imperial spears are better than stalwarts ?

[Lachanche]

i know what you think, imperial spears do exactly 0 damage.
the thing is, when can stalwarts do damage ?
when they are fighting weak units.
when do you need stalwarts or imperial spears to be tanky ?
when fighting any other unit.

and in a fight vs stronk units imperial spears are better because of the shieldbash spam and the follow commander ability.

what do you think ?

[Kairion]

Stallwarts deal decent damage against any kind of unit. Their brace allows them to be much more resistant against beging staggered from other units (not necessarily heroes, but both unit types struggle with that). Braced stallwarts absolutely mop the floor with slowchargeing pikes. In order for a units block to recover she needs to stop getting hit. Imperials struggle with that part so even if their blockpool is much deeper and they have shieldbash CC ultimately, the unit attacking them needs to die.

The cover commander ability is an upside on the imperial spears, but i think that is just a gimmick, usually their job is to protect other units, not the commander.

However, there is one scenario i prefer the imperial spears 100% - wich is shielding allied ranged units from ranged units and the odd artillery hit.

I think these two units while looking similar on the surface provide different benefits and assist different kinds of playstile.

I prefer the stallwarts as they are considerably less team dependent. But both of them are fine units in their own right.

[Arkantos]

Imp shields are useless.

[ChaosKhan]

Stalwarts are vastly superior because of a wide array of reasons.

They can brace on command and don't try to reform the line if knocked back. Instead they stand up and brace exactly where they are, making it way harder to break through their formation when compared to imp spears, that immdiately try to fill the gaps again and can be hit from behind by the ones who broke through.

Shield bash is too weak and doesn't compensate for the huge desparity in dmg. Stalwarts do overall easily 4x as much dmg as imp spears against high tier troops due to higher base stats and double hit. Shield bash can't compare at all.

Cover commander makes "transporting" imp spears easier, but that's about it. Its value as a combat formation is extremely low, because it's highly susceptible to heroic ultimates and Maul. If 2-3 heroes unload their heroics against the tightly packed cover commander formation, which they will do without a shred of doubt, imps explode instantly. Even a single maul will simply obliterate them by whirling around inside the blob for a bit.

Added to it all, Stalwarts are way stronger at repelling and surviving cav charges.

There is simply nothing that imps are better at. They are worse at dmg, worse at holding the line, worse at surviving charges, slower and have lower block stats compared to braced Stalwarts. They can heal themselves, which is nice in PvE, but Stalwarts can just nuke the AI soldiers instantly with a tortoise brace instead of taking dmg and needing to heal it up.

Imperial spears are cheaper and can fit easier into some odd 3xT4 warbands better if you don't have crafted items yet that increase leadership. That's literally the only advantage they have.