"The observers are always the master tacticians :)"
-~CattleBruiser~
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| Tao Ladder: #1 vs #6 Taking on the Tillerman | | | Author: | | | IP: | 245.freeXXXX | | Date: | 02/24/00 01:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Silent-Strike: 8.0000 |   |
Intro
Warning.. If you are looking for a "cute" report with two mediocre players beating the hell out of each other with some well-editted pictures, you won't find it here :-). On the other hand, if you want to read a highly tactical report that will probably help your game (unless you are a very advanced player) read on.
As you may or may not know, there is a new kali ladder from tao-of-gaming.com. Lucky me grabbed the first win in the ladder, and so after one drop to second and a quick rise back to first, I am in first in the ladder. The ladder works by a much different system than the bnet ladder system. You gain rank only if you beat a player rated better than you. That is, if #3 plays #6 and #3 wins, #3 gains no rank. If #6 wins, he gains half the difference of the rank between them. (6 - 5) / 2 and rounded down, or 1 rank. So number 6 becomes 5. If a player wins 5 games in a row, he gets a "gosu" icon, if they lose 5 in a row they get a "chobo" icon next to their name.
PreGame
After just having lost in a rather weak showing in a Zerg vs Protoss laddergame to Tillerman, I asked for a rematch. Tillerman, now 8-0 and holder of "gosu" status for 3 games, advanced to 6th in the ladder. The map was Lost Temple, Tillerman picked zerg at the last second, while I randomed terran. A good chance for revenge for me, as terran vs zerg is probably my best matchup.
It Begins
About the same time I posted at Shockwave's forum about the early rax terran vs zerg, I had a short dicussion with various big names on Kali about offensive bunkering vs zerg early expanders. Lameking and Tillerman both said they stop it easy, Tiller going as far as to say that he gets sunkens up before the bunker even completes.. That is pretty early considering no one has ever even had their hatchery finished before my bunker completed. Let's see what Til is really capable of, on to the game.
I start at 3 with an 8 rax 9 depot order. I send my 9th SCV out to scout clockwise, even though the start location at 12 is much closer than the start at 6. I am assuming that if he is at 12, he will scout me with his overlord early and from the northwest position, thus giving away his location. So the SCV heads south to 6, having no luck, and not yet having an overlord hover above my command center, I deduce that he is at 9, the farthest start location from me, slightly harder to offensive bunker than the other spots. My first barracks finishes and I rally it to my scouting SCV. As my SCV scampers across the 6 o'clock natural, I see a morphing hatchery.
Can he stop the SS?
In planned move, I delayed my second barracks so that I knew I could bunker earlier if he did expand. My plan worked nicely, as my SCV started a bunker adjacent to the morphing hatchery. The bunker finished and a second barracks was added to my main, all the while producing as constant SCVs and marines as possible. However, SCV production had to be halted to support the early rax. The bunker finishes as my marine is 2/3 the distance to the bunker, his hatchery is at about 700 health now.. and no sunkens are near :-).
I fortify my building/repairing capabilities at Tiller's expansion by sending another SCV. Without the supplementary SCV, I would lose my ability to repair my bunker and build additional bunkers if I lost a single SCV. Tiller sends a drone near the expansion before it finishes, and I sick my soon to be not so lone SCV on it. This tactic forces him to pay attention to the drone or lose it, and makes it very hard to even start a creep colony. The SCV will always be in close proximity to the drone, thus making him unable to start a creep colony. The drone dies quickly from some small damage by my SCV and a few shots from my now half-full bunker. The hatchery completes as my 2 rax start pouring reinforcements to prevent it's defense. My 2nd SCV arrives just as two drones go down his ramp. I assign one SCV to each drone, killing one drone and almost killing the other drone just as it manages to start morphing,. DOH! Tillerman just might stop the terran cheese after all.
As the creep colony completes, Tiller's hatchery is at about 200 health and being pounded upon by a full bunker. Tiller wisely let's the creep stay creep, as a sunken would not complete in time to save the hatchery. I scout up his ramp to see 8 zerglings and a hatchery at his ramp. I get 8 more marines and send the moving across his ramp as they are attacked by a handful lings. A sunken is just about to complete and I don't want to be near it when it does. A dwindling force of marines finally gets behind Tillerman's mineral line. 4 marines behind the minerals start pounding on drones before Tiller hatches some more lings and kills my offensive.
I don't know what I should proceed to do now. I can try to rush him over with an academy, or I can expand probably safely while my previous successful offensive deters any attacks. I choose the latter.
Power Time
My spending has been somewhat lacking, as terran spending usually is when they are using micro techniques, especially on fastest. I start an additional command center followed by an additional barracks, refinery, engineering bay, and academy. I get range before stim for two reasons. I don't need stim if I am not going to be attacking, and marine range coupled with bunkers and turrets will pretty much eliminate the lurker threat. I get infantry armor before infantry weapons, this is a good tactic in terran vs zerg if you are planning on mass infantry because they only real thing that will stop terran infantry is lurkers and guardians. Both do 20 damage, and thus armor will force them to attack 50% more to kill a marine.
With two refineries relatively early, I tech like a mad man and still while producing marine/medic from three barracks. I add a factory and get siege while adding dual starports. I get two comsats.. man double comsats are nice. I scan both his natural to see nothing but 8 lings and the sunken that destroyed my bunker at his ramp. I scan his main to see no evolution chambers or spire, but a hydra den and lair. Lurkers and lurker/hydra/ling drops are probably coming. I build two wraiths from my starports. I finish researching siege and add a bunker/turret/tank anti-lurker defense around my command center. At this point, all I really have to do is play conservative while massing a strong marine/medic/tank force and eventually add science vessels. I already have him outexpanded and in all likelihood overpowered. I send one of my wraiths scouting the map for stray overlords and the other patrolling around a naked spot of my base. I scan his main again to see no units but a mass of 6 or so overlords all moving in the same direction. I begin a science facilty and prepare for a drop.
Denied!
My patrolling wraith is commanded to fly near the other wraith, to aid in the drop denial. I hotkey 12 marines and 4 medics for easy stim and control while moving two tanks along with them to the top of my ramp. Sure enough, the drops comes. 4 Lurkers, assorted lings, and 4 hydras are the payload. I stim my marines and siege both of my tanks. The lings charge single file through assorted buildings, and die rather quickly to stimmed marine fire. I lose both of my wraiths to the few hydras, but overall I stop the drop well. A few daring marines got too close to the lurkers, but with two comsats and continual scanning, the lurkers were forced to do nothing more than some negligible damage to a supply depot and a single barracks before dying to tank fire. Soon thereafter, I hear the "you have engaged the enemy" sound and see the SCVs at my natural taking damage from lurkers. With a scan or two and a couple tanks, the lurkers above are destroyed with the loss of some mining time and a few SCVs. In a mistake on my part, I sent my of my SCVs back to my main to mine while the lurkers were being dealt with. I didn't send them back for quite awhile afterwords.. oh well.
My facility finishes completes after double add-ons to my starports, and two vessels soon begin construction at the starports. Marine armor finishes about this time, and level 1 weapons are researched and soon joined by research of level 2 infantry armor in my newly finished supplementary engineering bay. I scan the 6 main, 6 natural, and tillers main to see morphing hatcheries at each.
Bye Bye to Til?
I plan a dual strike. I send a tank, 6 marines, and 2 medics, with a vessel to the 6 natural. The tank attack moves and leads the pack. I give the vessel the move command and click on the tank. I send my marine/medic squad with support soon after. This is a reliable technique in countering random lurker pits zerg sometimes place throughout the map. If there is a lurker pit in the path of the squad, you will be warned via sound it as your tank engages the lurker that it sees with the aid of the vessel. It gives you enough time to pull the infantry back before losing them for no reason, and let's you focus on other things while your troops are in transit.
The rest of my forces (other than the few marines/tanks guarding the areas near my CC) are sent toward Tiller's main. I attack at two fronts at the same time, resulting in pain for Tillerman. He loses his newly hatched expansion at 6 while losing his extended natural (Didn't even know about it til my marines started blasting it). A short micro battle ensues, with my terran having an advantage in numbers beforehand. A group of nearly a dozen mutas try to lure my marines into a lurker field but quickly get hit by 4 irradiates from vessels produced from my dual starports. I give my marines the hold position command as the muta pack quickly turn into a brilliant display of red and Tillerman departs from the game.
Post Game chat
[TillerMaN] it was barrack before depot
[TillerMaN] it was right?
[TillerMaN]
[SilentStrike"/] yeah
[SilentStrike"/] remember
[TillerMaN] k
[SilentStrike"/] when you were saying how you owned that?
[SilentStrike"/] :-)
[TillerMaN] gege
[TillerMaN] i do
[TillerMaN] i got greedy
[TillerMaN] i did
[TillerMaN] 16 drones
[TillerMaN] before pool
[TillerMaN] for a start
[SilentStrike"/] ouch
[TillerMaN] but
[SilentStrike"/] before pool start?
[TillerMaN] no excuse?
[SilentStrike"/] or before pool finish?
[TillerMaN]
[TillerMaN] before pool start
[SilentStrike"/] damn
[TillerMaN] and did 2nd hatch
[TillerMaN] on 15
[SilentStrike"/] ballsy
[TillerMaN] which is too slo
[TillerMaN] yah
[TillerMaN] i hold most everything
[TillerMaN] being greedy
[SilentStrike"/] cept me :-)
[TillerMaN] but that too greedy for barrack before depot
[SilentStrike"/] yeah
[TillerMaN] shoulda cancelled hatch
[TillerMaN] and dug in
What is the best way to say it...? Well Tillerman..
No Gosu For You!
I hope you enjoyed reading the report. Check out the current standings at Tao-of-Gaming Starcraft ladder. Go register and play on the kali ladder, there are no koreans and you will get the chance to play against big names. Another good reason to get kali, copy and pastable chat.
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