Having no previous (character) experience with bows, I was nonetheless able to construct a composite bow from scratch, which was... surprisingly cheap and quick to make. Afterwards, I made a few batches of crude arrows and spent a few hours practicing to gain a couple levels in archery. Made a batch of makeshift arrows as proper arrows require a full forge setup to make, which I don't have yet. Traveled to a nearby town that I had only touched a scant few buildings due to zombie density. Had my NPC partner helping.
This thing
murders zombies. It does at least twice the damage my wooden spear was doing, sometimes triple. The sheer number of zombies I was facing meant I only could clear an intersection or two before I was exhausted and had to retreat, but some of what I killed included a brute and several dissoluted devourers. My partner almost lost her leg, but I think that's because she ran in front right when I fired my bow, just HAD to go pulp that corpse in the middle of battle. All in all, I only lost around 20 arrows, recovering the rest.
Cataclysm: Bright Nights.
Spent many an hour trying to locate the unique weapons. So far, I had found but two; one on the skirmish mode version of a capital I had already taken in campaign and the other on the main menu map. Kept searching through every other skirmish map but found nothing. Then I realized, I had to take(or at least attack) these locations in campaign before the weapons appear.
Attacked Eastbourne, the capital of the Eastbournian faction(most factions are named that). Since every other kingdom had all but annihilated them already save but their capital and their main town, it was an easy attack, too short to look for the weapon. Loaded the map in skirmish, jumped off the walls, and almost immediately found a two-handed sword that burst into flames when I held it. Proceeded to carve through most of the enemy army, killing more enemies personally than the total losses on my side(which were only because of the time it took to find the sword and get back to the battle).