Spearmen Counters any large unit and giant unit.
Spearmen at silver tier or higher have a ranged stun spear toss which pushes foes back which is great to group enemies up for hero skills. they also have slightly longer melee range than swordsmen. they also have a decent scaling per rank. For these reasons, I find spearmen out preform swordsmen in every situation that isn’t the gold swordsmen + virion ultimate skill combo.

Spearmen do very well against Cavalry, they are literally the best counter to Cavalry. They are also very strong against any unit that is size Large or Giant, such as scorpions or mechsuits.

Counters to spearmen

Dwarf Mech suits do decent against spearmen, but the spearmen also kill mechs quickly so it’s not a strong counter. any melee normal sized unit, such as dwarf engineers and Swordsmen

Research upgrades unlock for the spearmen at academy level 1

Tier 1: Fitness Training – increase the health of spearmen units by a flat amount. This research leads to Silver Spearmen.
Tier 2: Combat Training – increases the damage of spearmen units by a flat amount. This research leads to Savage Thrusts, this ability causes all attacks dealt by the spearmen units to make the enemy take an additional 30% damage from all sources. This ability is borderline overpowered.
Tier 3: Survival Training – provides a % of damage reduction to spearmen, this research is good it helps spearmen do their job as a frontline unit which they would sometimes fail to do so in the past. This research leads to Heightened Reflexes which gives spearmen a 10% dodge chance.
Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to Gold Swordsmen
Tier 5: Convalescence – same as swordsmen, reduced heal time. Also leads to the same garrison healing time bonus, except this time it is for spearmen.
Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – more +% health, leads to bloodlust same as swordsmen, provides a 30% damage bonus during morale.
Tier 7: Garrison Training – same as swordsmen provides a bonus to health and damage for the spearmen when they are on garrison duty.
Tier 8: Training Discipline – same as swordsmen reduce the cost to produce spearmen, leads to brutal efficiency same as swordsmen where it reduces the mithril cost by 20%. Get this research.
Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – More +% damage, leads to +20% damage research, get this.
Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – more reduced healing time, leads to the same reduced heal time for garrison troops for a total of 100% reduced heal time.
Tier 11: Lethality – Increase the critical strike chance of spearmen by +%, this research leads to Heavy Blows, which increases the critical strike damage of spearmen by 40% (spearmen will deal 40% more damage on a crit)
Tier 12: Elite Fitness Training – more heal +%, leads to Regroup same as swordsmen.