Armory won't work properly until Bitcoin Core is finished syncing...
As for the version of Bitcoin Core required for the old version... I am not 100% sure which version it was that basically "broke" the old versions of Armory.
Now, I need to ask, are you wanting to continue using Armory in the future? or are you simply trying to recover funds?
![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif)
If you're just trying to recover funds, you'd be better off just exporting the private keys from Armory and importing into another wallet like Electrum etc.