Hey again. It's been a while since my last report, and I'm sorry to say I'm discontinuing the (intended) three-part series that began with Saithis, Vol. 1. To those of you who wish to continue the story, go ahead and add freely. With finals over and me leaving for Japan in two odd weeks, I just don't have the time to write another three battlereports. What I did have the time to write about is an amazing game played between Dialtone_ and FoodTastesGood. (The fact that the game was played on Lost Temple shouldn't even come as a surprise to you.)

The setting: op ~nohunters. Mr.Puddles and I had been talking for a few minutes over whether Wally truly is > Dilbert, when Dialtone finished a game he had been in and entered the channel. A (I had thought afk) FoodTastesGood chose that moment to wake up, and Puddles and I spammed something to the effect of '1v1 we obs!' After some convincing they agreed, and the game was made.

Dialtone_:

The loving owner and administrator of The Warsmith, his skill with humans is unmatched (at least by me). I believe his highest point of skill was back in Reign of Chaos, where he lorded over the rest of B.net with his knight icon and a flashy "17" next to his name. Chosen pink humans this game; 3:00.

FoodTastesGood:

No doubt the connoisseur of many fine and exotic delicacies from around the world. I've only talked to him for a grand total of maybe ten minutes on B.net, but from what I've gathered he's very nice and knowledgeable about FFA imbalances. He currently sports a spellbreaker icon and is level 22 Random Team. Brown orc this game; 9:00.

This game was played in 1.14, so as to give advance warning: no replay. Despite 1.14 being the most awful patch released for any game ever these two still managed to create a very entertaining and humorous game, so I might as well get underway.

Dialtone quickly built a barracks, altar, and two farms with some starting peasants of his. Choosing to build nothing else at the time, he bade his time while waiting for his lumber supply to grow large enough. As soon as resources allowed he followed his usual strategy of immediately teching to tier two for casters. This was risky on two accounts because: 1) he negelected to build any arcane towers incase of hero harassment and 2) he lacked the gold to make more than two footmen for almost a full minute. Had a far seer or blademaster come into his base he would have been screwed like a nail. But alas, none came. More on that in a moment.

(Now's the time where you slip on something warm, stir some hot cocoa and snuggle next to the fire. It's time to talk strategy with enders.)

[I've seen him employ this strategy in most of his games on Lost Temple- he will rapidly creep the middle to level his heroes while keeping up the constant production of footmen. After his tech finishes four or five minutes into the game he'll lay down two sanctums and create a mountain king. The end product is that he will usually have two seperate control groups of both footmen and casters, backed of course by his heroes, ten minutes into the game. After he's good and ready he'll find your base and own you.]

Food, had he only played like most stereotypical orc players and gone far seer as his first hero, could have won the game in five minutes with harassment and a tower rush. Unfortunately that doesn't make for a good battlereport. Instead, he picked a strategy that will probably be remembered long after Starcraft 3 is no longer popular. Bloodlusted sappers? Nope. Kodo drop? Wrong.

Food had not only created a Shadow Hunter as his first hero, he was fast expanding.

[The problems with fast expanding as orc are many. One, it takes longer to construct a great hall than for Ling to finish one of his famous Bush rants. Secondly, the cost of building said hall is staggering for an orc player so early in the game. Against a human player on a small map like Lost Temple, an orc player needs to either spend all his money on grunts to ward off any rushes or attempt a fast tech with towers. I'm not saying fast expanding as the green skins is a terrible decision, it's just difficult to successfully pull off.]

The troll and three grunts cleared the 9:00 natural with no casualties thanks to some tanking serpent wards, and Food grabbed some sentry wards for his efforts. As his forces moved out to the 6:00 natural a lone peon was sent down his ramp to begin construction of the expansion. In the meantime Dialtone had been creeping the middle, taking both troll camps and the southwestern ogre group with the assistance of water elementals and footmen. Moving further through a group of gnolls he exited the temple on its western side, right next to Food's ramp. A scouting peasant of Dialtone's then conviently found the orc expansion, which had just finished completion. With no orcs in sight and a perfectly vulnerable expansion just sitting there, the human army set out...

As did the orc army. Food had set a sentry ward at the base of his ramp and saw his opponent's army stationed there. Breaking off from the current battle he was in with the natural creeps he raced northwards and managed to catch Dialtone from behind. The orcs had a good three seconds of free attacks before the humans responded (I'm guessing Dialtone was tending to his base when he recieved the attack warning) and took full advantage of their time. Despite the surprise Dialtone recovered quickly, thunder clapping four grunts with his mountain king to give his forces time to reposistion themselves. One footman who had taken damage creeping was put down quickly by two axes, and the six remaining footmen rushed forward into... six grunts. As the battle continued it became evident that Food had the advantage, as footmen fighting grunts at a 1:1 ratio don't fare too well =]. To compensate for his small footman force Dialtone made full use of his heroes, spamming storm bolt with his mountain king while constantly raising water elementals with his archmage. After about a minute and a half's fighting the two broke off from each other, Food to his base where a tauren chieftain was waiting and Dialtone to the orc expansion.

With his tauren chieftain backing his grunts Food ran (albeit slowly now with the bovine) down his ramp and flanked Dialtone. The battle, which now should have been overkill for the orcs, was still even however. Killing the two peons who were mining gold at the expansion merited the archmage with an extra level and skillpoint, which Dialtone gladly invested in blizzard. With his footmen providing a barrier for his archmage, he was free to cast the crowd control spell at his disgression.

And what do you know. He used it a lot.

To counter the effects of blizzard Food used stomp whenever necessary to disrupt the archmage's channeling. Both players then began focusing on one footman/grunt at a time, dancing units back and forth to keep everyone healthy. Despite his efforts it became clear that Dialtone would be unable to win. His footmen had half the health of the grunts they were battling with, and it certainly didn't help things with Food casting healing wave (chain healing) on his grunts every thirty seconds or so. After roughly another two minutes of battling Dialtone teleported out with only his heroes remaining. And yet things went on, for before Food could heal his forces he needed to raze the arcane tower firing on his expansion. Seems that scouting peasant had been busy during the fight =].

With three red health grunts remaining Food began the slow process of healing with salves. With his stronghold tech finished he also constructed a spirit lodge/beastiary and began producing demolishers. While Dialtone had lost more troops in the last battle he had kept up some impressive macro, and so when his heroes teleported home they were met with six more footmen and some sorceresses. Moving down his ramp he killed the eastern goblin shop creeps and picked up some healing wards. He then moved north and slew the 12:00 natural creeps, while at the same time the 12:00 main creeps were being slain by Food. After finishing his creeps off Dialtone moved to the 12:00 plateau and caught Food with his pants down. Eight footmen and six sorceresses caught the four grunts, wyvern, and demolisher completely unaware, and Food was forced to teleport after taking massive casualties (in the form of said four grunts).

Upon arriving home Food immediately began the construction of two towers, while Dialtone sped south to finish him off. The battle would not be the last of the game however, as Dial could find no holes into the orc base. His army was without any siege weaponry, and worse (depending on who's side you're taking), Food's wasn't. The demolisher that had survived last battle worked wonders on the opposing casters- three literally blew up under the hail of flaming rocks being launched at them. Though his casualties were mounting every minute he stayed (four burrows and two towers were constantly firing on him) Dialtone persisted in pushing through the orc base, and his efforts paid off. Two storm bolts finished off both orc heroes, and a sorceress cast invisibility on the mountain king as its health fell into the red zone. The humans simply walked away while the orcs collected themselves.

After the battle Dialtone went on two expand twice simultaneously, taking both his and the 12:00 natural. After putting up some towers at each he created a third barracks and began whoring knights.

You can imagine the trouble Food was in now. Using the goblin scanner at night (neither lab had been crept yet) he found his opponent's expansions, and checking his own, realized that it held very little money left. At this point in the game he had had no real victories- once he made Dialtone teleport after taking incredible casualties and twice he himself was forced to retreat. What he needed now was a solid, game ending victory before the human army could begin utilizing their excess funds. On that note, he set out along the southern side of the temple, ready for one more great battle.

While Food remained in his base for another two minutes (the game was now approaching the twenty minute mark) Dialtone headed out for the southern goblin lab and attacked the ogres there. In a stylish display he used polymorph to turn some into mostly harmless little sheep before killing them. His reward? An ancient Janggo of Endurance (which he happily placed on his midget):

It was at this point that Food moved out. Both armies at this point were fairly large, around the 50-65 food range. The orc heroes consisted of a level four Shadow Hunter and level three Tauren Chieftain. They in turn were backed by about five grunts, three witchdoctors, a kodo, two wyverns, and three demolishers. The human army was a little larger, and had hero level advantage, but no artillery. It was made of a level five mage, level four hammer midget, and roughly two control groups of assorted human tier two/three (footmen/knights/rifles/casters).

The two met at the southern end of the temple and broke lines immediately. Instead of bunching up as casters and riflemen often do, Dialtone did a relatively good job spreading them out as to avoid demolisher fire, which Food was applying quite gratuitously. The wyverns were rendered useless thirty seconds in, mainly because flying sheep are unable to do much but dirty cars while passing over. The rest folded out as any battle- the melee units and heroes locked horns in the middle, with spontaneous thunder clapping and stomping adding to the amusement of the observers. The archmage never once stopped using blizzard throughout, targeting the most exposed groups of units it could find (witchdoctors, the demolishers, etc.). Food did a nice job of negating it however, using healing wave on the afflicted units and hex to turn the archmage into a walrus when he wasn't looking. Footmen and knights were falling at a rapid pace thanks to the tauren chieftain's stomp and shockwave attacks, which were racking up a combined 180 damage everytime they were used. Level three serpent wards (the shadow hunter had hit level five at the beginning of the battle) were also doing 41-45 damage every shot, which was taking a clear toll on the human ranged units. The human army was giving just as much as it got, so to speak, with riflemen picking off grunts left and right and the mountain king killing three witchdoctors with stormbolts. As the battle thinned out, the players hero micro became much more obvious, with storm bolts and shockwaves being more carefully aimed- as were healing waves and blizzards. Things became very exciting when the tauren chieftain got off a perfect stun on the moutain king with stomp, followed by a shockwave and three direct hits from the demolishers. The level five mountain king was at roughly fifty health when the last sorceress remaining cast invisibility on him.

Both armies retreated from the battlefield after that, the demolishers and sorceress the only non-hero units still alive.

[What was so interesting about the battle as I watched it was how easily it could have gone either way. Stasis traps from the witchdoctors and slow from the sorceresses were keeping all the units even (although the human units did benefit from the Janggo) and priests and healing wave kept most units in green health. The cow and midget were both serving as excellent tanks, with stomp and thunder clap killing units left and right. What really decided the battle were the demolishers. Every volley succeeded in killing at least one human unit- whether it be a previously damaged rifleman or priest. The burning oil upgrade kept the ground on the human side burning throughout most of the battle, dealing five damage every second. If you factor that with the battle being about two and a half minutes long, that's an extra 750 possible damage that Dialtone's units could have taken.]

Unfortunately, Food's economy flatlined after the battle, with both goldmines empty. He gathered together one last orc party of a few witchdoctors and grunts and headed out for the 3:00 natural expansion led by his heroes.

Dialtone, however, was in the money. Four barracks were now producing knights constantly, and eight sorceresses that had been trained during the last battle were ready to move. He led his units to the temple fountain and finished off its last gnoll creep when he recieved the warning that his expansion was under attack. Rushing back with his forces he found Food wrecking the town hall. As his forces closed the orcs turned around to recieve the attack... and were utterly slaughtered. As the picture will show you, Food was caught between the natural goldmine, the town hall, the trees, and the line of knights that were advancing on him.

Since he had nowhere to run Dialtone had an easy target for blizzard and thunder clap... After his army was swept off the map in under fifteen seconds both players exchanged a genuine "gg" and FoodTastesGood left the game.

This was really one of the closest games I've been lucky enough to observe; in all their battles neither Dialtone nor Food was able to really come out the winner (if you're not counting the fight at 12:00 =]). In the end Dialtone simply won based on superior macromanagement and resources. I want to thank the two of them for putting on such a good show, and at the same time apologize for putting out this report so long after the game. I'm not sure if either of them will even remember it. Thanks for reading, and for God's sake go see Assassins if you live in the greater Broadway area. Later.