Armor is a key component to combat in Age Of Darkness: Final Stand. While not every unit has armor, and even some Heroes go without it, it makes an enormous difference when it’s in play. Having armored units on your side goes a long way toward stemming the tide of the Nightmare Swarm, and dealing with armored foes effectively is critical if you want to have any hope of survival.
Related
Age Of Darkness: Final Stand – 8 Beginner Tips
Keep the Nightmares at bay with these tips for Age Of Darkness.
Here, we’ll detail what armor does and doesn’t do, as well as how the Armor Shred stat should be used to impact your strategy.
How Does Armor Work In Age Of Darkness: Final Stand?
Some units and buildings have an Armor stat that protects them from damage. You can easily tell if a unit is armored by the gray shield icon next to its health bar. Lightly-armored units typically have around 10-20 Armor, while more elite units can have around 50. True heavyweights like the Sentinel or the Nightmare Crusher have Armor ratings in the hundreds.
The most important thing to know about armor is that it doesn’t matter how high the number is; as long as it’s above zero, the unit gets the full effect of its protection.
A unit with any amount of armor at all takes 70 percent less damage from all sources. That’s a huge reduction, so unless you can remove an enemy’s armor quickly and efficiently, taking them down will be much more difficult. In fact, when multiple armored enemies are grouped together during a Death Night or at a Point Of Interest, lacking any Armor Shred likely means you’re doomed to failure.
Related
Baldur’s Gate 3: Armor Class, Explained
To help you understand how an unarmored mage can have a higher AC than a Fighter in Heavy Armor.
What Is Armor Shred?
Dealing with armor requires units with the Armor Shred stat, indicated by a shield with a slash through it in their attributes. Whenever a unit attacks an armored enemy, the target’s Armor is reduced by an amount equal to the attacker’s Shred. As stated above, you need to reduce the target’s Armor to zero in order to have any tangible effect.
Shred doesn’t impact damage done to HP, nor does an attack’s base damage affect Armor. The two are completely separate.
You can see the exact status of a friendly or enemy’s armor by checking their portrait when they’re highlighted; their remaining Armor Points are listed right above their HP. At a glance, you can tell the remaining Armor of any units onscreen by looking at the grey shield next to their health bar; if it’s cracked, their armor is half gone, and if it’s blacked out, then their armor is completely destroyed.
How To Recover Lost Armor
Unlike HP, Armor doesn’t regenerate outside of combat. If your armored units have their protection broken (which is likely since most non-Crawler Nightmares have at least a little bit of Shred), move them within the radius of one of the following buildings to have it repaired:
- The Keep
- Wood Workshop
- Refined Workshop
- Siege Factory
Since these structures are expensive to build and maintain, it’s a good idea to build them near natural choke points; that way, they can repair your units’ armor during sieges and extend your overall survivability without having to fall back to the Keep.
Tips For Dealing With Armored Enemies
The best units for dealing with armored foes are Arbalests, Impalers, and Hunters. They have a high Shred and can attack from range, offering them relative safety behind the front lines. Try assigning your elite ranged units to their own hotkey so that you can command them to focus fire on Crushers and Spitters when they appear. Once their armor is removed, move the rest of the army in to finish them off.
Towers boost the Armor Shred of ranged units garrisoned within them. Ballista Towers are better overall in the late game, but this bonus is helpful for clearing the Axemen and Spearmen that usually lead Crawler patrols between the first few Death Nights.
Related
9 Best Last Stands In Video Games
There is none more courageous than these video game characters who gave their all.