attempt at being a LRBT.

**MrMoustaffa**

Horst wrote:Peregrine, I still think Sentinels have a great place in any list, because for 35 points they're a fairly durable unit for the Engineers secondary in ITC. If the objective is behind some LOS blocking terrain, just park the Sentinels on it, and they'll almost certainly survive since they're much harder to damage with most indirect fire weapons than anything else.

If you find yourself with some points left over in an army list after taking what you want, there's really no better way to spend 35 extra points IMO.

I guess that works, but that's the first time I've heard of a sentinel being the optimal choice for a job.

Peregrine wrote:Sure, in an ITC list if you're playing by that set of house rules, and even then you're still talking about the cheapest possible option and not upgrading them with bigger guns. Cheap Sentinels are ok for a few things, my objection is to trying to put expensive guns on them and turn a cheap utility unit and FOC slot filler into a bad attempt at being a LRBT.

To be fair that set of house rules is one of the most established for competitive play. Like it or not, if we're talking tactics, it needs to be considered for many people.

I'd also have to agree with this. The only way I could sentinels working is if you were taking something like 30 alongside a bunch of tauroxes and other T6 units to try and super saturate that bracket, and even there I feel the smarter way would be leman Russ/chimera/Valkyrie spam. Unless you take Tallarn as your regiment, you have an army of Ork walkers whenever you attempt to move, and you really need to be moving if you plan on winning games. Compare it to it's obvious competitors, leman Russe's and Hellhounds variants, and the sentinel really just doesn't have a lot going for it. It's not as tough or powerful on the move as a leman Russ, and it's not as fast and aggressive as a Hellhound. So if it can't do either of those, what niche is it filling besides looking cool?

The only upside I can think of is that they're the cheapest in terms of raw wounds, so if you were in an area with a ton of AP4 or mortal wounds they might have edge. Now if they could still do stuff like outflank that'd be one thing, but when all we have is the paltry scout move it's really not much. They're cool for narrative and fluff games, but I just fail to see any sort of edge they have over our other backbone units like leman Russe's.

**Gnollu**

I see great potential in Tallarn Sentinels. 50 pts for lascannon platform which is mobile, hardish (you need to dedicate AT to kill it), not degrading and very threatening. If you are aiming for brigade and/or using Tallarn they are very good for their points. Do not forget that Ambush stratagem allows you to outflank with up to 3 sentinels which is nice.

**MrMoustaffa**

Gnollu wrote:
I see great potential in Tallarn Sentinels. 50 pts for lascannon platform which is mobile, hardish (you need to dedicate AT to kill it), not degrading and very threatening. If you are aiming for brigade and/or using Tallarn they are very good for their points. Do not forget that Ambush stratagem allows you to outflank with up to 3 sentinels which is nice.

I mean if you want a lascannon platform that can shoot and move the leman Russ Annihilator can do that. It'll put out 4 shots on a leman Russ profile while moving and shooting 5" a turn with no penalties, and you'll get other regiments traits on top.

Maybe not exactly comparable, but even there it's a competition, and you can outflank 3 Russe's, a much more efficient use of CP and a much bigger threat

**Pyroalchi**

I only recently got started and therefore so far lack experience "in the field" but regarding (Tallarn) Sentinels they also seem the cheapest platform to spam Hunter Killer missiles. I'm undecided if this is efficient at BS 4+ on a Tallarn Sentinel, but it might be worth it in some cases.

Furthermore depending on terrain and positioning of enemy troops their small base size for a vehicle can be advantageous when getting through choke points onto objectives or into range to bind other units in close combat. And in close combat they are rather hardy for their points cost. They might not kill anything, but it takes some time to kill them.

But of corse, both points are not really strong arguments towards points efficiency both rather situational.

**Peregrine**

It isn't efficient. HK missiles are trash, they're a one-shot weapon that is way too expensive compared to guns that can fire every turn.

**Horst**

Yea... HK missiles are a bit gak. If they were 5 points each though, and you could take 2 per vehicle, they'd be amazing with Cadian, just like how Seeker Missile spam works with Tau. You could use overlapping fields of fire, fire off 20 of the things, and just alpha strike an enemy superheavy off the board.

Of course we know they're not like that and they suck, but maybe in a parallel universe they're useful.

**UMGuy**

Hk spam is a route you could go. Could actually be really good, but you would have to really dedicate to it. With cadia reroll 1s and overlapping fields of fire you would be rerolling 1s, hitting on 3s.

I think Mordian Glory did a video on it a while back

**Polonius**

Sentinels pop up in some really successful IG lists in ITC. Cheap brigade filler plus objective grabber. Since they’re mostly there for the extra CP (and freed up detachment) over two battalions, you don’t need much out of them.

**MrMoustaffa**

Pyroalchi wrote:
I only recently got started and therefore so far lack experience "in the field" but regarding (Tallarn) Sentinels they also seem the cheapest platform to spam Hunter Killer missiles. I'm undecided if this is efficient at BS 4+ on a Tallarn Sentinel, but it might be worth it in some cases.

Furthermore depending on terrain and positioning of enemy troops their small base size for a vehicle can be advantageous when getting through choke points onto objectives or into range to bind other units in close combat. And in close combat they are rather hardy for their points cost. They might not kill anything, but it takes some time to kill them.

But of corse, both points are not really strong arguments towards points efficiency both rather situational.

Be careful with the "tough in melee" bit. Usually smart opponents use that against you. With guard you either want the unit to die in melee going into your turn so you can shoot, able to fall back, or it's a Baneblade/Catachan/bullgryn and can fight back.

Oftentimes with stuff like sentinels the opponent uses them to protect their assault units in your turn. Then they kill the sentinel in your assault phase and slingshot into your lines on their next turn

**Pyroalchi**

Thanks for the tip. As I said I'm new and want to use some sentinels because I like the model. I appreciate the warning that this could be exploited.

**tag8833**

Powerlifter Sentinels are kinda fun. They are a FW sentinel varient that essentially has a powerfist. You can scout move them 9". Move and Advance 9+d6". Pop Smoke. Then use the "Crush them" strat to charge after advancing and hit on 2's.

It's like a weird, but cheap as chips version of a Sydonian Dragoon. If they were Fast Attack instead of Heavy Support, I'd take them in most armies.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the Topic of Baneblades. I'm taking a Doomhammer to a tourney tomorrow, and as I was picking my baneblade vairent I realized that they transport "Astra Militarum" instead of (Regiment).

So I'm going to put some hobby effort into a "Bunkerblade"
Stormlord with No Upgrades (keep it cheap)
3 units of Cadian Command Squads with Sniper Rifles
2 units of MT Command Squads with Hot Shot Volley Guns.

It's cheap, and has a kinda silly amount of firepower coming out of it. Alternative approach using Cadian Heavy Weapon Teams.

**Pyroalchi**

I'm currently building a Tallarn army and was thinking about the possibility to take a set of 2-3 heavy bolter Tarantula batteries, put them in an ambush and drop them on an objective or somewhere I need anti-infantry firepower. Mostly because I like the idea of hidden batteries fluffwise and it would be possible to get these immobile unit outside of my deployment zone. Has anyone ever tried this? Does it make sense in a competetive way?

**tag8833**

A little tale of 3 tourneys if anyone is interested. I've played 3 tourneys in the last 7 days with 3 different lists, I won 2 of the tourneys, and I figured my thoughts might help some players.

Tourney 1:
Wooden Spoon. 14 players. 2/14 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists.

My list:

Spoiler:

Game 1:

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Game 2:

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Game 3:

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Mission: ITC Champs with 4 objectives in a diamond.
Opponent: Death Guard. 3 PBC, DP, 3 Plaugue haulers, 1 flamer drone thing, some plague bearers This player hasn't finished a game to this point, and had a really contentious game 1 vs the guy who should have probably won the event.
Deployment: Crooked Dawn of war. I have nowhere to hide the mortars, so I just deploy them in the middle. I take the Relic of lost cadia, and all my tanks, hyrdras and mortars are in range. He infiltrates nurglings onto the 2 objectives on the flanks.
Game Summary: I am trying to play at light speed, because I know he has the advantage in early game, and I have the advantage in late game. He goes 1st, manages to kill a Tank Command with red hot dice, and takes a basilisk down to 1, despite me spending the CP to put my army in cover. I respond by popping the relic, but there are some LOS blocking terrain that make it hard for me to pick my targets. I kill 2 of the Plague Haulers, the Drone, and most of the plague bearers. He responds by finishing the basilisk, and taking a hydra down to 2, and killing a pile of guardsmen. I had nominated 2 Hydras as engineers, and goof this turn by shooting them both (and doing nothing). I finish the plague bearers, kill the nurglings, take some wounds off a PBC, and finish the Hauler. At this point, he's been moving his PBC's straight up the field, and his DP and PBC charge in and neutralize a couple of my tanks. What I have left is able to kill the PBC, and take the DP down to 1 wound. I goof and forget to move a unit of guardsmen onto an objective. At this point we are out of time, but my opponent wants to try a turn 4. So we talk through it, and he tells me his DP is going to kill a full wound hydra, so we roll it out and the DP dies to overwatch, so we finish talking it through. Sure enough he outscored me early holding more thanks to his nurglings, and killing the same every turn. I have severely neutered him. He's got just 2 PBC's, and 1 character left, and I have 1/2 of my army intact, but because we end on 4, he had a 2 point lead. If I had not shot one of my hydras on 2, or I had not forgotten to move my guardsmen to an open objective I would have had a draw on 4, and on 5, I was going to start running away with it. Still it is what it is. He played it well, took his time and scored his points, while I was rushing like crazy because of the 2 hr 15 min rounds.
Outcome: loss

Final tourney thoughts:

Spoiler:

**tag8833**

Tourney 2:
4th of July RTT. 10 players. 8/10 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists.

My List:

Spoiler:

Game 1:

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Game 2:

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Game 3

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Final tourney thoughts:

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**tag8833**

Tourney 3:
Neighborhood RTT. 12 players. 3/12 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists. This event was know to be more friendly, so I wanted to mix it up with something off the wall, and bring a baneblade variant.

My List: “Stop! Hammertime!”

Spoiler:

Game 1:

Spoiler:

Mission: 5 Objectives progressive scoring.
Opponent: Basalisk, Wyvren, Manticore, 6 units guardsmen, 3 sentinels with las cannons, Valkerie full of Crusaders and buffing characters, Tank Commander, 10 Scions, and a few misc other stuff. This is a local guy that is still learning.
Deployment: Table Corners. I take a look at his army and judge that if I go Hard, he won't be able to get 1st strike, so I put the mortars inside my Doomhammer with the tallarn command squad, and the psyckers. I pay for the relic dagger, and the tallarn ambush strat to outflank 2 tallarn characters, and all 3 infantry squads, and I deep strike my scions. He deploys everything but the scions I then deploy the Doomhammer on the line, and the tank commanders farther back.
Game Summary: I went 1st. I used strike and shround on my tanks, and got both psychic barrier, and nightshroud off on my doomhammer. So everything was -1 to hit T8. My shooting was unspectacular. I killed 1 sentinel, and 1 unit of guardsmen, took his tank commander down to 1, then charged and killed more guardsmen using the crush them strat. On his turn 1 basalisk does 11 wounds to a tank commander (who had popped smoke!), and he finishes it. He uses the Grav shoot rule on the valkerie to drop out the crusaders, and makes an 11" charge on a primaris psycker which lets him conga-line into one of my tank commanders to tie it up, and he is on 4 of the 5 objectives, which score at the end of the round, so we end the round 6-2 with him in the lead. Oops. I thought this was going to be a pushover. Guess I've got to play. I bail out my command squad to flame his primaris psyker dead. I back out my engaged tank commander. I bring in my tallarn, and my Hot Shot Volley guns. Mortars, plus volley guns plus an infantry squad manage to kill the crusaders. Doomhammer kills the manticore, my other infantry squads manage to kill 2 of his infantry squads, and charge a taurox holding an objective, and then my command squad charges a sentinel, and piles into his tank commander. He is somewhat unperturbed. Screens out my remaining deep strikers, and managed to get to 3 of the 5 objectives (including 1 worth double points), and he takes 15 wounds off the doomhammer. So at the bottom of 2, the score is 9 - 5 with me losing. I advance my tallarn infantry, and bring in my remaining scions. The Tank Commander plus Scions kill the Valkerie, and the talarn kill a couple characters including his warlord. I've now got the Taurox completely encircled, and am holding it on an objective with infantry. The Doomhammer kills the basalisk, and a bunch of infantry. He deep strikes in his scions, to take an objective, and double moves some infantry to get 3 of the 5 objectives again. 12-7, but he is running out of steam. I kill everything left except the Taurox, and the game goes to 5 turns allowing me to finally catch him. Whew. That was closer than I thought. I gave the guy a few tips on how to beat me (like conga-lining the crusaders to my tank commander), but I'm a pretty savvy player, and I almost dropped my 1st game to a guy at his 1st ever event.

Outcome: Win

Game 2:

Spoiler:

Mission: A weird mission where you mark 3 characters, and if they are alive they get you points.
Opponent: a terifying Custodes list played by a top notch player. 2 of the big grav tanks, 3 of the small ones. 9 Bikes, bike captain, Trajan, Banner that gives -1 to hit.
Deployment: Vanguard. Terrain is weird causing me problems deploying. I try to deploy back, but the only place I can set my Doomhammer is more foward than I like. I deploy my mortars in terrain, but no place to hide, so he can see them. I load up the flamers, volley guns, and the characters, and mark the bikes with Old grudges, but the terrain made it so I really only had the Doomhammer and the BC tank, and the mortars in range of the Old grudges. He deploys aggressively on the line with everything inside the -1 to hit banner.
Game Summary: I went 1st, I put the Doomhammer's big guns into the big grav tanks, and mainly bounce off (5 total wounds). The Heavy bolters manage to kill a bike thanks to old grudges. The Hammer of Sunderance does like 21 wounds to a Grav tank, and puts it down. My Executioners do a bunch of wounds to themselves, while killing a 2nd bike, and then the mortars go ham and kill a bike all by themselves. So I did work, but not as much as I had hoped. So he moves up, and his 1st 2 small tanks punk one of my executioners. His bikes kill most of my mortars with hurricane bolters. His big tank does 9 to my Battle Cannon commander. Then he lines up an 8" charge on my doom hammer with the bikes. I pop "defensive gunners", but he makes his invuls. Still he fails his charge, even with a CP reroll. Then he tries with his bike captain who takes 3 wounds from heavy bolters in overwatch. This leaves the bikes outside the -1 to hit aura. I drop my techpriest back, and between him, a CP reroll, and jury rigging, I heal 4 wounds on my BC tank. I bring in all of my scions, and between my doomhammer, scions and executioner, I kill all of the bikes except the captain. The Relic Battle cannon kills the other big grav tank. My opponent is super-duper salty at this point. He moves forward his little tanks, and charges managing to 3-point my doom hammer with some terrain. He didn't want to face the overwatch, so he charged my primaris psykers with a wounded grav tank. The primaris psykers take that tank all the way down to 1, and the doom hammer finishes it, leaving it free to leave combat, which it does, and I kill everything but Trajan. Trajan charges in, and fights twice, managing to do 10 or so wounds to the doomhammer, and then he dies.

Outcome: Win Note: This was a top tier player, playing a top tier list. This win was an absurd miracle for my silly doomhammer list.

Game 3

Spoiler:

Mission: 6 objectives progressive scoring.
Opponent: Ad Mech. Stygies big unit of dragoons, electropriests in a drill, 3 Neutron laser Dunecrawlers, a variety of troops, and 3 punchy Castalan robots. A very high callibur player.
Deployment: Pointy hammer and anvil. I put all the flamers, the hot shot volley guns, and 1 unit of infantry into the Doomhammer. I outflank 2 infantry, and a company commander. The platoon commander babysits the mortars on one objective, and the Doomhammer deploys behind a wall on another objective with the relic battle cannon hiding behind it, and the 2 executioners hiding behind another wall. I mark the Dragoons with Old grudges. He scout moves the Dragoons, the drill, and the punchy robots.
Game Summary: He goes 1st, and his assault stuff moves right at me, but isn't close enough for a turn 1 charge. He shoots his neutron lasers at my baneblace, and rolls a bunch of 2's to wound. He only made me take 1 save, and I happened to make a 6+ (cover). Seeing his oncoming assault threat, I 1st consider moving the doomhammer foward to charge the dragoons, but realizing it would be a long charge I back it up instead. I make a critical error her, I should have dropped out the infantry squad, and used a move-move-move order, to put them in front of the dragoons, and movement block them. I focus all of my firepower on the Dunecrawlers, but only kill 1 (the Relic battle cannon did it all by itself) So he moves forward his assault elements again, Shoots the Battle cannon commander down to 2 wounds, and makes a long charge onto 1 of my executioners with his dargoons, and a super long charge (11") on the other executioner with his drill. Both executioners go down. So it's looking grim. The techpriest repairs the relic battle cannon TC back to mid tier, and I move the Baneblade forward to charge dragoons. I bring in some tallarn on an objective, and drop some plasma scions to help with the dragoons, but leave most of them in reserves. I smite the dragoons twice, killing 1 (which had been previously wounded), then I use the doomhammer's heavy bollters to kill 1 and 1/2, and it's main gun kills the drill, dumping out the electro priests for my Mortars to deal with. The Relic Battle cannon claims another Dunecrawler, and even picks up a dragoon with it's sponsons, and the Scions finish of the dragoons. I think the flamer squad killed one all by itself, so no charges needed, and things are looking up. He moves his robots to flame my mortars and kill a squad, and his remaining Dunecrawler takes 5 off of the Doomhammer. I move the Doomhammer forward, repair my tank commander again (to top level), and drop in my scions and remaining tallarn in his backfield. The psykers buff the doomhammer. The Doomhammer fails to kill a dunecrawler, but does kill some troops with heavy bolters. The Relic BC kills all but one robot who is left with 2 wounds. I'm starting to wage a heavy toll on his troops with my scions and tallarn. He fails to hit with the wounded Dunecrawler thanks to my nightshield, and kills a few scions. But then I finish his dunecrawler with the doomhammer, it explodes and does a bunch of wounds to characters. I finish his troops with my troops, and finish his robots with my tank commander. So it's just a few misc characters left running around, and he concedes.

Outcome: WinNote: I don't know how I won this, let alone tabled him.
.

Final tourney thoughts:

Spoiler:

**UMGuy**

Great write up. Talk to me about how you are using ogryn bodyguards for board control. Is it because they are characters and cant be targeted so they can hang in the back field?

**tag8833**

UMGuy wrote:
Great write up. Talk to me about how you are using ogryn bodyguards for board control. Is it because they are characters and cant be targeted so they can hang in the back field?

Partially. Character comes into it. If I stick an infantry squad and a bullgryn on an objective usually I can count on controlling it, because by the time they clear the infantry squad they don't have enough firepower left to clear the bullgryn. Also, they are just really beefy by themselves. I tend to stick to terrain with them whenever possible, and it dissuades certain charges into my infantry.

For instance, in my game vs Harlies, an Archon charges a unit of guardsmen, but my bullgryn was in range to glorious intervene. It took a few rounds of combat, but eventually my Bullgryn killed the archon, and all of the time they were chewing on each other, my opponent's advance was more or less stopped. It didn't matter that I win that fight, just that I don't die quickly.

Another example is facing the Chaos knights. He parked a armiger right on an objective. Guardsmen could take it with Obsec, but not survive the armiger. So I put the bullgryn into the armiger too, and they were able to take attacks off of the guardsmen.

Vs the Tau, whenever I had a chance to charge fire warriors I tried to lead with the bullgryn, and the bullgryn ended up killing the tau markerlight characters.

The most important thing is that most things that are good at killing infantry are less good at killing bullgryn so having a mix of the 2 really helps to stabilize your board control.

**necron99**

Awesome write up - thanks! Funny I started thinking about bullgryns this weekend but not the bodyguards

I have 6 that I built and painted up but never got around to actually playing.

So to that end I was thinking about 6 bullgryns w/mauls and a mix of shields as catachans with a priest and an astropath. I'm guessing that's standard fare. What about adding straken? That's another +1 attacks bringing the bullgryns up to 31 S8 AP-2 attacks plus whatever straken brings to the party ( that's from memory - I'm at work). Looking at his abilities it's obvious he was designed to lead two catachan infantry squads into combat I think. I have 6 squads so what about sending two along with the bullgryns as wingmen? That is a lot of points....dunno...

**JNAProductions**

Bullgryns are Auxilia, not Regiment. Cannot be made Catachan.

**necron99**

JNAProductions wrote:
Bullgryns are Auxilia, not Regiment. Cannot be made Catachan.

Ah, good catch thanks! So Straken won't help and they don't get the +1 to strength...too bad...I had high hopes...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
what are good tactics for keeping your buffing characters alive with your bullgryns? I can see me rolling them into a unit of X and then the astropath and priest get immediately trashed. Do you keep them surrounded by the bullgryns? If you're confident no one's going to sneak in behind them I guess you're ok with keeping your characters at arms length from the action. Those are the only two tactics I was able to come up with...

**Araablane**

I need help building heavy weapons teams.
Currently have 9 mortars, 3 lascannons and 1 autocannon.
I can build 6 more heavy weapons but i dont know what to choose.

**Sterling191**

If theyre flying solo, mortars. If you're putting them in Infantry Squads, it depends on the rest of your list.

Without bullet catchers, HWTs are easy (and priority) kills.

**Gnollu**

9 mortars and rest 3 each (for veteran squads)

**AlmightyWalrus**

Does the Vendetta get the same "+1 to hit if it hovers" rule that the Valkyrie gets? I realize that it's probably way too expensive regardless, but I've always had a soft spot for that and the Vulture.

On a similar topic, what are the best anti-armour units in the book (more thinking things like opposing Tank Commanders or things at that level that can be spammed rather than Knight-level anti-tank (A Shadowsword would probably overkill a Leman Russ, no?). There's more anti-infantry than you can shake a stick at, but anti-tank options seem a little flimsy.

**Horst**

The Valkyrie has a +1 to hit ground rule, which negates the -1 it gets from moving. The Vendetta does not have that rule, no, meaning it's pretty useless.

**Polonius**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On a similar topic, what are the best anti-armour units in the book (more thinking things like opposing Tank Commanders or things at that level that can be spammed rather than Knight-level anti-tank (A Shadowsword would probably overkill a Leman Russ, no?). There's more anti-infantry than you can shake a stick at, but anti-tank options seem a little flimsy.

So, anti-tank is in a bit of weird place in 8th edition. Most of the big anti-tank weapons got repped as one shot, d6 damage guns, which is usually worse than multiple shot, d3 damage guns. So lascannons, vindicator cannons, and meltas range from "maybe almost okay" to complete trash. I rely most on tanks and artillery, but scions with plasma are great if you can wait until turn two. Basilisks do great against vehicles without an invulnerable save (run as cadian), Maticores do great against 5++, T8 chassis (run as catachan), while the basic LRBT or tank commander with battle cannon does yeoman's work against T7 or less. Remember that you can stack bonuses, so anything with variable shots should be catachan (except the bassie due to inherent reroll), but catachans have harker for a cheap aura, and also the master of ordnance. toss in a warlord with old grudges, and you can do serious work against hard targets.

This is one reason (among many) that a lot of IG lists run allies, most notably smash captains, shield captains, or knights.

**jaxor1983**

Cadian Tank Commanders can use Pound Them to Dust!, to get more shots with their battle cannons than their Catachan brethren. This can be combined with their inherent reroll 1's trait or the Relic of Lost Cadia as well.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Starting from the Apocalypse box, I'm thinking the following:

Pask in Punisher
Tank Commander Exterminator
Tank Commander standard Russ (for Hammer of Sundrance)
Company Commander
4 scrubs left over to convert fo Officers or advisors
Convert Chimera to Manticore

Does that seem about right for a start?