Shotel Warrior

The Shotel Warrior and its Elite upgraded version is the unique unit available for the Ethiopians in Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms. It's available in the Castle Age and can only be trained at the Castle.

Tactics
Shotel Warriors appear to be decent foot archer and light cavalry counters, but struggle against the Militia line, heavy cavalry, and most unique unit melee units (a Shotel Warrior will even lose a 1v1 fight against a Huskarl). Even the Elite Shotel Warrior has only 1 pierce armor and 50 HP, making it an easy target to knights, cavalry archers and foot archers in second line and almost useless as part of a siege army.

Because of their movement speed and high melee damage, they are an excellent raiding unit, able to take out a high number of unprotected villagers within seconds and run away before enemy troops arrive.

The Ethiopian unique tech Royal Heirs allows the Shotel warrior to be created nearly instantly, making it also a last minute defense in case the player hasn't built up a sufficient defense early enough.

Lategame wise, the Shotel Warriors should be used as a cannon fodder while the siege units and foot archers make a slow push into sieging the enemy base. Since the Ethiopians lack a strong frontline, the Shotel Warrior should be treated as an expendable unit as a frontline protecting siege units and foot archers. This makes pelting frontline units with Siege Onagers and Bombard Cannons a viable strategy, due to the Shotel Warrior's cheap unit cost and the fact that it can be created quickly to replenish the frontline forces to distract the enemy, whereas this strategy is too costly for some other civilizations (especially for the Mongols or the Aztecs).

Team Bonuses

 * A team containing Teutons, Shotel Warriors are more resistant to conversion.