Hot Take: The Twin Lance Datasheet

It’s time for some new rules! Today WarCom showed off a new datasheet for the T’au Empire - the Twin Lance are a pair of EPIC HERO battesuits for the T’au, comprised of Rl’Lantar and Rl’Local, models in the upcoming kit revealed last year during the World Championships preview.

But are they any good? We don’t have points yet but we can evaluate the datasheets released today and well, spoiler: Yes, they’re very good.

Let’s dive in.

You get two models in this unit, and they come with the standard Battlesuit attributes these days - they’re WALKER VEHICLES with FLY and DEEP STRIKE and 10” movement. They’re tougher than Crisis Suits, clocking in at T6 with a 2+/4++ save and 8 wounds each, making this a fairly beefy unit. They also have OC 2, meaning the whole unit is OC 4 - more than you see on most small and light vehicles, and it means they can tussle over objectives pretty well on their own.

They also have Scouts 8”, so while they don’t Infiltrate, they have a hefty pregame move you can use to either push forward aggressively or drop them back into protected cover if you’re going second.

The Twin Lance has three datasheet abilities - Exemplars of the Mont’ka, Neocapacitor Shields, and Retro-thrusters. The first gives the unit Sustained Hits 1 and Ignores Cover when they target the closest eligible unit with ranged attacks. The second ability lets them select an enemy unit at the start of the opponents charge phase (excluding Monsters and Vehicles) who then have to take a Battle Shock test and also imparts a -1 to all charge rolls made for that unit. Those first two are stellar abilities, but they’re made even more potent with the Retro-thrusters ability that allows the unit to make a Normal Move of up to 6” or a Fall Back move if they are in engagement range at the end of each fight phase. This allows them to move a total of up to 38” in one turn (this is if you scout, move, charge, fall back, then are charged and fall back again)!

The weapons on the Twins are, as Wings put it, “mental.” Both come with a pulse pistol, a shardstorm burst system, and a gun drone with twin pulse blasters. Then one has a Fusion Eliminator and the other has an Ion Scattercannon.

The Fusion Eliminator is a 2-shot S10 melta 2 weapon with 18” range. Most notably it hits on a 2+, making it an accurate way to push damage through on targets without an invulnerable save.
The Ion Scattercannon on the other hand also has 18” range but is more of a high-volume threat. You have two shooting modes with it - Standard and Overcharge - and both are four shots but the Hazardous mode goes up 1 each in Strength, AP, and Damage to S8 AP-3, 3 damage and adds Hazardous and Rapid Fire 2 on its shots. You will always be shooting this mode.
The Shardstorm Burst System is a Pistol weapon that can shoot 18” putting out D6 shots at S5 1 damage.
The XV Pulse Pistol is a S6 AP-1, 2 damage gun with [RAPID FIRE 2] and notably, not [PISTOL]. It fires two shots but doubles as a melee weapon, where it gives four attacks that hit on 3+ instead of 2+. Think of this as being similar to Cypher, where his melee attacks are the guns.
On top of this, the bigger guns also double as [EXTRA ATTACKS] in melee, with the fusion eliminator giving you 1 attack and the Ion Scattercannon giving 3, albeit only hitting on a 4+. Still, this is really good, as it means the Twin Lance have some nasty melee power in a pinch.

That’s a lot of very good shooting from these two models, and packaging it with the Exemplars of Mont’ka ability means that this unit wants to get close and completely annihilate targets, then jump back using its Retro-Thrusters in the Fight phase to a safer position.

If there’s anything missing with these guys, it’s the ability to join units - they don’t have a Leader ability and just come as a standalone pair.

Twohorse: In melee these guys put Commander Farsight to shame. With 8 WS3+ attacks at S6 AP-1 2D, 3 WS4 attacks at S7 AP-2 2D, and one WS4 attack at a whopping S10 AP-4t d6+2D, Tau finally have a battlesuit unit that wants to participate in the fight phase. Not only are they a credible threat to bully-charging chaff and transports in melee, but their Retro Thrusters rule means that they can use bully charges or heroic intervention to set up slingshot fall-back moves, which at 10” opens up a lot of mobility options. The melee gameplan into Tau has a new dynamic as long as these are on the board. They're not going to survive a serious punch, but they punish casual touches in a way that Tau previously could not.

The Neo-Capacitor Shields rule allows the Twin Lance to select an enemy unit within 12” at the start of the opponent’s charge phase to take a battleshock test and subtract 1” from all of their charge rolls. At first glance this is simply good: Tau don’t want to be charged, so making that harder is always handy.

Digging a little deeper, it has utility into even non-melee armies, because the battle-shock test has the potential to create massive points swings. Secondary objectives that are normally delegated to disposable chaff units, like Behind Enemy Lines or a turn-1 Area Denial/Cleanse, are much less reliable when scoring the objective depends on passing a battleshock test. If the Twin Lance is within 12” of a scoring position, the opponent is forced to play around that test without the Tau player making any hard decisions or exposing resources of their own.

Additionally, the strength of the datasheet comes with a hidden bonus. Because of their high ballistic skill and built-in access to ignore cover, the Twin Lance can consistently act as a spotting unit without giving up any output. That allows tau players to budget their lists around fewer support pieces to activate For The Greater Good, and to expose fewer units per target when planning out their shooting due to the retro thrusters. This is a powerful combination that synergizes well in any Tau list that boosts their value beyond their killing power and mobility and score/charge manipulation.

This unit will be hard to cost appropriately, because it’s universally valuable on its own and creates synergies without relying on them in every detachment. Auto-take at almost every conceivable points cost.

Shane: This new Tau epic hero unit seems pretty damn cool. A lot of mobility options, especially if you are running them in Montka or Ret Cadre. Having ignores cover baked in if they are targeting the closest enemy unit means they don’t need marker/guide support. They are semi tanky in the fact they are 2+/4++, so with your mobility options you can prioritize what enemy units can attempt to deal damage back. Seems pretty cool, points will be the big factor imo.

Rob: Not that big a factor; if these guys come in anywhere south of 200 points, you’ll be running them. And given Farsight runs 85, I’d bet on that.

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