I don't think people give gordon enough credit it Fe3 book 2 and here is my reasoning.
Gordon joins your army at level 5 meaning he just needs 5 more levels to use the Orions bolt you get at chapter 7.
In-between chapter 1-7 are a lot of Draco knights that a lot of your army has trouble dealing with (the exception being mages and archers). even if you only use gordon for these enemies he should still easily get to level 10 before chapter 7
the snipers class bonus's are absolutely insane giving plus 5 in both skill and speed, 2 strength and defense, 3 res, and best of all 2 mov.
snipers are generalists. generally being useful on a larger portion of maps then horsemen.
by the time gordon promotes, his stats should straight up be better (unless he gets stat screwed) than George who you also get in chapter 7. having 2 partia users is a very useful thing.
I feel like archers get a deservingly bad rap since in most games since they do suck. but in Fe3, were javelins kinda sucks. having archers are very useful. but what do you guys think?