Kanak Sentinels

Tactics

The Armored Sentinels are my heavy hitters. My Armored Sentinels are up gunned to Lascannons. As my tanks are mainly geared for anti-infantry and my infantry the same, I need something to help pop any vehicles I encounter. I don't always bring my Heavy Weapon teams, but I will always make room for my Sentinels. Depending on who I am facing, or if I am going second, I may hold them in reserves to prevent them from being hit early. These guys will aim for whatever threatens them first, gun-wise. Otherwise, whatever big-nasty is available will be their main target. I'm lucky enough that they usually connect on the first volley. But that is not something to rely on at all. That's when they start dancing away and keep shooting. Their armor of 12 is a real boon for their survival. Beyond the weapon upgrade for my, they do not get anything else.

My other unit of Sentinels simply Scout to the enemy's backfield and cause havoc. They are very basic in cost and build. The multi-lasers don't really do much damage, but they always get my opponent's attention. The strength of the multi-laser pretty much means they can harm anything short of a heavy vehicle. These little walkers can also tie up units or be used to charge other heavy weapon teams. In practice, they are usually a throw away unit. In use, they more than make up for it.

Painting

As for painting, I had some old Sentinels sitting around in their old jungle green coloration. Old as in from 2001 or '02 when I was really into the Imperial Guard. They looked pretty good in general, but didn't really fit in with the rest of the company scheme-wise. When I got another Catachan Battalion box that had a Sentinel inside, I figured I would go ahead and get them all in line with the rest of the Kanak units.

            

With the newest sentinel, on the right above, you can see the slight lean toward corruption taking place. The pilot is from one of my old lascannon Sentinels that received an armored canopy. I simply pulled the pilot out. It was simply to save time. I get lazy.

               

 

The one in the middle used to be open topped. Just a couple of clips and glue down an old metal piece I had laying around, POOF! I am so glad GW started making the plastic version. The metal parts never really fit that well and made it very top heavy to boot. Games Workshop has really upped their game, pun intended, with their new sculpt across the range. Everything is coming out nice and sharp with a great fit.

                       

          

Here are the walkers after their layers of grey. All of them were primed in black, then Tamiya Light Grey Surface Primer. A few pieces of Tamiya masking tape were added and a layer of Mechanicus Standard Grey was airbrushed on. Following the regular steps, I did all base painting followed by decals. They were all then sprayed with a gloss coat from Testors and the weathering began. Starting with a filter for grey german tanks and sponging some dark paint onto it. The basic dark brown oil wash was applied to every crevice and rivet.  I then used Mig weathering products on these guys to see how it works out. I can say I was very happy with them. The streaking rust was strategically placed in locations that water would stand or spots where I added damage. Then some of the Mig Streaking Grime onto the hydraulic areas or places where there could be a gasket leak on a leg or so.

Those are the basics steps I used. There were others in between depending on what I thought they needed. Much of modeling is finding a way of doing something and growing from that.