The Cerastus Knight-Lancer is a war engine conceived for the first strike, a swift and merciless hunter attuned to the flanking charge and the sudden, decisive assault. It is famed in equal measure for its speed, for its lethality, and for the volatile temperament of the anima that dwells within its frame, for the machine spirits of the Lancer are among the most restive and ill-tempered of any Knight pattern. Such fury calls to like, and it is the most impetuous and glory-hungry scions of a household who seek to bond with these engines, matching the wildness of their own souls against the caged violence of the machine.
The Lancer strides to war bearing the Cerastus Shock Lance, a colossal energised weapon that shatters armour and immolates flesh with the sheer force of its impact, paired with an Ion Gauntlet Shield that turns aside incoming fire even as the Knight closes for the kill. Both are suited perfectly to the Lancer's purpose: to meet the foe face to face and break them in a single thunderous pass. The Cerastus-class engines were, by all reckoning, wrought for no purpose but war. They were made not as the guardians and protectors that many Knights aspire to be, but as conquerors and instruments of ruin, their coming a harbinger of the bloody age of violence that would become the Age of Strife.
Order of battle
