This report was my first BR ever, text only, and was fairly well received by the audience of one who read it. Having submitted my first ever BR to BR.com earlier today (and all it got was a soso 5). I decided to dig around and submit this report as it is available and easy to submit. It is my hope that soon following this will be several other reports that I have done that are much longer and more complex (also better IMHO). So without further ado....the report!

By: [WP]BlacKnight aka Big_GravyTrain

Lightly Edited by: AngeLife

[Ed's note: Well you've all had the chance to see me chastise others’ poor play many times. Only once has a battle report ever appeared with me as one of the victims… err... players. Knight (BGT) has kindly stepped up to the plate to put together a battle report featuring none other than… ME! Well, OK, Ferno, Lotus, and Milk as well. For those who don’t know Milk aka JimBob, he was the lad who was #2 at Fragapalooza, losing out only to Idle’s very own

Well, I tried to take pictures, but no luck there, not sure why, computers are just funny like that sometimes. This is a game between denizens of channel Idle. We hang, we play, for the most part we don’t argue. [ed. Hey I argue as this parenthetical comment indicates!] This game was between four main Idlers with one observer. It was on the old ladder map Bone Canyon. [ed. my favorite! well one of my favorites] The four contestants were Angelife, Inferno, [s]Black_Lotus, and Milk. Teams were Angel and Ferno vs Lotus and Milk. Angel started out in the bottom left as toss (when has she ever not been toss?), Lotus was in the Bottom right as toss, Milk was top left as Zerg, and Ferno was top right as Zerg.

Everyone took a slightly different tactic at the beginning, Angel went for an early forge and made a two cannon, 1 gateway setup near her natural expansion choke. Lotus did a traditional two gateway toss opening. Ferno put a 2^nd hatch at his natural expansion, and Milk put a 2^nd hatch near top of his main.

Angel and her partner were both showing signs of heavy tech, Lotus and Milk (who scouted Angel with his first olord) decide to hit Angel first in the bottom left, Milk sends around 8+ zerglings and Lotus sends 3 zealots (one due to pathfinding AI makes it to the assembly area outside Angel’s base late). As they approach Angel only has 2 zeos and 2 cannons for defense. While Lotus and Milk wait for the third zealot to join the massed troops before attacking, Angel has cooked a third zealot, so now there is another 160 (or is it 180?) worth of hit points to kill, not to mention another set of 18 dmg psi blades. Lotus’s last zealot finally arrives and the fight comences. Angel manages to kill the entire attacking force while only losing 2 zealots. Lotus and Milk had a 2^nd wave coming but with not nearly as many troops as the first. They wisely decide to pull back and not waste their troops. As the troops return home and peace settles over the canyons, Lotus has a robotics facility that is just warping in, Angel meanwhile is just starting her cy core (although she also has an early nat exp that has been online for a while), Milk starts an exp at his natural, and ferno has his main and exp both being mined frentically with only sunkens for defense, that is right ferno has been untouched, has two working bases and plenty of sunkens for defense.

In the ensuing pause as everyone preps for the next encounter, yellow is cranking goons (and in an odd move he has an observatory before the building that lets you make reavers), ferno gets a lair, and angel is laying out mad tech buildings (a citadel and robo fat). A little more time passes and we see a spire finish morphing in ferno’s base just as an extractor goes down at Milk’s expansion, with Ferno having spent little on troops and having expanded early to increase gas production, Ferno looks to take a commanding lead in muta production. Also around this time Lotus finally expands to his natural.

As soon as about 10-12 mutas are up, Ferno attacks Milk. As the mutas fly to Milk’s base, Milk has two evo chambers about halfway done and looks to be going for mass hydras. Luckily for Ferno, the mass hydra stage is pretty far away, and Milk only has 4 hydras in his main to fight 10-12 mutas. Ferno goes straight for the drones and kills all the drones in Milk’s main and then ignoring the four spitting mad hydras, goes to the exp and proceeds to kill a half formed spore colony, then turn on Milk’s 8 assembled hydras and kills all of the hydras. Ferno then destroys the hatch at the exp and goes back to the main to try and kill the lair there. Trying to reinforce success, Angel has sent 4 goons and 3 zealots to help try and put Milk away permanently. They arrive at the Milk’s former exp at about the same time as a 12 goon contingent from Lotus arrives. The ensuing fight leaves all of Angels force gone with almost no casualties for Lotus, he then rushes to fight the mutas that have almost killed Milk’s lair. Ferno then runs away, then makes a feint back thinking he might be able to kill the lair at the cost of his mutas. As he slowly works the lair’s hit points down, Lotus’s goons shower free hits in. Ferno decides to save his mutas for guardians and runs them off (the lair had about a hundred hit points or less left). As Ferno is leaving that fight, Angel decides now might be a good time to hit Lotus with a reaver/dual templar drop. She drops uncontested into the rear of Lotus’s main min patch and proceeds to kill most of the probes and a couple goons before finally her force is eradicated. While distracting him she also moves to expand at the south min only expansion. Ferno has also expanded at this point to the West min only expansion and has just done an 8 drone transfer to his new exp. Ferno also has a drone on his raised 3min patch W/gas exp (he kills a critter to make room for a Hatchery, poor critter). For a while now a lone observer has been sitting near the gas extractor at Ferno’s main, quietly observing. Angel notices the yellow dot signifying enemy in Ferno’s main and he promptly sends his mutas to end the spying. While the mutas are flying away, Lotus comments that the game is over (pessimism will not ultimately help his cause imho).

Ferno, having killed the critter, builds a new hatch on the high ground bringing his total exp’s to 3. He also around this time has his Hive completed and is morphing a greater spire. Lotus uses an observer and finds Angel’s new min only exp and sends a large force of goons and zeos to destroy it before it warps in. Angel responds by dropping a probe on her raised 3min exp w/gas and expanding there. Lotus starts a Nexus at Angel’s old min only expansion and keeps his force there to guard it. In the north though there is an ominous sight, twelve guards are morphing off to the right of Milk’s slowly rebuilding main (there are still 12 goons there on guard detail courtesy of Lotus). The Guards finish morphing and proceed the short distance to Milk’s main. They then start to destroy everything, the carnage was unbelievable, goons dying in cold blue goo, and drones exploding in red poofs. Milk realizing that he and his partner have nothing to stop the guards and that the game is lost, leaves. Lotus now has no partner, no love, and no chance left of winning, he leaves as well. Team Angel and Ferno take the victory. In a small side note, with all the action happening I forgot to look at Angel’s base closely, she had 3 carriers out, two cooking, and was planning on going and having some fun with them shortly. [ed. Which is why my ground forces were so relatively pathetic; I had temps and a few grounders for defense.] Things definitely did not look good for Lotus and Milk. GG all.

Learning Points and other related tidbits:

-At the very beginning, Milk and Lotus had a sizable force about to hit angel (8+ lings and 2 zealots) instead of attacking then though, they waited about 20-30 sec for a third wayward zealot to show up, during this time Angel was able to go from 2 cannons/2 zeos, to 2 cannons 3 zeos. Not a huge difference but that third zealot takes a lot to kill, and can dole out a lot of damage in the meantime. Imho, they lost right there by waiting for that 3^rd zealot to show up and thereby letting Angel increase her defense by one zealot.

-Milk was way to slow to tech and expand, Zerg need min and gas like crazy to be competitive. Ferno had a large sunken defense, and few troops (bad side of this is that he could not help his partner or counter at all really) but he also had a spire complete before Milk had a second extractor built. That put Ferno at a huge advantage since we all know zerg vs zerg degenerates to a muta fest fairly quickly.

-Lotus was mining very efficiently at his main, he had nearly cleared out his minerals there long before Angel was close to mining out her main, remember, always make more peons!

-Lotus and Milk were wise not to send the 2^nd wave at Angel, it was not enough to overcome 2 cannons and a zealot, it would have been a waste on their part; never throw away units pointlessly.

Well that is a wrap, thanks goes out to all the players for playing great (ie not being lame and having gosu manners), thanks to Angel for posting this on her page (and encouraging me to write it, and introducing me to Idle), and props to Ferno and Angel for a great performance. Hopefully I will figure out how to incorporate pictures into my next battle report. – [WP]BlacKnight (or Big_GravyTrain as I am more known as to the denizens of Idle). If you would like to comment to me about any aspect of this report, please feel free, you can write me here.

Copyright  by [WP]BlacKnight. An unlimited royalty free license is hereby granted to AngeLife to reproduce this report using any media whatsoever for any purpose whatsoever.