Bannerlord Best Armor: Top Pick for Every Slot and Where to Buy It (War Sails, v1.4.8)

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

The best armor in Bannerlord is spread across the whole map, because every town mostly sells armor of its own culture and rolls that stock at random. The strongest helmet you can buy sits in the Nord towns once War Sails is installed, the body armor with the highest total is Khuzait, the best boots are Battanian and the best horse armor is Imperial.

Most of the pieces you really want are also rare. Town workshops turn out cheap gear far more often than top-tier pieces, Legendary copies tend to vanish from the shelves within a couple of weeks, and a lot of the armor numbers you will find online are still from 2022.

Every armor value, weight and drop chance in this guide is taken from the v1.4.8 game files with War Sails 1.2.8 installed, and I will point out where the base game without the DLC is different.

If you just want the quick answer, these are the best pieces you can buy for each slot:

  • Closed Huscarl Helmet for your head, with 55 head armor, sold in Nord towns with War Sails and in Sturgian towns without it
  • Khan’s Coat of Plates for your body, with the highest total of any body armor, sold only in Khuzait towns
  • Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk instead, if you want the highest chest value (57), sold in Imperial towns
  • Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape for the cape slot, or the Vlandian Reinforced Ornate Pauldrons over Scale if you play without War Sails
  • Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens (Nord) or Mail Mittens with Plate Guard (Sturgia) for your arms, both with 28 arm armor
  • Scaled Boots from Battania for your legs, with 26 leg armor
  • Cataphract Scale Barding for your horse, with 75 armor, sold in Imperial towns

With a Legendary modifier the picture changes a little bit, and the Closed Decorated Goggled Helmet becomes the best helmet in the game at 66. Below, I am going to go through every slot in more detail, then the best full sets, where you will actually find all of it and how armor works once the arrows start flying.

Best body armor

Khan’s Coat of Plates is the best body armor in Bannerlord if you look at the total. It gives 46 body, 23 arm and 26 leg armor, which adds up to 95 and beats every other piece you can buy, and a Legendary copy will reach 58/35/38. The high arm and leg values matter more than they seem at first, because the arm and leg armor of a body piece is added on top of whatever your gloves and boots give you.

That being said, it is heavy and expensive. Khan’s Coat weighs 26.5 kg and has a base value of about 570,000 denars before any modifier, and what a town actually charges you will vary with its market.

You will also only find it in the six Khuzait towns, and no regular troop wears it. Khan’s Guards go into battle in the Bronze Lamellar over Mail, and you will not be able to farm a Khan’s Coat from them.

If you care most about the chest itself, Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk has the highest body value in the game at 57, or 69 as Legendary. Its total of 93 is only two points behind Khan’s Coat, and it weighs about 5 kg less at 21.4 kg. This is the armor the Imperial Elite Cataphracts wear, and you will find it in Imperial towns for a base value of about 330,000 denars.

I would say the Heavy Scale is the better target for most campaigns. It costs a lot less, it is lighter, and the Empire has 19 towns where it can appear, against six Khuzait ones.

For reference, no unmodded body armor reaches 80 body armor, and screenshots that show it come from armor mods.

Light body armor

If weight matters to you, the Sturgian Decorated Hauberk is the standout. It has 42 body, 26 arm and 26 leg armor, 94 in total, at only 14.5 kg. That is a higher total than the Heavy Scale for about two thirds of the weight, although your chest will get 15 points less. The Reinforced Mail Shirt, also Sturgian, goes even lighter. It gives 40/20/20 at 10.7 kg, the most armor per kilo of any body piece you can buy with 40 or more body armor.

Nord armor from War Sails

War Sails added the Heavy Mastercrafted Northern Armor, the armor of the Nord king. It gives 55 body, 18 arm and 20 leg armor at 26 kg, and unlike the crowns it is an item that shops can sell, although it will be a rare roll in the four Nord towns like every T6 body piece. Mind that “Mastercrafted” is part of its name and has nothing to do with modifiers. A Legendary Heavy Mastercrafted Northern Armor can exist as well (67/30/32).

The Nordic Heavy Mail Armor is another big Nord body piece, with 42/20/20 at 22 kg. High-tier Nord armor was buffed in patch 1.3.6, which is probably why it costs more than it used to, but it is still for sale and it can still roll Legendary. Patch 1.4 then added two more Nord body armors, the Reinforced Mail Coat and the Nordic Long Heavy Mail, together with nine Nord helmets, and all of them are sold only in the four Nord towns. The Nords guide has more on their troops and their gear.

Body armorCulture (sold in)Body / Arms / LegsTotalWeight (kg)
Khan’s Coat of PlatesKhuzait46 / 23 / 269526.5
Decorated HauberkSturgia42 / 26 / 269414.5
Heavy Scale Armor over Mail HauberkEmpire57 / 16 / 209321.4
Heavy Mastercrafted Northern ArmorNord (War Sails)55 / 18 / 209326.0
Mastercrafted Southern Scale over Chain HauberkAserai51 / 16 / 259228.0
Lamellar with Scale SkirtEmpire52 / 16 / 239124.1
Heavy Lamellar over HauberkSturgia50 / 15 / 259028.0
Brigandine over HauberkVlandia51 / 19 / 188828.6
Armor values without modifiers, ranked by total armor. Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk has the best chest value, and a Legendary Khan’s Coat of Plates reaches 58 / 35 / 38.

Best helmets

The Closed Huscarl Helmet is the best helmet you can buy, with 55 head armor at 4.4 kg and a base value of about 220,000 denars. Without the DLC it is a Sturgian helmet. War Sails turned it and six other Sturgian helmets into Nord gear, and with the DLC installed you will only find it in the four Nord towns: Hvalvik, Gretysfjord, Thronderlag and Hargard.

Sturgia still has the next best ones. The Warlord Helmet over Full Mail has 54, and so does the Closed Decorated Goggled Helmet. The Closed Warlord Helmet and the Plated Warlord Helmet follow at 53, together with the Battanian Warlord Helmet, which only weighs 3.1 kg and is the lightest of the top helmets.

Once modifiers come into play, the order shifts, because a helmet’s modifier group (plate, mail, leather or cloth) decides how much a modifier will add. Plate helmets get +12 from Legendary, mail helmets only +9. The Closed Decorated Goggled Helmet is plate, which makes a Legendary one the strongest helmet in the game at 66, ahead of a Legendary Closed Huscarl Helmet at 64.

The three Warlord helmets with 53 are plate as well and will reach 65. The Imperial Goggled Cataphract Helmet, the helmet of the Elite Cataphracts, is a mail helmet with 52, and a Legendary copy stops at 61.

The crowns and the Imperial Plumed Helmet are a different story. No shop sells them and they never drop as loot. The few you can get will come through tournaments or your own family (both are covered further down).

HelmetCulture (sold in)Head armorLegendaryWeight (kg)Material (Legendary bonus)
Closed Huscarl HelmetNord (War Sails), Sturgia without DLC55644.4Chain (+9)
Closed Decorated Goggled HelmetSturgia54663.8Plate (+12)
Warlord Helmet over Full MailSturgia54633.8Chain (+9)
Warlord HelmetBattania53653.1Plate (+12)
Closed Warlord HelmetSturgia53653.8Plate (+12)
Plated Warlord HelmetSturgia53653.8Plate (+12)
Visored Helmet over Mail CoifVlandia52643.6Plate (+12)
Plated Helmet with SideguardsVlandia52643.9Plate (+12)
Closed Steel CapAserai52613.2Chain (+9)
Goggled Cataphract HelmetEmpire52613.2Chain (+9)
Reinforced Closed Goggled HelmetSturgia52613.2Chain (+9)
Buyable helmets ranked by head armor. Legendary adds 12 to plate helmets but only 9 to chain ones, so a Legendary Closed Decorated Goggled Helmet (66) beats a Legendary Closed Huscarl Helmet (64).

Best capes

The cape slot holds every kind of shoulder armor, from fur cloaks to plate pauldrons. A cape’s body armor is added to your torso and its arm armor to your arms, and hits on your shoulders count against the torso value. As such, a good cape is a cheap way to raise two zones at once.

With War Sails, the Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape is the best cape you can buy. It gives 19 body and 10 arm armor at only 2.3 kg, and it is the only T5 cape you will ever see in a shop (every other cape you can buy is T4 or lower). It is a Nord piece and one of the more common top-tier rolls in Nord towns, and its base value is only about 29,000 denars.

Without the DLC, or if you are hunting for a Legendary, look at the Vlandian Reinforced Ornate Pauldrons over Scale. A plain pair gives 15 body and 12 arm armor at a heavy 11.4 kg. They are plate, though, and a Legendary pair will reach 27/24, which makes it the best cape in the game with a modifier.

Older guides list these pauldrons at 22/12 and under 3 kg, but shoulder armor has been rebalanced since then.

A few other capes are worth a look:

  • Scale Shoulderguards from Vlandia give 16/8 at only 1.7 kg, and a Legendary pair reaches 28/20, which is hard to beat for the weight.
  • The Nord Berserker Cloak gives 20/5 at 3.8 kg for a base value of about 10,000 denars, which makes it a good mid-game pick.
  • The Battanian Heavy Warlord Pauldrons (10/14) and the Khuzait Lamellar Shoulder Pieces (12/12) give a lot of arm armor, but you are going to carry 8 and 9 kg for them.

Beware that two items share the name Blackened Cape. The one with 36 body and 12 arm armor belongs to the Blackened set from the War Sails story quest, and you cannot buy it. The Blackened Cape in shops is a different item with 4 body and 2 arm armor, and any town can sell it together with a matching hood, armor and boots that are just as weak.

Gloves and boots

Gloves

Two pairs of gloves share the top spot at 28 arm armor: the Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens from War Sails and the Mail Mittens with Plate Guard from Sturgia. Both are mail, both weigh 1.7 kg and both will reach 37 as Legendary. The Battanian Scale Warlord Bracers only have 25, but they are plate, which brings a Legendary pair to 37 as well at a slightly lower 1.5 kg.

All of the top gloves are T4, because no gloves in the game go higher, and they are cheap next to helmets and body armor. The Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens have a base value of about 16,000 denars, and the Mail Mittens with Plate Guard are a common sight in Sturgian shops. If you play without War Sails, the Sturgian pair is the one to get.

Boots

Scaled Boots from Battania are the best boots by a clear margin. They give 26 leg armor at 2.6 kg, and since they are plate they will reach 34 as Lordly and 38 as Legendary. The Vlandian Strapped Mail Chausses follow at 23, then three pairs at 22: the Nord Majestic Iron Boots from War Sails (only 2 kg), the Imperial Splint Boots and the Vlandian Mail Chausses. If you want something light, the Khuzait Reinforced Suede Boots give you 20 leg armor at only 1 kg.

Scaled Boots have a base value of under 8,000 denars and make up a big share of the T4 armor in Battanian shops. They are probably one of the easiest best-in-slot pieces to pick up early.

Horse barding

Cataphract Scale Barding is the best barding you can buy, with 75 armor. It weighs 135 kg, and you will find it in Imperial towns for a base value of about 118,000 denars. It also turns up far more often than top body armor, and it makes up close to 8% of the top-tier horse gear an Imperial town produces.

The smart middle ground is the Cataphract Half Scale Barding. It gives 60 armor at 80 kg instead of 135, and Imperial towns turn it out more than four times as often as the full Cataphract Scale Barding.

The Vlandian Half Mail Barding, with 52 armor at 65 kg, gives the most armor per kilo of any barding you can buy. The Aserai Reinforced Plate Barding with 68 and the Vlandian Reinforced Chainmail Barding with 64 sit between the two Imperial pieces, and the Chain Mail Horse Armor with 55 is the only heavy barding every town can sell, because it has no culture.

Barding follows a few rules of its own:

  • One armor value covers the whole horse, from head to legs, whatever the model looks like. Half barding is simply a lower number on a lighter piece.
  • Barding never rolls a modifier. There is no Lordly or Legendary barding, and 75 is as high as it will get in a shop.
  • Barding does not lower your horse’s top speed or handling, no matter how heavy it is. Heavy barding can make the horse slower to get going, though.
  • Even a cheap saddle is better than nothing. Riding with no harness at all will cost your horse up to 10% speed and maneuver.
  • The Riding perk Tough Steed adds 20% to your horse’s armor.

You may come across Fortunas Choice (77) and the Saddle of Aeneas (76) in barding lists. Both are in the game’s item list, but they are not obtainable through shops or loot in a campaign. The Battanian bardings are also a lot weaker than in early versions of the game. Patch e1.7.0 cut the Half Scaled Barding to 40 armor and the Scale Barding to 50, and they have stayed there.

For the horse itself, have a look at my guide to the best war mounts in Bannerlord.

BardingCulture (sold in)Horse armorWeight (kg)
Cataphract Scale BardingEmpire75135
Reinforced Plate BardingAserai68145
Reinforced Chainmail BardingVlandia64130
Cataphract Half Scale BardingEmpire6080
Reinforced Half Plate BardingAserai5890
Chain Mail Horse ArmorEvery town (no culture)55120
Half Mail BardingVlandia5265
Lamellar BardingKhuzait5285
Barding never gets modifiers, so there is no Fine, Lordly or Legendary horse armor. One armor value covers the whole horse. Fortunas Choice and Saddle of Aeneas rate higher but are not obtainable through shops or loot.

Best armor sets

The set totals in this section add up your four armor zones (head, torso, arms and legs). Remember that a body piece also covers your arms and legs, and a cape adds to your torso and arms.

Endgame set

The highest total you can buy without a modifier is 233. You will get it with the Closed Huscarl Helmet, Khan’s Coat of Plates, the Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape, the Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens and Scaled Boots, which gives you 55 head, 65 torso, 61 arm and 52 leg armor at 37.5 kg. The base value of that set is about 840,000 denars, and you are going to have to shop in Nord, Khuzait and Battanian towns to complete it.

If you swap Khan’s Coat for the Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk, you will lose two points in total, but your torso goes from 65 to 76, the set gets 5.1 kg lighter and its base value drops to about 600,000 denars. Without War Sails, the Closed Huscarl Helmet is Sturgian again, and the best set uses the Reinforced Ornate Pauldrons over Scale and the Mail Mittens with Plate Guard instead of the Nord pieces. That set ends at 231, but at 46.6 kg.

All Legendary set

Once you go hunting for Legendary pieces, the best set looks different. A Closed Decorated Goggled Helmet, Khan’s Coat of Plates, Reinforced Ornate Pauldrons over Scale, Scale Warlord Bracers and Scaled Boots, all of them Legendary, will add up to 323 at 45.8 kg, and none of these pieces need War Sails. The pauldrons alone weigh 11.4 kg of that. Legendary Scale Shoulderguards in their place will cost you only 3 points and save almost 10 kg.

Budget set for the mid-game

Top armor costs a fortune, but the step below it is cheap. A set of T4 pieces that are common in shops will get you to 162: the Imperial Roundkettle over Mail with 34 head armor, the Aserai Leather Strips over Padded Robe, the Berserker Cloak, the Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens and Scaled Boots. It weighs 16.4 kg and has a base value of about 56,000 denars, which is 70% of the endgame total for less than 7% of its base value. Without War Sails, the Mail Mittens with Plate Guard and the Scale Shoulderguards will do the same job.

Light set

Your own armor weight has no effect on your horse, which means a light set is really for fighting on foot. That also covers horse archers in sieges or after their horse goes down. Up to 20 kg, the best mix is the Battanian Warlord Helmet, the Sturgian Reinforced Mail Shirt, the Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape, the Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens and the Majestic Iron Boots. That set adds up to 212 at 19.8 kg, which is 91% of the endgame total at about half the weight. If you want to go even lighter, a set under 12 kg still reaches 172 with a Heavy Aketon in place of the mail shirt and Scaled Boots on your legs.

SetHelmet + bodyCape, gloves, bootsHead / Torso / Arms / Legs = totalWeight (kg)
Endgame, no modifiersClosed Huscarl Helmet + Khan’s Coat of PlatesRaider Fur Cape, Northern Mail Mittens, Scaled Boots55 / 65 / 61 / 52 = 23337.5
All LegendaryClosed Decorated Goggled Helmet + Khan’s Coat of PlatesOrnate Pauldrons over Scale, Warlord Bracers, Scaled Boots66 / 85 / 96 / 76 = 32345.8
Budget (T4, each under 20,000 base value)Roundkettle over Mail (34) + Leather Strips over Padded RobeBerserker Cloak, Northern Mail Mittens, Scaled Boots34 / 56 / 40 / 32 = 16216.4
Light (up to 12 kg)Warlord Helmet (Battania) + Heavy AketonRaider Fur Cape, Northern Mail Mittens, Scaled Boots53 / 37 / 47 / 35 = 17211.7
Light-heavy (up to 20 kg)Warlord Helmet (Battania) + Reinforced Mail ShirtRaider Fur Cape, Northern Mail Mittens, Majestic Iron Boots53 / 59 / 58 / 42 = 21219.8
Each zone adds up all five pieces (a cape counts for torso and arms). Raider Fur Cape is short for Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape, Northern Mail Mittens for Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens, Ornate Pauldrons over Scale for Reinforced Ornate Pauldrons over Scale and Warlord Bracers for Scale Warlord Bracers. With Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk instead of Khan’s Coat, the endgame set has 76 torso and 231 total at 32.4 kg.

Best set per culture

If you want a matching look, or you simply play inside one kingdom, every culture can put together a full set from its own towns plus a few culture-free pieces. The Nords come out on top with 227, thanks to the Closed Huscarl Helmet and their War Sails gear. The Sturgian set is the lightest at 26.9 kg, mostly because of the Decorated Hauberk, and the Aserai set ends last at 207.

Culture (towns)HelmetBody (body/arm/leg)GlovesBoots
Empire (19 towns)Goggled Cataphract Helmet 52Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk 57/16/20Lamellar Plate Gauntlets 23Splint Boots 22
Vlandia (8 towns)Visored Helmet over Mail Coif 52Brigandine over Hauberk 51/19/18Heavy Mail Mittens 24Strapped Mail Chausses 23
Sturgia (7 towns)Warlord Helmet over Full Mail 54Heavy Lamellar over Mail 51/16/16Mail Mittens with Plate Guard 28Plate Reinforced Boots 18
Nord (4 towns, War Sails only)Closed Huscarl Helmet 55Heavy Mastercrafted Northern Armor 55/18/20Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens 28Majestic Iron Boots 22
Battania (5 towns)Warlord Helmet 53Luxury Brigandine 53/10/18Scale Warlord Bracers 25Scaled Boots 26
Khuzait (6 towns)Heavy Lancer Helmet 51Khan’s Coat of Plates 46/23/26Mail Mittens with Bronze Plate 26Reinforced Suede Boots 20
Aserai (8 towns)Closed Steel Cap 52Mastercrafted Southern Scale over Chain Hauberk 51/16/25Wrapped Mail Mittens 21Gilded Raider Boots 18 (War Sails)
Best piece per slot that each culture sells (body = highest chest value). The culture sets in the text use the Decorated Hauberk (94 total) for Sturgia and the Highborn Mail Armor (82 total) for Battania, plus a cape. Without War Sails there is no Nord row and the Closed Huscarl Helmet (55) is Sturgian.

Where to buy armor

A town’s workshops only make armor of the town’s own culture plus a handful of culture-free pieces. The Empire sells the highest body-armor piece and has the most towns to check, Sturgian towns turn out pieces with 50 or more body armor more often than any other culture, and only Khuzait towns sell Khan’s Coat of Plates. Additionally, caravans do not carry armor, and a town’s stock is whatever its own workshops make plus whatever gets sold there.

Chart of where the best armor in Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord comes from: town shops, your own smithy, Legendary and Lordly odds, battle loot, tournaments and items that are never sold (v1.4.8, War Sails)
Where top armor comes from in v1.4.8 with War Sails. Shop rates assume the town has iron in its market.

How shops get their armor

Every town has a hidden artisans’ workshop that turns iron from the market into armor. On average it will make roughly one top-tier piece (T5 or T6) every 13 days, as long as there is iron to work with. Each Smithy in the town will add another one roughly every 10 days, and a single smithy more than doubles the town’s output of top armor. A production cycle that finds no iron in the market is simply lost.

What keeps the best pieces rare is how the game picks them. T5 and T6 armor share one shop category, and inside that category cheap items get picked far more often than expensive ones. Most top-tier rolls will end up as T5 pieces and the cheaper T6 gear, and a specific piece like the Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk can take many in-game years to show up in any one town.

Across all 19 Imperial towns, of course, it turns up a lot more often than that.

A few more things decide what you will find on the shelves:

  • Shops do not reset. A plain piece will stay for sale until someone buys it, and stock builds up over a long campaign.
  • Fine, Lordly and Legendary pieces are different. Each day there is a 1-in-20 chance that one of them disappears, and half of them will be gone within two weeks. If you see a Legendary piece you want, buy it now.
  • Clan tier and character level do not change what a shop sells.
  • Iron is the one hard requirement. A town needs iron in its market, and the number of smithies decides how often a top piece gets made. Waiting for a town’s prosperity to grow will not do much if it has no iron and no smithy.
  • Armor made by your own smithy goes on sale in the town market. It never lands in your warehouse, and you will still have to buy it like any other customer.

Buying top armor step by step

  • Pick the culture that makes the piece you want and check every town of that culture whenever you pass by.
  • Buy a workshop in a town of that culture, turn it into a Smithy, set it to take its inputs from the warehouse and make sure to keep iron in that warehouse. Each smithy eats almost 6 iron a day, and in a town with little iron several smithies will starve each other.
  • Keep the town loyal. The workshops of a rebellious town stop producing altogether.
  • The Steward perk Sweatshops gives your own workshops +20%, and the Warehouse town project adds up to another 15%.
  • Bring money. Plain top body armor has a base value of about 265,000 to 570,000 denars, top helmets about 125,000 to 245,000, and the best gloves, boots and capes only about 3,500 to 29,000. Legendary costs 1.8 times as much as the plain piece, Lordly 1.5 times.

If you have not bought any workshops yet, the best workshops in Bannerlord guide goes through them in more detail.

Armor modifiers

Legendary is the best armor modifier in Bannerlord, followed by Lordly and then Fine. How much each one adds depends on the material group of the piece. Plate gets +12 from Legendary, +8 from Lordly and +4 from Fine, and mail gets +9, +6 and +3. Leather gets +7 from Legendary but has no Lordly version (its +5 tier is called Fine), and cloth will get +5 at most.

The bonus is added to every armor value the piece has. A Legendary Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk gets +12 body, +12 arm and +12 leg, which turns 57/16/20 into 69/28/32, while a value of 0 stays at 0.

Lordly exists only for plate and mail. There are also no Reinforced, Thick, Hardened or Masterwork armor modifiers in the game. “Reinforced” and “Mastercrafted” are parts of item names, and Masterwork is a weapon modifier and the internal quality tag of Lordly, which is why some old lists use that word.

A plate or mail piece made in a town workshop will come out Legendary about 4.7% of the time, Lordly about 9% and Fine 14%. Battle loot is worse, with Legendary at 2%, Lordly at 4.9% and Fine at 9.8%, and almost 40% of looted armor comes out Rusty, Dented or another bad version.

Material groupTop tierSecond tierThird tierBad tiers
PlateLegendary +12Lordly +8Fine +4Dented -4, Rusty -6
Chain (mail)Legendary +9Lordly +6Fine +3Loose -6, Rusty -8
LeatherLegendary +7Fine +5Waxed +3Worn -2, Battered -3
ClothLegendary +5Fine +3Tailored +1Worn -1, Ripped -2
Price vs base valuex1.8x1.5x1.2x0.6, x0.3
Odds, made in a town shop4.67%9.35%14.02%0.93% each
Odds, battle loot1.96%4.9%9.8%14.71%, 24.51%
The bonus lands on every armor value the piece has, so a Legendary body armor gets it on body, arms and legs. Lordly exists only for plate and chain. A shop piece comes out plain 70.09% of the time, a looted one 44.12%. Light clothing in the unarmoured cloth group gets at most +3. Barding never rolls a modifier.

A good modifier can beat a higher tier. Legendary Scale Shoulderguards with 28/20 will easily beat a plain Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape with 19/10, even though they are a T4 piece that costs a fraction of the price. In general, compare the numbers and ignore the tier badge. Modified pieces also carry the modifier in front of their name, which makes them easy to spot if you sort a shop or your loot by name.

Other ways to get armor

Battle loot

Loot follows what the beaten troops wear. Fight Imperial Elite Cataphracts and you can loot their Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk, fight Banner Knights and you can get their Brigandine over Hauberk, the best Vlandian body armor. Nord Huscarls wear the Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens and usually the Closed Huscarl Helmet and the Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape, and Sturgian Heroic Line Breakers wear the Decorated Hauberk.

The odds on the expensive pieces are low, which makes big battles against elite armies the best place to try your luck.

Roguery will not improve what comes off the bodies. It only raises your share of the beaten party’s baggage, the items they were carrying. The Engineering perk Metallurgy helps a little bit with bad loot, since looted pieces with a negative modifier (Rusty, Dented and so on) have a 30% chance to become plain. It never turns them into Fine or Lordly pieces, though. You will find more on Metallurgy and the other perks mentioned here in the Bannerlord perks guide.

Lords

Lords you knock out in a battle you win are looted like any other soldier. You can get a copy of something they wear while the lord keeps his own, but the odds on their best piece are well under 1%, and a crown will never drop. Lords spawn with plain gear, and any Lordly or Legendary tag on such a drop is down to the loot roll.

Tournaments

Tournaments are a great source of free armor, as long as the town is busy. Once four or more heroes are in a tournament (you and your companions count), the prize will come from a special list of noble horses, named weapons and some of the best helmets in the game, such as the Closed Warlord Helmet with 53. That list even has the Crowned Helmet, which no shop sells. With ten or more heroes you will get the pricier half of the list, while fewer than four heroes means a cheap item with a base value of 1,600 to 5,000 denars.

Bringing your companions along is the easiest way to push the count up. Tournament prizes are always plain, and if one of the named weapons catches your eye, the list of the best weapons in Bannerlord shows which ones are worth carrying.

Family and companions

The crowned helmets you can actually get will come through your family. Imperial sons can come of age wearing the Jeweled Plumed Battle Crown, Vlandian heirs the Crowned Plate Helmet or the Crowned Helmet, and Battanian heirs the Highland Crowned Helmet. None of these crowns ever comes in a Lordly or Legendary version. The Imperial Plumed Helmet is worn only by the ruler of the Western Empire, and no shop, battle or coming of age will give it to you in an unmodded game.

A companion you make a vassal keeps his gear, except in the slots where his new noble kit has a higher-tier item, which get swapped. Smithing, on the other hand, cannot make armor at all, and the smithing guide is only going to help you with weapons.

How armor works in combat

Armor in Bannerlord never removes a fixed percentage of damage. It works in two steps: first it scales the whole blow down (to half at 50 armor), and then it takes off a chunk of damage for every point of armor. Part of every blow skips that second step. For cuts that part is small, for thrusts and arrows it is a quarter, and for blunt weapons it is more than half.

Armor therefore works best against cutting blows, a bit worse against piercing and worst against blunt weapons. At 50 armor, a strong hit will keep about 28% of its damage if it is a cut, 38% if it is a thrust or an arrow and 46% if it is blunt. Weak cuts against 55 or more armor will do almost nothing, while maces, hammers and stones will still hurt you in the best armor in the game.

Hit of strength 1000 armor20 armor40 armor55 armor65 armor
Cut (sword and axe swings)10063382315
Pierce (thrusts, arrows, bolts)10067463528
Blunt (maces, hammers)10070534439
Damage dealt by one torso hit on Realistic damage. Strength is the blow after speed, roughly the weapon’s listed damage on a clean hit. Head hits take x1.2 from melee cuts and x2 from arrows.

Where you get hit matters too. Blows to the head deal 20% more damage, or 25% more for melee thrusts, and arrows and bolts to the head deal double. Hits to the legs deal 20% less.

Around 60 body armor, a typical arrow will only do about a fifth of its damage. On the Realistic setting that is still 10 to 30 damage per hit, and a headshot will hurt a lot more.

If arrows feel like mosquito bites in your campaign, the Player Received Damage option (in the gameplay settings) is part of the reason. Its easier settings reduce the damage you take a lot, and together with heavy armor they will make your character very hard to kill.

A few perks and details change the numbers:

  • Only one perk raises your own armor, which is Ignore Pain from Athletics. It gives you +10% on all zones while you are on foot.
  • As a captain, Ignore Pain gives your foot troops +5 armor per body zone, Dauntless Steed does the same for mounted troops and Metallurgy for all troops. None of them will ever buff you yourself.
  • A shield slung on your back adds 10 armor against blows that hit it.
  • Slings only ignore armor on headshots, and only with the Throwing perk Slinging Competitions. Your armor reduces every other sling hit as normal.

Does armor weight slow you down?

On foot, yes. Every kilo of armor will lower your top running speed. A 30 kg kit will cost you about 9% at Athletics 100, and a 50 kg kit about 15%. At Athletics 0 the same kits cost about 11% and 18%.

Athletics shrinks the penalty as it rises (up to 30% at skill 300), and the skill does this by itself without any perk. The Athletics perk Form Fitting Armor also counts your armor as 15% lighter.

Weight does not touch your swing speed or your damage, there is no stamina system in Bannerlord, and your acceleration will only drop slightly once you go past about 20 kg of total gear. You will also move a little bit slower with a weapon drawn when you carry a lot.

On horseback, your own armor weight will not slow your horse at all. Mount speed and handling depend only on the horse, its harness, your Riding skill and perks, banners, the weather and the time of day. A cavalry player can therefore wear the heaviest armor in the game for free, at least until the horse goes down.

War Sails adds one more case. Your own character will never drown while swimming on the surface, and only diving uses up breath. Your troops are a different matter. Any troop with more than 10 body armor loses 10 of its roughly 60 seconds of swim time, while the Old Salt’s Touch perk on their captain adds 30% in naval battles.

Mistakes in older armor lists

Most armor lists name the right top pieces, but a lot of their numbers are out of date or belong to a different item. You will run into these most often:

  • Google’s AI summary names a “Berserker Reinforced Cloak” as the best helmet. That item has since been renamed to Berserker Reinforced Helmet, and the Berserker Cloak is a separate item, a Nord cape with 20 body and 5 arm armor.
  • The same summary calls the Blackened Cape with 36/12 the best shoulder armor. That is the quest-only version, and the Blackened Cape you can buy has 4/2.
  • The “Celtic Frost” barding is the Fur Saddle, a 12-armor saddle that no shop sells.
  • Khan’s Plated Bracers are not the best gloves. Seven pairs have more than their 23 arm armor, with 28 at the top.
  • Guides from 2022 and 2023 still have the old cape numbers, and a 2024 list shows most body armor 3 to 4 kg lighter than it is now.
  • Older armor tables still show the Decorated Hauberk at 32/15/15 instead of 42/26/26, and the Closed Huscarl Helmet at 51 instead of 55.
  • Armor modifiers called “Heavy” or “Sturdy” do not exist, just like Reinforced or Thick.
  • No Roguery perk adds armor to civilian clothes. Smuggler Connections is a trade perk, and Carver gives +10% damage with civilian weapons.

Conclusion

Collecting the best armor in Bannerlord is a long project, and no single kingdom will sell you all of it. If you just want a strong set without spending your whole campaign on it, the Heavy Scale Armor over Mail Hauberk with a helmet of 53 or more head armor, Scaled Boots, a pair of 28-armor mittens and a Northmen Raider Heavy Fur Cape is probably the way to go. Put a smithy with a stocked warehouse in a town of the culture you need, check every market you ride past, and buy anything Legendary the moment you see it.

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