​Battlefield Role: Short-range Infantry / Light Assault Infantry
Weapons: A Great Axe for melee, 5 throwing spears and a couple of throwable hatchets.
Outfit: Leather corset over a padded gambeson. They usually hunt for sport and wear their preys's pelt as a cape.
Skill level: Good enough in melee and in throwing heavy projectiles.
Affiliation: Iridia
Doctrine: Bellona's Way of the Warmaiden (adapted to dwarves)
Strengths: They are faster than average dwarves, while their ranged weapons are really deadly, making them the most flexible and maneuverable dwarven troops of Iridia.
Weaknesses: Light armour makes them more vulnerable.
Iridian Skirmishers
Iridia has possibly the finest armours and weapons of Arandolia, making the Iridian Dwarves not only some of the toughest, but also some of the fiercest soldiers amongst the Amazons. However, what makes their mighty regiments tough and strong also makes them slow and inflexible, which has for a long time been their greatest weakness.
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Fortunately enough, they found a solution for this. And unlike most solutions found by the dwarves to pretty much anything else, it came from the surface instead of from the deep underground mines and cities of the dwarves.
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This very welcomed solution was the Iridian Skirmishers, who for ages survived as dwarven outcasts on the rocky and barren mountains at the surface of Iridia. Instead of mining or planting mushrooms for their subsistence underground, this surface dwarves survive mostly from foraging and hunting on the steep mountainous terrain, and their fiercest prey of all is something that hunts them just as well: Iridian Mountain Lions!
Larger and deadlier than any other mountain lion, those black-coated predators are always competing against the dwarven hunters for the scarce population of wild mountain goats of Iridia. It's not rare for such a beast to lurk upon the dwarves and patiently wait to steal their freshly killed goats, or even for it to try and make the dwarves themselves their actual dinner.
However, like all the dwarven amazons, the Iridian Skirmishers are very crafty and inventive when it comes to warfare. They know very well that their stubby little arms and legs aren't nearly fast or agile enough to fight a mountain lion more than 3 times their size and weight, so the clever surface dwarves began to adapt to this challenge, arming themselves with throwing spears and hatchets so they can have much longer reach to hunt their preys.
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They also changed their thick, heavy and cumbersome armour for light padded gambesons and leather in order to gain yet more mobility and speed, while keeping their heavy battleaxes at hand to remain fierce at close quarters as well. Ever since they perfected those new skirmishing tactics and weapons, the mountain lion population of Iridia was culled down to much safer levels, while the beasts' pitch-black fur is proudly worn by the new creature on the top of the Iridian food chain: the dwarves themselves!