Editing Sentinel (section)

==Use on the Tabletop==
===Imperial Guard===
Although cheap, the Sentinel suffers the obvious handicaps of a Guardsman's ballistic skill. As a gun platform, its hits are massively unreliable, even in squadrons of three (yet another reason why it's best to stick to weapons with multiple shots, like the multi-laser or autocannon, or the old reliable template of the heavy flamer), and there are generally more useful things you can buy for the price of three Sentinels. Scout Sentinels have the advantage of Outflank, but with their low armour, they will survive only as long as your opponent is gracious enough to ignore them. Factor in their BS, and they won't do much damage before bolters pick them off. In 5th edition, Armoured Sentinels made excellent tar traps, too weak to kill anything in close combat, too armoured to take any damage. You could tie up an entire squad of Chaos Terminators for an entire game with ease. 6th Edition allows players to choose to fail their leadership and retreat from close combat, nullifying this one beautiful piece of trolling (but you can still chase them off the table afterwards). It should be noted that sentinel that is in cover at least knee high and has camo netting (which is a must for sentinels, if you don't take it for every one of your sentinels for every battle, the Emperor shall smite you down and laugh at your corpse) gets +3 cover save. Combine this with plasma cannons and heavy sentinels for 3 blasts at S7 AP2 and you have terminator/light vehicle/spehs mehreen melt squad. Or get Leman Russ Executioner for same price. The new codex has the cost of armoured sentinels down to just a few points more over scout sentinels. Scout sentinels can no longer take plasma cannons, but all their weapons had point reductions to them in turn. So a lascannon costs as much as a plasma cannon. With vendettas no long the default take in the fast attack slot, there is room and points to bring in this slot. Going from a fluff only choice for an army to something to consider to fill certain weapon gaps. Of note: they are by far the cheapest way for a Guard player to get Plasma Cannons onto a table, which also mitigates their mediocre accuracy.

The Cadian Battle Group Detachment practically forces the integration of sentinels into an army, but the utility they get out of it definitely makes up for it. Emperor's Shield Infantry Platoons require at least one (up to three) unit of Scout or Armoured Sentinels to support the infantry, but the footsloggers get Move Through Cover while they stick within 9" of them. Emperor's Talon Recon Companies require you take at least two (and up to four) ''full'' units of Scout or Armoured Sentinels, and in return they get Outflank, Preferred Enemy, and access to "Take Aim!", "Forwards, for the Emperor!", or "Move! Move! Move!" orders from a designated officer Sentinel (which, hilariously, can be your warlord). If you bring Sentinels at all, these two formations are probably the best ways to do it now.

All in all, Sentinels are usable, given proper application. Not awful, not great, but extremely serviceable in some force groups.

===Genestealer Cults===
The newly revamped and improved [[Genestealer Cult]] released in 2016 have seen some improvement in the Cult's armoury. No longer must they rely on Limos and Cars, this time the Genestealer Cults come in some flavours of vehicles, [[Goliath Truck|some indigenous]] [[Chimera Transport|while others]] [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|being blatantly]] [[Blood Ravens|stolen from the]] [[Imperial Guard]]. In this case, the Sentinel is no exception. Needing a fast scouting vehicle to plan out their future uprisings, the Cultist has decided that the Imperial Sentinel is the best and thus, most common vehicle to be fielded by the Cult.

The Cult manage to gain access by [[Pretend|pretending]] to be official Imperial Guardsmen dedicated to driving these vehicles (so next time you wonder where the hell your fire support is, now you know the answer). The Cult only manages to gain access to the vanilla variant and the armoured variant....despite the fact that the Powerlifter would make ''far'' more sense for them to have.