Besides, there are plenty of bandits wearing iron and steel armor, and some bandit chiefs even in steel plate. I actually ran across one lone bandit on the road in dwarven, although that's only happened once. Met a couple thieves in elven armor. So armored opponents aren't as rare as all that.
That said, started looking at axe-and-sword dual wield, just because the game's "mascot", so to speak, does so. Took one perk in the sword critical hit thing, then I abandoned dual-wield for axe-and-shield, with plenty of perks in block and two perks so far in bleeding damage for axes, because I figger a Nord should swing an axe.
