Most of these will also exist as Purchase Cards of varied counts. Some are the same as appeared in ITB 1.0, while others have been adjusted slightly. The "Flail" is new to ITB 2.0, replacing the old Falchion card. You may wish to look at the "Objects-Armour" topic for some card interactions. I've tried to keep mechanics simple but with a little something new for variety. I'll leave these up for about a week for review comments from on or off the forums. Right-Click and Save/View for 300ppi version.

I don't really like the battle blades.

The other three are pretty awesome in my opinion for being normal weapons. They have unique effects which is really quite cool.

Yeah, you're not alone in that, though the B.B. has a small secret. The B.B. and the Braces combination is equivalent to a Sword and Shield but costs less.

For the standard rules about only using one Armour card per character, that savings in gold may not mean much to players hooked on freebies. But many of the groups I associate with use the Graduated Armour System (GAS), which allows the use of multiple armour cards if all are on the character and not in baggage. The Bracers when activated / worn / readied don't count against Object limit. A popular combination has been B.B. + Bracers + Armour + Helmet. It gives the same benefits of a Sword + Armour + Shield but still counts as only 3 Objects vs. Object Limit. In a game with Mace, it actually has more than once kept a character from losing all of its armour.

Admittedly, most players won't understand this... but to remain a balanced expansion, ITB needed a (presumeably) less potent weapon in counterpoint to those other new weapons.

The Battle Spear has been very popular, as the old Holy Lance is a bit lame unless one has overloaded the Adventure deck with Dragons. The Mace gains a lot of popularity in groups using the GAS. I'll be interested to see what people think of the Flail after playing it in a few games; it's in play testing with two groups right now.

Using the items in conjunction is really an awesome thing. I should have read them at the same time to realize the entire benefit.

If you are into making fan cards for use, you can do so with these for testing even now. Just Right-Click and Save; the graphic you will get is bigger than what you see and is a printable 300ppi resolution. More replies back to you in the other ITB topics.