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So I bought a used army some time ago and a brigade box. The used army had 40 spearmen and 20 swordsmen along with some other stuff but the guy was nice enough to include all the bits. The Brigade has 40 state troops. Originally before the new book my plan was 2 big hordes, cur off the swordsmen arms and have 2 50 man halbred units. No I am considering keeping the spearmen, increasing them to 60 get some extra troops to run either a 60 strong spearhorde with 2 30 man detachments of halbreds 7 wide or bump it up to 80 Spearmen with 1-2 40 man hordes of halbreds. Then supporting these massive blocks with priest, maybe a mage and luminark or whatever it's called. I think 3 hordes where all 2 have to be 3 inches from the parent unit might be tough.

Generally the consensus seems to be that spearmen arnt all that great. Personally, I haven't used them, only swordsmen and halberdiers. Both of which I like. If you already have the 40 spearmen though I would play test them and see how they work given your play style. Since it seems you want a lot of large infantry block, spearmen wouldn't be that bad I don't think.

Ultimately, I think swordsmen are better defensively with having a parry save and a higher WS while halbadiers are more offensive by being S4 and thus having armor piercing.
Spearmen are a weird middle ground because they still have a shield and can attack in extra ranks, but are still WS3 and S3 so they have their use I think more against armies like elves and skaven, but not so much against beastmen and WoC which have lots of though enemies.

Yeah the one difference is lets say I have 300pts to work with that's 60 spearmen or 42 swordsmen, that's 18 more wounds, that is pretty damn defensive when you boost it up to 400 you are looking at 80 spearmen or 57 swordsmen, 23 wounds. Then you factor in prayers, and certain spells from support, Mindrazor, Withering, Miasma, Enfeebling Foe, Wysaans and so on and Spearmen look pretty damn good.

With the new Empire book, Spearmen are a point cheaper than Halberdiers, and two points cheaper than Swordsmen. Now, Halberdiers will still be your go to for offense, because they're Str 4 and you just plain need that to kill enemy units.

But when you're looking for more defensive units, you want to ask if the modest damage increase from halberdiers is worth the point increase, or if you'd rather have extra bodies to soak up the damage. And then if you want more ability to soak damage, you have to ask if you want to pay 2 points per model for WS 4 and a parry save.

There is no absolute, correct answer to that question. A lot will depend on how you play (if you like to use your magic to buff your troops then spearmen start to look really good) and what you're likely to face (if you opponents tend to have lots of big, attacking units with WS 4 the swordsmen look a lot better).