Nora has a physcical armor of 3. She aquires a Sturdy Leather Armor item with a physical armor of 2.
How does this work?
Does she go to armor 5 when it is equipped?
Well I assumed it replaced whatâs on her card because the dice only goes up to 4.
Each round, you can choose what armor you use: the one on the unit card OR one of the item cards she carries. They are not combined 
So most of the armor is useless for the named characters (who generally already have armor 2 or 3)?
Yes, there is no use in carrying around armor that is worse in every regard than the basic unit armor. The Hazmat Suit, Power Armor and stuff like the Army Helmet (which adds 2 phsyical Armor) come to mind when thinking about useful armour cards for the namef characters, so they are not all useless
The Army helmet adds +2 armor, so in the case of Nora, with base Armor 3, how does that work?
When I saw your comment, I remembered the set of armored pads that adds 2 armor tokens, and assumed you must have been reading the card wrong.
Youâre not.
I have no idea how the Army Helmet works. You probably max out at 4 armor?
In hindsight, they probably shouldâve given out a lot more pieces of armor that give tokens rather than armor that flat out adds to armor values.
You can pick 1 card for your base armor values (which can be your own unit card) and one card to modify the armor values.
The Army Helmet gives Nora armor 5. This still works fine based on how the armor rules work (the max you can block is the amount rolled on the die, which maxes at 4). Basically having armor > 4 is the same as having armor 4, but gives you some buffer against armor reduction effects.
Note that you can switch out which cards youâre using for armor each activation.
This is all in the rules on page 21.
The one thing that does seem odd is the Damaged Hazmat Suit, which sets rad armor to 3, but has no values for the other armor. Are we supposed to assume they are 0? Or is this an exception that overrides only one armor value from your base unit card? Not clear.
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You can pick one card âof each card typeâ
So, once alcohol, one armor, one chem, one clothing, one power armor, one mod, etcâŚ
Havenât dug thru the cards and done the math, but I bet you can get a lot higher than 5.
Indeed, one of each card type. Thanks for the correction.
Youâll still end up rolling a one though, the dice gods are cruel when the whim takes them.
If any armor ratings are not mentioned on a card that sets armor values, they are zero. So, the Damaged Hazmat Suit is physical armor 0 and energy armor 0. In hindsight, including the zero ratings may have been more clear.
Just for clarity in case it helps: A model can use one card that sets armor values (and can switch this when activated); plus, a model can use one card of each type that alters armor values.
(Not that if wearing Power Armor, a model is still wearing their armor whilst inside, and gets to choose whether to use the Power Armorâs rating, or their own armor rating (as if not wearing the power armor), each time they need to make the armor roll. p. 45)
Itâs possible to still get benefit from armor ratings above 4 due to âarmor breakâ results on attack dice.
Remember that when you roll armor breaks, it lowers the armor stat of the target when they make their armor roll.
So if I have an armor rating of 4, and my opponent attacks me and rolls x2 armor breaks, my armor rating is actually a 2 when I roll my dice.
But if I had a base of 4, and a helmet that gives me + 2 for a total of 6 armor, then after armor breaks, 6-2 = 4 I would still be rolling with a full 4 armor.
Having armor above 4 makes it that much harder to break through it.
Yes and no it means full damage can never go through but you can always roll a one and take a beating anyway.
Iâm not great at maths but Iâm sure thereâs a break even point where stacking more armour hurts more than it helps.
Two questions about power armor interactions:
- armor boost tokens
a - âEach time a model with Armor Boost icons is hit by an attack, one Armor Boost icon is discardedâ
b - âArmor BoostâŚcannot be applied to other sources of armor for a model, such as Power Armor.â
c - âBefore a model wearing Power Armor makes an
armor roll, the player can choose to use the Armor
Ratings shown on the modelâs Power Armor card,
instead of the modelâs usual Armor Ratings.â
Do you still discard the boost token (it just has no effect) if you choose to use the armor rating from your power armor? I think the answer is yes?
- armor rating modification
a - âA modelâs Armor Ratings are derived from one card which sets their values (often their own unit card) plus up to one card of each card type that modifies those values. A model can set which cards it is using for its Armor Ratings at the start of its activation.â
b - âBefore a model wearing Power Armor makes an armor roll, the player can choose to use the Armor Ratings shown on the modelâs Power Armor card, instead of the modelâs usual Armor Ratings.â
c - âThe Armor Ratings of Power Armor cannot be increased by equipment other than Power Armor mods.â
Does b make power armor a sort of exception to a? Since it is chosen when hit, rather than at the start of activation it seems to follow different rules. C specifies that equipment canât increase the rating of power armor, but there are non-equipment cards (perk and leader, for example) that can increase armor rating. Do those increase your base/otherwise set rating, at which point you choose to use that value OR the value of power armor, or do they increase whichever you choose to use at a given time? Not exactly sure why it would only mention equipment no cards could modify, but on the other hand is seems like the idea is that power armor is supposed to just be âthis is the value you get, end of storyâ.
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HI,
- Armor boost tokens
Yes, you are right. Point a applies no matter where a model derives its armor values from so you discard one after each hit.
- Armor rating modification
Point B is because power armor is a bit different regular armor as it is a second layer. Letâs call the armor that a model wears, which is derived from their Unit card or a card that sets armor values (and then these values may be altered by up to one card of each different Item type), their âpersonal armorâ.
As Power Armor is a shell around a modelâs personal armor, the best of either of the power armorâs rating or the personal armorâs rating is selected by the player when an attack hits. The reason for this is that if the power armor is damaged and now gives less protection than the personal armor then the personal armor would still be effective.
A model must set its personal armor at the start of each activation as you canât switch your personal armor while wearing power armor during an activation in the same way you canât change it when not wearing power armor.
Point c should say that it cannot be increased by any card other than Power Armor mods (not just equipment). Thanks for highlighting that. Iâll add it to the FAQ/errata.
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Spiffy, thanks for the quick and detailed reply James!
Yes, you are right. Point a applies no matter where a model derives its armor values from so you discard one after each hit.<
Iâm still trying to wrap my head around this interpretation of how strong armor tokens work. Wouldnât this effectively make certain unit abilities worthless? The one that comes to mind is the BoS Knightâs âHardyâ ability, which gives the Knight a starting +1 strong armor token. If a BoS Knight is equipped with T-60 power armor (which seems to be the intention considering the resin model comes as a T-60 power armor unit), then the Knightâs âHardyâ ability would never be used, correct? The first time that Knight is hit, the strong armor token is lost. That Knight would choose between using his power armor (which wouldnât benefit from the Hardy strong armor token), or using his far inferior underlying armor (with a +1 strong armor bonus token). It doesnât seem like the Knight would ever choose using the underlying armor over the power armor, which would make the Hardy ability a complete waste for any power armor-equipped BoS Knight unit.
Note that this problem also arises with any Survivor units that are equipped with power armor. Survivors start with +1 strong armor token (or 2 strong armor tokens for uniques).
Is there any way of resolving this interaction between strong armor tokens and power armor that wouldnât waste the Knight and Survivor abilities as described above?
Knights arenât required in any way to take power armor, and I suspect that their special ability is mostly targeted at those cases where they choose not to take it. If they DO have power armor, you might choose to use their inferior underlying armor first to delay taking damage on their power armor (since at that point the damage goes directly against their health) in order to keep it in good shape for longer. Itâs not usually a good idea to do this, but with a strong armor token the math would sometimes work out in favor of this approach (and would be a good idea more often for a unique Survivor with two tokens)
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