Mark4
VS.
NewbieMcNasty
The Intro
I was loitering around NoHunters, which was more filled than usual due to the fact that some moron was banning everyone from x17, so all the x17ers were in here, inflating the usual number of people from around 10-15 to 30-35. I was trying to observe a 1v1 game, Ioti VS (someone), along with Mark4, but we weren't able to get the game going, and when I saw Mark4 say 'mark4/mark4' I thought he meant that he was making the game Ioti was playing in, so I joined.
It turned out that this game was Mark4 VS NewbieMcNasty, so I decided that this would be just as good (if not better) to watch than Ioti's game. I settled in and started to watch.
Needed Info
The game was Mark4 VS NewbieMcNasty, with me observing. The map was Dire Straits, with Mark4 starting in the bottom left position and NewbieMcNasty starting in the top left position. I don't remember if either one chose their race; but I do know what they ended up with. Mark4 was the noble Protoss, in purple colors, and NewbieMcNasty the resourceful Terran, colored in yellow.
The Game
The Beginning
Both Mark4 and NewbieMcNasty went evtremely fast gas, around the 10th peon or so, before anything but a supply structure. As soon as the gas came up, both put peons to gathering from it. As the game progressed, it became apparent that Mark4 was going for templar and shuttle tech, possibly early expand followed by reaver/dt drop. NewbieMcNasty, on the other hand, had already started making a CC on the bottom edge of his island, planning to expand to the island between him and Mark4. He had built a factory, with another starting, and a starport. He appeared to be going wraiths/tanks, using the money he planned to get from the early CC float. But neither of their plans were to be fully realized.
First Contact
Mark4 loaded up a shuttle with a single probe and sent it out, first to drop of a probe at the middle left island, between him and NewbieMcNasty, and in addition, after the probe had been dropped, to scout. The shuttle soon found NewbieMcNasty, directly above Mark4, and with his CC heading straight towards the very same island Mark4 dropped his probe on. As the CC landed, the probe built a pylon right next to the CC, and started to attack the CC. The CC entrance immediately began flashing yellow, signaling that the arrival of a SCV would be soon. When the SCV popped out, it began to kill the probe, who never stopped attacking the command center. As more SCVs were made, the pylon was gradually killed, but in the time it was there Mark4 was able to see that NewbieMcNasty was making defense on the island. Soon after the pylon was destroyed, Mark4 dropped a reaver and a dt on NewbieMcNasty's main, but was unable to do more then kill a few marines.
Soon after Mark4's drop, Mark4 made another drop, but this time on the middle left island, where NewbieMcNasty had his fledgling expansion. The drop was a complete success, and destroyed the island with little losses.
Counterstrike
During the action of his two drops, Mark4 had expanded to the bottom middle island, and had a nexus warping, and soon had a few cannons and a gateway there. As his expansion was going up and NewbieMcNasty's was going down, NewbieMcNasty was preparing a strike against Mark4's main. The strike consisted of 4 tanks landed in secret upon Mark4's island and 4 wraiths supporting the tanks. Mark4 was caught totally by suprise, and his probes were decimated in the first volley.Luckily for Mark4, he was able to field enough troops to defeat the drop, though only barely. He was only able to do so due to the fact that the units he used were dts and NewbieMcNasty was unable to comsat fast enough to stop the dts. While this drop was going on, Mark4 fully destroyed NewbieMcNasty's expansion. NewbieMcNasty quickly retook the island, though, with a dropship of a tank, a vulture, and a SCV. Mark4, seeing the attempt to re-expand, dropped some troublesome dt on the island, which killed the lone turret and forced NewbieMcNasty to cancel the CC and abandon the island. NewbieMcNasty tried to retaliate by doing another drop similar to the one he had done that had deciminated Mark4's probes, but was thwarted by dts directly under the dropships, killing anything that came out. Needing money, NewbieMcNasty began construction of another CC, this one on the right side of his island, to float to the top middle island. Along with it went an escort of about 8 wraiths and a science vessel, enough to protect the island. While this was going on, Mark4 had gotten his expansion fully operational. Mark4 attempted to expand to the middle left island, but the expansion was spotted with a comsat and a group of wraiths was sent to destroy it. Just as the wraiths arrived, Mark4 was dropping off a dragoon and a templar, which began immediate storming at the wraiths. Unluckily for Mark4, NewbieMcNasty had seen the templar, and as the storm went off, the wraiths were already moving away from the storm. The quick evasive action limited the storm damage to virtually nothing. With the templar threat neutralized, the island expansion attempt was destroyed.
'MY expansion!''NO, MINE!'
With his middle left expansion attempt destroyed, Mark4 attempted to expand to the center left island, landing with a dragoon, a templar, and a probe on the bottom half of the island. Unluckily for him, this was quickly spotted by NewbieMcNasty. NewbieMcNasty landed a force of assorted factory units and a SCV supported by a few wraiths, and destroyed Mark4's expansion. He then started an expansion of his own, in the same place Mark4 had had his. NewbieMcNasty's expansion was killed by a two shuttle drop, and Mark4 began another expansion in the exact same spot. This expansion, in turn, was killed by a force of a tank and 2 vultures, supported by wraiths. And can you guess what NewbieMcNasty did then? He started another expansion in the exact same spot where 3 other expansions had met their deaths. Of course, you see the pattern. And guess what happened next? Mark4's shuttles appeared and put an end to the fourth expansion attempt upon the bottom part of the center left isle. Of course, Mark4 had to start up another expansion attempt on that island, which was dropped by NewbieMcNasty, but this time, for once, a drop failed. The next one didn't though. The island was NewbieMcNasty's again. Using the tanks that he had left on the island, he set up a cross-island seige of Mark4's bottom middle expansion, ending up destroying a gate and a pylon. Mark4 moved in a few corsairs to try to destroy the sci vessel that was detecting for the tanks, probably in hopes of dropping more dt, but a valk killed the corsairs. Seeing that NewbieMcNasty had the left center expansion too well-defended, Mark4 tried to expand to the bottom right starting spot. The expansion was spotted by NewbieMcNasty, but NewbieMcNasty's attack was stopped by defending templar and dragoons. NewbieMcNasty again attacked the island, this time with 2 tanks escorted by a sci vessel and some wraiths. The tanks moved behind the assimilator and began to lay waste to the probe line. One was killed by storm, but the other still lived, and it looked as if Mark4 would lose his expansion, when came... THE PROBES! Mark4's vicious probes attacked and killed the tank in seige mode,  and the wraiths had to flee in the face of a morphing archon. Mark4 had successfully secured his new expansion.
Midgame
Mark4, after making sure that his bottom left expansion was secure, took the middle left expansion that had been the focus of the start of the game. This expansion went unnoticed for a long time, and when it was noticed, it was too entrenched to be destroyed. In the meantime, NewbieMcNasty attempted another drop upon the bottom right expansion. The drop consisted of two shuttles supported with wraiths and SVs. Inside the shuttles were 3 tanks and 2 ghosts. Sadly for NewbieMcNasty, Mark4 had dts near the drop site and killed the 2 ghosts and damaged a tank before being killed. NewbieMcNasty pressed on with his attack, even with his ghosts killed. The attack went well even with Mark4 dropping off reinforcements, consisting of 4 templars, 2 dts, and 4 probes. NewbieMcNasty managed to kill the reinforcements, though with the loss of a few troops. Mark4 then brought more reinforcements, but this time dropped them right next to the tank, making it unable to defend itself. The tanks were taken out, and Mark4 moved his dragoons back to his cannons to avoid cloaked wraiths. Back at NewbieMcNasty's second expansion, a nuke silo was built, and a nuke started. NewbieMcNasty attempted to land some ghosts on the middle left expansion, but the dropship was stormed just as the ghosts were exiting. NewbieMcNasty was not to be thwarted, however. He landed a ghost on the same island, cloaked it, and launched a nuke. Mark4 was unable to get a observer to the island fast enough, and the templar had spent its energy, and so the nuke landed. Luckily for Mark4, NewbieMcNasty hadn't been able to EMP before the nuke landed, so the nexus survived, though heavily damaged. The ghost was soon destroyed by a cannon that had been warped in. While NewbieMCNasty tried another few nukes, all of them did very little damage. Soon after the nukes, Mark4 expanded to the middle right island, protecting it with corsairs and dts, and warping in cannons as soon as possible. As Mark4's expansion went up, NewbieMcNasty floated a CC to the top right starting spot. Mark4 was eventually alerted to his presence there by a tank attacking his gateway on the middle right island from the edge of top right. Mark4 dropped off dragoons to deal with the threat, and upon killing the tank, attacked the CC. The CC was destroyed as it tried to float away. While all this had been going on, NewbieMcNasty constructed 3 BCs out of his 3 starports, and in preparation for a hit on the middle left island, sent a science vessel to irradiate the templars. The 2 templars could have saved themselves if Mark4 had merged them, but Mark4 wasn't paying attention. After the templars were safely dead, the 3 BCs moved to attack the middle left expansion. The BCs were supported by a few wraiths and a few SVs. Sadly for NewbieMcNasty, Mark4 still had a templar on the island, and had a force of around 10 corsairs just sitting around, and the corsairs quickly moved to defend the expansion. The corsairs arrived and made quick work of the unupgraded air units, with a storm to soften NewbieMcNasty's forces. After the BCs had been safely disposed of, Mark4 dropped NewbieMcNasty's center left expansion, doing some damage, but the drop was soon killed. As of then, Mark4 had about 1.75 times the resources NewbieMcNasty had, and NewbieMcNasty realized that, and tried to expand to the top left, but the expansion attempt was quickly thwarted by the dragoons that Mark4 had left on the island.
Endgame-Drops of Doom
Mark4 then began a series of deadly drops, starting with the central left expansion, which was hit by corsairs and assorted ground units brought in by shuttles. The expansion is quickly overwhelmed. After fully eradicating any terran presence on the central left island, Mark4 dropped his strike force, supported by corsairs, on the top middle island, which had virtually no defense. Mark4's squad of 10 corsairs 4 dragoons and 3 templar easily destroyed it, and NewbieMcNasty was now down to his mined-out main. Which was, of course, quickly dropped by Mark4. NewbieMcNasty, having no troops, was unable to stop the 8 dragoons that Mark4 drops. NewbieMcNasty was able to prolong the game for a little while longer by moving a EBay into a corner, but was quickly found, and his presence on the chain of islands known as Dire Straits now gone.
LESSONS LEARNED
- Cross-island seige is a pretty good strat on Dire.
- No matter what the current arguments going on in the BWStrat forum say, SAIRS>BC!
- When a terran irradiates more then 1 templar at a time, you should merge them. Also, try sticking the temp by a shield battery and clicking like mad.
- Cross-island nukes do ok on this map, but you really need to EMP first to do any major damage.
- No matter what Mark4 says, he IS a good player, DESPITE his protests to the contrary.
- Mark4's strategy of 'Never give up' works quite well; for a time, it looked as if NewbieMcNasty might win, but Mark4 just kept trying.
Hope you liked that BR
Psst, Mark4, I made you look good, give me a 10! :) j/k
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