[LintMan]

Some of my Favorites:

- Sceptre of Authority/Longbow of Accuracy/Rod of the Phoenix: I try to give one of these to all my priests and any "stay behind troops" commanders I have. The Rod is the best, but is pricey and longer to research. I like the Longbow because I'm thinking it minimizes friendly fire, but I wonder if another bow choice might be better.

- Dwarven Hammer: I gotta have a few of these laying around to save on forging costs

- Fire Brand/Frost Brand: I like both of these, depending on who I expect to fight soon.

- Shield of Gleaming Gold: I often give these to my Strategos', which I send out to battle rather than stay behind troops. Awe works well, but you have to watch out for missile fire.

- Crystal Shield: the +1 to all magic paths in combat makes this shield seem like it'd be a quite prime choice, but the crazy 4 encumberance means you boosted mage won't be casting very many spells, so I haven't found a good use for it yet. (Perhaps if you load the mage up with reinvig items...?)

- Black Steel Helmet: a cheap prot boost, 0 enc., available early, I sometimes make these when I have spare earth gems and give them to anybody who will be in combat (and perhaps later in the game will replace them with better helms).

- Spirit Helms: I love 'em! It's like having a free low level air mage.

- Wraith Crown: pricey, but great for building an SC.

- Stymphalian Armor: fly, trample, fear, all in one!

- Bracers of Prot: like the Black Steel Helmet, these are cheap prot (& def) and available early, so I make a number of them early on.

- Endless Bag of Wine: indispensable. I wish there were more +supply options so that I could use my nature gems for some of the other nifty stuff there besides making so many of these damn things.

- Enormous Cauldron of Broth: It's just too expensive in precious nature gems compared to the Endless Bag of Wine. It's available earlier (Const 2) than the EBoW (Const 4), but early on the supply situation isn't so harsh and I'm willing to rush the construction school research to Const 4, so I never build these.

- Bottle of Living Water: I just love these and make a ton of them, but I suspect they're overpriced for the value you get from them.