What is the purpose of Bleakswords?

[Prisoner 76561197992841073]

I've played this game for 2 years now, and I've never recruited Bleakswords since my first DE campaign.

Why bother recruiting these units? The Tier 1 DE army is built around its Darkshards, and the best unit to hold the line while the Darkshards do damage is the Dreadspear, so what role does the Bleaksword play?

[Gamefever]

When gold is really tight as teenage angst Dark Boy needed soul funk juice from Malus, Bleakswords are a better option cause your not facing off against cavalry.
Your up against High Elves with spears if playing Vortex.
Or Dwarves and Skaven, both of which dont have cavalry.

Now in both cases your faced with the job of climbing walls more than likely so at the end of that climb do you want a spear or a sword which has better MA value?

[Prisoner 76561197992841073]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

When gold is really tight as teenage angst Dark Boy needed soul funk juice from Malus, Bleakswords are a better option cause your not facing off against cavalry.
Your up against High Elves with spears if playing Vortex.
Or Dwarves and Skaven, both of which dont have cavalry.

Now in both cases your faced with the job of climbing walls more than likely so at the end of that climb do you want a spear or a sword which has better MA value?

Just completed a Hag Graef campaign and still never used Bleakswords. Yes they have higher MA than Dreadspears, but have lower MD. Since both units don't do much damage the MA appears to be unimportant, while the MD matters far more to last longer while the ranged units do the damage. Even on the walls this made sense, so I would rather a unit with a spear and more MD than a unit with sword and higher MA (which is also a low damage unit - who cares what MA is for a weak unit).

[Andrewbh2003]

a cheap frontline and non AP damage dealer cause bleakswords with murderous prowess are quite impressive nothing spectacular but for how cheap they are they are quite good

[Tricks]

Theoretically yeah, you would employ them when you want a little extra MA rather than MD, but the difference is so inconsequential that it's not like you're going to be switching up such low tier units. So in practice there is no real point to them.

[A.Pot]

Same reason why most factions have a basic sword infantry or a basic spear infantry unit. Swords for fighting enemy infantry, spears for anti-large.

[NiteDragon]

I tend to keep at least 1 bleaksword, in early campaign, with the army for a cheap flanking unit. It does better in this role than holding the line and provides the MA to lift pressure off my spear line. Most of what you fight early is norsca and rats in the north, turning the flank of the line makes it easier. I usually replace them quickly though because ALL other options are better.

[zefyris]

a bleaksword frontline will win against a spear frontline from the HE. That in itself is worth mentionning since at the beginning HE frontline IS made of spearmen.

[Andrewbh2003]

another thing worth mentioning is as dreadspears are a well spear unit they have slower attack animations so its not just the low base MA they also get less attacks over 10 seconds than bleakswords

[[AoE]AzumoO]

bleakswords are okay in multiplayer.
In campain, yea, you are 100% right.
They are useless but not because of anything but the stupidity of the ai player.

If spears face enemy infantry with high meele defence, they do Zero kills. *but its irrelevant in campain

[𝒦.ℒ.ℬ.]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

When gold is really tight as teenage angst Dark Boy

nope.