The Structure and Strength of the Argonian Army

Just how strong is the An-Xileel? Simply put, very. Very, very powerful.

Lots of people have been repeatedly asking me about all the joking I do about Argonians being vastly superior in military strength to any other province of Empire on Tamriel. Many people find it funny when I make comments such as “The Argonians could defeat the Aldmeri Dominion!” They excuse is all for a hearty biased laugh. This right here is my attempt to educate many of you on the theoretical yet slightly confirmed superpower that is the An-Xileel.

Command

One of the most important part of an army and just what may draw the line between a legion and a raiding party is Strategy and Command. Many people excuse Argonian warfare (and their ways of life, mind you) to be primitive and ignorant. They think that on the split territory between “Raiding Party” and “Legion” the Argonians would land right down on Raiding Party, that their attacks are wild and uncoordinated. This is as far from true as possible. Argonians don’t need to be neither a primitive raiding party or an organized legion, they are high above any of those.

Who commands a Legion? Why, a Legate, of course. A human or above average intelligence and memorized experience in battle.

Now who commands the An-Xileel military? The Hist do. A single conjoined mind of thousands of trees, each one able to out think any other mortal individually. The Hist are brilliant, deceptive, and brutal. They are always aware of everything, can immediately send commands to any soldier’s mind instantaneously, are always and frantically followed by their soldiers, and communicate with the other commanders at all time. Think of it like the conjoined mind of Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, and Shi Huangdi times a few hundred. That’s something. But definitely not all.

Communication

Now here comes probably my favorite part of the An-Xileel military – ultimate communication. Communication between soldiers, generals, scouts, etc. is very important. Without good communication the battle would chaotic and much friendly fire would occur. Supplies would be handed out unevenly, soldiers would fight individually, and basically instead of having an organized fighting force you would have the Tamrielic equivalent of an FPS Team Deathmatch team.

Now normal Tamrielic armies may have pretty good communication, with networks of couriers and weapon distribution, but Argonians have the most complex and effectively organized communication system imaginable. The Argonian army is not an order or an organization- it is a unified body, with working organs and blood veins making the body live and fight as though it was one object.

We know from Infernal City that no Argonians have any recollections of any actual battles. No memories, no pictures, nothing. And we also don’t see any Argonians claiming to be veterans or their ancestors be ones even though basically every Argonian on Nirn was in the An-Xileel military around the start of 4E. Why?

Well, what happens in battle, is that the Argonians are tapped into the Histmind, becoming one mind with the Hist. When all Argonians are one with the Hist, all Argonians are also one mind with each other. They think together, move together, see together, hear together, smell together, and kill together. When they are disconnected from the mind, they simply cannot comprehend it anymore and thus forget their experience. When you have thousands upon thousands of eyes it is a very incomprehensible experience.

Anyways, what happens then is that all data of battle and all action is accounted and analyzed at the same time. With thousands of eyes scanning different parts of the landscape and every single kill counted, the Hist basically gain the equivalent of an all powerful surveillance system with thousands of cameras and live statistics of everything that happens in battle. They then use their hyper-intelligence to use this data and make any changes to action or alter the Argonians in any way needed to get the battle won. The fact that the Hist see everything also means that every enemy is counted for, and thus as long the Hist want to kill it they will. No one can escape. You know how no Dunmer in any book or any that you meet in game have any memories of the massacre no matter how old they are? Yeah, that’s because every single Dunmer in the range of attack was killed. Every single one. No hostages, no escapes, no fleeing. They all die.

Now, by now you are thinking, “yeah, yeah, Xeno, so the Hist are super advanced and shit, but you haven’t even answered your own question! How strong is the actual army! Talk about the soldiers!”

Soldiers and Fighting Efficiency

It is very well known and can be recounted from pretty much any source about Argonians that they are the best Guerrilla fighters on Tamriel. Argonians are masters of sneaking, stabbing, neck-breaking, and sneak attacking. This makes the Argonians some of the best close quarters fighters on Tamriel in casual situations.

Note I said casual situations. That is, hunting, duels, pirate attacks, raiding, Banditry, etc.

The An-Xileel soldier ain’t no casual shit.

We know from Infernal City that the Hist altered the Argonians to make them much more battle efficient. For an explanation of how they did so please take a gander at this. Believe me they weren’t kidding. Let’s compare your average Joe’zijja to An-Xileelic warrior.

Joe’zijja stands 6 feet tall, can fight relatively well with daggers, sprints at about 15.5 Miles Per Hour, and has the strength a tad bit below your average Imperial human. In hands to hand fighting he would able to easily defeat any common Imperial man, but not for example a Nord or Orc.

The average An-Xileelic warrior has been altered by the Hist to stand at just over 8 feet, and can be calculated to run up to speeds of 29 Miles Per Hour with full gear on. He has the arm strength of a relatively very powerful Orc male, and in hands to hand fighting could most likely punch out an entire tribe of Khajiit.

And that’s not all! Mr. Average An-Xileelic Warrior has a Naga buddy from some tribe south of Stormhold. When Naga Buddy charges at the Dunmer city, he can be calaculated to run up to speeds of 33 Miles Per Hour, stand at just over 11’6” feet tall, and has the strength of a young giant. In hand to hand fighting it is quite likely Naga buddy could easily punch a frost troll to death, or perhaps two.

So you see, the An-Xileelic warriors are quite powerful. The Hist make them so, in any case. But at-least armies like the Imperial Legion have better armories than them, right?

No. Definitely not.

Weaponry

In 3E433 when the gates of Oblivion opened thousands upon thousands of Argonians charged in, killing every Daedra in their path and looting Dagon’s realm so savagely that he had to wait for them to leave and close the gates. A year later enormous amounts of all sorts of miscellaneous loot from Dagon’s realm was sold by Lilmothi traders and found all over the Imperial Markets, so much we can see in Infernal City.

So, the Argonians killed thousands of soldiers and looted not only a realm of Oblivion but that one owned by the Daedric prince of destruction and killing. Let me say that if they managed to loot a market full of Void Salts, they probably looted from both corpses and the realm some other things that may be favored by Dagon more than void salts, and lots more than they did Void Salts. There is also a reason why this particular loot wasn’t also sold to Imperial Markets, because the Argonians wanted it for their army.

So, yes, here’s what I’m getting at:

Beyond their altered giant mutant appearence in battle, this picture may just be how your average An-Xileelic soldier looks as of 4E. Armed to the brim with all sorts of Daedric daggers, swords, and spears, and protected by heavy plates of Daedric armor only an altered mutant can run and comfortably fight in.

Weaponry of the An-Xileelic legion is the best on Nirn. So is armor.

Now we know the Argonian soldier is the best and most well equipped. But how many are there?

The Most.

Size

The An-Xileelic army is by far and large (hehe) the most sizable army on Tamriel, to the point where “army” does it no justice. Swarm is a better term.

We know undoubtedly that Argonians are best at survival and that they have the most children at birth, so we know the Argonian population is quite damn large if they both have many children and all of them survive. And we also know almost every single Argonian on Tamriel was called to arms by the Hist at the time of the Oblivion crisis. I’m not gonna give any numbers because I can’t, but I will make it decisevly clear that no army can even come close to the size of the Argonian army.

So now we know all about the actual swarm, but what about smaller units? Any cool Spec Ops?

Yup.

Shadowscales

We already discussed that there are many, many Argonians. And we also know every single Argonian born under sign of Shadow becomes a super powerful assassin. What a nice equation we have here.

The Shadowscales themselves number anything between 300 — 1000 assassins. Every single one acting and thinking together. Every single one given highest altering priority by the Hist.

Go ahead, take some time to think of that. Done? Good. Are you convinced yet? I sure am.

So let’s wrap it all up:

The Argonian army is the largest, strongest, most efficient fighting force on Nirn. It is united as a single body and driven by frantic devotion. All that stand in its way are massacred by giant-sized Supernagas or assassinated by hiveminded Shadowscales. That is all.

Thank you and good night.