Do other IG players have a love/hate relationship with Sentinels?

[Oddnerd]

Hi all.

Since I started playing 3v3 again, I've been making a point of always getting a sentinel as my first purchase when playing IG (I used to go straight for 3xGM, but after being called a noob enough times, I now go for 2xGM and a sentinel). They are great in T1, especially in static firefights and when dealing with melee units (and also for destroying the opponents cover prior to the first engagement). The problem is that shortly after the transition to T2 their survivability decreases tremendously. By T2, 800hp of HI armour becomes extremely easy to focus down in a matter of seconds. The frag missiles are extremely useful when you're stuck in a static firefight against suppression teams.... and the krak missiles are good for deterring walkers and transports up to a point, but you can never chase a damaged vehicle if their are other enemy units nearby because it won't survive long.

I never deliberately send them to their death, but by late T2 and T3 I am usually relived when it eats a few inferno bolts to the face and dies. It frees up a fair amount of population and upkeep. I also find that I spend so much time having to repair my sentinel that at least 1 of my GM squads spends most of their time on repair duty. If I find myself in a static firefight, this is not a huge problem, as my GM are usually staying behind the front lines to do repair duty anyway. However, in most games where I can't just win by slow, static attrition, my sentinel is often forced to leave a fight until repaired. I can't think of another unit in the roster that I end up wanting to die by the late game, this is something that is unique to sentinels for me.

I love sentinels in the early game, but I find myself wishing I could salvage them they way I can with my turrets, come late T2.

Is this something other IG players experience?

[Aguxyz]

I 90% of the time dont build sentis unless its a ig mirror i usually make 3 gm work if my teammates and i are doing well to keep our power

[Kvn]

Personally I love the Sentinel. In my IG experience, it acts as the backbone for my T1 army, supporting pushes, taking damage with repairs, harassing light infantry capping squads, and generally being an irritant as much as possible. T2 onwards I kind of treat them as a support fire unit that's low on my priority list as far as keeping alive, skirting the edge of engagements when necessary, and tanking when appropriate. They're great if you can keep away from heavy enemy fire, but at the same time, losing them isn't that big a deal. Or at least, not as bad as losing a squad. I tend to run it unupgraded unless there's a need for stomp or missiles (such as transitional soft av) because people sometimes ignore it if it's just got the multi-laser since they can forget how much dps it's putting out in bigger engagements.

I don't think it's a bad thing that it dies so easily, given how much bleed it avoids in the early game and how powerful it is up until mid T2 onwards. It's one of those unique units that fills a niche you don't see in many other factions. At the same time, I find that aggressive IG play (Lord Commissar, Catas, Ogryns, etc.) make it much easier to protect your Sentinel since the opponent is shooting the other units first.

And even if it can't contribute to fights, it makes for a wonderfully annoying backcapper. If there is one thing that I do hate about it though, it would be the occasional pathing derp it suffers from, but that's something most, if not all, vehicles have in common.

[DandyFrontline]

Build it all the time. Reducing your bleed like hell by taking damage on itself, while gm can repair it. Greatly improve mapcontrol by giving you possibility to de-cap rare points. Also gives possibility to de-cap VP point while 2 gm squads repair sent even if VP is good protected. Great melee counter thx to stomp, but u can also use stomp against range units or flank and stomp enemy support teams. Usually if sentinel doesnt die at t1 it survives almost to the end of the match for me.

On t2 it's even better - AI rockets doing great against infantry, specially blobs. Also can use LC mines and Rockets to detonate it - pretty cool combo. But even better - Sentinel becomes just super awesome vehicle counter. With it's great mobility you can chase any vehicle in the game. Personally Sentinel usually is pretty enough for me to counter t2 vehicle threat. It's like tacts missile launcher but just for 25 power and on long legs.

P.S. Stomp is useful even on t3 because it's not just knockdown but also stuns, so u can use it even against terminators.

[Toilailee]

Is this something other IG players experience?

Oh yes... you have no idea. Well, actually you do apparently.

Sent is both the best unit and the worst unit in the game and you pretty much have to get at least one everytime unless you're feeling creative.

[egewithin]

I love my Sentinal. I basicially gives everything your Guardsmen needs. A damage sponge, an anti melee unit, a fast de-capping unit. I also use it to break covers when tacs are just shooting from behind of them. They run away with the fear of my stomp ahahahaha ! What else can I want? One of the most useful units in the game, maybe just loosing to Catachans.

Yes, it may need a lot of time to repair, but I have no problem with that. The problem starts when you go for double Sentinal play. That micro...

[Psycho]

Love it when it works, hate it when vehicle pathfinding decides to turn it into a beyblade having a seizure and gets killed 10 seconds into the firefight. It has all the cons of being a vehicle and infantry in one neat package: vehicle pathfinding, dies as easily as infantry, its size means suppression deals insane damage to it, it's easily targetable due to its size, has no retreat, and so on, but the pros make up for it. Come T2 and so on, I get the missiles and leave it way behind my fighting force as support for antiblob and antivehicle since its meatshield role is long gone.

What really makes it shine in my opinion is that it's a single entity in terms of damage. With guardsmen, you have 9 guns all shooting their own targets spreading the damage about, while with the sentinel it's all focused on one single model, so even though it deals a little less overall dps than a sergeant ugpraded guardsman squad, it can bleed models way more efficiently.

I've yet to try a triple guardsman + sentinel approach with a completely unupgraded guardsman repairing it while the other two go around, though. Most of the time I'm stuck in the situation where I desperately need generators to get a T1.5 unit out or I'm steamrolling the opponent enough to, again, dump the requisition on generators to fast tech to T2.

[Oddnerd]

I've yet to try a triple guardsman + sentinel approach with a completely unupgraded guardsman repairing it while the other two go around, though. Most of the time I'm stuck in the situation where I desperately need generators to get a T1.5 unit out or I'm steamrolling the opponent enough to, again, dump the requisition on generators to fast tech to T2.

Sounds like a recipe for req starvation. I'll give it a try next time I play with some randos.

[Nurland]

3gm sent is viable. At least in 1v1

Though there you usually have one vanilla/flamer gm capping and ninja bashing and 2 upgraded gm with sent and w/e T1,5 stuff doing the fighting