"Check your ledge, or risk checking into smackdown hotel later. Right T_Mac?"
-Fractal_Wave
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| And I thought it was a ladder game.... | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 06/28/99 09:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Kazyras: 7.0000 |  | Well it started as your usual 1v1 ladder match on Lost Temple (or so I thought... hehe I wasn't paying attention I guess). My opponent who had a decent record immediately picked Protoss while I've let fate decide and went random. I spawned at the 6:00 spot and I drew Terran, which made me wince. Not because I can't play Terran, in fact I can play them very well, it's just that he was PROTOSS with a good record, and I was TERRAN if you see what I mean. :)
In any case I had a strategy set in mind: super duper early forward bunkering at my chokepoint turret up a bit here and there and get quick tanks then expand and mad tech (which is BTW, a VERY valid anti-Protoss strategy on maps like Lost Temple).
Unfortunately for me, my opponent spawned at 9:00 and did a standard 3 gate zealot rush order and scouted with the probe that built his first pylon (my guestimate) and found me right away. He saw my depot and my barracks building at my choke, and wisely decided to zealot rush my ass into the next dimension.
He rushed me with his 2 first zealots, when they arrived I had a 2nd barracks and refinery done at home. I sorta expected the zealot rush since I would've done it myself if I had been in his shoes :) I was hastily preparing for firebats. I also had a bunker halfway built at my choke... sadly, he decided to attack my SCV before he could finish it. But he kept moving around as he was building, so he just attacked the bunker instead. Since he was manually targetting the bunker, I took the opportunity to take free shots at the zealots. He was baited everytime and I'd just run, then return when he gave up the chase. I killed his first two zealots this way, but at the price of losing my bunker and SCV.
His next 3 zealots, then more and more came and didn't take my baits as much anymore. He just send enough zealots to chase away my marines or otherwise lose them. Those zealots eventually died and he'd just send a few more again while the rest was destroying my barracks and depot. I COULD'VE lifted off the barracks, but then he would've destroyed my little blockade faster and he would've most probably taken a chance and charged my base which would've been devastating.
At the end (when my blockade was destroyed), he only had 2 left. I didn't lose many marines since I always used a fresh one as forward shield for the zealots to hit while all the others took free shots and I'd retreat the shield as he was about to die and send another fresh marines. I work marvelously; however, most of my marines were in the yellow health, if not red and I was betting a lot more zealots were on their way... I built a bunker and an academy and shortly after a barracks. I could now afford those without hindering marine and SCV production. I ordered the most injured marines into the bunker, and bunched up the rest nearby, enough to cover my SCV's. He charged with his 2 remaining zealot as well as 3 new ones; however, I pushed it off. I lost most of my unbunkered marines as well as a few SCV's in the process... but... my academy was *finally* done! :)
I had enough gas to simulatenously research stim pack and train 2 firebats at once. Since 3 more zealots did not came at the usual interval, I swiftly and stealthily investigated outside my ramp... only to see 3 zealots and more coming. My guess is that he figured he couldn't kill me with waves of 3 and decided to mass zealots before what he thought would be his final and decisive strike. In the meantime, I had amassed 8 firebats and decided it was time to fry some zealot butt. :)
I went out, stimmed up and engaged his 12 bunched up zealots. It wasn't pretty. Casualties: 4 firebats and... 12 zealots. :) My opponent's exact comment on the skirmirsh was "Wow..." :P
Anyhow, seeing that he would definitely lose the infantry war from now one as I could easily train marines, firebats, medics as well as stim them, he decided to cannon his ramp as well as near his probes and important buildings in case of drops. I took the opportunity to momentarily pause my infantry production to do a quick tech climb. I got a engineering bay, got a few turrets around in case of a DT rush or a cute DT drop, and a factory at the same time. As soon as the factory completed, I slapped a machine shop and researched siege mode while getting my first tank. And got a starport with the control tower add-on a few seconds later.
My occasional scans on his base revealed that he was simultaneously climbing the templar tech tree as well as the robotic one. If he could expand, I would be pretty screwed. However, he did not get gas until VERY later as he was concentrating on 3 gate zealot rushing me. That gave me some room to adequately prepare myself. As soon as the siege mode research completed, I researched spider mines and the speed upgrade and got a vulture. I also got another one to scout the map for expansions. I did not find any (not even his natural), but the robotic facility led me to believe that he'd try getting the top left island expansion.
I then decided to expand to an island myself by loading an SCV and a vulture. I started building an command center and laying the 3 mines my vulture had. As SOON as the CC finished, a shuttle came by and dropped 4 zealots on my island. My vulture instantly started firing at the zealots, drawing them to him, then the mines popped out, killing 3 zealots and my vulture in the process. There was still 1 zealot alive with ~30 HP left though. This really wasn't my game. :( Anyway, I had trained a wraith for scouting at my starport, so I just ordered it to pick kill the remaining zealot.
Not taking any chances, I lifted off my command center and landed it at my natural expansion and transfered my home SCV's who were just about done mining my main base. In the meantime, I built an extra barracks and factory at home as well as a science facility (+ science vessel + EMP) and started upgrading and pumping infantry like crazy (I think I had already gotten 1 or 2 upgrades some time before) and got a couple more tanks. As soon as my lone wraith was done killing the stranded zealot, I immediately sent it to check the island expansion (as my last scan didn't indicate any expansion there yet.. but I just had a feeling.. y'know). My wraith intercepted a shuttle trying to expand at the top left. Unfortunately (for me), it had the speed upgrade so it evaded swift death with about 30 HP remaining. Then I finally got a science vessel out and decided to attack.
I moved up to his chokepoint without any difficulty. I sieged my tank and blew away his 5-6 cannons on top of his ramp entrance using my science vessel as the upper ground spotter. However, just as I was unsieging to move up his ramp, he made a smart move. He dropped a pair of reavers near my attack force, effectively slaughtering a good chunk of my infantry support. Luckily for me, I had built 2 more tanks during the assault that I had ordered to attack move to my assault force and they arrived just in time to draw fire away from my infantry and got a few shots, giving me time to re-siege my 2 cannon-destroying tanks. One of the reaver instantly got waxed as it had been badly damaged by normal tank fire (they're still good when they're unsieged, people :) and so was the other as soon as the sieged tanks cooldown was over. I lost about half my marines (~10-12) and 1 of the unsieged tank. The other was badly damaged. If you're wondering why he didn't pick up his reavers, it's because my super cool single wraith scared the shuttle away. :)
I eventually got on his ramp, and again, he played smartly and charged in with zealots and dark templars while my 3 tanks were sieging. I had him outupgraded though, my infantry was 2/2 to his 0/0/0 stuff. I irradiated a unit that was in the middle (DT I think) and EMP'ed right after. I controlled my tanks as best as I could to target rear enemy units to not hurt my own stuff... but in the end, I lost all my tanks and all my infantry except 1 marine and 4 medics. My science vessel and cool lone wraith died to 2 corsairs that he had built somewhere along the way. :( He did lose everything too, however he still had quite a few cannons left and I needed tanks to take them down.
I did matter all that much though, as at home I had built 1 more science vessel 3 more tanks and a bunch of marines. As I sent my final attack, he managed to build another reaver and unloaded it near my expansion that was guarded by about 10 marines. I caught a glimpse of the red dot on my minimap (I use diplomatic colors), stimmed my marines and hit targetted the reaver. In 2 shots, the reaver killed all my marines (big surprise) but it had only 7 HP left!! Argh! But then I waited for the reaver to automatically target the nearest thing which was a turret before sending an SCV to give 2 hits with his extremely powerful fusion cutter. Hehe, the reaver died before shooting again. SCV's own reavers!! (j/k :)
Another scan revealed that he had completely mined out his main base. As I was moving my final assault force up his ramp to wax his base, he directly flew the shuttle he used throughout the game over my marine! I don't think I need to say what happened. :) It probably was filled with probes to expand. He then conceeded the game. And I wanted to have some fun with his buildings. :( Oh well....
Then I checked my stats to see how many points I had gained... DOH! I got a normal win... it wasn't ladder! Oh well #2....
Well, this was my first and rather lengthy battle report. Hope you enjoyed. :)
Kazyras
SC Gurus |
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