Buying / Finding armor dilemma

[Petresko]

Greetings!
I wanted to ask the more experienced players here what they do mid-game to get better armors past the 110 hauberks.

I have this predicament where around Day 35-40 I'd have almost all my crew decked out in Laminars / Hauberks and then get stuck at that armor tier until Day 80-100.
My only go-to solution has been accumulating wealth and buying armors from the cheapest armory on the map in stead of hunting down brigand leaders.

What do you guys do to go past this mid-game crisis?
As far as I've seen it's a common issue for a lot of people.

(I'm playing with Beasts and Barbarians expansions)

[The Duck Knight]

there are no many option to grab the VERY HEAVY armor. A good way is to just hope for the right crisis, as you can often get the real heavy armored stuff from noble war from knights, but there is no 100% chance that it will drop.
The other chances you have is to hope for good loot from camps or, as you already said: buy it when possible.

[Petresko]

Originally posted by The Duck Knight:

there are no many option to grab the VERY HEAVY armor. A good way is to just hope for the right crisis, as you can often get the real heavy armored stuff from noble war from knights, but there is no 100% chance that it will drop.
The other chances you have is to hope for good loot from camps or, as you already said: buy it when possible.

Yeah, I make sure to give everyone Student* and grind exp as fast as possible to compensate and keep ahead of the scaling, but it seems imperative that I buy armors mid-game, because of the scarce and difficult drops.

[Firerage]

First heavy armor i have is usualy famed armor. Start reading tavern rumors as soon as posible and after geting your brothers leveled a little and dressed up into raider gear start looking for those rumored camps.

[cube_eyed]

Knifing patrols of most useless to you noble house or setting noble war as first crisis helps. Other than that there is really only treasure hunting and high tier bandits.

[turtle225]

Use more Nimble bros, then you have a crisis viable team on day 40 and don't need to find or buy as much heavy armor.

[Petresko]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Use more Nimble bros, then you have a crisis viable team on day 40 and don't need to find or buy as much heavy armor.

Is Nimble viable at all?
I've used it on previous campaigns with bros that have 100+ HP and good def, but they get injured quicker and die quicker despite of Colossus being one of their perks.
Where exactly would you utilize Nimble?

[Petresko]

Originally posted by cube_eyed:

Knifing patrols of most useless to you noble house or setting noble war as first crisis helps. Other than that there is really only treasure hunting and high tier bandits.

That actually hadn't occured to me as an option, I'll give it a shot.

[Petresko]

Originally posted by Firerage:

First heavy armor i have is usualy famed armor. Start reading tavern rumors as soon as posible and after geting your brothers leveled a little and dressed up into raider gear start looking for those rumored camps.

I do check the rumors, but the rumors about the gear seem to be as rare as the gear itself and feels like a waste of money most of the time.
Do you need to check all rumors until the patrons don't have anything to say or do they tell you about the item in the first 1-2 drinks?
I've only had a lost weapon mentioned once.

[Firerage]

Originally posted by PetreskoBG:

Do you need to check all rumors until the patrons don't have anything to say or do they tell you about the item in the first 1-2 drinks?

Even the first rumor can be about famed item, so even if you dont have spare money, you can always check tavern, just in case.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by PetreskoBG:

Originally posted by turtle225:

Use more Nimble bros, then you have a crisis viable team on day 40 and don't need to find or buy as much heavy armor.

Is Nimble viable at all?
I've used it on previous campaigns with bros that have 100+ HP and good def, but they get injured quicker and die quicker despite of Colossus being one of their perks.
Where exactly would you utilize Nimble?

Nimble is arguably the best perk in the game. You can beat all of the game content with a full Nimble team.

Not that you can't or shouldn't have Forge bros, because you should.

I always recommend a mixture of Nimble and Forge bros.

[Maloney]

Its always nice to have 1 noble house (pick the one with the least good trade) hostile to you so that you can gank their house armies and the mercenaries that work for them. Both great sources of otherwise hard to get items.

[Petresko]

Originally posted by Maloney:

Its always nice to have 1 noble house (pick the one with the least good trade) hostile to you so that you can gank their house armies and the mercenaries that work for them. Both great sources of otherwise hard to get items.

Yeah, I don't know how I never thought of exploiting that 600h in.
I did this with the barbarian origin, but never occurred to me to do it with anything else.

[Fatbill]

Originally posted by PetreskoBG:

Originally posted by Maloney:

Its always nice to have 1 noble house (pick the one with the least good trade) hostile to you so that you can gank their house armies and the mercenaries that work for them. Both great sources of otherwise hard to get items.

Yeah, I don't know how I never thought of exploiting that 600h in.
I did this with the barbarian origin, but never occurred to me to do it with anything else.

It took me a while to figure out that you could manually attack trading caravans from a neutral noble house to get them to go hostile.
Also worth doing in the early game to get some cash.

[Heron]

Originally posted by PetreskoBG:

Where exactly would you utilize Nimble?

On guys with high HP and guys who don't want to afford the fatigue penalty of heavy armor. If they have high init that's a nice bonus for dodge and overwhelm.

In battle, try to engage enemies with high armor damage / penetration weapon types (hammers, maces, daggers...) with your nimble guys and leave the ones with high HP damage (cleavers, swords...) to your BF guys.

[Petresko]

Originally posted by Heron:

Originally posted by PetreskoBG:

Where exactly would you utilize Nimble?

On guys with high HP and guys who don't want to afford the fatigue penalty of heavy armor. If they have high init that's a nice bonus for dodge and overwhelm.

In battle, try to engage enemies with high armor damage / penetration weapon types (hammers, maces, daggers...) with your nimble guys and leave the ones with high HP damage (cleavers, swords...) to your BF guys.

Oh I see. Good to know!
Side question, what does this vertical bar indicate in the combat UI?
https://imgur.com/a/pUkdQ5o