"wallin' my ass in"
-Johnny_Vegas
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| 1v1 Snowbound (2.3 mb) | | | Author: | | | IP: | 63-224-2XXXX | | Date: | 11/21/00 11:11 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for ThanatoZ: 7.4286 |  |
Introduction
This Battle Report stems mainly from frustration. I have been pretty out of Starcraft lately, and only just recently started to play once again. Going out into the wild world of public games, I make an important discovery: I suck. After being schooled for the 30th time in a row by whatever person I was unfortunate enough to play, I decided I was sick of playing for a while, and set my heart upon doing a report. What you have here is the result.
The Players
frik;[4eVeR (frik) is an enigma. He could be Zileas who got bored and made a new account, or he could be Joe Schmoe off the street who went and bought Starcraft yesterday. However, note the alternation of upper- and lower-case letters, a true sign of gosuness.
-=plethora=- (plethora) is just as enigmatic as frik, although he too has a sign of expertdom, with the = and - signs around his name.
With that out of the way, let the game begin!
Early Game
The map for this game was Snowbound, a BW ladder map. It has 4 main bases, all on separate islands. Each main has a natural, and there are two unclaimed mineral-only expansions in the middle. All the expansions are connected by land, making land dominance important in order to have secure resource gathering, as well as air assault capabilities for an attack on a person's main base.
Frik starts at the 3' with Protoss (drawn from random) while plethora is at the 6' main with Terrans (also drawn randomly). Frik goes with a fairly standard Protoss island build, going with Pylon, Gateway, Assimilator, followed by a Cybernetics Core and Forge, then a Robotics Facility and Reaver Bay, obviously prepping for a quick Reaver drop.
plethora on the other hand was doing something different. He made a Supply Depot, Barracks, another Supply Depot, and a Refinery on his gas vent. He then contructed a Academy, and Factory, then a Starport. He then starts making a Marine/Medic force, going for a fast infantry/tank drop.
As soon as frik's first shuttle pops out, he grabs a probe with it and sends it scouting around the map counter-clockwise, dropping off the probe at his natural along the way. The shuttle continues around the map, until it finally gets to plethora's base, where it runs into a few marines and is shot down while attempting to make it's escape.
The First Blow
The shuttle's sacrifice was not in vain however. Frik now knows where his opponent is, and loads a dragoon and a reaver into a shuttle to go pay him a call.
The shuttle unloads by plethora's Factory (they were prevented from reaching the mineral line by the placement of plethora's marines), and the goon and reaver immediately begin attacking. Plethora responds with Marines and a Tank quickly seiging up while the marines charge forward to engage. He manages to destroy the reaver and force the dragoon to jump back in the shuttle and beat a hasty retreat, losing a good portion of his marines in the process. As soon as the invaders have been repulsed, he has an SCV begin a Command Center to float down to his natural.
Plethora is not about to let frik get away without a counterrattack. He loads up 2 dropships full of tanks, marines and medics and sends them in to attack at the top of frik's base, after being dissuaded from the bottom by the presence of frik's army of dragoons. They managed to damage some buildings, but the reaver and dragoons frik sent up quickly broke up their fun. The dragoons lose one of their number to the tank, but force the remaining marines to flee to the dropship in record time. Hoping to head off any further drops, frik drops down two Stargates and begins to crank out the Corsairs.
The Calm Before the Storm
Frik's natural is being mined fully now, and frik decides that another expansion would be nice as well. He picks up a probe and a dragoon and flies them over to begin an expansion at the 12' main. He later also starts a base at the 12' natural expansion.
Plethora has not been idle during this time however. He sends tanks, spider-mine equipped vultures and a few SCVs to take over the lower of the mineral-only expansions. He also has fortified his natural with mines, tanks, and turrets.
So far, plethora has been making almost exclusively metal (tanks, vultures and a few goliaths) and is pumping them out of 2 Factories at home. Frik on the other hand, has a good army of Dragoons, Corsairs and Reavers, and has been using those forces with shuttles to be able to instantly reinforce as soon as his expansions are attacked.
Renewed Hostilities
Using his Comsat, Plethora has found frik's expansion at the opposing natural. Annoyed, he sends a small strike force of two tanks and vultures to quell the offending colony. The results are not pretty. The tanks seige on the cliff above the base, while the vultures run down and start tossing beer cans at the mining probes. Despite protests from the EPA, the vultures continue littering with savage efficiency. The tanks rain down fire upon the undefended mineral line, destroying probes left and right. Frik attempts to stop this massacre by dropping 2 dragoons directly on top of the tanks. They are successful in destroying the vultures, but not much else. Finished with their grisly work, the tank drivers slap each other on the back and head back down to plethora's base for a cold one. Plethora also takes this opportunity to expand to the 9' main, floating a Command Center over from his main base.
Meanwhile, frik has been busy. He has set up a small base on the high ground above his expansion at the 12' natural, consisting of 2 gateways and several pylons. This does not go unnoticed by plethora however. He drags the tank drivers out of the bar and has them move up towards the expansion, still slightly tipsy. This 4 tank force engages the defenders, consisting of 6 dragoons. By keeping 2 tanks unseiged at all times, this force is able to kill all the defenders, taking no losses... at least until 4 reavers get dropped on top of them. Again, this is not pretty. The tanks managed to destroy one of the gateways, but the reavers got them before they could finish off the second.
Back at home, frik has done something so dirty, sneaky, underhanded and cheap I can hardly believe it... He's started making carriers! Plethora notices this however, and starts cranking out the goliaths from all of his many factories.
Plethora decides to go for a drop, on frik's expansion at the 12' main. The troops selected for this mission are 6 tanks and goliaths, and while their mission gets off to a rocky start (being stormed while unloading) they manage to get out of the way before too great of damage is done. The expansion is guarded by dragoons and templar, which the tanks and goliaths smash through the crap like a blasting cap in HawK's ear. Their fun is put to an end however by the arrival of frik's carriers, which mercilessly kill the offending units. The drop managed to kill a few buildings, but no significant damage was done.
To follow this up, a minute later plethora sends a 12-goliath attack to frik's natural. This attack gets jammed up on the ramp but manages to destroy every last probe before frik's army of carriers comes and layeth the smacketh downeth upon them. They might have had a chance, but they were so spread out by the ramp and their horrible AI pathing that they were easy prey for the carriers, although they managed to take three of the blimps-of-doom down with them.
Frik is not pleased by these attacks upon his economy, and he shows his displeasure with a large attack upon plethora's natural expansion. 6 Carriers and 4 Corsairs (d-web equipped) ready themselves for the battle. They barrel into plethora's thin line of defending missile turrets, smash through it, and head for the SCVs. However, the goliath pilots are restless and decide it's time to kick some carrier ass. They destroy all but 3 of the carriers, which limp back home as quickly as they can.
 Going for a quick retaliatory strike, plethora hops 4 vultures in a shuttle and sends them off to the 12' natural. However, the dropship is forced to retreat from the presence of cannons and ends up landing behind the gateways on the area above. The vultures attempt to cause trouble, but Dark Templars end the party REALLY fast, although losing several of their number to well placed spider mines in the process.
 Lets take a look at the minimap. Currently, plethora has map control and has access to the most expansions, but frik has a gigantic army of carriers, which could tilt the game to his side, but unless he can take some expansions away from plethora he will be so flooded with tanks, goliaths, and vultures that no amount of carriers will save him. plethora also has a small force of wraiths, which might make things difficult as well.
The Final Stages
To test out plethora's defenses, frik sends down a drop of 6 dragoons and 2 high templar, with corsair backup to to ledge above plethora's natural. They are intercepted by goliaths, which take heavy casualties but manage to force the invaders back.
Apparently, plethora decides the map looks a little drab, and what could be better to spice it up than a few tastefully placed nukes? To this end, he constructs 3 Nuke Silos on his command centers, and sends a dropship containing 4 cloaked ghosts over to the top of frik's base. Three of them begin to launch nukes at various places in the base, but before their messages of joy and love are able to appear the carriers/observers defending the base put an end to the unlucky ghosts.
it's at this point that frik decides he's fed up with skirmishing. He wants this game over NOW! To this end, he sends his massive doom fleet of 12 carriers, accompanied by 2 observers, down the center of the map to attack straight into plethora's main base. I couldn't possibly do this battle justice with words, so just take a look at the collage below.
His huge army of goliaths, backed by wraiths, comes up to defend against the massive assault. The fighting is fierce, but when the smoke clears, frik has two carriers left.
After stopping briefly to let the new carriers he had made at home catch up, frik charged headlong into the terran base. The carriers met no resistance, and the base is completely wiped out, followed shortly by the expansion nearby. plethora retreats to his base at 9', and starts cranking out the goliaths, and mining every last square inch of his base with vultures. He has no income at all, but massive stores of resources left over. Realizing that he has no way of beating Carriers with Vultures (no matter how numerous), plethora reluctantly concedes the game.
Conclusion
This game really surprised me, as it looked like plethora had it completely wrapped up. Here are the final scores:
I hoped you enjoyed this BR and that I managed to convey at least some sense of how incredibly fun this game was to watch. Congratulations to both players on a game skillfully played, and for being such great guys in general. May you get the fame you so rightly deserve. =)
ThanatoZ out.
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