Major Aline Benett

Aline Bennet was once a star ace among Rocketman Corps, as well as a warcaster in training among the Crucible Guard. When the apocalypse came, most of Bennet’s Corps unfortunately perished. Instead of drowning in sorrow, however, Bennet buried her comrades and used their scavenged gear to build herself a new suit of armor, a suit that combined her skills as a warcaster with that of a high flying rocketman.

Despite her tragedy, Aline is cheerful, altruistic, and dedicated to making the wastes a safer place. She patrols the ruined Iron Kingdoms in search of evildoers, whom she happily eradicates with her paired flamethrowers. After scouring a region of evil, Aline will land briefly to deliver a wink, a smile, and a thumbs-up before blasting off again.

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat - Air Support

Put into play a unit of Crucible Guard Rocketmen (one Leader and five Grunts) and a Rocketman Ace. Place each model completely within 3" of Benett Template:Tipbox

Abilities

• Template:Flight
• Template:Gunfighter
• Template:Dodge
• Template:Elite Cadre
• Template:Flying High
• Template:Reposition 5

Weapons

Flame Thrower (x2)
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		SP 8			1			Template:-			12
Template:Continuous Fire Template:Fire Damage Template:Both Barrels

Spells

{{Category: Template:Arcane PropulsionTemplate:Down RangeTemplate:OccultationTemplate:RaidTemplate:Wind Burst }}[[Category: Template:Arcane PropulsionTemplate:Down RangeTemplate:OccultationTemplate:RaidTemplate:Wind Burst ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Magnum Opus
• Template:Prima Materia

Thoughts on Benett

Benett in a nutshell

A ranged support caster with a focus on speed. She will mainly be seen with large detachments of Rocketmen and a Warjack or 2 to crack heavy armour. She struggles to do everything she wants to do on a single turn with her small focus pool and spells that beg to be cycled.

As the faction expands her signature Raid spell will hopefully open up her list-building opportunities, currently it will only work on herself, Rocketmen, Gorman2 and Crucible Guard Mechaniks and some mercenaries looked after by Mosby. This makes her list-building options quite tight currently.

Feat thoughts

You put into play 12 points worth of models that gain flying high and benefit from Raid. Without the CA they struggle to crack armour but they can still make potshots and score objectives.

Everything true of Goreshade1’s feat in terms of nuisance is true of Benett’s. You can use her movement to get the new unit deep into enemy lines, but unlike Bane Thralls they aren’t much of a threat to casters or warjacks. They can contest well and pester infantry though.

Spell thoughts

• Occultation- quite a common spell but a useful one, give stealth to something you want to protect.
  • because they are likely already blast immune, high Def, and benefit from Flying High, Rocketmen aren’t usually the best target for this spell as it’s sort of overkill in ranged defense.
  • Because models with stealth do not block LOS and because your army will mainly be ranged you can also use it to shoot through something, but this is a risky tactic on a 6 focus caster who wants to cast Raid and cycle downrange when possible.
• Arcane Propulsion - It's a fairly weak battlegroup buff that helps pretty much any Warjack. The Liberator on paper seems like the best choice currently as the DEF buff stacks well with Ashen Veil, but truthfully because Aline won’t need the arc node as much as other casters it’s probably better placed on a Vanguard that can keep up with her and protect her from shooting. On the other hand, there is much to be said for a flying Toro or Suppressor that can get deeper into enemy lines.
• Down Range - fairly obvious what this spell is for, it’s one of the key selling points for bringing a Vulcan or Railless Interceptor with Aline. But stacking with Raid on Rocketmen is also an option. Especially for the maligned WA.
• Raid - A weird spell which only affects a handful of models in the faction, including Rocketmen of course, but also Gorman2 and Mechaniks. With this and Downrange Rocketmen should definitely put a dent into things with gravity bombs or slug guns. The extra movement is also very relevant!
  • Because she has 3 upkeeps and not much focus to go around don’t cast this for the sake of it; use it for important turns where you need to make an impact.
• Wind Burst - a spell Aline will rarely have the spare focus to cast and if you are casting it without an arc node you could just as easily shoot the target (unless they are hiding behind the cloud or have immunity Fire).

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Her feat requires you to buy physically buy extra models.

  Not only that, but Rocketmen units are sold as a boxed set with 14 models. You only need 6 for the feat, and the leftover 8 models can't even be used to field a minimum-sized unit (unless you convert one of the Weapon Attachments into a Leader model, and another WA into a Grunt model).

  But if you convert those two WA, then you can't field the full unit with all the attachments when you play a non-Benett caster.

• She is supposed to fix the often maligned Rocketmen with her spells, yet they don't really fix their fundamental problems and are way better elsewhere.
  • Rocketmen usually want to use their orders and jam, instead of charging and bouncing off moderately beefy models. Charging just get them killed because they lack the stat boosts their orders give them.
  • Down Range is way better on a Vulkan run by Prospero or a good ranged workhorse unit.
  • Spells and abilities that prevent ranged attacks neuter her kit and the models she wants to run. Countermeasure especially screws models with gunfighter and no melee weapons.
• Knock her down and she is dead her armour won’t save her
• with 3 upkeeps and Raid she struggles to cycle spells or keep herself safe.
• She does nothing to help accuracy she only improves raw output on ranged attacks.
• Benett has no combat presence at all vs fire immune models, it’s one of a few reasons that a Vulcan is a consideration for her.
• She has stiff competition in the form of Captain Eira Mackay who runs a fast, ranged battlegroup and Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart & Mr. Clogg who can deliver infantry and scalpel out enemies with hot shot and his feat. Aline’s place in the faction will always be tied to the effectiveness of Rocketmen.

Tricks & Tips

• remember that the +2 to damage rolls from downrange is added to blast damage, it’s not halved.
• just because models with gunfighter get +2 speed when charging doesn’t mean they have to actually use the gunfighter rule they can default back to their melee weapon.

List Building Advice

Strategy

Cycle Down Range and try to harass your enemies with no way to improve survivability you need to point trade and use your speed to make key engagements

Theme thoughts

• Resolutes with Mosby will love Occultation so they can get there.
• Storm Troopers or Assault Troopers also take well to Occultation. The Storm Troopers have guns so they also like Down Range.
• Crucible Guard Infantry with Down Range and their mini feat can put out 11 POW 13 shots in one turn. Oil something up with a Retaliator they should be able to crack even heavy targets and this is without rust or withering humor factored in.
• Prospero makes a Down Range'd Vulkan a very scary anchor piece indeed. Put Occultation on him and keep him behind the huge base to keep him as safe as possible.
• Rocketmen, naturally. Take a full unit with all trimming and feat another one into existence, then either gum everything up or charge in with Raid.

Battlegroup

• A Retaliator can Oil things up for her Flamethrowers to melt.
• A Liberator with base DEF 13 and Ashen Veil will take the best to Arcane Propulsion from a defensive standpoint. A Vanguard can also make use of it with Set Defense.
• However there is nothing quite like smacking something in the face with a flying Toro.
• The Vindicator has the strongest gun out of the CG heavies and thus takes the best to Down Range.
• The Suppressor on the other hand has 4 initials thanks to dual attack, attack types on the sprays that will always be relevant and is able to double hand throw. It takes excellently to Down Range or Arcane Propulsion. The best part is that by taking a Suppressor, along with a Vindicator, you use up Bennets WJPs exactly.
• The Vulcan can strip fire immunity off of models so Aline can use her flamethrowers. Usually, it's being put on Prospero, though.

Other

Trivia

Released 2020.12 Strangely she is the only Rocketmen model without Breather