Prime Time

The Prime Sentinels - even in 1997, AI was taking our jobs.

Let's not get too hung up on the name, but for a faction with seven members, the name 'Sentinel' appears four times, and 'Prime' occurs twice. Maybe it's easier to distinguish in machine code.

Onto the positives: one of the nice things about Marvel Crisis Protocol is that the core rules have rarely changed, but the game is kept fresh with annual releases of new crisis cards (which you're free to ignore - you can just play the core crisis cards all day).

These releases are narratively-themed, and this year's 'Operation: Zero Tolerance' is all about the Sentinels (and, I suppose, the X-Men they're targeting). In addition to the crisis cards, the pack also comes with a new character. Last year was a big 6 Threat, this year we've definitely gone down the food chain with two pieces of cannon fodder.

As far as I can gather, the Prime Sentinels are basically ordinary humans who have been infected with nanotech, and then continue as sleeper agents until activated. Whereupon they lose all sense of self, but can generate weapons and tentacles (a fair trade-off, I'd take it).

This explains why they're human-sized, rather than the eponymous gigantic robots, and why you can take more than one of them in a squad.

Fortunately, for both diversity and being able to tell them apart on the tabletop, we get a male and female Prime Sentinel (along with different-looking character cards, which is a nice change from the Mk4 Sentinels, where you're left trying to remember which one is standing on the taxi!)

Their black unitards was a simple Chaos Black undercoat, then progressive drybrushes of Eshin Grey, Dawnstone and Celestra Grey, washed over with Nuln Oil. To add a bit more colour I gave the raised areas a glaze with a very thinned-down Thunderhawk Blue, which I really like.

I went outside the Citadel (now Warhammer) paints for some of the pink armour (I've not found a really good bright pink in their range). Basecoat Screamer Pink, then a layer of Warpaints Fanatic Impish Rouge, and final layer of Emperor's Children.

Usual metallics, skin and hair, and they were rolling off the assembly line!

In-game, I think they're a great asset to the affiliation - small enough to be ignored among all those huge robots, but capable of pushing through some real damage and dealing out annoying conditions.

They've also chalked up one victory already (although not, of course, when I was piloting them).