Exo|IcE| vs. [z]Khorne
A Rivalry Is Born

Green Valleys
An 8 player
Old Ladder Map.






I finally found Exo|IcE| and [z]Khorne on at the same time, Khorne hanging out in NoHunters and Exo in his home channel of Clan I(e. I ask them both to play eachother which they both agree to, finally. Khorne decided that he gets the choice of the map and creates the game. After talking in the gameroom for a while, Khorne starts the countdown and the game begins!

Exo|IcE| (randoms Toss, top-right)
[z]Khorne (chooses Toss, bottom)___________________________________

Khorne had Zerg selected as his race of choice until the last second. He changed it to Protoss, either for this particular map or just because it was his personal favorite. I don't play enough games with him so I don't know.

Hoping the game would be a really good one, I lifted my command center; but wasn't able to to kill the 2 last SCVs at the same time =/. I was very disappointed.

Despite the importance of this game, there were very few putdowns that I could take screenshots of :(. I knew the game would be a good one however, because Exo would no doubt underestimate Khorne's newfound skillz. But even with the underestimation, Exo is a skilled (happy Protophobic?) SC player.

Exo warps in at the top right starting location and Khorne starts at the bottom-middle. After Exo builds his first pylon, he sends a probe out to scout all the starting locations.

Khorne follows that up with a forge in his main and then a pylon outside his natural. After building a few photon cannons for defense he warps in a Nexus.

Exo, after building a pylon, sends a probe out to begin warping in a Nexus at his choke point for some early additional minerals. He then gets 2 gateways in his main to begin zealot production for defense. After his gateways warps in he gets an assimilator.

After his Nexus finishes warping in, Khorne Maynards his probes to begin collecting minerals from his expansion. He also constructs a barracks and begins to collect gas at his main.

After this, Exo constructs a cybernetics core and a third gateway for a faster zealot production center. Instead of going for quick tech, Khorne decides to expand early and power later. He sends a probe down to the bottom left starting position and constructs a pylon in front of the 7 o'clock's natural expansion. Shortly after he begins to build some photon cannons for defense before he expands there.

Exo seems to be going quick upgrades to overpower Khorne's troops even if they were outnumbered. He constructs 3 forges next to his barracks as illustrated in this picture.

Khorne, in an attempt to gather a greater amount of resources constructs a nexus down at 7 o'clock and 7 o'clock's expansion. He follows those nexues up with a second gateway in comparison to Exo's 3, and a cybernetics core.

After building up a sufficient army to defend his base, Exo expands to the 12 o'clock main base.

Both players seem to be heading down the same route now. They both begin mass producing dragoons for defense while they continually shoot up the tech tree. Khorne constructs a citadel of adun, a templar archives, and a robotics facility. Exo builds a citadel of adun, a 4th gateway, and a robotics facility.

Khorne, following up on his early mineral strategy, builds a pylon and a few photon cannons at the bottom-right's natural expansion in preparation to expand there. For defense, he continues to mass produce dragoons and rallies them in front of his natural expansion.

Exo decides either he is going to try to contain Khorne, or just plain attack him because he sends an army of zealots and dragoons down to the front of his opponent's base as you can see in the minimap.

At the same time, Khorne sends a dark templar out of his main base who finds Exo's army. The dark templar begins to harass the army and sends the zealots and dragoons scattering all over the middle of the map.

Khorne sends his dragoons out to take out the now small groups of dragoons that once formed a big army. He succeeds in killing a lot of them, but when Exo realizes what's going on he retreats them back to his main.

Khorne, having defended the bottom-right base, expands there with a nexus at the natural expansion.

After seeing Khorne's dark templars, Exo builds an observatory and begins to produce observers. He does this just in time as well because in the next instant Khorne sends his army to attack his base.

When Khorne's army arrives at Exo's main base, Exo's dragoons start battling it out in an attempt to defend their main base. Khorne's army at first seems to be winning but after a few more dragoons come in as reinforcements the battle was quickly over.

Khorne, after the battle, builds a sort of war factory by building a group of 6 barracks in the middle of his main base. He also constructs an observatory just in case Exo decides to counter with dark templars of his own.

Taking the moment to glance at upgrades, I notice that Khorne is gearing more towards additional attacking power and is 0-0-2, while Exo is using each forge to upgrade something different (obviously) and is 1-1-1.

Exo has almost built as many gateways in his 12 o'clock base as he is in his main. He is still constantly mass producing dragoons. He also begins to send his observers all over the map and does a very good reconnesiance (doubtfully spelled right) job. He finds both of Khorne's expansions at bottom-left and bottom-right.

Presumably in response to finding Khorne's expansions, Exo sends his army of dragoons down to collect in the middle of the map.

After waiting for a little while, Exo sends his army down to attack Khorne's bottom-left expansion. Using only half of the army to attack the bottom-left, he sends the other half of the army to attack the bottom-right expansion, which was a very good move; both of them were very lightly defended with only 2 photon cannons a piece.

While he could try to defend his expansions, Khorne decides to make the game interesting and sends his entire army, which is now huge, up to attack a presumably lightly defended main base.

When Khorne's army arrives at Exo's main base, Exo had just finished leveling both of Khorne's expansions. However, Khorne easily breaks through a very poorly defended main base and proceeds to level it.

What could be better? Instead of going back to defend his own main base, Exo sends his attacking forces from Khorne's expansions down to attack his main base.

Exo's main base is now completely lying in ruins, and so is Khorne's. But finally someone defends their own base! Khorne sends his army that was leftover from attacking Exo's main base and stop's the attackers before they can completely level his main base. This leaves Khorne with a newly remade nexus at the bottom-left expansion, and the few buildings left at his main base; it leaves Exo with his expansion at 12.

After the major game-altering battles took place, both players take different routes. Khorne decides to hang back and try to switch the location of his main base over to the bottom-left base. He attempts to send his probes left in his original main base over to his new main base but runs into Exo's recently sent army of dragoons. The dragoons proceed to wipe out a very large amount of the probes.

Using his brain, Exo notices that the probes were heading to the bottom-left and sends his forces there. When the dragoons get there, they are faced by some higher tech units (aka: high templars) who proceed to psi storm the crap out of them forcing them to retreat.

Exo expands to the middle left expansion in hopes of expanding his economy past Khorne's.Exo then expands to his own natural further increasing his mineral advantage. But not before too long, Khorne expands to an island just to the right of Exo's natural expansion.

Seeing that he has the advantage of high templars (of course this is a little bit later in the game), Khorne sends his army up to attack Exo's main base. I glance at both players upgrades as the army makes it's journey to the top of the map. Khorne is 1-1-3 and Exo is 2-2-2. Both playershad a lot of excess money because they both build a very large amount of gateways and constantly produce dragoons and whatever they feel like.

Khorne's army arrives and begins to battle Exo's forces that were positioned in front of his natural expansion. Despite his resource superiority, Exo has a fewer amount of troops than Khorne and is forced to retreat into his main base. He's forced to let his natural expansion be leveled by the forces of Khorne.

Surrounding his choke point. His dragoons were spread out so psi storm wouldn't hit him so hard. Khorne's forces hit Exo hard, but not enough to totally destroy him.

After the attack fails, both players return to work on their own bases tech and resource income. Khorne expands to the middle-right part of the map and Exo, instead of going for resources builds 2 stargates and a robotics facility.

Khorne decides to go on the offensive again, and sends an army of dragoons to Exo's last expansion. It is lightly defended because of Exo's constant attempts to tech. Using a more normal strategy this time, Exo sends his army out in an attempt to defend his last expansion. When his army arrives, a battle ensues that looks like it will be close at first, but Khorne's reinforcements arrive just in time. Khorne is victorious in the battle and in destroying the expansion.

Exo, in yet another counter move, sends his army from his main base down in an attempt to once again even out the game. The army of dragoons arrive at Khorne's bottom-left main base. They run into a newly produced batch of Khorne's dragoons and are stalled for a long enough time for Khorne to bring his forces back from destroying Exo's expansion. When the army arrives there they destroy the opposing dragoons leaving them there in a puddle of blue crap.

As of this point, Khorne has the advantage in the game; he has a greater mineral income. He doesn't necessarily know this, however. Exo now only has his main base's income with no other expansions.

Deciding to take yet another offensive, Khorne sends his army to collect outside of Exo's main base. He continues to send his newly produced dragoons there and soon he has a large invasion force.

In the next instant, Khorne sends his forces in; they come face to face with Exo's goons, which are spread out around his choke point again, guarding for psi storms. A few psi storms hit home on a few mistakenly grouped up dragoons while Khorne's goons do the rest of the work and push themselves into Exo's base.

Being his last base, Exo realizes it is hopeless and concedes the game to Khorne.
____________________________________________________________
Elapsed Time: 33:35
Khorne 223366
Exo 177860

Lessons Learned

1) Green Valleys, while unknown, is a cool map
2) toss > toss
3) psi storm is awesome against anything that moves
4) U-571 was a cool movie :D
5) games where people counter instead of attack are fun to watch, and hopefully read about
6) I accidentily deleted this report when I was almost done with it and had to start over so ENJOY IT!!

Production
____________________________________________________________
And For The Love of God Give Me Comments!