Give me your War Mage build ideas!

I'm planning to play a War Mage Wizard in an upcoming Rusthenge game (no free archetype). This will only go to level 4, but I'm open to any higher level ideas for potential follow-up adventures or other future campaigns.

So far I've come up with five different rough flavors of War Mage.

1. The Full War Mage: Medium Armor, Shield and a one-handed weapon, using every proficiency you get (plus shield block). Max Strength and Int. Could go for a Whip for Trip at reach and maybe shield boss/spikes for when something gets too close.
2. The Two-Handed War Mage: As above, but with a two-handed weapon, preferably with reach. Strap a Buckler to your arm if you want to use Shield Spell Reinforcement and/or get the Spellshield feat.
3. The Archer War Mage. Light Armor and a Bow as your go-to third action. High Dex and Int. Use Buckler if needed.
4. The Armored Caster: Medium Armor, Shield and a free hand for caster stuff (staff, wands, scrolls). Probably has enough strength to use Athletics maneuvers with the free hand or shield augmentations.
5. The "Tank": A slow moving undying Caster. Medium armor, a Shield and low Strength. Use a Chain Mail for the Flexible trait so the low strenght doesn't hinder you too much. Leave Dex at +1 for AC and raise your Con as much as possible. Can have up to 21 HP at level 1 - more than many martials. Ancestries that are good at staying alive (like dwarf and orc) are a great choice. Anything that helps you mitigate teh speed penalty is a great boon (Unburdend Iron, Fleet, Nimble Elf and simiar things).

Anyone willing to share more ideas? As general or specific as you'd like.

Since it's low-level, I'd probably go Hold-Scarred Orc + Orc Ferocity for the extra HP and to help avoid being one-shotted. Runic Weapon will be a good choice for these levels. The melee builds might also get better than average use out of Warp Step, to close distance and since (unlike a regular Wizard) having only 1a left over is much less penalizing for someone who plans on using strikes.

My idea requires your GM to give you a few things to help it get off the ground earlier on:

- Free-archetype
- GM allows you to swap your 1st level focus spell for Hand of the Apprentice (build it centered on this)
- GM waves class archetype exit requirements so you can get focus spells up to 3 faster (so your build just works earlier, not because you won't stick with your many archetypes).

Now we're good to go.

Goblin Duskwalker adopted by Dwarves:
- Burn-it feat for a +1 to +5 status bonus damage when hitting with your flaming rune HoTa
- Quietus Strikes to boost damage by +1/+2 damage at L9/L16
- Telluric Strikes to boost it by +1 to +4 circumstance damage at L13+

Archetypes:
- War Mage: Grab the bespell weapon boosting L4/L10 feats, the intimidating metamagic, and shield drain bond feats. The L4 bespell boost isn't really necessary until L10 since 1d6->1d8 is 1 DPR, but 1d6 to 2d8 is pretty good.
- Psychic: first to get 3 focus points by L6 (doesn't really matter which ones, but guidance/glimpse weakness from infinite eye have out of combat/3rd action viability. Grab the spell slots when they suit you, but eventually you can get heroism from the occult spell list.
- Alchemist to get scaling energy mutagens in a spider shifting collar AND to help you craft low level alchemical bombs for a weapon siphon (1 L1 bomb per combat).
- If you still have things to burn feats on then cleric for emblazon energy at L16

Wizard:
- Mostly feed the feats into archetypes
- Grab bespell weapon at L4
- Maybe grab convincing illusion when you can afford it as well and go all in on INT/CHA for a face wizard?

Playstyle:
Now you have 3x1 action mega hand of the apprentice strikes, metamagic to turn anything into 'fear lite' spell, convincing illusion (with a familiar to auto aide) on a face wizard.

Sure you don't have as many 'high level slots' but I think it would be quite effective since you can easily weaponize illusory object with convincing illusion for all day control and have a great 1A focus spell.

All of the 'melee only weapon strike boosting feats/options' do work for HoTA based on how it is worded so you're getting:
- Energy Mutagen (1d4 to 2d6)
- Weapon Siphon (1d4)
- Burn-it (+1 to +5 Status)
- Telluric Power (+1-+4 circumstance)
- Spellheart (1d6 to 1d8) OR Bespell Strikes (1d6 to 2d8)
- INT Mod (+4 to +7)
- Weapon Spec (+2)
- Emblazon Energy (+1d4-1d6)
- Striking (1d12-4d12)

Also HotA is one of the few spells you can get an item bonus to attack. Yes I know some may try to litigate this in replies but feel free to make a separate thread for that derailment. I'll just say:
- Weapon Potency runes add +X to 'Attack Rolls'
- Spell Attack Rolls ARE Attack Rolls
- Spell attack rolls can benefit from circumstance bonuses and status bonuses, though item bonuses to spell attack rolls are rare -> implying they CAN benefit from item bonuses

OTHERWISE:
I think a illusory object/convincing illusion + intimidating fireball is a great way to lock down enemies. I think the use of weapons on it is still a bit 'questionable' unless you plan to use ranged weapons (e.g., repeating crossbow) as a 3rd action option.