Yeah orc battles are mostly won by your backline's accuracy to deliver quick kills to impose a negative resolve check.
Also, prioritize the double-gripping orcs. The shieldbearing orcs are doing you a favor by discounting their damage by 25%!
And don't think about shooting berserkers at a distance unless you are 100% sure they'll die that turn.
Did anyone make a successful use of daggers? I have a guy with good stats but he's less useful than I hoped. Useless vs shields, sometimes he nukes a double-gripper in one turn but it's rare. Fatigue cost is insane too.
You can shoot berserkers and even if you do not kill them it will lower their morale(Less accuracy) and weaken them.
Daggers are kind of tricky. You need good stats and talents and traits to build good knifemaster but if you have guy like that its better to use him as 2hand heavy trooper.
I shank my first warlord in last beta update with daggerman but he isn't really useful in normal combat(I mean he is because he has great stats but he would be better if he specialized in something else - like axes).
Daggerman shank guys who your guys surround(+hit chance) and either kill them or panic them, some injuries also help a lot. Good versus living but weak vs undead. You can use overwhelm with normal attacks to debuff enemy but for that you need build him light. You can also support them with long axe shield strippers from back-line.
Mixed feeling - can be great but in limited situations. Also you can afford to mass field them.
Could be strong mixed with hammers or 2hand axes(as they strip armor fast) and fearsome guys but then you have undead who will laugh at you.
You need rather specialized company setups to make it effective. And there are undead.
Spears are either early weapon(accuracy bonus) for low level low quality soldiers or area denial weapon for specialized guys with high melee skills. Then they can make wonders against newghouls(they become serious pain late), orc youngs or direwolves, zombies and raiders.
You want to keep some. High skill = high chance to repel enemy.
Swords are early/mid weapon as they have solid damage, acc bonus and are easy to use. Sadly not effective against armor - still late you should find some rare with bonus vs armor or damage. 2handed swords are great because of multistrikes - Split and Swing are awesome and split is great to kill enemy backliners.
Maces are support weapon - stun and they tire enemy much faster. Other than that rather average.
Flails are good against specific enemies but lack consistency, still early they are great. Also headshots and armor farming.
Hammers are great as can opener. Also they are solid as a rout weapon with fearsome if used en masse. 2 hand version is really great as it stagger enemy and it let your overwhelm guys work even if low initiative.
Axes are great overall weapons. Good dmg, utility, effecitve vs armor and in any variants you want. And they have bonus dmg to crits. Normal crit(headshoot) have 150% but axes have 200%. Making steel brow neccesary for melee against orcs. Most versalite weapons.
Daggers are situational. You want them on all your melee guys for armor farming. You can use them on your ranged guys in the case if enemy break your line(so he is alone and surrounded) so easy to hit. Baiting orcs can be fun with high armor low defense daggerman - so they push to him and bam dead or routed.
Against orcs young charges.
You can get orc trophy from ambition that make wearer resist stun from orc charges.
Also the last tier tank perk grant resist from stuns and pushing by 2 turns on use.
