How to Succeed at making Green Armor [Warning Heavy Spoilers] (Patreon)

This is a reposting of my Board Game Geek guide on building Green Armor  - posted here for those of you who do not use BGG and also as additional content.

I’m going to break this down into a few sections, a few initial observations, a breakdown on each individual piece, including discussions on how hard it is to make, any tips and tricks and a rough outline/guide and then at the end of the entire piece I’ll wrap this all up with a bow on it.

Setting up:
Before you even begin, you need to decide how to set up your campaign, now sadly because the Green Boots are heavy, there is no reason to attempt this in the People of the Sun campaign, because you cannot wear a full set. However, it is possible to construct Green Armor in both People of the Lantern and People of the Stars – it will be easier to achieve this in People of the Lantern due to the campaign having a lower difficulty, but the Twilight Sword will be an inconvenience that you will have to manage.

I would recommend for your first few attempts at making Green Armor you remove all the cards from every single expansion except for:
Gorm, Flower Knight, Dung Beetle Knight, Manhunter, Lion Knight. For Spidicules I would only add in the Innovation, Disorder and Fighting Art cards. You do not need to hunt Spidicules during this campaign as all you need is that one lone innovation and even if you did add the Spooder in, there would be no time to hunt her because you need to be focused as much as possible on the various goals and the Spooder has nothing to do with these what-so-ever. However, if you just want to add in the Choeria innovation and leave everything else out we won’t judge you and it will help increase your chances of getting a key Flower Knight disorder a little.

In addition, if you have it I would recommend including the Vagabond Armor set from Before/After the Wall. It has great synergy with the True Blade survivor and the Black Sword (which you will find easy to build if you want it). The White Speaker and Allison Promo sets are also beneficial here. The Percival and Fade promo sets are neutral, add them if you want, they won’t hurt.

Foundations:
You need to have a good focus on farming when you plan to build Green Armor, generating as many resources as possible from each fight in order to get strong, fast. So you should have your early game plan down to pat. My recommendations for early aims are as follows:

1 Survivor with Beast Claw Katar, Full Rawhide, Luck Charm, Monster Grease, Leather Shield – Essential Mastery (see Lion Knight) – Specialisation Katars

1 Survivor with Rib Blade, Full Rawhide, Wisdom Charm, Luck Charm, Monster Grease – Specialisation – Grand Weapons

1 Survivor with Vespertine Bow, Full Rawhide, Cat’s Eye Circlet, Luck Charm – Specialisation Bow or Fist & Tooth

1 Survivor with King’s Spear, Leather Armor, Leather Shield, Monster Grease – Specialisation Spear

Or if you plan to Antelope farm a bit to build a lot of resources to fuel your power then:

1 Survivor with Greater Gaxe/King’s Spear, Screaming Armor, Leather Shield, Monster Grease

The Last Survivor is a flex spot to be honest, I prefer to focus on spears because that gives you a way to handle the L3 DBK Trap, but you might want to double up on Vespertine Bows or even Katars in the early game.

Of all of these survivors the most important one is your Katar specialist, they MUST be protected above all else until they reach Katar Mastery. You have 16 years to make your Katar Master, if you do not manage it by then; you will have to move on to ‘Plan D’ (see below).

In respect of the other masteries, early on you should focus on getting Katar online above all else.

Armor wise, early on Rawhide is the best choice because it is very efficient for the cost, however getting Gorment armor (if things land your way) and Screaming Antelope (especially 1.5 Antelope) is very desirable. Later on you’re probably going to be able to transition to some Rolling Armor because you will be hitting the DBK on the regular.

NOTE: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY NEVER, EVER, LET YOUR KATAR SURVIVOR BE THE SOLE SURVIVOR WITH THE MAX EXP. THE MURDER CARD IS A HORRIBLE WAY TO LOSE THEM!

Resources and Managing Gorm Climate:
Resources are the lifeblood of your settlement, you have 4 of them to spend. Lantern Years, Survivors, Resource Cards and Gear. Lantern Years are a finite resource that dwindle as the sessions pass (Plan D?). During these Lantern Years; Survivors get you Resource cards that are used to build gear, that will protect survivors and aid their resource gathering. This is a feedback loop that you want to build as quickly and smoothly as possible. The stronger gear you get early on, the more you will be able to snowball that into fighting L2+ monsters and therefore get better and better gear. 

Gorm Climate is an issue in the early game, you do not want to be tearing down innovations in order to prevent the acid rain result, so you will need to be using up your resources as much as possible each year until you innovate the Song of the Brave. In addition, there is a dilemma here, because Hovel is pretty awful to build due to the irrelevant innovations it pads into the deck, on the other hand Hovel protects you from some of the other annoying aspects of the Gorm Climate card. It’s not a straightforward thing to plan for.

Innovation Chains:
One of the key parts of building Green Armor are the Gorm Potion Innovations, this chain starts when you hunt your first Gorm and you should continue to hunt Gorms repeatedly until you’ve made all 4 potions. The best way to do this is by spending a Gorm Brain + Strange Resource (Fresh Acanthus from Antelope Farming works well once Gorm Climate is gone).

For main innovating you have other priorities, in order to be able to scale up to tackling the bigger monsters (L2 Dung Beetle Knight/Gorm is bread and butter) you are going to need Paint and Inner Lantern, so you want to be innovating a lot if you can manage it.

The Hovel Innovation chain should be avoided in People of the Lantern for as long as possible and you should be focusing on getting the following innovations and given the choice I would take Paint ahead of Inner Lantern because getting Sculpture early on can be quite a boon.

Symposium – Take ASAP to allow you to navigate the innovation trees as best you can.

Drums – Because Song of the Brave and the dances are hidden behind this

Song of the Brave (to stop Gorm Climate so you can start holding resources over multiple years)

Paint & Inner Lantern – in order to be able tackle the L2/L3 versions of the Monsters which are essential.

Scrap Smelting – To build the Beacon Shield and the Gloves

Choreia – Required for the Green Faulds

Storytelling – Required to start the journey to getting The Old Master (TOM) to hang out near your settlement. Needed for the Green Helm.

I have not put these in any particular order apart from noting Symposium should be selected as soon as possible because of the huge benefits it provides by increasing the quality of your innovations.

Nightmare Training can be helpful to finish getting Katar Mastery in a pinch, so don’t forget about it.

As for how often should you innovate? That’s a tough one, you should be innovating as long as it doesn’t impede your ability to build your hunting party. If you need to get your rawhide sets completed then it is not bad to skip innovating for a bit.

Also, think carefully about what innovations are going to be added to the deck when you pick an innovation. I’d take Bloodletting ahead of Hovel for example, because Bloodletting thins the Innovation deck, while Hovel pads it out with a lot of chaff.

Principles?
In the current edition you should go with the following to start with because it will make it easiest for you:
Graves/Protect the Young/Accept Darkness

Graves over Cannibalism because you do not want to be worrying about population too much and because the +1 Luck from selecting Graves is INSANE on one of your Katar/Rib Blade/Bow survivors.

Protect the Young is selected to reduce the pressures of managing population, population is a precious resource, but with PtY it should manage itself most of the time. In 1.5 you can should take Survival of the Fittest instead because you can always farm the Flower Knight in order to increase your population via the Troll Faced flower people and the benefits of +1 Evasion plus a lifetime reroll are sufficient to balance out the cost of troublesome birthing.

Accept Darkness is easily the choice over Collective Toil because of the extra durability it gives your survivors. It’s really not even close at all here.

The choice between Romantic and Barbaric depends on what position you are in the campaign. If you are struggling with innovations (keep whiffing) then Romantic will give you the ability to catch up quickly, but at the cost of the Bone Witch screwing things up. Barbaric is the safer/better choice if your innovation chains have worked out well for you, especially because it leads to the Ultimate Weapon innovation in People of the Lantern.

Acanthus Doctor Who
So, if you hit Sculpture early on you are going to have the potential to build an Acanthus Doctor. In the situation where you think an Early Sculpture could happen (fuelled by an early Paint innovation) then you want to delay getting the 1st Vespertine Bow until you have innovated Sculpture out. This will give you the opportunity to get an Acanthus Doctor. The population loss can be absorbed by the troll faced flower people you make by converting certain Flower Resources.

The Acanthus Doctor can then be kitted out with several satchels (great for protecting the Lantern Bloom until you make the Green Faulds) and once you beat the L3 Manhunter they can be set up with a pick axe to create the typical Acanthus Doctor/Pick Build that is used by a lot of players. It’s very powerful vs. the Dung Beetle Knight.

However, the Acanthus Doctor is not essential, it will make things easier, but thanks to Digging Claws there are other ways to handle the L3 DBK.

Generating Iron:
Iron can be a bit of a pain in this, however the Green Armor uses less Iron than you would expect. The main things that help are Digging Claws, the Manhunter’s Tool Belt (LY16) and the Heart Flute innovation (used to call the L1 and L2 Butcher in order to farm him for scrap).

Outside of that, you want to start Iron farming a bit once you have started working on the L2 monsters in a regular fashion and you have a few digging claws in the party. The Beacon Shield is the thing which costs the most Iron to make, but at times you may end up smelting scrap to create that.

Now, let us get on to the pieces of gear and the specific notes about each one!

Fetorsaurus – Shield
Innovation Requirements: Nigredo, Albedeo, Citrinitas, Scrap Smelting, Ammonia
Location Requirements: Blacksmith, Leather Worker – The Weapon Crafter is helpful to gather additional scrap.
Cost: Beacon Shield, Underplate Fungus, Sleeping Virus Flower, Elixir of Life.

We have put Fetor at the front of the list because it is one of the first items you should be able to build and it is a great enabler, once completed it will provide a huge boon for your hunt parties, both allowing you to quickly master Shields and also provide a huge level of tanking. You shouldn’t bother trying to complete shield mastery until you have a Fetor in your hands.

The first Fetor can be constructed as early as Lantern Year 9 with a bit of fortune and planning. The main trick is to make sure that the survivor who gets the Sleeping Virus Flower is kept safe in the settlement until it is time to ‘rip the flower from their body’ (To paraphrase Poots on the KD twitter) and make the first Fetor.

Apart from focusing the Blacksmith location, plus the Gorm Innovation Chain in order to improve the odds of rolling an Elixir of Life at the Gormcymist there is nothing complex to this one, it’s a very straightforward if expensive item to build.

In addition you should be able to make a second one of these later on in the campaign, generally after you beat the L3 Flower Knight.

Green Helm
Innovation Requirements: Storytelling
Quarry Requirements: The Old Master (TOM) on quarry list
Cost: Scell, Beetle Horn, DBK Errant Badge

So, the hard part of this is getting Storytelling in early enough in order to complete the timeline events that get TOM to hang out as a quarry. As soon as Storytelling is innovated you should get out there and hunt a DBK in order to start the timeline events that get TOM to turn up. The only tricky part of this is you MUST make sure that TOM’s survivor friend is kept safe, if he dies then you’re going to have problems advancing the story.

Once TOM has arrived this is a very easy and cheap item to build, you’ll probably make at least two of them. One for your Green Armor survivor and one for each Rolling Armor survivor you recruit. It’s an amazing piece of kit – it’s also really good on a hybrid ‘ignore hits’ armor set (involving DBK and Phoenix Armor set pieces).

Green Gloves
Innovation Requirements: Scrap Smelting
Cost: Hunter’s Heart, Iron, Jiggling Lard

The Green Gloves are very easy to construct and will probably be amongst the first pieces you build. The Level 2 Manhunter is the one who gives you the Hunter’s Heart and he’s probably the easiest of the Manhunters to face, sitting in a spot where you should be very powerful compared to his strength. There’s really not much need for strategy here, as long as you know how to fight the Undertaker you should breeze through this and come out with a nice pair of gloves.

If you fail, you get other chances to beat the L2 Manhunter by resisting the Lottery.  In total you have 4 chances to get the Hunter's Heart.  That should be enough.

Green Plate
Innovation Requirements: Katar Mastery, Citrinitas, Ammonia
Cost: Lion Knight’s Left Claw, 2 Iron, 3 Leather, 1 Scarab Shell
Location Requirements: Leather Worker

Ugh. Green Plate is a real annoyance to deal with. This is the sole reason why the Lion Knight has to be included into the timeline. It doesn’t really matter what happens in the first 2 Lion Knight fights, you can send b-stringers into them I you want (especially because of the naff consequences of the fights); but the big, important fight is the L3 one that occurs at LY 16 (aka Nemesis Crunch Year). You need to have mastered Katars by this stage and you need to win this fight. Once done you should have a Scarab Shell saved up ready to build the Green Plate immediately.

It’s a really powerful piece that should be stuck on a Rolling Armor survivor or someone who has most of the Green Armor set built. And the whole this isn’t tricky to build, but it is expensive and the main cost of this is having to deal with the three fights against the Lion Knight. You get no benefits from the Lion Knight because you just don’t have the time or resources to interact much with the Strange Caravan.

Green Faulds
Innovation Requirements: Choeria, Gorm Potions
Cost: Elytra, Gormite, Scell, Lantern Bloom

The Green Faulds are a little awkward to build, you have to decide how you are going to time this because either you get the Lantern Bloom first and carry it in a satchel (easier when you have an Acanthus Doctor in the hunt party) or you hit the L2 DBK first for the Elytra/Scell. It’s often easiest and most efficient to time building this alongside Griswaldo, but you might manage to construct it earlier than that if you are farming the Flower Knight in a regular fashion and you manage to push up the Forbidden Dance chain to Choeria rapidly.

Green Boots
Innovation Requirements: Forbidden Dance
Costs: Iron, Flower Knight Badge, Calcified Greaves, 3 Bone

The single hardest part of this item is building the Calcified Greaves. In order to do this you are going to have to set up a L2/L3 Black Harvest, build the non-Calcified version of the Greaves and then immediately bury them and then when you dig them up make sure you have the Scell available to protect them from loss. This process is something you get used to doing when you become experienced with the Dung Beetle Knight’s Rolling Armor build cycles. So if you are struggling with it I would recommend playing a campaign where you try to get multiple copies of Calcified Rolling Armor built – this is a good way to practice.

You should be able to build a set of Rolling Armor during these cycles and you will find it very beneficial to do so.

Griswaldo
Innovation Requirements: Rubedo, Petal Spiral
Survivor Requirements: Survivor with True Blade (Requires a Ghostly Beauty survivor to face the L3 Flower Knight and start with or gain Fencing during the fight).
Cost: Gormite, Stomach Lining, Calcified Juggernaut Blade, Iron

Now, finally we get to the most awkward and difficult piece of the entire set to construct. Griswaldo. Griswaldo requires beating a L3 Gorm, L3 Flower Knight and either critting the Sword Hit Location on a Dung Beetle Knight and calcifying the Regeneration Blade or beating a L3 Dung Beetle Knight outright. Which route you take depends on how much time you have on the timeline and how competent you are at crit farming + calcification.

However, the extra wrinkle in this entire process is the requirement to get True Blade on a survivor. This is no mean feat, as there are precious few ways in this game to get the pre-requisite Ghostly Beauty on a survivor quickly and reliably. You may get fortunate with the Murder event and be able to gift the disorders of your choice onto a survivor – absolutely get them Ghostly Beauty + some other beneficial Disorders if this happens.

The way the True Blade gain chain works is this, if you have just Ghostly Beauty + Fencing then the L3 Flower Knight will first grant you Narcissism and then if you have innovated Petal Spiral it will then immediately gift you with True Blade. So the easiest way to get this sorted is to keep any Ghostly Beauty Survivors safe until it is time to hit the Flower Knight. Considering Ghostly Beauty effectively halves the amount of survival they have, keeping them safe in the settlement is the best way to do this.

As for how to get Ghostly Beauty, the main way is to grind the Flower Knight and select a disorder for everyone each time you pass through the forest gate. It’s low %, but that’s the problem. You can have a reasonable % success plan for every single part of the Green Armor, but you are not going to manage it with Griswaldo. Time may run out before you get Ghostly Beauty and if that might happen you need to go with ‘Plan D’

“Plan D”
So what is “Plan D”? Well the D stands for Déjà vu. Essentially if you end up in a position where you cannot complete the Green Armor in time, either because of bad rolls vs the L2 Manhunter/L3 Lion Knight, Storytelling not turning up soon enough, overall bad luck in the campaign, losing your Katar Weapon Specialist before you get mastery in the LY16 Window or just failing to hit Ghostly Beauty on a survivor. Well it’s time to erase and rewind.

Step one in doing this is to build a set of Ageless survivors. So you’re going to want Romantic as your Principle if you’ve not already picked it. Yeah the Bone Witch is a PITA, but we’re past caring if we are in this stage. Then you grind the L1 White Lion to trigger understanding abuse. Which is done by keeping the Lost Hand AI cards in the deck (hello Rawhide Headband) and critically hitting the Strange Hand Location (I’d keep Founding Stones safe in the settlement to do this with a 100% success rate) – the Wisdom Potion and Cat’s Eye Circlet are your friends when you are trying to achieve this.

Once you have 4 of these guys (or as many as you can muster), it is time to hit the phoenix. The L2 is probably the sweet spot here, it’s not too hard, but it has a high chance of holding the Déjà vu card in its AI deck. The entire fight then is going to be a slow, delicate one, gradually whittling down the Phoenix while ensuring that the Déjà vu card is not lost and accumulating age tokens in order to reach that magical number. Once you have enough you let the Phoenix do its stuff and your survivors plus their gear will be sent back to the start of the timeline.

Make sure when you go into this fight that you do not leave anything of value in the settlement, carry all the most precious gear and don’t forget bandages. It’s awful to lose someone to bleeding.

However, once you have reset, you should find it a lot easier to complete all the tasks you failed the first time round. You’re well ahead of the curve now and can concentrate more resources into innovating because you already have the gear and weapons required.

Plan D!

The Bow at the End
So, here we are. While this isn’t everything, because Kingdom Death is a game with a lot of moving parts that are randomised, it should be enough to help you form strategies and plans. Preparation-wise you are going to want to know how to beat the Gorm at all levels, the Flower Knight at L1 and L3, the DBK at all levels and at least the L2 Manhunter plus the L3 Lion Knight. You are also going to want to have a good grasp of crit-farming for resources and a solid understanding of how to “Chapel” your innovation deck as best you can (keep it slim, trim and relevant).

Apart from that you want to focus early on getting the Gorm Innovations completed and finding Ghostly Beauty. So grinding the Flower Knight and Gorm are quite desirable early on – but the occasional Antelope Run can be massive benefit, especially if strange resources are proving rare. Mid to late game you’d prefer to Grind the DBK as the vast majority of resources you want come from the DBK. And then when it is time to make Griswaldo you will hit the L3 Gorm, L3 Flower Knight and L3 DBK (if you are still missing Juggernaut Blades) in quick succession. Additional Griswaldos require extra L3 Gorms and Juggernaut Blades, but if you keep your ‘True Blade’ survivor safe she can make more Griswaldos for you as long as you provide the raw resources!

To cap things off:

- Protect your Katar Survivor until they get the mastery
- Focus Song of the Brave, Gorm Potions + Disorders early on, don’t stop on the Gorm until Gorm Climate is gone forever and you’ve innovated all 4 potions from the innovation deck.
- Digging Claws are amazing
- Manhunter hates being Knocked down (Grand Weapons, Pulse Lanterns)
- Vespertine Bows are OP OP. Build Multiple in one year if you can.
- Luck Charms, Rawhide, Monster Grease and Deadly Weapons are your best friends early on
- The Gorm will provide Ammonia for leather, so do not forget to get Leather Shields asap!
- Learn how to Black Harvest
- Acanthus Doctor is OP.
- Trash Crown rinses the King’s Man (not relevant, but a freebie)
- Rush Blacksmith to build Fetorsarus early
- Get Gud at your Iron Game
- Protect your Ghostly Beauty and Sleeping Virus Flower Survivors by keeping them in the settlement
- Spears are amazing, Lantern Glaive on Rolling Armor is top tier.
- Have fun.
- Never forget about Plan D