THE GREAT DILEMMA

I was desparate, I hadn't written a battle report in weeks. I had to get onto battle.net. But the evil AOL monsters had configured their servers to cause intolerable lag to all the Starcraft players who attempted to cross over their territory and into Battle.net land.

Suddenly, I had an idea. I didn't have to go onto Battle.net to find a Starcraft game to report. I could create a fake one.

The minute the idea came into my head, I instantly dismissed it. No! That would be wrong!! I felt dirty just thinking it.

But then, thoughts of other infamous battlereporters who had done fake reports came into my head. They were still respected in the community. Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing.

I dragged my mouse towards the Starcraft icon and was about to click when suddenly, a bright flash of lightning nearly blinded me followed by an unbelievably loud crash of thunder. The house shook and my screen went blank as well as the TV screen that had been humming quietly in the background. The power was gone!!!

I began to shake. I realized that the Starcraft gods had spoken. There was no way I could do a fake battle report now for fear of their wrath.

10 seconds later, the power came back on. After restarting Windows and running scandisk, I gritted my teeth and double clicked on the AOL icon. I watched as the little man ran across the screen and heard the deep generic voice say, "Welcome" followed by, "You've got mail".

Curiously, I clicked on my mailbox:

Visit www.xxx.com for some hot babes who want you to look at their beautiful naked parts.

P.S. Don't write fake battlereports jackass.

AOL is effecting my brain

Before I realized what was happening, I was in the chatroom of a game called, "1vs1 Hunters Rox!!" The player who had created the game was Indigo~Bob and he was in no mood to chat because the second I entered the chatroom, the countdown began.

I started out with Brown Protoss at the top middle position. My opponent had chosen Blue Terran and I would later find out that he started in the bottom middle position.

Master Plan, Phase 1:

I started out the game with my favorite Hunters build, the forge first, block your choke with 50 bajillion cannons. Due to the fact that I had the upper middle position, I could block my choke with cannons and have access to 3 vespian gas nodes. This would be very important because I would need all the gas I could get for the strat that I would be using.

With my choke secure, I began to work on my master plan. I built a gateway and then a cybernetics core. I also started a second Nexus at the top left starting position. I was mining heavily at this point and my minerals were beginning to pile up a bit so I built 2 more gateways while I waited for my cybernetics core to finish its warp. Then I built a Citadel of Adun and a Robotics facility. My nexus at the top left position finished its warp and I immediately transferred probes over to it, four of those probes to the assimilator I had constructed. I now was mining gas at full speed out of 2 assimilators, but I knew this wasn't enough. I sent a probe down to my natural and began another nexus there.

Meanwhile, my Citadel of Adun had completed its warp and so I started in with a templar archives.

Earlier, I had sent a probe out to scout and he arrived at the bottom middle position and that is where he found Indigo~Bob's terran encampment. My probe didn't get very far though because some marines were guarding the choke while an SCV constructed a bunker. My probe went up in a puff of blue smoke, but not before he sent back this valuable info. It looked like Indigo~Bob was working on a turtle type build order.

When my templar archives finished its warp, I immediately started researching Mind Control and began warping in 2 dark templar. I also constructed 3 more gateways bringing my total up to 6.

Suddenly the words, "Your base is under attack" emanated through my speakers. I quickly pushed my spacebar, took a couple of screenshots, then went back to managing my base. It seems that Indigo~Bob had sent a sortie of marines to assault my choke. The single file formation made me wonder if Indigo~Bob was any smarter than the stupid AI.

I had all three bases running at full production now. Most importantly, all three vespian gas nodes were being mined at full capacity.

When my 2 dark templar completed their warp, I immediately merged them into a Dark Archon. It took quite awhile for the Archon to save up the necessary 150 manna he would need to use Mind control, so while I waited, I began building high templar out of my 6 gateways.

When my Dark Archon had 135 manna, he hopped into the shuttle and I set him on a southerly course towards the west side of Indigo~Bob's base. I landed him on the ground and was delighted to see that he had a lone SCV there constructing a factory. No other sign of threat seemed to be in the area so I quickly mind controlled the working SCV. For some reason, even though the SCV was under my control, he seemed to want to finish his building. I frantically tried to pull him away when suddenly, 12 blue SCVs appeared out of the fog of war. Indigo~Bob was going to punish his disobedient SCV with the mineral cutters of his own SCVs. Just as Bob's SCVs began to surround my new SCV, I was able to pull him free leaving Bob behind to fume.

As my shuttle flew out over the open Hunters plain, I breathed a sigh of relief. Phase 1 of my master plan had been successfully completed.

Master Plan, Phase 2:

I was producing high templar out of 6 gates and I had researched all 3 upgrades. By the time my SCV completed construction of the command center, I had a total of 24 high templar looking for some action. I continued teching with my newly acquired terran force. I built a couple of supply depots and a barracks and then a factory.

It was about this time that I was forced to defend myself again. Indigo~Bob had launched another assault and he sent it at me in 2 groups. The first group consisted of marines, medics, and firebats. Once again, they came in single file and once again they were completely obliterated by my cannon choke. I began to chuckle to myself but my chuckle quickly turned to a frown when I heard the sound of tanks seiging. I started to grumble to myself because now I would have to defend myself.

Indigo~Bob had 6 tanks raining fire down on my cannoned up choke. All I had for defense were high templar and I knew they wouldn't be able to get close enough to storm. However, the tanks were unsupported since all the infantry had been destroyed by my cannons. Seizing the opportunity, I loaded a templar into my shuttle and dropped it right into the middle of the tanks. I fired a suicide storm over all 6 tanks. The templar died, but now, 5 of the 6 tanks were in the red.

I already had another high templar in the shuttle accompanied by a Dark Archon and once again dropped it right in the middle of the tanks. This suicide storm was enough to finish all but one tank and I used my Dark Archon to mind control it.

Indigo~Bob was not pleased by this turn of events.

I continued to tech with my terran force and constructed a Starport and a Science Facility. I added a Control Tower to my Starport and a Physics Lab to my Science Facility and as the Physics Lab completed, the lights of the Starport began to blink. I produced a single battle cruiser and was ready to begin my assault. I took my 22 remaining high templar and my lone terran battlecruiser and headed south.

When I reached the middle of the map just north of Indigo~Bob's main base, I put my high templar into 4 control groups. I then started creating hallucinations. I didn't stop until I had exhausted every single bit of manna that those templar had to offer. The tired templar, energy sapped, fell to the soft Hunters turf and stared up into the sky at their handiwork. 44 hallucinated battlecruisers and 1 real battlecruiser floated quietly in the air.

I quickly put my battle cruisers into 4 control groups and head south. In order to sell my trick, I had my one real Battlecruiser fire a yamato cannon shot into the northernmost bunker and then I attacked with all my cruisers in full fury.

I couldn't see Indigo~Bob of course, but I imagine his chair got real wet real quick when the horizon over the northern part of his base darkened with my cruisers.

His fear quickly turned to anger however and accusations began to fill the screen as my Battlecruisers pretended to tear into his northen most defense structures.

And then...

Amazing!! By sheer bluff, I had gotten my victory!!!

After the game, I sent a message to Indigo~Bob just to let him know that those hadn't been real cruisers, but he never responded and soon, he was offline. I dropped into Nohunters shortly thereafter to brag about my victory.

And Now, The Moment of Truth...

Here are your choices:

Keep an eye on JV's brand spankin' new kickass forum because in a couple of days, I'm gonna tell you if this truly happened, if I embellished it a bit, or if I made it up...

Cheers