2026 is thematically the year of Sentinels vs. Mutants for Marvel: Crisis Protocol and I cannot be more excited about the year ahead. While we have a panoply of Mutant affiliations (Brotherhood, Hellfire, New Mutants, Uncanny X-Men, Weapon X, X-Force, and Servants of Apocalypse) their antagonists are condensed into a single anti-mutant antagonist faction, the Sentinels. Furthermore, the Sentinels have the smallest affiliation list of any affiliation that isn’t Thralls of Dracula, Legion of the Lost, or Dark Dimension which all break the rules of affiliation.
Since the new crisis pack and related releases this spring will tell the story of mutants vs. their oppressors, it feels like Sentinels should be a larger and more diverse affiliation to flesh out this story line.
Current Sentinel options
Currently the Sentinels only have three characters that are in affiliation. The Sentinel Prime MK4, Cassandra Nova, and Sentinel MK4. If you would think that three characters aren’t really enough to make an affiliation, it can be a struggle but it does currently function. Thankfully, the Sentinels can take two Sentinel MK4 models in one roster (using their Master Mold superpower) and can use a single Rogue Agent (Winter Soldier or Taskmaster) to help them build out affiliated teams.
The Sentinel Prime and Cassandra Nova are both 5-Threats so you really need to bring other models to help you fill out different Threat levels. The two Mk4s you can bring are 4 Threat each and the Rogue Agent models are 3 Threats so you have a variety of affiliated models and fill out the rest of your roster with synergistic models.
Even with this pretty constrained affiliated list, the Sentinels have had a competitive resurgence thanks to character card changes to all 3 of their affiliated models and with the announcement of several more Sentinel characters. Cassandra Nova got much more competitive with her better Power generation in the Power Phase. Overall I think the Sentinel models also got better on whole and the Sentinel’s leadership on Sentinel Prime got a buff to trigger on enemy model KOs as well.
The only unfortunate part is that the Sentinel roster is so small that there is not very much variety in what you see Sentinels bring to the table. Their 5 Threat leader is a given and then pick your favorite from Cassandra, Mk4, Mk4 again, and a Rogue Agent. Expanding their roster will increase variety and also make their affiliated TTCs much better when they have more targets.
Known Future Sentinel additions
Looking to the future, we are expecting new Sentinel affiliated models in the release of the Bastion, Omega Sentinel, and Nimrod box. In addition, the 2026 Crisis pack will include two Sentinel models that will function similar to the Sentinel MK4 (you can take two of them in a roster and team).
Immediately this will more than double the Sentinel affiliated roster, although they will still only have 7 affiliated characters. This will still make them tied for the smallest affiliation roster with Winter Guard and New Mutants.
(We expect more New Mutant affiliated models coming in 2026 and with the taking-multiples rule of the Sentinels I guess we can say that Winter Guard is truly the smallest with no changes in sight.)
If we wanted to add more affiliated characters to the Sentinels, what are the possible choices? I don’t think we have to look far. This affiliation is getting a lot of love in late 2025/early 2026 and could be a competitive choice so lets look at other possibilities.
Possible Future additions
The first thing that comes to mind are the characters that were part of the ORCHIS organization during the Krakoa era of X-Men in the Marvel Comics. This era of X-Men had a (generally) united mutant nation on the island of Krakoa and one of their main antagonists was a united effort of humans and robots called ORCHIS. ORCHIS was an anti-mutant organization dedicated to mutant eradication and was comprised of a diverse group of individuals with backgrounds in S.H.I.E.L.D., S.W.O.R.D., Hydra, and some other unique anti-mutant characters.
Some of the ORCHIS organization is already in the game! MODOK brough his evil genius and sinister plots from AIM to ORCHIS. He was primarily working on the Operations/Offense arm of the organization. He would be a great thematic inclusion with either of his current iterations in the game.
Mister Sinister was part of the nation of Krakoa but one of his evil clones by the name of Doctor Stasis was another evil technological genius in the ORCHIS organization. Doctor Stasis was working on the Human/Resources arm of the organization (very sinister sounding indeed). It would be interesting to bring this version of Mister Sinister into the game as a part of the Sentinel affiliation.
ORCHIS also recruited/hired Spider-Man villain Vulture. Vulture was experimenting with the Techno-Organic Virus and working on hunting down mutants. In the end, Vulture was purely jealous and hateful of a mutant nation that had perfect health and power.
Vulture himself recruited Silver Sable and Rhino during this era as mercenaries-for-hire. Firestar was acting as a double agent working for ORCHIS but secretly aligned with Krakoa and the mutants. These three are more weakly connected to Sentinels so they’re not slam dunks to include.
ORCHIS also gained control of Stark International and started using Stark/Iron Man tech in their Sentinel designs. It would be cool to see some variant on the Mk4 for a Stark Sentinel in the future.
The upcoming release models are basically all affiliated to ORCHIS as well, with Omega Sentinel and Nimrod being two of the main leaders. With all of these characters we could see a much more robust Sentinels affiliation and much more variety in Sentinel teams.
I think Sentinels will have a big place in the upcoming year for the competitive scene and I’m excited to see those big robots on the table. Additionally, we are close to finishing up our season for the Appalachian Cup, an MCP tour that takes place in Western PA, Ohio, and West Virginia. Check out our discord for more information! You can find me testing new affiliations and models at my local store near Pittsburgh, PA the Fabricator’s Forge. Finally, check out the FLG online store for discount models! Good luck and happy wargaming.