My issue with that was just the fact that DF's engine makes unarmored fighters of any race extremly fragile. Like old tabletop Dark Eldar fragile. I've never had unarmoed soldiers of any sort surivive past thier first battle unless I had alot of extra guys... The helmets were to just give them (well, more me, since I focus on small well trainied assault troops) some kind of hope of surviving getting shot/stabbed/bashed in the face. Plus scavvies were rediculously easy to kill if they weren't armed properly; Had a pair of dogs rip one apart like he was made of wet cardboard. Same happened to an outlaw, though he was able to put up with a fight now that he had knife. Stabbed a dog in the leg which put it out of the fight, had both hands bitten by another dog and a grox bull I had posted near the depot flipped its lid and decided that outlaw needed his shit slapped.
And it was. All over the depot. But he was actually able to put up a fight, at least against three fighting dogs (the grox bull... not so much. All he managed to do was stab it once, then get his arm broken by a now very angry bull instead of a mildly annoyed one.) with the addition of the fighting knife. Forgot to add it to the scavvies as intended, so I did and now they can do alot more in thier escape attempts.
I never played the tabletop of Necromunda, but from what I've read it seems like a pretty good game. Diggin' that pic too.