The hand gun is a simple firearm consisting of a metal barrel mounted onto a wooden stock. The gunpowder charge is ignited by a poking a length of burning cord, or match as it is called, into a small touch hole. Some of the more advanced versions have levers and springs which hold the burning match and triggers which release the firing mechanism and fire the gun.

Gunpowder technology is not especially advanced so hand guns are not very reliable weapons: the gun barrels tend to burst and the powder often fails to fire. The greatest advantage of the hand gun over the bow or other old fashioned weapons is that the lead shot can penetrate the thickest armour.

1. A hand gun takes a complete turn to load so you may only fire every other turn. For example, if you fire in your first turn you cannot fire in the second turn, but you can fire again in your third turn.

2. You cannot move and fire a hand gun in the same turn, so if you move in your movement phase you are unable to fire that turn.

3. Hand gunners can adopt a formation of two ranks in order to increase their fire rate. The first rank can shoot and then you may either move the front rank to the rear or you can move the rear rank through to the front. This means that the models in the new front rank will not have fired, and they are free to shoot in their next turn. This is the only movement possible when a unit fires.

4. Hand guns are even better at penetrating armour than their strength value of 4 suggests. Therefore the enemy must deduct a further -1 from his armour save, so the save modifier is -2 rather than -1 as is normal for a strength 4 hit.