"The Bengalaas can spit lightning and belch acidic clouds of vapor up to ten miles distant, can't it?"
-Snowreaver
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| My BW Ladder Adventures | | | Author: | | | IP: | PPP-155-XXXX | | Date: | 12/01/00 03:12 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for DrAwesome: 9.0000 |   |
Warning: This BR IS Brood Wars, and YES the games were played on more maps than just The Lost Temple...!
DrAwesome out with another one, this BR not so pic heavy as I'm accustomed to, as I didn't decide to BR these until after they were over. A few nights ago I was sitting in NoHunters listening to the spamming and fighting and realized that I wasn't in the mood to challenge anyone in there. They were all too good for me or too annoying for me (none too bad for me though =] ). I hadn't played BW ladder yet, so I decided to give it a whirl. My rating shot up that night from a crazy ranking of 1000 (thats where you start at right?) to a gosu rank of 1005!! Whew. Enjoy =] !
I entered the ladder join screen only to find 3 lost temple games, one of which saying 1200+ (by far too gosu for me) one saying NUBEEES ONLY (too chobo for me (btw do you like the korean phrases =]?)) and the other "not responding". Sigh... well I waited a minute and soon after found another LT game titled something like 1on1 newbies, a call for a duel which turned out to be me vs "F!zz^|3io" (fizz-bio? wtf does that mean).
He had a modest record of melee and a non-existant ladder ranking. I wasn't expecting maynard or anyone but I figured it would an ok game.
 I entered and randomed to teal zerg at 3:00. My opponent with the ever so gosu name had chosen zerg, controlling the yellow hordes at the 6:00 position.
I began a build to mutalisks, a common Z v Z tactic that I find, amongst non-experts anyways, wins most of my Z v Z games. I got a spawning pool on 8 and another hatchery on 12, below my first one right at my main (I put it there to mine the bottom section of my minerals faster). Not finding him at 12:00, i sent the second overlord to my cliff and sent a drone scout south. He was at the first place that I and I could tell that he was turtling at his main. He had 2 sunkens morphing, one able to defend his workers and the other to the north of his two hatcheries. The worker I sent noticed no zerglings and ran past his static defense to the back of his base right before the colonies morphed.
I began a creep colony next to his workers, just out of his sunkens' range, and got attacked by one drone. I began morphing it into a sunken right as it finished, but seconds later, 4 lings attacked it and, right before it was destroyed, I cancelled the morph =].
During the previous "battle" I had been morphing lings and drones nonstop, as my hatcheries at my main were being eyed by one of F!zz^|3io's overlords. A drone snuck out of the overlord's vision to start a hatchery at the top of my ramp and I began upgrading my original first hatchery to a lair.  I sent 2 lings (of my current 8) to scout him but they were intercepted by 10 lings en route that were MOVING *not attack moving* towards my base. They turned around after I managed
to kill one careless ling and, enraged, attacked my two ling scouting party (wow ling sounds weird when you say it alot... ling ling ling ling). I hoped to stall him until more of my zerglings could hatch, so I sent the pair running towards HIS base. They got a few inches (screen inches, not StarCraft inches) when his lings turned around and attacked my ramp. My 6 lings died fast, despite the height advantage (waitta second... they have melee attack! Doh! =]). I attempted a pincer with the dynamic scouting duo, but they too were eliminated with little trouble. Things weren't looking good as his 4 lings that had survived the battle... turned around?! Well, he just sat them in my natural until I sent reinforcements out to kill them.
This is the last time I play a newbie ladder game.
Scouting
revealed that F!zz^|3io had a moderate hydra/ling force. I knew that if he attacked, I would be in trouble; so I began a sunken at my ramp right as my lair finished. Hehe excellent the plan was working perfectly. Mutalisks here I come. Grrr, waitta sec, I still hadn't blown that overlord out of the sky yet so I moved a drone to my ramp hatchery in order to build an undetected spire. It was finished in a few minutes and my first 4 mutalisks finally exterminated the overlord sitting high above my drones. I decided it was time for me to wreak some well-earned havoc. I sent the seven mutalisks I had built up to the back of his base, when, when they reached the choke to my natural, they ran into a force of maybe 15 hydras and 10 lings. I retreated back to my main ramp, expecting a charge, but it never came. I brought down my force of 20+ zerglings and my 7 mutas to the bottom of the ramp and prepared to bust outta this barricade. I separated them all into 3 groups:
group 1: 10 lings
group 2: 10 more lings
group 3: the 7 mutas
I sent in the mutalisks first, which were the targets of the hydras as my 20 lings ran in and mowed them down from below.. err, well, below in comparison to the mutas, the same level in relation to the hydras that were currently in the process of being mowed down.
I won the battle with 4 mutas and 10 lings left which I promtly countered with. They entered his natural to find....... (drum roll) one drone!! Well, that was a flop. Of course, he must be holding his ramp like me and doing a 3 hatch hydra strat. In anticipation of sunkens and hydras, I ran my units up the ramp to find........ nothing!! Err, no ramp defense at all, no expo, his main must be the best goddam main in the history of StarCraft and I mean
in comparison to Maynard and the like. Nope, 15 new hydras and the two original sunkens remained. I got a cute idea at this point as my ling reinforcements arrived. I sent the last four mutas to the back of his base, getting in range of every hydra on the way (for just seconds). They all followed me back and I ran in the 25 lings. Sadly, the mutas were separated into little droplets of blood that rained down on their assailents rather quickly. They were martyrs for their cause and shall be remembered. The zerglings fared much better, however, and took out the sunkens before the hydras could return. When they did return to defend, however, the spiny minions were also exterminated.
The game was over. He never expanded even once and I only did in the last few moments of the game, but my gosu BO (heh) had beaten him fast (I can't brag though.. ech). I typed gg and clicked enter to send the message to my opponent just as my units sorta froze up. You know the one; a second of calm falls over the map when a slow realization of what has just happened dawns upon you. What had happened was something that made me want to rip F!zz^|3io's nuts out. Well, he double disced, but I managed to get a SS of it, and when I'm not lazy (never), I'll email it to Blizzard.
It's not so much that he gave me a loss (which didn't register for a while so my record was still
non-existant), but the fact that we had a good game, albeit one sided, and he still felt like it mattered that much to disconnect. I mean, when I got pissed, it was more at the whole hacking philosophy recently than just at him. I mean... well I think you all get what I mean. Unfazed (well, slightly fazed), I moved on to my next game.
Game 2 was quite a bit different from the last; no gay disconnecting involved, just solid gameplay, so if you are gay in any way, you may want to leave the report now.
I entered a game simply titled 1v1 LT (I swear this is my last LT game). My opponent's name was $Bernie$, who like my previous opponent had a modest melee record of 30-15-7. His ladder record was a different story, however. He had a rating of 839 because his record was 7-17-2. Wow. My brain began thinking up all sorts of bad situations (heh yay). I was sure that he was super good but just one of those guys that goes around purposly quitting every game after winning. He probably does it to trick newbies like me into falling into his trap, just like a spider tricks a fly into flying into its web, the fly completely unprepared for its untimely demise. *shudder* I was scared at first when I actually shouldn't have been. I was just generalizing and over-reacting. Oh well.
![hahah this is the last LT... for this BR :]](http://www.geocities.com/drawesome2/ladder/map2.gif) After starting the game I frowned seeing that I had gotten terran, my worst race, at the 12:00 position; the BAD terran position. Ack... well I decided to go for a heavy metal build maybe switching to deep six (heartcutter owns =]) depending on my opponents race. I soon found out that his random had spawned a brown zerg at the 9:00 position. T v Z... aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ok, I continued my early wallin, getting it up by the time he first attacked me.
Waita second I'm getting ahead of myself =[. I went depot-8, barracks-10 (scout with SCV when done), and another depot at 11 thus finishing the wallin. I got gayed up when, after finishing my first depot, my SCV got trapped between the cliffside and the depot. ARRGGH! Well, I was getting worried by now. It was a few minutes into the game, I had a barracks and 3 marines and a factory in construction. I teched way too fast for T v Z =[.
 | I had to kill the poor SCV that got trapped behind my depot. This wasn't any ordinary SCV, however, no, this SCV was special... |
$Bernie$'s first attack was a rough one on me. My three marines stood no match for the 8 lings that ran up my ramp and past my wallin, despite the small opening. He had maybe 4 damaged lings left so I sent my entire force of a dozen and a half SCVs to defend with their supa-gosu lasers. I was suffering HEAVY losses and was contemplating retreating my SCVs when a marine popped out. =]. I exterminated the remaning two through dancing my marine around.
Ok... it looked like the early game was over. I could continue my factory with a new SCV and repair my burning rax and rebuild my SCVs in peace.. ahhhh serenity......
6 more lings - up the ramp and into my base
My defensive situation
1 damaged marine
15 SCVs
a barracks, that I, very un-gosu-like, had forgotten to train more marines with. DOH!
There wasn't much to do except to hope I could hold him off with SCVs until more marines could come. I danced that remaining marine and got at least 1 of those little brown turds. My SCV wall wasn't faring well, and I had only trained 2 marines so far.
It continued like this for a while. 90% of the early game I spent microing my little terran bastards and I FINALLY got all of the zerglings that were raping my base. 8 SCVs does not do much to help a situation like this, so, i quickly queued up 5 SCVs at my command center, and with two of my remaining SCVs, I finished my original factory and constructed a new one.
I was up to 6 marines and 1 and 1/2 factories when the next 18 lings ran into my base. Excuse me for a second.
*(!!@!!3^%*$#*^98759184065918459*^*^%%$%$%$#%$#%#@#~!!!!AGHHHHHGHHGHGHHGHGH!@!!@#$((((^&%&%%^$0986704!!!
Ahem, what I meant to say was "curses". I took out just a few of the zerglings with my marines as I realized that I was in trouble. They ran straight past all of my tech and unit buildings back to my peon line. sigh... I just about quit then and there, but then I saw that both of my factories were just sitting there in the wake of all the death. Without machine shops, facts are worthless righT? Wrong! 2 vultures were queued up and, we all know just how bad vultures rape lings (no sarcasm, no matter how sarcastic that sounded, honest) When they arrived, I sighed in relief and sent my remaining SCVs to repair them as the lings tripped over each other in order to get to the jet powered, grenade launching, concussion causing, metal titans (its easy to make a wussy unit sound badass =] ). The last of the zergling threat was extinguised when the next two vultures showed up. Just in time! Phew...
I took this chance to take matters into my own hands. I figured that if I didn't get offensive soon, he could take control of the whole map or tech to anything he wanted. I sent a small expeditionary force out consisting of the four repaired vultures from my previous battle, 2 SCVs, and 3 marines. I could take any force of zerglings on I figured, so, of course, hydras began showing up. He had apparently switched over to hydra/lurker production while I was busy with the constant rushes. Well, at least this justifies having gone early factories =/ .
My small posse got to his natural before I met any actual resistance, and when I did, at the base of his ramp, it was quickly exterminated. 6-8 hydras don't fare too well against 4 vultures being repaired constantly (yeah I was surprised too, but he wasn't concentrating fire or dancing so I guess that expains the outcome). The vultures secured the top of the 9:00 o'clock ramp while my SCV (one was killed in the last fight) built a bunker. I looked back up at my base after noticing a mineral surplus (doh! Heartcutter would NOT be proud =[ ). I quickly built another factory and got machine shops on both of my existing ones followed by 1 more vulture and my first tank.
I did a strange thing at this point, not even thinking about why or how it would help me. I researched mines instead of seige tech, which is something I virtually NEVER do. Maybe in some situations I have but I am definitly a tank kinda guy. Maybe it was because I had so many vultures already or maybe just some semi-conscious reminder that I might be facing lurkers. Whatever the case, when it finished I had saved the gas to get seige, and the top of his ramp was securly mine.
The evolution of the fire-base was extreme. It started out as an empty bunker and four vultures, but turned into a posse of tanks, mines, vultures, marines, turrets, and bunkers. The first attack on it consisted of a few hydras that retreated seeing a bunker (empty actually... heh =] ) and an SCV to repair. When my tank arrived along with marine/vulture support, the next attack came. A lurker was mixed in among the 8 or so hydras, which I immediatly targeted due to the fact that I was a bonehead and had NO means of detection. Luckily I got it just as it burrowed. The hydras were a problem, however, because they targeted my SCV, seriously hurting my ability to survive. I held them off due to the fact that terran mixed defenses = impossible for low level zerg units to break. The moment this battle was over, I sent down 2 SCVs, 2 tanks, a few marines and began an e-bay at my main.
 My vulture upgrade had finished a while ago but I had yet to abuse the horrific power of the mines. I took 6 vultures and sent them about half way between his creep and my current defensive set up. I had three tanks and a large number of vultures and mines surrounding my men. Before my first turret could be set up, I nearly had a death sentence. two lurkers ran up to my containment, which, at the time, was being pushed beyond its limits. I lost half of my marines and a tank before I retreated to the safety of my mines. In fact, both lurkers followed, each getting ripped up by mines. I sent more and move vultures out to lay mines and, continually, they saved my skin. A huge force of hydras mixed with lurkers pushed on me at one point. Truly half of the 2 dozen were shredded by shrapnel tank fire and shrapnel mines before they even got close to me. The rest were taken care of by tanks and vultures. Wow, terran units rape zerg lower level units. I honestly believe that if he had gotten ANY of the hive level units (queens also) he could have taken out my containment.
 Another thing that could have assured his victory would have been to expand during the period he had me locked in. Man, I searched the whole map and found NO expansions after that. I was sure I had missed something, but when I looked at his base, I realized that he had been spending constantly on units (of couse, I'm sure he did have at LEAST some minerals built up at the end).
Doh. I shouldn't be giving lessons on the game that isn't even over yet =[ . Not much to say really, except the tanks and vultures pushed forward continually, and when the tanks reached the hatcheries, it was over. (one tip for terran when seiging a zerg base - If you have 3 or more tanks, attack eggs first as soon as they show up! I musta killed a dozen hydra and lurker eggs during the push and took 0 casualties). It was a good game, and if he had played just a little differently, I would have been in serious trouble. Good games were passed around and the victory screen popped up. Ahhhhh, getting a victory screen when I win a game - something I'm not used to when playing ladder =] .
![hahahhaahaha LT and Dire is all you get. You thought there would be other maps didn't you? =]](http://www.geocities.com/drawesome2/ladder/map3.gif) I entered another game, this time a simple challenge for a 1on1 on Dire. Sounded good, I'm always up to a little island play. My opponent was [AoS]Sachiko, and, by the time that I was finally able to check his record, the counter was at 1 second =[. He had an incredible record of 679-147-109 for melee and 20-1-2 record for ladder with a rating of 1272.
I knew I was in for trouble, so I went with my trusty good old muta Z v Z strategy. This time going for an earlier gas, on 8, followed by a pool and another hatchery on 12. Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself there. I randomed to blue zerg in the bottom left and he randomed to red zerg in the bottom right. Hehe ok, we are caught up now. My build, like I said before, focused on early gas and tech, not so much powering with lots of hatches early. Why? Because this is Dire of course and I have no reason to worry about rushes. I scouted him fast with my original overlord and got a good picture of what he was doing.
I saw two hatcheries(one morphing) and a morphing extractor. This was about the time that I had my gas online and my pool half done. he followed up with a spawning pool and an evolution chamber.
I wondered what exactly he was doing with such an early evolution chamber, but then I realized that his overlord was spying on my base as well and obviously saw that I was going mutes. Dang. The spore he soon put up, above his original hatchery and below his second threatened my overlord. I moved the blimp a bit south, to just below his minerals, and I was still able to keep the OV just close enough to see him start a lair on his upper hatchery. You see, he thought that it was out of my overlord's vision but lucky for me it wasn't. I commented on this ;] and we had a good laugh.
My lair was about half done then, when he started his first, and I was healthily on my way to mutas. If I could pump them out before he has too many spores and whatever hes getting, I could win this.
 I wasn't exactly pleased when I saw that he had begun a second lair (dang.. he has skills =] heh) and an unseen, but obviously there, hydra den. Double overlord upgrades for those of you who don't know any Dire strategies. My first 6 mutalisks popped out of my three (I built a new one) hatcheries from some saved larvae, at the exact same time that his first 6 hydras began pounding on my helpless overlord.
 The hydras shot the gas filled bag outta the sky right before my mutas showed up, ready for vengeance. His hydra micro was excellent, dancing hydras all the way back to his spores. My weak muta dancing was a mere polka in comparison to his ballroom style hydra dancing. I lost all but 3 as more and more hydras poured out. I was sure it would be over soon as my gas intake was pathetic... I need to start playing BGH =(.
I amassed a small group of 8 mutas by the time his first offensive move came. I had them patrolling on the side of his base that was located between our two mains, and actually managed to get a lord that was unmicroed. Unfortunately, I suck, and therefore his first 12 hydra drop was a killer =[.
 You see, apparently he had swung around the top of his base, traveling around the perimiter of the map in order to avoid being noticed, and hey, it worked for him. The 15 or so token lings that I had built up were no match for his hydras but still managed to take out maybe 5. The situation was desperate... my mutas were far from home still and my zerglings were dead... It was time for the revenge of those little guys who's dreaded spines could kill even the most fearsome of probes! My drones charged and I moved the screen over to my mutalisks, still patrolling outside of his base. I sent them back to aid the drones, but they were half the map away from the battle... I lost half of my drones before the flying terrors finally showed up and eliminated the hydralisks.
Ouch! my economy was based on 10 battle-weary drones that I wouldn't bet 10 bucks on being able to carry back a pack of minerals, but it was better than nothing. I had teched up to a hive while the attack was being dealt with, which finished morphing right after his attack hydra posse died. I upgraded to a greater spire, heading in the direction of a guardian/muta combo, when once again, gas came-a-knockin', just to tell me to goto hell because I didn't have any more. My vespene stores were indecorously low and the overlord upgrades that I had researced weren't helping the situation. It was time to do something risky; something that required NO gas. What is there to do? Offensive nydus canal of course! Offensive nydusing (look it up, it is only 150 minerals =] ) with a ton'o'lings was gas-efficient and deadly. The plan was being laid out in my mind right as I began a nydus.
Phase 1: I would use a token number of guardians (3) and mutas (4 or so) to enter his base and distract the men
phase 2: While the hydras were busy, the teleportation canal builds
Phase 3: death comes quickly
 I sat, beaming and grinning, almost patting myself on the back in self-congratulation at my brilliant yet unconventional plan, when my muta/guard force, camping out side of his base, saw maybe 5 overlords returning to his main from my base's direction. Well, my first reaction was to target them with my mutas, when I realized just where they may have come from. I looked back at my base right as the "you are under attack" message dinged. Oh crap
My 20+ ling and 5 hydra gang was not looking too good vs his 24 (20 or 15 or 30 maybe.. I was freaked, what did you expect me to sit there and hand count? I'm not Al Gore people.) hydra posse. I attacked moved my hydra/ling crew towards his squad'o'hydras with little attention payed to my "throwaway" forces. I planned to just hold him off until the guards could return, but, somehow, I still don't know, maybe i accidentally microed while not looking, I won the battle with a few lings to spare. Heh =]
Well, the victory heightened my ego ever more and my remaining air force was sent back to my "gosu" position outside of his base as I readied my nydus canal which was undamaged in the attack. It did not go as well as I planned. In fact, it did not go at all. The mutas charged in too fast, got targeted by 8 scourge, microed so that 2 attacked each muta (wow), followed by a trickle of more soon after to deal with the guards. I managed to get the canal started, but, unfortunatly it was within range of a gosu-ily(sp?) placed sunken. =[
My overlord upgrades finished around this time, allowing me to transport a drone to a middle island to the upper right of my main. Sort of in-between our bases, but above the one directly between us and closer to me. A drone dropped and made a hatchery which, at about 3/4 of the way done was found by some patrolling scourge. A 4 hydra drop followed right after it finished, but for some reason, the hydras attacked the hatchery instead of the nydus that I had begun morphing. More of [AoS]Sachiko's hydras came, but they tooattacked the hatchery and ignored the canal. It finished and I poured in 10 hydras and 15 lings RIGHT as my hatch died =[. I guess thats what he meant to do. Oh well, I rebuilt the expansion when I had the chance.
The reason I put half of my force there, was because the minerals and vespene especially were sorely needed; I had about 1/5 of the original minerals still remaining at my main.
I had switched over to mass hydra production, as it was much less gas intensive than mutas and guardians were. The game was getting tough and increasingly scary; I still didn't know if he had an expansion, despite my scouting efforts that had proved fruitless at all of the mains. So if he did have one, it was at one of the crappy islands - I guess thats a little reassuring.
The game was getting long and I knew that I had to make a move or accept defeat. Never play defensive I say, unless you have the resources to get a "victory fleet" of carriers, so I took 6 overlords and filled them all full of hydras and lings at about a 50:50 ratio. It seemed like I would damage his base pretty badly. I mean, thats allota units. I just hoped that he was moving his forces around and I would gain the advantage despite the home-court advantage that he held. I sent them East warily due to my fear of scourge.I wasn't ALL that much fearing, as I doubted he was still making lots since I switched from spire units to hydras and lings. The lords continued East only curving around a scourge or two. My forces unloaded at the West side of [AoS]Sachiko's main (the side closest to me). I unloaded, trying not to get my overlords noticed until I had finished getting all of my men off the cargo lords. One of my stray hydra ruined the element of surprise for me though, as it wandered around and attacked a lonely zergling. [AoS]Sachiko knew I was there and was no doubt preparing. The battle was monumentous.
 Dozens of hydras were pitted against their bretheren. Our numbers were about equal but for a few reasons, the advantage was placed squarely in his court. Even though our numbers were matched, my lack of upgrades for my units (0-0 and 0-0 =[ me sux!@!) lost the battle for me. Retarded me had even forgotten to get the RANGE upgrade and his 1-0 hydralisks fanned out, surrounding my hydras and luring my lings into his sunken matrix range. The one attack upgrade that he had gotten simply owned me.
 I, in desperation, loaded a drone into an OV and sent it to the top left main. I need more of an income to survive. The drone was morphed into a hatchery just as my main base was morphed into a pile of blood and creep (like how i tied those together? =]). A fleet of blimpy gas bags (overlords) floated over the top of my main. Sigh....... Once again, we had almost equal numbers of hydras, but I sent mine towards his, somehow managing to line up in the half of a screen that they had to go. I got raped. It was over. I said great game and he reiterated the same message back to me. I asked him if he would mind me BR'ing it and he said sure thing; he would be proud. =]
Oh well remember the beginning of this little tale? I knew I would lose =]. heh
I wrote this BR due to the incredible positive feedback on my previous one. I didn't spend so much time working on this one and I'm not expecting ratings as good as my last one, but, I enjoyed the games, I enjoyed writing it, and I feel like I taught people something (heh right =P ) and, hey, thats what writing battle reports is all about right?
=)
P.S. Raters get over here and rate - there is a buildup of like 10 unrated reports
DrAwesome
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