Panel to Play: Bastion, Nimrod, & Omega Sentinel

In today’s Panel to Play, we look at three new characters to join the Sentinel Program: Bastion, Nimrod, and Omega Sentinel. These 3 stand as the most advanced Sentinels and offer a supercharged version of the adaptability and power present for squad building your anti-mutant teams, and are a great choice for new Sentinel players or as an addition to the iconic characters found in the Sentinels Affiliation Pack.

What you might not know is that these 3 robots are all closely related! When the Sentinel Program was created, it’s goal was a future free from mutantkind’s threat to mankind. What Bolivar Trask and the other engineers foresaw eventually led to a dark future where Sentinels ruled the planet and eliminated or controlled most mutants and humans alike. From this future Nimrod was created as the most advanced form of the mutant-hunting robots to help rule the world and plan for an ordered world. Eventually, Nimrod travelled back in time to stop a great catastrophe and merged with another powerful Sentinel, Master Mold. The combined Sentinel was then transformed into Bastion by passing through the Siege Perilous but lost his memories! Bastion (thinking himself a human that just hated mutants) then led Operation: Zero Tolerance and created a new breed of human-Sentinel hybrids, foremost of them being Karima Shapandar, now known as Omega Sentinel! Thanks to their connected relationship, you could almost call these three Marvel: Crisis Protocol’s first family box!

Levitating over a powerful energy effect or time distortion, Nimrod is quite an impressive miniature on the battlefield. Whatever timeline this Nimrod hails from, he comes packed with flexible weapons and tricks to allow him to face off against any threat.

At 5 threat, Nimrod competes with Sentinel Prime and Cassandra Nova in affiliation, and offers a more aggressive choice. Named after the biblical hunter, it’s fitting that each of his attacks represent adaptability and hunting mutants in some different way. Adaptive Energy Blast can be either energy or physical, and gives out either root or incinerate based on your choice. Shockweb lets you damage and shock all enemy characters in range 2. His largest attack, Total Annihilation, throws the target away before damage, then stops that character from having damage removed that round. This will be especially helpful against some of the more defensive mutants like Apocalypse or those with Healing Factor like Wolverine.

Of course, Nimrod doesn’t just come with attacks. He includes a powerful cost 3 throw and a range 2 place, allowing him to control the battlefield and get almost anywhere in pursuit of his prey. Nimrod has a futuristic and advanced ability to recognize mutant abilities and adapt against them, represented with his most unique ability, Metahuman Power Recognition and Adaption Protocol. This wordy superpower lets him increase his defense roll by 2, PLUS an additional roll for each time he’s used it that turn! This is especially helpful against characters that are able to attack 3 times or more thanks to team tactic cards or other special abilities! Finally, Nimrod comes equipped with Healing Factor 2 and an immunity to bleed and poison. This, plus his defense 4 in all parameters and 7 health equals a killing machine that is able to shrug away many attacks, waiting for his moment to strike!

While Nimrod represents the advanced hunting capabilities of future Sentinels, Bastion represents the cunning and heartless planners behind the execution of their programming. Bastion leads from behind his Sentinels, supporting their directives and making sure there are no survivors. His leadership, Operation Zero Tolerance, serves as almost an opposite to Sentinel Prime’s, giving opponents characters less power when attacked, allowing the Sentinels to leverage their powers with less fear of reprisal.

When attacking, players will notice that both attacks are energy type, range four, and have the same Degeneration ability as Nimrod, stopping the enemy character from healing for most of the round. However, while his Disintegration Blast may be powerful, the Tolerance is Extinction attack takes it to the next level by being a beam that deals 8 dice and suppresses and roots the enemy character! Bastion seems to be all about stopping your opponents from utilizing their abilities and skills when counterattacking. To help the larger, slower characters, Bastion comes equipped with a range 2 place he can use on himself or allies, letting them get around one of the biggest downsides of the Sentinel’s faction!

He also comes equipped with Prime Nano-Virus Reanimation Protocols, a superpower that allows you to Root and deal one damage to an attacking character whenever they Daze or KO one of your characters. Bastion’s kit is rounded out with Flight, a damage reduction of one, and an additional power in the power phase. Overall, you can see how his role is to support the other robots while they advance and eliminate other threats on the tabletop.

Prime Sentinels, in general, are humans that are transformed into Sentinel-hybrids through advanced nanotechnology during Bastion’s Operation: Zero Tolerance. Karima Shapandar was one of them and had adventures against and alongside the X-Men and other mutants over her time as Omega Sentinel. While she sometimes retains her personality and memories and sometimes doesn’t, what remains always is her advanced armor and weaponry that makes her a dangerous and effective fighter.

She’s still a Sentinel though, so both her weapons have similarities like the adaptable choice between physical and energy damage and suppression on her free attack. She can even throw an enemy using her Engineered Extermination. She also comes with a few tricks that other Sentinels don’t have access to, like Charge. With her long movement speed and range 3 attacks this is almost guaranteed to allow her to double attack a pesky mutant that is trying to get away!

Most interesting is her Adapting Nano-Shifting Protocols, which allows her to choose a Nano State during the Power Phase. These Nano States each come with 2 different buffs for her to take advantage of and gives her access to multiple defensive and offensive shifts to take advantage of. Even better, if you are attacked or suffer a collision, Omega Sentinel can pay 2 power and change her Nano State again!

If all that wasn’t enough, she also comes packed with Flying, an immunity to bleed and poison, and Cyberpathy, a useful new ability that makes her more effective at taking Secure points, and gives her 1 power when she interacts with them, essentially making it free!

 

This Character Pack comes with a wide range of new Sentinel character-themed tactics cards, all of which expand your choices, some of which even affect Sentinel Prime! Most interestingly, it might be Know Thy Enemy, which lets Bastion and Sentinel Prime make a 0-cost attack during an enemy’s turn attacking, if they’re within range 3 of each other! This powerful ability to gain extra attacks is in other affiliations, but never during an opponent’s turn!

 

Many players will be drawn to Building the Mother Mold, a new potential win condition for Sentinel players to plan around. In many situations, this card will force opponents into playing a more aggressive plan to score points or remove characters in order to stop Sentinel players from gaining 6 victory points and seizing the day.

 

Whether for the dynamic new sculpts, powerful team tactic cards, or expansive new playstyles offered by these three new characters, players are going to want to pick up the Bastion, Nimrod, & Omega Sentinel Character Pack and increase the odds of humanity’s victory against mutantkind.