The Grudge Match
By Azhure :)
The Players
Azhure, the hero, champion of all that is small and furry.
Pommy, real life rival, big gay hunters player and keeper of pig dogs. (Disclaimer - may not actually keep pig dogs.)
The Challenge
About three months of taunting by Pommy along the lines of: "I'm gonna kick your ass!" Funnily enough, whenever I wanted to take up the challenge he was always busy... ;)
The Setting
Rivalry - I had to fight long and hard to stop the match being on Big Gay Hunters.
It was a friday night, and after many months of verbal sparring, Pommy had finally agreed to face me across the battlefield. Time to put his reputation on the line against the acknowledged champion of our home town.
(Another Disclaimer - Acknowledged by me and my ego that is :)
Through the amazing innovation of FSGS we were actually able to find each other in the chatroom and get into a game without lagging out! *gasps of astonishment* Yes , it's amazing what you can do when you're not in public Battle.net... like play a full game :Þ
Anyway, back to the story...
We ended up playing 2 games, both on the same map. First up, we both tried the useless trick of changing race from random at the last second to fool the enemy and neither of us succeeded. :)
I started as chosen Toss, bottom right. (sorry I don't have pics of even a minimap but if you're desperate just open the map in Staredit :Þ)
I scouted on the 7th probe and se... what? You want me to give it a name? What is it with this site?!?
Okokokok... Let's call him... Cookie!
Anyway, I sent Cookie to the top left spot first in the hope that I'd catch him there (1 on 1 in 4-corner maps you're often on opposite sides), and found only grass. So, while building 2 gates at home I sent him to the top right spot... guess what? No blonde Englishmen there either!
Murphy's Law I suppose...
Anyhoo... hoping that Pommy's choke wasn't blocked by now I sent little Cookie down south-west just as I got 2 "My Life For Auir!"s in a row.
Excellent. }:)
I was originally intending to just rush him but I thought to myself: "Ok, Az..." (no I don't think of myself as Az, but I'm not telling you my real name :Þ) "Ok, Az..." I says, says I, "What's the most humiliating thing I can do to him?"
"Well," I said back, "You could cannon him, but you're just not that good."
"Hey!" I yelled at myself, "Any loser could do that! And I'm any loser! So there!"
With myself much cowed now I queued up 4 more zealots and a Forge. Yes, forge before Cyber - sue me.
Cookie reached bottom left and as he passed through the natural saw a hatchery already morphing there! No troops guarded it though, so obviously they were waiting at the choke right? Well, no...
There was nothing at the choke actually. There was however 4 already-morphed hatcheries and a spawning pool in his main. Yes, you read it right - FOUR Hatcheries and another morphing before he even had gas!
Chuckling over this BGH player who had obviously forgotten that you can't power that many hatcheries 5 minutes into the game on any map besides BGH, I sent wee Cookie to the corner of his base closest to the choke while I built a pylon and a Battery at my own choke and parked my 6 Zealots next to it.
As my Forge warped in, I ordered little Cookie to build a pylon.
Not enough minerals, mine more minerals.
WTF? You #&@^$ tightass Cookie! Oh pardon me... children may read this... ;)
Waiting until 100 minerals, I planted a pylon and began harvesting from my natural. (Couldn't be bothered with a nexus and I needed that cash.) Once the pylon had finished warping I had enough cash for 3 cannons, since I'd stopped building at home. As I planted the first cannon I saw 6 zlings run past and out of his base. I don't think he even saw them as they went past! =)
Anyway, with my 6 zealots and battery all that was defending my choke from those ravening 6 zerglings I was scared but I knew I had to continue with the cannon push at all costs. ;)
The zlings hit me almost at the same time as my cannons finished warping. They dented the shields on two of my zealots. :)
Anyway, you know the rest of the story - cannons warped and game over.
That was the first game. The second was much more interesting.
Rivalry again, and the same idiotic trick in the game creation screen. We both chose the same races =)
I landed top right this time, and my 7th probe (no! screw you! I'm not naming him!) went again opposite, then top left then FINALLY found Pommy bottom right. I'm beginning to hate this Murphy fella.
Anyway, I went for a quick grab of my natural this time, and all but neglected defences anywhere but the natural's triple choke.
Pommy's favourite 6 Zlings hit my pitiful 2 cannon, 1 battery, 6 zealot defence head on and inflicted so much damage that I was forced to restore the shields of one of my zealots!
Now you must understand, what I was expecting from Pommy was Ultralisks. He looooooves Ultralisks. Sleeps with the big horny thugs - really he does! So, it came as a total suprise 15 minutes into the game when he attacked with about 24 mutalisks. I had a grand total of 2, yes 2 Dragoons. Not even a Templar in sight!
Flying right around my choke cannons into my main I scrambled to warp cannons and train goons. For some insane reason, about half of the muties (unupgraded by the way) chased a zealot into my choke cannons and got wasted. Ah well... made it easier when the other half attacked a half-warped cannon instead of my probes too =)
Once I got 2 more goons the 1/1/1 suckers tore apart his mutalisks and I began to concentrate on building a few base defences instead of teching and cranking reavers =)
I must learn to do that some time... build at least a few static defences that is... :)
Anyhoo - now I was building lots of observers and had just warped in a Templar Archives. I sent 3 observers in rapid succession to various expansion spots all over the map while researching Psi Storm and building two Templar.
This is what I saw... Pommy had his natural and the main part of the bottom left spot. He also had not a single solitary sunken or spore. Hmm... quite a few Mutalisks though... oh, they're still 0/0. Goon bait. }:)
Deciding it was time to let Pommy feel my wrath I sent 12 Zealots to the bottom left expansion to kick some bootie.
"I long for combat!"
*bzzap, tsing, roahh!*
*splurk*
the half-built hatchery at the bottom left expansion exploded like one of my attempts at cooking and the hydras from the expansion that Pommy rushed to the defence died quite pleasingly.
"Ah, Garcon, I'll have the puree'd Zerg expansion with extra Zealots please."
"Ah, I am afraid that we are unable to provide you with that meal - for you see there are too many mutalisks in your soup."
"Mutalisks? What...? Ah crap!"
Yes I know... I attacked with just zealots when he had mutas. I know - I'm stupid. Gimme a break huh?
Anyway, I managed to kill 1 of 2 hatcheries and an extractor as well as that half-morphed hatch and a number of zlings and hydras before they died.
As my observer there got... removed... by the mutas I saw about 3 hydras turn into eggs. Not good.
Then my observer at top left saw a humourous sight... a morphing hatchery!
I loaded a Reaver and 2 zealots (speedy and 2/1/1 by now) into a shuttle and waited for the hatchery and a few other buildings to morph before attacking.
Unfortunately I failed to monitor what buildings were actually being built and before I knew it there was 2 hatches and a Nydus. Crap!
Unloading my shuttle I laid into the nydus with gusto and wiped out the entire expansion with the loss of my reaver and a zealot to the hydra swarms that came through the nydus. :(
Ah well... I flew back to my natural and picked up another reaver and a Templar then flew back to top left as the 3 burrowed drones I had left alive as breeding stock began morphing. Wiping out the expansion with no losses this time I chuckled and sent to Pommy:
"Expansion Killing 101"
"You're going down, Az!" was his reply. I was quaking in my boots. :)
Now came some fun... almost at this exact time the Ultralisks finally arrived. 3 of them. Un-upgraded.
OH NO!!!
*chuckle chuckle*
with their 20-zling escort they managed to kill 1 cannon before dying. Which I promptly rebuilt. :)
Feeling pretty sure of myself now I began to mass-produce goons and laid 2 Stargates for Corsairs. Yes, I was planning the good 'ol SimpleCraft "Corsair/Goon Bitch Slap"!
=)
It was at this time, however that I noticed at the edge of my vision by my natural a devourer floating in mid-air.
Cripes.
Sending an observer out confirmed my fears - 4-5 Devourers, 12 Guardians & over a dozen Mutalisks! Un-upgraded but I was getting used to that by now.
As I was unloading my Templar from the shuttle and moving it to the defence I saw a little snake-like thing scuttle up to the fore of the attack group. Frantically, I unloaded my reaver within range and a single scarab dealt with the Defiler.
Heaving a sigh of relief I began to defend against the instant retaliation.
Three Psi-storms dealt with the Devourers and 1 or 2 Guardians and then my 6 2/2/2 Corsairs flew in from the side. They were hopelessly outnumbered, however and only managed to kill half the remaining guardians before dying. they did take most of the mutalisks with them due to splash damage though =)
Now it was Guardian vs Dragoon. With my choke cannons in ruins and my corsairs nothing more than a memory I was in trouble. The goons numbered about 10 and would have easily killed the 4-5 Guardians remaining except for the fact that they couldn't manouvre around my Expansion nexus and the bridge.
Actually Goons can't manouvre at the best of times, but that's a topic for another place... :)
When they were arranged as best as possible it was down mainly to luck and upgrades and when the dust settled I had 2 half-dead dragoons and my nexus still standing =)
"Not bad" I said to Pommy.
"You killed my Defiler :("
"Yeah, luckily."
One plague coulda ruined my whole day...
My defences were quickly rebuilt and my decimated army (not counting my choke zealots) began the road to glory once more. Now, I knew that Pommy controlled basically the whole bottom of the map - both main and natural at each bottom start and the expansion between 'em. I still only had my main (now dry) and my natural and I was hurting for gas something chronic.
So a few brave probes were sent to expand to my west at the demi-island there. They went cannon-happy since I couldn't spare the troops and 2 Templar sat as backup to the cannons. I knew it wouldn't hold out against a concerted attack and anyone could fly right around to drop from behind but Pommy hadn't shown much evidence of good scouting so I took the risk.
Now the resources really started flowing I set up my final and all-consuming assault. The situation was this - every expansion along the bottom of the map was taken by Pommy. He had NO static defences. He had a very large number of mutalisks hovering above his natural which could be deployed rapidly to counter any attacks. He had a smattering of Hydras and Zerglings between his expansions. He had a whole 1 armour upgrade on his ground troops only. :)
Relying on Pommy's bad recon, I moved my 10-Zealot, 2-DT Decoy Squad™ to just above the bottom-left natural. (the one I had attacked earlier.) I then sent my 12-goon BeefSquad™ to just above the bottom-right natural (with the mutas) and my 6-corsair-with-web escort to hover over the water just above his (undefended) main.
Now this was the master stroke... }:)
The Decoy Squad™ rushed across the bridge and began to lay waste to the bottom-left natural. As soon as I saw (with my observers, remember?) the majority (15-16) of the mutas at the bottom-right natural head west I rushed my corsairs in to attack the rest while I microed my Goons across the bridge.
As soon as the goons began to attack, Pommy realised the ploy and turned his mutas around. But by this time the goons were lined up in a lovely row with the corsairs hovering above waiting for him. }:)
The massive, yet still un-upgraded muta swarm turned into red rain and the goons proceeded to annhialiate first the natural, then the main of the bottom-right position. The few cracklings that Pommy could muster to the defence were rendered all but useless by dancing my goons.
Meanwhile the Decoy Squad™ had razed the bottom-left natural and en route to reinforce the Corsair/Goon Bitch Slap (that hadn't used a single Dweb yet) stopped to raze the Bottom-Centre expansion too! So much for being decoys huh? :)
Now my combined army finished off Pommy's main and began to trek back to the bottom-left expansion to finish what my brave, lamented zealots had started so long ago. The corsairs raced ahead and hunted down the last of Pommy's overlords and I put all of my observers on patrol to make sure there were no foolish expansion attempts :)
As the 5 remaining corsairs (that 1 corsair being the only loss of the attack) hovered over Pommy's final base with impunity, they observed that there was STILL only 2 hatches and a Spawning pool there! =)
4 Hydras unburrowed to try to drive the corsairs away but I just Dwebbed and waited for the goons to arrive :)
This time with another 12 Goons fresh from my base added to my triumphant army I concluded the Pommy-Azhure grudge match with the famous and oft-spoken words: "gg"
Thanks for reading :)
Azhure
Whaaaaat? You want a "Lessons Learned" thing now? What if there weren't any? Huh? What would you do then? What would you do?
Ah ok then, you convinced me... you and that horsewhip you're brandishing...
LESSONS LEARNED*fanfare* :Þ
Upgrade your troops for goodness' sake!
Cookie is a tightass.
Prepare for everything, not just the expected.
I'm still my home town champion. ;)
Static defences to have some use! (Though I woulda just DWebbed 'em :)
Big Gay Hunters tactics don't work in REAL Starcraft!
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