Your Place or 'Mine'

Argh, the past few games I have watched have been frustrating.  Twice I have seen my favorite Terrans get toasted.  Once by the 'gay' Protoss and once by the <ugh> Zerg (and I still haven't been able to kill all of my SCV's).  I finally may have a chance here as a friend of mine by the name of [LoR]-Curly is gearing up to take on [LoR]-Napoleic (yes, I am friends with this clan and they are having an Inner Clan Tourney, sue me, they got some good game).  Maybe one of these days I will have the honor of watching some of the famous people (Fractal_Wave and ~Talon~ did beat the shit out of me twice in two 2v2's.  Unfortunately, I am so inept at multi-tasking I didn't have the facts to BR them  :-(   Anyway...

Curly is a dedicated Terran player (who reads anything by HeartCutter).  He is not too shabby with the little fighters, so it is with him that I lay my hope of seeing Terran FINALLY kicking some ass in a game I watch.

"Hey, Baby.  Your place or mine?"

Proving Grounds is the map of choice today and despite my stance against Vega being allowed to watch, I find him sitting next to me once again (dammit- stay away from my SCV experiment this time).  Napoleic warps in Red Protoss in the NorthWest corner while Curly lands his White (must be a sign for good) Terran in the NorthEast corner.  I wind up in the SouthEast and Vega- grrr, who cares about that shit.

I am bound and determined to try and kill all of my SCV's this time and set 3 to attack 1, 2 to attack 1 and then face off the final two.  With some sort of incredible skill, I am able to get the last 2 SCV's to simultaneously attack each other.  I got pics here...THEY BOTH GO UP IN SMOKE!!! (thanks to slider- for pointing the technique out)

Ok, now that I have sated the desire to murder all of my SCV's I turn my attention to the game and see that Nappy already has 2 gates and seems to want to pump some Zealots out as he does not have an Assimilator yet.  Curly went with a standard 2 rax and a Refinery, so he can pretty much do anything.  Nappy's first scouting probe causes a little mayhem and then explodes in a blue cloud as a newly arrived marine sends it back to Aiur.

Whoa, looky here.  Nap is sending a few zealots over to create hate and discontent.  Curly is somehow able to fight them off despite the totally piss poor placement of his first bunker.  Nap has 3 gates pumping the little arm-saber-death-dealing monsters and his happy to send them on over (red rover?) as soon as they can get there.  Hmm, the Terran god's -there are no others- have decided to smile on Curly and he is able to kill off the attacking boneheads just before more arrive, each time.  He loses marines and SCV's each time, but I have to note that the favor is Curly's way.

"Why, mine, of course!"

Nap sees his futile efforts also, and sets up his assimilator and a cycore AND another gate.  Sniff, sniff, anyone smell Goons?  Curly erects his machine shop on his Factory and I see it humming away as a Vulture pops out.  More vultures come out and 5 of them take off.  Seems as though the bikes have turbo-charged themselves the way they are zippin' about the map.  The bikes-on-cocaine begin their evil plan of placing mines all over the place.  Nap sneaks a probe to the left middle high ground expansion node and begins warping in a Nexus and a few cannons at its ramp undetected thusfar.

Meanwhile, the crazy bikes have succeeded in hiding a mine at each start node (right at the prime spot for a main building) and two expansions!  They have also mined the route from base to base Nap was taking.  Curly then begins his expansion at the 3 o'clock position and defends with a tank, bunker and a turret.  Two bikes camp out at the ramp to Nap's expansion, with mines.  The rest of those crazy bikes start patrolling on the West side of the map, and they way they are moving, I can tell they are just doing line after line after line.....

Curly also has another full factory up and producing and I see Nap warp in 2 Stargates.  Uh, oh.  Curly has a fairly formidable force rearing to go.  Tanks, marines and medics.  In a beautiful display of 'using your surroundings to the fullest', Curly places his tanks behind the natural terrain boundaries at the mouth of Nap's base.  Tanks siege up and start to fire.  Well, Nap has quite a few goons and zealots hanging around picking blue boogers and the first real fight (besides my SCV's) takes place.  Marines scream 'AH YEAH' and forge right ahead.  The well placed tanks are what really turn the tide to Curly and the Terrans suffer acceptable losses considering they are still attacking after killing a big group of confused and bewildered goons (obviously not on any kind of 'make you do better drug' like those pepped up bikes).

Ooo, doesn't look good for the 4 goons coming out of warp.  What is this?!  Corsairs have arrived on the scene and -yep, you guessed it- D-WEB!  The remaining goons are able to kill the tanks (there are still 2 marines and 2 medics left) and just as 4 more goons are coming out of warp, Curly's reinforcing tanks show up!  Uh, oh, again.  This time the tanks dance around first before they siege up and draw 2 misplaced dwebs (I hear an evil laugh emanate from some Terran voice somewhere).

I quickly have to turn down my volume as my speakers are making me deaf with the sound of Arclite fire from hell (not that it was SO many tanks, just that all of them are firing together).  More airships warp out of the Stargates, but they are not Corsairs- Scouts are here!  They slowy start to eradicate the mean and nasty tank threat.  The tanks have laid waste to 2 Gateways, a Forge, a Robotics Bay and a whole slew of cannons and pylons.  There is also a few comments about the 'goon that placed himself under a web to attack the tanks there' and somebody is screaming about not being able to build a Nexus where he should be able to (heh, those mines are a BITCH).

I take a note here to wonder how in the hell Curly got so much power right there in Nap's base.  Ah ha!  I see it.  Curly has enlisted the help of the ALL-MIGHTY Bengalaas (more on this to come).

"Well, if you insist..."

Curly has decided to totally throw Nap of kilter and launches a dual attack.  2 Dropships containing 4 tanks and escorted by 2 wraiths head to Nap's expansion.  More tanks, marines, and medics head to Nap's main (evilly followed by Goliaths).

There are a few more comments about not being able to expand made by Nap.  He has miserably tried to expand at the SouthWest start and the 9 o'clock expansion.  both of these were terribly done due to the fact mines were in very 'inconvenient' locations.  Curly was able to just send in a wraith or two to end the expansions attempts.

Back at the Nap's main (which is where ALL of the action has been), the fresh group of tanks, rines and meds are fighting off dweb, goons and scouts.  Both lose all their ground forces and OH MY, those following Goliaths have just entered the area.  Scouts run away (or attempt to) like crazy.

And check it out!  Nap has brought a Carrier out.  Too bad those 'range upgraded' Gols are there.  They must be on drugs too!  Of course, it is easy to see, the whole reasons Curly's forces were so strong in bouncing toss head off the ground was that cool ass Bengalaas that has followed his troops!

Everytime Curly was attacking, there was a Bengalaas with him.  Well, needless to say, the Protoss never really had a chance to recover from the relentless pursuit of the Ass-Kickin Terran.  GG's were exchanged and everyone left the game------except me.

I was totally in awe of how that Bengalaas hung around for Curly.  It even seemed to follow his troops into battle.  Then I heard a voice.  It was that rascally tiger himself!  I was quick to learn that the tiger had a name.  Biff-the-Bengalaas.  Biff told me that he came 'awares' when I pulled off the trick of killing all my SCV's.  Apparently, this is the ritual that calls forth the Terran God's to bestow good luck and godspeed upon the little humans.  Biff told me that he is but one way the gods can bestow their help.  I can only hope to see the other ways!

Biff (with snarling, snaggle-tooth accent) :  Greetings, Dr.Zchivago.  You realize it was your action that allowed me to come.

Dr.Z:  No, I had no idea that evilly slaughtering my SCV's could be a 'good' thing.

Biff:  I am but merely ONE way that the Gods of the Terran can come forth to ensure human domination.

Dr.Z:  Well, come to my side next time!

Biff:  Hmm, you got some milk?

Dr.Z:  Sure!

Biff:  And some kittens with little leather collars on?

Dr.Z:  Um, you're starting to scare me now...

Biff:  And a frilly tutu?

Dr.Z:  Ok, I am outta here!

Well, I am not sure where the hell Biff was going, and I am sure I don't really want to know!  It was great he showed up anyway as he "ensured human domination".  I hereby name Biff-the-Bengalaas as the ALL-MIGHTY unit of the game!

"And that's a wrap, Thanks for playing"

As a quick wrap-up, here is the mini-map at the end of the game.  Biff is where the Protoss never had a chance and the red X's are expansions lost by the Protoss.

This game was really onesided, even though I thought Nap was going to break Curly early with the quick Zeal's.  But, there was nothing Nap could do once Curly got Biff on his side.

• mine placement was EXCELLENT.  It allowed for reconnaissance and most of all, it pissed the hell out of Nap.  Mines don't attack probes.  Terran players remember this (if most of you already know this then oh well, it is time to bring it up again, I am sure it will be useful for someone).

• tank placement was EXCELLENT.  Curly only got hit with dweb a minimal amount of times, and drew more misplaced dweb than I could imagine.

• Protoss without Psi-storm is like bicycling with one leg, one arm, and blind.

• Get Biff on your side.  Biff rules!

-Dr.Zchivago

(note:  any references to drugs were solely for entertainment purposes.  Don't do them.  You may wind up like the probes.  Probes are addicted to sniffing the fumes of the SCV's exhausts.  It is totally bad for them and they are totally addicted.  Don't allow yourself this kind of outcome!)