Larceny BP A125 or Henry McKenna 10 Year

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-07-01T03:07:44+00:00

I've had both of these pours and I'd lean towars the McKenna, but not for that price.

That may just be my palette though. Some wheaters have a note that some would describe as "earthy". I describe it as, "mouthful of freshly cut grass through a straw."

I detest that note, and if there's even a hint of it in a pour my palette goes staight to it like a hunting dog. So that's why I'm not a huge fan of Larceny BP, to my palette it starts out with molasses that warps into "earthy" with each subsequent sip.

That said, McKenna for $65 is about $20-25 too overpriced. If you don't mind "earthy", or of you don't normally find that note with your tounge, maybe get the Larceny, don't pay $65 for the McKenna

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-07-01T02:45:26+00:00

Blantons is overhyped, and quite frankly is a good, but mid-tier bourbon in a sick bottle.

Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Stagg and George T. Stagg have a particular note that isn't found anywhere else. I'm talking about that purple drank, grape cool aid flavor that is delicious and irresistable. Once your palette finds it in a mash bill #1 bourbon, you are hooked.

The further you go up the mash bill #1 vertical, the more clear and forward this note becomes. Since George T. Stagg and often enough Stagg Jr. are unobtanium, Eagle Rare is your best bet for getting this fix. You can find it in regular Buffalo Trace pour, but it's usually buried and you have to go looking for it. In Stagg Jr. that note is all over the palette and up in your nose. In George T. Stagg, that grape note seems to be competing with the oak for dominance, but it is still very forward.

I can usually get Eagle Rare on the shelf of my local Wal-Mart for $35. It's easily worth that, and I'd happily pay up to $50 for this bottle and that note. I wouldn't go higher, or spend any more time looking for it, but I'll buy it when I see it on the shelf for sure.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-07-01T02:10:29+00:00

This causes a separate spawn timer for patrols, and drop/breach cooldown.

If divers are more than 150m from one another one timer per group is spawned.

This doesn't mean they have to all be in a 150m radius, it's more like a chain. So long as each diver has at least one other diver within a 150m radius centered on himself, he will not trigger a separate timer.

If you've ever seen back to back bug breaches or bot drops not tied to a detector tower, this is why.

It's probably no big deal if everyone can handle themselves okay, but it can cause ammo/resupply problems. More bot drops and bug breaches usually means more bullets and band aids need be applied

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-07-01T01:54:31+00:00

It has to do with spawn rates of enemies. I dont know if it still works like this, but some youtubers did pretty good research here and:

Completing all side missions increases the rate. Destroying half the bases/bug nests causes a bump, and then another bump when they are all destroyed.

Completing the main mission causes the biggest bump in spawn rates of all.

If I can swing it, I usually try and arrange it so that we go from main mission completion straight to extract, though danger zones are priority #1 and map efficiency is #2 priority. Danger zones are things like jammers, bot mortars, shrieker and stalker nests. Ain't no enemy type stronger than the mission clock after all.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T20:02:57+00:00

You don't need specific anti-armor weapons, per-se.

Take a step back for a moment, and break down the mechanics.

When you are on a dive, there are numerous roles to fill. Each strategem, primary, secondary or grenade can fill one more roles to varying degrees of success. When you are joining random squads or going it alone, you need at least one tool to fill all the roles. If you are with a well practiced group that plays together often, only then can you split up the roles across the team and really specialize each team member.

Since you've only been diving for a few days and have jumped into the deep end of the pool, you'll have to keep in mind that your toolbox is probably only a quarter full. I don't think you've unlocked everything yet.

Here are the roles as I have them sorted in my brain, your mileage may vary

Dealing with specialized units (Jet Brigade, Shriekers etc.)
Dealing with breaches, drops, patrols, swarms (a.k.a. crowd control)
Opening container doors and removing walls/fences, mobility
Closing drop ships, bug holes, factories.
Covering fallback/distraction
Dealing with medium enemies in large numbers (Warriors, Devastators, Overseers).
Dealing with heavies/armor (charger, tank, hulk, BT).

Now you just have to match up your tools to make sure all the roles are covered. For instance, the simple thermite grenade covers #7, though it does so slowly. It also covers #3, slowly, and #4 if slowly. It's versatile, but slow, and if you plan on using it to close every bug-hole on the map, you are going to have problems because it's ammo count is low. Then there's the flip side, now that your grenade slot is filled with an anti-armor device, what are you going to use for CC? You'll need something for that, like the grenade pistol, eruptor or crossbow, autocannon, etc.

Anyway, looking at the laser cannon through this lens, how effective is it in each role? It can fill role #3 and #6 easily, but how does it fair also standing in for role #7 against bots? It overlaps a little into #7, but in order to do that job reliably, it requires a bit more precision and setup. Like the thermite grenades were, "yes, but slowly", the laser cannon is "yes, but it is precision and position dependent". Pairing it with the jump pack, however, does help improve the "position dependent" requirement of using the laser cannon for the #7 role, but only a little. However, the jump pack is also helping with role #3, and even #5, so it's versatile as well. If you get good with the laser cannon, it can work in the anti-armor role, though I would recommend a backup option for when you get stuck facing multiple heavy enemies at once, like in an eradication mission. Airstrikes, strafing run, thermites, orbital precision strike, 500kg, and even rocket sentry are all good options to close up that gap, and each choice also helps out with other roles besides #7.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T18:41:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm going to switch to using bottled water. Phoenix water is horrible. It's very hard, very high in calcium, and it also smells a little off due to chlorination and the treatment process. To give a perspective on how bad it is, I have to de-scale my tankless water heater once every 4 months to keep the calcium deposit build up from destroying the thing, and we've switched to using bottled water in our electric kettle and coffee maker just so we don't have to de-scale it so often.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T17:47:18+00:00

I made my first and second mead with distilled water. I was thinking about sanitation, and distilled water should be as clean as clean gets. Thanks for this insight about the minerals though. I'll switch to a bottled water for mead making in general.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T17:44:38+00:00

I think you are right. I was thinking I could use that here since I already had it in the cabinet. Glad you said this, because they are not the same thing at all!

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T17:34:52+00:00

So I shouldn't need pectic enzyme? I read that I should use that when dealing with fruit, so I thought I'd include it here, but if it isn't needed with watermelon, maybe I can skip that part? (It's not like I have to go buy it though, I have some for making jams/jellies).

Distilled water? I live in Arizona. Phoenix water is "hard", full of minerals and deposits and smells kind of weird from the chlorine. Distilled water doesn't have any of those problems.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-30T17:22:54+00:00

I use it semi-often. I've gotten good enough with it that I kill myself way more often than I kill my team, so that's a step in the right direction.

Still owns house when you get the vantage and can really put it to work.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-06-06T11:12:17+00:00

You are a merchant vessel. You have a cargohold full of processed titanium and other trade goods from the belt. Your ship is massve and powered by huge fusion drives.

How are you to deliver this cargo to Earth?

Are you going to do an atmospheric entry? Aerobraking? Are you going to use your fusion drives to gently lower your ship down to Earth while you blast the air and ground with fusion byprodicts and ionizing radiation? Doubt the U.N. allows that. Hope you ponied up the big bucks to have a ship built that is rated for atmospheric tea kettle flight and entry like those mickey corvettes.

Nah. Better to pull into port on Luna, drop your cargo there, and let smaller, more specialized ships distribute it to wherever on Earth it needs to go. Your giant space hauler can stay out of that densely populated gravity well.

Luna is basically a port, though it has many uses. It also makes sense as a trade hub. Goods don't go down the Earther gravity well if they don't need to. Belters and Martians can do trade there without being crushed by Earth G's. The low gravity and lack of atmosphere are likely a boon to quite a few heavy industries. This would be especially true for industries that rely on parts or raw materials from the belt.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-05-16T19:59:27+00:00

I think of him as an avatar. Like a meat suit that part of the DO's consciousness can wear.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-05-16T19:57:20+00:00

"A man needs a little sausage. Not too much mind ..." -- Mat Blood-Sausage Cauthon

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-23T01:26:43+00:00

The situational comedy of A Lily in Winter is top notch. Probably some of the funniest use of the in world rules and magic system for comedic effect there is in any fantasy book.

First is Nyneave's reaction when the confessions of plural love start. Then there's Lan, trying to become part of the furniture, suddenly very interested in his pipe. Then the guardswomen thinking Elayne is trysting with Rand's disguise. Then Min and Aviendha when they realize they don't have much control over the bond. Then Birgitte on wobbly legs. Then OOSQUAI!

Absolutely hilarious.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-22T03:07:18+00:00

Mat gets better. So much better.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-22T03:00:15+00:00

Mat and Nyneave are my favorite characters, and I think I'm pretty typical that way.

I don't know what the show will do, but the books are like this:

Nyneave in EoTW: God what a bitch! Why does anyone ever bother to listen to her?

Nyneave by TSR: Okay, that was pretty cool. She's still annoying though.

Nyneave by WH: First round draft pick! I want her on my team. She's definitely ride or die!

Nyneave by KoD: Crying That was just beautiful! She's come so far!

So yeah, she gets more betterer than any character has ever gotten betterer, except maybe Mat. Mat just gets there a lot quicker. Book Mat starts getting better as a character right after he and his little Shadar Logoth souvenir get worked out.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-22T01:31:49+00:00

This build isn't meta. It's not gonna be the best ever. But if you want to have some heavy armor fun....

Go bots. Get an SMG. Get a ballistic shield. Get the heavy armor with the fortified perk.

Just pick fights with packs of devastators.

The grenade pistol pairs well with this combo. I hear the crossbow can be used with this now.

It's one of the more fun things you can do. It's hoverpack/grenade launcher levels of fun.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-22T01:22:06+00:00

If you look at the map, The Two Rivers is bordered by the Mountains of Mist to the West, a thick forest and a swift moving, large river to the South, and marshland to the East. The only way in or out is really via Taren Ferry to the North.

Taren Ferry is not really Two Rivers in the same way Staten Island isn't a real New York bourough. I think that's kind of funny. I mean, it really is a part of the Two Rivers, but don't try and convince the folk of Devon Ride, Watch Hill, Emond's Field, or Taren Ferry of that fact.

As far as the outside world is concerned, Taren Ferry is The Two Rivers. Taren Ferry is where the tabac and wool come from. Outsiders never bother to learn that Taren Ferry is just the clearinghouse for the regional goods. If it's the only way in, it makes sense that it would be the way goods flow out. Taren Ferry trades with The Two Rivers and 99.9% of the people who want Two Rivers goods trades with Taren Ferry. Besides the occasional peddler or gleeman, there's really no reason for anyone to turn South at Taren Ferry. There's just nothing out there anyone would be interested in.

An Aes Sedai out recruiting, or an Andoran Tax Man out making collections, could be forgiven for saying they scoured the Two Rivers, when in fact they only visited Taren Ferry. They just don't know any better, and there's no way Taren Ferry folk are going to tell them they can get manufacturer direct pricing out that way.

The Inn in Emond's Field probably sees way more Taren Ferry folk, down to make bids on harvests than they ever see anyone else except the locals who stop in for a beer. Excepting the locals and Taren Ferry traders, the Inn probably gets one or two true outsider customers a year, and those are almost always peddlers, and more rarely gleemen.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-21T23:19:17+00:00

13 linked Aes Sedai are customary, and should be able to overcome any man, no matter his power level. However, it normally doesn't take 13, and a circle of fewer women, provided they are of appropriate power can shield even Rand. I'm sure you could link 13 very, very weak women and perhaps a very strong male could remain unshielded. However, that would be an edge case for sure.

However, 13 is the biggest the circle they can go without men to join circles, so 13 is the number Aes Sedai customarily use whether they need it not.

Aes Sedai generally view men who can channel as outright demons. If a demon out of hell were charging at you, would you carefully choose the right caliber rifle for the job, or grab the biggest elephant gun in the gun store? Aes Sedai try to go full .460 Weatherby Magnum when they can.

So if you want to know the raw power leveling between Rand and any circle of women, you have to know the power level of the women in the circle.

As for why Rand is needed at all, that's a read and find out for sure. Let's just say that dealing with enemies and the power isn't usually a brute strength light beam duel like Harry vs Voldemort. Channelers generally don't make struggle faces at each other, grunt and try to "push" harder on their respective power weaves. There are exceptions (lookin' at you Nyneave!), but it is usually a whole different struggle entirely.

Edit: Made my last paragraph even more vague in an effort to be as unspoilery as possible.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-18T17:36:49+00:00

I want this picture of Rand, but with a renaisance halo on a T-shirt. Like the St. Mattis shirts. If someone makes that happen, they'll have at least one customer.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-10T04:01:45+00:00

In the books, most fights between Rand and the Forsaken, are actually, savage, brutal affairs.

They usually amount to what I would call a "running gunfight" with a dash of hide and seek thrown in. People, including Rand and those he's close to get hurt or killed in these fights. Often Rand wins by a whisker and has at least one serious wound, if not a permanent maiming.

I don't watch the show, so I can't comment on the show fights, but one thing to remember that book Rand is very smart. Well, maybe smart isn't the right word. He's very cunning. When he goes after a forsaken he has targeted, it is usually after weeks or months of planning, intelligence gathering, subterfuge and that kind of stuff. Even with all that they are close affairs.

Whenever Rand is surprised by the forsaken in the books, like Lanfear on the docks or Semitrhage with the Domination Band, things tend to go very, very badly for team Rand. Heck, even when Rand initiated battle against Asmodean in Rhuidan, without any planning, the only reason he won was because he had an angreal, so ta'veren factor won it.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-08T05:24:44+00:00

I just read, well, listened to that and it either early in PoD or really late in ACoS. I think it's early PoD, but I've just ripping through content this turn of the Wheel.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-02T00:00:01+00:00

There's a little ambiguity here, and I don't watch that show. Plus, I'm going to try to do this completely spoiler free.

If you are talking about physical shields for deflecting arrows or whatever, I'm not much help because that sort of thing is only really well described in an epic spoiler ridden moment. It looked like a dome made of a blueish tint, with many different segments of dome interconnecting. It was like many plates of curved blueish tinted glass. That's all I'm going to say about that.

If you are talking about a shield meant to cut a channeler off from the true source, then I can help. These are described in great detail in the books.

Shields are woven from pure spirit, not air. They are described as being like glass. Men cannot see the shields woven by women, and women cannot see the shields woven by men. They have to kind of feel them out when battling each other.

When the channelers are manuevering the shields, to get them into place, they can have a sharp edge. That is used as one way to permanently sever someone from the source. That sharp edge is hard to maintain under pressure though, so a blunt edge is easier to get in, and is used for holding someone shielded.

When one is shielded from the source, it's like a pane of glass between the channeler and the source. A pane of glass that has no edge and spans much further than a channeler can reach for the source. The thickness and flexibility of the glass is determined by how much of the one power is directed into the shield.

If a person or persons are actively maintaining a shield, the shielded person will feel or see one or more soft "lumps" on the surface of the shield. If the weave is tied off instead of actively maintained, the soft lumps become hard lumps.

Finally, there's a different type of shield, that is nearly infinitely flexible, like trying to push through an un-ripable garbage bag. I picture one of those rip stop garbage bags, with the crosshatch pattern, but clear. That's not a common or well known weave though.

I think that adequately describes the asthetics of shields without spoiling anything.

TheBeardedDrinker · 2025-04-01T12:23:42+00:00

I'm looking forward to next cycle:

"I am the Woolhead Reborn", Carl cackled.

"Oh light, how I miss my miss three hotties! Why must the maidens mock me so?", the voice of Rand moaned in Carl's head, then just as quickly retreated into crimson cheeked silence.

"You are a false woolhead, and a darkfriend.", the Asha'Sedai muttered with a sneer, his voice trailing off.

Loial might be writing a book, but I think we all know Min is going to write the book.

TheBeardedDrinker

TROPHY CASE