Dear Readers,
We are getting reports of Spider-Man and his allies, the Web Warriors, taking on the Sentinels! Normally these guardians of humanity only target mutants, but we can only assume that their programming has gone haywire as they assault other super-powered beings! How can our heroes in red and blue survive the day from these mechanical menaces?
The newly previewed Sentinels already have the community in a stir and they seem like an especially mean matchup for the Web Warriors. So, what can we do to take on these mechanical menaces? In today’s article I will cover who the Sentinels are in MCP, what I think they will do well, and my initial thoughts on strategy to take on these robotic wardens.
The Stats
The biggest things that concern me with the MK4 is for 4 threat you are getting a 13 HP tank on a large base and he is size 5, which is ridiculous for a moving model and, if memory serves, is only shared by his bigger, cooler brother, the Prime, and Dormammu. We haven’t even touched on Sentinel Programming, which prevents our Web Lines from moving him (we don’t care as much about the mystic part of the ability, well, except Moon Knight). Not only that, the Sentinels stole our Weblines and renamed them Restraint Cables! It’s like Norman Osborne made these things specifically to take us out and no Bolivar Trask.
However, there is a silver lining to fighting the MK4. Once you put him on his backside his builder becomes…unstable. You don’t often see Warmachine on the table much anymore, either the steampunk variety or the chaingun Ironman version. I don’t think we see Warmachine much because his spender could…well kill him. Literally in my last match he did just that, and it was spectacular. But, when you are running maybe 4 models in a faction where the cheapest model is a 4 (for the moment) you don’t want to run the risk of critting your own men to death.
The Prime Time threat is the Sentinel Prime MK4. Coming in with a snowballing leadership that encourages murder, the Prime comes with all the same nuisances that the normal MK4 come with, but with more bells and possible whistles to boot. To start, he gets Shuri’s re-rolls for other characters and itself. In addition, he comes stock with more HP and he loses the weakness of critical death that the MK4 has and retains his more powerful builder. In exchange, his powercore super charges on his injured side and can possibly deal 1 damage to him.
If you want to run a full cadre of Sentinels, you are looking at 13 threat to start, which is…odd threat level wise as there are no 13 threat missions. But, we do know that they gain access to Cassandra Nova, who loves being fed power, and will make for a sinisters 14 threat squad. The team has a massive presence on the battlefield and it’s going to take some doing to get around them.
Predictions
I predict Sentinels are going to be a premier bully faction, playing well in low point games and larger point games to maximize their leadership ability. You can play your Sentinel cadre and a 4 threat at 17 (I would suggest Medusa, but other characters work well too) or you can play Fury Sr and a 2 threat at 18 to move your Sentinels a bit easier around the map. I feel like they are going to do very well by targeting a unit repeatedly and barraging them with concentrated fire to eliminate the target early. At lower point games you don’t mind your opponents being on a S.W.O.R.D. base target because you literally can just walk back onto point or drag your opponent into no-man’s land too and double tap them with a scaling beam and for Senators your opponent is going to have a hard time escaping the deceptively fast Sentinels.
The Strats
Amazing Spider-Man
Fellow Web-heads, if you haven’t already tried it, now is the time to try out Amazing Spider-Man’s leadership. With their higher threat being a consistent Achilles heel for the team, you should be able to more often get a hit and run flip off of a point onto the Sentinels. Ghost Spider literally is built for this with a long move>flip a slowed model>Spider Technique/long move. In a 14 you can run ASM, Black Cat, Miles Morales, and Ghost Spider to maximize long movement and pseudo pushes. Just make sure that you time your strikes appropriately so as to minimize how many people they can move around at 14.
Swarm the Field
One of the nice things about your core characters being 3 is that you can fit a lot of characters onto the battlefield at once. You can run 5 characters at 14 easily (Miles, Ghost Spider, Black Cat, Moon Knight, 2 of choice) and can easily run around the Sentinels while doing your best to avoid being grappled into beam distances. Try to play wide maps such as Scoundrels and Spider-Infected to outpace your opponent throughout the game.
Stagger Them
One of the nice things about Sentinels is that they are not immune to Stagger, which is surprising. Luckily, we have 2 characters that can hand out Stagger. Black Cat is going to be your most effective as she can stay at R3 and possibly elusive away to force your opponent to chase her more while Moon Knight is going to require a bit more luck. Luckily, with Miles you will get to re-roll your Skulls if you are holding/contesting objectives which should smooth out his Stagger generation a bit.
Rely on your Allies
I have been playing more Captain Marvel as of late and loving her in WW. She does work I would imagine into Sentinels who are going to have a harder time injuring her thanks to her energy based defensive tech. She also gets a nice bonus of possibly Staggering the behemoths and can throw almost anything at them. This does not even get into her synergy with Mile’s leadership or Binary Form adding to her already impressive defenses and offenses.
Black Panther is another ally I would recommend. He is a fast bulky mover that can help both Peter and Miles’ leadership. I would not sleep on him if you are afraid of the sentinel menace, plus, he nullifies Malekith’s pierce, so bonus there.
I know I have said this before, but Crimson Dynamo. The man can shock a whole squad of sentinels and can lower their offensive output with his force field. Just don’t expect him to actually hurt anyone.
Finally, Corvus and Proxima. If you like to play a bit more offensively with your squad then these two are still my go to for Murder Spiders. They are hard to take out and your opponent definitely does not want to give Corvus a free short move towards their high threat models as he will just blend them into paste. It will be Corvus and Proxima probably taking on the Sentinels while the rest of the squad does what they need to, but it is a strategy I am considering going back to.
Thoughts
I think Sentinels are going to be a tough hurdle for a lot of players to overcome. It is going to take a lot of reps to get down the spacing and pacing to effectively walk around them because they are a faction that doesn’t take up a lot of space in rosters while also providing a potentially oppressive low point game. I think that playing the edges is going to be where we need to go and even then it’s going to be tough but winnable.Good luck Webslingers
Comments
Post a Comment