Wednesday 28 March 2012

Blob Guard Choices: Sentinels, ''stamp stamp stamp''

Continuing on with my reviews for units I'm now into the fast attack section and looking to firstly cover the stampy options. The Sentinel...

Firstly let’s look at the armoured variant, for 55 points you get an AV12 walker which has 3 S6 shots, sadly at BS 3 but still not too bad right off the bat especially since it comes with extra armour. Add in the weapon upgrades and you can begin to give it some handy stuff, one of my favourites being the autocannon for obvious reasons (+1 Str making it handier for light vehicle popping and instant killing T3 models or wounding MC's). There is also an option for a heavy flamer but I honestly don’t rate this as I have flamers on my hulls of vehicles, and usually run hellhounds to cover this role (Being fast and with a super extending flamer makes it better for this role I reckon).




The other options are lascannon, plasma cannon and missile launcher but again the BS 3 ruins some options. Mainly the lascannon and missile launcher, which will sadly miss half the time making them slightly unreliable compared to the autocannon.

The plasma cannon though interests me as it could provide some nice template fun on marines for cheap on a semi durable platform which can hide behind chimeras for cover saves (And if you give it a camo net even better).

Adding a hunter killer again brings the price up for a single krak missile type shot which frankly on the armoured sentinel I don't think warrants use unless you load up tons of them for an alpha strike type start to the game.

Although the bad point... by now (Assuming we gave it an autocannon is that it now costs more than a chimera, and I personally find that tough to stomach when I know for 55 points I could have an extra wider AV12 hull which keeps my men safe.




They can find roles, in a mech list maybe, but in blob lists you are really opening up the few vehicles syndrome again... even if it can hide then walk out on your turn to shoot, you are giving the enemy anti tank guns something they can angle their army towards making its few shots less viable.

Though there is hope in the form of the Scout Sentinel for blob and even mech lists. Firstly the reduced cost allows it more chance for inclusion as you don’t spend as much on it for what you can get... namely outflanking with autocannons and hunter killers aiming at rear and side armour shots of vehicles who have been moving forward, or alternatively, making a squad of 2 and giving one a heavy flamer and one an autocannon, thus allowing you to sneak on rear field to flame or shoot off units on objectives.

Both are decent enough units and I'm surprised they don't appear more in lists... I suppose it’s the old problem of guard armies not having enough points for all the fun toys.

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