Eirish Royal Guard

Harmless in a duel, unstoppable in a battle.

For most countries, the guard means exactly that. The personal guard of a ruler, the best their military has to offer. Or the most loyal ones anyways. In Eire, the nine royal guards is the army. They keep the kings' peace both in the privacy of the palaces and out on the streets. When war comes, they march off to fight the enemy. And when they are particularly unhappy with a king, they plot to support someone else. And of course they constantly bicker with the Eirish Colonial Navy over who is more important to the kingdom.

That said, their enemies know better than to label the Eirish royal guardsmen as parade soldiers. They might not see action as often as their continental colleagues, but the Eirish soldiers have proved themselves more than equal times over. Valuing discipline and training above all others, the Eirish armies are ready to execute whatever complex maneuvers their generals tend to come up with. At least within the Old World, for they are forbidden from venturing into the New World.

Structure

The guard of each king includes many regiments of varying types: infantry, cavalry, artillery and even warships. On paper, they are all supposed to be equals. In reality, there is usually a very convoluted and ever-evolving hierarchy within the guard based on regiments' current commanders and their standing with the local king. It is not unheard of for entire regiments to change their role from infantry to cavalry or vice versa based merely on a king's desire to bolster the standing of a specific officer.

Of course, just because the Eirish kings called their whole army "guard" did not somehow remove the need for actual guardsmen to protect their lives and wealth. To that end, they created a "real" guard in the form of Royal Household Guard. That title was always given to the guard's first regiment, due to obvious symbolism. It seems the Council of Kings have agreed beforehand to keep only one regiment of Royal Household Guard per king, as otherwise we would have surely seen a prestige arms turning all guard regiments into Household ones by now.

History

As with everything in Eire, its military was shaped by three things: isolation, disunity and small population numbers. There was simply no need for a large centralised army for most of its existence. And when such a need arose at the onset of the Eirish-Ardenian Wars, the kings were too proud and paranoid to agree to it anyways. So instead they recruited new guard regiments and sent those to fight instead. In doing so, they cemented the guards' role as de-facto armies.

That standing was only challenged by the rise of the Eirish Navy following the Third Wave of Colonisation. No guard units are supposed to be sent to the colonies under any circumstances, for fears of internal squabbles over new land. That arrangement was quite satisfactory to all sides at first but quickly turned sour as the number of colonies increased, as did the profits streaming from them and the size of the Eirish Navy. And with the Ardenian Empire's increased involvement in the New World, many wonder if the Eirish Royal Guard is going to venture beyond the Old World for the first time as well.