Lance

Were you looking for the M95 or M97 Lance missile batteries?'' "They're in standard formation, little bastards up front, big ones in back."

- Malta Station defense coordinator

A lance is an organizational unit of the Covenant military, and later it's various successor factions.

Organization
Under the Covenant's military, a lance was a grouping of low-ranking or low-caste warriors, led by an officer. A lance was smaller in size than a file, while levies of low-ranking Unggoy may be organized into combat lances under the command of a Sangheili. With the beginning of the Great Schism, lances were often led by Jiralhanae Minors and Majors. A lance is roughly the equivalent of a fireteam in terms of composition; lances have occasionally been described as analogous to squads, though a file serves as a better comparison to a squad than a lance does.

A demi-lance is a type of lance, dissimilar to a standard combat lance in terms of composition; a group of two Zealots led by a Field Marshal could constitute a demi-lance. A science lance was a variation of a lance formed to recover and examine captured technology. A science lance was deployed to Damascus Materials Testing Facility on Chi Ceti IV in 2525, following the Battle of Chi Ceti.

List of appearances

 * Halo Wars
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: Ground Command
 * Halo: Combat Evolved
 * Halo 2
 * Halo 4
 * Halo 5: Guardians