for some reason i cant get the guards to tell me about dawnguard so ive takenn to just waking to the castle will that work?
I got the quest right away. I fast traveled from Anise's Cabin (been using the cellar as my house) to Riften to sell some gear and an Orc walked up to me on the street and told be about the conflict with vampires and marked Fort Dawnstar on my map. You can't walk right to the Fort itself, there's a cavern type thing you have to enter first off the side of the road East of Riften and I don't know if it appears if you don't have the quest.
And as far as your heavy armor/cross bow question. Yes, it works very well. Though unless you plan on staying hidden, you realistically only have time to fire one...maybe two...bolts unless you're super far away from the enemy. And in either case, whether you're staying hidden or super far away, there's no real benefit to be in heavy armor over light armor since you don't need the added protection. If you don't plan on sneaking (which is what I assume if you plan on doing a lot of your combat on horseback and in heavy armor), crossbows work better as an opener to soften up a target before switching to your melee weapon when the enemy gets close and/or as a situational long range weapon. It doesn't make a great primary weapon unless you're planning on staying hidden because there's just too much close range combat otherwise and the crossbow fires very slowly.
But I am in heavy armor and loving the crossbow. I don't even use the bow anymore because the crossbow gets me more 1 shot kills when I'm sneaking through dungeons and for stronger enemies I can use it to take off >50% of their life with one bolt before switching to my war axe and shield to finish them off.
