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As a front note - I have only rarely played against others outside of my sons - and even that was 20+ years ago.
Have played 6th ed in past - but do 8th these days.

Anyway, was looking at another forum and they were basically calling out handgunners as being not worth it.
I however have found their SP4 AP attacks useful as a can-opener, especially against my sons Chaos or Dwarves.
That extra minus has made them far more useful to me than crossbows.
I usually run them in units of 24 (12x2)

Other opinions.....

Long story short, can't move and shoot.

They need line of sight, but only have a 24" range. You're hitting on 5's mostly, so 3 hits, 2 wounds, maybe 1 save if they're knights so 1 wound. By the time they hit on their normal BS the lines are already colliding for combat and they're functionally useless at that point because you need to maneuver them to reposition themselves to be able to fire at anything again and thats another turn wasted.

A huge 10-15 man unit of Outriders however can be dangerous. They a vanguard move at the beginning of the game and can start shooting from first turn. The opponent needs to get rid of them or he's going to start taking some serious damage. If he tries to engage them in combat you just flee and reform.

Sounds like I need a tactics lesson.
Most of my games end up having little maneuver before we run out of turns

I run them as a big unit and/or as detachments for support (in 6th).
Their biggest problem is move or shoot but still can be useful.
Chipping off a wound or two on a charging enemy unit to remove a rank is nice (detachments).
If you get the first turn you can also shoot with their extra range on the first shot, so even at more than 24" they will start putting pressure.

Also, I think putting wounds isn't their only role. They are cheap and their S4 -2AS is very dissuasive for knights and heavy armour regiments.
If you have a big unit, the enemy will often allocate quite a few ressources to remove them fast (flyer, spells, fast cavalry....). Keep in mind that handgunners can deal with minor threats with their own detachments (militia/swordmen). The enemy will also maneuver to stay out of sight with their juicy targets (knights), essentially conditioning part of their plan. This is underrated.

Crossbows are better but handgunners are acceptable. Rule of thumb is, if you buy the missile boxset, build crossbowmen. If you trawl auctions for 6th edition starter boxes and end up with spears asnd handgunners. Dont despair, use them. Halberdiers are better than spearmen and crossbowmen are better than handgunners but the difference is not so extreme that spearmen and hundgunners are not worth deploying.

One of the bad things about Warhammer is that fewer people are prepared to take the rough with the smooth, if a unit is only slightly belowe the optimum it is dumped in the 'useless' category. Truth be told handgunners are perfectly adequate missile troops.

Now handgunners do have some advantages, let me list them for you.

1. You can take a champion with a nifty gun. Most options are only gimics but there is use in the sniper rifle if you take enough champions or engineers for the firepower to matter. Take three or preferavbly four or dont bother taking any.

2. Second in the nifty gun list are pistols. This means one less shot for normal firepower but as the pistols have very short range the unit fires atpistol range during stand and shoot, so the handgunners themselves will always fire at short range if the stand and shoot no matter how long the charge. This can make a big difference.

3. Handgunners get 30" long range, but the first salvo of handgunner fire also gets this range. Though the +6" range for the first shot may be edition dependant.

4. The main advantage of crossbowmen +3" short range cannot be mitigated, but the armour piercing is a fair trade off for this.

5. Handgunners do better than crossbowmen as small detachments as detachments deploy with the parent unit and usually move with it. Chances are detachments don't get much long range shooting done. When set up to shoot the armour piercing comes into play with little mitigation against. That being said bowmen make better detachments than either.

It's a trade off that depends a lot on what you play against. It all goes back to the old debate the crossbows range vs the handguns armour piercing. Dwarfs and Chaos are not very speedy armies so Handgunners are probably the better bet. With good deployment you should get 3 turns of shooting before the scrum starts. The extra armour piercing will help against the heavier armour of the Dwarfs and Chaos.

Against faster armies, such as elves or lighter armoured armies like orcs , crossbows may be better. Against Daemons crossbows may be better since they have all ward saves anyway. The longer range may get you and extra round of shooting and you don't really need the extra punch of armour piercing against lighter troops.

At the end of the day it's only a 6 inch difference and not worth changing anything out in your army over.

Correct, but the 3" extra short range band can make a big difference, or none at all dependant on placement.

I love the core 6th edition models so have handgunners. I gave them full command because it looks better that way. I also use them in two ranks for 8th (and 9th Age). This is not optimal but certainly workable.
Yes crossbowmen are slightly better but the differences are not enough to change much.

Interesting. The archers must have more value than just shooting.
I would like to see how that works

archers are cheap, you can volley fire (edition dependent), move and fire ans skirmish (edition dependent). Their 'firepower' is just a tickle, but the idea is to take off a single wound to spoil a point of rank bonus or force a panic test. It may require a fair bit of luck on your side to do even that. However archer detachments are excellent at getting in the way.
If you make them detachments to Greatswords they stay in the way and pretty much fight to the death, much to the frustration of your opponent.

It can depend on the edition you're playing but generally, since Archer and Crossbows are the same price as gunners they tend to be more useful in most scenarios.

Crossbowmen can shoot 30'' so they can fire first turn and they are strength 4 so they are no slouches.

Archers can move and fire as well as skirmish. It makes them more survivable and maneuverable in game.

Huntsmen are another to consider. Now in 7th and 8th they were set to 10 man units. Most didn't like that all that much as it was too big a points investment for a unit that didn't really kill all that much. For myself? That 10 man unit always caused my opponents fits. They were too small a points investment to spend to many resources going after, but also too annoying to completely ignore. The number of times my huntsmen survived till the end of the game to steal a table quarter has always made them one of my must include units in the game.

As for handgunners I would say they are useful if used as area denial. When I take them it tends to be in big units of 20 and I pop them on a flank as my first drop during deployment. Basically I used them as a "You will not place you expensive knight unit on this side of the table" force. Sure the gunner won't wipe out the WHOLE unit in a volley, but Str4 armour piercing with enough shots can take out an expensive knight or two.

Basically, from my experience at least, if you do want to use handgunners either go big with the unit or don't bother taking them. The other shooting options in the Empire list offer more tactical flexibility.

Take as many Empire missile troops as fits your theme. They will be good at chipping away a point of rank bonus and panicking smaller chaff units; but none of them will actually stop a block of orc or chaos warriors advancing on your lines.

To actually hold the line this way you need Hellblasters, not missile infantry.

Hangunners basically fill the need to reliably pop a rank bonus or an outnumber result off an inbound unit. They have their uses, they just aren't as ubiquitous as the other missile troops. Personally I go for skirmishing archers almost every time.

 Korvessa wrote:
Interesting. The archers must have more value than just shooting.
I would like to see how that works

Archers are more valuable as misdirectors and chaff then they are missile troops. They also make a good place for your wizard to hang out if you want to keep his movement flexible but out of combat. Being in a unit of skirmishers also keeps the protection of "Look out Sir" and lightens the damage of a miscast.

Well
My MP Empire's next foe is scheduled to be Estalia, where I plan to have a large Tercio flanked by a unit of 20 crossbows on one side and 20 handgunners on the other, likely facing a horde of greatweapons in plate.
We'll see how it goes.

As for me, I play on a 6'x4' table and find the extra point of AP is much more useful than 6" of range. But I am a dummy who can't roll dice worth beans - LOL

Handgunners are optimised to kill targets with 4+ saves.
They should serve well against greatswords.

 Korvessa wrote:
Well
My MP Empire's next foe is scheduled to be Estalia, where I plan to have a large Tercio flanked by a unit of 20 crossbows on one side and 20 handgunners on the other, likely facing a horde of greatweapons in plate.
We'll see how it goes.

As for me, I play on a 6'x4' table and find the extra point of AP is much more useful than 6" of range. But I am a dummy who can't roll dice worth beans - LOL

^ THIS. and you add in the spearmen contingent on the flank, so that your gunners have a line of site, then the spearmen to roll in after the volley.

Used them to good effect against cav charges, as well. You have the bait unit up front, the cav charges them, thinks they get the weather gage, then you have them with BOTH the gunners hitting them in the front, and the spears wheeling on on the rear.

 Grot 6 wrote:

 Korvessa wrote:
Well
My MP Empire's next foe is scheduled to be Estalia, where I plan to have a large Tercio flanked by a unit of 20 crossbows on one side and 20 handgunners on the other, likely facing a horde of greatweapons in plate.
We'll see how it goes.

As for me, I play on a 6'x4' table and find the extra point of AP is much more useful than 6" of range. But I am a dummy who can't roll dice worth beans - LOL

^ THIS. and you add in the spearmen contingent on the flank, so that your gunners have a line of site, then the spearmen to roll in after the volley.

Used them to good effect against cav charges, as well. You have the bait unit up front, the cav charges them, thinks they get the weather gage, then you have them with BOTH the gunners hitting them in the front, and the spears wheeling on on the rear.

I use the spearmen to bait in the charge, handgunners to pelt in shots as detachments can stand and shoot at units charging the parent unit, and have a 10 man halberdier regiment to counter flank.