Handgunners Vs Archer Units. Your experiences.

[Janissary]

My experiences:

Jannisary Handgunners own in morale and against other handgunners, but reform to much and are not handy to work in other words like all the other standard handgunners of other factions. In other hand Jannisary Archers and Longbows of the brits seem to blow away handgunners, maybe i don't know how to use gunners could anybody show me how or explain how?
And often handgunners in custom matches don't hit anything anymore after the first few mins. They fire a few times at start it looks like everything is going well and it looks like they slow down or am i seeing things?! I want to get better at this game. Tips anyone?

[Price]

Uh.. I don't know if you do this already but I try to give my gunpowder infantry thin lines due to the fact that only the front line shoots. If you have something like a 5 line deep unit, you will only have a handful firing at a time and it will be a waste for sure. I don't know if it really helps that much but I think it does. I should do some testing. Infact, I will.

[Elmar]

Gunpowder units definitely require more care in usage, especially since they can't fire in an arc. Archers are also more reliable in a shoot out with gunners prone to milling about instead of putting out a good volume of fire.
That said, gunpowder units can stop a cavalry charge in it's tracks with a well time volley. Get it wrong and they are dead though, as they can't run behind pike and keep on firing. But get them in an enfilade/defilade position and they excel themselves. With no arrows arcing high and hitting friendlies the entire volley slams into the engaged enemy to devastating effect. And yes, a two or three rank deep unit works well, anything more is a waste of firepower.
Big thing in previous games was that they just did not ran out of ammo. M2TW arrow levels seem increased greatly so it's not that much of an issue any more but it's still handy in protracted battles. In a full stack I'd have three gunpowder units and four, maybe five, archer units. this gives significant firepower whith the archers firing safely out of harms way allowing the arquebusiers/handgunners/musketeers to be micro managed.

[Theoden]

do gunpowder units inflict friendly fire the same as archers, i'm just curious as iimagine they would but i have only used them a handful of times.

[Janissary]

Yeah i believe so even if you put your man infront of the handgunners. Or the cannons i believe? My captain even died, because he stood infront of a cannon it was Hilarious.

[Anarion]

Gunpowder Units shoot more often and with more accuracy the higher their experience is. Test it in "Custom Battle". The experience system in MTW2 just rocks. .

[Theoden]

Hmm they are good at braking up enemy inf charges, just make sure to get them to run for their lives if it doesnt stop em

[Oracle]

Gunpower units are awesome against armored foes, but obviously they lack the range of archers. I prefer having them on my flanks, firing volleys into a charging enemy. And yeah the massive amount of ammo they possess is another great plus.

It's a good idea to have a mix of two. Use archers to soften up enemy handgunners (they always have them out front) and take the hits while your own gunners flank out and catch them in a crossfire.

[imb39]

The morale damage that hand gunners do is significant, it seems. For my latest armies against the darned Mongols (who are driving me mad - do their armies ever dwindle?) I tend to sit a row of handgunners (in front of my Jan heavy infantry which sits in front of the Ottoman (gradually being replaced with Jan archers). The archers deal with many things but a volley or twoo from the handgunners often sends a few units to depart rapidly. I don't know if the Jan musketeers will be as effective in this regard but their range makes them useful.

[lawngnome]

Only problem is the darn gunpowder bug where they stop firing after taking casualties... otherwise I would be in love with Jan musketeers... I still like them, but dangit, it sucks having to baby them to make sure they are still firing.

[imb39]

Only problem is the darn gunpowder bug where they stop firing after taking casualties... otherwise I would be in love with Jan musketeers... I still like them, but dangit, it sucks having to baby them to make sure they are still firing.

My handgunners have continued to fire after taking damage. The other advantage with Jan handgunners and Jan musketmen is their stats are pretty decent as standard infantry - not great, but liveable with. As a reserve behind the Jan HI, they are a useful back up.

[Lavastein]

i prefer archers and crossbowmen. Not only can they fire farther, but they can fire more often than those gunners. Besides, THEY ARE NOT HONORABLE WEAPONS!!

[Markas]

i prefer archers and crossbowmen. Not only can they fire farther, but they can fire more often than those gunners. Besides, THEY ARE NOT HONORABLE WEAPONS!!

Amen.

[UnderdawgIV]

i prefer archers and crossbowmen. Not only can they fire farther, but they can fire more often than those gunners. Besides, THEY ARE NOT HONORABLE WEAPONS!!

In game, they can actually fire farther. Well at least for the Janissary Musketeers and Musketeers.

[Revan The Great]

Another good strategy is to sit on a hill so your gunners are elevated, that way you can put your infantry line in front and have little to no friendly fire.

[OG Grenadier]

Well I would think Retinue Bowmen would own early black powder fire arms units, particularly hand gunners. Napoleon was seriously considering reintroducing bow armed units at one stage, not because they were more effective than a musket given the tactics of the day, but their superior rate of fire and terribly destructive effects on morale when used against non armoured units.
Enemy units under fire from decent bowmen should be checking for heavy morale penalties in M2TW

[Lavastein]

i never knew that about napoleon. Interesting. Well, bow armed men could fire at a fast rate. After all, these guys would have been trained from birth to fire these weapons. I would have introduced em back into the line, but on horseback.

[imb39]

Remember, though (and this is not in the scope of the game) that the real huge, huge advantage of gunpowder weapons over bow weapos is the amount of training. musketeers can be up and running reasonably quickly. longbowmen take an age to train. If there was onething that was disappointing with MT2W is that it doesn't really reflect that. I'd simply make their upkeep quite low to reflect that.

[Sammyboi]

I've only just started to experience the game in the gunpowder age. So far I love having 6 units of culverin pounding the enemy lines, but handguns require way too much micro management. Give me units of upgraded xbows for the price

[Trajan]

I was asking myself the same question the other day, muskets vs. bows and arrows. Archers have better range and faster reloading but the hand gunners give a nice morale drop to the enemy. I like using both. I have two archers and one hand gunner in my armies.