Welcome to my second battlereport, Slaughter. The game took place last Saturday, where I decided to start playing ladder again because the season restarted. Last season I was 2/0 with 1054, having started ladder on the last week of the season. The two games I played were relatively easy with victories coming from a tank push and the other from a reaver drop on Dire. This season started with a 1v1 against a player named Bombsquad. The first game he won due to a very lucky incident where I used up my Comsat just as he hit my base. I furiously started vultures and mines but by the time I got rid of the Dark Templars his big force came in and killed me. I asked for a re, in which he accepted. My quick M&M strike wasted his Zerg before he got a chance to get lurkers. I was now 1/1, rating of 1000. He asked for re, I said yes, but AGAIN I got Terran. We recreated over and over and every single time I got Terran when randoming. Pissed off, I forgot about him and joined another ladder game. I was met by a player entitled "s._.)s". What the hell is that? Is that a face with the "s" as ears? Or is it some strange alien language? Nevertheless we started, both of us randoming. The map was Temple(I know no other cept Dire which I'll make a BR with very soon).

Seeing as how it was relatively empty, I dropped my remainder of 16 hydralisks. 6 of them were lost to storm, but the other ten did a good job of wasting any threat. As Face waited for his storms to recharge, I destroyed his forge, probes, and some pylons. Wanting to permanently derail him, I delayed macroing as I got 7 of the ten hydralisks and morphed them into lurkers. Dumb, ass. Two fresh zealots came, killed my three hydralisks, and storm took care of the eggs. All the eggs. Crushed, I began my second drop, this time a small one of two lurkers, 7 lings. The seven lings took down a new observatory next to the nexus and started damage on pylons while the two lurkers were burrowed a little south of them to delay attacks. It wasn't much of an attack though, as he stormed my lurkers and then used zealots to finish the lings. Face's natural was dead. What do you mean? Of course I said that I delayed macro for lurkers, but as we all know there would be plenty of minerals left. I HAD used those minerals on lings and some hydras, and a strong attack had laid waste to Face's front army and was beating on the natural. I was too busy with the drop to micro and such but the force still did a good job, killing all the probes, a few pylons, a few cannons, and about 4 zealots, 3 dragoons. At the end three hydralisks remained, spitting at the nexus until zealots came to once again, mop up the mess. The battle was over, and I started an expansion at my natural hoping to take the map. Face started rebuilding his natural while pumping templars. I had thought that he'd be starving right now, so once again I charged his natural with two lurkers, 15 hydras. The force was strong, and it was good. Storm and zealots took care of half of my hydras, but soon the natural was mine. I laid waste to it as he quickly made reinforcements. He charged me with a mix of storm, zealots, and a ball of energy. The hydras met up with the zealots, and the zealots defeated the hydras but were severely weakened. As they moved on to kill my lurker (with help from an observer), the lurkers killed them all. But then the archon came. In the end, a 20 hp wielding archon was all that was left.

Now remember how I said his macro wasn't very good? He had a lot of minerals left over, and started his natural expansion yet again with cannon support. During all this I had a spire and a queen's nest morphing in. I was pumping mutalisks hoping for some harassment satisfaction, gathering them at the southeast expansion to harass his natural. His natural was soon up again, this time with 2 cannons as defense. I saw the three cannons, and decided that my 7 mutes weren't nearly enough so I waited to make more while my hive started. During this time Face tries to grab the southeast island expansion, but the mutes there killed his shuttle before he had a chance to. Once I had 15 mutes, I attacked his natural. I took down the first cannon, dodged a storm, and watched as his probes ran away to his force. Seeing nothing but death, I ran away with a remaining 8 mutes, deciding to wait for guardians. He immediately sets his natural up again, this time with FIVE cannons. Ooh. Once the greater spire was done, I had morphed guardians with the 800 gas I saved, using the left over minerals on lings (I can never precisely calculate). While my guardians morphed, he tried an attack on my north-natural expansion with 15 zealots, 2 goons, 2 temps, and an archon. I don't know how he found out about it, supposedly from an observer. They gathered in the middle, when a scouting ling met them, and died. Seeing as how my expansion didn't have a good chance, I started a hatchery at the top left island expansion. Needless to say, his army attacked and ate up my natural since I didn't have a very big a force (sunken with some lings). If my 8 guardians were there it would've been a different matter of course. Speaking of the guardians, I soon sent them in a nice spread out fashion, losing only two to storm. The guardians annihilated the natural but were stopped when goons came to finish off the guardians who were already weakened greatly by the storms. Back in my expansion, I had sent all my army from my main to save it.

It was far too late to save, but we still had a nice battle. The lings and hydras met the zealots and goons, soon overrunning them. It was 3 hydras, 3lings against an archon, but a storm from a faraway templar helped give the archon the edge. Now I wasn't in that good of a position. With only one good base to work from, I had to do something very drastic. My northwest expansion was now up. As I had stated in my last BR, I always started the building required for gas first, unless it was a special circumstance. Having two and a half geysers to mine from (The natural, island expansion, and the run-out main), I was able to start a morph of THIRTEEN lurkers while not running into overload of mineral problems.

This was going to be pretty, a thirteen lurker drop on his base to rip it apart or at least make for some nice screenshots :D. While I started this ridiculous drop, he started the final battle. Four goons, 16zealots, 2 templars, 2 archons were the challenger, against 20 hydras, 12 lings, 3 lurkers, and the godly cliff. I had thirteen lurkers, but I decided to use 3 to defend while dropping ten of them. The three lurkers were assembled on the cliff in a manner where they wouldn't share storm damage and still have the maximum benefit from the cliff. My hydralisks and lings were at the natural, watching the massive Toss army in the distance. Two observers floated in to test the waters, but were blown away. Having no other source of detection, he had to wait until he got one more from his robotics facility. While he waited, I had secretly loaded the 10 lurkers into 5 overlords back at my main. I added a couple more to draw fire while the big force would be dropped. Seeing that his natural was his only source of income, I dropped the bastards in the probe line. There were a couple cannons there, but they were easily dispatched. Seconds later, the probes were gone, the nexus was gone, all, gone. They had done much better than I had expected. Face, pissed off and with a new observer, attacked my base in an "I kill you before you kill me" fashion. He overwhelmed me, and I was forced to retreat to my cliff. But before my hydras could get back up, a storm hit them at the most perfect spot, right between the edge of the map and the left side of the cliff. Because of them being bunched, they were gone. The lurkers proved to be effective however, getting about two kills each before dying to goon fire w/ observer support. Now I had to hold the ramp for as long as I possible could. My lurkers, which were at his base, were ferried up to his main and started attacking his bulk of buildings, when a group of archons attacked them. All of their 34-attack damage proved effective, and my lurkers were gone. Meanwhile at my main I furiously try to hold the ramp by running down the ramp, then up with my lings to draw them into my hydras. The zealots are drawn in and wasted, but then the archons came and I knew it was over. With reinforcement goons and his natural set back up, I leave the game knowing it'll only be a matter of time until he gets my island.

That was it for the game. Now my ladder record was 1/2, with a rating of 974. I definitely did not play good this game, as my macro proved fruitless to his micro. I should have not gotten those guardians I feel. It would've been much more effective to use queens and ground units than going air and gambling against storm like that. It is amazing how greatly archons defeat lurkers which would be what I learned this game.
Drops are definitely retarded against Protoss, but the reason I did it was because long ago I had two lurker dropped a Toss and that basically won me the game stalling his minerals greatly. Anyways, never mass drop, they are storm fodder. I hope you enjoyed the report, learned something, and please comment!

Done while listening to the Beatles "A Day in the Life" - 7/9/01

As a added bonus(and a curse to you modem users), here's a pic from a 2v2 bgh game where I went mass ultra/overlord drop and my ally went mutes, in BMP FORM jk.