Skeleton warriors or spearmen for Tomb Kings?

[Red Eclipse]

Which is more useful to pack an army with?

[kilen]

Spearmen.
Their single role is to hold the line, not to do dmg to the enemy (archers do), so their melee defence & their shield is more important.
Skeleton warriors have the same role basically (they do very few dmg), but their survivability is not as good as spearmen.

[Golanth]

Spearmen if you're fighting Bretonnia especially as Arkhan because they like to spam full Cavalry armies at you. Everyone else can mix, Swordsmen are technically better in manual and AR situations because of animations and stats when little to no large units are involved.

[Chaoslink]

Typically spear frontline fodder is better. The MD stat is what you want more of and they're better than swords if large units are in play. You don't need your melee to be trading damage here, your other units are better for that. These guys really only serve to die slowly enough that your other units can win the fight.

[Shakaka kaka kakakow]

Skeleton bewbs

[tvance52]

Agree with the Spearmen suggestion. Shield and better defense keeps them alive a bit longer.

As others mentioned, they're expendable fodder to hold down enemies so other units can do damage. Swordsmen have no noticeable benefit over them in my experience.

Edit: spelling

[Gorwe]

Spearmen, I see next to no reason to take Swordsmen. Because their job is to survive and extra MD helps greatly with that. Anti Large is just icing on the cake.

[Morbidius]

Spearmen

[Gorwe]

Is there any situation on any race where you might want Swordsmen more? Bleakswords maybe? Saurus Warriors?

[ressenmacher]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Is there any situation on any race where you might want Swordsmen more? Bleakswords maybe? Saurus Warriors?

There are a few, but they all basically boil down to "you have no recruitment options except skellies and your opponent's entire army is infantry." At that point, swordsmen are a little better, but it's such a fringe case that it's almost never applicable except sometimes very early game against other tomb kings.

[Magic]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Is there any situation on any race where you might want Swordsmen more? Bleakswords maybe? Saurus Warriors?

Not really. In theory they can be used for flanking around the main line and hitting the enemy in the sides, but in practice there's much better damage options with the likes of archers and mages. Spearmen generally get anti-large bonuses so there's no reason not to use them.

[Aleera]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Is there any situation on any race where you might want Swordsmen more? Bleakswords maybe? Saurus Warriors?

Saurus warriors over their spear variant, always. Rangers are nicer against infantry as a lineholder over spears (HE)
Stormvermin Halberds are horrible and the sword and shield variant is just better for lineholding, as weird as it seems.

But in the case of Spear skeletons over the sword variant? No, the spear variant does the job better, skeletons do not do damage (unlike say Saurus warriors) so they should be used to hold as long as possible.