At the very light end of medium mechs lives the Sentinel – fairly quick, visually unbalanced, and one of the less popular mechs in the Comstar Command Level II pack. Most variants are nothing particularly special – while they generally balance speed, firepower, and durability more evenly than other 40 tonners, the only way they accomplish that is by not being particularly good at any of them. It’s something you drop in to fill out that last thousand or so BV, not something you’re likely basing a lance around.

Chassis

As a 40 ton battlemech, the Sentinel does have quite a bit of possible adjustment between variants – different engine, armor, and structure types open up a lot of payload changes. That said, it’s always a 6/9/0. Armor alternates between marginal and functional – some of these have less armor than a Wolfhound, while others approach average for a medium mech. Even so, the most armored variants still can’t stand up to more than a couple hits.

Variants

These mechs have all been reviewed based on a standard F through S scale, which you can find described on our landing page here (along with all of our other ‘mech reviews, the name of the box you can buy to get any of the mechs we have covered, and our general methodology).

STN-1S

The original variant, this isn’t considered the base model Sentinel (that’s the STN-3L), but is broadly similar if lacking the lostech weapons. An AC/2, small laser, and SRM 4 are not a lot of gun. If everything hits perfectly, you’ll do a whopping 13 damage, and it won’t hit perfectly because to hit with the small laser you’re deep within AC/2 minmum range. 10 points of side torso armor and 12 in the center torso also aren’t going to be enough to survive getting to 1 or 2 hexes away from anything bigger (or most things smaller) than you. At 632 BV, it’s probably best used with flak ammo in the AC/2 as an inexpensive anti-VTOL unit, but even then it’s not doing a whole lot.

My rating: D

STN-3L

The actual base model swaps the autocannon out for an Ultra AC/5 and the SRM to a stream SRM-2 – marginally better damage, though not significantly. While it can only fire the autocannon for 10 turns (assuming you double tap every time), that’s not a big concern – the CT only has 10 points of armor so this isn’t lasting long if it gets shot. Keep those 9 hex runs up, stay near the edge of your fairly long autocannon medium range, and hope you don’t get hit. 717 BV is cheap enough that this can basically exist as harassment without expecting it to perform any key roles.

My rating: C-

STN-3Lb

We’ve got a real gun on this one – the royal variant swaps in all the weight saving tech (XL engine, ferro fibrous armor, and endo-steel internal structure) to stick a whole-ass gauss rifle on. It’s also pumped the armor up significantly, with 14/16 points in the torsos it’s much more able to take a couple hits, but this is broadly still a mech that wants to use the long range of the gun with relatively quick movement to hold range open as much as possible. At only 1,260 BV this is one of the cheaper gauss rifle equipped mechs you can take, and it’s not doing anything significantly wrong.

My rating: C+

STN-3K

Back to the Succession Wars mines, this is running a regular AC/5, small laser, and SRM 2. All told, exactly enough gun to get pretty much completely ignored. With two tons of AC ammo you have plenty of room to carry precision, so it can run around trying to whittle down a light mech, but it won’t be doing that any time soon. 652 BV is at least very very cheap, and it’s better than the 1S.

My rating: C-

STN-3KA

Swapping the AC/5 for a large laser is, unsurprisingly, a significant improvement for a Succession Wars mech. This variant now carries enough armor to take a couple hits, doesn’t end up in minimum range if it wants to try to use all the weapons (though I’d still mostly avoid trying to use the small laser), and hits a little bit harder. It does lose the accuracy of precision ammo, and bumps all the way up to 847 BV. If you’re playing in an era without precision ammo, this is definitely better – otherwise it’s pretty much a wash.

My rating: C

STN-3KB

Similar to the 3KA but with a PPC instead, this doesn’t pick up the additional armor. At 823 BV, the firepower/armor balance here is not great – removing this from the board is pretty easy, and your opponent definitely wants to get rid of your PPCs, so it’s going to get shot up and doesn’t have the durability to take it.

My rating: C-

STN-3M

Like the 3L, this does retain the Ultra AC/5 but trades the streak SRM 2 for a regular one (not a big loss). It’s still remarkably lightly armored, using the weight savings from the SRM downgrade to upgrade the small laser to a medium laser. 758 BV puts it in direct competition with the 3L, and it’s definitely better than that, but still struggles to be effective in games.

My rating: C-

STN-C

With an Ultra AC/5, SRM 2 and c3 slave, this variant exists to be in a c3 lance, sit at as long range as possible and plink with the autocannon. Of the three Ultra AC/5 variants this is definitely the best, entirely because at 689 BV it’s marginally the cheapest. In a c3 lance you can expect to be paying 827 BV for it, which is not really good for just an ultra 5, but it’s still sub-1k BV and if it has a good spotter it can be very annoying while staying at long range. 5 damage hits aren’t much but eventually add up.

My rating: C

STN-4D

This is a near optimal rotary AC mech. It’s up-armored, with 15/19 torso armor, which is enough that it can take a couple hits, and it’s only weaponry is the RAC/5 and a single ER medium laser. 40 shots is adequate – 8 turns of fire at 5 shots/turn, which when you account for movement and potential jams will last through most games, and because it doesn’t mount much else in the way of weapons needing to take a turn off and unjam isn’t a huge waste. 1,179 BV leaves this as expensive for a sentinel, but entirely reasonable for the potential damage output.

My rating: B

STN-5WB

The first sentinel to have more than three weapon lines on the record sheet, this variant is carrying a trio of ER medium lasers and pair of light AC/5s. That’s a lot of 5 damage hits. Sadly it’s not carrying enough ammo to run precision, with only 20 shots for the pair of autocannons. Still, 5 shots at 5 damage are enough to add up (comparable to what you get from the 4D, only with different variance and no jam chance). Less armor than the 4D is balanced out by only being 999 BV – the 4D is probably about 20% better than this, which is coincidentally what the BV says.

My rating: B

STN-6S

This is another variant that can do 5ish 5 damage shots at about 5-6 hex short range. This time it’s running an Ultra AC/5, clan ER medium laser, and pair of thunderbolt 5s, and to do it needs to run an XL engine (clan, in this instance, so only 2 side crits) and an XL gyro, and runs the same armor as the 5WB. It’s at a midpoint in cost between the 4D and 5WB at 1,089 BV, and I can’t see why I’d take it over either of the other two unless I had exactly that much BV and was determined to include a sentinel – if I have even a hair more I can include the 5WB at a 4/4 pilot. It’s more fragile than the 5WB or 4D because of that gyro and does similar damage, though the damage can now be intercepted by AMS or jam itself permanently.

My rating: C

Conclusion

The Sentinel is a mech. Generally, it’s not very good – it simply doesn’t have enough damage to actually do anything. That said, the variants that pushed the damage up are able to be fairly decent harassers at around the 1,000-1,250 BV range. 6/9 is enough speed to get into useful locations, and with most firepower coming from AC5s or ER medium lasers it’s got middling range and isn’t trying to dive in particularly close where it risks taking high damage in return. You can certainly do a lot worse.

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