The answer to the meta is an appropriate book of the Bible
This puzzle is a milestone of sorts. See if you can work out what it is! The answer to the meta is an appropriate book of the Bible (but with "Rome" in the puzzle title, let me assure you that it isn't "Romans"!) Answer & explanation: https://xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=150179#p150179
Check out "The MOAT Mini Pack of Marching Bands" here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html. US$5 gets you 7 Marching Bands which, hard enough on their own, now contain metas too. And once again there's a mega-meta!
Yes, indeed: 150th meta constructed; 151st released!
boharr 2s · 2023-12-05T14:56:09.034Z
Congrats and thanks.
hoover 3s · 2023-12-05T16:01:30.332Z
I saw the CLs and wrote down all the CL words. They're all followed by vowels, and AOOAAU doesn't spell anything. No Bible book starts with CL, but Ecclesiastes and 1&2 Chronicles contain CL. Nope. Well, is there a significant 150 in the Bible? Yeah, it's in Genesis. Nope. Well, how about we just go for Numbers? Nope. Wait. Didn't Benchen say something last week about always pointing back to the clues? Hey, lookie there. Congrats on #150 (or 151)!
SamKat9 🤓11:13 · 2023-12-05T16:42:04.538Z
Lots of wrong guesses before I noticed the CLs. Congrats on constructing your 150th meta, Ben!
A milestone indeed! I was trying to determine how CLUE related while standing in the crease and waiting for a bowled ball to knock my wicket off when it hit me, 150. Then I remembered that I already knew that but forgot. I’m sure you are willing to forfeit the 150 released for a MGWCC. Either way sir, my congratulations!
I actually went back and counted up the number of MOATS and it seemed to come to about 120-ish. I figured Roman numerals but got stuck with no X's in the grid. Well, what are other letters used in Roman numerals -- besides the C -- hey, look at all those CL's!
How could I forget that you've done plenty of puzzles (somewhere upwards of 2 dozen if I've got the math right!) for some of the other threads?!
Congrats and thanks, Ben!
In addition to a couple of MMMs, quite a number of MEOWs, and now 2 Gaffneys (!), there was also the second MOAT pack which had 12 puzzles in it. And lots more to come!
merlinnimue 🤓7:26 · 2023-12-06T05:16:58.887Z
congratulations and thanks for 150 genius-level puzzles... sorry you had to deal with me for some of that time... here's to many more -- puzzles, that is, not me and my inanity
Qmark 4s · 2023-12-06T13:18:11.290Z
Congrats on meta 150, Ben!
Sharkicicles 1s · 2023-12-06T19:10:14.209Z
Until reading the comments here I hadn’t even noticed the clues… just went with the answer because they were the only CLs (and as far as I could tell the only multi-letter numerals) in the grid. Sneaky!
My initial impulse when constructing this one was simply to have the repeated CLs in the grid be the only meta information. However at the cluing stage I thought I should also include the answer letters in the clues. I'm glad I did! Lots more puzzles to come, too. :D
Congrats on 150! Very fun. I was stumped for a bit yesterday, but just looking at it again this evening the CLs jumped out once I thought again about how to interpret 61A. Took a few more beats to look at the clue letters (despite the hint), but eventually got there. :)
Laura M 🤓7:45 · 2023-12-07T02:00:58.495Z
Excellent! Congrats on 150+ great metas!
MatthewL 🤓7:10 · 2023-12-07T16:06:00.054Z
Finally got it, but needed some help to see the obvious. Nice one, Ben! And congrats on the milestone! Here's to 150 more.
HeadinHome 🤓1:25 · 2023-12-07T17:56:05.627Z
I’m SURE I had submitted Psalms about 12 guesses back… must have gotten spell-corrected to something else and I didn’t notice. To be fair, it was a WAG anyway, along with EPHESIANS and some other Greco-Roman-related places, plus your Ephesus scroll thingy; JOB (Romans work! Build roads? No?); REVELATION because there were a lot of entries that suggested attire and I wondered if they removed their attire as the Greeks did, when fighting/running; JUDGES because of the Roman judicial system; ACTS because of the theatres… Yes okay I was grasping at straws. Dr.Tom finally nudges me to see all the CL, and I immediately thought of Psalms because there are 150 of them… but I’ll read the questions here to see if there is a relation to Rome other than the roman numeral thing. Sheesh… these easy ones are often the hardest ones!!
HeadinHome 🤓1:25 · 2023-12-07T18:08:50.069Z
Also - TOTO/TORO, TEAM/TEEM, OTHER/ETHER is all coincidence?? So disappointing…. ( :
HeadinHome 🤓1:25 · 2023-12-07T18:04:28.601Z
Ohhhh… yes NOW I see… the clues to all the CL words start with the letters of PSALMS duh. Well praise the Lord (with trumpet sound).
I used every single nudge … I overcomplicated things… so many rabbit holes: four clues have bible books in them: Job, Joel, Peter, John… the answers to those clues didn’t spell anything but their last letters spelled “STAR”… thought I was on to something… then I wrote out those four entries and deleted all instances of the letters in ROMANS and almost got “eighth”… then I went to the nudges and still overcomplicated things… the clue for CLOTHING also satisfies the entry HEART… Congrats on 150(+1)!