‘Warhammer: The Old World’- The Five Best Magic Armors From ‘Forces of Fantasy’

Need to stay alive so you can fight the bad guys in Warhammer: the Old World? These are the best magic armors the good guys of The Old World can don!

We’ve spent a fair bit of time looking at the best units in the game lately. However, units aren’t the only things that make up an army. Weapons, upgrades and especially magic items are a huge part of the game. Picking the best things to take can make or break your army. We’ve looked at the best common magic items before, but now I’ve started to drill down a little deeper into what is good and worth taking.  However, there are a lot of items out there so we are going to have to break things down a lot.

Today, I want to take a look at the best magic armors from the ‘Forces of Fantasy’ armies (and their AJs).  Obviously what is best depends a lot on your build In addition I think magic armor tends to be one of the weaker categories in the books. However there are still some gems in here.

5. Helm of the Hunt – Wood Elves

The helm of the hunt is actually a pretty stacked item. It not only gives you +1 to your save (a theme you will note here) but also gives you +1 attack and WS on the charge. Like, that is completely rad. It’s a ton of buffs and all of them are good/ones you want. I think it a lot of other armies this would be a super common item you’d see all the time. It’s lower down on the list because it just doesn’t jam as well with the Wood Elves and isn’t part of the common builds, but I think its still great.

4. Dragon Helm – High Elves

Look, ignore the ward you get from this its meaningless. What this item really is is 10 pts to improve your armor by one. That’s awesome. The fact that you can combo it with other armor is what makes its really great and gives you easy access to 3+ and 2+ saves on characters. At 10 pts its dirt cheap and easy to slid into a list. While its not the hugest impact it has very high utility.

3. Dwarf Runes – Dwarfs

As always Dwarfs are an odd one on these lists. They don’t have access to normal magic items but instead use their rune system. In a lot of ways this gives them access to the best armors in the game as they have a ton of options and can tailor them. It’s why I rated them the highest on the magic weapon list. So why are they lower here? Well simply put I don’t think they get as much utility out of armor runes. Dwarf characters already have an issue with being able to get into combat. On top of that they are naturally really tough and hard to kill. So I don’t think a lot of the very good runes are all that worth it unless you have specific plays in mind. In fact I think spending a ton of pts on armor runes is normally a trap, but they are still really good.

2. Master Rune Of Adamant – Dwarfs

All that being said I think I’d be a little bit remiss if I didn’t specifically call out the Master Rune of Adamant. I think this is the running for the most powerful (not necessarily best) magic armor in the game. Setting a models T to 10 is pretty crazy. It means that almost everything in the game is wounding you on a 6+. It’s also the only armor in the game that just says a significant number of the attacks in the game just… cannot hurt you. Sure ethereal can do something similar, but it feels different and there are ways around it. It’s a very powerful build in some situations.

1. Gromril Great Helm – Bretonnia

I think of all the armors on this list this is the one you are most likely to run into in the wild as its very good and very popular. The Gromril Greathelm gives you a nice +1 to your save that can be combo’d with other armor. It also lets you re-roll natural save rolls of 1s. What this generally means is that it lets you build a very powerful Brettonian lord with a 2+ save that re-rolls 1s to save. This makes them effectively immune to AP 0 attacks and ups their survivblity vs all other attacks (recall the lord will almost certainly have a Ward and maybe a regen as well). Sitting at 40 pts its also cheap enough that you can still combo with plenty of good weapons and other items. This is a very strong item that really works with it’s army and the builds they want to use. 

Let us know what your top pics are, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.