Happy Easter, happy new year, hi there and welcome to my last report. For this year, that is.

Since every good movie should feature (yeah, I know, the least do these days... it's a shame) a programme picture (that's British English for you Yankees - at least my web dictionary tells me so), I decided to add one to this report as well.

Well, not a programme picture, but something I hereby christen programme battle report. Enjoy!

The game I'm about to describe happened already sometime back and I was level 5 at that time (I'm still level 6 now, goes to show how much I play). Unfortunatly I don't have either screens or a replay of it, for reasons I will explain later.

I started the 1v1 ladder search, and fate in the form of bnet handed me a level 9 opponent. Four levels higher than me (hey, phe4r my m4d math skillz!). Unfortunately, I don't remember his name or colour, so he will be known as OrangUtangClaus from now. He chose Orc.

I went random as usual, and the map that bnet selected was good ol' Plunder Isle. I started at bottom left, so obviously his starting position was top right. I got Night Elves, by the way.

I did my trusty NE build-order: Altar, moonwell, one wisp to wood, Ancient of War once the moon well finished. As first hero, I selected a Demon Hunter. Once he completed, I sent him to creep the tome-bearing gnolls near to my main. I also sent out a wisp to scout my opponent.

Upon entering OrangUtangClaus' main, my wisp saw no barracks but several towers. Ok, a fast techer. Knowing that he had no troops, I made the gamble to steal his tome-gnolls as well (as you can see, I studied my CattleBruiser).

And indeed, I was successful. Cackeling gleefully, I ran my DH back to my main, met up with a few archers and headed over to my murloc creeping place.

I also had started the upgrade to tier two as soon as I had seen that he teched; my ToA was done by now and I added an Ancient of Wind to convert my archers to hippogryph riders later on since orcs aren't exactly famous for their anti-air capabilities.

I finished the murlocs, I finished the other gnoll nook, my Ancient of Wind finished and I started the rider upgrade. I still had not seen anything more of my opponent until now, so I decided to continue creeping and headed towards the ogre-guarded mines.

Well, guess whom I run across on his way to pay my base a visit with a whole bunch of raiders? If you answered TillerMaN, go into the corner and put the asses hat on. Of course it was OrangUtangClaus.

Well, I intercepted him at around the gnoll nooks position, and immediately started firing on him. Once again it was proven that piercing damage >>>>>>>>> raiders, as they went down extremely fast to my archers (I had about 6, I think) and riders.

A few raiders made it to my base, but were picked off before they could do any serious harm (I don't know what they destroyed exactly, no tech buildings though, that much I remember).

And this is were the fun starts. For the first time, OrangUtangClaus says something! (The following is a transcript from memory, might not be literally correct - except for his last sentence, that has been burned into my mind forever):

OrangUtangClaus: Your archers are good

Me: Yeah, piercing >> heavy armour :)

OrangUtangClaus: Yes. I have to think of a new strategy.

Me: :) (Assuming I had an advantage now, having pressured him into changing tactics midgame)

OrangUtangClaus: I don't even have a hero.

*OrangUtangClaus* has left the game

At this point I was laughing uncontrollably, pounding my keyboard randomly with my fists. Unfortunately, I missed the print-screen key completely (although I really tried - oh how I tried!).

The "You are victorious" screen came up, and I, still hiccuping madly because of my laughing fit, moved my cursor (with difficulties, but I moved it) to click on "OK".

There and then my computer decided it, too, had a right to hiccup after such a hilarious game and promptly rebooted. This is, alas, why I have neither replay nor screenshots of that game.

But I must say, it was my funniest ladder win ever. Well, maybe apart from the time where my opponent left after I greeted him with a fear-instilling "Hi".

Anyway. That much for the programme report. Now it's time for the real game to make its appearance. Before you click the link below, be warned, though. If you thought my previous reports were big, you will be in for a nasty (or pleasant, depends on you) surprise. 56k users will probably want to kill me for that, but that's ok since they probably won't survive the cataclysmic Cernobyl-like meltdown of their modems anyway. As always, it's optimzed for 1024x768.

Oh, and it is advised to turn your speakers quite a bit up. Thank you and enjoy.