Imperial Guard
Between facing the entire Imperial Army save the Guard and facing the Guard alone, I would choose the former any day. The Army you can break. The Guard you can only kill.It is well known that the Imperial Army Intelligence Service is the emperor's eyes and ears. If so, the Imperial Guard is his long arm and merciless vengeance. The first units raised from the Kosari population at the onset of an Eirish invasion, they form the backbone of the emperor's regained power and are his most loyal soldiers. It is believed that the Guard would march off a cliff if such was the wish of their emperor. And it is not just the loyalty that they are valued for. Unlike most royal guards of these days, the Imperial Guard is a feared foe. They do not contend themselves with parade duty and manning the honour guard but are on the frontline of Empire's expansion, the first troops to enter the fight and the last one to leave it. While it is true that a portion of the Guard is always assigned to protect the safety of the emperor, the rest are more commonly found on the battlefield than in a public space.
Structure
As of current day, the Guard consists of seven regiments which were all formed during the first Eirish-Ardenian War. All seven regiments are nominally considered to be infantry as such was that role at first, but that is not the case nowadays. All guardsmen are expected to be proficient at horse-riding, and are more often seen travelling on horseback in small groups than in a dense infantry formation. Moreover, while most army regiments consist of two or three battalions the guard regiments tend to be considerably bigger, with four battalions on average and going as high as six for the 1st Guards.
The Imperial Guard is also considered to be the shining example of empire's technological marvels and its strive for progress. To that end they not only closely cooperate with the Imperial Research Department but also operate a number of their own factories and laboratories, having exclusive claim on many of the newest inventions. They also tend to work very closely with the Imperial Army Intelligence Service, with their ranks considered to be equal and one rank superior to the regular army. In fact, officers are frequently transferred between the two and it is common to see a group of guardsmen operating under the command of an intelligence officer.
History
The Hummish generals of old have clearly underestimated what would become the Imperial Guard. Desperate for fresh troops during the disastrous start of the First Eirish-Ardenian War, they did not object to the emperor funding a formation of two new regiments formed from his Kosaris subjects. After all, it was beneath a noble Hummish warrior to kill a man from afar using these so-called "guns" that the cowardly Eirish were using. Let peasants act as skirmishers, until the real warriors can close the distance.
To their surpise, the newly formed fusilier regiments proved to be an equal match to their Eirish counterpart. Two regiments soon became four, then seven. As the war was turning for the better the emperor was barred from raising any new regiments, and it was not long until a peace treaty was signed. However, when the time came to disband these regiments as the emperor has repeatedly promised before, he went back on his word. The soldiers were loyal to him personally and not to their clans, and they swiftly crushed an attempted rebellion by one of the Hummish generals. The Imperial Guard was officially established as the emperor's personal army, forever changing the balance of power in the empire.
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