fire blessing lvl 9 : armorpiercing 8 ap fire weapons ? anti-vq strat discussing

[Saxon]

Question to put into the mix. If the spell Mass Protection (or just Protection) is used, does it simply add to the defense rating? Does it then get ignored by armor piercing weapons? Or does it provide a bit of protection?

I am guessing it is a simple addition to the defense rating, but the combat model is pretty deep and I could be wrong. No matter what, this is a neat discussion and opens my eyes to more uses of armor piercing than I had considered before.

An earlier poster had asked about swarms of maenads with Weapons of Sharpness. Throw Mass Protection on that swarm and you have a truly frightening force! They hit hard, do not lose to many units and those losses are recovered quickly. Sure, there are lots of ways to stop them, but they are something your opponent will have to worry about.