Khazigiri Tigers

While commoners frequently refer to any and all Khazigiri soldiers as 'Tigers', the term specifically applies to their medium cavalry units, though it's worth noting that they frequently operate on transport other than horses, or no transport at all. On a massed army battlefield, they operate in loose harrying bands with the speed to outrun heavy cavalry and the weaponry and armor to outmatch light cavalry; and in both cases, their intense training as de facto special forces makes them a unit type to be respected and feared. Tigers are ranked knights, and their noble rank is tied directly to their military rank.

Structure

The Khazigiri Tigers are a separate and self-contained military order of knights within the larger Khazigiri military structure, and they occupy a strategic niche for deployment that is nearly the equivalent of the Khazigiri Navy or the Khazigiri regular Army. At one time mounted on actual Dire Tigers bred for the purpose, the Khazigiri Tigers of the current time are a crack cavalry force made up of many - if not most - of the knights of the state of Khazig. Foreign Born knights may apply to join, but the ranks are mostly filled with native Khazigiri. While the title of Knight is hereditary, participation in the active Tiger units is merit-based. At the top of the pyramid is the Earl of the Tigers whose rank equates to Major General.
A horse cavalry squad consisted of a corporal and seven privates in two sets of four. One of the privates acted as the squad's second-in-command (2IC). Each set of four consists of a squad leader or 2IC, a scout, a horseholder and a crossbowman (The term shoud be recognized as gender-neutral; abut 30% of the Tigers are female). Mounted Tigers would attack with their swords; at the command 'charge', troopers shorten their reins, lean well forward and ride at full speed toward the enemy. Each Tiger selects a victim to his/her immediate front and bears down on him with sword or crossbow extended at arm's length, withholding the attack until within 15 yards unless under fire. When fighting on foot, Tigers would dismount, taking their crossbows and swords from the scabbards mounted on their horses. The horseholder will then take control of the other Tigers' horses in the set of four while the three dismounted Tigers operate on foot. Tigers frequently engage in special missions entirely on foot, with the horseholder fulfilling the logistics and overwatch role for the team. Often the horseholder is a junior member, though this is by no means always the case.
The Tiger Cavalry Crossbow platoon consists of three Tiger squads and a platoon headquarters. The platoon hq consists of a lieutenant as platoon leader, a platoon sergeant, a second sergeant, two intelligence scouts, who also acted as messengers, and six privates, who replaced squad casualties. Groups of platoons are organized into companies under a captain, and so on tightly up a chain of command to the Major General, who reports directly to the Chief of Military Operations, who in turn advises and answers to the Autarch. The organization of the units is similar to the regular army, except that the Tigers have aristocratic standing (though lower than established nobility, still much higher than the common merchants and gentry in the Empire).

Public Agenda

Where the Varangian Guard is the highest level of special forces in the Empire, defending the Autarch and by extension, the Empire from the inside out, by contrast the Tigers are only slightly less exceptional in their training, skills or deployment adaptability, but they are a true military force rather than personal guard and are carefully deployed throughout the Empire for maximum effectiveness. On a true battlefield they are a ferocious and highly effective unit, especially when supported by longbowmen and pike infantry against enemy cavalry; but their easy reconfiguration for rescues, hit and fade, skirmish and suppression missions, and their ability to break down to a very small independent unit, easily added to a ship crew or a larger infantry force, makes them an extremely high value unit in a variety of scenarios. This mutlipurpose factor has fostered the incorrect assumption that in fact, all the Khazigiri miitary units are Tiger units, and folks not in the know will often refer to "Khazigiri Tigers" as a substitute for "Khazigiri Army". They are well cared-for, and each values the opportunity to share back with the community and, when necessary, to suffer or die to protect it. Like the other military orders, they swear allegiance to Autarchand Empire which, in the Khazigiri consciousness, are inseparable from each other.

Assets

The Tigers are lavishly funded by the Autarch, not only in the appointment of their weapons, armor, horses and platoon HQ, but also as noble individuals granted knighthood and 50-acre parcels of land in the west, which over the centuries has become dotted with keeps and small villages within sight of each other all the way to the Tiwwari border. They are afforded excellent training, food, medical care, and status in the Empire.

History

The Khazigiri Tigers are the current iteration of a romantic, heraldric organization from the last days of the Cumaean Empire, when the personal guard of the Pasha of Gaz Agaea (Khazig) rode actual Dire Tigers - sort of a long-legged Sabretooth Lion - and were organized as a fighting unit in his various exploits that led to the founding of the Empire in the ashes of the collapse of Cumae elsewhere on the Orbis. Over the intervening Millennia the tigers have taken on a mythic stature somewhat at odds with their entirely pragmatic use as elite cavalry and special forces units in the various wars and conflicts the Empire has fought and continues perpetually to fight.

Demography and Population

Generally ethnically/nationally Khazigiri, though some knights of foreign provinces also join.

Type

Military, Knightly Order

Alternative Names

Khazigiri Tiger Cavalry

Demonym

The Tigers

Location

Khazigur