Assessing Armor #4: Screaming Armor (Patreon)

If there was a contest between what the two most campaign efficient armors in Kingdom Death, that is which armors get the most use for the price you pay. I'd be hard pushed to choose between Rawhide and this week's entry.
Screaming Armor is your go-to armor for any tanky bruiser/DPS survivor in the early to mid-game, and because you can pretty much a full set from fighting a single level 1 Screaming Antelope with minimal set up, it's straight up the most efficient in the game. A single L1 monster for a full set of this power is nuts. 
If you want to see how this is done, let me know in the comments and I'll put together a video. Essentially it's one boring farming fight that pays off with Screaming Armor + Blood Paint + more spare parts. It's worth taking the time to do the boring fight, because then you don't have to worry about farming the antelope over and over - instead you can move onto more interesting fights after you've tackled it once or twice.
Enough of that however, lets get onto the armor!


Screaming Horns
Resource Cost: 1x spiral horns, 1x scrap
Assessment
Efficiency: There is absolutely no argument that this item is very efficient for what it costs. 2 resources to gain access to a huge amount of defense, a useful half-affinity and one of the most broken activated abilities in the game is super cheap. I believe that the design balance of this item was that the spiral horns is a single card in the resource deck, however because the Screaming Antelope hands out its resources like there is a fire sale going on, this balance is broken.
One of the best helms in the game.
S+
Defense: This helm provides 3 points of armor to the head (rising to 5 with the set bonus) and even if you are not abusing the helm's ability when combined with deaf survivors (see next entry), this ability still gives your entire hunt party immunity to death by brain trauma. 
The Screaming Horns is one of the primary reasons why I don't bother playing with Accept Darkness any more, as long as you're bringing along an antelope or warlord set for your hunts (and you can do this for the entire game) or carrying one in your Rolling Armor set - your entire party is protected against all but the hardest hitting intimidate actions.
S
Abilities: So, as mentioned above, I really, REALLY rate the activated ability of the Screaming Horns. Early on in the game a single activation when someone is at 0 insanity can protect your entire hunt party from the monster's next intimidate action, and you can keep doing this over and over.
However, there is also two other benefits to this, first of all, non-deaf insane survivors gain +1 movement until the end of the round, this can be used with a surge during the monster's flow step to help allow a targeted survivor to dash out of range and cancel the attack. That's a useful, but admittedly situational ability. Likewise it can be used with survivors who have lost movement, such as those with the Steel Shield, to help them maneuver more in key turns.
But. BUT! The single most impressive and outright broken aspect of this gear card is what happens when you use it with a deaf survivor in the party. If you break down the wording there are three different effects.

• Non-insane, non-deaf survivors gain 1 insanity
• Insane, non-deaf survivors gain +1 movement
• Deaf survivors, regardless of if they are insane or not, gain +1 insanity.

This is because of how the 'all other survivors' clause works on this helm, and it's bonkers. There are other silly spaces where you can gain "infinite" insanity, such as the Gorm's hiccup (which lets you set your insanity to whatever level you like on every single survivor because of the Monster Controller tile + how hiccup works) - but the Helm gives you this on tap.
Any time a monster does something that's a non-threatening loop, you can get infinite (as much as you like) insanity on all your deaf survivors - you can also combine this with monsters who's AI breaks if there are no threats (Butcher, King's Man) and Fecal Salves to really go to town on things. 
S+
Affinities: The horns used to have a down green affinity back in 1.31. It was honestly better there because it used to give you an easy combo with the Leather Shield for 3 green affinities. Now it gives you a down blue, which is not anywhere near as useful when you look at the rest of the armor set.
B - but it will get a different score in Warlord Armor
Score: As one of the best helmets in the game, combining huge armor with a potentially game breaking ability, the Screaming Horns set the gold standard and are rarely matched.
S+
 
Screaming Coat
Resource Cost: 1x pelt, 1x hide
Assessment
Efficiency: 2(4) armor to the body is very high for the early to mid game, and the sheer number of useful affinities plus a relevant 
S
Defense: The armor is solid and the addition of the 2 green half affinities that are automatically completed by the other armor pieces in a compact square means that this has one of the best defenses in the game, not just the early game, but across the entire game Screaming Armor is always in one of the higher tiers for defenses.
S-
Abilities: Slam is good, slam is really good. It's the second best 'move and attack' ability in the game at the moment, not just because of the synergy with spears (on the full armor set), but because of the -1 toughness to the monster, which is a powerful support ability that can be stacked on top of other
A+
Affinities: I've pretty much explained why the affinities on this piece are good, but basically it gives an easy 2 green and 1 blue affinity, plus it has a half blue affinity that works with the Lucky Charm. So you can easily tailor this armor set to be defensive, offensive or a hybrid bruiser.
S
Score: A triumphant piece of armor in this set, the crazy thing is that the Screaming Coat is NOT the best screaming piece, it's only the third best. So I can't give it the highest score, but make no mistake, this body piece is phenomenal.
S-
 
Screaming Bracers
Resource Cost: 1x pelt, 1x bone
Assessment
Efficiency: The efficiency of this gear piece is off the charts. Not only do you get a 2(4) piece of armor for your arms, with excellent affinities to boot, but you also get a constant supply of acanthus for the rest of the campaign. There's a lot you can do with acanthus, it's not just dried acanthus, it has a bunch of other applications - giving the survivor who picks it a free heal during the showdown, being turned into hide via pottery or as a generic resource for a bunch of different settlement actions that you usually wouldn't pay much attention to.
Honestly, the Screaming Bracers are one of the biggest arguments for getting 2 sets of Screaming Armor per settlement (you can even turn one set into Hybrid armor sets later on).
S++
Defense: Again the defense is as good as most of the other parts of the armor. It's very good for what you pay.
S-
Abilities: I've pretty much covered most of it in efficiency, this bad boy has one of the most powerful abilities in the game, especially when gained early on. There is so much you can do with a steady supply of acanthus.
S++
Affinities: The affinities are great, they help with Monster Grease and the Monster Tooth Necklace, which means you have a lot of flexibility with what you want to do weaponwise.  
S
Score:  It's going to be a while in this series before we find a piece of gear as powerful, flexible and dominant as the Screaming Bracers are. 
S++
 
Screaming Skirt
Resource Cost: 1x pelt
Assessment
Efficiency: Super cheap, following the tradition that most waist pieces are the discount armor piece. It's very easy to fit this gear into your shopping list.
S
Defense: The skirt gives 3(5) armor, rather than the normal 2(4), and while you don't need as much defense on the waist as you do on the head/body. It still doesn't hurt and you would be churlish to complain about that extra protection.
S-
Abilities: The waist gives an extra layer of protection on top of the armor points by decreasing the severity of waist injuries.  It's worth noting that this stacks with Tough. So a survivor with Tough + Screaming Skirt (and access to bandages) is very hard to kill via waist hits (only on a 1 - basically the table results become 2 and then 4 to 12).
A-
Affinities: The right half-green completes the half-green on the body piece and you get a bonus down half-blue that works with the leg warmers to give you that blue. It's a great set of affinities and it's hard to get better when you're dealing with early game.
S
Score: While this piece of gear isn't the most impressive or flashy part of the screaming armor, it's still worth remembering that many armor sets have a piece of armor that has zero abilities, while Screaming Armor has an ability on every single piece - it's a rare situation that the waist protection will save your life, but it can and sometimes does.
 A+

Screaming Leg Warmers
Resource Cost: 1x pelt, 1x hide
Assessment
Efficiency: [Text here]
Defense: [Text here] 
Abilities: I love this ability, it allows you to head out on the hunt sane (important to have one sane hunter per hunt because of the Feet event) but arrive at the showdown and gain protection for your brain. This means that you've got immediate synergy with the +1 movement from the helm when you activate it (good for early turn positioning) and protection.  It's not powerful, it's not flashy, but it does make you harder to hurt and is a good buffer to combine with sentient gear or other things that require you to be insane.
A
Affinities: Not the best affinities in the set, but that's because this set is crazy good across the board. These affinities still contribute to the overall power by helping with Lucky Charm/Monster Tooth Necklace.
A+
Score: Solid, dependable and helping your survivor stay alive and functioning for longer. 
A+
 
Screaming Armor Set
Resource Cost: 1x spiral horns, 1x scrap, 4x pelt, 1x bone, 2x hide
Assessment
Efficiency: Just look at what you get here in exchange for your 9 resources (only 6 of which are hides). This armor set can be picked up in the early game in just 1 or 2 L1 screaming antelope fights and it's good enough to use against the Gold Smoke Knight. It's one of the true leaders of efficiency in Kingdom Death. Owning a set of Screaming Armor means that one survivor's hunt load out will be cheap to maintain all campaign.
S+
Defense: The armor levels on this set are likewise impressive, 4-5 armor base for all locations (5,4,4,5,4), resistance to waist severe injuries, 2 green affinities towards monster grease and plenty of slots to fit in the third green affinity in and get that precious +2 evasion. 
It's going to take monsters like the Screaming God to push Screaming Armor out of the top tier for defense.
S
Set Bonus: The set bonus is solid, it's worth thinking of it as two set bonuses, both linked to Slam. This stops you getting fixated on thinking that the Screaming Armor set is 'the spear set' - yes it is that, but it's also much more as well because Slam + Set Bonus makes any weapon an impressive threat.
Additionally, the armor point set bonus is +2, that's way above the average armor set bonus.
S
Abilities: So we get, Slam, insanity gains on arrival, Screaming Helm insanity gains, -1 toughness to the monster, potential +1 movement for insane survivors, placing of 2 acanthus plants on the board and +1 to waist severe injuries.
Frankly the Screaming Armor set is bloated as heck for what you pay, the revisions to it in 1.5 have pushed it from 'good, but hard to use right' to 'probably better than rawhide for most survivors'.
S
Affinities: 1 red, 2 blue, 2 green and 1 blue half affinity. This set can easily activate the Lucky Charm and/or Monster Grease. Which means it has most of the affinities it wants. The only thing it can't do easily is activate the Blue Charm in order to get a full trapper build running. It tends to need outside help for that, some options are either a blue affinity from the Swamp fruit, a blue savior or the rather awful Talon Knife from the Dragon King.
You know an armor set is good when the main complaint is "It's hard to use the blue charm with it".
S
Score: This thing is the diamond standard for melee armor sets, if you're a melee hunter and your armor set isn't better than Screaming Armor then you have to take a long, hard look at what you're doing with your life. Screaming Armor is the premium 'generic' armor set for any DPS character who's grown beyond their rawhide dependency, but it's also a phenomenal choice for bruisers, trappers and tanks. 
S+