If you know anything about the T’au Empire, you’ll have heard of Mont’ka and Kauyon – the twin martial philosophies that form the cornerstone of Fire Caste combat doctrine. Mont’ka – or the Killing Blow – is all about hitting the enemy as hard as possible at their most valuable point, and Commander Farsight was the undisputed master of this strategy.
Then he went renegade, giving the Ethereals an almighty PR nightmare to sort out. Many years later, they decided that the time had come for the new face of Mont’ka to step forwards and inspire young Fire Warriors, and after an extensive vetting process they chose Ri’Lantar and Ri’Locai – known widely as the Twin Lance.
This pair of exemplary battlesuit pilots weren’t always the Killing Blow personified, but after a nasty incident involving a Genestealer Patriarch and their team leader’s innards, they began to churn with ruthless aggression and take any chance they could to eradicate their foes at point-blank range. The thing is, unlike their disgraced predecessor, they don’t need a magic sword to do it – they just keep shooting.
Punching people is old hat, and the T’au were never that good at it anyway. The Earth Caste have come up with a rather marvelous battlesuit-sized pulse pistol that’s light and snappy enough to shoot in close quarters, and the Twin Lance are so used to fighting in the press of melee that they can aim and shoot their guns as easily as someone might swing a sword.
By flipping the combat rulebook on its head, they’ve become absolute monsters in close combat who can take on massed hordes or elite warriors as the situation requires. Don’t forget, they’re Vehicles too, so can take advantage of the Big Guns Never Tire rule to continue blazing away even when engaged in a melee.
Every bit of their Warmaker battlesuit is designed for lethality at close range, especially the large Neocapacitor Shields that store and release kinetic energy to blunt charges. You always want to be the one who makes the charge with these two, after all, so every inch taken off the enemy’s charge attempt is worth its weight in gold.
Then again, if you find yourself out of position, it’s not too big of a deal as our experienced pilots can engage their Retro-thrusters and scoot away to safety. They can fire them fairly often too, as the ability triggers in both players’ Fight phases whether they were involved in a scrap or not.
Farsight? Who’s Farsight? We only care about Sunsear and Scatterflare, our new Mont’ka exemplars. Come back later this week to catch datasheets for the other new characters shown off during the World Championships Preview – Berehk Stornbröw and the Tyranid Prime with Lash Whip.
