I haven't played in a while, but missile weapons always worked well for me. The regular short bow is not very effective. You definitely want to upgrade it to the long bow, or, better still, a high quality compound bow.
Crossbows and guns penetrate armor better and do more damage, but they are a lot slower to reload.
Even with a good bow, it will take several hits to down an opponent. If they are unarmored, you can kill with one shot, especially with the guns. Heavily armored opponents are not going to be killed, but you can at least weaken them before the melee begins.
I usually have each party member fire at someone different, unless there's a particularly dangerous opponent that I want to really hurt.
Be sure that your party has a line of sight! Sometimes they will be blocked, either by other party members, or by terrain, and they will stand and wait for a clear shot. Watch what they are doing, and if they start standing still, pause the game and check. I believe the target icon changes to a broken target if they don't have LOS.
I usually have half my group with bows, to take advantage of the higher rate of fire. The other half use crossbows or guns until the enemy is right upon them. Then everyone switches to melee weapons.
Your alchemist needs to learn how to make the Stone-tar potion, and carry as many as possible. Fire that off right away, and put it directly in the enemy path and it will slow the enemy charge to a crawl.
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If RPG were really modelled about realism, in Darkland you would really not want to wear plate armor
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Actually...you don't.
I learned this mistake the hard way. Unless your character is unbelievably strong, you do not want them wearing full plate mail. You'll see it right away too...your character will barely be able to move, and their melee strikes go way down.
Even the strongest characters are better off with plate for the vitals, and mail on the arms and legs. My alchemist characters rarely have the strength for anything more than a mail shirt, and usually leather for the limbs. Otherwise, they are encumbered and slowed down too much.