Like others said, Hackapells have too few HP. If someone masses skirms and has like 40 of them, all shoot one hackapell. Dead. Before he reaches the skirms. Shoot the next. Dead. Just when he reached the skirms but couldn't attack yet. 4 Hackappels left, if you micro well you attack 2 different skirms with 2 hackapells. 2 Skirms dead.
Now 38 skirms on next hackapell and so on.
He'll lose like 5-6 skirms which is 50 food + 65 gold * 5= 575 res. While you lose 6 units costing the usual merc cost.
Anyways, Hackapells are loads of fun when massed to raid (Saloon). So are Stradiots
I had a game today where I had the Riding School card, the Church faster training of cavalry tech, and the native faster cavalry training.
I had 8 banks, and about 20 vills on gold. So I had instant stradiots with WAY too many gold ^^
It was hilarious lol