Well even arbalesters get slaughtered by Paladins, unless we are able to push them behind a wall or a corner with only a very tiny attack area for the Paladins.

I think even in open ground if you have a big enough group you can still trade well. Ethiopian arbs fire 25% faster. If you micro the arbs to focus on individual paladinsthey can one shot paladins and their attack surface area increases with the sqrt() of their numbers. For sure it's a lot more work than spamming halb.