wookie919 vs. ~ghost

Initial game:

Wookie919 picked brown Protoss at 9:00 while ghost~ landed a red command centre at 3:00 and the game was underway! The start of the game was interesting because ghost~ did not opt for a wall-in. Possibly this is a sort of anti-anti-heavy metal tactical decision on his part. It would also be a perfectly fine play against Zerg or Terran, so possibly it is a standard game plan for him. Here is a picture of his building placement.

This is a sound enough defence to hold against up to perhaps 3 or 4 zealots with good micro, but such a pitched battle would not be to the Terran players advantage, as it would cost him valuable time, SCVs, and resource flow. On the other hand having his buildings nearby is good for purposes of defending his construction SCVs from harassing probes, it negates worries of counter-wall-in pylon rush, etc., and he wastes less time walking his SCVs all over his plateau. Finally the wall of buildings accumulated near the command centre gives a nice defence against drops later on.

In the meantime, Wookie was either been going for a goon rush, expecting a wall-in, or fast dark templar tech. (He hates reavers, trust me, it's not them.) Probably templar, since he hates goons too, and he's always keen to get zealot speed. His build order is pylon at 8 control, scout with the probe that places that beacon, gateway at 11 control, followed by an assimilator and a cybernetics core.

Wookie's scouting probe reveals the lack of a wall-in, to which Wookie's response is: "No wall-in? werid". Seeing this, he decided there is no good reason not to try an attack with his first zealot. It's only about this time that ghost~ bothers to scout out Wookie's position, sending a brave SCV off on this dangerous mission. The SCV in question observed the emphasis on technology, and then left with a probe in hot pursuit. My minimap suggests it ran away, eventually got stuck by the minerals at the 6 o'clock natural, and was murdered by the probe chasing it. Poor guy. :(
As the zealot left, wookie began warping in another gateway, a citadel of Adun, and a third pylon. Then his zealot arrives at the Terran base.

The zealot resisted the urge to kamikaze as many marines as possible, and instead calmly wandered around the command centre to have a look at the mineral line, oblivious to the hot shells zinging off his personal shields. He continues the harmless jaunt until his shields wear out, then he heads for home, causing me some amusement. The marines also laugh and let him go, and the zealot makes it away with 24 hp. The first factory finished. Also wookie began researching leg speed for his zealots, and the expected templar archives began the warp journey from elsewhere on Aiur.

Early chosen tech stage game:

The troop counts are now 3 zealots and 2 dark templar against 2 vultures, 8 marines and a tank, as Wookie makes a move. Both players are getting detection and upgrade capability, with a forge and engineering bay building as Wookie sends a pair of assassins to see what they can see. The Terran troops gather at the top of the ramp to their plateau, where a SCV begins constructing a turret.

The two players having drawn the furthest positions on the map, the turret is done by the time the dark templar attempt to casually wander into the Terran base. The first dark templar up the ramp yells as it vaporises, the second gets the message and retreats in time to save its skin. Ghost~ now starts laying spider mines about the choke point of his gully as a defence against the melee troops of Wookie and as preparation for taking his natural expansion. The second dark templar retreated only a little ways, so it sees this activity. Wookie is sending reinforcements too. Three vultures are sent out to scout out the map, and possibly inflict a little damage. One goes North check out the main at 12:00, the other two run afoul of Wookie's reinforcements in the middle of the map and die, doing little damage.

There is a pause in the action as both sides strive to gain an advantage without combat. Ghost~ bolsters his defences with a bunker at the choke, and more units. Wookie warps in a nexus at his own natural, starts upgrading weapons at his forge and plants a third gateway for his favoured unit, zealots.

Minimap:

Soon ghost~ is building another factory, a science facility, and a third command centre for floating to the South-east island. He forgot to do that floating bit for a while, unfortunately. Wookie is wary of the possibility of a turbo-newbie, so makes a robotics facility, and even a robotics support bay, for the speed upgrade? No, this was an accident. He didn't even remember he made it after the game. Unfortunately these buildings never had a great affect on the game. A few psi-raids would have been very nice. Ghost~'s first starport pumped out a wraith, which went scouting about the islands. Ghost~ built a second starport and a control tower at his first for more wraiths and cloaking ability. He also builds an armory for upgrades to his fleet of vehicles.

Chosen tech established game:

But what about action you may ask? Well, finally here it comes. Ghost~ sent his scouting wraith to check out the main at 6, and what should it find but a busy little probe trying to warp in a nexus and supporting buildings? There is already a pair of cannons at the ramp, too. Ghost~ immediately orders his vultures to cover the map outside the 6 o'clock natural gully with spider mines and sends an SCV to set up turrets, nervous of interference from DTs. The wraith kills the probe, but not before it could start warping in a cannon next to the nexus, which kills the wraith.

Finally, ghost~ moves out his army of tanks, vultures, and a science vessel for spotting and detection. Unfortunately, he is concentrating on getting his base running smoothly, and his attack is a very slow, laid-back affair. A few zealots tried assaulting the attacking army, but they were taken out by spider mines before they even get close. Tanks siege and begin pounding on the cannons at the top of the ramp while vultures place yet more mines in the rear, and a science vessel spots for the tanks.

Minimap update:

This attack was a bit of a fiasco for both sides; embarrassing for ghost~ because he isn't prepared to defend against it, and to wookie919 because not bothering to micro his troops let far more of them die to mines than ought. Wookie's assault force initially consisted of 3 high templar, and about 18 zealots, but this was quickly cut down to about 8 zealots. He had not made a dragoon so far this game, by the way, but now he orders a couple at his gateways. The remaining 8 zealots tore through the defence of turret and bunker. The troops which were rallied at the top of ghost~'s ramp roll down to take out the invaders, but themselves die in quick fashion. Ghost~ has no choice but to recall his main army from 6 o'clock.

Now, unbeknownst to me, all this time, a lone siege tank left behind when the rest of the army was recalled to defend ghost~'s base had been beating the expansion at 6 into the ground. Wookie sends a few more zealots to kill that tank. What they find along the way is a bunch of spider mines and three turrets, which fall, along with most of those zealots who found mines. Finally a few zealots cut down the tank in time to save the nexus. Ghost's presence in the map has been limited to his main, his natural, and the island, which he finally begins beturreting. Wookie has teched to observers at last. He doesn't scout much with them though, he has them because of the cloaking wraiths which ghost~ now has half a dozen of.

Ghost~ may have had a slight build-up of funds at this point, because he was still pumping out the units even as he rebuilt. Unfortunately he didn't really start mining that island expansion. After a minute he starts a press across the map towards Wookie's natural expansion. Their forces meet in the middle of the map. Zealots charge blindly into spider mines, and then die to the combined fire of tanks and vultures, as the dragoons race to catch up. Finally Wookie gets a good storm in on the Terran troops, but 4 tanks and 3 wraiths have survived, and are reinforced with vultures which charge ahead and dispatch a few high templar which were standing around in the middle of the map. Support SCVs repair tanks and the Terran forces pause to await more reinforcements outside of the gully's mouth.

Wookie's production had slacked off, so he tried to catch up by pumping zealots. Ghost~ secured his tentative hold on the map by laying mines absolutely all over the place. Then his vultures moved to support the force at wookie's gully mouth. Zealots charged! Spider mines did their deadly work for the umpteenth time. Wookie lost so many units to spider mines in this game, something he could work on in the future. If he could be bothered. The zealots forced the troops back to the centre of the map before giving their all as a new wave of tanks came along. Ghost~ made good use of defensive matrix to prolong the life of his troops. Finally ghost~ started leapfrogging tanks into wookie's natural.

Expansion update: Wookie had some probes working at both 6 and 12 at this time. He had also added a pair of gateways to 12, which would be invaluable in case of strong containment at his main. He is good at using his Protoss ability to run units about the map where ghost~ can't move to counter them without taking bad casualties. Both players mined their mains out. Ghost~ did not, however transfer his SCVs from his main to his natural or anywhere else. Furthermore, he only had 5 SCVs at his island expansion, and 3 of them are sitting idle. Both players had a good number of peons at their natural, although in Wookie's case, not for long.

With the few defending dragoons at wookie's natural out of the way, ghost~ charged in and lit into the nexus, finally. A shuttle watches idly by. I think wookie used it at some point for ferrying zealots to the enemy troops so they'd take less damage than they would walking around. Wookie adds 2 more gateways to his main at 12. Ghost~ finished off the natural at 9, and started laying spider mines up the ramp towards all those precious tech buildings. Also he moved a force towards wookie's new base at 12, which is currently guarded by 2 cannons and 4 goons. Now as ghost~ moves his tanks up the ramp at 9, wookie strikes back with a force of about 8 zealots, an observer and 5 goons, which almost eliminate the incoming army. A few sieged tanks in the gully survived, but they can't last long without more support, and certainly aren't going to press on any further right now. Simultaneously, wookie attacked the army near his expansion at 12 as well! The Terran forces were routed. Wookie tried to press his advantage with a few dragoons waltzing into tank fire at ghost~'s gully mouth. That didn't go very well though.

Endgame:

Finally Wookie919 made a stargate and a fleet beacon, is he stooping to carriers? No! He was obviously fed up with the wraiths and d-matrixing science vessels he is encountering in the battle field, for he chose to make scouts. The fleet beacon was immediately used to upgrade scout speed. These scouts also did very well at cleaning out the remaining tanks which are camping in the natural at 9. Ghost~ made one more futile attempt to attack wookie's expansion at 12.

Futile, I said. Yes, observe the minimap:

Good game.

Afterword: