Kingdom Death: Builds - Screaming Armor (Patreon)

This time I want to write about one of the most effective and efficient builds in the entire game.  Unless 1.5 changes Screaming Armor again I am convinced that this is one of the best reasons to hunt the antelope early and crit farm it. (The other reason is Blood Paint, and I'll write more on that in the future because it's an item that changes how you play the game in a huge amount of ways).

Build Cost:

Armor: 4 Pelt (Antelope), 2 Hide, 1 Bone, 1 Spiral Horn (Antelope), 1 Scrap

Spear: Lion Claw + Great Cat Bone (Lion)

Shield: Leather, Hide, Bone

Monster Grease: Organ

The armor itself is very efficient, costing 9 resources - 5 of which are Antelope specific, but adding onto that is the benefit that the Antelope has a lot of crittable locations and therefore tends to drop more resources than most other monsters in its weight class.  

On top of that, once built it has a very strong set of affinities, (2 Green, 1 Blue, 1 Red and 2 half blue plus 1 half green).  As you can see in the example image above, just the addition of a leather shield means that you can gain 2 evasion from monster grease.  

The set is also very tanky, without a shield you gain 4 armor on all locations with 5 on the head.  This is a good enough base to carry you though the mid game and even into the late game with the right survivor, weapon and shield.  In addition it even provides some insanity when departing, to help shield you from brain damage on the hunt, and it can even provide insanity 'on tap' with the helmet's hybrid +1 move for insane survivors and +1 insanity for non-insane ones activated ability.  

But the piece de resistance of this armor set is Slam.  This is an ability that when combined with reach 2 weapons (especially spears) becomes one of the best ways to open up an engagement against a monster. It's also one of the few ways survivors can actually force a monster to move, which is a marginal ability, but sometimes it can save lives.   Slam also hits like a truck, especially when used with a spear, and that -1 toughness is of huge help to survivors who are using high speed, low strength weapons.

If you are playing People of the Lantern a Blue Savior can make use of the screaming armor set to slam with any melee weapon in the game.  

Flex Slots:

Weapon:

 Clearly Spears have the highest level of synergy with this armour set and it helps that spears are exceptional weapons in their own right.  However any weapon with Reach 2 is a good fit and of particular note is the Gorm's Greater Gaxe.  The Screaming Antelope armour ensures that the GGaxe affinity ability is always active and the GGaxe brings high strength, good accuracy and deadly into the equation.  Therefore it is possible to switch the build to DPS by changing the Spear for the GGaxe and putting a luck charm where the shield is.  You lose one evasion, but you gain one luck.  

In the core game you can use the Counterweight axe instead, especially if you get a survivor with the Timeless Eye fighting art.  This will give you automatic wounds on perfect hits.  But you will need to use a down facing red to complete the affinities.

Later on in the campaign you'd want to get the Finger of God spear (via the Phoenix) and ultimately aim to use the Lantern Glaive (especially if you can get a Rainbow Belt from the Dung Beetle Knight expansion) in combination with a Beacon Shield.  The great thing about the Lantern Glaive is it is an Axe and a Spear, two weapon types you will be using a lot with the Screaming Armor.

If you are playing with the Sunstalker Expansion you gain access to the amazing Sky Harpoon, this is a wonderful alternative weapon choice for the late game.  Even the Antelope specific spear is pretty good, though irreplaceable means it needs to be on someone who is very resilient.  

There is one last weapon worth mentioning here, the rare and awesome Nuclear Scythe.  Screaming Armor is close to the perfect armor for using with the Nuclear Scythe and I have attached an example build to this post to demonstrate why (I've stuck with core game + Dragon King + Gorm here, but that is just for the affinities and the crazy Pulse Lantern + Scythe synergy).  I'm not going to discuss it here at this point, but I think it is fair to say that a Nuclear Scythe is a better option on a Screaming Armor survivor than it is on a Dragon Armor one.

Support: 

The great thing about the Screaming Armor is because it has such a compact set of affinities already built in it is a phenomenal loading platform for a whole host of different items.  While I've put Monster Grease + a Shield on there in order to create an off-tank build, you can do so many other things.  If you are lacking departing survival then you can use dried acanthus (you should have loads after farming to make this armor) plus a fecal salve to help with survival actions.  

Ultimately though Screaming Armor is going to lend itself to close(ish) quarters fighting, as a set it is not that good for a support or ranged character and the reach requirement on Slam means that blood paint builds are not that effective (outside of the aforementioned Blue Saviors).  So most of the items you'd look to put on this should aim to assist with that, either they make the survivor harder to harm (Monster Grease/Shields), or improve recovery (Bandages).  

Summary:

Screaming Armor is one of those must have armor sets in 1.5, it is relatively easy to put together and while it costs nearly twice the amount of Rawhide, it is cheaper than White Lion Armor (which costs 10 resources) and it is tougher than leather armor - but the real beauty of it is this is an armour set that you can build early on and use for many, many lantern years.  Providing a huge return on your initial investment and allowing you to put more resources towards tooling up the other 4 survivors in your hunt party.

I think Screaming Antelope armor is probably the second armor set anyone should look towards building after they have enough rawhide. It's that good.