​Battlefield Role: Seafaring Infantry
Vessel: Eldarian Longships
Weapons: A boarding axe that doubles both as a tool and as a heavy two-handed weapon. A large round shield as well.
Outfit: Brigandine armour and fur capes to whitstand the cold.
Skill level: Proficiency at close quarters combat. Specialized at fighting naval battles.
Affiliation: Eldara
Doctrine: Amphitrite's Way of the Seafarer
Strengths: Once they board and storm a vessel, they go for key points of it, making it easy to overwhelm the enemy completely.
Weaknesses: They aren't trained to fight on dry land.
Eldarian Marines
While Eldarian Axemaidens are the backbone the Eldarian Army, the Eldarian Marines are the backbone of the Eldarian Navy. They spend entire seasons away from home in long voyages throughout the Arandolian Seas, both escorting merchant vessels from their homeland to protect Eldara's most valuable maritime trade routes and hunting down rival ships to raid and loot key enemy assets.
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Most navies within Arandolia, be them military or merchant, employ about an even number of sailors, deckhands and soldiers. In the Eldarian Navy, on the other hand, there are only marines in any and all of their ships. That's because the Eldarians actually train their sailors and deckhands to become Marines, which render their vessel's overall crew number smaller, but much more efficient.
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Of course, a well armed and trained Marine acting as a sailor or as a deckhand is more expensive to maintain than a common civilian doing the same job with no military gear and training at all. Higher wages increase the expenses per crewmember, but having less crewmembers aboard each vessel decreases the overall upkeep cost of the navy as a whole, while having an 100% warrior crew is great for any fleet's defense.
As a direct result of that strong naval policy, Eldara has one of the most competitive maritime freight costs amongst all the amazon regions and factions. Their merchants are able to haul more goods than usual in much less cramped up ships, making the overall final prices of the merchandize they sell quite cheap for their buyers. That's why Eldarian Longships can be seen all the way from the cold Northern Shores to the sunny Southern Beaches of Arandolia, buying and selling nothing but good quality products and commodities for fair prices.
