The vampire counts skeletons can carry spears for free.
What would be the benefit for not carrying spears?
Just seems weird to me. I don't see any reason to not carry them.
The vampire counts skeletons can carry spears for free.
What would be the benefit for not carrying spears?
Just seems weird to me. I don't see any reason to not carry them.
By default the skeletons come armed with light armour, a hand weapon, and a shield.
The combination of hand weapon and shield gives you an additional 6+ Parry Save (8th Ed rulebook, pg 88), which you may make against close combat attacks. They have a 5+ Armour Save and 6+ Ward save.
If you give them spears they lose this extra Parry Save, instead gaining Fight in Extra Rank. They have just the 5+ Armour Save.
So a unit with hand weapons and shields will live longer in close combat, which is useful if they are only expected to tie up enemies or as a bodyguard unit for a necromancer. While a unit with spears and sheilds will have up to twice as many attacks but weaker saves, so they will die faster but might do more damage.
A model with Hand Weapon and Shield can use the 'Parry' special rule to get a ward save. A model with a spear cannot. Since skeletons are weak and have poor weapon skill anyway, it may be beneficial to have better survivability rather than a few more attacks that are unlikely to hurt anything, depending on what role you see the unit filling in your army.