Marvel: Finest hour for the Sentinels?

I’m doing the groundwork for a possible supervillain RPG mini-campaign in the increasingly near future, and in the course of my due diligence, I happened to wonder what the best material on Sentinels is. I want to throw in Sentinels or comparable ripoffs, but I want them to be at the very top of their game – as iconic and incredible as they oughtta be.

Bearing in mind that I’m going for a slightly dated feel (“My god! Those Pym Particles have turned this entire city into a titanic nuclear bomb!”), what would you guys say should be my touchstone for the Sentinels – the story in which they best live up to their potential?

The one where they win.

Days Of Future Past is obviously the classic “Sentinels Win” moment. The opening pages of Ultimate X-Men #1 also have a definite “Oh Shit” feel there with giant robots pulverizing mutants out in public, but that’s definitely a more modern take. Same goes for the destruction of Genosha as a modern take.

My personal favorite Sentinel (sort of) moment is still Uncanny X-Men 246-247, the fight between the Australia-era X-Men and a merged Master Mold/Nimrod construct. Back in the days before Chris Claremont died and was replaced by a Commodore 64 running a “plot generator” program off its cassette drive.