Tomb Kings basic melee units, Sword or Spear?

[Raigavin]

Who should be hired as a basic melee units with the Tomb Kings, the unit with Sword/Shield or the one with Spear/Shield? for a basic melee wall.

[[N63] chrisragnar]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย a turd:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Raigavin:

Is there a reason why the swords have lower defence rating than spears?

I mean, they both have shields and are literally the same except for their weapons.

Spears are traditionally seen as a defensive weapon (in video games at least) since you have more range compared to a sword. Picture an organised spearwall compared to a group of swordsmen.

In real life Spears are much better and popular. And from what i understand in history, swords where not very popular besides as a backup for horse mounted persons. But swords have become more prominent in movies etc, they do look very epic and make for more dramatic figthing than poking with Spears.

[Dr. Uncredible]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย N63 chrisragnar:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dr. Uncredible:

What? He asked why spear units have higher defence.
Your comment had nought to do with anything I wrote.

I realise this was strange, i think i quoted the wrong message.

Ah, no worries then. Cheers sir!

[Raigavin]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Princemousey:

What difficulty did you do your HE vortex campaign on?

I finished HE Vortex with Campaign on 'Hard' and Battles on 'Normal'.
Had trouble with Dark Elves finishing rituals faster than me and as a result I conquered them, Sarotassa was sending repeated raiding parties and so I got them too.

[ChaosKhan]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย N63 chrisragnar:

In real life Spears are much better and popular. And from what i understand in history, swords where not very popular besides as a backup for horse mounted persons. But swords have become more prominent in movies etc, they do look very epic and make for more dramatic figthing than poking with Spears.

Actually, swords are far superior weapons when compared to spears in real life, especially in close quarter formation combat, where its versatile edge and compact form can be used with a far wider degree of freedom than a spear. A sword was the ultimate infantry weapon until gunpowder made "cold weapons" obsolete. Why spears were more widely used had 2 main reasons:
1. A spear was way more affordable.
2. It didn't require as much training. A novice with a spear has a natural advantage over a novice with a sword. Hence, why the rigorously trained Roman Legions used swords while levy troops of the barbarian and later feudal kingdoms used spears instead.

Therefore, whoever could afford a sword and had the leisure to train full time to reach a professional level, chose the sword.

Whenever you look at histocal warfare you will notice, that about every professional army corps, be it either on foot or mounted, was equipped with swords as either main or backup weapon. The richer part of the Greek Hoplites carried swords, Macedonian Phalangites carried swords, barbarian professional warriors who could afford it carried swords, knights, the Landsknechts, the Swiss Mercenaries - all carried swords. On this part I should add, that I don't see pikes as the same as spears at all. Those are a completely different beast and also a weapon that required a high degree of "professionalizm" to be used properly.

This was only true for the European battlefields though because European swords were sturdy, allround weapons of war. When we would look at the Japanese for example: Their swords like the Katana were only prestige weapons, used primarily in duels and after the Yari or Naginata (spear and pole weapons) of the Samurai broke. Their nature made them ill suited for war.

[Raigavin]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย ChaosKhan:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย N63 chrisragnar:

In real life Spears are much better and popular. And from what i understand in history, swords where not very popular besides as a backup for horse mounted persons. But swords have become more prominent in movies etc, they do look very epic and make for more dramatic figthing than poking with Spears.

Actually, swords are far superior weapons when compared to spears in real life, especially in close quarter formation combat, where its versatile edge and compact form can be used with a far wider degree of freedom than a spear. A sword was the ultimate infantry weapon until gunpowder made "cold weapons" obsolete. Why spears were more widely used had 2 main reasons:
1. A spear was way more affordable.
2. It didn't require as much training. A novice with a spear has a natural advantage over a novice with a sword. Hence, why the rigorously trained Roman Legions used swords while levy troops of the barbarian and later feudal kingdoms used spears instead.

Therefore, whoever could afford a sword and had the leisure to train full time to reach a professional level, chose the sword.

Whenever you look at histocal warfare you will notice, that about every professional army corps, be it either on foot or mounted, was equipped with swords as either main or backup weapon. The richer part of the Greek Hoplites carried swords, Macedonian Phalangites carried swords, barbarian professional warriors who could afford it carried swords, knights, the Landsknechts, the Swiss Mercenaries - all carried swords. On this part I should add, that I don't see pikes as the same as spears at all. Those are a completely different beast and also a weapon that required a high degree of "professionalizm" to be used properly.

This was only true for the European battlefields though because European swords were sturdy, allround weapons of war. When we would look at the Japanese for example: Their swords like the Katana were only prestige weapons, used primarily in duels and after the Yari or Naginata (spear and pole weapons) of the Samurai broke. Their nature made them ill suited for war.

Swords may be superior, but they require exceptional training and when untrained they don't do very well against spears with shields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk

[Hurricane]

Spear is easier to use. A knight in armor with a sword will carve up spear users they are useless when formation has been breached.

[Budoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dr. Uncredible:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

mix both . why go full stack of the same..? dont you want to be able to deal with multy situations ? i always try to go for an army that can deal with everything. mix stuff the best.

The point made by many people above is: your Tier 1 skellys will never do much damage to anything, swords or not, but spears let them hold a bit longer so the rest of the army can.

Sword skellys are essentially the damage-dealing version of a unit that can´t deal damage.

my point still hold for a basic melee wall ,i mix troops so i can deal with everything . spearmen coming my way? send the swords, large coming my way ? send spears.. if i only have say spears and the opposition have almost zero large and only swords im done fast. not good. mix troops friends .

[Budoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย N63 chrisragnar:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

mix both . why go full stack of the same..? dont you want to be able to deal with multy situations ? i always try to go for an army that can deal with everything. mix stuff the best.

Your skelletons wont deal with anything tho, they just hold enemy troops in place. I dont think there is any other troop that they would be winning against. So the better one is the tankier one (spears)

they can deal with clanrats just fine. empire swordsmen are about the same stats. they are fine since they have a massive regeneration like 3 times. well i guess i can see them suck on legendary but i dont play legendary.



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1964262908


i did a test on custom battle and the results supprised me the sword arent much better then the spears for the tomb kings.. which is odd since the sword alway beats the spears thats the logic of total war game since day one. so you probably better off only using spears since you can vs large bonus.

to note though hes lord was in the fight sooner then i put mine it could have played a key role. but overall the swords are about the same.

[Hurricane]

Skeletons have same stats as empire swords? Lol no... l2p

[Budoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hurricane:

Skeletons have same stats as empire swords? Lol no... l2p

About the same not the same . empire sword sucks too.

[Hurricane]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hurricane:

Skeletons have same stats as empire swords? Lol no... l2p

About the same not the same . empire sword sucks too.

No empire swords last way longer and are decent basic units.

[Budoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hurricane:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

About the same not the same . empire sword sucks too.

No empire swords last way longer and are decent basic units.

yes i did a test and the vanilla without buff tomb swords are oddly weak well they cost nothing but still a small buff wouldn t hurt. the fact that they cant beat their own spears speak volume.

the - 8 to defence hurt them.

[Hurricane]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hurricane:

No empire swords last way longer and are decent basic units.

yes i did a test and the vanilla without buff tomb swords are oddly weak well they cost nothing but still a small buff wouldn t hurt. the fact that they cant beat their own spears speak volume.

the - 8 to defence hurt them.

The tier 1 skeles are only there to really trigger the heals and spawn the ushabti they dont do any damage

[Budoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hurricane:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Budoshi:

yes i did a test and the vanilla without buff tomb swords are oddly weak well they cost nothing but still a small buff wouldn t hurt. the fact that they cant beat their own spears speak volume.

the - 8 to defence hurt them.

The tier 1 skeles are only there to really trigger the heals and spawn the ushabti they dont do any damage

well they abviously do some damage and will kill but ya they are there to be meat shield.

[Hanzo11]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Raigavin:

Thanks for the suggestions.

This is my first time playing with the Tomb Kings and my second faction/attempt after finishing HE Vortex campaign.

I tried booting up all the Tomb Kings and choose Khalida since her starting position in the Vortex campaign was unique. But upon my very first battle with the Lizardmen's first settlement, I got destroyed and I blame my HE strategy for it.

Then it took me few more battles and a restart to realise that the basic melee units are just fodder while my levelled up basic archers (with Khalida's poison buff) are pretty decent. As a result I have been spamming 8 units of the disposable basic melee spears and was doubting if that was the right way to do it until I get the Tomb Guards and later monsters.

Honestly, 3 out of the 4 legendary lords for the tomb kings can have challenging start positions, at least in mortal empires. I'm not sure if the same is true for vortex. Settra is the easiest start out of the 4 and I would suggest maybe starting with him as a way of familiarizing yourself with the faction. I love tomb kings , but they definitely have a unique playstyle ,especially when it comes to recruiting units and faction economy. Like others have said, skeleton infantry is not going to have much in the way of killing power. In the early game, archers and chariots will be your best choice for killing potential, while your infantry can keep your enemy pinned down and allow archers and chariots to do their thing.