What exactly do shields do?

[Nanako]

I know they protect somehow, especially from ranged attacks. But i;d like more detailed info.
In what manners exactly does a shield protect its carrier? Is a shield equivilant to X points of armor? Does it reduce incoming damage by X ? Does it give an X% chance to nullify an arrow?

As much detail as possible, and numbers if possible too

[Kapika96]

Hover over the shild icon and it will say blocks x% of small arms fire coming from the front.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

It also adds a small amount of armor, as can be seen if you hover over the 'Armor' section.

[the commando]

I should also add that units with shields generaly will have a higher melee defence.

[StarofTanuki]

block + evasive = melee defend

[LaughingMan]

Bronze Shield on the armour reduces 25% damage received from arrows and silver shield is 40-50% (cant remember the exact number

Also shield variants of units or units with shields have a higher Melee Defense rating

also Shield varients of units without shields I.e. empire spearmen without shields are cheaper then ones with for cost and upkeep

but thats about it really

Edit: also shields negating ranged attacks are directional so if your being shot in the back that x% of damage you could be negating wont take affect till you turn to face your ranged attackers

[Wyvern]

Shields are an x% chance to completely negate a small arms attack from the front(dont affect melee, explosives or artillery at all). There's 3 tiers to it, bronze, silver and gold, with bronze being most common and usually 35%, though sometimes lower(hover over the icon to see the chance, swordmasters are only 20% for example), silver is usually 55%, gold is higher than that, I don't know the exact cutoffs for everything, but the only way you get gold is through abilities/items. Otherwise, shields don't mean anything, but usually correspond to higher melee defense, higher cost, sometimes to lower charge bonus, and sometimes to higher armor, however, none of these should be considered a given just because you have a shield, and your units exact stats are shown on the card, a shielded unit with 90 armor and 30 MD doesnt have some hidden buff to those stats for example.

[No gf]

Shields:
A unit with shields will NEGATE a certain amount of small missiles taken from the front. A shield of 55% means that for every arrow comes from the front, there's a 55% chance it will doing nothing.

Pay attention to the color of the little shield on the unit's card, as a bronze shield indicates it would negates SOME of the small missiles coming from the front, while a silver shield negates MOST. Point your mouse cursor over the shield icon to know the precise % of chance of missiles your unit can negate at the front.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391251432

Armor:
Everytime a unit gets hit, the game will do a dice roll to determine how much damage the armor is going to negate. For instance, if your unit has 30 armor and he gets hit, the game will randomly roll a number between 0 and 30. The unit will then take damage equals to the damage of the attack minus the randomly rolled armor value. If the game rolls an armor value of 30 while the missile only do 20 damage, the unit takes 0 damage. If the game rolls an armor value of 10 while the missile do 20 damage, the unit then takes 10 damage from that one arrow.

How does shield and armor works:
Both mechanic combines well together. For a unit with 55% shield and 30 armor, that's means that for every arrow coming from the front, there's a 55% chance that the arrow will do nothing, while the remaining 45% of the arrows will have to go through an armor check and subject to damage deduction. This is why you don't see your tier 1 archers doing any damage against shielded chaos warrior.

[Imperialgoofygoober]

Overall they just make them beefier but slower less cheap bois good for front line while weaker units come up behind Or use them as flex seal to patch holes in ur line that’s really the only reason I use them but still if u got the money and the unit won’t be moving a lot u might as well

[Marlowe-33]

You can fry eggs on them, use them as a poop bowl, maybe even use them as a shelter from the rain, lot's of uses really.

i never go anywhere without my trusty shield.

[Slex]

They shield things

[Aenarion]

Another important point is that armour-piercing bypasses the armour but not the shield.

So for instance black orcs with 110 armour and no shield will stop the vast majority of non-AP damage from missiles, but none of the AP damage. Goblin spears with only 25 armour but carrying a shield are better protected against AP missiles.

[Smugass Braixen-Chan]

Originally posted by No gf:

Shields:
A unit with shields will NEGATE a certain amount of small missiles taken from the front. A shield of 55% means that for every arrow comes from the front, there's a 55% chance it will doing nothing.

Pay attention to the color of the little shield on the unit's card, as a bronze shield indicates it would negates SOME of the small missiles coming from the front, while a silver shield negates MOST. Point your mouse cursor over the shield icon to know the precise % of chance of missiles your unit can negate at the front.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391251432

Armor:
Everytime a unit gets hit, the game will do a dice roll to determine how much damage the armor is going to negate. For instance, if your unit has 30 armor and he gets hit, the game will randomly roll a number between 0 and 30. The unit will then take damage equals to the damage of the attack minus the randomly rolled armor value. If the game rolls an armor value of 30 while the missile only do 20 damage, the unit takes 0 damage. If the game rolls an armor value of 10 while the missile do 20 damage, the unit then takes 10 damage from that one arrow.

How does shield and armor works:
Both mechanic combines well together. For a unit with 55% shield and 30 armor, that's means that for every arrow coming from the front, there's a 55% chance that the arrow will do nothing, while the remaining 45% of the arrows will have to go through an armor check and subject to damage deduction. This is why you don't see your tier 1 archers doing any damage against shielded chaos warrior.

Where did you get this information? Normally (In this game, and every other Total War game) they just throw a bunch of numbers at you without actually explaining the mechanics behind the stats, other than vague stating-the-obvious like saying "Damage determines how much damage you deal"

[Songbird]

Originally posted by Smugass Braixen-Chan:

Originally posted by No gf:

Shields:
A unit with shields will NEGATE a certain amount of small missiles taken from the front. A shield of 55% means that for every arrow comes from the front, there's a 55% chance it will doing nothing.

Pay attention to the color of the little shield on the unit's card, as a bronze shield indicates it would negates SOME of the small missiles coming from the front, while a silver shield negates MOST. Point your mouse cursor over the shield icon to know the precise % of chance of missiles your unit can negate at the front.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391251432

Armor:
Everytime a unit gets hit, the game will do a dice roll to determine how much damage the armor is going to negate. For instance, if your unit has 30 armor and he gets hit, the game will randomly roll a number between 0 and 30. The unit will then take damage equals to the damage of the attack minus the randomly rolled armor value. If the game rolls an armor value of 30 while the missile only do 20 damage, the unit takes 0 damage. If the game rolls an armor value of 10 while the missile do 20 damage, the unit then takes 10 damage from that one arrow.

How does shield and armor works:
Both mechanic combines well together. For a unit with 55% shield and 30 armor, that's means that for every arrow coming from the front, there's a 55% chance that the arrow will do nothing, while the remaining 45% of the arrows will have to go through an armor check and subject to damage deduction. This is why you don't see your tier 1 archers doing any damage against shielded chaos warrior.

Where did you get this information? Normally (In this game, and every other Total War game) they just throw a bunch of numbers at you without actually explaining the mechanics behind the stats, other than vague stating-the-obvious like saying "Damage determines how much damage you deal"

Google it, CA_Duck explained the mechanics in a twitch live stream. There is also a huge thread on reddit about mechanics as well as on the official forums.

[Wyvern]

THat's not how armor works though. It's been discussed multiple times, armor is a % damage reduction that ranges from 50% of total armor value to 100%. A unit with 30 armor blocks 15-30% of incoming non-AP damage, averaging out to 22.5%.

As for how you can get this info, it's been explained before, and some of its been figured out by people rooting through stats and doing testing. Some values have also changed between WH1 and 2, for example base chance to hit has gone from 45->35% iirc.

[zefyris]

Yeah, the explanation of armour was incorect, as Wyvern pointed it out, it's 50%-100% of that armour number (capped at 100 obviously) and not 0%-100%.

A 140 armour steggadon will negate 70 to 100% of any non Ap damage he receives. A 30 armour spearman will negate between 15% and 30% of non AP damage he receives, and so on.
This means that technically, if you had 200 armour (somehow), non AP damage would not be able to harm you at all since if would be 100%-100% damage reduction.

Originally posted by Wyvern:

Some values have also changed between WH1 and 2, for example base chance to hit has gone from 45->35% iirc.

I think it was 40% in the first game rather than 45, but may be remembering that wrong.