Your opininions on Archer pawns?

I recently reached the post-game again while trying to get all pawn badges and looking for variety turned my mage support pawn into a maxed out archer and by the seneschal she's a monster. Explosive arrows are something else, though I'm now wondering ¿does people hire archer pawns much often? If so ¿you guys give hired pawns the special arrows if the have the skills?