The Black Lance

The Black Lance, also know by their longer title The Servants of Lost Virtue, were a lesser known covenant fighting unit created late in the Human-Covenant War. Ostensibly a penal unit the group was created by to act as his black operations unit, he drew warriors from those who had committed crimes against the covenant empire and had their sentences commuted to servitude as opposed to imprisonment or execution. The first team was deployed late in the war and soon sent the stage for the suicidal missions that the Lance would become known for. Over the course of the war the Lance would be a useful if dislike tool of war and were a part of at least three major victories over the humans as well as numerous counter-insurgent operations. However, as the came to an end and the began what remained of the Lance was able to lead a successful and devastating revolt against their superiors and flee to safety, eventually coming to serve . 
In the end The Black Lance for many showed how desperate the covenant leadership was toward the end of the war as well as the lengths they were willing to go to reach for victory as the war dragged on. Despite being a sort lived group its remains would form many mercenary bands, keeping the name alive long after the war finished. 
==History==
===Formation===
Late into the war many of the covenants leadership had begun to grow anxious. The hirarchs had often promised of the humans swift defeat and, with the war quickly turning into a grind of attrition as the humans learned to fight back more effectively, many voices begun to call around for a swifter conclusion to the war. These calls soon reached the high prophets.
The Prophet of Regret, as the most war minded of the three prophets, soon drew his closest military aids and begun to try and bring together ideas of how to pull the war further in the covenants favour. After reviewing many of the covenants more successful ground assaults Regret noticed the usefulness of psychological warfare on humans, especially if faced with the grim mortality of death or the sheer horror of facing an inescapable alien threat. Soon Regret had formulated an idea.
The use of criminals in the covenants campaign was soon met with criticism by Regrets aids, many of them Sangheili commanders, who saw the use of the lesser rabble as an insult to the ideals that the covenant was striving for. Never the less Regret insisted and cited that they wouldn't necessarily have to fight alongside regular combat groups, nor have a similar level of survivability. Soon the idea of using convicted, and as seen by many commanders former, members of the covenant empire as suicide units to be used to both complete highly difficult objectives and undermine human forces moral was accepted much better, although there were still complaints.
Regret wasted no time and soon begun having his servants pick out those imprisoned aboard High Charity who would be able to function as the first of the suicide squads. Not long after Regret had found his team. Its members included; a sadistic called Naruu Ug Wurn, Jaa-Uska a kleptomaniac and a cybernetic known as Tal 'Zerex. These, along with 13 others, would form the basis for a 15 strong suicide force force that Regret soon dubbed as his Black Lance.
Knowing full well that arming criminals, especially those with deep running hatred of the covenant, Regret devised a way of keeping the Lance under control. Sedating the 15 criminals he had a group of implant an explosive charge in the base of their necks. Should a convict rebel or attempt to escape then the teams warden, their field leader and handler, would detonate the charge and end the rebellious warriors life before he could prove to be a threat. 
Eager to test out his new unit Regret soon dispatched them to the most recent warzone the human world of . There Lance was sent to engage the human forces as they evacuated their non combatants from the planet. While the main attack lead an armoured charge toward the humans main evacuation the Lance was sent a different way. Moving through a set of ruined buildings the Lance charged up through a flat street with little cover toward the human rearguard. 
While holding the element of surprise for long enough 5 of the team was soon cut down as they reached the human line and a further 3 were lost as the Lance descended upon the humans. While losses were high the Lance reaped a grim toll on the humans as Tal and Naruu entered into a blood fest of close combat with the humans while the others picked off stragglers or butchered and burned civilians in this shuttles.
At the end of the battle the final tally for the Lance was three quarters dead, two blood splattered berserker's and an uncountable number of human casualties. However, despite proof of the Lance's effectiveness, the commanders of the assault demanded that they be removed from their battlefield immediately. Taken back to Regret the prophet seemed pleased with their performance. Organising to have another set of criminals be moved to the team he soon had them sent on their next deployment.
===Early Battles===
===Heretics Bane===
===Breaking the Chains===
===Among the Banished===
==Legacy==
==Battle Strategy==
Most battle plans by the Lance were uncomplicated, brutal and focused on causing maximum carnage. By nature many of the Lance's members were psychotic, including the berserker's Tal 'Zerex and Naruu Ug Wurn, and as such it was often in the favour of many of their members to close the gap between the enemy as soon as possible in order to inflict as much damage as possible. As such they made extensive use of , often retrofitted for increased speed or fire-power, or in more desperate situations . With these tools the Lance was able to make sudden and swift attacks on human outposts and strongholds or also to hunt down heretic groups. Other than these vehicles the Lance wasn't often gifted any other form of armoured support, mainly because they often fought in war zone's where there were other dedicated armour support Lance's and because it didn't fit with their combat style. 
Once their initial attack was concluded and they had decimated their landing zone the Lance would then move forward further into enemy territory. With their fury unleashed in the initial assault the Lance would then turn to guerrilla warfare, using the element of surprise they would descend on individual targets, remove them with terrifying brutality before moving on to find the next group. Sometimes they would keep a few of their targets alive in order to interrogate them, for sport. Interrogation by the Lance was something that many heretic followers dreaded. Much like their fighting tactics the Lance show'd little mercy to those they were given free reign over and used a mixture of psychological methods and hands on torture to get their subjects to cooperate. While they mainly reserved this treatment for the heretics they were sent to hunt they would sometimes exercise these measures on human captives, sometimes even letting them run back to their other forces in order to lower their moral.
Although the Black Lance was a highly effective, if hated, combat unit their main strength lay in breaking the enemies moral. Often their simple savagery would be enough to break their foes but sometimes they would face those of stern hearts. In the history of the Lance there are many stories of the length's they turned to in order to break the enemies spirit. Slaughtering, pillaging and other grisly displays of violence would prove useful to turn stomach's and instil fear. A favoured tactic was to drop a smokescreen from one of their phantom's, thereby coating their chosen battlefield in a thick cloud of smog that their close combat units could use to get close to their targets and kill with ease, all the while the sounds of their friends dying around them would terrify those that still stood. Another known method of this tactic was to use a specially developed flammable gas that the Lance would use to ignite whole area's at once, though this came at a risk to those on the ground. 
==Equipment==
==Notable Members==
*Tal 'Zerex: Without doubt the most infamous member of the Lance, Tal was a part of the original Lance from it's inception and was one of the few original members to survive the war. The cyber-sangheili became a defining image for the Lance, though this did little for its popularity. Though never official noted as having any tactical command Tal exerted a great amount of control over the rest of the Lance and was often seen as their unofficial leader. It would be he who would lead the break out at the end of the war and go on to lead some of the Lance's remains as a mercenary band for a few years on the galactic frontier.
*Prophet of Regret: While not a member of the Lance per-say Regret had ultimate control over the Lance and where it moved. As the most war-minded of the high prophets Regret favoured personally observing many battles. Regret initially used the Lance as a clearing tool and distraction to allow his other units to perform their actions without incident but their success against human forces meant that he started using them in a much wider capacity. In the end he would use the Lance as one of the front line combat teams, leading the most suicidal missions into human territory.
*Warden Tharkis: Though there were many wardens that lead the many teams of the Lance into battle Tharkis, the first warden, was by far the most respected. The original warden he commanded his team of felons and miscreants with an iron determination and seething hatred. Hated by those under his commanded Tharkis forced his team through some of the toughed battles in the late war. However, his uncaring demeanour would be his undoing when the Lance rebelled. Although he fought hard in the end he fell in battle against Tal 'Zerex.
*Krav 'Ulnach: Brought onto the team a few months after its inception, he was initially tried to be executed for Heresy. A savant with Forerunner technology, his repeated unlicensed excavations and study of Forerunner technology saw him arrested. A specialist in dealing with Forerunner technology, Krav was often at the forefront of operations centred around securing relics. Outside of missions, Krav rarely spoke to any of his team mates, and kept to himself. Following the end of the war, Krav vanished, disappearing amidst the chaos and carnage of the Sangheili Civil War.
==Trivia==