"those jokes were sick you acted like a very big baby in this report and need to grow up "
-Firestorm
|
| Desperation | | | Author: | | | IP: | fjwilsonXXXX | | Date: | 01/30/00 04:01 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for .Praetor: 8.2987 |   | Have you ever been absolutely out-classed in something, whether it be academia, sports, or StarCraft? Well, today, I was absolutely out-classed in StarCraft. It all started after I had a lovely lass over for dinner (homemade pizza - including crust, turned out great!). Well nothing particularly blood-boiling happened, but I was a bit jumpy after the happy evening nonetheless.
What to do? Boot up the computer and play a few games of StarCraft. Few being the key there. I really haven't played all that much lately. Maybe six games before tonight, in the last month and a half. Five of which have been losses. Well, after my obscenely slow computer takes awhile to boot up, it takes an even more obscenely long time to load up StarCraft. In this time, I've put bread in the oven, gone to the bathroom, washed my hands, gotten a drink, broken and eaten a piece of chocolate, all in time to come back and sit for a few seconds before going to Multiplayer-Expansion. A few short moments later (mostly consisting of my computer whirring between screens), I'm in channel Clan NWTR.
I happen upon Fudge, Sqi, Yav, and a few others and quickly a 2v2 starts up. With my newly customary "Let's *Dance*!", we were off. My Zerg partner held off a double zealot rush by both opponents, and depleted one of their forces of newly-made zealots, holding me up entirely until my exceptionally late firebat rush could get going. With an incredible force of two marines, two medics, and six firebats, one protoss is forced to surrender (with lings holding off reinforcements). A dozen more firebats and medics (with lings), along with five tanks takes down the last opposing natural, after mutas and some firebats (!!) from a late game double offensive rax float destroy some cannons in the oppoing main and cripple the economy. It was the first instance of simultaneous firebat-containment and double rax float being successful against an opponent with templar tech (only dark).
But that's not the main game. After that was done, I was sill ready to play. But after another pit stop (bottled water is a lovely thing in San Diego), I'd lost the NWTR crew. Not to be deterred, I head over to nohunters, and just miss another 2v2. Luckily, there is a guy (Smash@you) who has periodically been coming into the channel and yelling for anyone interested in FFA to come to channel FFA. Well, I came, and was the lucky fourth. The other players were YourHero, and some guy I don't remember.
After being hailed upon my entry into the chat room, I immediately looked out my window, suddenly relieved that no, the moon wasn't blood red, and thus the oceans were probably not boiling over.* Apparently, I had the best lag with b.net, so I was asked to host. Muahaha. I chose Forsaken Vallen, on the BEST speed, fast (normal and faster are ok, but not preferred). Luckily, no one else noticed the speed until the game was started. I was immediately directed to start, and start I did. To my surprise, all of us went random.
Let's *Dance*!
I recieved Zerg in the bottom left corner. Now Zerg is not my best race, but I do enjoy it for FFA now and again. There is something just infuriating about lines of lings and hydras just streaming into the enemy base one after another (for the opponent). I immediately set my drones to mining, and uttered my customary challenge.
As I worked my way up to nine drones, Smash@you changed the latency to extra high, at which I changed it to high. He asked, "what speed is this, faster?"
"No," I replied, eyes wide and innocent, "it's fast." To bring the point home I added, "the ONLY speed to play on." When asked if I was Terran, I repsonded truly I wasn't.
Smash@you replied, "fast is unfair for players who don't micro."
Nearly choking on, well, air, my fingers flew fast and furious over the keyboard (my extensive writing has really improved my workds per minute), "well it's a good thing I micro. You should try it now and again. A good broodling or psi storm really helps in some situations." To illustrate my point, I offered this sage advice, "never go mass ultras against mass queens." Upon reflection, this advice can be ignored if you are a Dutch vampire.*3
Smash@you replied with a fairly cryptic, "DOH!" I simply put down my second hatchery, as I had reached 300 minerals. Buying a replacement drone, I set him to mining, and soon purchase an overlord as well.
Just before reaching 150 minerals, I wince, and quickly buy a spawning pool. You'd be AMAZED how often I forget to do that as Zerg. Why it never seems to occur to me, I don't know. I get my pool, a replacement drone, and then started pumping drones once my overlord was done. I sent this overlord to th middle, knowing the valley proper is very important on this map.
My first overlord had gone north, and sent back this very important information... What's that you say? Oh yeah... THE MAP! Though it looks compicated, Forsaken Valley is actually rather simple. The starts are in the four corners, on low ground. Middle left and middle right are gas and mineral expansions. Far away from your base (preventing sieging) there is a circular ridge, upon this ridge there is a mineral-only natural just where your ramp comes out. By each mineral-only natural, there is a penninsula sticking out into the main valley, which is fairly spacious, and holds six expansions, four (total) mineral only on the top and bottom, and two (total) mineral and gas on the left and right.
Anyhoo, my first overlord had shown me shocking information: the opponent to the north (closest to me) had teched at an alarming rate. His cybernetics core was soon to warp in (about the same time my spawning pool would finsih), and he already had gas production. I mean this guy had teched FAST. I'm guessing the build order was pylon, gateway, cybernetics, assim, with no zealots to slow you down.
What was I to do? Rush! But my two hatcheries had been busy pumping drones. Switching gears, I changed to Zerglings, and soon had twelve. Gas production had started as well. I sent my twelve Zerglings north, quickly followed by four reinforcements. On the way up, I also took the time to start another hatchery at my mineral-only natural.
My lings poured into his base, to find two dragoons defending. One died almost instantly. Two more popped out of his now-dual gates, and all three retreated into his probe line. Assuming I would not win the battle (there were copious probes), I let six of my lings engage the dragoons. Those six were actually moderately successful as the large form of the goons could not retreat into the peon mass effectively. The other six attacked his already completed robotics facility. I considered this imperative because my attacking lings had seen something even more amazing - a completed robotics bay. Talk about tech!
I started a hydra den at home, and more drones (which in retrospect was a mistake). In YourHero's (also known as white [also known as the enemy to the north {also known as the fastest techer I've seen, and I launched a nuke before Mark4 had observers once... on islands}]) base, the robotics facility had fallen, as had five of my lings, and another dragoon. Finally, the probes began to attack in earnest, and the dragoons were beginning to wear on my attack force. Just then, two zealots pop out of his gates. Lusting for actual blood, my six zerglings (plus four reinforcements) pounced on the zealots, killing them both. Unfortunately, they only managed to kill two of the devastating probes before being annihilated themselves. YourHero still had his support bay, but not his robotics facility.
At home, I transfered drones to my mineral-only natural, built more drones, and started sunkens, in order to delay attacking reavers. Zergling speed, Hydralisk speed, and burrowing were also researched in this time, as I noticed my gas begin to build up. A total of six sunkens were built, protecting all sides of my main and natural (three to a base).
The Beginning of the End
I thought my economy was going fairly well, so I put up an evolution chamber and started on some Zerglings for another offensive against white.
Oops! It's 8:40, I should have taken out my bread 5 minutes ago. DOH! I pause the game and quickly retrieve the bread, placing it on a plate in my room to cool. I unpause the game, informing my opponents I had to take bread out of the oven. To my dismay, there was not surprised response =).
I send a scouting group of eight lings north, to see what is happening at white's base, while starting up another control group. I have less success than expected, as my first ling is blown to bits by no less than two scarabs, and two blasts from photon cannons at a new expansion for white's mineral-only natural. Um, owee. I pull my lings back, quickly, leaving the six that survive in between the two mineral-only naturals. I swtich my production to hydralisks, also buying range for the buggers.
My six Zerglings in between YourHero and I suicide themselves for information and time, as a battlegroup heads south. Scrambling my existing Zerglings to the front of my expansion, I prepare a desperate defense, staring four more Zerglings as well.
The six corpses on the road towards me show over eight dragoons heading down with a shuttle tagging along. My Zerglings from the main base finally arrive, and burrow them some ways from the sunken facing white. The eight dragoons come down, and beging to pound on the sunken, when they place themselves in the perfect position. Unburrowing my lings, they are confused and suddenly under attack, with nowhere to run.
Indeed, it would have been an amazing tactical victory, had the shuttle not immediately unloaded its two reavers. After all the blood was on the ground, the count read six dragoons and sixteen zerglings dead, one sunken and one reaver damaged, and one reaver, two dragoons undamaged. The sunken managed to delay long enough for my speed-upgraded hydralisks to arrive. The six spitters surged forward at my command, waiting for the first salvo into the drones. Their massed fire destroyed the damaged dragoon, and then the other, after losing two of their number. The remaining dragoons retreated before the four remaining hydralisks and four reinforcing zerlings.
I unburrowed my eight remaining drones, and went back to work, also replacing my sunken colony. Expecting a bit of a respite, I started the carapace upgrade in my evolution chamber, as well as more drones for my mineral-only expansion. I had been too optomistic about my remaining time. Another group of YourHero's warriors were coming down to smash stuff, and I only had a sunken, and six burrowed hydralisks to greet them. I scrambled zerglings with what larvae I could.
This time, twelve dragoons and a shuttle were coming down. I left my hydralisks burrowed as my sunken took it in the tentacle from the twelve dragoons, waiting until the shuttle was overhead. Popping up quickly, they managed to destroy the shuttle and the one reaver it dropped in desperation before a scarab was fired. They were, however, destroyed in turn by dragoon fire. My sixteen reinforcing Zerglings were not enough to hold back the tide, and three dragoons chased my drones off, only to be killed by the third sunken colony.
I contemplated rebuilding the sunkens again, but decided against it, and mined more minerals at my expansion, building hydralisks. In retrospect, most of my upgrades were a bad idea, because I simply didn't have the money to both buy drones, advancing my economy to the level of white's (though I had been fighting him quite cost-effectivley), and produce enough troops to defend the expansion those drones were meant for.
An overlord watching over the expansion on the left side of the board saw a probe come in and start a nexus, so I sent up two Zerglings to kill it, and harass the nexus. This worked, and also warned me of an incoming attack from at least eight dragoons as first my Zergling, then my overlord bit the dust.
Not having the firepower to withstand the dragoons backed by the inevitable shuttle, I withdrew my drones and six hydralisks to my main. There, I began working on overlord transport, having only recently gotten a lair, as well as lurker aspect, needing to use up my copious gas reserves. Two drones went to hide on the penninsula exending from my expansion, as future scouts.
Bit of a Summary.
I'm getting smashed, and bad. If this was a 1v1, I'd already be giving out gg's. Luckily, this was a free for all. Smash@you and orange (that guy who's name I can never remember) were apparently engaged in a fight as bitter as that between white and I. I could only conclude that Smash@you (red Zerg) was winning due to his vengeful comments depreciating offensive bunkers, and orange's current distaste of lurkers. I just really hoped red was across from white, and not me.
My plan was relatively simple, get transport, and relocate the bulk of my operations to the center, hoping to gain regional dominance there, while possibly even pushing back to retake my natural. The key to this push would be lurkers. Though I knew that white had a robotics bay, I also knew he had no observers as of yet, due to my encouraging success with burrowing.
When lurker aspect finished, I waited until I had 450 minerals, and morphed nine lurkers. Yeah, nine. If you go lurkers, do it in style. Especially against durable Protoss units.
My nine lurkers moved out, ready for battle, as the overlord stationed in the middle moved out, slowly, getting ready to transport the two drones previously left behind as scouts to the middle of the map. A scouting Zergling confirmed the large containment force of approximately ten dragoons stationed at my former expansion. I ran the lurkers to about their extreme range, and burrowed.
YourHero must not have seen exactly how many lurkers had burrowed, because after taking a few hits, he decided to run his dragoons past the slow-firing threat, hoping to find a comparatively undefended base to ravage. He was partly right. My base only had five hydras, five zerglings, and a few sunkens. But that was more than enough to slaughter the one damaged dragoon that made it through the devastation wrought by nine lurkers.
Vengence was not to be mine, however. I was stopped cold from advancing on any white expansions, due to cannons, reavers and dragoons. I did manage to ravage the probe line of middle left with two lurkers transported by a slow overlord. Those were disposed of sometime later, when I wasn't watching. Of my remaining seven, two were killed by reaver and dragoon fire, three more were pulled back to guard my choke, and two watched my main in case of reavers.
My offensive had failed, but I believe it sucessfully discouraged YourHero from launching any attacks soon. My attention thus turned to the middle of the map. One hatchery had been started on the left side of the map, closest to myself, and the other drone had just found the corresponding expansion on the other side.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of the map turned out to not be significantly greater than the other players, and two reavers were dropped by white on my growing hatchery, which was rapidly canceled. This did, however, give me the money to start another hatchery on the right side.
Two dragoons by my choke fired on the three lurkers there, but retreated due to being outnumbered, thus informing me white has observers. I brought my lurkers back in my base, and loaded up my overlords with the hydralisks I had been producing in the downtime. Twelve hydras were loaded, taking their places in three overlords, and headed to stop the expansion white was starting in the valley where my hatchery had been canceled, which my overlord was still hovering over.
While they traveled on their way, I loaded up the last four overlords in my main with three lurkers, four zerglings, and twelve drones. These headed for my new expansion on the right side of the valley. Twelve dragoons holding position in my natural make themselves known as they scare the rear overlord heading to the middle.
I direct the drop of my hydras, to my annoyance finding that two cannons are completing as I arrive. I order the three overlords to drop on all sides of the reavers, hoping to prevent retreat and large casualties. To aid this, I click on one hydra just before the overlords begin their main unloading, so it can eat two scarabs that might otherwise take more hydras. I quickly select the six hydras that first come out of my three overlords, shift-clicking the two reavers and then the cannons (one of three is still building). The reavers only get one more shot off, destroying three more hydralisks, but the cannons have been getting fairly continous fire, and the third is warping in. In addition, two dragoons have just been dropped off by shuttle. My eight hydralisks manage to kill two of the cannons, a dragoon, and leave the last dragoon and cannon at extremely low health. My four overlords (the three loaded ones and the one keeping watch over the expansion earlier), retreat to my other base in the valley, where my hatchery has just completed.
I send my twelve drones mining the minerals as fast as possible, not bothering to set up an Extractor. I already have plenty of gas just from the geyser at home and my reserves. I spread out my three lurkers to provide defense, keeping the few hydralisks and zerglings I have to guard the expansion.
The Life of a Minor Power
I resovled to expand my influence in the valley as much as possible, the gain minerals and generally stay alive. I figured my best chance was to harvest resources in the middle while spending minimal amounts of money on defense, then building up a strong strike force at home. Considering my large amounts of gas, Guardians were a fairly logical choice. I started morphing a queen's nest from one of the odd drones left at my mined-out main, and started more drones at my new expansion.
Other than my destruction of a scouting drone, my first real contact with Smash@you came now, when two hydralisks were killed scouting my expansion. They were easily dispatched by a lurker and my own small batch of hydralisks, despite being fully upgraded.
I started a spire back at home, as well as upgrading to a hive.
My expansion soon became under attack by YourHero's forces yet again. His observer had arrived. When the first scarab shot hit my lurker, I immediatly ordered my hydras and lings to take the reaver out. The succeeded, but at the cost of all my non-lurker forces. Just in time for me to see it was useless due to a new reaver. Argh.
I had planned for the loss of the expansion, but I was trying to mine from the area as long as possible. Loading up my drones in my overlords, I headed north. Losing one overlord (carrying two drones) to red's (Smash@you) hydras, I learned that Smash@you essentially owned the right side of the map. This was confirmed when, moving west, the right mineral only expansion along the top of the valley had a budding red hatchery. My trek ended at the other mineral only expansion at the top of the valley, this one close to YourHero's (white) natural. I was a bit worried about setting up this close to enemy space, but I didn't have all that many options open to me.
At home, I started producing mutalisks, and upgraded to a greater spire. My bread was quite good, by the way. Well, to be honest one of the loaves was a bit burnt on the bottom, but if you didn't eat that part it was fine. The other loaf had been larger and wasn't burnt at all.
My mining continued, slowing increasing my money in the bank, until I was pleasantly surprised to find over 900 minerals stored there, and I was starting to run low of gas. I had twelve mutalisks at the time, and morphing three into guardians right away, I continued morphing whenever my one depleted refinery would bring in one hundred gas.
I saved most of my minerals, having plenty of drones working at my small expansion, but I did spend 150 minerals on six Zerglings, for token defense. Or, more accuratly, fodder to buy time for a quick evacuation of drones.
Finally, a stream of hydralisks passes by my small outpost. They're heading off to attack white, however, and only one of them stop by my base. Not terribly worried about it, I took my six zerglings and went out for a bit of scouting, finding red had started mining at the mineral-only expansion just across the way from mine. Seeing only drones, I burrowed my zerglings there.
To my annoyance, that one hydralisk had no intention of being peaceful. Or, more accurately, red had ignored it within range of my drones. It started taking its toll, so I morphed six more zerglings, and attacked the Hydralisk with three drones. Because of the cliff, no more could attack at one time.
3/3 hydras do rather well against drones, so I was quite relieved when my zerglings birthed and made quick work of the hydralisk. In retaliation, I had my Zerglings unburrow in red's expansion, attacking a nydus canal first. To my surprise, they killed the entire place.
All good things must come to an end (er... at least most of them), and one of white's observers eventually rambled over my expansion, beeping furiously. With only zerglings availiable, there wasn't much to do. I remained mining in the area, but declined to replenish my drones (after losing a few to the hydralisk). When four of my burrowed lings exploded due to a scarab, I got the heck out of Dodge.
I traveled back east, going towards the right side of the map. Orange's natural was still occupied by red, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that his main was unoccupied, excepting some abandoned buildings. Finding 430 minerals in two small piles, I gleefully set up shop. Not for the minerals, of course, but for the extra depleted refinery.
While one drone morphed into a hatchery there, I took the rest of my traveling resource group back to the expansion I had destroyed of red's (Smash@you). He still had not reoccupied it, and my overlords detected no observer, so I started a hatchery there too, running dangerously low on minerals.
Eventually these hatcheries finished, and the five drones I had left started work at the mineral-only expansion I had taken from red. As my money grew, I decided to get greedy and invested it in more drones, working up to my maximum of 51 support, and an efficient mineral line. I had nine guardians when red started a hatchery on the other side of the minerals from my mining operation.
Well, there's not many signals clearer that your time at an expansion is up. When the hydras moved in, I was ready to evacuate, and lost only three drones which weren't quick enough, and were forced to burrow to escape destruction. These drones moved on to my operations in the corner, knocking down the Terran refinery, and making an extactor, as well as getting to work on the two mineral piles.
I decided to do some harassing, so I made two hydralisks, and morphed them into lurkers up in the corner. I only got to kill a few drones at the expansion Smash@you (red) had retaken from me, before hydralisks and overlords chased me away. Continuing on my path of minor annoyance, I moved over to the next mineral-only expansion, surprisingly occupied by YourHero (white). Dropping my lurkers, I didn't even finish burrowing before a scarab took out my lead lurker. Ouch. But I correctly guessed that YourHero was not micro-managing his reaver, and moved the remaining lurker to the far side of the mineral line, where it killed something on the line of twelve drones (whenever a new batch was killed, some opprotunistic drones would move on to the empty mineral patches). This fun went on for quite some time, until some dragoons finally caught on to the attack messages. I retreated my overlord.
By this time, I had twelve guardians, and had just morphed two new hydralisks to do the same sort of lurker harass. Picking up most of my drones, I took my overlord through a very convulted (but rather safe) path across the map, depositing drones at my mineral-only natural and the mineral-only expansion in the valley closest to my natural. Both of these budding hatcheries were soon killed by passing white and red forces.
I was somewhat bored, waiting for the time I could concievably strike with my twelve guardians. I'd have to go on a grand victory march, I reasoned, as one corsair could really ruin my day.
It was about this time that I discovered the delightful zerglings I had burrowed at the top of my left most mineral-only base (where white had set up, and my lurker had had fun). Somehow, they had all been bunched up, and burrowed just out of range of the cannons. After red's hydralisks swept by and killed the cannons there (but were repulsed by dragoons), I popped up and made a run for it. Heading east, I found my favorite tartet - an undefended expansion. Lighting into red's drones, I killed the entire place... again.
I think it was at this point of the game that Smash@you (red) began blabbering about teaming. I mean, really going on at the mouth. At various points he claimed we had faked talking about being attacked in early game, and were allied, or just had teamed up on him for awhile.
What got me to laughing was when he commented how well he was doing for a 3v1. I took this as a sign his battle with white wasn't going too well. YourHero and I took these accusations rather well, finding Smash@you just too humorous. I laid odds on a disconnect, but YourHero had faith in Smash@you's integrity. I wasn't so sure, it has been my experience that the more 'rule-abiding' one seems to be in speech, if such an idiot thinks they have been double-teamed, they often do anything to 'punish' the perpetrators.
Was I going to sit there and take that abuse? Well yes, it wasn't yet the right time to move out with my fleet. Smash@you did, however, claim to have taken many interesting screen shots proving wrongdoing. This just set YourHero and I to laughing even more. (I knew YourHero was cool, because I'd played some ladder FFA games with him before.) Being a loyal supporter of this site, I suggested BR.com would be a good place to write a report and showcase these trophies of his. YourHero, apparently also familiar with BR.com, thought this was an excellent idea as well. Smash@you didn't take it as such, but I presume he simply doesn't know the place =).
About when Smash@you moved into his "whore" phase of insults, including the rather dubious insult of 'whorey' (reminded me of probey for some reason), he declared he would take me down with him.
Major power that I was, this proved to be rather disurbing. Not much to worry about when seven hydralisks ran into my main, only to be cut down brutally by twelve guardians, a sunken, and two lurkers. Heh. As I was laughing, Smash@you did me the disfavor of airing my possession of a large guardian fleet. This forced me to move out, trying to take down what I could before air counters were developed.
I swept north, obiliterating two dragoons at my natural, then destroying a cannon and some burning Protoss structues at the expansion on the left side of the valley. Here, I was handed the rather shocking that seven hydralisks were not the most Smash@you could muster, and at least twenty streamed into my main, crushing all before it. My drones made it out, and I started a hatchery at the valley expansion closest to my mineral only natural. To my immense joy, two residual defensive lurkers and another sunken colony did manage to take several red hydralisks with them.
My guardians found the two northern mineral-only expansion empty, and I swept east again, as my hatchery finished in the south. In fact, the first minerals were being returned when two YourHero reavers dropped down and took out my drones there in one fell swoop. Suddenly worried, I cried out for white not to kill me, as I wanted to take out red (who was fun enough to piss off more by killing). YourHero finally figured out my frantic pleas when my hatchery was down to about 250 hit points. My guardians were coming down from their swoop, trying in vain to reach what, for some reason, I thought of as my last hatchery at the time. I missed a guardian in this swoop, and this guardian was lost to a single 3/3 hydralisk. How embarassing. The other eleven made it safely to my bleeding hatchery, after white had left. I headed east, again, this time along the southern front.
The guardians killed a morphing hatchery, losing one to two scourge. Scourge are bad. A muta would be worse, but scourge are bad. I continued on to red, only to be passed by eight overlords heading off on a mission. I started back to intercept, but the overlords reached my expansion before my guardians did, much to my dismay, and razed it to the ground. In retrospect, it was kind of funny how worried I was for this inconsequential and non-functional hatchery, when I had my depleted gas oupost in the upper right corner, embedded in orange's wreckage. Realising my mistake, my overlords turned around again, intent on finding red and killing stuff. Preferably stuff that couldn't shoot back.
Red's overlords headed on, apparently the hydralisks were to kill white. I assume Smash@you had counted on his badly-micromanaged scourge to kill me. I was slighly scared when I saw two groups of six coming my way, but they were clumped, and several detonated on the first guardian, so I only lost three of the beasts. I quickly razed red's natural, not even taking one shot from the resident spore colony. I was joined there by a white shuttle, presumbably carrying reavers. I, of course, could do nothing about the shuttle, having only guardians with two overlords to check for burrowed stuff or following observers.
YourHero lamented not being able to land his reavers to help the destruction of red, which Smash@you of course took as a sign we were teaming. I explained that neither of us had any intention of letting the other win, so our teamin was simply a strategic move (I specifically recommended the Tao of FFA report written by yours truly). This sparked a new round of "whore" insults. Your Hero went afk at this time, presumably after a major (though slightly Pyhrric) victory over red.
I finished red's main without the help of the reavers, and sent my seven guardians up north, killing a red expansion in the right side of the valley, and one hatchery at a mined out natural (orange's former). Surprising myself, Smash@you was eliminated without a disconnect (have I become to cynical?), and a simple (though not so surprising) parting comment of "whore." To his um... credit, Smash@you only messaged me three times during the rest of the game and after to accuse me of selling sexual favors (in the one-word fasion, of course).
Like any good StarCraft player, I took full advantage of YourHero's absence from the keyboard to press my advantage to the full. I razed the only expansion I found in the center valley, and destroyed his main, which was only defended by one cannon anyway. His war machine had been powered by four gateways and two robotics facilities.
Soon after being confused by the lack of elimination, I discovered what I was missing when an overlord of mine was shot down by about ten dragoons guarding a nexus, a pylon, and at least fifteen working probes at my natural (oh yeah, four reavers too... but who cares?). That wasn't good at all. Most of his forces were on the south side, though, and the minerals were on the north side.
I ferried in the two hydralisks I had from my top right corner, when I had been intending to transform them into lurkers and harass expansions. First selecting probes to kill (I didn't want the hydras chasing the probes towards the nexus and the reavers), I eventually just picked stand ground, and all the probes were soon dead. When YourHero made it back (surprisingly un-mad about my attacks), he chased away the hydralisks with dragoons, until the hydras were at the end of the promitory I had hidden two drones on oh so long ago. Praying no observer was around, I burrowed, and saved my hydralisks.
The next several minutes was an interesting duel of micro. I would take my massed seven guardians (supported by overlords with the sight upgrade... thank goodness), and strike at the closed dragoon to the cliff. After the first volley (and sometimes before), YourHero would utilize the speed of dragoons, and get close to the cliff, firing at my guardians. I would run like the competent tactician I am, until out of range, and I could turn for a few more free shots before YourHere moved his dragoons out of range.
The skirmishes were actually quite close, and I had to take a few guardians out of the group, since they got well into the red energy. I managed to kill three of his dragoons, however, a much more permanent loss. This forced YourHero to take a more conservative approach with his still-superior dragoon force, and he spent his extra attention on searching for that last expansion of mine with a shuttle.
I moved in, and assualted the nexus owned by YourHero, which was closer to the ledge than the dragoons. It fell surprisingly quickly, and I only took a few stray shots of vengeful dragoon fire.
Just as I was about ready gathering up my courage (and guardian's hit points, and scouting information) to try to kill another dragoons, YourHero found my little gas expansion. My little gas expansion defended by four drones in the midst of harvesting useless gas (I was under supply and only have 57 minerals... quite annoying, couldn't even morph to lurkers). He then proceeded to drop it with two pearly white reavers.
I had been ready for this, I knew what to do. As soon as I saw the attack message emmanating from the top right of the screen, I sent in my guardians for the kill. A simple right-click was all the order they needed. My two hydras were un-burrowed and sent in too.
Blam, Blam. All the drones were dead at my expansion, and the extractor was gone. The Hatchery was in the red.
Blam, Blam. The other two reavers had stayed at the natural of mine, and the hydras didn't even get a shot of.
Thoom, thoom, thoom, thoom. Dragoon fire peppered my obviously superior guardian forces. First one guardian pops, then five in a row go, like a short string of Chinese fire crackers.
Then the dragoons and reavers stopped firing. My guardians had done their job, and destroyed the pylon left.
YourHero has been eliminated.
To put it in his words: "Damn." I ended the game with one heavily damaged guardain (surrouded by dragoons), four overlords (one damaged), and one hatchery (in the red, next to two reavers and with no larve). Victory? Durn Tootin!
I ended with just under half the score of Smash@you, who was just under YourHero. I scored only a smidge above orange. I was happy with the game.
Lessons Learned: Women are much more exiting than StarCraft. Well, that lesson was less learned than extensively reinforced (yet again, geez I love college). Of course, I still need a backbone.
*Credit to: Scott Kurtz www.pvponline.com The best homepage (browser setting) you could ever want, need, or have.
*2 Explanation of *Dance*.
*3 Namely, Sqick. |
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
