​Battlefield Role: Medium-range Infantry
Weapons: A recurve flatbow, an arrow quiver with 32 special hollow-tipped arrows, and a satchel full of surprises.
Outfit: Adorned brigandine armour, archery gloves, reinforced leather skirt, pauldrons, sandals and vambraces.
Skill level: Proficiency in archery, alchemy and arrow crafting.
Affiliation: The League of the Athenian City-States
Doctrine: Athena's Way of the Warrioress
Strengths: They craft and carry around several different types of special arrows that are excellent for specific purposes.
Weaknesses: Rainy weather and strong wind blowing against their favour might mitigate, or even backfire, some effects of their arrows.
Athenian Archers
The autonomous and culturally diverse regions that form up the League of the Athenian City-States might be quite different from each others, sometimes even holding centuries old grudges amongst themselves, but several things assure their unity as a whole. One of those things is the fact that all of them are classical self-governed democracies with high standards of living, erutition and personal freedom amongst their citizens. Another thing that they have in common is, oddly enough, their rather unique archers.
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Amongst the green vineyards, rocky valleys, vast wheat fields or any other of the many biomes present in this rather populous region, some of the craftiest archers of Arandolia are raised and trained. No matter what corner of the Athenian Fields they come from, the Athenian Archers are always the dedicated protectors of their home City-States. With similar weapons, armour, uniforms and skills amongst themselves.
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While their colours and banners vary a lot, the ideologies, beliefs and valours are pretty much the same. Even though they sometimes shoot their arrows on their neighboring City-State's troops in war, deep down there they know those neighbors are their own kin, who they will gladly protect from any foreign threat.
The rather simple recurve bow which is their weapon of choice isn't neither the fastest nor the most powerful bow around, but their arrows are what makes the Athenian Archers renowned and feared all across Arandolia. While flight arrows, heavy arrows, bodkin arrows and fire arrows are pretty common anywhere else, only the archers of the Athenian Fields have the unique expertise to craft their rather unique arrowhead designs, which are hollow in the middle and filled with quite an odd selection of different concoctions and substances.
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From deadly poisons acquired from the nearby Edgelands, to highly experimental and unstable miniature explosive charges made from fireworks that can temporarily blind and distract the enemy regiments, or even slow-burning charcoal that makes a hell lot of smoke, these archers' arrows can be attached to a wide selection of arrowheads that are sure to severely slow down, or even completely halt, the advance of key enemy units. They even have arrows capable of exhaling such a foul smell upon impact that people tend to vomit from it, and believe me when I tell you that such a thing can be rather disastrous on anyone puking inside of a fully enclosed helmet!
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As such, the main strategy of these archer regiments is to hone their invaluable skills in crafting and brewing such useful substances to always be ready to use the right ammunition in the right time. They study alchemy, anatomy, biology and a little bit of engineering at their practice ranges to make their crafting skills quite good, completely destabilizing the enemy ranks with their special arrows. They weaken their foes' morale and open the way for allied troops to charge in with a hell of an advantage, making a difference in any Strategos' army.
After all, who on Earth needs volley after volley of ordinary arrows to pin the enemy down, if a single volley of carefully chosen special arrows can be so much more effective?