"PP celebrates his defense with a round of Zealot Zima "
-~CattleBruiser~
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| Protoss and Zerg forces collide on Dire | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 06/21/99 07:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Skyblade: 8.3333 |  |
Map: Dire Straits
Teams:
Skyblade - Random Zerg, Top Right
Big-Penis - Protoss, Top Left
vs.
Scarab - Random Zerg, Bottom Right
Artemis-Entreri - Random Protoss, Bottom Left
Before the game
Before the game, BP chose Protoss because of the islands. All of the other players went random.
Early Game
BP and I allied up after sending our workers to harvest minerals. BP decided to go for a zealot/dark templar/reaver drop, hoping that both opponents weren't zerg. I decided to go for quick mutas and an expansion. On my overlords way down to bottom right, he encountered one of his buddies, a yellow overlord. After recieving no overlord from bottom left, BP's target for his drop was clear. When my overlord reached bottom right, Scarab had another hatchery morphing. At this point, I had just started to morph my second hatch, but already had a spawning pool and gas. After Scarab threw up an extractor and a spawning pool, we figured he was going for a hydra drop. So, I mad a few lings and a couple sunkens and proceded to tech up to mutas. At this point, BP's drop was almost ready. Up to this point, we had no recon on Artemis's base which would prove unfortunate for BP's drop. As BP's lone shuttle approached the base from the rear, he unloaded 2 dark templar which were immediately elimiated by 2 scarabs. Next, BP's reaver unloaded and managed to fire a scarab at an opposing reaver before being destroyed. BP angerly retreated his shuttle and started producing templar for the expected incoming hydra drop. Now, I had about a dozen troops and my spire was nearly completed. After it finished, I morphed 3 mutas to help escourt my now ventral sac enabled overlords to an expansion. Once the three mutas finished, I sent them to the middle right expansion followed by an overlord carrying 3 hydras, a zergling and a drone. After I started my expansion, I took my fleet of now 5 mutas and began picking off several of Scarab's slow overlords. After about 2-3 kills, he retreated his overlords to the safety of his growing population of hydralisks. By now, BP and I figured that our hunch of a hydra drop was correct. About the same time my expansion finished morphing, BP started his own at the left most island with double patches.
Middle Game
As the middle game approached, BP and I were feeling pretty confident. We both had expansions, air superiority and have yet to encounter an enemy expansion. Up to now, there was no combat except for BP's drop which was slaughtered and my harrassing of overlords. This was all about to change. While building drones at my right-middle expansion, I noticed a yellow blip on the screen. My mutas prompt response drove off two of Scarab's now speed upgraded overlords. I was now very leary of a hydra drop and began to patrol my mutas in front of my two bases, hoping to destroy the drop in the air. Suddenly, one of my mutas engaged one of Scarab's overlords. Unfortunately, following it were six others. My mutas attempted to engage the enemy overlords, but their speed enabled them to reach the coastline of my main base without sustaining any losses. As the hydras poured out of Scarab's overlords, I was forced to retreat my mutas and call upon BP for help. I knew my dozen or so assorted lings and hydras would not last long against 24 hydras. As the hydras ripped into my forces and began working on my sunkens, two of BP's shuttles started towards my island. At this point, I figured my main was gone and was glad I expanded in time. After my army and sunkens were obliterated, the hydras began working on my spire. BP landed his troops at a crucial time however and was able to catch the hydras off guard. BP brought two templar who began unleasing psi storm on the hydras. After the templar reduced the hydralisk army by about half, 2 reavers unloaded their scarabs upon the clustered hydras. The hydras then began to retaliate, but were only to deal minimal damage to BP's superior forces. At this point, I was shocked that my main survived, but had no faith that it withstand the next assault. So, I began restoring my drone population and put down a few sunkens again. As I was spending all my time repairing the status of my main base, Scarab demolished my expansion with 12 hydras, only sustaining minimal losses. At this point, I figured the end was near, but still continued to rebuild my main. Up until now, we had seen nothing from Artemis. So, I took my two surviving mutas and began to scout. They revealed no sign of Artemis, but rather two zerg expansions, middle left and middle right. Now, BP and I were feeling even less confident about our chances because the two zerg expansions were well fortified with hydras. At this point in the game, BP must have seen a blip on the mini map because he went over to check on the island directly ot the right of his expansion. He discovered several protoss buildings warping in and promptly began preparing for an invasion. Meanwhile, I was busy rebuilding my main and boulstering my hydralisk army. BP dropped his ever deadly templar and reaver combo and annihilated the zerg support force. Suprisingly, there were no protoss troops defending their expansion. As Scarab and Artemis were evicted from the island, BP threw up a pylon and began to slowly fortify the island. I took this time to send over 3 hydras and a drone to the top middle expansion to increase my mineral intake that I would need to keep up with Scarab and his two expansions. At this time, BP and Scarab had 2 expansion, I had one and we did not know who controlled the bottom middle expansion.
Late Game
Now, BP and I were pretty sure that all of the islands had been secured, now it was time for someone to make a move. By this time, I had a decent sized army of around 25 hydras mixed with about a dozen zerglings. Because of gas constraints, I had not bothered to rebuild my spire and abandoned the thought of mutas. Suprised that the final blow to my main hadn't come yet, I began to feel more confident. So, BP and I decided that we need to hit some of Scarab's expansions before he got too powerful. I loaded up two overlords full of hydras to accompany BP's two shuttles. The initial drop was successful and 8 hydras poured out to help 4 zealots and 2 dragoons rip apart the zerg forces. Unfortunately, I don't usually play zerg and always get in the habit of queueing up commands when I drop. So, immediately after all of the hydras were dropped, my overlords retreated to my main. That's when I heard the dreaded sounds of lurker tearing apart helpless zealots. I hastily turned my overlords around, but it was too late. BP and I had done significant damage, but the expansion was still standing. I took this opportunity to immediatly fill up five overlords full of hydras to assault the middle right expansion. As I expected, Scarab had transefered many of his hydras away to help refortify his middle left expansion. As a result, I had no trouble finishing off the expansion. I think that once Scarab noticed the assault, he turned his overlords carrying the hydras right around to help save his expansion. They arrived in time, but I was able to spot the drop early enough to have all of my hydras present on the coastline to help ward off the attack. Scarab's hydralisks were slaughtered as they exited the overlords and I then procede to destroy the expansion. Now, BP was dominating the board and probably resources as well. Just when we thought things were going well, BP recieved the much anticipated first assault by Artemis. Up until now, Artemis had limited his attack to only a couple zealots or dragoons to support Scarab's attack. We now understood why as BP's coastline suddenly turned aqua. Artemis had somehow snuck around our expansions and unloaded about 8 shuttles on BP's northeastern shore. 6 zealots, 6 dragoons, 4 templar, 4 reavers and 2 dark templar then began their march on BP's main. He summoned me for help and then began a couragous defense of his main. Psi storms from both sides devestated opposing ground troops. Artemis however, got the better of BP's forces and began pounding BP's main with dragoons and reavers. Luckily for me, BP attacked with newly created troops and distracted Artemis while I dropped 16 hydras. Artemis fended off BP's new army and noticed several hydras advancing on his position and unleashed 2 psi storms in a row. I was able to dodge the storms however and ran right up next to the templar, ensuring their death. Meanwhile, BP was able to dispatch of the remaining enemy reavers and repel Artemis's massive drop. Now, with our enemies surely starting to fel the economic pinch, BP ordered a counter attack on Artemis's main. I loaded up 6 overlords and flew down to bottom right and dropped on the northeastern shore and retreated my overlords back to my main. BP brought down 2 shuttles and unloaded 3 templar, a zealot and 2 reavers. As our forces marched into Artemis's main, we met no resistance and began to pound on vital buildings. Artemis managed to drop a couple of templar to defend his main. After a few vicious psi storm from Artemis, I had only 4 remaining hydras and BP had only 1 reaver and 2 templar. Then, unexpectedly, BP an I heard the dreaded sounds of a dark templar thrashing away at my hydralisks and eventually his reaver. Once again, I had forgotten to provide vital detection to our assault forces, which eneded up spelling thier defeat. So, I loaded up for another drop and this time provided my hydras with detection as they quickly disposed of two dark templar and began destroying Artemis's main. It wasn't until now that we finally scouted the bottom middle expansion. It was no surpirse that Artemis had claimed it and had begun to rebuild vital buildings. Now, BP and I prepared for an assault on Scarab's main. We figured that if our invasion was successful, the game would be won. We both dropped on the northern shore and I remembered to keep an overlord with my hydras. Well, as soon as we saw the edge of Scarab's creep, dozens of hydras came to offer resistance. Scarab had more hydralisks than I, but I had 3/3 and he only had 0/0. However, his superior number as well as lukers managed to destory a good percentage of my force. Now, BP's 2 reavers and 2 templar join the fight and quickly eliminated the enemy forces. I began to hit on crucial building while avoiding lurkers until reinforcements came. I dropped about 12 more hydras and then began to remove the island of Scarab's lukers. BP retreated his forces to attend to an unexpected drop by Artemis. Several dragoons a few templar and 2 reavers assaulted BP's leftmost expansion. Artemis did substancial damage but was unable to raze the island after BP's reinforcements arrived and began pouring psi storms upon the enemy troops. By this time, Scarab's main was destroyed and BP and I prepared to destroy Scarab's sole expansion at middle left and Artemis's sole expansion at bottom middle. Artemis had fortified his expansion with dozens of cannons, so we decided to try and hit Scarab first. While en route, BP's leftmost expansion became under attack by several of Scarab's guardians with devourer support. I was forced to drop my hydras on BP's expansion in order to save it from destruction. I was able to fend off the guardians until BP arrived with templar. The templar were able to kill 2 guardians before being destroyed. I was then able to kill the lone remaining guardian with my hydras. Next, BP and I simply ran past Scarab's 2 devourers and dropped about a dozen hydras on Scarab's last base. Both Scarab and Artemis were ready to concede defeat with a gg and both players resigned upon Scarab's elimination.
Lessons
Hit your opponent when he's down - If either Artemis or Scarab had attacked me with a second wave of troops early in the game, I would have surely been eliminated. However, I think that Artemis chose to save up for a massive assault on BP and Scarab chose to expand.
Hotkey your production facilities - By doing so, I was able to drop on the enemy and then have to wait less than a minute before I was ready for another full scale drop, effectively keeping the pressure on my enemies.
Get a good partner - This is probably the reason why we won. BP's templar, reaver combo was able to kill dozens of enemy troops, helping him get ahead in resources.
- Skyblade
P.S. This is my first battle report, comments would be appreciated.
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