My Little Pony XCVII: Cheerilee's Lonely Hearts Club

[Derjuin]

I'm not a fan of solid manes and tails, but ye gods if I only had the room...
...and the money...

I'm saving up for a plush like this myself... they're quite the investment seeing as the cheapest big pony plush is likely to run you about 1500 USD. o.o

[Manga Shoggoth]

I'm saving up for a plush like this myself... they're quite the investment seeing as the cheapest big pony plush is likely to run you about 1500 USD. o.o

Too rich for my blood, I'm afraid.

[Aotrs Commander]

Happy New Year all, let's hope this one is collectively better than the last one.

[zimmerwald1915]

Happy New Year all, let's hope this one is collectively better than the last one.

Oh Heavens yes.

[DigoDragon]

Too rich for my blood, I'm afraid.

Same. For 1500 I'd probably end up spending it on a new central AC system for the house, or hire an electrician to rewire a bunch of the older lines. There are some wires in the back of the house that I don't know what they do, or if they're even live.

[Aotrs Commander]

Typical. Probably only a handful of turns left before the end of my TWW1 game and there is just not wquite enough time left to do it (as we might go out in the morning and I need to meditate...)

Took my 160 turns into my second game to realise that some of the skills can be selected more than once. *skullpalm* I have wasted so many skill points on things I didn't really want but thought I had to have! (And I was thinking, "why were there so many extra skill points mods?" Next game, that'll be a thing as well...!)

[DigoDragon]

Happy New year ponies! Here's to a stable 2018... could not get around that pun. Haha...

[Rater202]

Grandma's already drunk and my timezone's got an hour to go.

[Aotrs Commander]

It takes time, but the recolonization isn't too bad since there aren't really any threats at that point.

See, I disagree. Kinda. Reinforcements are hard to manage, but I actually wait for them, while I'm pretty sure the AI just goes at it and lets them join in as they show up. It makes a pretty big difference. Other things the AI seems to be really bad at is targeting Artillery. Seriously, I auto resolved a fight and lost it. So I reloaded and took control of the fight. The enemies demon cannons went from killing hundreds of my troops to about a dozen or so. Which gave me a pretty easy win.

Though the AI handles enemy Chariots a lot better then I do, and I think we're about even for infantry clashes. But the biggest thing the AI sucks at is using terrain.

In this one map, there's this tiny hill that you can position on top of to force the enemy into a bottleneck. Added bonus is some nearby trees so you can hide flanking units. Using that terrain I managed to beat two 20 unit armies of Chaos in a row. As in, one attacked me, and then the other attacked me.

Well, nay frackin' wonder I've been struggling with things - I am learning just how utterly useless the tutorials - and the in-game key mapping listings - actual are. They don't tell you half the bloody controls! Y'know, important things, like spacebar to see where everything is, what locking a group means, not running, Alt-click and Alt-click/control to shove your fomation about... I ended up watching a tutorial (trying to work out why Karl Franz's elite army never seemed to be getting much XP) by Party Elite and thought "well, given that NONE OF THAT was in the tutorial, what else am I missing?"

Apparently, nearly bloody everything!

Ye gods.

[Rater202]

Dear Ponythread: Last Night I tried Conseco.

Comparing it to the results of trying Champaign the year before, I am forced to conclude that sparkling white wine is awful

[Forum Explorer]

Well, nay frackin' wonder I've been struggling with things - I am learning just how utterly useless the tutorials - and the in-game key mapping listings - actual are. They don't tell you half the bloody controls! Y'know, important things, like spacebar to see where everything is, what locking a group means, not running, Alt-click and Alt-click/control to shove your fomation about... I ended up watching a tutorial (trying to work out why Karl Franz's elite army never seemed to be getting much XP) by Party Elite and thought "well, given that NONE OF THAT was in the tutorial, what else am I missing?"

Apparently, nearly bloody everything!

Ye gods.

I never watched any of the tutorials, but I've been playing Total War games for a very long time now, so I already knew the controls. And wow, that's pretty bad.


On a side note, I hate the High Elves and their stupid fortress island. With them not having any hostile neighbors, having an ocean between them and any enemies, and having literal fortress cities, they are so blatantly easy mode for this game. The High Elves can suck it, and I'm going to burn their entire civilization to the ground for being so OP. Oh, not to mention they have High Elf factions on every continent, which has the trait 'Defender' which means they attack anyone who attacks their friggin island!

[Pi Pie]

I'm saving up for a plush like this myself... they're quite the investment seeing as the cheapest big pony plush is likely to run you about 1500 USD. o.o

$1500 is a lot of money. However, it takes a lot of time and material to make a quality plush.

For a plush that size, it would probably take over $200 in material alone.

As for the time, a lot more than you may think.



I actually just finished a plush that I was working on for the last year. It is Derpy as a tree topper based on S6E8, A Hearth's Warming Tale. I finished after Hearth's Warming Eve because there was a delay on the shipment of the top star.

Spoiler: Derpy Plushie

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Spoiler: The Hearth's Warming Tree

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[Aotrs Commander]

Dear Ponythread: Last Night I tried Conseco.

Comparing it to the results of trying Champaign the year before, I am forced to conclude that sparkling white wine is awful

So, the same as all other wine (and alcohol) then.

ZING!

I never watched any of the tutorials, but I've been playing Total War games for a very long time now, so I already knew the controls. And wow, that's pretty bad.

And I think therein lies the problem. They made no effort to educate people who had never picked up a Total War game before.

I mean, REALLY. The Spacebar menu thing is probably the single most important damn control in the game and, if that was mentioned at all, it was in passing only. And NOTHING was said about all the formation commands, especially the important Alt ones... Nvermind the Shift-drag path path that's y'know, pretty much vital for functional flanking!

So I watched pretty much all of Party Elite's 40-odd videos today (so about 2-3 hour's worth or something) and I now have SOME idea of how to play the damn game passably.

Notably, the first battle I fought was a supposedly auto-resolve unwinnable against the last fragments of Norsca against a basic garrision. Which I actually WON.

On a side note, I hate the High Elves and their stupid fortress island. With them not having any hostile neighbors, having an ocean between them and any enemies, and having literal fortress cities, they are so blatantly easy mode for this game. The High Elves can suck it, and I'm going to burn their entire civilization to the ground for being so OP. Oh, not to mention they have High Elf factions on every continent, which has the trait 'Defender' which means they attack anyone who attacks their friggin island!

So, a likely candiate for Bleakbane's Eventual First Playthrough of TWW2, then...



I abandoned my Empire game at the point that only Brettonia, the Dwarves (both my allies), the Wood Elves (who they were at war with - technically I was, but neither of us had actually ever sent any forces to each other) the Border Princes left alive on the map.

I have started the special Wood Elf mini-campaign, now having added an extra skill points mod to the mix (now that I know how skills work properly-like!) That started with a crazy-early attack of enemy Beastmen (seriously, like three stacks, two at once, 21 turns in on Easy), the only way in which I could win against was to auto-resolve the first battle and then actually fight the battles properly. And yeah, the muderous arrow barrages are pretty much what I was hoping they would be and what they were not with the Empire...!

[Rater202]

So, the same as all other wine (and alcohol) then.

ZING!

I have had wine. I have had vodka. I have had whiskey.

Wine tastes like someone pissed in spoiled grape juice, the other two taste like cough syrup, and my mouth was numb for half an hour after the whiskey.

[Excession]

$1500 is a lot of money. However, it takes a lot of time and material to make a quality plush.

For a plush that size, it would probably take over $200 in material alone.

As for the time, a lot more than you may think.



I actually just finished a plush that I was working on for the last year. It is Derpy as a tree topper based on S6E8, A Hearth's Warming Tale. I finished after Hearth's Warming Eve because there was a delay on the shipment of the top star.

Spoiler: Derpy Plushie

Show

Spoiler: The Hearth's Warming Tree

Show

That is just adorable.

...my mouth was numb for half an hour after the whiskey.

That's how you know it's working

There is a huge variation between different wines and spirits. I like some whisky; some tastes like someone soaked an oak branch in paint stripper. Seriously though, it's an acquired taste that some people never acquire.

[DigoDragon]

I am forced to conclude that sparkling white wine is awful

It kind of is. I'm more of a rum pony myself.

Spoiler

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I actually just finished a plush that I was working on for the last year. It is Derpy as a tree topper based on S6E8, A Hearth's Warming Tale. I finished after Hearth's Warming Eve because there was a delay on the shipment of the top star.

D'aww, that is the most adorable tree topper ever! I love it!

So, the same as all other wine (and alcohol) then.
ZING!

*continues drinking his rum in defiance of British customs, as is tradition for America*

Spoiler

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the other two taste like cough syrup

Cough syrup of the late 1800s was generally 10% or more comprised of hard liquor, so there's a reason why the two share similar tastes. ;)

[Rater202]

It kind of is. I'm more of a rum pony myself.

Spoiler

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Have not hat rum.Family buys it o spike punch for holidays... but its always clear, which I find concerning.

Also, totally a big mac on the favorite princess board.

[Excession]

Have not hat rum.Family buys it o spike punch for holidays... but its always clear, which I find concerning.

Also, totally a big mac on the favorite princess board.

White rum is fine, in mixed drinks at least. The colour in dark rum generally comes from being aged in oak barrels (or in stainless steel with oak shavings) which also adds tannins and other flavour complexity to the rum. For a lot of mixed drinks, you don't want the tannin. Most rums have sugar added after distillation, and spiced rums may have other flavours as well. Some even have gunpowder added, possibly as a marketing gimmick, and that saltpetre really burns.

The favourite rum that I've tried was "Pyrat XO" IIRC, served in a brandy glass with a few drops of lime juice and sipped slowly.

[Aotrs Commander]

I can count on the fingers of one claw attack how many times I've imbibed alcohol in my life (it's zero since Undeath) and at least one of those was without my knowledge.



(To be fair, it was Mum and is was brandy or something slipped into my lemsip, because I was dreadfully struggling with my chest at the time. I think that might have been the night I was awake at, like, four in the morning because of the coughing and we watched the first episode of Supersense (nature documentary) which had been previously recorded on video.)

[Derjuin]

I myself prefer rum or vodka, or a very specific kind of whisky. Just rum by itself is good, and I do enjoy quite a few mixed drinks with either rum or vodka in them.

As for the whisky, I love doing shots of Fireball, a cinnamon-spiced whisky. It's so good!

[otakuryoga]

dont like Fireball straight up...good with cola though

most beers i like are hard to come by in this area(even in this age of global distribution)
and we are not talking obscure micro craft brews:
Miller Genuine Draft(EVERYWHERE in the 90's, now you almost have to special order it)
Molson Ice
Sapporo(pretty much only get it when i go eat japanese)

but this is a probably a good thing since i have a psychological makeup that lends itself toward addiction.. i just channel that into more harmless stuff than booze/gambling like gaming/food

[Pendulous]

I never liked beer or any kind of strong alcohol. If it tastes bad, there's no point in putting it in my mouth. Mixed drinks, fine. I only really drink wine coolers, since they basically just taste like a fruit punch type drink. Except now, I can't drink any alcohol anymore since it messes with my medication.

Here's to another lousy year

Spoiler

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[DigoDragon]

Have not hat rum.Family buys it o spike punch for holidays... but its always clear, which I find concerning.

Also, totally a big mac on the favorite princess board.

Coconut flavored rum is clear, which is what I use to make coquito (one of my favorite mixed drinks of all time). Essentially the Puerto Rican answer to Egg Nog, only a billion times better in my opinion. :D

Search for Princess Big Mac yielded a ponythreader art.

Spoiler

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and at least one of those was without my knowledge.

They did that to Michael J Fox in the Back to the Future movie. Thought he was drinking water.

I myself prefer rum or vodka, or a very specific kind of whisky.

As for the whisky, I love doing shots of Fireball, a cinnamon-spiced whisky. It's so good!

As I'm a rum kind of pony, my brother prefers vodka. Screwdrivers are pretty simple, but quite refreshing on a warm night.

Never tried a fireball.

Here's to another lousy year

I'm gonna lure 2018 into a false sense of security and get the drop on it first.

Spoiler

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[t209]

For me I had Gin and Lemonade mix like any gin-mixers for this year.
Blue Moon for beer.
I tried Brandy and turned out to be not what I expected. Mostly just sipping rubbing alcohol while sniffing perfumes.
P.S.- Also anyone happened to see a Pony Banner for Hasbro in Toys That Made Us on Netflix?

[Aotrs Commander]

Pahahahahahaha!

Nowt quite so entertaining as an immortal reoccuring Beastman enemy who always gets up in the exact spot where your three armies are to be farmed for XP!

The patience of Elves, eh?

[Forum Explorer]

So, the same as all other wine (and alcohol) then.

ZING!





And I think therein lies the problem. They made no effort to educate people who had never picked up a Total War game before.

I mean, REALLY. The Spacebar menu thing is probably the single most important damn control in the game and, if that was mentioned at all, it was in passing only. And NOTHING was said about all the formation commands, especially the important Alt ones... Nvermind the Shift-drag path path that's y'know, pretty much vital for functional flanking!

So I watched pretty much all of Party Elite's 40-odd videos today (so about 2-3 hour's worth or something) and I now have SOME idea of how to play the damn game passably.

Notably, the first battle I fought was a supposedly auto-resolve unwinnable against the last fragments of Norsca against a basic garrision. Which I actually WON.




So, a likely candiate for Bleakbane's Eventual First Playthrough of TWW2, then...



I abandoned my Empire game at the point that only Brettonia, the Dwarves (both my allies), the Wood Elves (who they were at war with - technically I was, but neither of us had actually ever sent any forces to each other) the Border Princes left alive on the map.

I have started the special Wood Elf mini-campaign, now having added an extra skill points mod to the mix (now that I know how skills work properly-like!) That started with a crazy-early attack of enemy Beastmen (seriously, like three stacks, two at once, 21 turns in on Easy), the only way in which I could win against was to auto-resolve the first battle and then actually fight the battles properly. And yeah, the muderous arrow barrages are pretty much what I was hoping they would be and what they were not with the Empire...!

I do love pulling unwinnable battles off. Craziest one had to be three skaven armies vs my town plus a single army. About 4800 rats to my 1800 lizards. There were so many opponents I actually hit the unit cap, which actually won me the fight. Only 40 enemy units could be on the map at once, but still it was a long fight. In the end I ran out of ammo and magic, and only 8 guys in the town garrison survived the fight. My reinforcement army took massive casualties (well over 50%). And you know it's a desperate fight when you've got a fat toad (Slann Mage Priests are basically the weird love child of Jabba the hut and Yoda) resorting to poking at people with a stick.


On that note, I'm surprised you went with the Empire first. Dwarfs are certainly easier, and I thought Vampire Counts would be more wait, just reread and caught the vampire part. I think you can play as Nagash though who is just a really strong Lich.

Anyways, finished my game up. The High Elves finally pushed me out of Utheran, through I disrupted their ritual twice (so that's 20+ turns of hanging around their island burning their stuff down.) I think I ended up killing something like 8 High Elf armies in that whole mini-campaign. I never did manage to burn the capital to the ground though. If I tried (and I did try), it would result in one of said armies showing up and killing my army. In the end, my guys pulled out, fighting one final naval battle (which left my army in tatters, but victorious) as they left.

But yeah, the final push was really easy. Just start up the final ritual, go on the defensive, defeat the spawning armies (which respawn after 10 turns), prevent anyone from conquering one of three super cities, and then do the dead easy final fight.

I have had wine. I have had vodka. I have had whiskey.

Wine tastes like someone pissed in spoiled grape juice, the other two taste like cough syrup, and my mouth was numb for half an hour after the whiskey.

Agreed about Wine. I also can't stand Beer. I love whiskey, and all hard liquor though. Well, I say love, but I have a drink maybe once a month, even when it's available. I like the taste, but don't like the effects.

Have not hat rum.Family buys it o spike punch for holidays... but its always clear, which I find concerning.

Also, totally a big mac on the favorite princess board.

To spike punch? Gross, they should use Vodka for that. Rum is for eggnog and cola. Dr. Pepper and Kraken is mouthwatering.

Also, I don't like clear rum as much.

(it's zero since Undeath)

Well yeah. I know you still have your sense of taste but most people drink it for the effects, and I imagine that's non-existent now.

[t209]

Agreed about Wine. I also can't stand Beer. I love whiskey, and all hard liquor though. Well, I say love, but I have a drink maybe once a month, even when it's available. I like the taste, but don't like the effects.

It's reverse between you and me. I prefer beer but can't hold hard liquor.

[Aotrs Commander]

I do love pulling unwinnable battles off. Craziest one had to be three skaven armies vs my town plus a single army. About 4800 rats to my 1800 lizards. There were so many opponents I actually hit the unit cap, which actually won me the fight. Only 40 enemy units could be on the map at once, but still it was a long fight. In the end I ran out of ammo and magic, and only 8 guys in the town garrison survived the fight. My reinforcement army took massive casualties (well over 50%). And you know it's a desperate fight when you've got a fat toad (Slann Mage Priests are basically the weird love child of Jabba the hut and Yoda) resorting to poking at people with a stick.

Ooh, nasty.



I just finished my Wood Elf mini campaign (not THAT mini, really). Turns out, by the time you've got a large chunk of the map filled with them that sacrifiical grounds (and everyone had more skill points) and you focus ranged, you CAN field an army of nowt but ranged guys. Hell, I actually used loads of vanguard troops and most of the time, they did great.

Even with elite (level 6-9) troops, though, the last battle was a bit touch and go. I lost my dragon and one of my sisters of the thorn units (and you KNOW with it being me, loss of an important, high-level unit is something that normally would indite a reload and try again), but I managed to kill whathisface before I entirely ran out of ammo. But we was a bit banged up.

On that note, I'm surprised you went with the Empire first. Dwarfs are certainly easier, and I thought Vampire Counts would be more wait, just reread and caught the vampire part. I think you can play as Nagash though who is just a really strong Lich.

Pretty much, yeah. I nearly started with the Vampies, but upon discovering Heinrich (star of "getting murdered by the PCs in Revenge of the Lichemaster and being the only module I've ever run twice") Kemmler didn't have an intro - and neither did the Wood Elves, I don't think - I threw up my hands and said "fine, we'll do the boring basic guys first!"

Also, when I start my VC game, I WILL be modding in skeleton archers and a screaming skull catapult from the workshop. Because dammit, Warhammer Undead before they split it out into the (in my opinion, far lesser) Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings can largely be blamed for me being what I am today. My ascent to Lichedom an reasonably said to have started on evening at the Rolls Club when I was about ten or eleven and they were going to to a Warhammer fantasy demo game at the Worlds - Undead verses Orcs - and they gave me a unit of skeletons to command. And the rest, as they say, is history.

(The first time I built a model army for the Aotrs army, it was a Warhammer one (in 3rd edition and later 4th, both modified/hybridised¹) - at 15mm of course. (No, the only 25/28mm Aotrs army I have is the modern one as opposed to the histroical one.) The 15mm army saw most common and eventual use for DBM (our rather, our DBM-H)), but the original was designed considering Warhammer, right down to the basing of the figures individually.)

So I'll be undamned if I'm not going to have a proper, circa Warhammer Armies Undead army, led by Kemmler! (Hell, they even a screaming skull IN Revenge of the Lichemaster!)



¹Because you KNOW I would never leave a set of rules alone, and dissatisfied with how the Warhammer Undead worked, eventually I rebuilt them from near-scratch using the profile PV from 40K Rogue Trader to be far more like what they should have been. Rules are rules, not a game in and of themselves, and in very few instances will they be used by Bleakbane for only a specified setting or their original intent exlcusively...

[DigoDragon]

I like the taste, but don't like the effects.

I like the effects of alcohol. It's the aftereffects I dislike. ;)
Lots of water, only real way to fight it.

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[digiman619]

I like the effects of alcohol. It's the aftereffects I dislike. ;)
Lots of water, only real way to fight it.

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I actually have never had a hangover. I don't drink often, but even if I get totally ****faced, I'm fine in the morning. I know that I have no way of proving it, but it's totally true.