After my first battlereport, I found that people liked my pretty pictures, but did not like me reporting short, one-sided games. I pondered on how I could remedy this for my next report. I could either endlessly beg nohunters experts until someone kindly lets me observe, I could report a Free For All, or I could report my own hour-long games on Challenger. While the first and third methods would strip away my dignity (in very different ways), the second method would take days and days of work. So what would I do for my second report?

Without further ado, I present:

The five competitors that were suckered into this game were ^)Magus(^, winter136, DrEaMiNg-TrEe, TerranTurtle, and [MSC]Snow. (Apologies)

Would these five competitors provide enough entertainment to warrant the creation of this battlereport?

Notice: I will now refer to ^)Magus(^ as Magus, since apostrophies on names with weird characters look gay. Heck, I barely tolerate alternating caps.

The first two attempts to create the game failed. The first game, the observer map gave observer vision to everyone. The second attempt, I unwittingly created on normal Winter Conquest on game type Free For All. Finally, the game was created on type Melee. I didn't have any worries about people allying with each other, since these were good mannered nohunters dwellers, Right?

Initial builds: (up until first relevant attack)

Magus: depot, barracks, refinery, depot, factory, depot, Command Center, factory, depot, (float CC to south central plateau), Engineering Bay, Factory, Refinery at expansion plateau.

winter136: depot at ramp, barracks at ramp, refinery, depot, Command Center, Depot, Factory, Depot, (float CC to north central plateau), Starport, Engineering Bay, Factory on plateau expansion, Missile Turret at ramp.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe: pylon, Gateway, Assimilator, Forge, Pylon at natural, Photon Cannon at natural, Expansion Nexus at natural, Cybernetics Core, Pylon, Pylon at 8 o' clock main, Photon Cannon at natural, Photon Cannon at 8 o' clock main, Nexus at 8 o' clock main, Stargate, Stargate, Pylon, Citadel of Adun.

TerranTurtle: Overlord, Spawning Pool, Extractor, Creep Colony(sunken), Morph Hatchery to Lair, Creep Colony(sunken), Creep Colony(sunken), Evolution Chamber, Creep Colony(spore), Queen's Nest, Creep Colony(sunken), Morph Lair to Hive, Hatchery at natural expansion.

[MSC]Snow: Pylon, Gateway, Assimilator, Cybernetics Core, Pylon, Robotics Facility, Citadel of Adun, Robotics Support Bay, Forge, Pylon at natural, Photon Cannon at natural, Photon Cannon at natural, Pylon, Pylon, nexus at natural.

The early game:

TerranTurtle laments that he forgot to pick his race and he randomed to zerg. DrEaMiNg-TrEe demands that the observer leaves (asdf). [MSC]Snow is now coming to the realization that he is playing and not observing. winter136 points out that Winter Conquest is a mucho money map because it has 1500 minerals per patch. He also lays ground rules for this game.

[MSC]Snow and DrEaMiNg-TrEe scouts clockwise with their probes and discover winter136 and Magus, respectively. Magus sends an SCV counterclockwise and discovers DrEaMiNg-TrEe. Upon seeing the orange probe, winter136 complains about a rush. After [MSC]Snow's witty retort, I mention that everyone's full of crap. DrEaMiNg-TrEe does some bad manner stuff to Magus' factory with his first zealot before getting chased away by some angry marines.

Everyone knew the importance of securing mineral nodes in a long, protracted battle. Free For Alls tend to last about an hour. winter136's north central plateau expansion went online first followed closely by DrEaMiNg-TrEe's Nexus at his natural. Next, Magus lands his command center on the bottom-middle plateau, and DrEaMiNg-TrEe is very vocal about it. TerranTurtle builds a hatchery at his natural expansion when his hive approaches completion. Finally, [MSC]Snow starts his expansion at his natural after he has 2 zealots, 2 cannons, and 2 reavers there.

TerranTurtle does the interesting queen rush build. Probably fatal, but interesting nonetheless. DrEaMiNg-TrEe's second expansion at the 8 o' clock main is finished, and the early game phase has ended.

First blood:

[MSC]Snow has been eager to kill since the beginning of the game. He loaded up two reavers in a shuttle and sent them to the north central plateau expansion to whoever may be mining there. When he saw that winter136 was mining there, his heart leapt with joy. winter136 has been irritating [MSC]Snow since the beginning of the game with his ludicrous game rules and his whining when [MSC]Snow's probe scouted him for the first time. The reavers merrily kill the 8 mining SCVs and force winter136 to lift off his Command Center and Factory.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe's probe passes by 3 of TerranTurtle's Queens and informs everyone of his Discovery. Magus commands everyone to kill the Queen Rusher while building a third factory and a starport. He also turrets up his south central plateau. winter136's newly-created wraith kills [MSC]Snow's shuttle and very.... slowly... kills the two stranded reavers on his former expansion. TerranTurtle ignores DrEaMiNg-TrEe and Magus mentioning the existence of mass queens and builds a defiler mound. TerranTurtle's three queens are fully charged up, so they broodling 3 SCVs at Magus' south central plateau expansion.

winter136 lands his command center at the north central plateau expansion after the reavers there finally die. During the killing process, he built an academy, a science facility, and eventually two more barracks at his main. [MSC]Snow constructs another Gateway and a Templar Archives at his main. TerranTurtle turtles up the zerg way by making 3 sunken colonies outside of his expansion at his natural. He also proves that you can create queens and defilers from one gas mine..... in a FFA.

By now, DrEaMiNg-TrEe has his second expansion fully operational and has a Templar Archives and several Templar. He is in the best shape at this point.

[MSC]Snow continues to harass winter136's north central plateau expansion by creating a cannon network outside of it. Dragoons deterred winter136's wraith from killing the cannons before they were formed. winter136 already had a new factory built on his plateau; however, and a created tank destroys the network. Magus constructs a Science facility at this time. Also, DrEaMiNg-TrEe's strategy solidifies. He built a fleet beacon, another starport (3 now), and is now massing scouts. Sheesh. The things people do when they're being battlereported...

[MSC]Snow attempts to drop on winter136's expansion again, but the shuttle fails to drop its cargo before it's blown away by turrets and winter136's wraith. Meanwhile, TerranTurtle broodlings more tanks on Magus' plateau expansion, because he can. To make sure he makes as many enemies as possible, he broodlings a tank on winter136's plateau expansion as well.

Magus, winter136, and DrEaMiNg-TrEe grab more expansions on the map. Magus and winter136 establish their Command Centers at their mineral-only naturals. DrEaMiNg-TrEe greedily attempts to obtain the vespene geyser in siege tank range of Magus' south central plateau expansion (the one to the right of the plateaus). Magus has other things to worry about; however, as one of TerranTurtle's defilers darkswarms near Magus' plateau, enters the swarm, and plagues a bunker and a turret.

One of the tanks on winter136's plateau destroys a photon cannon near DrEaMiNg-TrEe's newest gas-only expansion, and DrEaMiNg-TrEe retorts by saying that winter136 has the whole map and that everyone should go after him.

[MSC]Snow seemed to have one objective in this game: to destroy winter136. He gave up on surgical drops on winter136's expansion and sent a squad of 4 zealots, 6 dragoons, and 2 templar of both varieties.

They quash the 12 marines and 2 medics waiting for them, annihilate winter136's mineral expansion, and proceed up 12 o' clock's ramp. Templar were irradiated. Marines and wraiths were stormed. During the fight, DrEaMiNg-TrEe had an emergency, and paused for half a minute.

Before the unpausing, TerranTurtle says,'ok magus you got yourself a deal'. TerranTurtle and Magus put aside their differences and allied up to fight the other three competitors.

Meanwhile, winter136's cluttered building placement pays dividens. [MSC]Snow's troops die by the time they traverse the maze of random terran buildings.

TerranTurtle asks his ally for a command center. Yes, the rarest unit in the game will be used, but to what effectiveness? Magus also takes this time to build a nuclear silo at his natural. DrEaMiNg-TrEe notifies that Magus has the whole map and that everyone should go after him. Hrm.. Now who is left? He'll need to say that about [MSC]Snow and TerranTurtle before this game ends. This jogs TerranTurtle's memory, and he instructs Magus to reposition his tank on his south central plateau expansion to blow away DrEaMiNg-TrEe's gas-only expansion. Meanwhile, winter136 rebuilds a command center at his mineral-only natural.

TerranTurtle now has his new, shiny, puss-oozing infested command center.

Unfortunately for TerranTurtle and Magus, their activity has been discovered. TerranTurtle tried to sneak up to winter136's plateau expansion with a darkswarm and to plague the nearby buildings/units. This backfired; however, as winter136's tanks destroy the approaching defiler and call attention to the queen nearby. winter136's wraiths pursue the queen, and it escapes over Magus' heavily-turreted plateau. The pursuing wraiths are blown to hell.

winter136 voiced his displeasure with the alliance of Magus and TerranTurtle. DrEaMiNg-TrEe and winter136 allied up, while [MSC]Snow is royally screwed at the moment. While DrEaMiNg-TrEe and winter136 talk strategy on ally chat, Magus decides to use the nuke that resided in his nuclear silo. Unfortunately for Magus, DrEaMiNg-TrEe discovers the red dot and pulls his 3600 minerals and 1800 units of vespene gas away before they would have been engulfed in the mushroom cloud. All the nuke managed to do was to mutate some ursadon.

In the minimap, there are orange units in DrEaMiNg-TrEe's 8 o' clock expansion. While the nuking was going on, [MSC]Snow ferried 5 dragoons and a probe to DrEaMiNg-TrEe's 8 o' clock expansion with one shuttle. These troops overrun the few zealots in the base and [MSC]Snow warped in a pylon and 4 Photon cannons there to secure another source of income.

winter136 send a hotkey of marines and 4 medics to [MSC]Snow's natural in retaliation of the drop on DrEaMiNg-TrEe's 8 o' clock expansion. They die horribly to cannons on [MSC]Snow's main plateau before they even reach their destination. Perhaps his inattentiveness was caused by him voicing his desire to kill red. Multitasking at its finest.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe stations his Doom Fleet of 24 scouts at winter136's north central plateau expansion. TerranTurtle notices this movement, and remarks that DrEaMiNg-TrEe will have a lot of 1 hp scouts. While DrEaMiNg-TrEe has his own Doom Fleet, he is in serious trouble because he has no cash and no sources of income after [MSC]Snow's drop. winter136 and DrEaMiNg-TrEe must eliminate someone now.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe's Doom Fleet goes to kill.... [MSC]Snow. The scouts plow over [MSC]Snow's main and cause havoc while winter136's science vessels look for templar to irradiate. I don't know why they decided to crush [MSC]Snow at this moment. Maybe it was to regain confidence before the real fight? Perhaps it was to gain a source of income at the 10 o' clock natural and to regain a source of income at the 8 o' clock main. At any rate, [MSC]Snow's main and expansion are destroyed. winter136 decides that his team does not have enough anti-air, and constructs two more starports at his natural.

TerranTurtle makes good on his claim, and plagues the hell out DrEaMiNg-TrEe's Doom Fleet. He's also being annoying by plaguing every protoss building that he can reach at the 2 o' clock main. Looking at Magus' base, I see that he has many, many goliaths and tanks. Things are looking grim for DrEaMiNg-TrEe and winter136.

TerranTurtle moves a defiler and two infested terran to DrEaMiNg-TrEe's mined-out natural. The defiler throws up a dark swarm and the two infested terrans barrel into the nexus. The nexus is severely injured, and nothing is accomplished. Magus continues the harassment, though, by dropping a nuke on the stargates in DrEaMiNg-TrEe's main. Casualties - 1 stargate, 1 ghost.

winter136's 6 wraiths and 3 science vessels join DrEaMiNg-TrEe's Doom Fleet at the north central plateau, and proceed southward to raze Magus' plateau expansion. TerranTurtle's queen lobs an ensnare gob at the group and manages to ensnare the 6 wraiths and miss the 24 scouts.... How in the hell did that happen?

Magus moves about 18 goliaths and 12 tanks from his base. TerranTurtle thought that this was intimidating enough to their enemies, so he expanded to the gas-only expansion in the center of the map (to the right of the central plateaus - formerly occupied by DrEaMiNg-TrEe before Magus positioned his tank on the south central plateau to kill it). Six more goliaths and 3 science vessels joined Magus' other troops. Then, the battles began. 14 marines and 4 medics joined the Doom Fleet and attacks TerranTurtle's expansion attempt.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe knew that the goliaths would slaughter the Doom fleet, so he sent it to Magus' main to see how much damage it could do. Magus pulls back half of his goliaths and, with the help of newly-created goliaths, drive away the Doom Fleet.

After retreating to the south central plateau, The Doom Fleet lost 1/3rd of their number. In a move which befuddled me at the time, DrEaMiNg-TrEe then had the idle probes at his mined-out natural move to a mineral node on the opposite side of the map. It turned out that Magus was dry on minerals and was attempting some long distance mining. The probes occupied Magus' tanks' attention for at least two seconds =). At least winter136 manages to establish a command center and refinery at the gas-only expansion to the left of the central plateaus.

Finally, TerranTurtle (i.e. Queen and Defiler boy) builds his second extractor thirty minutes in the game. Better late than never. Right?

Magus launches a nuke on DrEaMiNg-TrEe's main, killing the remaining stargates and surrounding pylons. TerranTurtle broodling the templar near DrEaMiNg-TrEe's nexus there, as well. When the broodlings kill random protoss structures surrounding the nexus, it was clear that DrEaMiNg-TrEe was in serious trouble.

To make matters worse for DrEaMiNg-TrEe, the Doom fleet was in trouble. Magus' goliaths surrounded the plateau where the Doom fleet was idling. The goliaths hid under dark swarms to make the scouts totally ineffective. After the Doom fleet's number was whittled down to 9, they stayed marooned on the plateau. With the Doom fleet trapped, TerranTurtle's queens broodling various targets across the map.

TerranTurtle follows up his second extractor at thirty minutes with some scary, gay, 35 minute hydralisks. Congratulations, TerranTurtle! You have to be the first person to survive in a StarCraft game this long without building any mutalisks or hydralisks or something.

DrEaMiNg-TrEe conceded when 3 control groups of Magus' factory untis barrel into his main.Next, Magus attempted to matrix his low-ground tanks and to fire up on winter136's tanks on his expansion plateau. This would've cleared up some room for a drop; however, [MSC]Snow ran his probes across the map, and Magus' tanks blasted them instead of winter136's tanks on high ground.

TerranTurtle dropped 7 hydralisks and a defiler on the south central plateau. The defiler, upon seeing the scouts there, threw up a dark swarm over the hydralisks. Yes. This is the ultra-cautious way of killing combat units of players who have left the game. Meanwhile, Magus expands to the 8' o clock natural expansion.

Poor [MSC]Snow was left without any bases or allies. He wanted observer status. I told him to let me know when he unallies and unvisions everyone else, and that I would ally with him. He never responded, and he left. =[

winter136 moves a force of 27 marines and 8 medics from his natural expansion to the area north of his expansion at the north central plateau. Eventually, 6 wraiths join them. Magus slowly pushes a control group and a half of tanks to the general vicinity of winter136's troops. winter136 responds by moving his new, shiny battlecruiser to kill the tanks. The battlecruiser never have a chance to accomplish this; however, as it saw 5 loaded overlords move past them to his main. The battlecruiser followed, and it got plagued and shot down by TerranTurtle's "early" hydralisks.

When winter136 was distracted by the hydralisks, Magus' tanks creeped forward enough to take shots at winter136's marines and medics. They respond to the shelling by charging at the tanks. None made it there alive. The wraiths that fired on the tanks were shot down by reinforcing goliaths. winter136 takes this time to expand at the 10 o' clock mineral-only natural.

Keep in mind that TerranTurtle's hydralisks still are in winter136's main. If it wasn't for winter136's cluttered building placement, the hydralisks could have caused a lot of damage. As it stands, however, 2 siege tanks and one battlecruiser kill 13 hydralisks. During this combat, Magus creates another command center at 8 o' clock's main.

winter136 had to do several impossible things to win this game. He had to spot and stop expansion attempts and create a cost-effective way to kill his two opponents. Also he had to hope that he wasn't attacked at this moment. winter136 had a control group of marines, two medics, three wraiths, and two tanks. In comparison, Magus had about 2 control groups of goliaths, 18 tanks, 12 marines, 4 dropships, and 4 science vessels.

winter136 wasn't giving up, however. TerranTurtle and Magus grew lax after DrEaMiNg-TrEe was eliminated. Magus' 8 o' clock main and expansion bases were completely defenseless. winter136 sent 13 marines and 1 medic to these defenseless bases. The marines stim up and obliterate both of Magus' expansions at the 8 o' clock region.

This success was short lived, though. Magus dropped 5 dropships full of marines to quickly eliminate the threat. He rebuilt his command center at the 8 o' clock main and allowed TerranTurtle to build a hatchery at the 8 o' clock natural.

winter136 tried to eliminate these expansions again with a small force of four battlecruisers. Hydralisks with defiler support eliminated them, though, with the help of plague and dark swarm.

Magus finally delivers the deathblow to winter136 in the form of 5 full dropships of marines and medics. After winter136 loses his main, good games were exchanged. winter136 fought a valiant battle, but there was nothing he could do to win this game (unless he was that X'ds guy).

The winner(s) of this Free For All: Magus and TerranTurtle. (Disclaimer: They were actually big losers for allying up. A nod to TerranTurtle for not dying early with his strategy, though.)

Game Time: 53:59

Random rants and comments:

There are no pretty pictures in the final stages of the report, sorry. I figured that not many people would have enough patience to download more than 0.7 MB worth of .gifs just to read the report. Also, not much occured then anyway.

For any battlereporter who hasn't tried to report a Free For All, I say that you are missing out. Those games are twice as difficult to keep track of and four times as difficult to write about.

TerranTurtle did not make enough infested terran =(. I did not report on every instance in which they were used because most of the time, they were used to kill, like, two marines.

Free For Alls are more fun when people don't ally. :P

I offer deep thanks to the competitors for allowing me to watch and report.

This is a CrackHeadJeb production.