Hey Hey Hey!  Welcome to another battlereport by me, The-Lakers (I am no longer using my Got-Game name).

While text-only, the featured battlereport contains a normal game that was more of a dogfight, rather than an easy cakewalk, as most of us would have thought. 

First, here are the playas

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Vs.

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It all began when Mucho_Newt ('Whoop), and Bold_Newt (Ko[B]old) where looking for a 2vs2.  I volunteered to play, and said that ::Nobody:: would play as well.  Well…that was the plan, but ::Nobody:: was busy trying to put I_Hate_Medics on our Tao Team Ladder team (ThatCrappyTeam).  Well so much for that. 

Anyways, we went back to nohunters, and I continued the search for a partner for me.  It wouldn't take long, as I spotted ProtectorOfAiur.  I quickly messaged him to be my 2vs2 partner, and he agreed.  The game was made, and after a little bit of chattering, we officially began the game.

The game started on the overused but still effective Lost Temple.  I spawned Zerg (I picked) on the 6 o'clock spot, while POA spawned Protoss (He picked) on the 12 o'clock spot.  Whoop drew Terran (He picked) on the 9 o'clock, while Bold drew Terran (He randomed, I think) to the 3 o'clock spot.

Our thoughts of what the outcome would be when the game started

Slim and none^^

Well, we played to see how far we could push them, and hopefully, steal a win.  POA has gained quite a reputation for his Protoss skills, while I have gained a reputation of…um…hehe let me think about that one.

Anyways, I announced my plans to POA, that I would go fast guardians.  However, when both POA and I realized that Bold was Terran as well, he told me to switch to lurkers.  I did, although it seemed a bit slow according to POA. 

POA fast expanded to his mineral only, while I also expanded, only to my natural exp.  It was risky, especially against a double Terran, but they didn't attack POA or me, to my surprise.  My expansion was going at full speed, when 4 lurkers had finished being morphed. 

As I was about to see what kind of damage I could do, a dropship hovered to my mineral line. #$^%# It was Whoop, who had teched to dropship, and loaded it with 4 vultures.  The loss of drones wasn't as bad as I thought, but I did suffer the setback of resource collecting.

Thankfully, however, the vultures weren't doing much after I evacuated my drones.  He tried killing my spawning pool, but only managed to get it down to about 400-500 hp. 

I brought my lurkers and hydralisks as fast as their legs (err… whatever you call them) would let them.  I quickly burrowed those same 4 lurkers, and burrowed just in time.  Whoop had sent another dropship, this time full of marines, but my lurkers just gobbled them up. 

I quickly rushed my lurkers towards Bold's base, and saw that he had his natural up and running as well.  He had a grip load of marines/medics near his ramp, as well as a bunker behind his missile turret. 

I burrowed outside the turrets detection range, and inexplicably, he charged his marines/medics towards my lurkers!  Even with the help of a comsat, most of the marines/medics were gobbled up.  He managed to run away a few medics and a marine or 2, but the damage was done.

However, I did not kill the bunker that he had built in front of his turret.  I tried killing it, but his constant repairing with about 8 or so scv's was able to save Bold.  My lurkers were toasted, when POA sent in a couple zealots and dragoons.  

Seeing how hopeless it would be to attack the bunker, he did the smart thing and ran them up Bold's ramp.  Defenseless, POA razed every building that Bold had.  However, Bold still had his natural, and when POA tried to attack, Bold's scv's once again saved the bunker.  To solidify Bold's defense, Whoop ferreted two tanks over to Bold's natural =-(.

Our nearly successful attack had left me with lots of money in the bank.  Immediately, I began morphing more hatcheries, 2 evolution chambers, as well as upgrading the hydralisk upgrades.  I began pumping out as many hydralisks as I could.  I also took the opportunity to morph a spire and a queen's nest, followed by a hive. 

On POA's side, I could tell that he was going for gateway units once again.  Although I didn't actually see it, he probably had 3 forges up, as well as a citadel of adun and a templar archive.  He also took the opportunity to start another expansion, this time at the normal natural. 

During this lull in action, POA had told me to get anti-air units, and as he said, "White might have battlecruisers."  Taking this as a joke, I sent an ovie (speed upgraded of course^^) up to check.  To my dismay, he had a physics lab up, along with 3 starports actively building something very…evil…  

At this point, I hatched as many scourges as I deemed necessary.  My upgrades were at a good 2/2, but POA did even better with 3/3/3 upgrades (although I don't know the exactly when he finished his upgrades, he did have it faster than I have seen before). 

Whoop had not rallied his bc's somewhere safe in his main, and with one hanging closer to the edge, and I was able to scourge it.

At this point, we decided that we needed to break through Whoop this time.  An ovie spotted that he had already started on his natural, but moving up, the ovie also spotted that he had expanded to the island between him and POA. 

We decided to go ahead and attack Whoop's main though.  With a combined force of dragoons/zealots/some dark and high templars/hydralisks, we were able to easily raze his natural.  He was able to get some cliff shots on us with his bc's, but once we climbed his ramp, he started retreating them back.  I was able to scourge 2 more bc's, but I also noticed that he had finished his weapons/armor upgrade to 1/1.

Using his building placement along with a couple siege tanks and his bc's, he was able to stop the attack.  While POA lost a lot during that attack, we did manage to destroy a couple more buildings, along with 5 bc's in all.

Well, so far we were 0/2 in our attacks.  My greater spire had finished some time ago, and POA told (err rather ordered^^) me to get devourers.  POA had a large income of money, as he was able to rebuild his random gateway units quickly. 

I had 6 mutalisks made to devourers, and I also added a defilers mound.  POA then said, "Lets attack Whoop again."  I agreed, and as I was about to send my 6 devourers, his bc's slowly made their way toward the backside of my main.

Asking for help from POA, he said to attack Whoop instead.  At first, I began doubting POA's plan.  However, my devourers and hydralisks were able to hold up the attack long enough so that Whoop had to retreat his bc's in order to defend his main from POA's attack. 

I used my devourers to chase after the bc's and together, with his ground troops, we were able to deal out some damage.  I saw some because Whoop once again positioned his bc's above his siege tank and bunker.  Whoop had survived our "devastating" attack once again.

At this point, Bold finally resurfaced.  Having had a long time to rebuild, he simply made factory units from 6 factories.  He also dropped a pair of siege tanks on top of my cliff, and managed to blast through a lot of my drones.  Then, almost instantaneously, Whoop attacked with his bc's.  

Whoop had managed to amass 8 or so bc's once again, but with science vessel support.  Yes, can't leave home without those science vessels.  He must have had a lot too, because he had virtually d-matrixed almost all of his bcs.  My poor hydralisks didn't stand a chance, running around stupidly.  However, I brought the equalizer.

Yes, the equalizer.  What is the equalizer?  I managed to group up more hydralisks, and before I attacked with them, the equalizer resurfaced.  Do you remember that defiler mound that I made a long time ago?  Of course you do.  Well, I had about 4 of those slithering, creatures that would make any Terrans break out a cold sweat.  Using a dark swarm, I quickly moved my hydralisks underneath.  By this time, Whoop had moved his bc's over my hive, and managed to kill most of my drones. 

This is what puzzled me the most.  Why didn't Whoop move his bc's???  I mean after all, bc's are about as effective vs. swarm and hydralisk as scouts are against ghosts (literally too, because Whoop still had d-matrix).  He did escape with a 3 or 4 bc's, but I saved myself from destruction.   

Then I noticed something.  I only had 42 minerals!#$%#  With the remaining drones, I concentrated on getting minerals, as I had over 3000 gas.  And unfortunately for me, POA said that he needed the island expansion next to my main.

I was on the brink of death, and yet I was able to hang around.  When I started to get my natural back up at full-speed, Bold had sent in his troops to finish me up.  With a combined force of marines/tanks, he was able to raze my hatchery in no time.  Fortunately, POA sent in some troops to repel Bold, and I survived once again.  

I then tried to bring my hatchery at my natural online one more time, yet Bold stopped me once again.  He sent in a collection of random ground units, and I was forced to cancel my hatchery.  However, I fought to keep control of my ramp, and used those defilers to swarm + plague his troops.  I survived again once again!

In the meantime, POA had not been idle.  His troops were at first comprised of goons/templars, but later in the game, he started making zealots/templars.  Bold and Whoop made many attempts to take out POA, yet his zealots and countless templars held off every attack.   

His natural and mineral only expansions were mined out long ago.  I decided that it was probably game over for me at least.  I only had my hive and 2 hatcheries in my main, along with 3 drones that were still gathering gas from the already depleted extractor.  All I had was a couple of defilers, and only about 200 minerals left.  I sent all my ovies to POA's base, but kept my defilers at my main.  I had upgraded consume by then, and I decided to see what I could do to annoy Whoop/Bold with plague. 

First, I decided to try Bold's cliff.  Amazingly, he had 4 bc's there with 4-5 science vessels stacked close to each other.  Without warning, I got off a good shot of plague, and then another one, that plagued the rest.  Even though my defilers died, they had done their job : - )

I still had one more defiler left, and I dropped it at the middle of the map.  Which was when I spotted still more of Whoop's troops, only this time they were infantry.  I got off another good shot of plague, but sadly, my defiler died.  The plague did help, as POA's troops were there to mop up the mess. 

As you can see, the battles are getting less and less descriptive.  The reason for this is because the only battles were little skirmishes.  POA was doing an excellent job of hanging tough to his ramp, as he was able to get off good shots of storm from his templars.

This is the end of the roller coaster of a game.  Those bc's that Whoop had leftover, came down to POA's island, and started razing it down.  POA had a goon and 2 templars, and one shot of storm was able to bring down quite a bit (remember, these vessels and bc's were plagued before).  The goon did its best to follow up, killing the rest of the bc's.  POA then warped 2 templars into an archon, only to have a science vessel emp it.  Doh!  Although the brave 10 hp archon fought valiantly, it was no match for 3 tin cans…errr… wraiths that Whoop had brought cleaned up the mess.  With no more running expansions, POA conceded the game.

Doh!  We had many chances to knock out Whoop/Bold, yet I stumbled along the way, and down the drain went our chances of winning.

Looking back on the game now, we should have followed up our attack on Ko[B]old.  That same group of troops we sent to attack Whoop would have easily knocked Ko[B]old out of the game for good, which would have let us concentrate solely on Whoop's bc's. 

An early double attack by Ko[B]old and Whoop would most likely have knocked either of us out, or even both!  When I was powering to lurkers, I was just hoping that Whoop/Ko[B]old would not attack me, for my main was very bare.

Expect for Whoop trying to attack my hydra's under swarm, Whoop did do a good job of covering for Ko[B]old, while he was recovering from the attack. 

POA was unbelievable in that game.  His macro was key in keeping the game close for most of the time.  I forgot how many gateways he had, but he was able to warp in troops as fast as they were dying. 

Upgrades did not play quite as big a role as it did in the most recent game I had br'ed (btw, under my Got-Game name).  Bc's, with their buff armor to start with, were able to virtually cancel out our upgrades. 

Sorry for no game pics ppl.  I was concentrating more on winning the game, rather than trying to hit the Print Screen button during key moments.  Those who can make good br's of games they play are really awesome reporters, especially games that have lots of action. 

Hopefully my text has been able to give you guys a decent picture of what the game was like, and wait a minute…I did take one pic!!!  It is the all-important, end of the game statistics.  Here it is folks

Heh, typical of me to lag behind the rest ^^.  Well, hope you enjoy, and give feedback please.  No not the dark archon ability.  

Btw - Lakers own!

2-0 vs. Sacramento!!!