Sentinel walkers need some love

[nexusno2000]

The Sentinel walker could use some serious love: Walkers are a full unit category, but you start the tutorial with the BEST type available, and there is never any reason to buy any more. There are no weapon variants, no further upgraded models, nothing.

In my experience Walkers don't do enough damage to gain much XP quickly. And with no upgrade prospects you should do as I do: disband the starting walker and buy something else! Or use it as a bullet sponge; that works too - move forward to spot, take fire, die. Be resurrected next mission.

I think the Walker needs to be tweaked a bit, to make the category worthwhile.

Their primary (and only) gun is the lascannon. It looks good on paper, but it has such a slow rate of fire (1) and the walkers come in an 8-piece unit, meaning you get only 8 shots. That's simply not good enough, even if accuracy is high (for comparison purposes a Russ Annihilator unit gets 15 lascannon shots, plus 15 hvy bolter shots, at double cost - and with much better protection).

Each walker has 2 hits, but armor isn't all that good, even for the Arma pattern, so they can't go toe-to-toe with anything with a range 3 weapon - or they quickly die. That means either shooting at Inf - but the low ROF/hi power of the weapon makes this wasteful in the extreme. So they are usually relegated to pure scouting (they are good at that, but there are other good scout units that are far more versatile) or sniping at already severely weakened armor.

At 200 and 300 points respectively, they aren't very costly, but you could get a Salamander for that kind of money. So you get a fairly quick, good spot, but otherwise entirely crap unit for a moderate price. I'd much rather have another Sala or some Inf in a Chimera.

I suggest:

- make Sentinels 1 hit vehicles (like the Tauros it's only lightly armored, much less durable than other 2 hit vehicles like the Sala for example)
- increase max size to 12 (I considered 15, but that might be too much); consider doing the same for the Tauros.
- increase Defense slightly to compensate for lost hits (12x1 vs 8x2)
- you now have a unit that packs a semi-decent punch, but that can die very quickly from heavy fire
- increase speed by 1 for the basic version (speed 7)
- initiative should be HIGH to account for the fact that these are fast, hit-and-run vehicles

- make more weapon variants
- the default is the multi-laser; with 3x12 shots you now have a walker alternative to common Inf.
- lascannon, hvy bolter, hvy flamer, and missile launcher variants

- you start with the COMMON sentinel, not the Arma pattern
- the arma pattern is unlocked at some point in Act 1
- give it a slight armor upgrade (on top of what the common version got) to make it competitive, but make it slower (speed 6)
- same weapon alternatives

- consider a more heavily armed and armored pattern as well
- drop speed by 1, spot by 1
- default loadout is 1 multi-laser PLUS another support weapon; hvy bolter, hvy flamer, lascannon, missile launcher
- available at the start of Act 2; to provide an alternative to disbanding remaining walkers

Now there are 5 Mars patterns, 5 arma patters, plus 4 heavy pattern.

This would make Sentinels a viable, interesting choice for the first Act, possibly beyond for units that have managed to gain a lot of XP.

[Curator]

You cant just add to Sentinel weapons. It is as adding to jagdpanther additional non-historic machine gun, because you want. Fortunately, developers understand and respect history of the 40k

But I think yes, Salamander is much more effective, than Sentinel, and this walker need some buffs.

[nexusno2000]

You cant just add to Sentinel weapons. It is as adding to jagdpanther additional non-historic machine gun, because you want. Fortunately, developers understand and respect history of the 40k

But I think yes, Salamander is much more effective, than Sentinel, and this walker need some buffs.

Existing sentinel patterns already come with a variety of weapon loadouts...so nothing new there.

There is already a HEAVY sentinel version (a Forge World creation IIRC) with a missile pod or missile launcher, and the old Catachan pattern had a hvy flamer + a chainblade-thingy.

As for adding a NEW PATTERN of Sentinel walker, that's entirely within the realm of possibility for the 40k setting. With every new edition/Codex/novel/whatever, new stuff gets added. So the WW2 comparison is not very apt. Not sure if Slitherine is allowed to add new stuff though.

[IainMcNeil]

We are not allowed to create any units, only use existing ones from the lore, and only if there is some already approved imagery for them.

[nexusno2000]

We are not allowed to create any units, only use existing ones from the lore, and only if there is some already approved imagery for them.

OK.

How about you make the standard Walker have a multi-las? This is the standard Mars-pattern.

The Amra pattern should have a lascannon (but my increased unit suggestion still holds).

The Cadian pattern has an autocannon (and extra armor like the arma).

Catachan has hvy flamer + chainblade (would be cool to see it have the Assault trait!).

There are some others as well; multi-melta, rocket pod, missile launcher IIRC.

Couple with some of my other suggestion for some Walker love <3