Handgunners or Huntsmen?

[l_pha]

Huntsmen have better range and damage vs large especially when combined with a Huntsman General but handgunners have AP. Which to bring? Yeah i could bring a combo of both but i like my armies to be uniform.

[yuzhonglu]

Hunts are easier to use.

[Zeek]

Depends what you are fighting.

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Hunts are easier to use.

Yeah, this too. Gunpowder line of sight can REALLY screw you over. Archers don't usually have this issue.

[Goatmanpig]

I'm actually partial to Handgunners for large single entity units. Honestly, Huntsmen feel kinda in a weird place.

[SpeaksTooFast]

If you want uniform I'd go huntsmen or crossbowmen. Handgunners can be great but more than 2-4 of them can create a lot of LoS issues. Also much worse at sieges.

[Ashardalon]

a few gunners for anti armor that your bows cant provide

[Triple G]

Huntsmen perhaps in the Huntsmen campaign, else i wouldn´t recruit them. Anti-large, but little armor piercing, so they´re good vs. some unarmored monsters. Also only 8 anti-large bonus, which means like 2 more extra AP damage on large targets to have 6. They´re good with Markus as Lord - because he doubles their damage. No idea, to 130+ i guess, with his buffs and red line. I also wouldn´t recruit a huntsmen lord outside that campaign.

Gunpowder line of sight isn´t a big problem. Either checkerboard, or some real life gunpowder formation, or on the flanks with the cavalry, so You can shoot them in the back after a bit of maneuvering. They´re usually also better vs. large targets, because oftentimes they have armor, like lords, or heroes, or cavalry. Just focus fire - and for flying units line of sight is no problem.

But both are useless vs. something like (high) elves - so i would rather bring cannons and rocket batteries instead of those two. I also like the wagons for some more maneuverability and 360 no scope shooting, these are far better at flanking and don´t need to set up and change formation if they switch a target. The pistol guys aren´t that bad either - for flanking, because they´re a bit faster than handgunners, and shoot before they go into melee, and can also shoot while moving. A worse version of the handbow corsairs, but i like these kind of units.

TL;DR:
Out of these two: handgunners, also fit better in the army imho. I´d probably bring two of those anyway. And instead of huntsmen always crossbows, they also have 6 armor piercing damage without anti-large - and they look like the rest of the army if You go with such a setup.

[SarmatII]

Huntsmen upkeep is quite costly. The anti-large is nice, but most large + dangerous units has high armor.

[Raider Deci]

Handgunners, because guns. And armor-piercing. Just pray for a good map so you dont deploy uphill

[Ashley]

Most late game units have ton of armor so I go with handgunners. Don't even know what qualities as low armor. 30? 45? I don't know.

[kilen]

Both frankly, each have their own advantages.
Single entities kill for handgunners, fire support of the melee line for archers that can lobe their shots. And huntsmen are the best, plus the anti large making them efficient against possible cavs on the flanks.
Both are needed, i always take something like 4 handgunners and 6 huntsmen.
But it’s huntsmen when possible quite later. Where handgunners I try to take them asap, soon as I can unlock a t3 major settlement somewhere I start to feed my armies with couple each after I hired them.
And I also skip the mortars usually, they are limited for sieges, you have one arty with your LL first army or RoR soon as unlocked, it’s good enough for early game. I always found mortars not worthy enough to spend all the time to hire them, send them to the armies, and then replace them relatively quickly several turns later with rockets (as you tend to rush hellstorm rocket batteries as well, they are so much stronger, etc).
So usually i do pretty standard ratio of 4 handgunners, 6 archers (huntsmen asap but not rushed) and 4 Hellstorm rocket batteries.
The rest is crowd control with melee heroes & 1 fire mage… very standard, it works great.

Back in wh2 In my campaign with Gelt I only did full huntsmen when I confederated the huntsmarshal expedition in Lustria in late game, just to be coherent lorewise and test it that way in jungle with vanguard deployment.
It was okay, but without arty it was still my weakest army of all the 12 I had.
Automatically taking more dmg when they faced something serious, while classic range armies with arty was much better to limit the losses.
So, both can work very well (very well of Empire standards ofc, far from Skaven dakka or HE or plenty others as well).
But it’s mostly arty or not that makes a big difference… huntsmen or handgunners, the difference is not that big.
And both complement each other’s quite well, so the optimal choice is simply taking both imo.

[Fendelphi]

Huntsmen are fine against chaff, as well as large, low armored targets. Their spread out formation and ability to fire while moving also makes them decent at countering enemy archers or ranged cavalry. Stalk is also kind of fun at times, as it helps keep them safe from artillery and spells, and can make the enemy march into a deathtrap.
My issue with them is that Free Company Militia and Crossbows are better vs chaff, so it is really only against large, unarmored stuff that Huntsmen shines, and there is not a lot of that.

Handgunners are for focus damage against armored targets, big or small.
Depending on who you plan to send the army against, you might only want 1 unit, but somewhere between 1-3 is usually fine. It depends what else you want in the army and your overall battleplan. They require clear line of sight, so positioning and formations are more important.
I do prefer Outriders to Handgunners though. Much faster rate of fire, better elevation and much more mobility gives you more options as to when and where you attack. Worse volley damage and slightly worse range when compared to Handgunners though, so that should be considered as well.

[dollars202]

Bring a volley gun instead of handgunners. Bring a rocket battery instead of huntsmen, done.

[NzFox]

don't be put off by gun units due to the fact they don't arc their fire, they went back on the full 'easy mode' of having them shoot through any unit they 'touched' but they are still a lot easier to use than they use to be. If nothing else you want the silver bullets as they are one of the most powerful ranged units the empire can get, second only to the sunmaker imo.