It's Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since I wrote one of these. And in that time I have grown quite fond of the text-only, hence this is one. If you have any problems with that, or are just a general prick...keep reading and feel free to go fuck yourself.

During a downtime between PGTour seasons, I logged back onto east to revisit my roots, if you will. After being schooled by Keanu, kicking around some lesser zergs, and getting some training on the wcg maps I get the message "Your friend OverTheUnder has entered B.Net." Since all the interesting people had already logged off b.net, I decided to get some games with the Iowan.

Now we all know over isn't the brightest guy in the world, so it's not surprising that he requested a match of his terran against my protoss on Luna. I, of course, accepted and we entered the match.

WTF, a Game in ~NH?!?!

Now yes, I do know that Luna is essentially the new Temple as almost all games one sees are played on it. Despite that fact, I'm going to include a pic of it just in case someone reading this has not seen it yet. Click it to get a larger image.

Over lands his teal CC at the top left starting position, while I warp in my brown nexus at the lower right position (that's 11 for my opponent and 5 for me for those of you directionally challenged). These positoins make a rush less likely, and increase the chances of being able to hold an expo early on.

Opening Moves

This being the second game of our series, I decide that, unlike the first game, I will play a more laid back style. In the first game I won with a rush, in this game I plan on going gate->range-> and most likely second gate. If my probe somehow doesn't manage to get into his base I'll go robo before second gate. Towards this end I go standard build, putting 4 probes on gas asap and merrily pumping probes.

My scouting probe arrives in Over's base, finding no wall (they can't be made on luna, there's a doodad in the way) and a completed marine. I dart him behind Over's mins, planning to keep him alive long enough to harass his fact, with the rine giving chase. Unfortunately for me, as my probe goes behind his min line, Over begins a depot on the side I had planned to exit on. Mine command notwithstanding, the rine plugs my probe. I assume from the limited information the probe gave me that Over is intending to rush me. Whether he goes gundam or joyo at this point doesn't make much difference. Two gate goon is in effect as I start range and warp in my second gate.

Over's scouting scv attempts to harass one of my mining probes...he is quickly snuffed. The scv only saw one gate with spinning core, which leaves him having to guess. I send one of my probes to his choke to see when he moves out and continue production.

My probe barely has time to settle in before 5 rines and a tank remove him from the battlefield. I have 4 finished goons, along with a just finished range and two gates pumping. Bring it on!

maareek: went joyo, eh? OverTheUnder: ;o

I move my 4 goons down the ramp and towards my choke, where I spot the rines. I focus on the front one, killing him in a volley. I take out two more before Over is able to get his men heading back to his base (I caught him waiting for reinforcements, timing baby). I follow, managing to take out another pair of rines along with a vult. I halt my advance at his choke, however, because even though I know he doesn't have siege yet I know that there are mines all over the place.

maareek: worst joyo rush EVER! ;p OverTheUnder: Agreed.

Mid Game? So Does That Means It Gets Beat Up by Early and Late Game?

With this advantage gained I start up a robo and an expansion at my natural. Over attempts to get a vult in there (either to put a mine there or try for my main) but 3 goons run him back. Now I begin pondering my options, and what my opponent has decided to do. Not wanting to be in the dark, I decide to take the direct approach.

maareek: So the joyo failed, you going exp or drop? OverTheUnder: dunno

Well, guess that didn't work. I'm pretty sure at this point that he went expo, but I'll wait for confirmation from obs to exp again. Meanwhile I'll focus on pumping goons and getting my nat up and running.

My obs arrives at his nat, and buys it from a turret. Enemy nat fully functional, so I expo again to 6 (min-only exp). I defend both of my exps with a cannon in the peon line. I also build a shuttle and begin production of speedzeals. To complement these, I begin +1 weapons and a temp archives. I even momentarily consider going Mark4's famed goon/dt strat...then I decide it's better to win. ;p

Over has other plans I discover as roughly a control group of vults fly by my goons in the middle, making it up the ramp into my main with ease. I thought I had told a probe to build a cannon there when I exped...guess not. I send the 3 goons I had on anti-dropship patrol to counter along with a couple of zeals. I then turn my attention away thinking little of the vults. As you can imagine, when I turn my attention back there I discover my min line empty of peons. Shortly thereafter it is also empty of enemies but significant damage has been done.

Proving my theory that obs are the single best asset a P player has, one of mine spots an undefended expansion attempt at 12. A shuttle begins the short fly from the force in the middle and drops 4 zeals on it, killing the scv. Terran reinforcements show up quickly, forcing me to load back up. I know I need to eliminate that expo before he secures it properly but I don't have the zeal force neccessary at the moment. Fortunately, they are already en route.

While waiting for those reinforcements, I begin a nexus at the bottom left natural. My main still isn't mining full swing yet, but I have been saving probes to maynard here instead of back to there.

Late Game

In a mistake, I had sent my reinforcements straight into the new exp of my opponent, where they managed a couple of tank kills before my zeals were vaporized. I pulled these forces back to the middle, cursing at myself for letting those zeals die so carelessly. I'm not overly concerned though because I'm still in a solid position to hold onto the middle and to stay at least even resource wise.

Over counters my mistake with a mistake of his own, making maar a happy boy. He attempts to remove me from the middle with the force he had been using to secure his new expansion. While it was a tank heavy army, I lacked the zeals to really counter it...fortunately I had a shuttle loaded with 4 of them which turned it from a slaughter against me to a slaughter for me. Control of the middle: mine, control of the game: mine. Damn it feels good. :)

During this encounter, Over again tried to harass the probes in my main with roughly a half dozen vults. These were stopped cold however, with combined cannon and goon fire. I decide to take advantage of my recent victory in the middle and go for Over's 12 expo. Despite losing a couple goons to tanks before I could micro them back, it was still a decisive fight. I'm now back ahead in resources as my bottom left nat expo is coming online.

Over against attempts a harass, this time using a 2 tank 4 vult drop at my new expansion. He manages to take out a cannon and several probes as well as discovering my expo attempt at bottom left main (he also got the probe there, but nex was already started) before the calvary came. I made sure he lost both droppers, of course.

Knowing he needs to do something, Over floats a cc over to 12. And while doing this he moves a force out to attempt to take back the middle. Timing is on my side again, however, as I force him to set up hurriedly and he ends up with several tanks and vults on top of each other. A few storms thin out his troops and the goons finish them up. I press forward after getting reinforcements and though it takes a couple of tries I am finally able to break and overrun the terran defences.

Some points of note:

• Over's inability to do any damage with his fake joyo really worked to my advantage. Even though he got his expo up faster, I still had an advantage on troops and definitely in game momentum.
• I had a goon heavy army, whereas Over went mostly vults. Vultures are really useful units and can be used to great effect against anything P can muster but I still think Over would have benefitted greatly from making tanks out of 1 more fact than he did.
• Losing so many probes in my main really hurt. I didn't get it back running until the end of the game. Watching the rep reminded me of...well most of the reps I have of fisheye losing PvT. You know where he has like 3 bases and lets 6 vults kill all the probes at all of them? Yeah, like that.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment.