I know this is thread necro-ing, but I love Swordlords and want to give my 2 coppers. (also playing one in a kingmaker game)

I did go fighter, but also didn't do the sword-lord archetype. At best I felt it was mediocre, and I love armor training.

I built him to be incredibly high dex, and basically suffer through the first 5 or so levels (relying on feats and class abilities to shore up the damage.) However, while I didn't do a ton of damage, I never, NEVER missed. First level my bonus to hit was super high, here's how I did it.

20 Dex (+5) (with weapon finesse)
Weapon Focus (+1)
Masterwork Weapon (+1)
Kingmaker Campaign trait (+1)
Base Attack (+1)

That right there is a +9 at 1st level, which isn't bad I think.

So far (we're 11th level) I'm built as: Fighter 5/Swordlord 1/Duelist 5.

I'm building more on a damage path (right now sitting on a +26 to hit with a d8+20 damage with my +2 Aldori Dueling Sword)

Just wanted to share my build, know it's an old thread but I love the Swordlords :D