Top Offensive Gear Items in the Core Game and Gen 1 Expansions: Part 1 (Patreon)

We've looked at my personal list of the top 10 armor sets, but now it's time to look at the offensive gear.  To warn you in advance; this one is going to be a long list broken into several parts and I still think I missed some of the offensive items I wanted to include, because there are so damn many.

Still, here's how I've assessed these: I'm valuing them based on the ease of construction, relative power level for the part of the game they are available in and the return on investment you get for building them.  A cheap weapon that lasts a long time in a campaign is a huge benefit.

I am not including any rare weapons on this list unless they are very commonly given out or you get them by performing certain actions that are controllable/repeatable.  

Format for gear stats is (Speed/Accuracy/Strength/Abilities).

40. Lion Knight's Left and Right Claws - Lion Knight

These are an interesting pair of weapons that are gained by beating the Level 3 Lion Knight as long as you have Katar Mastery in your settlement (which you should be aiming for in most campaigns because it's really good).  They are also unusual because their are one of the only set of paired weapons released with different stats and names for each weapon (there is a set in the abandoned scenarios for Aya if I recall correctly).  

This means that all the abilities on both Katars can be used.  And you have a number of options as to how you are going to use them.  The Left Claw is a (2/5+/4) that can gain Deadly and/or +1 Speed, the Right Claw is a (2/8+/8) that can gain +1 survival on a perfect hit and/or +1 Speed.

My preference is to use these together as a 4/8+/8/Deadly weapon with an alternate attack of 2/5+/4/Deadly.  I tend not to connect the blue half affinities for the +1 Speed because I feel that Speed 5 is not a good way to go unless you are playing knockdown strats.

Note, you cannot "turn off" paired on these weapons the way that you do with normal Katars, because you do not have a "blank" version that doesn't have paired.

The only reason these do not sit higher in the list is because I have a great level of distaste for fighting against the Lion Knight.

39. Steel Sword - Various

The Steel Sword is a (1/4+/5/Irreplaceable/Sharp/Slow) weapon that is certainly the best sword available in the base game.  It's an end game weapon that can be picked up very early on with a bit of luck and it's the perfect weapon on a training Sword user in my opinion.  

It's slow, so it's measured and controlled, it hits very hard (between 7 and 25 effective strength) and it's very accurate.  There's not much more to say about it really, this is the kind of sword you train up your sword user on before graduating to the Black Sword and murdering everything.

The reasons it's held back on this list is because it has zero synergy with Sword Mastery, it's irreplaceable and you don't have control over when you get it.

38. Founding Stone - Starting/Various

Your starting weapon is a (2/7+/1) weapon with an activated ability that lets you archive it to deal an automatic critical wound on a lantern hit location card.  It's this intensely powerful ability that keeps the Founding Stone on the list; you can throw it on the first turn of the game to get +1 Strength from the Prologue Lion's Strange Hand.  You can later on use it to guarantee the understanding abuse loop vs. a White Lion will occur, or break the Dung Beetle Knight's Sword to get a Regeneration blade that can be Calcified into the Calcified Juggernaut Blade, or you can save up a stack of them and murder the Watcher into a mushy pile of jellyfish pieces; ending the fight before it even starts.

It's an early game weapon that remains relevant throughout the campaign and the only reason it's not higher on this list is because it's ability is single use.

37. Bone Darts – Bone Smith 

These thrown weapons are (1/7+/3/Frail, Range 6), they are always, without fail, my first bone purchase in the game because Bone Darts mean that if a White Lion goes into Ground Fighting mode; which they do a surprising amount, then you never have to deal with that mood shredding one of your survivors.  

In addition they remain relevant for a long time afterwards, backing up your Bow user (who will probably have a cumbersome bow) or giving another member of the hunt party a backup range weapon for when they are out of position.

About the only issues are no Thrown weapon mastery, 7+ accuracy and Frail.  Everything else about this weapon is excellent and I've been known to build 3 of them for my starting hunt party because I prefer them over the Bone Sword/Axe on the whole.

36. Rawhide Whip - Rawhide

This whip is a (3/7+/1) stat weapon, which if I am completely honest is an awful statline that I cannot stand (it's trash on the Bone Daggers for example).  However the ability, which gives you the priority token when you wound the monster is incredible in the early game.  A full Rawhide Whip tank can actually make the game really safe for the rest of the party in the early game by standing in the tall grass with monster grease and whipping the monster over and over so it only targets them.  

However, 1 strength is awful and you don't get the +5 Strength bonus when using whips until you hit mastery in the weapon type.  So this is a weapon that is troublesome to use even against level 1 monsters unless you can manage to get some +STR on your survivor.  

Next time 35 to 31!