Map Name: Lost Temple

Fennec: Yellow Zerg (Chosen) in south starting position

Whear: Orange Zerg (Random) in east starting position

Battle Report by Candle

The game begins with both players buliding drones. Fennec builds drones until 9, and then an overlord, and then 3 more drones when the overlord finishes. During this time he also sends out a drone to scout. Remember that although Fennec chose Zerg, Whear chose random so Fennec wants to discover what race he's up against as soon as possible and so sends out a scouting drone. Fennec's scouting drone quickly finds Whear

Whear begins spawning an overlord, and then uses the extractor trick to get 10 drones, and then begins morphing a second hatchery in his main. Fennec builds a hatchery at his natural and then morphs in a spawning pool.

Meanwhile, Whear first gets an extractor, and then a spawning pool, and then also begins morphing in an evolution chamber. Whear has decided to go for fast gas, in probably in order to get fast mutas, but also to get the +1 zergling attack upgrade.

Whear begins researching both zergling speed and the +1 attack ugprade before morphing his hatchery into a Lair. Although this delays his mutas, Whear decides the trade-off is worth it to have those +1 zerglings faster.

So now Whear has made his strategy clear, and thanks to a scouting Drone, Fennec sees the spawning pool, the evolution chamber, and also the delayed Lair. But what has Fennec been up to? While Whear has been busily upgrading his lings, Fennec opts to get a second hatchery and his expansion, and plops down 2 sunken colonies. These sunkens will allow Fennec to concentrate on boosting his economy by spending previous larvae on drones.

Finally - Fennec makes is his strategy clear. He begins morphing in a hydralisk den, an evolution chamber and then builds 3 spore colonies, 2 at his main base and 1 at his expansion

So to recap the situation so far. Whear had decided to go for a strategy involving +1 attack zerglings, and mutalisks, while Fennec has chosen to go with zerglings, hydralisks, sunken colonies and spore colonies. With his mutalisks, Whear makes a few tactical strikes. He slaughters an overlord that was hanging around near Whear's expansion, and then begins harassing Fennec. He takes pop shots at stray overlords, an extractor, drones which aren't protected by spore colonies and hydras that don't stick with the pack. Eventually however, Whear is driven away by Fennec's defence.

Then Whear makes his move

Phase 1 - Whear removes Fennec's sunken colonies with mutalisks

Phase 2 - Whear's zerglings rip up Fennec's spore colonies

Phase 3 - All of Whear's forces assault Fennec's expansion

Okay - time for some detail over the battle that just ensued.Whear began by using his mutalisks to attack a spore colony in Fennec's main. Fennec brought his hydras from his expansion, up the ramp, and to his main to shoo off the mutalisks. But then Whear's mutalisks fly over and take out the sunken. The hydralisks are out of position and are unable to stop the mutalisks from taking out the sunkens. Then, because Whear's zerglings easily rip up Fennec's zerglings because

• Fennec's sunken colonies are gone
• Whear's zerglings have the +1 attack upgrade
• Fennec's hydras are still out of position and unable to provide backup for the zerglings

Whear's zerglings tear through Fennec's zerglings and then take down the spore colony. Fennec however, is no slouch, and using some intense micro skills while keeping his cool. First, he quickly morphs new hydralisks from all available larvae. He begins morphing a new sunken colony at his expansion, and he uses his available hydras and drones to fend off the zerglings. Eventually, Fennec manages to fend off the attack but at a terrible cost, he has only 6 drones left at his expansion.

Whear took the opportunity during the attack to expand to his natural, and decides to also expand to the north main. Fennec, sensing that the armies on both sides must be low in number at this point begins pumping hydras out of all 3 of his hatcheries and begins morphing in his spire. While Whear concentrates on getting his economy up to speed as well as pumping out more zerglings, Fennec uses the temporary advantage to park his entire army outside of Whear's base.

Then, Fennec does a strange meneuvre, he attacks Whear's northern base with 2 hydras and a zergling.

But then Whear does something even stranger - nothing. Or perhaps it's not strange at all - perhaps that was wise. Whear wisely assesses that Fennec has a larger army, and that trying to save his northern expansion would result in his entire army getting slaughtered. And so he has to sadly stand by as his northern hatchery falls. He decides, however, that no attack should go without an answer, and uses his mutalisks to attack Fennec's expansion. Fennec, still keeping his cool, does not panic. Instead, he shows his skill by pulling back only the exact number of hydras needed to fend off the mutalisks, leaving the rest of his hydralisks behind to keep Whear penned in.

At this point - Whear is starting to feel the pinch. He's hemmed in by Fennec's large force, and he hasn't been able to expand. Fennec has map control and will likely be getting ready to expand a few times. Top this off with the fact that at this point in the game, Whear's drone count is much lower than Fennec's, and you realize that Whear has his back up against the wall and is going to have to start applying some desparate measures.

Okay! Time for a mini-map update.

When Fennec feels the time is right, he makes a charge into Whear's main base. I'm guessing that what Fennec was waiting for was his hydralisk +2 attack upgrade - but I'm not sure. In any case, Whear counters with an alarming number of zerglings along with his mutalisks for support. I'll let the pictures illustrate what happened.

Whear successfully destroys Fennec's entire force of hydralisks with his zerglings and mutalisks. Whear then tries to attack Fennec's mineral only natural, but his attack is foiled.

Unfortunately for Whear, depite the strong showing with the zerglings, Whear is in bad shape. He has lost a large portion of his zergling force, but more importantly, his economy is being dwarfed by Fennec. His main is out of minerals, and he hasn't been able to spare the larvae to saturate his natural with drones. Fennec has his own natural, his mienral only natural, a base at the 9:00 main a hatchery morphing in at the 9:00 expansion and another hatchery morphing at the 9:00 mineral only expansion. With such a roaring economy Fennec rapidly produces his huge army again and parks it outside Whear's base.

But Whear isn't ready to give up yet. Desparate times call for desparate measures - so Whear digs deep into his bag of tricks and finds one last trick left. Transportation. Whear hasn't been able to spare the gas to get both speed and transportation (mutalisks take up a lot of gas ya know) - but transportation is all he needs. He uses his overlords to move the zerglings off his ramp, to get around Fennec's blockade.

His zerglings then run and ravage the 9:00 mineral only expansion

Then they manage to take down the 9:00 natural, before his army of zerglings fall to Fennec's superior forces

At the end of it all, Whear's last ditch attempt wasn't enough to slow down Fennec's engine, and Whear concedes.

Lessons learned:

• Zerglings and mutalisks aren't the only viable zerg-zerg strategy
• Map control is as important in zerg-zerg as ever on Lost Temple
• As always, the person with the better economy usually wins