Top Offensive Gear Items in the Core Game and Gen 1 Expansions: Part 6 (Patreon)

Cult Speaker Knife – White Speaker/Story Telling

This Promo item is so good for the game that I think it's a must have for anyone who owns the game.  The Cult Speaker Knife is one of two items you can purchase when the White Speakers come to visit and it's a totally unique item that has no equivalent anywhere else in the game.  

The Cult Speaker Knife is a Fist & Tooth/Dagger with a (3/6+/4/Deadly/Sharp) statline that gives you extra evasion and strength (2 each) if you complete it's affinity ability, you are insane and do not wear armor or accessories. 

This is huge for characters who do not wear armor, such as the Layline Walkers and the Acanthus Doctor.  But even if you do not want to activate the ability on this, the Cult Speaker Knife is the single best Fist & Tooth and Dagger weapon in the game.  It's actually the only Dagger weapon I recommend using apart from the Acid-Tooth Daggers (Gorm) mentioned earlier because it has the stats to power through the usual limitations that Daggers have and actually make use of Dagger Mastery.

Gloomhammer - Slenderman

The Gloomhammer is absolutely the item you should be aiming to construct when you play with the Slenderman expansion (not the Gloom Katana which is honestly the best of the Katanas in the game right now).  The Gloomhammer is without a doubt the best single Club we have available to craft in any part of the game.  It's a (2/7+/13/Unique/Sentient/Reach 2/Deadly) Club that also allows you to gain the monster controller tile and drive the monster back when you wound.  If you position your tank player next in the AI queue they will permanently be the Monster Controller, which has a lot of synergy and benefits when combined with certain tanking builds that use the Spidicules Rings.

But even if you are not creating those tank builds, having the same person gain the monster controller token each turn is a very powerful thing because of builds that require insanity to work.  Also the full move push against the monster is huge, it can be used to keep other members of the hunt party safe and out of reach or even to separate the Dung Beetle Knight from it's Dung Ball.  

Monster Control to this level is a rare thing and it's on such a hard hitting weapon that the Gloom Hammer should be respected and sought after.

Dragon Slayer - Blacksmith

There are not many Blacksmith weapons I feel are worth constructing, but the 5 Iron and 3 Organs are totally worth it.  The Dragon Slayer is a 1/6+/9/Frail/Slow/Sharp/Devastating 1/Early Iron Grand Weapon that despite the drawbacks it has (Frail/Early Iron) it's completely worth using because these drawbacks are virtually irrelevant.

Frail is something that you should be able to manage by this point in the campaign, if you do not have a form of Hit Location management (Wisdom Potion in particular is perfect) then you would not build a Dragon Slayer.  Early Iron only matters if you suffer the Frenzy Trauma and even then the weapon only drops to a 19% chance of missing when attacking. That's fine.

Everything else about this weapon is perfect for the late game and it's always worth building one for a Tank or DPS character.

Zanbato – White Lion/Weapon Crafter/Dung Beetle Knight

Speaking of Grand Weapons, the Zanbato is one of the best Grand Weapons in the game.  It's in truth a White Lion weapon which is just unlocked a bit later on than normal.

The Core game version of the Zanbato is a (1/6+/6/Slow/Frail/Deadly) Grand weapon with the affinity ability to gain Devastating 1 (which normally you don't want to activate unless you are fighting very difficult monsters or nemesis monsters).  It's an almost perfect match to fit with the Leather Armor set, which is why you often see the Leather/Monster Grease/Zanbato/Leather Shield combo being recommended around the place as a top tier tank build.

However, the Dung Beetle Knight expansion gave us a way to upgrade the Zanbato further, calcifying a Zanbato will either give us a Trash Crown (on a "failure" - I love the Trash Crown) or a Calcified Zanbato which is a (1/5+/8/Slow/Deadly) Grand Weapon that keeps the same affinities and Devastating 1 Affinity weapon.  There are very few Grand Weapons in the game that are better than the Calcified Zanbato, about the only thing it is missing to make it perfect is Sharp and when you compare it to the Juggernaut Blade which is (1/5+/9/Slow/Block 1/+1 STR Per token) you can see why I rate the Zanbato higher, it's so much easier to get a Calcified Zanbato than a Juggernaut Blade and offensively the Zanbato is arguably better because of the Deadly and Devastating 1.

Griswaldo – Green Armor 

Griswaldo is made from a Grand Weapon (The Juggernaut Blade), but in itself it is actually a sword, one of the best swords in the entire game (not the best).  However it can't secure a position near the top of the list because it's an incredibly difficult weapon to construct.  Requiring the acquisition of both a Juggernaut Blade and the True Blade Secret Fighting Art (this second one is rather chance based tbh - but I did write a guide on building Green Armor over on BoardGameGeek - link at the bottom of this page).  

However, if you can manage to construct Griswaldo you are in for an absolute treat.  It is a (3/4+/15/Sharp/Deadly/Savage) Sword that gives you Block 2 for free with Fetorsaurus when you wound.  You want to take a moment to think about that ability, because it can trigger multiple times when attacking monster.

Hit 3 times.  Wound Monster, Trigger Block 2, Wound Monster again, it attacks you as a reaction, Block the attacks, Wound Monster a third time, Trigger Block 2.

That's insane!  It's in part why Green Armor survivors can brute force their way through so many monsters in the game almost solo.  But on top of that this weapon has at a minimum 18 Strength when it scores a wound.  It's just outright a good weapon if you can craft it even without the full Green Armor set.

It's hard to build, but worth every moment you get to spend with it and I look forward to carving up the Gold Smoke Knight with Griswaldo in the future.

Building Green Armor: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1785246/or-it-easier-be-green-you-thought-semi-throrough-l