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Johnny_Hood and his band of merry Mark.

(Images below!)

Johnny_Vegas (Terran) 9 o clock

Mark4 (Protoss) 6 o clock

sp-Smash (Terran) top right

ACStealth (Zerg) 3 o clock

Johnny and I had gotten together in channel nohunters, and decided the time had come to once more take on any all challenges. The denizens of channel nohunters gladly took up our offer. SP-Smash(80-4 record...hmmm) and ACStealth responded to my "I'll make you famous" taunt with aggressive determination. After much debate about the map, including at least one suggestion that Orbital Death is "Mark4's hunters", Johnny opted for the classic Sherwood Forest as the site for our battle.

In the selection room, Johnny chose to represent the zerg until the last moment, switching to his much vaunted terrans. I tried the same ploy, going for terrans and then switching to my preferred protoss. Johnny and I had fired up RogerWilco and were talking back and forth with our headsets. Both of our opponents left their fate to chance while opting for random. As the game started I found myself in the bottom start position. Johnny had drawn the top left. Smash was terran in the upper right, and AC spawned as zerg in the middle right start.

My initial build started with a conservative pylon on eight, gateway on nine, and a second gate on eleven. I deviated slightly from my normal build by getting gas after my second and third zealot were queued up. Johnny elected to scout the right side while I scouted the left. Johnny ran across Smash and saw his wall in approach. He quickly moved in to create a refinery on his gas source, delaying his ability to tech for a while. The recon for the zerg forces of AC showed an early lair and a sunken. In our experience this meant a hard tech strat, and a quick power attack might be enough to finish him. I brought my first seven zealots and Johnny brought six marines. On the way in we spotted a second hatchery at the all mineral expansion outside the zerg base, which we quickly destroyed. As we went in to shift queue our attacks on the sunken, we saw not one or two but five sunkens! With dismay we backed off. Johnny wanted to go for the extracor which was out of sunken range and I agreed. My zealots covered for his attacking marines against the zergling opposition, until a newly morphed sunken forced us into action. Our troops desperately ignored the attacks on them and reduced the extractor to a heart breaking 20 hit points before being eliminated.

With the failure of our first effort we took stock and decided to concentrate on map control. I expanded to the bottom right expansion and got a forge for lurker defense. Johnny fortified his choke and climbed to tanks. I went for templar. My first two dark templar went scouting to the main bases of our enemies. The zerg one quickly perished once detected but the one outside the terran base showed a force of marines and tanks was moving to Johnny. The dark templar killed three marines as they strolled by, then a SCV building a turret at their destination and another two marines before a comsat killed it next to a bunker. Johnny's base was being walled in but a terran master like Johnny always has a trick up his sleeve. Johnny had fewer tanks, but floated a barracks out in front of his base to spot for the tanks. This prevented Smash from moving his tanks in. Johnny's sieged tanks would kill Smash's tanks before they could get in range.

During this duel I cannoned up my expansion, got a stargate, and another two gateways. I concentrated on making dark templar and dragoons from all four gateways, and a few corsairs. The corsair I sent scouting, then overlord hunting. I tried to expand to the lower right, but AC sent in several hydras and a zergling squad, forcing me to cancel the nexus and losing the assimilator. Johnny was nuking his way out of his base at this point. I spotted AC trying to expand to the middle left area, and sent in a pack of 16 dragoons and three dark templar. AC quickly morphed all the drones at his expansion, over eight, into creep colonies. The upgraded dragoons wreaked their havoc in a timely manner and only a few of the colonies morphed to the dangerous sunkens. I took no losses and offered Johnny the base. My observer noticed that AC had expanded to the lower left spot. He had only just created the hatchery when I sent all my forces down to eliminate it. On the way I encountered a defensive force of 18 hydras and a few odd zerglings. My dragoons backed off, but then were reinforced by another 11 and a dark templar from my main base, along with three corsairs to kill overlords. I lost eight dragoons in the initial conflict but the reinforcement turned the tide and I broke through, killing all the hydras and some of the overlords. I chose to expand to the newly freed base. In the meantime Johnny's new base had been assaulted by the previously mentioned force and a few mutas. They had destroyed his defenses and forced him to cancel parts of the base. I now moved my forces to retake this area, but encountered six newly morphed guardians and about 18 hydras. My dragoons suffered light casualties as Johnny irradiated the zerg air fleet, and my corsairs helped finish the job. The ground war was easy at that point when we drove off the overlords. The dark templar cleaned up the mess.

Johnny had free reign at the middle left expansion now. He began a systematic nuking campaign on a terran expansion he discovered at the upper middle resource point. I began to check my bases and found all my probes at my expansion in the lower right had been killed! I found the source after a little looking, cloaked wraiths had stood over my probe line on hold position, and the attack warning had come during the major battle. I quickly used my lone templar to storm the stationary attackers, killing them all in two storms. It was time to do some serious damage. Johnny and I agreed zerg was weak and probably out of minerals. I moved 24 dragoons, a few templar, and four or so corsairs along with four dark templar to attack the zerg main. Johnny patrolled in with his marines and medics, and supported the venture with his science vessels. I lost six dragoons taking down the base, using corsairs to drive off overlords and dark templar to break the defense. Smash knew he was no match for us if his ally fell, and he attacked with six battle cruisers at the zerg main. His assault was announced by his cloned yamato's on my templar. Johnny was not going to stand for much of this, and he defensive matrixed eight of my dragoons to stand toe to toe with the BC fleet. My armored troopers carried the day, along with Johnny's marines. With the distraction over, we finished the zerg base and moved out to the map center except for one templar and marine that stayed behind. In a rather embarrasing side note, AC attacked the marine with a lurker, killing it. My foolish templar then walked on top of it instead of casting psi storm on it, then I cast psi storm on both of them because I knew the templar was dead anyway =p.

The final cruiser learns the folly of attacking dmatrixed goons. Or anything else Johnny doesn't want it to =]

My dragoon and dark templar force attacked the expansion right below Smash's main. He had two bunkers at the entrance. I could only attack the bunker with three dragoons at once, but that was enough to kill it with only one dragoon down. Smash began repairing the second one with SCVs and I moved my force in, then let them attack. The expansion quickly fell. AC had nothing left and realized his partner's position was hopeless. He gave us all a "GG" and left. Johnny's nukes had eliminated almost all resistance at the upper middle expansion. I moved in 12 dragoons and Johnny assisted with marines, tanks and science vessels. The expansion swifly fell. Johnny and I moved all of our remaining forces to a point just outside Smash's choke. I started an attack by defensive webbing the bunkers, then moving in my dragoons but I underestimated the force opposing us. A mass of tanks stopped my offensive, killing most of my dragoons. Once again Yamato blasts sought out my templar, but this time only a few of the attacks succeeded. Johnny had seen what was happening and Dmatrixed my templar. I took my eight dark templar and made dark archons. The next attack was mostly Johnny. He moved in his tanks and science vessels. The mass of tanks at the top of the choke was quickly reduced by lockdown. I helped out with a few well placed psi storms, hitting the BCs and defending tanks. My Darchons had just enough energy to begin a mind control campaign. The few BCs left became mine one by one. The heavily damaged cruisers were quickly destroyed by thier brethren, but Smash had run out of resources to oppose us with. With the last obstacle between us and victory eliminated, we moved into the main base area and began to party. Johnny killed an impressive amount of depots with a nuke as icing on the cake. Smash began begging for the allied victory, but Johnny's steely cold heart holds no mercy, and we finished the game with warp blades and canister rifles.

Lessons learned:

Dmatrix lets templar survive being yamatoed. Its pretty easy to tell which templar a BC is going for too.
Map control is what wins you games. We didn't outresource them at first, but our interdiction of thier new expansions let us do so in the mid game.
Dark templar do work against the zerg. It forces them to take overlords with them everywhere. And even when detected they still fight well.

Make sure your cannons cover the entire back of your probe line too.

Mark4

"I'll make you famous" Mark4

"Hahahahhahaha" Johnny on seeing the zerg main attack die in flames.

"Get a screenshot of this nuke" Johnny

"Please ally with me. We had a good game." SP-Smash

"Ally smally" Johnny with a vicious gleam in his eye.

"Run away!" Mark4 when Johnny goes nuke crazy in Smash's base.

"Before the nuke..."

"After the nuke...any questions?"

"The upper middle expansion falls"

"Johnny knocks on the front door with a nuke."

"The epic final battle"

"Where to not place your cruisers."

"Johnny=nuking god"

"Did I mention Johnny is the nuking god?"

"The final score."