Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-27860585-20160227122451/@comment-25101690-20160520085307

Usually longswords are weapons purely for 1v1 combat. Knights are trained in swordfighting, but soldiers, who are trained to fight in big battles, use almost only polearms: spears, pikes, halberds. Short swords and daggers are also good as secondary weapons, in case the formation breaks up and everyone fights on his own, because polearms are terrible for 1v1 combat.

Dwarves also have the best armour in all of ME, which makes them almost immune to arrows and swordstrokes. Polearms are the most effective weapons against heavy armour. Which is also why in real life medieval times most armies switched to these weapons, and even knights used poleaxes. With a sword your best chance would be to hold it upside down and use the hand guard like a pickaxe, but that would of course require that the sword has a long hand guard.