From Panel To Play: Sentinels

CP51 & CP160 Sentinel MK4 AND Prime Sentinel

This time on From Panel to Play, we’re taking a look at the biggest, baddest robots to ever make a surprise appearance during a televised debate: the Sentinel MK4 and Prime Sentinel!

The devastating Sentinels are war machines designed to hunt down and destroy mutants. The Mark IV class are equipped with a variety of weapons systems, including plasma and electric blasts, catch-web cables, and remarkable levels of physical strength. Sentinels are incapable of being persuaded to deviate from their training; they pursue their captives with unrelenting tenacity until they accomplish their objective, which is the eradication of their mutant prey.

On the tabletop, the Sentinel MK4 comes in at a whopping Size 5, and it crams every inch of it with different tools, weapons, and powers to dish out pain to its mutant prey. The Plasma Blast attack may seem like a simple energy beam at first glance, but it can really scorch the flesh off of some adamantium bones thanks to the ability to pay Power to increase its Strength from 4 up to a maximum of 7! Don’t think that beating up on the MK4 is going to do you any favors, either. When it flips to its damaged side, Plasma Blast becomes Plasma Leak, which adds an extra attack die for each critical you roll—while also slowly melting the Sentinel into a pile of slag.

For those tenacious mutants, the MK4 has the potent Suppression Protocols attack. Costing 3 Power to use, this Strength 8 Physical attack has a chance to inflict the Incinerate, Shock, and Slow special conditions on its target, reflecting how a Sentinel can tailor its strikes to deal with specific mutant prey.

As a gigantic robot, the MK4 isn’t the fastest thing on the battlefield and might struggle to catch up to some of the more evasive heroes out there. Fortunately, it can snare pesky targets with its Restraint Cables, ranged cables that shoot out to tangle an opponent and draw them closer for some ol’ fashioned suppression. Once a turn, the MK4 can spend 2 Power to target an enemy and push them Short directly toward the Sentinel.

The MK4 also includes several innate powers to reflect its masterful creation and robotic nature. Master Mold allows you to take two of the towering robots instead of the normal limitation of one character per alter ego, to really put some fear into your opponent. Power Matrix, representing the immense power supply of the machine, gives the MK4 2 Power at the end of each of its activations—perfect for setting up a Restraint Cable on your next turn or for charging up a Plasma Blast. And the machine mind of the MK4 benefits from Sentinel Programming, which prevents it from being moved by Mystic attacks (or superpowers), while further bolstering its mystic defenses with 2 additional defense dice against mystic attacks. Telepathy, magic, and other such shenanigans mean nothing to the might of the machine!

Rounding it out, a MK4 has the ability to fly, and as you might expect from a robot, immunity to the Bleed and Poison conditions.

But, you might be asking, what about the bigger, badder version of the Sentinel? What do you get when you take a terrifying robotic menace and give it a version update? You get the Sentinel Prime, of course! This update to the MK4 turns things up to 11 in almost every way.

Both its Plasma Blast and Suppression Protocols attacks are tuned up to be 1 Strength higher than their standard counterpart—and the Prime Sentinel must have some heavier shielding on those plasma beams, because it retains Plasma Blast when damaged!

The Prime Sentinel retains everything that makes the MK4 great, with the same flight and immunities, Restraint Cables, Sentinel Programming, and Power Matrix—with the added… uh… benefit of an Overloading Power Core when it is damaged that can score the Prime up to 5 additional Power at the risk of causing itself some damage.

But what makes the Sentinel Prime really special are two powers the garden-variety MK4 lacks. The first is the Mutant Hunters leadership for the Sentinel affiliation. Prime rewards its loyal Sentinels with power when they successfully deal with prey, dishing out 1 Power to a number of its allies equal to the target’s Threat!

To top it off, the Prime has one of the most iconic abilities of the Sentinels: adaptability. Sentinels are so fearsome because every time you fight them, you’re adding to their knowledge of how to combat your abilities and defeat you in the future. Pattern Analysis reflects this trait and allows the Prime or one of its allies to reroll up to 3 dice when attacking or defending!

That’s it for our first look at the tallest genocidal bullies on the playground! Be sure to check back for yet another installment of From Panel to Play, the series where we give you your first look at how your favorite characters transition to the tabletop in Marvel: Crisis Protocol. The Sentinels MK4 Character Pack and Sentinel Prime MK4 arrive on October 14. Pre-order your copies at your local game store or through our webstore today!

Until them Atomic Mass Transmissions, signing off!