Containing the Toss Juggernaut

I joined another pubbie game the other day, where I once again, being new to BW, would try to use my old school strats to win in the new school. Here is what happened…

The.Confessor

vs

McMord(elite)

I selected Zerg while McMord(elite)started out with zerg, but swithced to toss at the last second. I decided I would go with my usual build of OL on 8, hatch on 12, extractor on 13. I started 12:00 and sent my initial OL out to scout, and finding the 3:00 empty, I immediately returned it to my main fearing early corsairs (hey, im new to BW, remember :P) and sent a drone out to scout while massing lings out of my 2 hatches. My done find him at 9:00 and I see 2 gate ways and an early forge. I try to hit him with some quick lings, but a small force of zealots and a well placed cannon backs me off.

At this time, burrow finishes researching (my first tech of choice almost every game) and I send my lings around his base, near the back of his mineral line and try to engage his zealots out of the range of his cannon. He doesnt bite, and after some skirmishes, I decide my remaining lings will serve a better purpose and burrow them along the outside of his base so now I know exactly what he is building. I also send out 5 more lings from my main and burrow one at his natural, the 6:00 main, 3:00 main and one on the path to my base from his for good measure. I smile in delight as he begins warping in cannons, at least 4 to send my burrowed lings packing, and decide to match the money he spent on them to double expand, to my natural and mineral only natural. Seeing as how I can keep tabs if he attacks or expands, I skimp on units for now while upgrading to lair and building up gas and pumping TONS of drones.

My 2 hacthes finish about when my lair is done, where I start up a Spire and pump more lings from my hatches, at the same time building ANOTHER hatch at the top of my ramp. He has not expanded yet to my knowledge and I am curious as to what he is up to so I send 4 lings to his main only to have them killed by cannon and goons at the top of his ramp. At this point I am facd with the fact I have no idea what tech he has, though I know he has not expanded and he has spent a LOT of money on cannons. I decide to continue on with my plan, massing mutas while building a queens nest. I take my early force of 6 mutas and try his nexus from his back door, but cannons and some goons shoo me off, so I decide to continue to bid my time. As soon as my queens nest finishes, I start to upgrade to hive while researching speed upgrade for my lings, I now have about 4 control groups worth waiting, and take my force of 12 mutas to the extreme bottom left island in preparation for a bombardment of his main. At this time, I FINALLY see him move some units down to his natural and he begins to warp in a nexus and a pylon, as I see some goons and temps thanks to my burrowed ling from the early game.

At this point, I swing by the top left island with a small squad of mutas to see if he has expanded there and finding it empty, I start morphing a greater spire and researching adrenal glands while continuing to pump lings and mutas. (I know it seems all this is happening to fast, but he was effectively contained, so there was little else to do except tech and upgrade) I morph my 12 mutas at the bottom left into guardians as soon as my greater finishes and charge into his base. I try to spread my guardians as much as possible to avoid storm, but they clump together a little to focus fire on the 6 goons he had stationed there waiting. I manage to take down his goons and some temps, as well as about 4 cannons, but some more goons come along with a templar and finish my guardians off. I decide I need to further my recourses if I am going to bust through this toss turtler and once again double expand, this time to the 3:00 main and 6:00 natural. I take a squad of mutas to attack his natural from his ledge, but am driven off by some well placed storms, so I again stack some mutas up above his natural and morph them into guardians. As soon as my expansions finish, I maynard some drones form my mined out main to them and begin to hammer on his natural with my new guardians. They again take out some goons and pylons, but there are only 6 guards this time, and his temps manage to again take them out. However, at this point, I know I am dominating the recourse war, so I am not too worried, starting up 3 evolution chambers at the 6:00 main when he finally decides to launch the first offensive… in the form of Dark Templars! Now I know what you are thinking, silly toss using DT against a zerg, but remember, I am brand new to BW and dont have Ols stationed anywhere NEAR my expansions for detection and havent researched speed yet. The dark templars start hammering on my 6:00 expansion so I burrow my drones to save them for later use and send an OL on its sluggish way to detect them, along with 12 cracklings and some mutas. I also decide I had minus well research speed and start up a den at the same time. My hatchery falls and the DT turn their attention to the evo chambers, but my OL barely makes it in time, allowing my lings and mutas to finish them off while reconstructing my hacthery.

My den finishes, only to hear the sound of warp blades cutting u the drones at my 3:00 expansion! Thankfully speed is done researching and I send 2 Ols and some cracks while starting 3 sunkens there for additional defense, at the same time expanding AGAIN to the 3:00 main. Transport also finishes researching at this time, so I decide to end this atrocity of a game. I take 12 mutas above his natural again and morph them into guardians, at the same time loading 10 Ols with cracklings and hydras, all 2/2 and send them to the bottom left island again with 6 mutas accompanying. As soon as my guards finish, I again hammer down o his natural, targeting the templars first to minimize the effects of storm, then turning my attention to the cannons and goons he has stationed there. While he is distracted, I send my mutas in back door to distract his cannons and drop my cracklings and into his main. I have been keeping up with ling production back at home, so I decide why not make his defend a third front and patrol them to his base through his front door. He manages to get off some good storms, but as his natual falls and 6 guardians still left, he resigns as my remaining forces finish off his base.

After game thoughts: Well, I am obviously still learning all the changes BW has in it, as the DTs caught me with my pants down, and corsairs would have owned me mid game, but thanks to my invaluable recon thanks to early burrow, I was able to keep him contained long enough for me to get where I needed to be. I have tried variations of this early contain strat, even with toss using early observers, but burrow seems to do the job most effectively, especially at saving drones from reaver drops, and if you get caught out numbered, burrowing until reinforcements arrive and then sending them all in. Although my opponent did turtle, and didn’t expand until very late, even if he had tried he would have had to devote a large force simply to set up an expansion, as I would have caught it and moved to intercept it the moment the nexus was built, especially once I had mutas in decent numbers. Thanks for reading, hope to keep learning more about BW as I keep playing, any thoughts on how I played zerg and things I could do to improve my zerg game??