Hawkwood Rangers

Battlefield Role: Long-range Stealth Infantry

Weapons: Yew Longbow, arrow quiver with 32 arrows, a set of throwing knives and a Longsword as a sidearm.

Outfit: A black cloak over a brigandine tactical vest. Reinforced pauldrons, boots, vambraces and archery gloves.

Skill level: Experts in archery and stealth. Well able to set ambushes and perform stealth takedowns. Mediocre in melee.

Affiliation: Hawkwood Forest, in Theravalley

Doctrine: Artemis' Way of the Huntress

Strengths: They can conceal their position with ease, reach good vantage points and snipe out foes from out of the blue.

Weaknesses: They aren't any good in melee when unconcealed.

The Hawkwood Rangers come from the deep wilderness of the Hawkwood forest, where a rather interesting mix of setlers from Eagle Island and Arthemisia originated an excellent combination of the fabled Eagle-Islanders' accuracy and the unmatched hunting skills of the Arthemisians. As such, the deadly Longbowmaidens of Hawkwood excel both in sniping and in stealth, making them a very dangerous enemy to face within forested woodlands.

They can easily conceal their position and move unnoticedly around the woods, positioning themselves around highly advantageous vantage points. From there, they can snipe down key enemy units, wreak havoc upon the enemy exposed flanks, or simply unleash surprise arrow volleys onto the very center of the enemy lines. During night assaults, they may also sneak into the enemy camp and perform several stealth assassinations using their knives, vanishing back into the forest before anyone knows they were even there.

Those surgically precise surprise strikes are often enough to change the tides of any battle. Either by killing enemy officers or by simply culling down the enemy numbers, a ranger certainly makes any foe think twice before entering woody areas.

Like any other ranged-focused infantry unit, the Hawkwood Rangers are obviously not properly trained and equipped for close quarters combat. They are great at close quarters assassinations, but without the surprise element they are rather vulnerable. So they tend to avoid lingering too long nearby enemy units, running away to safety if their concealment is broken. In most cases, they actually prefer to shoot the enemies from a distance with their silent longbows, which is usually the best way to kill a foe anyway.

But as much as those archer's longbows are their primary weapon, and quite a deadly one at that, their real talent lies in stealth itself. By remaining unseen and behind cover, they can spread out and shoot the enemy down from several directions, ignoring their shields and hitting the weak spots of any suit of armour. That's why they hone and develop their stealth skills to the very peak of their abilities, employing their talents at both hunting down the dire animal predators of Hawkwood Forest, and at slaying ill-intentioned people wandering into their forests just as well.