Composite Build -- Not being able to compose?

I tried to compose a build using multiple modules. Specifically I wanted to pick op modules, and hve them added as sub projects so I can manipulate them in a group, such publishing them to bintray, or just trigger build on each of them.

But composite builds forces me to create a whole project for that. That makes the whole thing kinda pointless, as I need some kind template without the overhead of tediously adding each dependency to the build in addition of adding it the settings.gradle.

I’m i missing here, or would I just be better of to assume that i’m still stuck with clever scripting tricks and funny imports to mangle a collection of modules into a multi project?