Head Plate is armor worn on the head in battle. Moroni prepared the people of Nephi with “breastplates and with arm-shields” and “shields to defend their heads” before the Lamanite armies saw them. Nephite soldiers’ “more vital parts of the body” were shielded from Lamanite strokes by “their breastplates, and their armshields, and their head-plates” (Alma 43:19, 38).
Lamanite fighters smote in two many Nephite head-plates, pierced breastplates, and smote off arms during the battle led by Zerahemnah and other captains. Moroni fastened on “his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields” before taking the title of liberty and praying (Alma 43:44; 46:13).
At the pass, about fifty Nephites were wounded by arrows, but their shields, breastplates, and head-plates left their wounds upon their legs. The Lamanites armed an innumerable army with swords, cimeters, bows, arrows, “and with head-plates, and with breastplates,” and all persons in the Jaredite armies had shields, breastplates, and head-plates (Alma 49:24; Helaman 1:14; Ether 15:15).