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?
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.