When should you forge weapons?

[triqui]

Originally Posted by Doo

One thing I thought about with early game forging is, as a strategy, it can help your thugs get above 6 in their defense vs generic types they might face. I believe that the difference between attack and defense must be rolled on a die 6, and each time a 6 is rolled then another roll is done and added. Thus for attack and defense differences between <0 to 7 it only relies on a single die roll but above 7 you need two rolls in your favor to score a hit (the first to get a 6 and the second to be greater than 1). Thus the odds of getting hit start to go down greatly. And then if you get over a difference of 13... Given that some thug chassis have high base Def (the Vanheim commanders start with around 22-24?) then an Ice Sword and quality shield can push their def into a realm where your average melee type wont hit them this side of the next ice age.

Perhaps thats a reason to forge early, or perhaps an over analysis?

It depends on your SC duty against other SC, or flanked by bodyguard troops, defense is very good. Against masses of troops, it's value diminishes compared to protection, awe or luck. Every time you are attacked, your defense goes down. When you are surrounded by 12 jaguars with 3 attacks and W9 bless, your defense drops from 30 to 0 before half the jaguars have attacked.