"I may be in the minority here but the thought of Heartcutter in a tub of chlorinated water splashing about with some moistened tarts trying to (apparentely) gain some sort of sexual favor in order to procreate truly frightens me. Little Heartcutters....((shivers)) makes Blair witch look like disney."
-Thundercracker
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| Heartcutter tries his terran on my protoss for ladder. | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 06/02/99 01:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Mark4: 8.6829 |   | I've been getting the urge to play ladder again. It had gone away after b.net failed to register a few games for me, but it stared calling me again. I was in channel nohunters when heartcutter wandered in. He had a ladder score of 1320+ but it had taken him around twenty five wins to get there. I smelled the pleasant scent of a newbie killer. Heartcutter quickly agreed to play me allthough my score was only 1175.
Given the opportunity to make the game, I picked Dire Straits to fight on. I chose protoss and heart selected terran.
heart "Did you read my strategy guide on how to play terran on an island map?"
Mark4 "No. Not as far as you know."
I drew the upper left island while heart had the upper right. I thought he might try for a command center float on his 13th SCV and give me and easy kill, so I went for an early reaver drop. My build order gave me a shuttle with a few seconds to kill so I dropped a probe on the island to the right of me and scouted the upper right. I saw he had not double CCed and had instead opted for an odd build with quite a few vultures on the ground! My shuttle headed back for the safety of my island.
I immediately picked up my waiting reaver and dark templar. My shuttle was intercepted by a wraith on the path on. Heart tried to force me to unload too early, but I remembered the vultures. Sticking it out until the shuttle hit points were in the red, I dropped right in the middle of the SCV line. The reaver commenced wreaking havoc. The shuttle bit the dust, and the dark templar chased SCVs. I eliminated about eight SCVs before they made it out of range. Another few died as my DT lured the waiting spider mines into exploding in the midst of the SCVs. The reaver slowly pounded away at the command center as the wraiths picked away at its armor.
"Tricky" heart
"Pretty standard opening actually" Mark4
The first phase of the game was over. I needed to expand and deny heart resources. Unfortunately, heart was better at this than me. He spotted the new base I was making on the island where my probe had been dropped off. Wraiths finished off the warping cannons and the probe. These forces were quickly supplemented with a vulture and several marines. I looked to my defenses, using dark templar to patrol the edges of my island in anticipation of a drop. My next expansion attempt was to the island south of my main. I dropped a probe and templar there, only to have wraiths fly overhead a second later. This expedition was eliminated by a vulture and marine drop also. I was starting to get desperate. I didn't have the production to mount a game ending drop and I knew heart was expanding.
I took a chance and dropped a templar and dragoon as well as a probe on the middle left island. The wraiths showed up a few seconds later as I muttered under my breath about map hackers. A storm drove of the wraiths and I hastily reinforced with a dark templar and templar in anticipation of a drop. The drop never came and I built a base in a minute or so, surrounding it with cannons. I started to produce corsairs too, feeling the need to contest the air superiority heart had shown till now.
With my new expansion and air units, I started to try for map control. I knew my early efforts had set heart back, and I believed his air had stretched him thin. My observers crept like invisible doom across the map, revealing his troop concentrations to me. With over eight patrolling observers, I started to feel in control. I saw that he had expanded to the island between our mains where he had dropped my early expansion. I dropped two dark templar on the island to the south of my main and liberated it from his troops. He had dropped two SCVs and was just about to expand there. My shuttle didn't even slow down after dropping the DTs, it was on a mission to expand to the lower middle island.
"You pretty much have it won" heart
"So your going to surrender now?" Mark4
":-)"heart
I was doing well I thought. I expanded one more time to the island below my main and started to settle in. I had three expansions to his two and excellent recon. His other expansion was just below his main, and lightly defended. I had not gotten much resistance from him after he had failed to interdict my expansion. I was a little worried and used hallucinated speed upgraded shuttles to scout his expansions. Heart's nefarious plan was revealed. He was going with a heavy air fleet, incluing valkeries, wraiths, and cruisers. I put down another two stargates and four shield batteries on my middle island and concentrated on upgrades. At this point I had effectively unlimited resources.
I decided the way to play would be to keep him off balance until I got 3/3/3 upgrades. I gathered a carrier and corsair fleet over the middle island. I began harrassing the expansion directly above me with carrier strikes, then retreated to the safety of the templar and dark archons on my island. I managed to mind control a science vessel and feedback a few cruisers, but the mass of troops he had in defense was killing my 2/1/1 interceptors before they could do significant damage. Heart countered with ten cruisers incoming on my island, but was driven back by a nice rossette pattern of psi storms cast over his incoming fleet.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to kill his heavily defended expansion. I moved the imperial mark4 fleet to attack his middle right expansion. I killed a refinery and a few turrets, then ran before he could reinforce. I lost a carrier or two but killed equal amounts of cruisers. I took this chance to expand to the lower left start position as two of my expansions were out of cash. Heart came in on the bottom middle expansion. My fleet reinforced the position, and drove him back with the help of a few psi storms. I started losing carriers in this battle, but kept enough to defend. The new carriers I had been making were gathered over my middle island. I sent all six of them to attack heart's top middle island. Without the fleet to defend, the expansion soon fell.
Heart had one last chance to make it. He had slipped onto the middle right island and set up good static defenses in the battles. I charged in with my full fleet, hitting about 3/3/3 a few seconds before this. My arbiter got off a stasis before going down. I used the opportunity to trash the expansion, then stayed to fight it out. I knew I had a serious resource advantage, as well as eight stargates to replace casualties. I made it through the fight with four battered carriers left to limp home to the shield batteries. I had cost heart his entire fleet.
My stargates cranked out another set of carriers as we both sparred with what we had left. As my forces harrassed his main, heart conceded the battle and left.
Lessons learned:
o Mobility wins more battle than force. We were evenly matched until the superior speed of the carriers let me strike his expansions without resistance.
o Psi storm is even better on islands. Air is especially vulnerable if facing supported templar. I would kill the BC heart sent in to yamato my templar even though he dmatrixed everything. That's a good trade in my book. Its not so much the direct damage of the spell as the actions and attitude it makes the enemy take.
Mark4
"Hey, you know that heartcutter guy who used to be over 1300 playing terrans? Guess why he's not anymore. =]" Mark4 to Johnny_vegas after the battle. |
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