Crane Gunners

Crane Gunners are the master marksmen of Grand Cathay, elite soldiers who bear the empire's finest gunpowder weapons: long-barrelled handguns of exquisite craft, more accurate and further-ranged than the cruder firearms of the west. They take their name from the crane, the bird of patience and precision, and they fight in its image: still, poised, and unhurried, waiting for the perfect moment to loose a volley that drops the enemy's champions and beasts before they can close. Where western handgunners trust to the massed weight of their fire, the Crane Gunners trust to skill, each shot placed with deadly care. Clad in fine lacquered armour and drilled to a razor's edge, they stand among the most honoured of the empire's foot-soldiers. The crack of their guns rolls across the battlefield like distant thunder, and where each shot falls, something dangerous to the empire falls with it: a patient, merciless death that arrives from far beyond the reach of any reply.