Hetairoi
Aeillan Hetairoi are the descendants of the High Imperial Athanatoi, highly trained, elite specialists used to be the successfully provide battlefield support for regular formations in Aeillan Successor States. The Hetaiori created as a response to frequent murder plots carried out by Athanatoi agents, and were created outside of the traditional role of Athanatoi, and specifically, the Late Imperial administration forbade Hetairoi from serving as Imperial bodyguards, regulating that role to house troops instead. They are often the best equipped soldiers in the Aeillan Successor States.
Hetairoi are elite and highly specialized soldiers. With diverse equipment based upon the role they are intended to fulfill. Most can be expected to have a suit of Demiclibinarius, and rare, well crafted weapons in line with their battlefield role. Some are even issued full suits of plate armor, all the better to keep them alive on Aeillan Battlefields. The main roles for the Hetairoi are the following: Evokatoi: Clad in the heaviest armor available to their successor state and generally equipped with large mauls and blunderbusses, the Evokatoi are meant to break apart formations through simple vicious assault of hostile pike blocks.
Antesignani: In comparison to the heavy Evokatoi, Antesignani are lightly equipped, with only a full coat of Kavadion Armor, a bow and a rapier. These troops serve as long range scouts and foragers forging well ahead of the vanguard of the main force scouting and disputing enemy communications.
Aerial Cavalry: Aerial Cavalry ride into battle on the backs of griffins, wyverns, or other more exotic mounts, using their mounts in combat to grant themselves unparalleled battlefield mobility. They use the speed and relative safety of their mounts to use small cannon to assault formations from the sky before swooping down to carry off isolated enemy soldiers. They are generally heavily armored and carrying mauls and specialized mini-cannons.
War Mages: Trained at one of the Aeillan mage's colleges. War mages are trained specifically to use their magic as a kind of battlefield artillery using powerful area effecting spells to obliterate hostile formations, and smaller spells to eliminate important targets. They are well trained for battle, but are lightly equipped. Wealthy successors equip their war mages with wands to augment their natural casting prowess.
War Priests: Often trained as Chaplains of the Pandroi war gods, War Priests serve as support casters, healing enemies, and occasionally attacking hostile forces directly. They are often well protected with a suit of Demiclibinarius, and carrying war hammers into battle alongside their magical prowess. Some particularly wealthy successor states can issue wands charged with healing magic to augment the abilities of their war priests.
Types of Hetairoi
Hetairoi are elite and highly specialized soldiers. With diverse equipment based upon the role they are intended to fulfill. Most can be expected to have a suit of Demiclibinarius, and rare, well crafted weapons in line with their battlefield role. Some are even issued full suits of plate armor, all the better to keep them alive on Aeillan Battlefields. The main roles for the Hetairoi are the following: Evokatoi: Clad in the heaviest armor available to their successor state and generally equipped with large mauls and blunderbusses, the Evokatoi are meant to break apart formations through simple vicious assault of hostile pike blocks.
Antesignani: In comparison to the heavy Evokatoi, Antesignani are lightly equipped, with only a full coat of Kavadion Armor, a bow and a rapier. These troops serve as long range scouts and foragers forging well ahead of the vanguard of the main force scouting and disputing enemy communications.
Aerial Cavalry: Aerial Cavalry ride into battle on the backs of griffins, wyverns, or other more exotic mounts, using their mounts in combat to grant themselves unparalleled battlefield mobility. They use the speed and relative safety of their mounts to use small cannon to assault formations from the sky before swooping down to carry off isolated enemy soldiers. They are generally heavily armored and carrying mauls and specialized mini-cannons.
War Mages: Trained at one of the Aeillan mage's colleges. War mages are trained specifically to use their magic as a kind of battlefield artillery using powerful area effecting spells to obliterate hostile formations, and smaller spells to eliminate important targets. They are well trained for battle, but are lightly equipped. Wealthy successors equip their war mages with wands to augment their natural casting prowess.
War Priests: Often trained as Chaplains of the Pandroi war gods, War Priests serve as support casters, healing enemies, and occasionally attacking hostile forces directly. They are often well protected with a suit of Demiclibinarius, and carrying war hammers into battle alongside their magical prowess. Some particularly wealthy successor states can issue wands charged with healing magic to augment the abilities of their war priests.
Composition
Equipment
As a rule, Hetairoi as an elite force are often equipped with the best equipment available to the state that they are serving. For those trained in the proper use of it, Hetairoi are equipped in tailored Demiclibinarius or Clibinarius armor, and even those more lightly equipped have well tailored and heavily protective Kavadion, or fine uniforms. They are generally exempt from construction duties, and are therefore allowed not to carry engineering equipment, though most are issued forage kits. Uniforms made for the Hetairoi are often tailored even among the lowest ranks of their organizations.
Weaponry
Hetairoi are often equipped with masterfully crafted weapons even in states that possess mass production capabilities. Common weapons include mauls, war hammers, and firearms, which include simple weapons like the blunderbuss, but also rare or exotic weapons such as pistols and hand cannon. Swords are adopted as sidearms for most, often rapiers or short sabers.
Structure
Hetairoi operate in small units, often not larger than twenty or so individuals per unit per specialization, though larger Hetariae can mount whole Bandons of the more easily trained and supported Hetairoi. War Mages in particular however, operate as individuals, dispersed among regular soldiers as battlefield support. The largest organizations can manage to support larger units, and Evokatoi and Antesignani can be rarely seen operating in whole two hundred man bandons.
Tactics
On the battlefield, the Hetairoi are seen as specialized support units, often centered around supporting or disrupting the pike and shot blocks that dominate Aeillan warfare. Evokatoi and Aerial Cavalry are the primary disruptive elements with Evokatoi charging directly into pike formations discharging their blunderbusses, before charging home with mauls and swords. Conversely, Antesignani serve as long range scouts and raiders, not interacting with the main bodies of Aeillan armies, but instead with their lines of communication and supply, or with rearguards.
Training
Aeillan Hetairoi are most often drawn from the ranks of regular formations, and are therefore veterans before even joining the ranks of the Hetairoi, with the possible exception of war mages and war priests which are recruited from specially trained mages college graduates, and chaplains. Hetairoi are often assigned dedicated forts in which they train constantly. Hetairoi are called into offensive campaigns, or are the first line of defense in the case of supernatural attack.
Logistics
Logistical Support
The Hetairoi, other than the Antesignani can rely on extensive logistical support, with retainers providing for the needs of Hetairoi soldiers at home, and additionally have the support of the logistics train of any Penandroi that accompany them. Oftentimes individual Hetairoi officers have access to the finest craftspeople in their state.
Upkeep
Hetairoi are extremely expensive to maintain, receiving a large wage from their successor state on top of being equipped with the finest arms and armor available, or an extensive stipend to acquire their own. Mages and priests are additionally given funding to purchase spell components. Maintenence of Hetairoi is often prohibitively expensive, with the Exarchate of Nikea spending nearly 800,000 talents per year to pay for their Hetairoi, which results in small numbers of active Hetairoi, and the poorer states having none.
Recruitment
Hetairoi are recruited from mages colleges, temples of war deities, and especially from the ranks of the Penandroi, or from the ranks of particularly skilled Akritae. They are often selected from veteran units, with the cream of the Penandroi being given the chance to to ascend, often in place of Captaincies. In exceptional circumstances, some adventurers will be selected for service, though more often, such individuals are folded in as retainers to noble houses more than agents of the state.
History
Established during the Late Imperial Period, after a particularly brutal series of assassinations, the Hetairoi displaced the Imperial Athanatoi, initially as bodyguards for the Imperial monarch. As the Late Imperial period carried on however, the role of the Hetairoi steadily expanded, first incorporating the previously contracted spellcasting soldiers that had formerly served as individuals for a short period of time, and forming a branch of Aerial Cavalry shortly before the Feloran Invasions. Hetairoi served with distinction throughout the Feloran Invasionary era, with War Mages being the ones to toss Antiokus into the sea at the end of the period, and Aerial Cavalry hunting down and massacring elves during the purges afterward.
After the fall of the Empire, many successor states carried on the tradition of an elite specialist group of soldiers, creating their own organizations, and using their Hetairoi often. As the scale of wars steadily shrank throughout the reforging era, and the expense of maintaining the best equipment rose however, numbers of active Hetairoi shrank. In the current day, the presence of Hetairoi on a battlefield is an indication of serious intent as even in the relatively small numbers that they are encoutered they can turn the outcome of all but the largest battles.
Stat Blocks:Antesignani, Evokatoi, Aerial Cavalry,War Mage, War Priest
Type
Support
Founding
EA 280
Overall training Level
Elite
Assumed Veterancy
Veteran
