Empire and Dwarf armies have a choice of two main weapons, crossbows or handguns, for their ranged infantry but which is best?
Crossbows have a range of 30″, S4 and have Armour Bane (2).
Handguns have a range of 24″, S4, Armour Piercing -1 and Armour Bane (1). A Dwarf Thunderer is a point more expensive than a Quarreller. Likewise to upgrade Empire State Missile Troops to handguns from their default crossbows will cost you an extra point per model.
Range is obviously the biggest advantage of the crossbow. It’s also hard to quantify how much benefit it will be. The size of the battlefield, how close the armies are deployed to each other, and the tactics each army employs are going to heavily affect how many extra shots a crossbow armed unit might get due to their extra range, or how many shots would be at short range for a crossbow but long range for a handgun.
What we can quantify is how likely each weapon is to cause a wound.
First a quick recap of how Armour Piercing and Armour Bane work – Armour Piercing applies against all Armour Saving Throws. Armour Bane is a bonus to the Armour Piercing value that is applied when the To Wound roll is a natural 6.
We can say straight away that against an opponent with T6 or greater a crossbow is without a doubt the superior weapon. S4 requires a 6 To Wound and natural 6’s trigger the crossbow’s AB2. This is effectively the same as the handgun’s AP -1 with the natural 6’s triggering the handgun’s AB1 so the two weapons are identical except that the crossbow is cheaper and has longer range.
Against unarmoured opponents, the crossbow is again superior. AP and AB don’t matter if the enemy has no Armour Saving Throw.
Against a more typical enemy with say T4 and a 4+ Armour Save, the odds for a crossbow to succeed on the To Wound roll, and the opponent to fail the Armour Save is (2/6 * 3/6) + (1/6 * 5/6) = 11/36. Basically that’s the chances of rolling a 4 or 5 on the To Wound roll followed by the enemy failing their 4+ Save, plus the chance of rolling a 6 followed by the enemy failing a 6+ Save as AB2 will have kicked in.
For a handgun we’d have a similar calculation except that we’ve got to factor in the effects of AP -1 on the Armour Save when a natural 6 is not rolled. That gives us (2/6 * 4/6) + (1/6 * 5/6) = 13/36. That makes the handgun 18% more effective.
The same calculations for Toughness 3 to 5 and Armour Save from 2+ to 5+…
| Toughness | Armour Save | Crossbow odds | Handgun odds | Increase in handgun effectiveness |
| 3 | 2+ | (3/6*1/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 6/36 | (3/6*2/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 9/36 | 50% |
| 3 | 3+ | (3/6*2/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 10/36 | (3/6*3/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 13/36 | 30% |
| 3 | 4+ | (3/6*3/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 14/36 | (3/6*4/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 17/36 | 21% |
| 3 | 5+ | (3/6*4/6) + (1/6) = 18/36 | (3/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 21/36 | 17% |
| 3 | 6+ | (3/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 21/36 | (3/6) + (1/6) = 24/36 | 14% |
| Toughness | Armour Save | Crossbow odds | Handgun odds | Increase in handgun effectiveness |
| 4 | 2+ | (2/6*1/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 5/36 | (2/6*2/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 7/36 | 40% |
| 4 | 3+ | (2/6*2/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 8/36 | (2/6*3/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 10/36 | 25% |
| 4 | 4+ | (2/6*3/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 11/36 | (2/6*4/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 13/36 | 18% |
| 4 | 5+ | (2/6*4/6) + (1/6) = 14/36 | (2/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 16/36 | 14% |
| 4 | 6+ | (2/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 16/36 | (2/6) + (1/6) = 18/36 | 13% |
| Toughness | Armour Save | Crossbow odds | Handgun odds | Increase in handgun effectiveness |
| 5 | 2+ | (1/6*1/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 4/36 | (1/6*2/6) + (1/6*3/6) = 5/36 | 20% |
| 5 | 3+ | (1/6*2/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 6/36 | (1/6*3/6) + (1/6*4/6) = 7/36 | 17% |
| 5 | 4+ | (1/6*3/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 8/36 | (1/6*4/6) + (1/6*5/6) = 9/36 | 13% |
| 5 | 5+ | (1/6*4/6) + (1/6) = 10/36 | (1/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 11/36 | 10% |
| 5 | 6+ | (1/6*5/6) + (1/6) = 11/36 | (1/6) + (1/6) = 12/36 | 9% |
The trend is that the lower the Toughness and the better the Armour Save of the enemy, the more effective the handgun becomes. Against for example Bretonnian Knights Of The Realm who have a 3+ Armour Save due to their heavy armour, shield and warhorses in barding, the handgun is 30% more effective. That’s going to make a big difference.
Of course Knights Of The Realm are one of the more extreme examples of a unit with relatively low Toughness but a really good Armour Save. If you’re shooting at T4 orc infantry with light armour and shields then the handgun is only 14% more effective than the crossbow.
At this point we really need to take into account the points cost of the handgun. A State Missile Trooper with a handgun is 14% more expensive than a trooper with a crossbow. Assuming you have space to make the units wider, a crossbow equipped unit could compensate for the effectiveness of handguns by just having more men shooting crossbows. If the situation on the battlefield allows the crossbows to get more shots in at targets beyond 24″, or between 12 and 15″ which would be short range for a crossbow but long range for a handgun, then the crossbow is the clear winner.
So which is better overall? In reality I’d just field whatever models I had painted regardless of their effectiveness but if I was trying to build an optimum Empire or Dwarf army to face Bretonnians, or to play on a small table where enemies are always likely to be within 24″, then handguns are the way to go. If it was to be a flexible army to face a variety of opponents playing on large tables then I’d go for crossbows for their superior range and cost effectiveness.
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