Boyars

The Boyars are the warrior-nobles of Kislev and the armoured retinues that ride at their command, the druzhina of hard-riding aristocrats who hold the frozen oblast in the Tzar's name. Clad in lacquered scale and fur-lined cloaks, mounted upon the tough, shaggy horses of the north, they form the heavy fist of a Kislevite host, charging home with lance and sabre where the lighter horsemen only harry and sting. A Boyar's retinue is bound to him by oath, blood, and long winters of shared hardship, and they fight with the fierce loyalty of men defending their own land and kin. Proud, quarrelsome, and utterly fearless, they scorn to give ground before any foe, be it marauding Kurgan, greenskin, or the shambling dead. In the charge they are the equal of any knightly order of the south, and in defence of the motherland they do not know how to yield.