Cerastus Knight Lancer
SWORD: what Cerastus Knight Lancer kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 415 pts kill ~162 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against heavy vehicles and monsters, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
In Imperial Knights
Across the game· melee units
SHIELD: how hard Cerastus Knight Lancer is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 415 pts take ~1377 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Imperial Knights
Across the game· melee units
What reviewers say
6 reviewers- Very hard to kill, in melee and at range 5 of 6
- Soaks up big weapons and draws fire 3 of 6
- Answers big targets and one-shot melee threats 3 of 6
- Common in winning lists 2 of 6
- Valued as a distraction, not for damage 2 of 6
- Can't clear hordes 1 of 6
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cerastus Knight Lancer415 pts | S | Bottom 17% | Top 38% | 28of 62 |
| Cerastus Knight Acheron380 pts | D | Bottom 5% | Bottom 48% | 1of 62 |
| Knight Gallant355 pts | B | Bottom 34% | Bottom 49% | 11of 62 |
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Cerastus Knight Lancer, 415 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Freeblade Company. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
415 pts → kills ~162 pts → 39 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~1377 pts → 332 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 572 melee units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 7 reviewers' newest Imperial Knights tier lists: Recon By Fire (Knight Intelligence weekly meta reports, 14 and 27 Oct) (27 Oct), Tabletop Battles / formerly Goonhammer (Sep dataslate review and Competitive Innovations, 25 Sep to 30 Oct: 12 described IK lists) (30 Oct), Art of War 40k (11th Edition Competitive Tier List, IK segment by Brian Jones) (27 Oct), Mana Down Under (Imperial Knight Tier List, 11th Edition) (3 Sep), Vanguard Tactics (Ranking every Imperial Knights unit, with a top IK player) (21 Jul), Auspex Tactics (Imperial Knights Tier List, 11th Edition) (11 Jul), 1d6chan (community 11th-edition tactics wiki, written before the dataslate) (30 Oct). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
62 public Imperial Knights tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.