***Warning***

This battlereport contains several very large pictures, so if you are on a modem, go see Titanic on video and about the time Leonardo DiCaprio freezes to death the report should be loaded.

Intro

Welcome to this evenings events ladies and gentlemen. I am proud to present to you...

Featuring...

KetchupFactory

TerranTurtle

TelepathicSheep

KaneTheFirebat

Shepherd

Wangsonn

(Sorry, no animated GIFs here...I'm not YRM you know)

The observers of this game were me (SCV~007) and Dialtone_  who doesn't seem to get enough of publicity. "Cough::quotemeagainplz::cough" pretty much states his attitude. There you have it Dialtone_, I just put in a quote from you...

The game was played on the oh so popular spacestation of Polaris Prime. You all know the map right? Basically six starting locations in the form of islands with a mainland in the middle to which all expansions are connected. There are expansions between all mains and four more in the middle. If you don't know this map (which means you don't play Starcraft or your name is TerranTurtle), just have a look at it in the Campaign Editor.

Before the game

The players all gather in the chatroom and begins to lay bullshit all around until someone comes up with the idea to actually start the game. This bullshit if you're interrested was  about new ideas of SC units such as Engineering Bays acting as Scourge that would suicide in the air doing massive splash damage, and jump-upgrades for Ultralisk. Yes I know it's pathetic.

Assuming that none of the players changed their race from random to a race before the game started, just to piss me off, these are the races and start locations.

KetchupFactory - Yellow - Top Left - Random to Protoss

TerranTurtle - Teal - Middle Left - Chosen Terran

TelepathicSheep - Purple - Top Right - Random Zerg

KaneTheFirebat - Blue - Bottom Right - Chosen Terran

Shepherd - Orange - Bottom Left - Chosen Terran

Wangsonn - Red - Middle Left - Chosen Protoss

Phase 1

TerranTurtle has a good idea for a name to this report which is "Kane won, and this is how he did it". Kane obviously didn't like this name because when the game started it lagged so much that it seemed Starcraft had suddenly become turn-based.

KaneTheFirebat was dropped from the game

Damn. Kane obviously decides to fuck up my report before it even started. Thanks. No-one was discouraged though and the game continued without Kane.

Shepherd takes a chance in the beginning and starts off with a Command Center and then a Barracks and gas. If he can get a good cashflow early on he will have an advantage over the other players.

TerranTurtle above him starts with two Barracks and gas, followed by a third Barracks and Academy, going for marines and medics.

KetchupFactory warps in two Gateways and gas, then a Cybernetics Core. He also adds a Forge for cannons and upgrades. He later adds a Robotic Facility.

TelepathicSheep gets early gas and starts his Lair upgrade while spawning another Hatchery. As soon as the Lair finnishes he starts his Spire, trying to catch someone off guard against early air attacks.

Wangsonn only warps in one Gateway before his Cybernetics Core, he also has early gas. When the Core finnishes he warps in the first in a series of Starports.

KaneTheFirebat gets..err nothing since he's out of the game.

Shepherd beginns to float his new CC to the expansion above his main, right next to TerranTurtle who is massing Marines and Medics. About the same time as Wangsonn gets his first Scout, yes Scout you read it right, TerranTurtle realizes something and utters: "hey it's an island!" Yes it is. It will be kinda difficult to m&m rush someone right now..especially without Dropships. He also says that "this changes plans a little".

He now starts a Factory to begin his tech tree and asks us what "gw" stands for. Is it good work or gay wad? I won't speculate.

TelepathicSheep now has about 6 mutas and tries his luck with KetchupFactory in the top left. He runs into some Dragoons there however and decides to retreat.

KetchupFactory has started an expansion below his main which he defends with a Dragoon, a Zealot and a warping cannon. Wangsonn also decides to expand at this time and choses the spot above him. The only players without expansions now is TerranTurtle and TelepathicSheep. It might be more of a problem for the Zerg though.

TerranTurtle is a rather good player, and though he didn't have a very good plan in the beginning, he now decides to use his sizeable army of m&m. He loads them into dropships and prepares for a drop. Who will it be?

There hasn't been much attacking so far, instead the players build up and tech. The usual FFA procedure. TelepathicSheep drops a Drone in the top middle expansion and starts a Hatchery there. Some lame tactics are beginning to show themselves now as Shepherd builds a Nuclear Silo in his main base.

TerranTurtle discovers that both expansions on his flanks have been taken by others, and he doesn't like it. Meanwhile the scout army in Wangsonns Protoss encampment has grown, and he decides he is powerful enough to take control of yet another expansion, this time he drops a probe in the middle and starts warping in a Nexus, some pylons and cannons for defence.

Another lame event now takes place. Apparently KetchupFactory is disturbed by an Overlord on the perimeter of his base. Whatever the reason is, he disconnects.

KetchupFactory was dropped from the game

Oh noo...not again. This 6 Way FFA is now down to 4 players. "Another one bites the dust" as Wangsonn puts it. This is not developing the way I had hoped. The show must go on however.

A teal colored Dropship now breakes the horizon over Shepherds expansion. The pilot decends and with a smooth maneuver the cargo of m&m is dropped behind the mineral line. After the first come more Dropships to reinforce the assault on their rival.

Shepherds forces consisting of Goliaths and Tanks with a few marines are stationed on the other side of the Command Center which allows the strikeforce to land safely before they begin tearing the whole place apart with their Uranium bullets. A total of four Dropships worth of marines and medics slowly weares the defence down, and razes the CC and other buildings before Shepherd can reinforce with more of his Goliaths.

While all this is going on TelepathicSheep tries a sneeky move on Wangsonn and spawns a Hatchery on his expansion platform. Wangsonn says "I see that" however and some scouts finnish the building before it is completed, and since the pilots don't have anything better to do they start picking on the poor drone untill it lies scattered over the steel plates of the platform.

The scouts then take a trip to the Zerg base and pops two Overlords to show the Zerg that they can't get away with this kind of actions. They notice massive amounts of Mutalisks further into the base and wisely retreat while they still can. Wangsonn now beginns Corsair production to deal with the Mutalisk horde.

TelepathicSheep starts a Queens Nest now, probably to make devourers so that he stands a chance to the Protoss air fleet. He is too late however as a giant fleet of red Scouts and Corsairs strike as lightning in the Zerg base. The Mutalisks are degraded to flying ketchup and the Scouts begin tearing the base apart. It didn't even take any micro from Wangsonn to pull this off, many Scouts even attacked buildings instead of Mutalisks when they charged in.

"Ouchie" says TelepathicSheep  after losing at least three control groups of Mutalisks while only killing a few units. Understatement.

Nuclear Launch Detected

The thought "holy shit" echoes across Battle.net and surely some of the players piss their pants. Everyone looks for a dot in their base, but the nuke is pointed at TerranTurtle. Shepherds ghost is D-matrixed and is pointing its laserbeam over the gap between the two Terran bases. It's a nice move actually, the ghost is nearly impossible to kill even if someone sees it (it wasn't cloaked and even if it were the D-matrix would have made it visible) but all the nuke manage to kill is a Control Tower.

TelepathicSheep tries a pathetic revenge on Wangsonn consisting of a few Mutalisks that attack a cannon at the Protoss expansion. Some Scouts are summoned to clear the skies.

TelepathicSheep now rebuilds his tech at his top middle expansion, but this time his choice of tech is Hydralisks instead if Mutas, good choice under the circumstances.

Pause

There is now a pause in the game because the players needs a break to go to the bathroom and then grab a soda to refresh themselves. (Actually I needed to clear my Screenshot directory.)

Phase 2

(On a side note, there is no reason for these 2 Phases, I just felt like writing that)

The game is recommenced and there is a small confusion because I didn't warn them before I resumed, hehe, I'm mean I know.

Around the time that the Zerg base was attacked, Shepherd had expanded to the bottom middle expansion. Destroying the Zerg base was apparently a long process though with only a few Scouts attacking it after the main assault was over. Some Zerglings are made there for an unknown reason. Maybe because there were so many Corsairs TelepathicSheep wanted to piss their pilots off by providing targets they couldn't shoot at...

TerranTurtle now has another whoopass m&m army and decides to use it. He wants to cripple his Terran opponent once more. This time he drops his forces at Shepherds main base in the lower left corner and the marines instantly target the Nuclear Silo attached to the CC. It blows up just as some defending forces arrive, but TerranTurtles striketeam slaughteres them with the aid of superior number and upgrades. Shepherds main is then leveled to the ground or whatever you call it on a space platform.

Shepherd decides to counter TerranTurtles marines with some of his own, and starts production of marines out of five Barracks at his bottom middle expansion.

In the mean time TelepathicSheep has gathered a small army of Hydras in his new main at the top middle. He has five Hatcheries with two Evolution Chambers for upgrades.

Wangsonn is enforcing his position of power in this game and claims another middle expansion, he now has control of three, plus one above his main. TerranTurtle finally decides to expand, and does so to the former Protoss expansion above his main. He starts mining without even removing the probes that still sit there so he must be desperate for minerals.

Wangsonn now has a good flow of minerals and gas and launches another offensive on the Zerg. With the help of D-web his Scouts are very effective against the dancing Hydras. The Scouts now have 1-3-2-2 upgrades and are killing Hydras at a good pace. Another kickass group of Scouts join the slaughter as if the first wave wasn't enough. TelepathicSheep is now out of the game. (Not dead but still out...)

TerranTurtle does yet another drop on Shepherd, now on the expansion above the now destroyed 

main. His forces suffer great losses to the arclite fire and D-matrixed Goliaths. Reinforcing marines arrive from the bottom middle expansion and production site, but the m&m is very effective against marines without medics.

TerranTurtle has now killed Shepherds defending forces. But what's that message? Under attack? Oh. A giant Protoss fleet makes the air vibrate as it decends over the nearly undefended Terran main base. Marines hurry to intercept the Scouts but Corsairs lay their D-web wherever they can. A lone Battlecruiser is completed in a Starport but it is swiftly destroyed by missiles and Corsair fire.

TerranTurtle doesn't give up however and launches an attack on a central Protoss expansion, and before a wing of Scouts get there some cannons have been destroyed and the m&m is pounding on a Nexus. A Battlecruicer joins the marines in this last stand.

Shepherd is somewhat pissed at TerranTurtle for attacking his main and expansion all the game so he joins the Protoss forces for a moment and puts some Defensive Matrixes on various Scouts. Kinda cute. In a last act of defiance TerranTurtle orderes his Medics to do some damage and then yells: "Enjoy your BLINDED scouts!!!"

Wangsonn launches his final offensive on the bottom middle Terran expansion which is guarded by Shepherds marines and Science Vessels. No D-matrix in the world can save him now though as D-web is cast on every available spot. The Scouts turn off their afterburners and go in for the kill.

The rest of the game is cleanup. A few desperate expansions are built by players who just won't quit. (Maybe they are related to Mark4 :)

Winner of this 6 Way FFA is:

Wangsonn

For those who care, the scores:

Elapsed time: 53:44

Lessons learned:

1. In FFA, always attack the strongest opponent while you still can.

2. Don't go for m&m rush on Polaris Prime.

3. This map is cool.

4. Scouting is good (you notice if it's an island map)

5. White background owns you all.

Game Statistics

   # of Disconnects: 2

   # of D-webs: uncountable

   # of Nukes: 1

   # of BCs that died before accomplishing anything: 2 (all of them)

   # of D-matrixes cast on enemy units: 4

Some thoughts:

I really believe that TerranTurtle would have had a chance if he hadn't just attacked Shepherd. If these two Terrans had started on different sides of the map, this game would have been a whole lot different. ( And made a better BR )

Comment

Thanks to the players for letting me report this. They begged me to do it until I said ok just to make them stop whining.

I have probably messed up some build orders and timing of events in the game, I hope you have understanding for this as it is my third report and as I discovered FFAs with 5 players are hard to do. I had to completely rely on screenshots to do this.

( I took about 230 screenshots in this game.)

In this report I used the expression D-web to describe Disruption Web. I might have to say this because as I have noticed the correct word for it in this community is Gayweb so maybe some of you sat there and asked yourselves "wtf is d-web, a new spell or something?" . I thought I might try something else in one report just to test it. Hehe. I'll get flamed for that.

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