How good is the new Composite Bowman? (Armenian unique unit) 

The straight arrow flight helps reinforce the "short powerful punch" idea behind the unit

Now that we have composite bowmen can't wait for their new unique counter, the prime bowmen

the composite bowman is already the coolest archer because of the cape!

I love the intro with the original "Composite Bowman". I'm old enough to remember playing the AOE demo on a LAN and we all ended up as Minoans with armies of Composite Bowmen backed by stone throwers (the bronze age catapult).

Fun Fact:- For an extra bit of trivia, the Armenian Composite Bowman doesn't just seem to be wielding a composite bow (which refers to the materials the bow is made of), but also a reflex bow (which refers to the shape of the bow). Despite the unit being on foot, reflex bows are most well known for being used by steppe nomad horse archers, like the infamous Mongols. In fact the Mangudai should also be a composite bowman! The advantage of both the make and shape is that you can get a lot of power from a fairly compact bow, making it ideal for use on horseback. For foot archery longbows are perfectly viable, and also much easier to make.

For one of your vids, you need to do a style comparison between all the caped units. as they are the coolest

Your voice is so smooth I think you should start a new series "Spirit of The Raw" on a different platform!

Didn't even think about the flat arrow being a potential advantage!

They sound like a supplement glass cannon unit. Maybe not essentially something you want to mass as your primary/only unit, but rather something you sprinkle in the combined arms scenario.

Pretty cool unit. I really like fast creation time and armor ignoring. But they are instantly S-Tier because of their sick cape, them and Teutonic Knights have the best looks because of their capes.

Great video, but did you have any consideration to the lack of tumb ring in the dps comparisons?

I think they are a great counter to hussars and eagles. Not only because they ignore armor, but also because of the quite decent melee armor. 2+3 is quite good against the low atk of hussars.

They are more of a support unit rather than one meant to be the brunt of a force. I like it, like mixing in a few sharpshooters to take down more dangerous enemies while infantry is holding the line. Could be a decent support for champions in case they get into a fight with Paladins so you don't have to choose between Spearman or range support. Overall not a broken unit at all, just a bit finicky to fit in.

I just love that the arrow goes in a straight line like the aoe1 archer. So nostalgic.

Great video as always SotL. You never disappoint!

These archers are amazing they can melt though any tough unit but the downside is that they're glass canons and die extremely easily to archers/skirms

Nice A new video on CBT (Composite Bowman Tactics)

The crossbow firing in an arc while the composite bowman fires in a straight trajectory is kind of ironic, it would make more sense the other way around or at least both firing in a straight line. Having the Longbowman in effect be the only AoE2 archer unit to shoot in an arc would make them stand out even more as the long range unit they are.

Can you make a video comparing Composite Bowman with Chu-Ku-Nu. I feel like they are a bit similar, high damage dealer but have short range.

As a follow up to this video, my main question has always been: is the elite upgrade even worth it? Just 1 melee and 5 HP for that high cost does not seem like it is better than just making a bunch more of the composite bowmen...

Very curious on what's going to be said about Warrior Priests, because I only did one mission in the campaign and I absolutely love the unit. A monk that has armor, can actually attack, and can heal each other and units? Brilliant!

Cant wait to see your breakdown of the Warrior Priest

I was just wondering about this last night when I checked out the Armenians in the DLC. The stat differences were so minor that I figured I should just let you explain it 😂

Spirit of the Law content hecc YEAH

The straight firing arrow is definitely an AoE1 reference, the bow's shooting sound is also similar to the AoE1 bow sound rather than the AoE2 sound.

CONJECTURE: simple bow (actually called self bow) have straight forward mechanics, their energy is directly proportional to their physical size. Composite bow (which are all recurve bows) are designed in such a way that they held much more tension which then could be translated into kinetic energy. so Similarly sized self bows vs composite bow's arrow would have dramatically more kinetic energy. because of this, the adjustment required to offset drop off of an arrow at medium distance would be lesser. for arrows with less energy, archer needs to shoot in balistic trejectory, even outright indirect fire. similarly sized composite bow would have had to shoot less indirectly or in minority of cases not indirect at all. i think thats the reason.

Great video. Seeing this my thoughts about the Composite Bowmen is that the unit is very well balanced due to his special hability(ignore armor). They had a 100% accouracy despite lack of Thumb Ring, a tech that also increase attack speed of arrows. They dont have a long range or high base damage to compete with crossbows or beat anti-archers, and also had a little more HP and armor to help them go on range to attack. Also, as mentioned on the final of the video, the Armenians focused on infantry, who had a little more HP, where you can use them on the front while the composites are right behind striking the armored foes the oponent could use. A good combination indeed!

A very nice looking post imp unit for sure, just gotta have the counter to siege and you're set.

Ah, yes, the composite bowman, the anti anti archer unit archer unit

I like that the composite bowman fires in a straight line. I don't think it's a throwback to the AOE1 unit, I think it is an attempt to make an animation that better reflects reality. Real archers did not shoot in arcs unless they absolutely had to, archers need to see what they are shooting at to hit it. Medieval art overwhelming depicts archers shooting straight at their targets and not in arcs. AOE2 is so old that over its 25 years, a better understanding of how weapons were used and bows fired has become more widely known over time and has become part of AOE2's newer content.

Great stuff

Regarding the flat arc of the arrow, that might be a nod to realism. I'm not an archer, so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding is that bows with a higher ratio of draw weight to arm length tend to shoot flatter. This higher ratio can be achieved through materials (a composite bow), shape (a reflexed/recurved bow), and/or through multiple leverage systems (a modern compound bow).

When you patrol or attack move ranged units you should put them on stand ground. It will make them pass through the ones already fighting, instead of bumping into them, and start fighting sooner. They do bunch up so be careful against units with a splash damage.

2 min fresh upload let’s go

longbows don't seem nearly as good anymore, nearly all Civ specific archers have more health than them. Longbowman need like 5-10hp boost I reckon or perhaps fire arrows every 1.9 instead of 2 seconds.

I was just thinking abt this yesterday and spirit made a vid on it These composite bow men will be the leitis or wootz steel of teutonic kinght only this time for ghulam or HUSCARL

I always liked archer civs the most and while Armenians aren't officially an archer civ, this unique unit alone makes them a contender for my favorites list. I just love both the armor ignoring attack and straight flying arrows!

After some games i feel they are kinda niche as you say i often go for their inf instead . Tho its nice to have a good knight counter.

Paired with the tanky armenian infantry units (champions or warrior priests) as meat shield, that's a very potent combination if the enemy relies on melee units.

In imperial age, where the composite bowman starts to shine, many civs already have hand cannoneers which are pretty decent against infantry, high-armor units and even siege weapons, and can be trained at archery ranges. I don't see this unit being much better nor being easier to mass than hand cannoneers.

If you garison the bowman in a tower, does it shoot additional arrows? And if so, do those arrows have the armor piercing effect?

composite bow is a weird choice for a unique unit name, i mean most cavalry archer especially from the nomadic ones are always using composite bow

10:41 I get flashbacks of your intro. I even hear it in mine head

3:18 the composite bowman shot seems to pierce through shrimvasha rider. Does it mean one single shot could trigger the dodge mechanic in against a group of shrimvasha rider due to it's straight shot mechanic? This is in contrast to literally every other unit where the shot just stops/or disappear after hitting.

We, need this man. So badly. Thank you spirit for teaching the AOE community so much

AAH YES. The power creep. Gotta love those. If i was to suggest such a unit in a forum, i'd be called dumb.

I cant believe you didnt mention how cool they look.

“It’s (armor piercing) officially in the game now though” *Sad forgotten Leitis noises*

after playing through part of the Thoros campaign, it feels like the Composite Bowman do ignore the anti-arrow bonus that Rams. idk if they actually do but it felt that the composite take down rams quite fast compared to arbalesters

I feel like the unit is so strong in a vacuum that it's completely gimping Armenians as a civ. They'll have some excellent matchups but they'll never be allowed to have BBC or possibly even Siege Engineers which is just a death sentence for an infantry civ.

So basically, in most cases you would want it over the generic unit, but there are still situations where you would go with arbs, even assuming you have castle castle production available. The unit is solid, but can be countered comfortably by basically any civ (they all have mangonels). That's pretty much the ideal of a unique unit. Strong, but doesn't make the generic completely obsolete (as opposed to falling into the mangudai trap, where there's basically no reason to ever use Mongol cav archers as long as you have castles available).

So much potential for a LotR campaign Elven archers or Ithilian rangers "That is no orc horn". Also warrior monk is the best friar tuck for sure 🎯

Can the straight arrow be blocked by terrain, if there is a hill between the composite bowman and his target ?

What about against chembows with hussite wagons in between?

Lithuanian Leitis (cavalry) ignores enemy armour (by default) Dravidian urumi swordsman ignores armour after upgrading unique tech wootz steel. Finally Georgians have composite-bowman that ignores enemy pierce armour. Imagine these three civs are played as a team would be OP

I wonder, if they fire in straight line, does the projectile get blocked by buildings?

Now we can use this new unit in the scenario editor instead of longbowmen to represent the rangers of Ithilien

You should also compare them to Hand Canoneer, Janjisary, and meele ranged units (TX, Gbeto, Chakram and Mameluke) as looks loke CompBow will have simmilar role - killing meele infantry counters. Also, high damagemof gunpowder and meele damage of others are basicly the same as pierce armor ignoring mechanic.

They gonna be BUUUUUSTED, especially in large messy team game fights. x9 the potential damage output for 10 wood, and more tanky. They win vs archer counters, without meatshields. I wonder how many civs wont have any reliable cost effective counter vs massed composites.

please a video about the new percians 🙏

I think composite bowmen will hard counter high pierce armour infantry units like gulam, eagles and huscarl. But against other range units I think they will suffer even in late game. Usually with arbs, you want to keep them alive and do damage from the back. But because of the lack of range, CB will die trying to close the distance against skirms/arbs. And it’s a gold unit so it really hurts to have them die.

So in theory, we're only making these things against heavy cavalry, or high pierce armor infantry like the huskarl, and should otherwise focus on infantry, monks, and siege?

It's a valid question phrasing but it always makes me laugh because in the Australian vernacular, the specific 'how good is X' phrasing is generally rhetorical. Yeah, Composites -are- great! Rally round them

Meanwhile i remember a time when max armies of Elite Skirms was the perfect snowball in older versions of AoE2

A cool idea but I really don't think we need a other infantry counter, even after the buff

The composite bowman feel more akin to throwing axemen than to other archers to me. Also something cool about them is that they're good to go without the elite tech. You need bracer and chemistry (something to pick up for defenses, too) and they're good. With their innate 100% accuracy, they are a decent archer unit that are incredibly light on upgrade costs. No thumb ring, crossbow or arbalest upgrades save quite a few resources. This off-sets the 10 wood by a long shot. So you can make them as supportive units even as castle age version when you need them rather than having to commit to a tech switch into arbs.

I would like for a unique unit to have a dirt cheap gunpowder unit. One that just like the Karambit takes up half a population space and costs about the same. It would have a fairly decent attack of like 12 but an extremely low rate of fire and an accuracy of like 15%. It's dps under testing conditions would be below the arbalest but it's burst damage would be absolutely devastating. That is actually how hand cannons were used historically. They were inferior to archers in pretty much every way except that archery took a lot of training and so hand cannons could be fielded in much larger numbers.

Similar in use to genoese xbow i think. Early on xbow are just all around better because easier to make and better to micro. Genoese or composite get much better though against cavalry with armor upgrades. In both cases the elite upgrade is trash and not worth it but the castle age unit is much better than even arbalests against cavalry. Difference is that genoese are better vs cavalry (9 net dmg vs cav typically vs composite 6-8) and low armour targets/siege whereas composite are better elsewhere. On the whole composite seems a bit better than genoese and a solid unit to transition into especially as from skirmishers.

Next, a comparison of Genoese Crossbow and Composite bowman against all types cavarly

I know it's for gameplay, but in historical terms a composite bow piercing better than an xbow is pretty wild. No bow disregarded armor (even firearms don't *entirely* disregard it), but xbow was the best at defeating it before guns became good enough across the board to replace pretty much everything a single guy can hold in warfare.

2:35 It would make sense from the point of physics, especially considering their 'armour piercing' property. An arrow shot at an arc first has to lose ALL the energy it was imparted with from being shot from the bow, and then gets back some potential energy once it starts to drop, which will be A LOT LESS, than if the arrow was shot straight, and even if someone were to shoot an arrow at a very steep angle, (A. it would completely destroy any accuracy due to wind being stronger the higher you go, and the arrow would be in that 'higher-wind-area' for much longer) B. There's a 'hard-limit' on the potential energy imparted on the arrow again from the 'drop' anyway, because of terminal velocity. Whereas if you shoot the arrow straight, all that power you get from the bow is directly translated to how hard the arrow is going to 'punch', it also means you can actually aim, and expect the arrow to land roughly in the place you were aiming at (which, considering the size of humans, and especially army formations, even rudimentary ones, is generally much bigger than that of shooting targets, basically guarantees a hit with even half-way competent archer, and would make things like ballistic calculations, especially on such a short distance, much less necessary) BUT, the negative will be shorter range, because that arrow is still going to eventually lose it's energy, just like the one shot at an arc, but it won't have the 'drop'. I'd say the way Composite bowman functions in the game is very well complimented by the way their arrows fly, and it's much more than just a stylistic choice, or AOE1 reference.

I wonder how the Byzantine v. Armenians matchup would play out, you have halbs and champs earlier than any other civ against the hardest infantry counter around.

After first games with Armenians I would a say that Composite Bowman is quite decent unique unit. Combined with some Warriors Priests and other infantry makes a very useable army combination.

pssst... just before any patches will come i will tell some secret.... the composite bowman + mangonel combo is totally broken - bowman will eat any knights and light cav that will try to snipe onager and onager will kill any skirmishers and scorpions which as it turns out are especially effective against bowman.

Composite bows were specially made to be fired while on horseback, it was their sole purpose to be shot at Quick succession while mounting and steering a horse, it is bizarre and very strange looking at a foot Archer using a composite bow.

One thing that you forgot to mention in the video is that Armenians don't get thumb ring. Generic crossbows/Arbalests with full upgrades actually trade notably better against them than is shown in the video as a result. It also offsets some of the damage difference, as unless the Composite bowmen are dealing ~18% extra damage per hit or more (Granted, micro often results in a slightly lower practical attack rate for crossbows/arbs, but lack of thumb ring is still noteworthy), their DPS is actually lower than for typical crossbow/arb civs.

Can we get a head to head, composite bowman vs genoese xbows against knights and paladins?

I am still confused as to how this unit will fit into the overall Armenian civ design, since this is clearly not meant to be a heavy hitter against archers or gunpowder (which are traditional counters against heavy infantry play); but are actually meant to tackle eagles and cav. But the Armenians already do this pretty well with their own champs and halbs (albeit they have no discount or bonuses other than getting them early). Very curious to see how this civ will be played, and I have a feeling this civ's identity will soon get changed drastically.

Uhm so do they ignore pierce armor on the onagers? It felt like they weren't hitting very hard. I think they're probably better against cav archers without micro too in imp. Usually thumb ring (accuracy and fire rate) and parthian tactics (+2 pierce armor) makes cav archers a soft counter to regular archers if there's no meat shields in front. I don't think you get the elite upgrade till you're pop capped.

This is pretty much a paladin vs leitis situation all over again. Wich on one to pick and when, the generic unit or the armor ignoring unique ? I can see low pierce armor factions making the composite bowmen not worth the hassle, but then what would be their answer to good ol' regular crossbows ( espescially if they have mediocre siege) ?

Are composite bowmen just a better version of Genoese crossbowmen then? I’m curious in what scenarios the Genoese perform better, if any.

The Composite Bowmans' one melee armor in castle age allows it to survive a mangonel shot head on.

Does anyone know if Composite Bowman makes castle arrows do armor pierce better than regular arbalesters?

I stopped playing AOE2 like 2 decades ago but I always maintain my curiosity for the game. Can't explain why.

I NEED to have a Teutons + Armenians team now. CAPEY BOIS UNITE

I wish rams had been mentioned. Do these just eat them alive or is there some stats magic going on that keeps them safe?

What are the effects if you put composite bowman's in the tower I wonder?

Can you compare them to throwing axemen?

I dunno the fact that they dont get countered by elite skirms or arbalest and that heavy cav will have trouble aproaching a mass worries me. But maybe its okay

I don't know how I feel about the Composite Bowman. The Huskarl is the perfect Goth unit since they're an infantry civ, infantry naturally loses to archers, but the Huskarl is an infantry that beats archers. For Armenians, an infantry civ, they're also going to struggle against archers, except they were given a unit that's better against cavalry and other infantry than archers. Numerically, Comp Bows are fantastic, ignoring armor is huge, but what kind of role is it really filling in for the civ..?

I don't know why but in some of your videos I get some green bars as across the video display and then the image starts to glitch. It only happens with your videos though. Anyone got some insight on this?

Composite bowman is such a badass unit with the 100% accuracy without thumb ring, true skill there

So you could go full archers , using elite version as a meatshild + pierce killer

Stupid Theory: the Armenians were meant to be a cavalry civ at some point. This would tie more closely into their history and explain why their unique unit is strongest against heavy cavalry, something the Halberdier already deals with fairly well.

Giving an armor ignoring Archer unique unit to a non-archer specialised civ was a really smart moves by the devs, I feel like. It helps balance an otherwise pretty overpowered ability that would quickly be broken if, say, Ethiopians with full archer techs plus their civ bonus of faster attack speed had them, for example.

is there a single unit that champions struggle with that composite bowmen provide an answer to, they seem like completely redundant options unless you already have archer upgrades i guess theyre good for baiting an opponent into not getting armor upgrades for hiding a champion tech switch

The fact that he has a cool cape alone is already enough reason to make them instead of regular ass crossbows.

These seem like they'd be really good defensively if you find yourself being raided by the usual suspects, scouts/paladins/eagles which typically resist anything ranged and outrun anything melee

i love his cape.

Have to say, it's very silly that composite bowmen ignore armour and longbows don't. Composite bows historically let a bow have an *effectively* lighter draw weight for throw power. It isn't like modern composite bows where it makes them have a massively higher punch. Mongol horse bows were recurve and composite. But they didn't have more punch than a Longbow. Plus ofc a large part of armour penetration irl for bows is the type of head being fired.