Andrew Stun sat in front of his computer screen. He was bored. Beth was spending her Spring Break in Mexico building houses for the homeless, and Andrew hadn’t had a good night out in weeks. He clicked open internet explorer and immediately after opened one of his bookmarks. No. His parents were home and Andrew wanted to avoid a reoccurrence of last week’s humiliation. Without thinking, Andrew exited IE and clicked on his shortcut for Warcraft.

            Mindlessly he weaved through the barrage of menus and buttons until he found himself staring at the name-creation screen. Since he hadn’t played in weeks, Andrew wasn’t going to risk destroying his level 10 account against better practiced players. And besides, Andrew wanted an easy win. He felt lonely without Beth, and wanted to feel good about himself – losing against some no-life, level 13 and equally aged 13 year-old with an IQ of 13 too, wouldn’t help his cause. With that settled, Andrew clicked to create a new account: Cookiemonster9. Andrew chuckled, he was a clever one, and with that said he went into his first game.

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Alright, this is the part of the report where if I knew flash I would put it in here. The problem is, I don’t know flash, and I don’t know anyone who would want to waste their time making a flash video for me.  Thus, I humbly ask the reader to use its imagination, and please pretend to see a cool flash video here saying…. Insert Star Wars music

Drintr Productions Presents!

A battlereport of Newbiestic Proportions…

Starring Andrew Stun as Cookiemonster9

A guy I don’t know as Bad_Medicine

Another guy I don’t know as Mars_Mool

And me, Drintr, as umm… Drintr!

Westside NEwBiEs Episode I

Hiring your Strategy

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Not only was Andrew Stun a world class lover, but he was also a history buff. For example, unlike many people, Andrew knew that Warcraft III was historically inaccurate because orcs and the undead do not exist, nor ever did exist. Moreover, Andrew also knew that in medieval times (when Warcraft III is supposed to take place) most armies were made up of mercenaries, not nationally owned troops. With this in mind, Andrew decided to add some realism to the Warcraft genre, and beat his newbie opponents with armies of mercenaries instead of regular solders. And thus, Andrew creating these rules for himself:

1- He must play a human race, and use the paladin as his first hero (his shield aura could then act as the equivalent of an armor upgrade for the mercenaries).

2- He could only build footmen at the beginning of the game, and only for creeping purposes. Moreover, he could only use eight footmen maximum.

3. Except for peasants, heroes, and footmen (and only at the beginning of the game), no other units were allowed to be built. Mercenaries must make up the bulk of his army.

Andrew clicked the play game button to start his first game. Within seconds a map (Moonglade) and an opponent (Bad_Medicine) were found. Both Andrew and Bad_Medicine had picked human as their races.

The first moments of the game were uneventful. Andrew constructed an altar, a barracks, and then some houses. When a paladin and three footmen were built, he sent them north into a furbolg camp. With healing from the paladin and the assistance of fresh footmen during the battle, the creeps were easily defeated. Andrew’s force then moved east to eradicate an infestation of spider creeps, and then moved into the northern-center mercenary camp. Back at home, Andrew built a lumber mill and then guard towers for protection. His townhall also began upgrading into a keep.

At the mercenary camp, after Andrew’s eighth footman arrived to supplement his attack force, he ordered a charge at the nearest of two level six creeps. After killing the first creep, Andrew targeted a nearby level four creep. One by one the defenders of the camp were killed. Unfortunately, due to carelessness on Andrew’s part, when fighting the last level six furbolg, Andrew’s (then level 3) paladin was killed. At the sight of the death of their leader, the footmen retreated away from the half dead furbolg to await the paladin's resurrection.

During this time three important events occurred. First, Bad_Medicine located Andrew’s base with a scouting, level four, archmage hero. Secondly, Andrew reached tier 2. And thirdly, a crow went “cockle doodle doo” (meaning that mercenaries could now be bought).  

When his paladin was finally resurrected, Andrew sent it and his footman army back to the mercenary camp. At the camp, the last furbolg was killed and all the available mercenaries were bought. For those who don’t know what mercenaries can be bought on the Moonglade map, here is a brief description:

Thunder Lizard (level 6) – This creep is a giant lizard that can spit lighting at its enemies. The lightning has a small area of effect which can injure both friendly and unfriendly units. The creep also has the spell “slam,” which is a level one version of a mountain king’s thunderclap, except for a much smaller range.

Satyr Shadowdancer (level 3) – Another creep with a ranged attack, this creep fires purple bolts at its enemies. This creep can caste the spell “curse,” a banshee spell which causes enemies to periodically miss when hitting other units.

Furbolg Shaman (level 4) – Another ranged unit, the furbolg shaman can caste rejuvenation: a 400 point healing spell.

With the three new mercenary units, Andrew moved to the southern mercenary camp to buy some more units there. It was at this camp that Andrew’s army bumped into Bad_Medicine’s troops. While at first slightly outnumbered against Bad_Medicine’s level 4 archmage, level 1 mountain king, and handful of footmen, the battle became even, and then lopsided, with Andrew’s purchasing of the mercenaries at the southern camp. With thunder lizards hurling lightning at the enemy soldiers, along with footmen slashing everything in site, Bad_Medicine retreated.

At this point in the game, Andrew created his own mountain king. The hero joined during the last parts of the previous skirmish against Bad_Medicine, and then went up to the northern creep camp to buy some more mercenaries.

With the addition of the mercenaries bought by the mountain king, as well as others bought at the southern camp once the merc timer had refreshed, Andrew moved his now mostly mercenary army to Bad_Medicine’s base.  The first buildings to go under fire by Andrew’s troops were three arcane sanctums pumping out casters. Unbeknownst to Andrew, Bad_Medicine had teched to tier 3 and had built an expansion, leaving him with the technology and money to build a powerful caster army. With his base under attack, Bad_Medicine moved his then creeping army south to defend his homeland. Due to miscellaneous fire, all except for one of Andrew’s footmen were dead – leaving his heroes to be the only melee in the battle (all the mercenaries were ranged).

Andrew’s mountain king hero took the brunt of the enemy’s attack. Consisting of footmen, priests, sorceresses, and water elementals, Bad_Medicine had a powerful force. With almost all his soldiers focus firing on the mountain king, despite the fact that it was being healed by a rejuvenation spell, Andrew’s dwarf hero died quickly. Unfortunately for Bad_Medicine, his focus firing tactic ultimately did more damage to him than Andrew. Because having his footmen all attack the small mountain king required them to move very close together, they were more so injured by area of effect thunder lizard lightning attacks. As a result, most of his footmen were killed rather easily by the other mercenary troops after their slaying of Andrew’s mountain king. With his footmen melee shields dead, Bad_Medicine’s casters and heroes were easy kills. Bad_Medicine’s level 2 mountain king was the first hero to die, and soon after his archmage fell.

With his heroes dead and his base overrun with enemy mercenaries, Bad_Medicine left the game.   

Game 2: Merc it up

Andrew’s second game took place on Legends with the opponent, Mool_Mars. Andrew did not know what a Mool_Mars was, but he did know that Mool_Mars spelled backwards is Sram_Loom – which is just as confusing, so Andrew decided to drop the subject and continued with his game.

 Andrew’s beginning build was very similar to his previous game, and once getting a paladin and a couple footmen, Andrew began to creep. During this time Andrew upgraded his townhall to a keep, and picked up a plus six and plus nine pair of claws, a book of the dead, and a scroll of protection.

One hour before dawn, Sram_Loom or Mars_Mool or whatever, attacked Andrew’s base. An archmage hero utilizing his water elemental spell led the attack, and one teleportation scroll later Andrew’s troops arrived at the base under siege. While slightly outnumbered, Andrew’s guard towers were able to provide enough support to offset his lack of troops. Mars_Mool’s men were successfully fought off, leaving Andrew with the first victory of the day.

The battle had lasted throughout the morning, and now Andrew had the opportunity to buy mercenaries. With his townhall now a keep, Andrew began summoning a mountain king, and then started to upgrade his keep to a castle.  The mountain king and paladin, with the remaining footmen, then went from mercenary to mercenary camp to buy mercs.

Previously Andrew had used a goblin laboratory to scout for Mars_Mool’s base, and thus knew it was directly east of his. Andrew assembled his army, now fully loaded with mercs, and directed them to Andrew’s base. Andrew only took a quick stop at a nearby mercenary camp to get some more troops, and then charged the enemy base ahead.

A single guard tower stood defending the base, and Andrew had his orgre giants focus on taking down the guard tower before attacking anything else. Andrew’s level four paladin provided for a nice shield bonus (plus two) and healing for the mercenaries. Mars_Mool quickly teleported his army into his base to confront the invaders. Mars_Mool had recently built a mountain king as a second hero, and commanded it to lead the charge.

Andrew’s paladin confronted the level two mountain king. Unfortunately, the confrontation was short as Andrew decided that then was the time to activate his book of the dead, and immediately after his scroll of protection. The mountain king was quickly killed, and the paladin, with his skeleton army, moved into Mars_Mool’s supply line.

A bit up north in Mars_Mool’s base, where Andrew’s mountain king and the majority of his mercenaries were located, the battle ended equally fast. Mars_Mool sent his level four archmage to confront Andrew’s level one mountain king, but the abundance of mercenaries at that spot were able to knock the archmage dead before it could do any real damage to the mountain king.

Mercenaries aren’t too adept at destroying buildings, but slowly, building by building, Andrew’s units destroyed Mars_Mool’s base. Mars_Mool had not given up, and during this time bolstered his a southern expansion to replace his main base. Mars quickly built an army, and then sent it to attack the mercenaries that were still attacking his main.

The pitiful force of footmen and water elementals were rapidly chopped up by the mercenary force of Andrew, and because of the attack, Andrew became aware that Mars_Mool indeed had expanded.

Mars’ main was quickly destroyed, and Mars’ expansion was revealed through the efforts of a scouting unit. Due to the large amount of towers in the expansion, Andrew wanted to avoid a direct assault (at least until he had more mercenaries). Since he was at tier 3, Andrew decided to make an archmage which could serve as a rover for buying mercs.

Yet, it was not Andrew but Mars_Mool that would strike first. Now with a force of priests, footmen, and two heroes, Mars_Mool assaulted Andrew’s base. Andrew responded by teleporting his army into the base and attempting to fight off the invaders. This time around, Mars’ now level five archmage had a new trick up his sleeve (and don’t be surprised either, he’s a magician, that’s what he does), and started casting blizzard on Andrew’s men. In retaliation, Andrew gave his mountain king the task of storm bolting the mage whenever it started to caste blizzard, but nonetheless, the spell was able to do a nice amount of damage when not stopped short by mountain king bolts.

In the end, Mars_Mool simply lacked the troop numbers to pose an effective challenge to Andrew. The footmen were ultimately defeated, and without the footmen to act as a shield, the priests became easy prey. Mars_Mool’s archmage was stormbolted one last time, and during the spell’s stun effect the mage was surrounded by ogres and killed.

With his army destroyed and his heroes defeated, Mars_Mool left the game… never to return!

Andrew smiled, he had nicely beat down some newbie ass. Andrew quit Warcraft and looked at his watch... 1:00 a.m. --his parents were surely asleep. With that comforting thought, Andrew clicked open internet explorer to return to the objective he had only a couple hours ago. Sure, Beth was gone for a few days, but that didn't mean Andrew still couldn't have fun.

Woah there, this battlereport is not over yet. You can't end a newbie report without some authentic newbie screenshots. Using the account Cookiemonster9, Andrew played against quite a few newbies (not just the two games shown above), and so for your entertainment, here are some screenshots featuring some of Andrew's more interesting competitors.

Newbie #1

About 3 minutes into the game, x_factor said he had to leave. Although before leaving, he asked if I wanted to know where he was located on the map. I replied that I wouldn't mind knowing, and here is what he said.

Nice try x_factor...

Newbie #2

Alright, being a sexist doesn't necessarily qualify someone as a newbie. But I don't want to necessarily impede upon this guy's right of free expression. Ladies and Gents, I present to you... kajica!

Newbie #3

After beating this guy with my cookiemonster9 account, I couldn't help but further live up to my screen name. I told this newbie that I would give him the game win, as long as he did a little something for me in return.

And that ends my report. If you want, you can go ahead and vote for your favorite newbie in the comments section. =) For those interested, my choice is newbie #2.

Peace and Love,

Drintr