I think, all in all, the Battle Smith is probably the most versatile Artificer subclass, and one that plays the best with an adventure that has plenty of magic items, you'll be able to use all of them. You'll also be able to easily use both ranged and melee weapons. And you also get a mechanical pet!
Before the Armorer was introduced in Tasha's, this was my go-to subclass, and I think is generally considered in contention as the best subclass for them. Let's see how they look in the update!
Once again, as a note, the change from Infusions to Replicate Magic Item has made it far easier to get good, expensive gear. You'll easily be able to have something like Gleaming Half-Plate at level 2 (replacing it with +1 Half Plate by level 6) and you can also easily get a Repeating Musket.
Battle Smith Spells:
1st: Heroism, Shield
2nd: Shining Smite, Warding Bond
3rd: Aura of Vitality, Conjure Barrage
4th: Aura of Purity, Fire Shield
5th: Banishing Smite, Mass Cure Wounds
Shield arguably makes them even tankier than Armorers, as they'll only be probably a single AC behind. Naturally, this is a lot of really combat-focused magic. Conjure Barrage is actually a pretty solid AoE spell now (and unlike a Ranger, we might cap our spellcasting ability by the time we get this).
Level 3:
Tools of the Trade:
You get the following:
Tool Proficiency: You get proficiency with Smith's Tools, or another type of tools if you already have this.
Weapon Crafting: When you craft magical or nonmagical weapons, the amount of time it takes to craft them is halved.
Nothing huge here. While we can probably expect you to replicate the weapons you use, in the long run, you might be able to craft better weapons. Notably, a lot of things like Repeating Weapons are now broadly magic items you can find elsewhere, so you could just make a permanent one to free up one of your weapon replication slots.
Battle Ready:
You also gain these benefits:
Arcane Empowerment: When you attack with a magic weapon, you can use Intelligence instead of Strength or Dexterity for your attack and damage rolls.
This, of course, frees you up to focus on Intelligence. While that will make it harder to take weapon-focused feats, you'll be equally good with ranged and melee weapons (naturally you'll always have magic weapons, because you can replicate them).
Weapon Knowledge: You gain proficiency with Martial weapons. You can use a weapon with which you have proficiency as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells.
This, of course, allows you to have a weapon in hand while casting all your spells, which is great.
The one thing that bums me out here is that you don't get any Weapon Masteries. This is a cool system that they've really held out of reach of even subclasses that go in a more martial direction. A Battle Smith, to me, is really not that different from a Ranger or Paladin, and I think if any subclass should get them, it's these guys. But I guess not.
Steel Defender:
You get a battle companion, a Steel Defender, which has a stat block that scales with your level. It's a construct that is friendly to you and your allies and obeys you. It works similarly to a Beast Master's pet: it acts on your turn, and it can move and take a reaction on its own, but unless you use a bonus action to command it, it only takes the dodge action (it can act independently if you're incapacitated).
If the defender has died within the last hour, you can use a Magic action and expend a spell slot (of any level) and it will return to life after a minute with all HP restored. When you finish a long rest, you can create a new defender if you have Smith's tools (if you already have one, the old one vanishes).
The Steel Defender has an AC of 12+ your Int (likely 15 when you first get it, and eventually 17) and HP equal to 5+ 5 times your artificer level (so 20 at first, and eventually 105). It has d8 hit dice equal to your artificer level. It has a speed of 40.
The defender has darkvision. It adds your PB to its saving throws (which are, honestly, not very good on their own). It has two main actions: Force-Empowered Rend is a melee attack that deals 1d8+2+ your Int on a hit, using your spell attack bonus to attack (which will likely be similar to your own attack bonus thanks to Battle-Ready). It can also, 3 times per day, use an action to heal itself or another construct for 2d8+ your int.
It also has a reaction, when a creature it can see within 5 feet makes an attack against a creature other than the defender, imposing disadvantage.
This is, I think, unchanged or at least barely changed from the old version (the AC might be calculated differently). If you're going into melee, you'll want to have the Defender use its reaction every round to defend you. If you're sticking to a ranged weapon, the defender can still help out your buddies in melee. The attack does decent damage - thanks to its native +2 bonus on top of your Intelligence, the damage is like if you were hitting with a 1d12 weapon (though a narrower spread of potential damage). And force damage is the most reliable type in the game.
Level 5:
Extra Attack:
You get the normal Extra Attack feature, except that you can also forgo one of your attacks in favor of giving your Steel Defender another Force-Empowered Rend attack.
Depending on which weapon you're currently wielding, this might give you more damage. Unfortunately, the Defender can't get a magic item to give it a +X bonus to its rends, and there is a good chance that you've got a +1 weapon at this point (you can make one yourself). Still, there are various reasons why you might want to give the Defender the attack, like if you're getting disadvantage from being poisoned, for example.
Level 9:
Arcane Jolt:
When you hit with an attack roll using a magic weapon or your Steel Defender hits a target, you can channel extra energy into the strike to either add damage to the strike or radiate healing energy to an ally.
Destructive Energy adds 2d6 Force damage to the hit.
Restorative Energy heals a creature or object of your choice within 30 feet of the target for 2d6.
You can use this feature Int times per long rest, and no more than once per turn.
I think the likely best use of this is to hold it for a critical hit, as the damage should double. The healing is not a lot, but it'll mean a whole lot more if you have an ally who has gone down. The main strength here is that it costs nothing from your action economy, so if you land a crit, you can add Shining Smite and an Arcane Jolt to hit really freaking hard.
Level 15:
Improved Defender:
This gives you two more benefits:
Improved Jolt increases the extra damage and healing of Arcane Jolt to 4d6.
Improved Deflection lets your Steel Defender deal 1d4 + your Int Force damage to the target of its Deflect Attack reaction when it uses it.
Doubling Arcane Jolt is nice - while it's still only 7 damage on average at level 15, it's still doubling the feature's strength. The Improved Deflection damage is also not a lot (probably 7.5 at this level) but it's adding to something you're probably already doing anyway.
Overall Thoughts:
The Battle Smith doesn't look all that different - honestly, I think the shifts here are truly very subtle. Once again, I wish that they'd gotten Weapon Masteries. But I do think that this remains one of the strongest Artificer subclasses, and I think it's probably the most flexible.
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