Rifleman

"One thing I'll never forget is the running. We ran every day and everybody wanted to know why, why are we running all the time?  Do we look like Soldiers? Then I saw Charles gutted on a sword and half of the trainees charred beyond recognition... you grow to love running."

They lack the tanking capability of Soldiers, the AoE capabilities of Mages, the distance and damage of Catapults, the speed of Dragons, and are only as effective as micro permits, but that's all the advantage that a Archer needs. Their decent speed and the benefit of range allow Archer to avoid damage easily and make engaging into them a nightmare. Any player underestimating the strength of these musket-wielders can quickly expect to be punished for overlooking their grouped strength.

Strengths
Range

With slightly less range than a Watchtower, Archers are excellent at providing damage behind solid unit walls, in chokes, or in other narrow areas. Their range also enables them some kiting ability and lets them pick off weakened units or Workers in engagements, while also enabling multiple Archers to fire into a single area despite being split from one another. Finally, range enables Archers to attack Dragons (one of only two ground units capable of doing so).

Micro Capability

A combination of 5 Range and roughly equivalent movement speed to Soldiers means that each Archer can be split separately to avoid incoming damage from enemy Soldiers, Dragons, Mage Flamestrikes, and Catapults to compensate for their comparatively low Hit Points and damage. Players with strong micro can multiply the effectiveness of their Archers through unit positioning, concaves, split formations, and hit-and-run tactics.

Weaknesses
Surrounds

Despite the success that can be bought with Archers through micro, Archers need to also have good positioning. Archers will melt to Wolf, Soldier, or even Worker surrounds as they will not be able to kite away from the melee unit and will be taking excess melee damage.

Micro Needed

Archers possess below-average Hit Points and DPS and have no extra utility such as spells, flight, or AoE damage to compensate them in a fight. This means that they struggle a bit in direct engagements and require constant babysitting to get any added efficiency. This means that Archers are a heavy burden to the APM of a player that is using them and require considerable concentration and that a moment of inattention can destroy an entire army of Archers.

Development
1.95: Riflemen are now Archers; slightly increased attacking delay. (Their DPS is still the same, but it is easier to micro against Archers now)

1.74: Hit Points increased from 60 to 80.

1.80: Unit vision increased by 1.