Welcome to the latest ZerG~LinG battlereport. This is unlike anything that I have ever done before, so I hope it turn out well. (Hi raters).

Tuesday 14/5 21:49

I boot up my computer and head straight for battle.net. My 56k GVC modem proceeds to blink and beep for several seconds before it finally connects with the server and pulls me into battle.net. I quickly do a /f list check (on Europe) revealing the sad truth; none of my buddies are online, huk huk. With new hope, I press the join button in hopes of finding a 1on1. Several comp stomps, BGH beatdowns, and a few LT 1v1//2v2 meet my battleready mind under the melee category. I desperately scroll up and down in hopes of finding a non-LT game but having no such luck, I join a 1v1 LT.

Tuesday 14/5 22:05

I believed he hacked.

Tuesday 14/5 22:06

The recent battle convinced me to log off for today, but as I went back to my windows desktop, a small icon caught my eye...

Hmmmm, staredit? I had an idea, I would free the world from tedious Lost Temple beatdowns, and endless BGH battles! I would make my own map! *Ominous music here*

Tuesday 14/5 22:07

I thought for a while about the name, and a quick battle between a few names that popped inside my head led me to the name "Sentinel". Great, all we need is to make the damn map, and put it to the test!

Tuesday 14/5 22:15

God damn, staredit is a pain. Anyway, I've settled for the Twilight Dirt terrain, because I think it looks great, and hardly any maps are made with it. The size of my wondermap is 128x128, the most appropriate size in my opinion. Next thing to deal with is the players, I feel that a four player map will be best, they tend to make great 1v1's and 2v2's (obviously).

Tuesday 14/5 22:17

The thinking part is over, and with much hassle, the basic layout has been decided on. With liberal use of the sunken ground terrain, I manage to slap this together:

The idea is to make it island in the beginning, but more land based as the match proceeds, also the sunken ground is not like low and high ground, you can see the higher parts, even when your units are in the sunken ground. Now its time to place the minerals and starting positions...

Tuesday 14/5 22:49

My God, I never woulda believed that map-making could take so long =( I've placed the starting locations and the minerals. Added a natural in the sunken ground, and the "Sentinel" in the middle, a high ground area with a rich expansion. Also added was two mineral only expansions, one to the west and one in the east.

So far so good, my two brain parts had a bit of a battle, the creative one, and the logic one. The creative one won and I proceeded to lay the smack down with an unhealthy amount of doodads =).

I've come this far, and the obsers have gotten the appropriate triggers, I think I'll call it a night and test the map some other time, school is waiting tomorrow =(. On a side note, the map seems very open. Some people like it, and some don't, maybe I will add a bit more "stuff" where the big open parts are, what that would be, and how much I haven't decided yet, I guess we will find out...

Thursday 16/5 22:03

With the map finally done, I thought it would be a nice time to test it. I just forgot one ugly thing; Denmark(where I live) and the USA (where the rest of ~nohunters live) have a time difference of SIX hours, leaving the channel like this:

Not too uplifting, especially since all of them are afk. Instead I chose some ladder action on the Europe server. My freaking mouse burned, leaving me in a game with no mouse. I believed he hacked it.

Sunday 20:55

Back on the job, I made a critical decision about the map. After playing with a friend on LAN, we found the map to be much to slow for our liking, and too much like No Way Out. Therefore, ramps were added for the sunken ground surrounding the main base. After fiddling with the freaking triggers for much too long, I copied a "Give Vision" script from another obser map I had lying around. (Kinda owns the "place a million map revealers" thing). Now I felt the map was ready for a spin in ~nohunters!

Game 1:

To my great surprise, several people were currently available for a match, so I wasted no time in creating a 1v1 on my new map. Almost immediately, Celix joined, ready to do battle. Eternal_Decay was obsing this historical match, and proceeded to comment on the map a few times :-)

I got my chosen nexus at the top right, while Celix warped in a similar structure at the bottom left position. I started my tech towards goons, the classic PvP unit, while a probe was sent to gather information. And information it got, celix was going for a rushy build, making two gates pumping zealots. Luckily (for me) the map is quite large and I had plenty of time to get my own retaliation force, beating his men back rather easy.

The match continued onwards, a few minutes later I tried my own attack, but to no avail. Seeing how he was camping with goons and reaver, I countered with a templar/DT tech. This tech would prove rather useful, since I managed to slip a single DT into his peon line, quashing EVERY SINGLE PROBE, without any reaction from Celix. This disaster made him quit the game, leaving me and the obser laughing our collective asses off. Below is a set of quotes from the match.

Thoughts on the game:

Well, it didn't last that long, celix kinda got oofed by the powers of DT :-P This wasn't gonna be my last game though, as I went back to ~nohunters, looking for more...

Game 2:

Upon my return to the channel, a msg from the great SiG. aka Box noted me that he was online. Seeing an opportunity to both test my map, and hand out a bit of whoopass, I asked him for a game. Revealing my plans for this BR, box was more than happy to compete, since his only br.com action so far had been a single report, and several gay quotes. After the usual gay pre-game talk (see below) we started the game.

I received my yellow nexus at the top right position (again) and began my clockwise scout. In a stroke of genius box gave away his race by saying "bad wall" prompting me to cancel my dual gate and go for the cuteness of the reaver.

Even though he liked my map (bless him) his skills were kinda laughable, as he got totally owned by a single reaver and three dragoons. After calling me a hacker, lamer, etc. etc. a number of times, we agreed on a rematch.

Thoughts On The Game:

Not much of a game really, who knew box could play this bad?

Game 3

So could this be another gay game? Have patience my young chobowan.

I landed myself a blue command center in the north west (top left). Box The Great got his chosen terran in a nice orange color, directly under myself in the south west. (Bottom left).

None of us were in a hurry, and we slowly climbed the tech tree. Box put his minerals and early gas to good use, slamming down a factory and a early CC in the far left of his base. I went with a more conservative build; two factories followed up by a starport gave me the initial advantage in troops. I scouted with a scv named Peonopropolis Nematíc Polski, a great worker I picked up on my last trip to Poland. The brave worker simply walked through Box's l33t wallin', revealing the lone factory. With this information on hand, I knew an initial attack would be clever.

By the 6:30 mark, I decided to make my move. While my third factory was under construction my force split up. Two tanks were loaded in a dropship while a handful of vultures took the land route. My plan was to drop the tanks right beside the defending, sieged tanks, and as he unsieged I would sneak my vults in for damage or peon bashing. No doubt a great plan, but as I arrived on the scene, everything went wrong. No tanks were sieged, since Box hadn't researched that yet, and my vultures met with around ten scv's being "maynarded" to his new expansion at the south east natural. The vults only got a few scv's before orange tanks rolled from the sunken ground, killing them swiftly. Meanwhile, my tanks in the dropship were en route to his peon line, ready for some bashing, but as I landed them and tried shiftclicking the scvs, I hit the "S" button by accident and they began sieging in the midst of the scvs, leaving plenty of time for Box to send more tanks to intercept.

A perfect lesson on how NOT to drop. Who said you can't learn from my reports? Box had his new exp up and running, and I was making my own CC in the top right part of my base. I was currently working on my fourth factory, making sure to keep up my terran macro, one of my weaknesses. Box was still working two facts only, while having a scv circling the map and constructing turrets. (Clever boy)

Even though Box was behind in macro, the next offensive move belonged to him. A siege line was lined up below my base, using a floating barrack for extended range. (A tank can shoot further than it can see) With a complete line on the normal ground, Box transported two tanks to the sunken ground and sieged them. In a brilliant move I decided to move my army out at this exact time, without scouting ahead. The siege caught me totally off guard and I lost five tanks while only killing one and damaging another.

Not exactly the best move on my part. Having learned another lesson, I must say Box didn't take long to notice the siege advantages on the map. Following this encounter, Box started two new expansion, one at 9 O'clock (a mineral only) and another at the south east main. All the while I decided to go for the more delicate way of breaking a siege.

I quickly dealt with the one tank in the sunken ground by sieging three of my own tanks within range, allowing him a single shot before blasting the tank to pieces. I made a distraction by dropping two tanks on his new expansion at 9 'O clock, followed by two more in the same spot. These tanks helped flank box's siege line, and with the addition of a few more dropped tanks, the sieged was quickly broken. Meanwhile, Box wasn't giving the battle much attention, as he focused on something very different inside the safe realms of his base...

Yes my boys, we have Battlecruisers in da house. To my luck, I started a armory right about this time, and made a few goliaths, unaware that Box changed his tactic. Hax or luck? ;-]

I started scanning the map for enemy expansions, and since Box had quite a few, it wasn't too hard. My pimp squad, consisting of five tanks and a gol or two, headed for the southeast natural. Making full use of the sunken ground I sieged my tanks above the base and started hammering arclite shells on the poor workers. Though the base was easily toppled, Box weren't gonna let my men get away, and he sent his entire battlecruiser fleet (around eight at the moment) to intercept. My two goliaths were obviously no match for the mighty ships, and fell quickly to the ground amongst the shattered tanks. Though I lost a few men, Box's move was a great advantage for me, since I had time to switch to full goliath production.

Box's newly purchased cruisers weren't gonna sit idly by in his main, and within a half a minute or so, they arrive at my main, coming in from the south. My goliaths were waiting, yet still without their range upgrade. The battle begins as the cruisers start pounding my mechwalkers, I use focus fire effectively, and Box is driven off after three cruisers had fallen. While Box is busy, I hit two of his expansions with some spare tanks and Goliath, both the southeast natural, and the 3 O'clock mineral only take severe hits, losing their peons. But within a few seconds, the cruisers scoop up my men without much hassle.

This left Box's cruisers at the 3 O'clock exp, and I wasn't gonna let this opportunity slip to wipe them off the board with my supreme Goliath force. I arrived at the exp, but to my great dismay, the cruisers didn't go into direct combat. Instead, Box led the capitol ships northwards, where he stumbled upon my newest expansion (the northeast natural), destroying it swiftly. My goliaths were still en route around the sunken ground, and arrived at the nick of time at the northeast main, where the cruisers had already blasted some of my poor scv's. When the cruisers were finally trapped it didn't take much effort to down them with my ~20 goliaths.

During the previous battle, a couple of fresh goliaths killed the 3 O'clock exp, and an small strike against the southeast natural was neutralized by Box.

Box's great macro pays off, and before long another fleet of death is ready. About four new ships steer towards the middle and begin chasing a dropship. I see this and set up a trap for the poor ships. My small army of nine goliaths show Box some cost effectiveness by only losing two of their number while effectively destroying the four capitol ships. That's 1600 minerals and 1200 gas in exchange for 200/100! Seeing how this kind of waste obviously can't go on, Box starts pumping tanks to complement his cruisers.

I was gaining the upper hand now. With three expansions to his four, it was all about keeping the initiative. I tried a drop on the 9 O'clock mineral only, but it was raped in such a manner that it doesn't even deserve a picture =[ Box had a nice tank army, and he used his cruisers to lure my goliaths into the waiting siege tanks. Definitely a killer team. I realized a tech change of my own was needed, and I chose the mobile and *cough* powerful *cough* wraith.

My newfound love in the aerial unit would soon be tested, as a scouting scv of mine spotted a small group of cruisers circling the middle. Backed by goliaths, the wraiths swooped in from the side and downed the ships before Box had a chance to scan or retreat. Realizing how close I was to Box's base, I pushed on through a couple of tank/turrets combos ahead. As I reached his ramps Box finished four more cruisers. After hard fighting in the area around the ramps, Box lost the four cruisers, but I was left with no more than two wraiths. This formidable force was moments later raped by a single turret =P

Not much either gained or lost from the previous battle, Box still controlled one more expansion. So instead I expanded to the 3 O'clock mineral only spot, to even the income. Only moments later, four cruisers ruined my fun and smacked the command center to the great unfinished building heaven.

It didn't take long for my Goliath force to arrive, and they quickly dealt with the cruisers. On my way back to the middle, a nasty surprise awaited; no less than an entire group (12) of sieged tanks blew my ~20 goliaths away. Apparently, Box had switched to heavy tank production and the expansion-killing cruisers were no more than a diversion. To add to my shame, Box took this opportunity to grab the center expansion with two gas sources and a heap of minerals.

Box was no fool (sure?) and to keep the pressure, he successfully attacked my northeast natural, leaving me with only a single base for income. A last ditch attack from my remaining goliaths failed miserably, and I conceded the game with a friendly "GG"

Thoughts on the game:

It really was a tight game. I thought I had him when he was pushed back into his main and I was equalizing income, but tanks and battlecruisers are a fantastic team if you can afford them. This game proved that The Sentinel can easily be the battleground of sexy battles. The first two games were so easily won by me because my opponent knew nothing of the map, and were a bit nervous to pull anything decent off. The small bit of experience box got apparently did the trick. (Can't believe I got owned on my own map...)
GG box, and at least I smacked you around on YOUR map later that same day ;]

So folks, that's all for this time, hope you enjoyed my experiences with making and playing a new map. Sorry to all of you expecting a Babe BR, but I felt more like doing this. The babe BR will follow within the next month, and will even be in a "clean" version ;-) (And a dirty one of course)

The map can be downloaded here: The Sentinel

Before I sign of completely, I give huge credit to the man behind my picture backgrounds. Yes everyone, its Greg Martin. His work is available at www.artofgregmartin.com and is probably the best space art I've ever seen. Sorry for any misunderstandings. Huge credit to Greg!

Shoutout to CHJ for being a rater, Lebman for the fun we had with herbal_v, Poohandler for posting like mad and Mark4 for posting my guide. Bye all!

-ZerG~LinG (fan)Mail