Badab war - Astral Claws Tyrant's Legion Sentry Gun.

Inspired by a recent post about building weapon emplacements from leftover bits on a blog whose name sadly escapes me, I set about knocking together a sentry gun for my Seperatist forces.

Built from a sentinel's leg with an old metal multimelta (Servitors arm?) and some bits and pieces from various imperial guard vehicle accessories to represent the searchlight and sensor suite, all mounted on yet another 40mm ruined wall base I had knocking around; it's nothing special but was fun to build and paint and gives me a usefull little addition to the army.

'The forces of the Tyrant were known to make great use of a wide variety of automated weapon systems, the mindless obedience of a Servitors lobotomised cranium often deemed more reliable than the half trained human cattle of the Auxillia units. 

In the latter stages of the Badab conflict, loyalist forces were to encounter increasing numbers of an unusual and unsanctioned pattern of sentry gun, commonly known to the separatists as a 'Krandiil' the backstabbing stiletto tridents favoured by the hive gangs of badab primus.

Deployed solely as ambush and distraction units and armed with thermal weapons that could melt a marines armoured plate or the hull of a battle tank with equal ease, these weapons were seeded ahead of advancing loyalist forces, hidden amidst wreckage or buried under rubble and masked by auspex jamming electronics, ready to rise up in ambush behind the loyalists as soon the telltale signatures of their armour had passed by....'

Sentry guns are a fast attack choice for the Tyrants legion and can be taken in batteries of up to three in a slot. Each gun has to be declared in one of two firing modes before the game, either a 360 degree field of fire with 18" range or 90 degree field of fire with a 36" range, this is important to remember when it comes down to choosing any upgrades.

They are BS3, which is usefull compared with the usual BS2 of automated weapons, toughness 6, 2 wounds and have a power armour esque 3+ save making them reasonably survivable.

The most interesting thing about this list entry is the fact that sentry guns can be given deep strike for 10pts per gun, transforming them from static gun emplacements to potentially devastating ambush/distraction units.

Costing a mere 15pts with the standard load out of twin linked heavy bolters, sentry guns can be upgraded to either a twin linked Lascannon for 10pts, or multimelta with searchlight for 5pts; personally I feel the Lascannon option isn't great due to the limited range of both firing modes, I'd either go for the standard fit with no options to add some firepower to a defensive Auxillia/Armsman squad or go for my choice, multimelta, searchlight and deep strike for a total of 30pts a gun.

At 30pts each they are cheap enough to be classed as expendable and when you deep strike in behind an enemy tanks rear armour, or next to a vulnerable support unit, even if you don't kill them, your enemy should be forced to react to this threat in his rear (ffnarr) rather than your main elements.