Urumi

The Urumi Swordsman is an Indian Infantry Unit in Age of Empires III. It has a lot of hit points and dishes out high damage with a bonus against Heavy Infantry.

Overview
The Urumi Swordsman is an Indian unit available starting in the Fortress Age that can only be sent from cards from the Home City. Urumi Swordsman have high hitpoints, high melee damage with a ranged area effect, and a multiplier against Heavy Infantry.Urumi beat all Infantry in hand to hand combat, and are incredibly powerful, but will lose to Heavy Cavalry. The Urumi Swordsman shipment can be game changing, easily killing Infantry, but need to be protected. The Indian Fast Fortress is incredibly powerful, largely due to Urumi Swordsman, but should be mixed with anti cav, such as Sepoys or Howdahs. Since they are not as powerful against Light infantry, and do lose to Light Infantry at range, they should also be mixed in with Mahout Lancers or Sowars to counter Light Infantry.

The Urumi Swordsman is strong in melee combat (however does ranged damage) against all Infantry units, especially Heavy Infantry. The Urumi loses to Heavy Cavalry, so it should be guarded by Heavy Infantry, and mixed in with Heavy Cavalry for extra attack against Light Infantry, which are effective at killing these powerful swordsman units at range. The Urumi is not available until the Fortress Age, and can only be sent from the home city shipments. The Urumi Swordsman has an infinite card in the Industrial Age, so they can be massed in Industrial age, especially with the use of Sacred Fields.

They are very powerful and versatile swordsmen being able to defeat the strongest infantry in the game. While being a melee unit it has some range which allow them to do the first hit in a melee battle. They are very useful against civilization like Germans, British etc. which depends upon infantry and light cavalry for there army. It is do a splash damage that means they are also good against a group of units, that means a small number of urumi can wipe out and an entire army of infantry.

History
The urumi is a long sword made of flexible steel, sharp enough to cut into flesh, but flexible enough to be rolled into a tight coil. Originating in South India with name of Surul Pattai it was most popular in the North Malabar Coast of Kerala and is often mentioned in the ballads of the region.

In kalaripayat, the urumi is always the last weapon taught because of the danger it poses to the wielder. The weapon is called urumi in northern kalaripayattu and chuttuval in the southern style. The word chuttuval is derived from the Malayalam words chuttu (coil/spin) and vaal(sword).