A Geek History of Time - Episode 387 - Top 5 Lists part I

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the appeal. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because, you know, who's the boss? You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can to many.

to everybody possible. And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. and I don't know if I mentioned it on the podcast, but a few weeks ago, my cat passed away, Ronald. And I say my cat because, of course, he's the family's cat, but I was his human. And for a while before he passed away, my son, Robert, would say to me or his mother, you know, Mommy has Luna and Daddy has Ronald. and I don't have a kitty. I want a kitty of my own. And we were like, kid, we don't have room for more than two cats in this house. Well, Ronald passed away.

And we were not initially in any great hurry to get another cat. But Luna has not handled being a lady. She was always talkative, but she has been yelling at us for a month now. Time to torture her with a kitten. Yes, so today we went to PetSmart and Robert picked out another orange boy kitty. He said to us he wanted another Ronald Kitty. His name is Ember. He is two months old.

Ember quasi. Did he come with that name or did you guys? No, his name was Do Flamingo. Okay. As the guy said in Men and Tites, it's a good. Good change. Yeah. Good change.

Yeah. And so we brought him home and he is currently in Robert's bathroom, acclimating to that small space. He's got food in there in a water bowl. And he has basically parked himself in the litter box in that room and curled up because it's inside an enclosure. And so he's, you know, protected and safe. He has come out a little bit and kind of explored the space.

But yeah, he is very good with us. He's not comfortable with the space yet. But if you, you know, reach in and pet him, he starts purring immediately. So he's not afraid of us. It's just been a very big change, obviously. So that is my big news for this week. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony.

I am a U.S. history teacher at the high school level. and up here in northern California. Yeah, this is going to be dated. Oh, well. So, as is yours in some ways, if people are following the dots, you know. My youngest child has promoted from eighth grade. Right. And, you know, I've always had the same attitude toward eighth grade promotions, I think, since I was in eighth grade, which is like,

Well, yeah. Now let's go on to the thing that, like, you actually have a risk of not doing. Yeah. And so while I do think that it is an important... Milestone? Yeah, not even a milestone. I would say it's an important ceremony to say goodbye. Okay. And beyond that, you know, it's, you know, it is... Whose line is it anyway? The points are made up and the categories aren't real.

Okay, and the points don't count. Right, right, you know. The rules are made up and the points don't count. Yeah, that's what it is, you know. Yeah. That being said, my child has had a career validating impact on every teacher she's ever coming to contact with. It's just how it is.

Yeah. And to be honest, so did her brother in a very different way. Yeah, you kind, you have, I think, I think. just by being a factor of the water in which they have swum, you have kind of had the influence of making them kind of iconoclastic. Yes, yes. And that means that they are going to be the kids that stand out in teachers' memories for a long time. Yeah.

like I told you about the email that that she sent to one of her teachers who then responded with this is such a Damien Harmony's child email to send. Yeah. Yeah. So, so anyway, I asked her at said promotion ceremony. Well, it looks like everything's kind of wrapping up. Did you want to go or did you want to say goodbye to your teachers? So she went and said goodbye to all her teachers.

And oh my God. of the teachers hugged me so tight, I almost fell down on top of her. Oh, wow. And I don't mean that metaphorically. I actually told her, I said, I'm about to fall. This is not me leaning on you on purpose. And it took me two steps before. And she was like, it's okay.

And it was like, okay. And it was just because like the ground and everything was just slightly off. And I did not expect that tight a hug. Yeah. When the teachers of your child hug you like a long lost sibling. you've done something right yeah yeah yeah that's that's got to be powerfully validated it was cool yeah I'm happy to hear that's awesome I'm so happy for her teachers uh having gotten to have her and having gotten to have my son I'm I'm very happy for the rewards that both gave them yeah and also I'm just so

immensely grateful at the ability of them to tend to both of my kids and the ways that they needed yeah yeah it was pretty dope. Very cool, man. Yeah. Very cool. Anyway, I wouldn't say it was a top five moment as a parent because I've had such really cool ones with the kids.

But it was certainly up there. All right. Yeah. Very cool. So speaking of top five moments, as a little bit of a break, you know, from a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about, I think it's time for us to do kind of a top five off. Oh, okay. All right. What do you think?

This is definitely a top three idea. Okay. Very cool. Yeah, okay. Well, you started it, so you get to, what is it? You broke hearts, so you get to play the first card. Okay, there we go. So I'm going to say, let's talk about top five battlemecks.

Oh, okay. Because I know this is something we both have opinions about, right? Yeah. Now, I'm going to confine mine to mecks that I've played in the game, not anything having to do with virtual world. Okay. And not anything having to do with books that I haven't read or a board game I've never played. Okay. Ten four. All right. Just so you know my parameters, because I want to be able to speak with common vocabulary. Yeah.

Because if I told you that the Loki Prime is the best there is and the best there was, the best there ever will, be from my virtual world experience. Yeah. Even people who remember virtual world would be like, Damien, you're fucking on crack. And I will point out, I got to the semifinals in a tournament using that shit. And everybody was like, what the hell? So, you know, it's not the girl, Peter. It's the building.

Okay. But I'm going to confine it to the Mech Warrior game that we play fairly regularly. Okay. Now, the restrictions on mine are a little bit broader, although you'll recognize all of these, none of them or anything that you won't have heard of at least or seen in the game. And by the game, we're talking about Mac Warrior Five Mercenaries just so we can establish that when our vocabulary, because other people, you know, other Grognards are going to be like, which game do you mean, Damien? Right. Because obviously it's Mech Warrior 5, so there's been four versions before. Yes.

And Mac Warrior Online, which has a much wider pool of basic chassis. There's their stuff in Mac Warrior Online that they haven't brought into Mac Warrior 5. And then there's several other Battletech games that are less like piloting and more strategy kind of stuff. And then, of course, the tabletop and whatever else. So when we talk about what we're... we've played in the game or seen in the game. We're talking about McWarrior 5 mercenaries, just so everybody's clear.

And I'm going to start with my number five. All of the ones that are on my top five list I'm putting down here are stock models. Okay. And the reason I did that is because the Crusader essay, the Thunderbolt Double S, along with the Centurion AL, which is, oh, oh, chef's,

I love the Centurion A.L. But they're murder bots. And it's hard for me not to giggle. And you'll vouch for this. It's hard for me to not giggle maliciously when I'm piloting them in the game. Because just watching. Oh, yeah. Melting armor.

Yeah. Just watching commandos evaporate from an alpha strike is so nice. Oh, yeah. But they're not, to me, qualified to be top five mech listies because they're either like one-off customs like a hero mech or their really highly specialized one trick ponies like the Thunderbolt 5-Double S is an arena model like that's not what's the 5-2s is that it's the laser boat oh I thought that's the 5ST no it's a 5 oh no you're right it is a 5ST I wrote it down wrong you're right okay it's the 5ST uh the double S I think has a second large laser or something

yeah yeah yeah so I'm talking about when I said that I meant the 5 ST. And, and like, you giggle when you're piloting that one. Well, just because, like, you get to, you get to get all that salvage. And I've only done 20 points of armor damage on a full neck and it's collapsed. Yeah. So I'm going to start with my number five on my list. And that is the mad dog, also known as the vulture. Okay.

That's my number five. Okay. It's the only clan mac on my list. All right. All right. So first of all, it's a savage machine. It is, it is cruelty in, in mechanized form. It's, it's fast and it hits like a deuterium brick.

Just, mm, absolutely wonderful. Now, the version I've played in Mech Warrior 5 has a really eclectic loadout. Centers on six, Clan SRM 6s, which again, it's really fun watching lightmex just evaporate when you hit them. with that. And at longer range, it carries an LB5X auto cannon, which hits a lot harder than any other AC5 I've seen in the game. And a clan PPC, which is just just icing on cake, right? So now I figured out which version it was that I piloted back in the day at Virtual World.

And it had two clan large lasers, two clan medium lasers, and two Lerner, and two Lerner. LRMs. And what I'd love to do with that one, because I had been reading up on the flying tigers in World War II prior to World War II. And I learned that, you know, they had the P40 Warhawk and they were going up against zeros. And what that meant was they had an amazing dive rate and a pretty good climb rate, but they could not turn to keep up with a zero at all. So what they specialized in doing was they would make a high-speed diving pass as their way of starting the fight coming from above and, you know, opening up and then and then, you know, getting as many hits as they could that way to engage. And I would do that with that vulture and just make a series like run past whoever it was I was gunning for run past him, turn around and then make another pass, run past them. you know,

firing the whole way. A horizontal Chumbo Wamba. Didn't blow myself up. Yeah. When, yeah, when I didn't blow myself up from heat, which I had to learn how to control how to ride the heat curve. Yes. That took a couple of sessions with those,

with all those lasers. And I want to say they were like, LR. I want to say they were either 15s or 20s. So like, you know, I'm generating a lot of heat while I'm doing that. but when I managed to figure out the heat curve, I didn't get a lot of kills that way, but I racked up the damage points. And I got so many. I got like my buddies and I would be, you know, a team when we'd go in together.

And I'd wind up getting so many assists. It'd be like, yeah, no, the reason you're able to take that guy out was because I'd softened him up really hard before you got closed. Nice. And, and, and just aesthetically, like, there are. a lot of the Omnomex in the first generation of Omnomex in the games that are just pug-ungly like the Man of War

is just hideous I don't like it there's several of them that have a big like armor shelf like above their head you know the non-humanoid looking ones have have this weird kind of kind of box looking thing going on it's just and the original

Mad Cat like I remember my friends were like, oh my God, this thing is so amazing. And I'm like, aesthetically looking at it. I'm like, it's, it's ugly. I don't, I don't groove on it. But the vulture just looks like a sci-fi robot tank. Like, it has a, it has a real meaningful military kind of look to it. And yeah, and it manages to look kind of swoopy and cool without looking like something out of an anime.

And I dig it. And so that's how the mad dog gets its place as number five on my list. Okay. So. So I paused this unbeknownst to anybody because I put into the chat all of my blueprints of all the, or not blueprints, but all of the spec screens of all of the battlemecks from virtual world. Right. So now that we've done that, which vulture were you talking about?

I was talking about the V1. and my memory was incorrect about its armament. It turns out it has two ER medium lasers. Yes. Four regular medium lasers, by which I mean four clan medium lasers, which is a very different thing from Intersphere. Two small lasers, which I don't remember doing very much with. And importantly, two LRM 15s, which was where I earned my brother.

and butter. Yeah. Because opening up with those on the way in and then, oh, hey, now I'm going to laser range and you're going to lose a limb. So, yeah. And I just remember having all the fun running that thing all over those maps. And it was fast. Yes.

It went 114. So if you scroll down to the Vulture V4. V4, 1, 2, 3, 4. That's one. everybody swore by. Yeah. Much less heat, lots and lots of splash damage.

Yeah, a whole lot of it. See, the thing is I liked the idea of being able to hit from a longer distance. I like being able to open up when most everybody else because as I remember, at least

at our location at virtual world, there was a real culture of Don't make any fancy maneuvers Just go get them Right You know and everybody running up And it would turn into this close range scrum

And I really like being able to start annoying people From a much farther distance out And then veer off And about the time And with those ER mediums I was in a really good position Where right about the time

My ER mediums were getting into a sweet spot And my mediums were starting to hit Right. They were starting to really be able to return fire, and that's when I'd veer off. And be like, no, sorry, you can go after one of my starmates over here, but I'm going to get out of the way for a moment. And then when one of my buddies gets you stuck in, I'm going to turn around and hammer you from another flank. Sure. And, yeah.

So, yeah, V1. A lot of people would do the Voltra 2 because it had two sets of LRMs. and then and then but the vulture and it was faster yeah but the vulture one again I worked there so I have a different set of experiences right so I would see what people are requesting all the time and the vulture one would often be used by people who are trying to gimmick indirect fire and yeah that was that was in some tournaments forbidden Oh yeah, no, I can understand that. I never got savvy enough for lack of a better word to try to gimmick anything.

Yeah. So that wasn't that wasn't anything that was on my mind. I'm sure if a friend of the show, Sean, had been in my circle at the time that we were doing this. Sure. He would have figured that out and we would have probably fucked a lot of people up. because he's he's that kind of okay I'm looking at how this works and oh hey here's this thing we could do uh kind of thinking and you know I fall somewhere between no fancy maneuvers just go out of and that and so yeah you know but yeah so that's

that's my that's my number five I am I am I'm a big fan of the vulture on on several levels, a aesthetic and use in the game. What's your number five? What do you think? So I'm going to go Klan Mac actually. Okay. Dasher.

Okay. Go fast. Go really fast. And either load it up with an AMS so that anybody who does try to hit you and they get a lock on you, it won't matter. Or loaded up with a shit ton of Klan

ER Smalls. That is fucking diabolic. And so you will get a few hits that are errant without hurting you too terribly much, and only a few will land anyway. But your job is to draw the fight back toward the rest of your lance. You are not there to fuck a spider. You are there to lure a spider in and let your big brothers fuck that spider. Hard. Yeah.

Hard. Cruely, in fact. Yes. Yeah. And you've played with me using that, where it's like. like, you know, 220, and I'm like, perfect, here we go. And you're like, what are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?

And then I'll run around and kill steal. Yeah. Like, I don't care. Yeah. It all goes to the same pot. Yeah. But I love, like, that fucking thing. And I will mod it too so that its top speed is no longer 130 something.

It's in the 160s. Fuck. I'm like, here we go. So, yeah. Dash. Yeah. All right. The cool thing also is.

is if you run a dash or off of a cliff, it tucks its legs. It's pretty cool to watch. It's really neat. Yeah, the animation in the game is pretty cool. That's dope. Yeah, and it has, and there's something about the little clan mechs.

Yes. Like the big heavy omnis are, are fugly, but the little ones are like ugly cute. Yeah. Like, like they managed, they managed to be like,

okay, what if we took a locust and, and made it like intentionally uglier? Yeah. But, like, in a way that's going to be, oh, it's fucking hideous, you know. Except they won't be able to say that because they'll be like, oh, what was that? What the, what the, why do I have no armor left on my right leg? What the hell?

You know, it's the, it's the arms having that weird reverse, like. They look like they should be holding on the ape hangers. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. All right. Your turn. All right.

My number four is the war. hammer. Oh yeah, that makes sense. Nobody who played the original box set battle tech is gonna be surprised by this choice, like at all, or is it gonna argue about whether or not it belongs here. Okay. Fundamentally. I have a couple of choices on this list that tabletop Gragnards are gonna disagree with and but the Warhammer is just solid. It, if there's any controversy, it's gonna be that I only put it at number four. Um, It has decent movement.

It's not, obviously, a clan mech, but it is fast enough to be able to act as a screener for assault mechs. It is capable of keeping up with most other heavy mechs unless you've got something freaky with an Excel engine or whatever in it. And its armament makes it capable of vaporizing light mechs in, you know, a few shots on its own. And it has a relatively forgiving heat curve if you're not crazy trigger happy. And if you go in and you

replace the regular heat sinks with double heat sinks when they become available, you don't actually really even have to be that careful anymore. If you double heat sink it, you can keep firing the PPCs every turn

without needing to worry about it. In the tabletop game, what my friends and I frequently did was we'd find depth one water somewhere on the board, park a warhammer in a lake

and just fire both PPCs every turn at starting at max range. Oh, because you could just stay cool. Yeah, because the rules went, okay, if you've got heat sinks in your legs and we all put heat sinks in the legs of everything we've designed because it was, okay, if you have heat sinks in your legs and you park in level one, a depth one or depth two water,

you get a bonus point of heat for each heat sink that's in, that's submerged, that's in the legs. And we were like, well, okay, so that's, you know, two heat sinks in each leg or more. And that means, you know, we're getting an additional four points of heat were taken off every turn. And then double heat sinks came out and it was like, I don't even need to park it in a lake anymore.

But if I do, I'm just, I'm stone, I'm literally stone cold in a turn. So. Yeah. You're now selling it on the open exchange. Yeah. The joke we used to make was, you know, there ought to be rules about the lake evaporating after a while. Like, okay, after three turns of doing this, depth two becomes depth one.

Because like, come on. All the fish come up and they're poached. Yeah, like, oh my God, you know, think about the energy levels involved in what you're doing here. Like, holy cow. So, yeah. But it's, it's one of the unseen. So it kind of went through some things because it was originally a Robotech destroyed. I want to say called the Tomahawk.

and it wound up they had to come up with alternate art that just sucked for a couple of iterations several editions of the game but it is one of the early iconic mechs for the game if it's good enough for the Black Widow Natasha Kerensky it's good enough for me

it's it's just it's amazing and yeah so it gets It gets a spot here at number four for me. Okay. Cool. How about you? I'm going to go with a catapult C4. Okay. So two small lasers in case someone gets in the way.

And then rack the hell out of the LRM 20s. So I'm pulling shit out and modding it up so that I can do this. And then load up on ammo. Okay. You know, you could have two mediums, but then you would be reduced to LRM 15s. And I don't want to live with LRM 15s. if I can get L-R-M-20s. I mean, why would you?

ST-20s, L-R-M-S's. Okay. And so you load up on the ammo, and then you just sandpaper the hell out of your enemy, and you never stay close enough to have to apologize. And you've got jump jets on it, right? I don't think this one has jump jets. Oh, that one takes out the jump chats.

Yeah, I think so. Now, if they're getting close, you're pretty fucked, but who's going to let that happen? Yeah. And you don't Alpha Strike with it. You left, right, left, right, right. Yeah. Left, right.

And you just, and what's nice is you don't have to see them. You just have to sense them. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. I will say there is something. I've, the heavier version of that one, of course, is the archer, the classic 70-ton, you know, fire support Mac. Never liked it.

Really? Yeah. I've never liked the archer. Because speed? Because like I can do enough with the catapult and it doesn't have giant blocky legs that people could maybe hit. Okay. All right. Yeah.

From a from a from that standpoint. Okay. Yeah. Targeting. I can understand that. But I tell you what. If I have a pilot in my roster who's an LRM specialist. They get the archer.

And I'm and I'm in that time. gunnage range, like take the archer out and just and just telling that pilot go after that target and just watching when you have a lock on that target, just watching everything gradually or not so gradually depending, watching stuff turn red and just fall off. Oh, yeah. The opposing mech is there's something so zen about it. Like it's it's so wonderful. It's like the sound of a waterfall in in the background.

It's lovely. So, all right. Yeah. All right. All right. Your turn number three. Catapult. Yeah, number three.

The Hatchet Man. Okay. The Hatchet Man and the Axeman because the Axeman is basically the 20 ton heavier version of the same trick. Mm-hmm. And the original game rules explained, okay, look, these are robots. They've got arms and legs. So yes, you can run up on your opponent You can punch him

If somebody has a limb blown off You can pick the limb up And you can use it as an improvised melee weapon You can do that. Here are the rules for how to make that work, right? Right, right. And so that was This wonderful little bit

Of kind of world building Built into the rules, right? And then the Hatchetman represents The moment the game designers went Okay, but hold on, what if that was the whole point? What if? What if? No, no, no. This is a purpose built. Your goal is to get close enough to beat the shit out of your opponent with an actual weapon, right? Right.

And then they mounted an auto cannon 10 on it, which I got to say it's the best auto cannon in the game. Like when you're looking at the curve of weight and heat versus damage inflicted and range, like the auto cannon 10 is literally the best. bang for the buck when it comes to any kind of, you know, direct fire projectile weapon in the game. Until you get to Gauss rifles. Yeah. Which are, you know, later on and, and I think play a different role. Like, gouse rifles feel like, no, no, I'm going to hang back and I'm going to snipe.

And an auto cannon 10 is I'm going to get up into the mix. Like I'm going to be getting at a range where I'm going to get shot back at. Right. But I'm going to hit hard when I do it. Yeah. Right. And you don't have to have Atlas class armor to survive getting close enough to do that like you do with an AC20. Right.

So. And they made a couple of medium lasers on it to, you know, add some, you know, closer range punch. And they made it 45 tons just for the sake of audacity, frankly. It's like we're going to put jump jets on it and make it a light end of medium mech and the whole point here is I'm going to jump across the battlefield and jump and clearly they were thinking, okay, you're going to jump from cover to cover because like out in the open you're going to get shredded. But you're going to jump, you know, jump from points of cover and eventually, you know, it's going to be, ha ha, surprise, motherfucker. Wham! And you use the punching table, which means you have like a one in six chance. of getting a head shot.

Mm-hmm. Which is just... Yeah, it's ridiculous. And you're doing enough damage that anything anything in the medium range or lighter is really going to be in trouble. So yeah, I absolutely...

I just... I love the idea of it. And in Mech Warrior, it's just fun to pilot. It's really easy to get overconfident, which is a problem of mine. So you got to know how to stick and move.

Yeah. Emphasis on the move. Yeah. And then they came up with the Axeman, which I'm convinced is what happened when Steiner forces looked at the hatchet men and said, yeah, but what if it was heavier? What if you put some actual weight behind it? Yeah.

You know, why are you bringing this scout back shit, right? Um, and, and so it carries an AC 20, which, which is, uh, let's take the idea of the AC 10 and make it even more a, no, I'm going to jump literally in front of you. Right. Blast you with the AC 20 and then hit you with a melee weapon being wielded by a 20 ton heavier mech using the punching table. Right. You know. Yeah. Um.

One in three chance now. Yeah. Like, oh, whammo, yeah. And my only gripe about the Axeman, like, the only complaint I have about this Battlemec isn't even about the battlemec. It's about Piranha games. And namely the gripe is, why didn't you put the Axeman in the Chaos March DLC? Like, it was right there. Why didn't you give us this frame?

Come on. It's in Mech Warrior Online. Like, I don't know what the difference in the engine. between the two is, but like, come on, you, you could do this. Why didn't you? So, yeah, I want my 65-ton choppy boy, is what I'm saying. So that's my number three. How about you?

My number three, you're actually going to be surprised that it rated this low, but it's my beloved Thunderbolt 5ST. Really? I am a little surprised. I'm a little surprised it rates that low, but tell me. So, A, Clan, E, I, mediums, one ER large on the arm. Everything else is heat sinks.

The only problem that I have is that I cannot amp its speed up much above 68. Yeah. And that's part of why it ranks lower. Okay. There's also no jump jets or AMS that I can place on it. So it does have its length. Okay. Yeah. Still, I will take this Mac up against any assault, any heavy, any medium, any small, any

tiny in a duel. I even took out those Elementals the other night. Yeah, you did, which... I was the bugzapper. You were. You were. So for anybody in our audience who's not... And he's not familiar with Battle Tech. Well, this whole section is just really...

Yeah, I mean, what we're doing here, there's a lot of stuff that you're... Skip ahead another 10 minutes. Yeah. But Elementals are... basically think powered armor with jump packs

jet packs on them and they are individually they are annoying but if you let them gang up on you they can actually be terrifying yes if you if you wind up having three or more of them on you

you're really gonna you're gonna start losing limbs it's it's gonna get really bad that's why it's good to have me around with this thing because you stay clear with the big UV light Now, I should also point out, I should also point out that part of the reason you love that mech so much, even without the clan tech on it, like even when you're just using interspheres stars, yeah.

Yeah, when you're when you're just using intersphere tech, um, part of the reason you love that mech so much is because you have been playing mech warrior long enough and, and you have enough hours and enough muscle memory going that you seem to instinctively just remember, okay, the cockpit on this one is located here. It's very true. And you can line the shot up. And that's, is it eight medium lasers? Yes.

Yeah. So eight medium lasers, all of them burning, as long as you're not like right up in somebody's face, which you never are. No. Eight medium lasers hitting the same spot is enough damage to burn out of cock. pit basically right there. I evaporate pilots. Yeah.

So. Yeah. You know, honestly, I'll take this mech in two on ones. I'll take this Mac in most three on ones. And like you said, I will hit headshot after headshot after headshot, which saves me so much money when I go to sell these things. Well, one, it gets you a lot of money when you go to sell them. Number two, it means that you can take it into a 1v2.

Like you can, you can sign up for an arena match in this. thing and have it be like, oh yeah, no, it's a two on two. And you're like, yeah, I don't need anybody else. And you don't need to worry about the other meck taking any damage because like an Ikeido master, you can just go, okay, I need to take that one out first. Yep. You know, and when you're talking about I keto, it's like, you know, and I rip this guy's arm off and he can't do anything now.

In your case, it's, okay, and I hit you in the cockpit. And now I can toy with your buddy at my leisure. Well, and we'll go into missions where it's like you're going to take some serious damage from these. And I'll be like, what if they had three less max? And now it's like, oh, there's no internal damage on the rest of my team because they don't have the firepower because now it's an even fight. And, you know, so yeah, it is a beautiful machine.

I absolutely love it. But it does have downsides. Its speed is annoyingly slow to me. And it has no AMS's. If it had one of those two things fixed, it would definitely have ranked closer to number one. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, that's a well-reasoned position there. What's your number two?

So number two for me is the Shadowhawk. And this is one that's going to be like, and I can already hear other Mac Warrior people or battle tech people, tabletop people. What? I think it is underappreciated. And the thing is a lot of people look at and be like, well, okay, you know, it's got an autocannon five. It's like it can't make up its mind about what it wants to do. Right. You've got an LRM. You've got an AC5.

You've got an SRM. You got a medium laser. And it's like, okay, you're not, you're not throwing enough energy downrange. Like you're not causing enough damage. Right. And like, if that was the only measure of what. makes a mec cool, then yeah. But I think it's a really good dualist.

Because you can start annoying your opponent at LRM range. And, you know, you're not doing, again, it's an LRM 5. So you're not doing a lot of damage, but you're scoring hits. And as they get closer, you're continuing to score hits. And by the time you get to the minimum range on your LRM, now you've got the AutoCannon 5. And you've got the medium laser in the SRM. And an SRM 2 is kind of a joke.

Yeah. But, you know, the AutoCannon 5, you know, isn't really anything to sneeze at. Yeah. At a medium mech kind of weight class, the AC5 is pretty solid. I mean, if you want a, if you don't mind a slower reload time, then I would advise the medium rifle. Because I think it's roughly the same way. And it hits hard.

But it is old Betsy, like Daniel Boone's old Betsy. Like, now I'm going to reload. As you're trying to pilot the mech with one hand, you're like reaching up to like open the breach and manually put the shell in, right? Yeah. Yeah, the medium rifle, the rifles, you and I have differing opinions about rifles in Mac Warrior 5.

Yeah. I do not like having to wait that long for anything to reload. I want to be able, like, because I'm not, I'm not as good a shot as you are. So for me, having the ability to get another thwack at the pinata. Yeah, you get sooner. More volume down range. Yeah, it's a big deal. But like if I ever get to the point where I, I, I can.

can, you know, special as projectile weapons, if I can, you know, lead targets and hit stuff reliably enough, if I ever get to that point, then I'll probably rethink my, my thought process about it. But, you know, in Mech Warrior, of course, you also have options like burst fire AC5s, which have the same weight, but you're throwing more lead down range. And you kind of have more of a chance of scoring hits. you have later on you get LBX

fives which you know turn it into you know a really big mech shotgun which is awesome but you know

I mean it's still an auto Canon 5 but there's all kinds of other stuff you can do and I I love the Shadow Hawk at least in part just because of it's

aesthetic. I just think it looks cooler than just about anything else in that generation of battle tech.

And it was also one of the unseen because it's originally from the robot series Fang of the Sun Dogram. And again, there was an issue

with who owned the rights to it and Harmony Gold fucked geeks over in the United States for you know 30 years um and it it had to go through a couple of iterations that were that were hideously ugly just awful and however now um you know that that stuff has been worked out and the newer art for it is is back to being evocative of that original kind of source material it's just it's just pretty to look at it it just looks like again you know a

military, stumpy battle robot. And as a trooper unit, you know, in the lore of the inner sphere, it is one of the more ubiquitous models there is. Yeah. You know, it's fielded by just about every one of the successor states. Like, it is, it is kind of that, that robot, right? It's also a little bit difficult to kill. It has more armor than you would expect.

Yes. Yes. there unless you're talking about a 2D model because Davian the 2D model actually sacrifices armor for some additional armament and and that one I'm having piloted that in Mac Warrior 5 and kind of counting on my armor being Shadowhawk level armor I've I've you know lost limbs yeah because like oh right this is a 2D I don't have that much armor I got to I got to be more mobile.

But, you know, the aesthetic of it, even in the Mac Warrior Online and Mac Warrior 5 version, I wish the cockpit looked more like the original source material than it does. But it's still awesome. And I would still rather have it over a Griffin or a Wolverine. because like from the neck up the Wolverine I just I've never understood so sure yeah so that's my number two the Shadow Hawk all right

I want you to guess which one my number two is because you're probably gonna you're probably gonna get either get it right or you're gonna guess my number one okay your fire starter you got it yeah my beloved fire starter

it's the fire starter S and again I don't go stock because no I make enough money so I strip out hold on I need to point out

to our audience what you because you open that door Damien Damien has managed to succeed in becoming a billionaire yes in a game in which you are a independent military contractor

cash his cash on hand was over a billion C bills. Yeah. And he made a point of texting me. He took a photo and sent me the text and said, it's true what they say. There are no ethical billionaires. It's true. They said, well, I mean, one of the nicknames of this game is war crime simulators.

Right. You're not wrong. Like, I'm going to go stomp on this field just because I can. Just, oh, they might be hiding something in a silo. Fuck these people's winter stores. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sorry Is that is that an agrodome Yeah

It was It's not it's a smoking crater Yeah Like oh hey I see you have it That's a nice fuel refinery you got there I bet a whole lot of people on this planet rely on it

Boom Not anymore They blow up so pretty Yeah Yeah So anyway So the fire starter Has a bunch of flamers

So I get rid of all those And I put on at first I just put on all the four star and four star small lasers and then it was all the five star small lasers and now it's all the clan ER small lasers which is just and this bad boy can house eight of them and then yeah which stats wise is you're putting out the same damage at slightly shorter range right as eight medium lasers from intersphere tech yeah That's, it's obscene.

And then I soup up the speed. Fuck. And then I give it an AMS. And so among the non-Klanmecs, it is the fastest thing out there when I deal with it because it's 113 KPH. Fuck. Now the clan mecs blow it out of the water,

because again, you know, go fast. But I can headshot with it. I can remove legs with it. I can finish the kills that my comrades are setting up. I can duck and weave through all sorts of demolition mission. with my big brothers keeping everybody else off of me. I've been, I've used it on duels where I'm like,

okay, this is a heavy duel. Let's see what I can do. And it is risky with the salt mechs because I have a harder time with most of their headshots. Okay. Unless I'm going after a battlemaster. In which case, I'm like, oh, well, you're dead now.

You've got a big, that big gallery cockpit really is going to suck for you. Oh, it's such a big target. But if I'm going up against any of the other assault mechs, I have a little bit of a harder time, but I can reliably be successful and not lose any parts in a 35-ton Mac taking on all the heavies I want to. Yeah.

And I've seen you give Atlas pilots nightmares. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Regularly. I'm going to take off parts on an Atlas, because that's the way to beat the Atlas and won't go for headshots

as often with an Atlas against an Atlas when I've got this guy I will on a Highlander but yeah but yeah so yeah so if you do

see the problem is if you do take damage they almost always go for your legs and that fucks your whole game because yeah if you lose a leg you don't have the speed

and if you don't have the speed, you're going to lose the other leg. But it's turning ability, it's speed, the jump jets that it has, largely keep my damage low enough that I might get internal damage on an arm or maybe lose a laser in the process. But I very rarely do poorly with this. It is my second favorite of all. And it's the way that I've designed it. Nice. Yeah.

So, all right. All right. So my number one, and this is totally not going to surprise. as you at all. Yeah. My number one is, again, I'm kind of going with a twofer because it's, it's, it's, it's two mechs with essentially the same profile. Sure.

Just one of them heavier than the other one. It's the marauder and the marauder, too. Okay. Yeah. I saw this coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You've been, yeah, you've seen me go like, oh, yeah, no, I'm running the Mad 5A this time. And again, and again, you know, because the Marauder two, is the same set of ideas but again is like Steiner said yeah but what if it was like a real Mac it's not a hundred tons that does not count right um

so it's it's it's heavier and and oddly enough it's the 100 ton one that gets the jump jets yeah yeah which which I which why the fuck

yeah I love it so the ace The AC5 on the Marauder, even if you don't put, well, if you don't put ERPPCs on the regular marauder. Right. The AC5 means you can start plinking without any kind of major buildup earlier than a Warhammer can, right? Yeah, yeah. Which can, that can, that can rattle opponents and force them to start making bad decisions. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Oh, well, shit. Okay, the Marauders out there. He, he scored a hit on me. I got a, I got to divert resources to deal with him. Meanwhile, you've got, you know, your thunderbolts and your, you know, other other heavies, you know, moving up, moving, moving toward the target. You've got your Orion 75 tons, you know, coming in. But me with my AC5 is like, hey, over here, hi.

And I'm doing that without building up any heat, right? That's, yeah, which is nice. And the lower the number on the AC, the greater the range. Yes. So, yeah. And so. there are people who argue that the marauder is undergunned because you look at an Orion for example

and it's got more of an array of weaponry its overall level of firepower is a little bit higher and like you look at a black knight again same same weight category um of the marauder not the marauder too okay yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm just talking about the base marauder if you're looking at you know 75 ton max. You look at an Orion, you're looking at a

black knight, you're like, yeah, they do have more more energy, again, more energy they're putting down range, right? And the mad two compared to an Atlas, for example, looks undergun for its weight.

Okay, you look at it compared to a king crab, like, you know, King crab, two AC20s, an LRM, and like a large laser. Right. Right. That's a lot. That's a lot. And the Marauder 2, you've got an auto cannon 10, two ER PPCs, two medium lasers. It just doesn't look like the same level of firepower.

Sure. And so, like, I understand that line of thinking, but what these estimations don't, in my opinion, take into account is the role that Marauders play on the tabletop or in game. They're not brawlers. Right. You know, they're the units that you use to force your opponent to choose whether to go after your brawlers. or the marauders. You know, the marauder, the marauder and the marauder two

are kind of command mecks. They are, you know, I'm telling you guys to go in, go after this target, go after this target, and, you know, I'm going to soften this guy up for you on the way in. And once you get engaged

and are putting the hurt on them, I'll shift, you know, to somebody else. And, you know, neither one of the choices that you're giving your opponent is a good one.

You know, friend of the show, Sean, regularly when we were playing Warhammer or Battle Tech, his mantra is, I want to give my opponent a range of bad choices. Right. You know, like, like, no matter what you do, you're going to have a hard time. Yeah. You're choosing pain one way or the other. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to give you a wide range of very poor options, right? And so they're really, really, really. good at that. And on the tabletop game, which, you know, is a different milieu from, from, you know, playing a PVE, you know, video game. But on the tabletop, what's something that I think gets overlooked is the psychological factor of, you know,

I have this threat sitting here. I have this threat sitting here. Are you going to deal with this threat? Are you going to deal with this thing over here? I got, you know, in Warhammer 40,000, the Eldar have a big, gigantic, heavy, big toughness, essentially walking robot. It's their version of a walking robot in 40K called a wraith lord that has a whole bunch of wounds. It's very high toughness. It carries one pretty big gun and a couple of smaller ones.

And if it gets into hand-to-hand combat, it just wrecks shit. and the thing is by itself it's not really it's not it's kind of a paper tiger when you really analyze its ability

you look at it and you're like well okay it's not as scary as it looks but on the tabletop it looks fucking scary right

and so you can put a wraith lord somewhere on the table and move two or three other units someplace else and your opponent is going to look

at that and be like, oh man, I've got two equal threats here. Right. And even if they know that the wraith lord is kind of a paper tiger, the emotional effect is still there. And the marauder and the marauder two are wraith lords. Okay.

Is my take on that. And beyond that, they just look cool. Which is a big deal. They have a macros vibe to them. Well, yeah, they are, they are the marauder, not is not as much the Marauder too, but the Marauder was one of the unseen because it was taken from the Zentradi officer pod.

Okay. It was the original design. And again, all that stuff has been updated and now it looks reminiscent of the original, but it's not, you know, it's different enough that like the copyright lawyers have said, okay, cool, we're not going to go after you. and so yeah they are they are at least right now you know ask me in another couple of months

when I get up to you know playing in the chaos rain realm right now they are they are my top two favorites so yeah those that's my that's my number one what about you okay you could guess this

I mean well the intersphere name for it is the Loki I'm pretty sure oh no this is not in no no oh what is the Sunder K Oh,

remember I told you, I'm not going from battle, or from virtual world. Right, right, right, right. Just from this game. Yeah, so yeah,

it is, yes, you're right. It is the Atlas K. And so here's what you do. You load that bad boy up with the smorgish board of your best weapons. Now,

I prefer clan, ER mediums, uh, ER larges, a gouse and an LRM 20ST. but I've also started seeing the ATM 9S work really well

and that's a clan weapon I believe it's ass to mouth and now some people that's that's what it tastes like for your opponents I'm sure there's some people who've seen you using it yes there are some people who like PPCs but if you're going to go with PPC I'm some people doing ERPPC what do you you doing.

Are we peasants? Or a PPCX if you're just, if you, if you do not fear God. I guess. Oh, I'm having been on the receiving end of, Oh, they suck. A meck armed with more than. But I want, I want to hit from farther away. Yeah, well, yes, this is true.

And, and this is why I still prefer the ER mediums, that are clan of weapons to the binary lasers. But before the clans, the binary lasers were fucking amazing. Well, the sheer damage output on it is obscene. Yes. It's horrible. Yeah. And some people like other ballistics, but no, I want the gouse.

But the other thing is I like this more than I like the D or the P or the Atlas 2 because this has an. anti-missile system. Yeah. And I want to shoot down missiles that are coming at me because I have a lot of armor. I'd like to keep a lot of it. I want to hire armor class, basically. Yeah, and the, and the, the, the Atlas is one weakness that everybody points out, no matter what version of the Atlas it is, except maybe the Atlas too.

But, you know, the base, you know, Atlas is, it's slow. Yeah, and I soup up at speed, and that gets it to 55. Yeah. Which I do notice the difference when I jump into yours because you haven't done this. Yeah. So I'm like, I haven't unlocked. I haven't unlocked that, that upgrade yet. But when I get that one, your ride will get that upgrade.

So for the audience. We keep mex for each other. We have, we have mex. We keep in our roster so that when we're playing co-op. you know, and I have tried to Gucci one of my atlases out. And to the extent, to the extent that Damien doesn't feel quite like he's having to drive, you know, a rental econo box or something when he's played in my sandbox. And, you know, it's kind of like you keep your friend's favorite beer around, you know. Yeah.

But I also, I also amp up the armor as much of they can so that it ends up with over 600 points of armor. Fuck. Yeah. And then I also amp. up the range on all my weapons. And here's why it works. When you have four Atlas Ks, no missile can harm you. Everybody is armed with the Excalibur's scabbard.

Yeah. And you stay close enough that you guys overlap. And so no missile. You have a walking iron dome. Yes. Yeah. And now because you're missaling them and then hitting them with long range ballistics and then long range lasers, which I still say are better than ERPPCs, but I understand

the desire. And then if you really need, then you can hit them with a medium laser. Yeah, an extended range, a clan. Yeah. Extended range medium laser. What I find interesting there is you've got, you're not going with the clan ER large lasers. No, I do. For the energy.

Oh, you do. Okay. Yeah. I'm saying you either go for the clan ER large or if you're intersphere, then it's just ER larges. Right. Okay. But same thing with PPCs.

You go either clan ER PPCs or ER PPCs. Have you, have you, well, you'd have to juggle with the weight because there's a weight difference, but have you played around with clan pulse lasers? Like clan large pulses? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I've never enjoyed the pulse lasers.

Okay. The damage output. I So my Crusader essay The one that like Yeah I have a few missiles But I've decided to be a mostly a laser boat

Sure version I have put a pair of clan Large pulse lasers on it As it's as its primary hitting And the wonderful thing about it is They're clan pulse lasers Right So I'm still hitting people

At a range where they They are having to hit back at me With their long range stuff Yeah You know, and I know An AC2. Yeah, oh, wow. That arm's gone.

You know. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. That works. Yeah. I understand the philosophy. Yeah.

All right. So that was top five favorite. Max. Do you have top five favorite pastry desserts? I do not have that one figured out yet, but I would love to hear yours. Okay. Okay. So.

And then you'll. Give me one. Yeah. We'll see if I've doubled up with you or not. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Top five pastry desserts. Number five, the cream puff with basic vanilla ice cream and hot fudge.

Okay. Now you have to serve it right out of the oven. And you're going to need a cereal bowl for this because stuff will melt immediately and seep into the cream puff, which, oh. But it's also going to leak out a little bit, too. It is so delicious. Okay. Yeah. So that's number five.

Number four, peach pie. Oh, man. And you add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of it when the pie is nice and hot. Oh, man. Yeah. Or you eat it cold and by hand. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Presumably standing in front of the refrigerator, debating whether or not you're going to go for a second one. Yeah. That whole scenario, like you just described the whole picture that was in my head. Or you're just standing there. You're not even cutting a slice. You're just standing here with the pie tin. Just going to a town.

Just going to business. Yeah. Number three. Chocolate cronut. Remember when these were all the rage? Oh, yeah. So imagine... I've never had a chocolate one.

Oh, why have anything else? Imagine all the goodness of a chocolate croissant and then add to that the density of a donut while keeping the same texture of the chocolate croissant. bottom innards. Heaven himself or herself could not have squirted into your mouth in a better way. It is so, so good. So good, yeah. Number two,

Globy. This is a deep-fried Roman cheese ball. And I found the recipe in Cato the elders de Agricultura. Okay. You use ricotta cheese and flour boiled in oil. and then you dip them in honey and then you roll that in poppy seeds. Okay, you had me right up until the poppy seeds.

I'm not a poppy seed guy. Leave off the poppy seeds. But everything else there sounds... You know what? Then in that case, do shredded and then crushed almonds. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Oh, wow.

All right. Number one is you're not going to like it all then because this is a harmony household staple. This is what we do for birthday cakes every time. Okay. Like the kids don't get a choice at this house. There is no, what would you like? There's all right.

And it's poppy seed cake. Oh, okay. Every single birthday, it has been this. Now, we make it all from scratch, and it's just, it's mild, it's sweet, and it has a cream cheese and lemon frosting. Serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream as well as the frosting. It can be warm, it can be room temperature, it could even be from the fridge. It is just wonderful mild deliciousness.

Yeah. Okay. So that is number one. Okay. So now here's the deal. Have I heard all of that? I don't have a prepared list. Okay.

But I can come up with five. Do it. And I'm going to start with specifically a donut shop stuff. style cinnamon roll. You and your cinnamon rolls. Oh my God, dude. We have it on tape. I have tried your cinnamon rolls thinking,

oh, maybe this will be the time. And no. No, no, it doesn't, yeah, I understand. But you love those fucking things. You used to bring them to D&D. I did. You bring them to recording. Like, oh, my God.

You swore by me. Because I have a Nugeet just down the road for me, and they sell gourmet cinnamon rolls. Yes. So, yeah. I see what you did there, by the way. You're the Tarje. Yeah.

And yeah, I, I, there's, there's something about a, a donut shop style cinnamon roll. So not, not like a bakery or like a Cinebon, but, you know, a humble donut shop glazed cinnamon roll. Mm-hmm. And a cup of meh coffee with half and a half and some sugar in it. And I'm sure part of this is just. just me having nostalgia or some kind of an emotional connection to, you know, high school or, you know, some other phase of my life. I was going to say, this sounds like a shitty job, but with good friends.

Yeah. It's, it's that kind of vibe. Yeah. It's what you get at lions. You know, it's like that kind of thing. It's like nobody orders mashed potatoes and sausage links. Yeah. But okay.

But okay. Yeah. So there's, there's that. Okay, that's number five. That's number one, or number five, rather. First one mentioned and number five on the list. Number four, I'm going to go with peanut butter brownies. Oh, yes.

I can't believe they didn't make my list, but yes. Oh, my God. So the combination of chocolate and peanut butter obviously is just perfect. Yes. Like, no, no, it's, you can't, it's, you can't really improve on it. Yeah. Um, I've had, uh, chocolate and, uh, cashew butter. And that's fine.

Sure. Cachshues are wonderful, but they're not peanut. It's, it's, it's, there's something, there's something specific about, about peanuts. And so, so you have the combination of those two flavors. You have the, uh, the texture, the particular texture. Yeah. That, that, that, that, that the peanut butter. brings into the brownie.

Yeah. And like I know that there are, there are lots of people who, you know, when you're talking about brownies, like, oh man, I want to have all the crispy edges. No. I want to have a little bit. I want to have a little bit of a crispy edge on it. Like I understand the urge there, but I'm, I'm all about the gooey. Yeah.

Like, yes, this is fully baked. You're not going to get salmonella, but only barely. Right. Right. You know. The minimally compliant. Brownie. Yeah.

Yeah. The food safe, we were sure. Yeah. Brownie, right? Like, oh. It's safe with a shrug. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, maybe microwave it for 10 seconds just to be on the safe side, right? You know, but like the texture and the combination of flavors of the peanut butter with all of that rich, heavy-duty. chocolate. And, and the darker the chocolate for me, the better. Mm-hmm. I'm with you. I'm absolutely with you.

And, and like a tall glass of cold milk. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm done. Like, I'm, you're not, you're not going to get any meaningful work out of me. I'm not going to, like, I'm going to, again, stand in front of the refrigerator. Mm-hmm. With the tray, and this is why my A1C is something my doctor keeps checking, right? I got here. Yeah.

But yeah, and that, so that's, that's going to be my number four. Okay. My number three is very specific. Okay. Friend of the show, Sean, his wife, Jenny, has a recipe for carrot cake. Okay. That is that is solidly no shit hands down the best carrot cake I have ever had in my life. Okay.

And, you know, Sean has to make a decision every time he has a birthday because she always says, you know, I'll bake a cake for your birthday. What do you want? Right. And he has to make a choice because her carrot cake is, is world, fucking world class champion. She also makes an almond cake. Okay. That he is, it is also amazing. It's excellent.

But for me, the carrot cake just completely blows it out of the water, just as a matter of my preference. Yeah, it's amazing. It's got plump raisins. Like somehow it manages to have really plump raisins in it. Okay. I think it involves crushed pineapple in the, in the batter. Um, and like, you go to a bakery and you get a carrot cake. And it's, it's, it's good.

Right. But, you know, you're never going to have that be your first choice. But if, if somebody says, oh, yeah, no, we're, we're having Jenny bake a carrot cake. I'm like, I'm, I'm there. I'll be there. I'm fucking there. Yeah. Nice.

Like, 100%. All right. So that's number three. Number two. Uh, number two. not okay I'm going to

agree with you on the cream puffs thing okay I agree with you it's number two yeah because because as you were describing it I was listening to that

just like oh yeah that's that's good and they they have to be the thing is though they have to be homemade and Like you said, they got to be straight out of the oven or only like a few minutes.

Once they sit in the refrigerator, the texture changes. Yeah. And they're still good, but they're not top five list good anymore. Yeah. So, yeah. And then my number one, and this is 100% a nostalgia thing. There are only, I don't even know how many locations this restaurant has. anymore, but back in the

70s and early 80s Bob's Big Boy was a big chain here in California. And there was one close to my home growing up when I was a little kid. And

on special occasions we would go to Bob's Big Boy and for dessert they had a hot fudge cake that was layers of chocolate cake with

vanilla ice cream between them so it was like three layers of chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream between them

topped with a scoop of ice cream and then hot fudge all over it and in my I'm sure if I had it now it would not live up

to the memory that I have of it sure but it was was the most decadent thing I had, I, I had. Like, as a kid, that was for me the most decadent thing there was. Yeah. And it was always special occasions.

There are several times I can remember my dad's parents, my, my paternal grandparents, who I didn't get to see very often, being there with us for whatever the special occasion was that we were having dessert for. And, and so there's this, there's, in, in my memory, that is probably my top pastry dessert ever because of the emotional loading

associated with it okay so yeah that's that's gonna be my top five for that I love it all right give us one more top five and I'll see if I've got it okay top five coolest weapons historical edition okay um I have

sci-fi weapons and I have fantasy weapons. I don't have coolest weapon weapons, but I can do this. Okay. Okay. All right. So I'm going to start. My number five is the Shaleli. Oh yeah. So take a blackthorn stick. Yep. Okay. Straighten it out, dry it out. Yep. Age it a little bit. Polish the root end down into a solid fist-sized knob. Yep. Possibly maybe drill it out and pour lead into. it. Right. Or not. You don't have to. Sure.

And now you have possibly the wickedest fighting stick in the old world. Yes. The shape of the knob allows for you to use it to catch your opponent's ankles, pull them off balance, you know, hook it around their neck, pull them, you know. Yep. And depending on how you made it, if you kept the thorniness of the wood, you can also go for, you know, the inside of their arm the inside of their leg and rake with it. Scuff them up, yeah. Yeah.

Scrape the shit out of them. Yeah. And then, of course, you just have, you know, a heavy-duty hardwood stick. Yep. To just positively beat the shit out of them with. Oh, yeah. And so it is a wonderfully, it's an elegant kind of solution to, we don't have a lot of iron here. and if we want to, you know, have a weapon, what are we going to use?

Oh, hey, we're going to use this. And it's also, if you polish one of them up, it's genuinely a pretty artifact. Yeah. Like they polish up beautifully and you can have one as a walking stick, you know, that will be the envy of other people looking at it just because it's beautiful that way. And so, so that's my, that's my number five. Okay. Uh, my number five actually, uh, and feel free to disqualify this one. Okay.

Uh, in which case I will need to hit pause and come up with another number five. Uh, but my number five is a, uh, oh shit, what is it called? Um, it is the, uh, it's got studs all over it and it's a, it's basically, it's like a truncheon. Okay. Um, but I think they, the Japanese had one as a much bigger version. Oh, well, the Japanese version is a Tetsubo. Okay. A smaller version of that, a single handheld version of that. Okay.

Is this European, Asian, African? I believe this is Chinese. I've seen it on a rack of monk weapons. Right. Okay, yeah, yeah. I know, I know the item you're talking about. It's like a wolf teeth cudgel. Yeah.

But blunted. Okay. And not a pole arm. Right. Whatever the fuck that's called, that. Okay. And basically, it is the older equivalent to an aluminum baseball bat. Yeah.

And what I love about these is you can use them to block any kind of bladed weapon because of all the metal studs. Okay. Yeah. And they're relatively easy to fashion. Yeah. And you don't have to be that particularly well trained to smash somebody with it. which I like. Yes. Yes, this is true.

They are, they are not, they are not weapons of, of art necessarily. I'm going to call it a studded cudgel for lack of a better word. All right. So that's my number five. Again, it's versatility on defense and on offense and it's a single-handed weapon usually. Okay. Yeah. I like it.

I would also point out that, you know, what you're talking about, you know, you can pari a belated weapon with it because of the metal studs. You don't even really need. need to metal studs so much. That's true. Yeah. If it's a heavy enough piece of wood, yeah.

You know, a heavy enough piece of hard wood particularly, you can, you know, unless we're talking about in a fantasy setting, it's going to be really hard for you to cut through anything of that thickness. Right. You know, in a real fight.

Like if you set it up on a stand. Right. You know, as a static target, you might be able to do that. It would still be really tough, though. So. Yeah.

So even without the studs, something like that would be an effective defensive. You know, you could use it effectively defensively. All right. So my number four is the pata or gauntlet sword from India. It is a straight double-edged sword as a blade between 10 and 44 inches long. They varied wildly in length, depending on time period and region. And as the name implies, blade was fixed to a bell-like half gauntlet.

So the bell would cover the front of your hand or your first digit of your fingers and the back of your hand. And it usually would also have, you know, a big Vambrace coming off the back of it. It's like a punch dagger turned into a sword. It's like an erect punch dagger. Yes, yes, a well-endowed punch dagger. Yeah. And descriptions from both Indian and European colonizer sources describe it as being used mainly as a slashing weapon, which sounds weird based on, you know, the way you think about the ergonomics of it.

You'd think it would be, you know, a punching weapon. Again, punchy, yeah. But it was used primarily as a slashing weapon, including and depending on the source, some places it's described primarily as being used by horsemen. it's a really niche weapon it's used never spread beyond India nobody else came up with this idea and like ran with it right but it gets a spot on this list

because it just has so much charisma there's there's just something so iconic about the the look and the vibe of it and it shows up in Willow oh that's right which is very very

The third thing he stabs he stabs kale with. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Willow has no other kind of relationship to Indian culture. Like, there's nothing else there at all. But this weapon, this weapon in hands of one of the good guys, you know, is a thing. And it's just, it's just that freaking cool. So that's my number four.

I like it. My number four is, a, it's easy to read, but it's a, a Mako-hitel. Okay. So it's essentially like two ores

pressed together. Yeah. With obsidian sticking out the sides the entire way. Yeah. What's funny? Jesus fucking Christ. That's your number four.

It's also my number three. So we can both comment on it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's. So the way I described it was quote, I want a war club with inset razors along its length. Just stick razor blades in it.

I want to give you a welts, but also disembalia. Yeah. Yeah, I also want to take your arm half off when I hit you with it. So the way I've described it is it's a one or two-handed weapon consisting of a flat paddle-like core. Be glued along the edges. And the thing I want to note is obsidian can be fashioned to be sharper than. surgical steel. Yes.

So when I say razor plates. Yeah. You are dulling it a little. Yeah, I'm taking credit. Underselling. Yeah. Now, they're also far more fragile. Mm-hmm.

So, you know, you get one, one hit where it acts like a sword, right? Yeah. Or close enough, right? Yeah. But then successive strikes would cause the blow. blades to shatter. Right. So the moment you, you hit bone, some of those, some of those blades are going to start

breaking, which means you're going to be leaving shards of volcanic glass in the wounds you're causing. It's not really a war club. It's a two or three shot sword is the description I have here, that can just as easily shatter a man's skull after it's disempelled the horse that he was riding. Yeah. And cut his sword arm nearly off. Yeah.

again, Obsidian was fucking everywhere. Yeah. So it was easily replaced for the next battle. Yeah. Like, yes. Yeah. It would take the time to, okay, I got to pick all the broken bits of glass out of here and, you know, reset glue and, you know, put everything. But like, no, I can, I can refashion this thing.

Yeah. And it'll be, again, you know, the first horse I run into is going to be disemboweled. That's the thing about it that got into. the Spanish colonizers accounts was they described this thing with horror. Oh, yeah. Because it was, it was similar in emotional impact to the great axes that the Saxons used at William the Conqueror, not Bayo.

Hastings. Hastings. So the, so the Saxons, the Saxon, Yarls or host carls used two-handed great axes and the Normans fighting

them were absolutely horrified by the way that the host carls just just killed horses like straight up your horses now or to combat you're done with these great axes and the same same kind of emotional weight

winds up being placed on the Machua wheedle by the Spanish because a two-handed Machua Heidel would just take a horse's head half off. Just, you know. And after that shot, okay, I reverse it and I get one more good shot with the razor blades on the other side. And then after that, I'm just going to beat you to death.

Right. Through your helmet because it's, you know. And I feel like the Aztecs and their neighbors who use this thing deserve more respect on their names. Oh, yeah. thinking about a trained warrior because, you know, in the narrative of the Spanish versus the Aztecs,

I think one of the things that does not get enough attention is the fact that the Aztec warriors were a warrior cast. They were the nobles of their society in the same way that Knights had been in Europe,

you know, and still kind of were in Europe, you know, at the time. They were an elite, maybe not quite the same kind of aristocracy, but they were an elite cast sort of of society. And I'm using, I'm not using the word cast and strictly, you know, the way it means,

but you all understand what I'm talking about. And, and, and their, their job was to be warriors. They were professional warriors. They trained. They had their own martial art techniques with the weapons that they used. And the weapons they used, they used, like the

Makua Whedal and several of the others that they used were awful. Yeah. Like we're very much just as just as effective

and just as lethal as anything the Spaniards were carrying. You know, certainly in terms of muscle-powered, you know, weaponry.

And, you know, I don't think that the historical narrative has given the Mesoamerican warriors enough credit for the advancement and sophistication of those arts and of the weapons that they were working with.

Yeah, that's fair. You know, I think there's this kind of knee-jerk tendency in academia, military history academia, particularly, to, kind of say, well, you know, they didn't have metal, so dot, dot, dot, dot, and kind of... That's like saying they didn't have the wheel. It's like, uh, like, come on. What all they did, you know, it comes back to that, uh, that person when I was, when I was in

journalism class for one year and the two people that were going to take over the next year as, uh, editors in chief. I was never an editor in chief. I, I don't like being in charge of things. Um, but they were going to take over as co-editors in chief. One of them had been at it for four years and that was her fourth year, the editor-in-chief year. And then the other one had been at it for three years, and that was his third year, the editor. Okay. Right? And they were both going to be seniors. So he joined as a sophomore. She joined as a freshman. And she tried to hold it over him that she's like, well, I've been at it for four years. So really, I'm the more senior of the two. And I turned to the both of them. And he was being very gracious and like just, you know, okay, whatever,

like she's being obnoxious. And I just responded with, so what you're saying is it took you four years to do what it took him three. That's our Damien. Yeah. But this feels very similar. Like, oh, they don't even have the wheel. Oh, they don't even have a metal. Yeah, look what they could do.

Yeah. Like, the only reason they lost is because y'all had guns and you all had massive amounts of disease, which that was true when y'all were taking each other on too. So, like guns keep winning. Yeah. And what gets left out of the narrative also is you also manage to get all of the people the Aztecs had pissed off. Yeah.

To act as your allies in taking them down. And even with the gunpowder advantage and metal armor and everything else, you still probably would have been eaten alive, figuratively speaking, if you had not had other Mesoamerican warriors there on your side. Yeah. So. Now, the, the, the Makwa Hidal reminds me a lot of the Mao. shark tooth club which is the leo mano yeah and i just love that on uh on the pacific side of things there is a let's press two things together around sharp shit yeah like again don't need

metal when you got all that no no and again sharks teeth are also a dime a dozen so yeah but there's a certain level more uh if you come from fishing people Yeah. It's easy to catch sharks. Yeah, okay. Whether the shark is a great white or whether the shark is a little blue shark, they all got the teeth. Yeah, Mako or a whatever, whatever variety happens to be. You're part of the Pacific.

Yeah. All right. So that was your number three. My number three is the Escreamma Sticks. Okay. Oh my God, I fucking love these. Like, just there's something so iconically attractive to me about someone. wielding two sticks that are, you know, like long dagger, bowie knife size.

And just the speed and the simplicity and the bludgeoningness and the you can attack and defend it once aspect of it. You know, looking back on my favorite comics, some of the characters that I thought had the coolest weapons were Mockingbird and Night Thrasher, both of whom had what were called battle staves, which is a scream of sticks. and there's just, I don't know. There's something, I've always loved the idea of dual wielding weapons. And I know how insane you have to practice to actually have them as separate combat instruments.

Yeah. Because your brain's going to want to do the same thing with both, right? Right. But they just capture my imagination in a way that so few weapons do. And they're simple to fashion, which I think is part of it. but, you know, and it's expected that if you're going to be using them, you're going to be an expert in them. But like, the other thing is if you get disarmed with them, you still have your hands. Yeah, and if you watch anybody practicing escrima.

Yeah. Like the level of speed and grace. Yeah, I was going to say the flow. Yeah, the fluidity. of it is really something to watch. The other thing to keep in mind, you know, is we see people practice frequently with sticks, and we see in popular media sticks as the thing that, you know, Nightwing and other heroes that use those tools. You know, we see sticks is the thing they use, but you can practice Eskrama the same way using knives.

Yeah. And watching Philippine Army soldiers doing knife drills using escrima Yeah. Is, is

Parker inducing. Oh yeah, because the, what do you call it? The striking patterns are remarkably similar. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

Okay, my number two is the only firearm on this list. Because I want, you know, it's historical weapons. Sure. It's not just, you know, hand-to-hand weapons, but historical. I could have a whole separate list that's just firearms, just because I grew up the child of a gun nut. I am kind of a gun nut, you know.

The Colt Walker 1847 revolver. Is this the one that Dean and Sam use? I'm going to get to that in a second. So the 1847. the Colt Walker is the first successful six shooter. Now it is not the first revolving cylinder revolver. No. That was the Colt Patterson, 1836.

The Colt Patterson only had five shots. And in order to reload it, you actually had to partially take the gun apart. The Walker refined the concepts and made the weapon more practical to use in the field. It's still a cap and ball revolver. It's still a black powder weapon Still doesn't it doesn't use case to ammunition So you know there's still all of those issues involved But it is it is

In my In my opinion if I was the one teaching a you know History of Military Technology course This is the one I would point to as being like this is the first Like soldiers in the field are going to be using this Revolver weapon 44 caliber It fires a really big bullet with a loud bang

and then does it again just as fast as you can re-cock and fire six times. It got refined into the 1860 Army model which was carried by cavalry troopers and officers on both sides of the Civil War in greater numbers by the Union but it showed up on both sides

and every modern revolver is either a descendant another cult like the Python which the Python is famous as being the weapon of dirty Harry. Or it's a response like the Chiapa Rhino or anything by Smith and Wesson. It is, it is the 14, 1847 is the weapon that was carried by Texas Rangers.

It's the weapon that was carried Walker, Colt Walker. Walker was, in fact, a Ranger captain. And everybody, I'm sure plenty of people listening are going to be like, wait, wasn't he a TV character? Chuck Norris played Walker, Texas Ranger, and now, you know, Jared Padalecki is, I think, still playing a new version of Walker, Texas Ranger. However, in those TV shows,

I believe that Walker, the modern Walker, is supposed to be a descendant of this famous Ranger captain from, you know, the 1830s. And a bit of stunt casting there with using specifically Padalaki. A little bit, yeah. Because that was like a demon slaying gun.

Yeah. We hire, we hire Wookie and have him, have him put on Tin Star. Yeah. So, you know, to my mind,

the Colt Walker, the 1847, is cooler than the one that came before because it's more functional. And it is, cooler still than I think the 1860 because it's it's the we have now gotten

most of the kinks out of this this is the thing from which everything else is going to be you know as as we develop case to ammunition we're going to use that instead of cap and ball and you know but but it is the it is the prototype

to be of the modern six shot which became the standard revolver so that's my that's my number two what about you I think this is one of those ones where you're going to get it right or you're going to miss guess number one. Okay. The quarterstaff. Yes.

Okay. Two for two. Yeah. Yeah. It is no secret that that is one of my absolute favoritest weapons ever. It just far and away is it's just so ubiquitous. You pick up a stick and you've got yourself a quarterstaff basically. Like make it, you know, a little taller.

than your head, you know, if you can palm, you know, take your hand and then fold it over 90 degrees and it's wherever that touches. That's perfect length for a quarterstaff. And it's, it is an old man's weapon. It is a monk's weapon. It is a peasant's weapon. It is everybody's weapon. And what's lovely about it is that you can, you could absolutely do some massive fucking damage. Obviously, you could kill people with it. That's, oh, yeah. But also, you have to mean it to, kill them. Like, otherwise,

you are poking people away, you are hitting people where it hurts, and you're giving them a chance to reconsider. Because it's,

it's extremely rare that an errant shot will get in on them. Like, as opposed to with a sword, like, the, every part of it's lethal,

right? Whereas with a quarter staff, it's lethal if you really fucking mean it, or if you lose complete and total control, and they fuck up. Like,

it has to be that, combo. Otherwise, you're breaking things. You're injuring. You're welting. You are ball-shodding. You are busting teeth, losing eyes, cauliflowering ears. But you got a really like, so again, it's everybody's second chance when they're getting hit with it too. Okay. And it can block fucking everything. Yes. As I pointed out earlier, yes. You're going to have a hard time cutting through it with a sword. You're going to have a hard time even cutting through it with an axe on one shot. Yeah.

It's a big stout piece of wood. Like, you know, you say, you know, it's a big stick. It's a big, heavy stick. Like, that needs to be taken into account. If we're talking about a European quarterstaff, that's a big, that's a stout piece of hard wood. Well, and I'm not actually. I'm talking about wax wood. I'm talking about Chinese.

Yeah, okay. So, so waxwood. Okay. So, so everything you just said about waxwood, I cannot,

I cannot meaningfully argue with. Ah. Because with, with the wax wood, there's spring and flexibility and whip factor and all that kind of stuff involved. A European quarter staff.

Um, I, I would argue is a more lethal weapon. Yeah. Um, And one of the things that I find fascinating about the European quarterstaff is the strikes and maneuvers that you make with a quarterstaff in very many ways parallel the strikes and maneuvers you make with any kind of bladed pull weapon, like a halberd or a glaive or anything like that. because, you know, thrusting, well, okay, if you just put a point on the end of it, that's a spear. You know, swinging, you know, two-handed to hit somebody.

Well, okay, put an axe blade on it. That's how you handle a halberd. And so in Joachim Myers system in his manual, Kunstiz Fecton, Fetchton, one of the major chapters of the book is on pole weapons because it was designed. designed to be a training manual for, hey, you're going to have to serve in the militia. Here's how to teach people how to fight with militia weapons, which is Hallbirds,

glaves, you know, that kind of stuff. And one of the first strikes you learn in Myers' quarterstaff is the murder blow. So, you know, when we're talking about level of comparative lethality,

you know, a European quarter staff is is still like if you are if you are fighting anybody with one there is there is an understanding and an intention that like no I could kill this guy like it's a really good chance I could kill this guy

and and I have in the situation has devolved to a point where I'm okay with that you know and I mean I could I could get into what I understand about the law of you know self-defense versus homicide and all that stuff in Europe in the 1500s. But yeah.

But with the waxwood staff, yes, for the people who developed that art, you know, Buddhist monks, it was like, okay, look, I'm going to do everything I can to dissuade you before I realize that I have to kill you in order to stop you. Yeah. You know, and yeah, there's definitely something very cool about that for like. of a better word. Yeah. So yeah.

I get it. That's cool. So you're number one? My number one. This is not going to be surprising at all. The long sword. Yeah. The long sword.

If it makes me basic, I don't care. Sure. The long sword is, to my mind, the coolest weapon in history. It's iconic. It is everywhere in Western art, in the Western canon. It has all of the emotional and symbolic loading. You know, it's it's everywhere for a reason. And as a as a weapon to use, it hits very hard.

It moves very fast. You can use it as a stabbing or a slashing weapon. And if you know what you're doing, you can use it as a bludgeoning weapon. There's nothing quite so satisfying as getting right up in an opponent's face and pommeling them, literally, in the side of the head, or the face. And it's long enough to keep your opponents at a moderate distance, but it doesn't require you to have a dozen buddies like a polar does. I'm looking at you, Hallbirds, which I just mentioned last time, right?

Or Pikes, like, you know, and it just, it looks cool. It's economic. It's elegant. Yes. It's not as accessible as a chair leg or a quarter staff, right? It requires somebody. The person who's making it has to have a level of meaningful expertise. There's a lot of metallurgy that goes into it.

You know, there's all kinds of ways to fuck a sort up when you're trying to make one. but when it is finished it is drip like on its own is it as scary as the Makua wheedle no no the Makua wheedle is fucking terrifying yeah um almost almost no weapon

certainly almost no weapon in in the time period is as scary as a Makua wheedle really um but I would rather carry and use a long sword um And it is, yeah, it hits all the buttons. Yeah. Basically. And that is, those are my reasons.

And yes, I get that that totally makes me basic. Oh, yeah, I found the Paladin player. Yeah, no, fine. Whatever. Fuck you. It's cooler. So that's my number one. What about you?

Spear. Everything I love about the quarterstaff and then you added a pointy part. then you make it a pokey boy yeah yeah now it is much more lethal uh and i still keep you away from me yeah with very little training and lots of short jabs yes so i mean if you want to you can die but like it's it's it's still very much like i can keep you away and want not to hurt me anymore right without hurting you too terribly bad and if you choose then i'm going to hurt you from over there. And I'm going to hurt you permanently. Yeah. You know, also the thing is, this is the only weapon that I've really listed here where you can throw it. It's, yes, you know,

the problem with throwing a weapon is you don't have that weapon anymore. Right. So I'm always, like, really, really loath to, like, throw something like that. I do love a good javelin, but the other's worth way better. But, like, the spear is awesome. They're just, and it is, and it is, is the most basic of weapons because it takes so little training. Yeah. Well, it's a knife on a stick. Yeah. So.

Yeah. So now I have a question for you. Sure. Because you're talking about throwing it got me thinking. So when you picture the spear that you're talking about as your number one, are you picturing like a Greek serrissa? No. Are you picturing like a Viking spear?

smaller still. I'm talking like literally a quarterstaff with the spearhead. I'm talking like the Chinese horse tail spear. Okay. Which, which, okay, for a European equivalent would be like a Viking spear. Oh, okay, yeah. About seven feet high.

Yeah, varied. Six to seven feet. And so then you're not picturing a pilum. No. Okay. Because Pila are not handhelds. Like those are deliberately for throwing. Okay.

And they're deliberately for harassing. And that's all well and good. But I don't want to miss. Okay. And also even if I hit, I don't have a weapon now. So, no, this is much more like a Hasta, I think. Okay. Okay.

This is, there were Roman intermediary guys. guys who, like, would harass the bad guys after they threw their pila, they would use a spear-type weapon that was not anywhere near as big as the Sarissa. The Sarissa are the, like, 24-foot ones, right? Oh, yeah, no, I was using the wrong word. I was thinking of the, when I said Greek spear, I wasn't talking about, like, Alexander's Pikes. I was talking about, like, a Greek hoplites spear.

Oh, yeah, that's a bit long still, but... Might be like eight feet. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bit long. Again, I would want about seven feet. Okay. You know, not much bigger.

Okay. Yeah. And I find it interesting. The different directions we come at this question from. Mm-hmm. Because your weapons of choice are consistently ones that it's like, look, I don't need to spend a lot of time training with this. I can just I can pick this up

like I can hand this to somebody to be like okay look the Revers are coming right here's here's something to try to defend yourself with and go right yeah with with the exception of the Shaleli

which is still a fighting stick and still has a school of art associated with it iris stick fighting is a thing the rest of mine like a revolt you need to learn how to fire a gun.

Like you do need to learn how to aim, you know, how to properly, you know, handle a firearm. And all the rest of mine are, are weapons that, that you're going to need to actually study how to do this to really use them effectively. You were the son of an officer. I was the son of somebody who worked in the motor pool. Fair. Okay. That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, sword nerd. and, you know, not. And ancient Marxist. Like, I want a peasant's rebellion, God damn it. We do not have time to train.

Yeah, all right. Get your rake. Yeah. Like, okay, look, take your rake over to the blacksmith and have him straightened the tines out. And now you've got like a, we don't have time for that shit. Just go. Just go. Just smack up an antler on your way.

Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. No, I. God damn it, we're overthrowing the aerostop. It's right. We don't have time for this shit. We don't, you know, afterwards, we don't need to beat our swords into plowshares.

We're just going to hit them with plowshares. This will be great. Yeah. Okay. I like that. Yeah. So. Yeah.

Cool. Well, that was fun. We should do it again sometime. Yeah. What are you reading? Oh, I am up to my elbows in the Civil War right now. And the one thing I'm going to. to recommend is going to be the personal memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which I know I'm pretty sure at some point in the past I've recommended once before, but I am going through them in a more scholarly manner right now. And Grant's writing really is amazing for somebody who did not have a literary education.

I mean, it was a college educated. He graduated from West Point. But he was not trained as a writer. He has a remarkably powerful, a very clear and evocative voice. So, like, as an English teacher, his memoirs are really good. I mean, they were edited by Samuel Clements.

So, like, some credit to his editor. Yeah. But, like, you have to have a good manuscript. script to start with. And his, again, his writing, his prose is amazing. And he does a remarkably good job of describing his own decisions and his own thought process and his own perceptions without coming across as having access to grind. And when you read memoirs from other Civil War generals or other.

or other major Civil War figures, they have grudges. Robert E. Lee, or the people who wrote the biography of Robert E. Lee, went to great lengths to villainize a number of people. I was going to say, that's not a fair comparison because Robert E. Lee was a general. But if we're not talking his memoirs or autobiography,

then we're talking about people who were lionizing him and using him. to push an agenda whereas Ulysses S. Grant's memoir was ostensibly mostly by him. Yeah. Yeah. The counter comparison, the better counter comparison

would be Jefferson Davis's writing about the history of the Confederacy. There you go. Oh, wow, is it bad? Like on a historical level, it's bad. Like reading through it, unless you are a lost causer,

you're reading him listing off. It's just grievance after grievance after grievance. And this guy fucked up and this guy fucked up. And this is his fault. And by the way, we all ought to be, you know, praising the ground that Robert Lee walked on and Grant was,

you know, a meh strategist and a butcher and the union one because they had more resources and there was no art involved in it. Like, yeah, just I'm, Lee, not Lee,

Davis didn't think of, like he didn't contemplation. think I'm going to set the imprint for the lost cause when I when I write this, but he 100% did. Yeah. Like, yeah. And it's, it's, it's laughably bad. Um, as a, as a resource for understanding the Confederate point of view, it's invaluable. But as an actual like source for like casualty figures, it's,

fucking wrong. So again, you're recommending. I'm recommending Grant. Sorry, I got off on a tangent there. But yeah, you list these S. Grant's personal memoir. Very well written, a remarkably easy read, even if you're not a military history type. So that's my recommendation for this week. What about you?

I'm going to recommend a book by Dr. Dwing Ming Yang called Ancient Chinese Weapons, It's a martial arts guide. And it is, it's got, I think, over 100 illustrations. And it basically explores the history, the classifications, the fighting techniques used in ancient Chinese martial arts weapons. Okay. There are so many weapons that I love the idea of. But like you pointed out, a lot of them would take training. So I very much stick more to the ones that do not take.

take training. So, uh, but all the ones that take training are also in there. And it's, it's roughly, uh, a page of weapon.

So it's a, it's a coffee table book. So definitely worth, definitely worth, all right, nice. Getting, yeah.

Cool. Well, uh, let's see, where can they find us? We can be found on our website at wauba, wabababababh. At geekhistorytime.

Uh, our archa, there's also an archive, uh, ever growing on YouTube at, at Geek History of Time. And we can be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app,

and on Spotify. And wherever you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Let's assume you can make it to the August 7th Capitol Punishment Show.

We are now in our 11th year, 9 p.m. at the Sacramento Comedy Spot. Come check that out. If you missed that one, then September 4th, which is just before Labor Day. So start your Labor Day weekend off right with a lot of puns. So, yeah, come on down, Sacramento, California, 9 p.m. at the Sacramento Comedy Spot. Go to SaccommoditySpot.com. Pick up the link that says calendar and then find our show and get your tickets.

So, yeah, that's where you can find me. If for some reason this, no, this isn't going to come out before. July. I was going to say you could maybe see me at the Crocker Art Museum, but no. It's too late for that. So, all right. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, remember, the blade moves first.