I Stand Converted

[gaijinalways]

If using Handgunners or Arquebusiers, how high does their valor need to be? I have found them not that useful when their range is often too short to take down anything moving at a decent clip. If you can get them to fire into the rear of an engaged enemy though, you can get pretty good results.

[Roark]

With valour 3 or 4, Arquebusiers become proper shooters, and can take out 7 or 8 very heavily armoured troops in a volley. I'm talking troops which would normally be resistant even to arbalests (Halberdiers, bronze or silver CMAAs etc). With a lucky dice roll (or computer-generated "random seed" thingie) you can kill a dozen or more. This, combined, with the gunpowder fear, can be devastating against elites.

Yeah sure, the arqs are never going to contribute to melee, but it's all about the fear (and secondarily, killing armour).

With handgunners, their range is pretty cr@p and their combat skills are a bit better, so valour isn't as important. They're never going to be true shooters.

I use them pretty muchas you do. Just run them around the rear in a tight, small block, then spread out and take a couple of shots at the enemy's back, and finally charge.

[Roark]

Oh, and with Handgunners... I keep them tucked behind my flankers and, as my flankers charge in to attack the enemy's main line, I send my handgunners peeling off to the rear to take pot shots. I ignore any archers behind the enemy's main line, as the Handgunners have pretty good armour (and my horses are usually following up pretty closely).