"He who lives by the sword, will eventually be wiped out
by some bastard with a sawn off shotgun "

   – Steady Eddy

Swordsmanship is a bladed weapon combat skill. It is the skill required to also to profit from the lumberjacking specialization. A GM swordsman, GM lumberjack will inflict 30% more damage to his opponent. To increase the amount of damage you will deal, the anatomy skill is also a must. Considering most swordsmen do not have magery, the healing skill generally also figures in the template. However, with the Chilvalry skill which allows you to heal while wielding a weapon, it could be a good alternative to healing. Parry is the other skill every swordsman should take into consideration. Parry allows to block the blows of your ennemy and will be especially usefull against the special combat moves.

Skill	What to Fight
0	Buy Skills from NPC fighter
30	Bulls, Cows, Great Harts, Hinds
40	Skeletons
70	Earth Elementals , Air Elementals
90	Dull Copper Elemental, Rotting Corpses
100	Rotting Corpses

Note that you can GM off stone harpies, it just gets slower at higher levels. Shadow Wisps are good for resist. At higher levels Titans are also a good way to go. As well are a tinkered Golem.

The Weapons

In the table below, you will find the list of all the weapons using the swordsmanship skill. Note that for axes, you will need the lumberjacking skill as well.

One-Handed	Two-Handed	Axes
Butcher knife* Cleaver Katana Broadsword Scimitar Cutlass Viking Sword Longsword	Bardiche Halberd	Hatchet* Axe Battle Axe Double Axe Large Battle Axe Two-Handed Axe Executioner's Axe

* Butcher knifes & hatchets cannot be crafted by Blacksmiths. You need a tinker to make them.
** Underlined weapons indicate the best weapons to use according to category for maximum efficiency

In the one-handed category, the katana and the scimitar are the fastest weapons and cause a reasonable amount of damage. But if you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of speed over an increased amount of damage, the broadsword is the way to go.

In the two-handed category, the halberd is without contest the best weapon to use. It will do a tremendous amount of damage but it is extremely slow. You will also not be able to use a shield when wielding that weapon. But your parry skills will not be lost as you may still block attack (post AoS) based on your parry skills.

In the Axe category, the hatchet is the fastest but deals very little damage. It is therefore recommended for training. But for battle, any of the four underlined other axes will work pretty much equally well. Note that every single axe is a two-handed weapon.

Special Attacks

Any 2-handed weapon possesses a special attack. In Swordsmanship, it is the Concussion Blow. When you successfully deliver a concussion blow, your opponen't intelligence (hence mana) will be cut by half for 30 seconds. It is especially interesting when fighting mages or spellcasting creatures. Your chances of delivering such a blow depend on your Anatomy skills.