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Introduction

This report is a Mark4 Production.

Ah, the holidays. That wonderful time of year when sleigh bells ring, carolers sing, and Pitt stays drunk for about three weeks. Well folks, it’s time for another Rook’s Corner. This time our focus is on Bob_The_Newt, a good player, great report writer, and relatively recent addition to the BR.com staff as a rater. For everybody who complains about their report not getting rated five times, Bob is the designated rater to give the second rating, and if he doesn’t do his job then the 3rd, 4th, and 5th guys can’t either. So it’s all his fault =] (j/k).

I caught Bob wandering around the nohunters channel, begging for someone to play a 2v2 with him. Exercising my nearly omnipotent authority as a BR.com staff member, I ordered him to forget his plans and select someone for a 1v1, notifying him that he was the next Rook Corner’s subject =]. After rejecting all the candidates with a ladder score over 1000, and anyone with a winning melee record, or in fact anyone with any playing ability whatsoever, the field looked a little bit thin. But then salvation walked in, in the form of -Pitt-! You see, Pitt has a decent ladder score, a winning melee record, and quite a bit of skill. But it was a weekend, so there was a good 96.4% probability that Pitt was drunk as hell and would concentrate on weird strats instead of winning (AAAAYEEEEE TELEMUNDO!!). Sensing the only chance he would have to not be entirely embarrassed in his interview game, Bob selected Pitt.

The Art of War

A Rook’s Corner game is always the subject of some interest in the community. People seem to feel that having a witty comment they make quoted in a report is cool. I had to keep up a ruthless policy of banning, letting only the master of cool comments himself, [FLS]Prozerran (smurfing as 4-pooler) into the game. Now what map is better for a game like this than Lost Temple? Everybody knows it so you don’t have to think too hard, people have highly scripted strats so they don’t make amusing mistakes, and it’s been overplayed like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll tell you what map is better, River War!

Sure, it’s a little big for 1v1, but what the heck. Bob selected protoss and ended up in the upper left with yellow. Pitt randomned to white terran and began in the upper right. The combatants were next door neighbors practically. Bob began with a nice traditional build order that went like this:
Pylon
Assimilator
Gateway
Core
Pylon
Robotics Facility
Citadel of Adun
Robotics Support Bay

He didn’t follow this up with a templar archives for a while, preferring to produce a few zealots and go for zealot speed rather quickly. Fast zealots on islands…maybe Pitt wasn’t the only one drinking.

Pitt on the other hand, wasn’t following one of those boring traditional build orders. He started a second command center right after his first depot, leading FLS to speculate on his chances.

In most circumstances FLS would have been right. It certainly looked like Bob was heading right for a quick reaver drop, which is deadly vrs the early expansion because you can’t have a tank before the reaver hits you. But this was a big map… Pitt got away with the early expansion, floating his only barracks over and fortifying it while going for a dual starport strategy. Bob conclusively proved that he is not a map hacker, and is damn unlucky by using his first shuttle to search the entire lower half of the map before finally wandering over Pitt’s expansion in the upper right corner of the map.

Pitt was the first to draw blood, sending his first wraith on a successful scouting mission that ended at Bob’s probe line. Pitt received some good recon from the effort, but was forced to withdraw his wraith rather then let it face a newly made dragoon. Bob decided that he needed to catch up to Pitt on expansions and dropped a probe off on the island directly beneath his main to start warping in a nexus.

If you remember, Bob had found the location of Pitt’s expansion. In an effort to cut off the flow of resouces from that location, Bob chose to execute the dreaded reaver drop, albeit quite a bit later than it usually comes. Unfortunately, Pitt had seen the scouting shuttle and made his preparations. Two marines, a turret, and a wraith awaited the shuttle on the most likely avenue of approach to the island. (OCOKA! Go Pitt!) The shuttle was destroyed before dropping any of its cargo. With a cry of “Gay”, Bob expressed his dissatisfaction, causing a quick discussion of the tactic.

Despite his losses, Bob soldiers on with the grit of any BR.com rater, pumping out templar and maynarding probes to his new expansion.

Both Bob and Pitt expand again at this point, Pitt taking the upper middle expansion next to Bob’s base, and Bob sending a probe to the lower half of the map to start an expansion there. Pitt is fully into his mass wraith strategy at this point. Bob tries another drop at Pitt’s upper right expansion, but is turned away by a well placed turret and marine.

Pitt, on the other hand is trying his own method of expansion killing. He chances on the new protoss expansion in the lower left with two wraiths. The base has a stargate, two gateways, and two cannons warping in. Pitt kills the cannons with his wraiths as the bulk of his wraith force moves towards the action. Two dragoons and a corsair are produced, but can do nothing against the cloaked attackers. As more wraiths come in the corsair is gunned down without even firing a shot, then the wraiths begin killing the dragoons. Two more dragoons emerge from the gateways only to face concentrated laser fire from their unseen enemies. Some of the wraiths are newly created and their cloaking energy gives out, but they continue the attack, prevailing with only one loss. The wraiths stay behind to laboriously kill the expansion while both players turn their attention to other matters. As a side note, if Pitt had gone straight for the protoss main at this point he could have arguably won the game with his wraith force.

Conceding the expansion as lost, Bob decides to go for the island directly between his and Pitt’s main. Unfortunately, Pitt has already landed a barracks there and is about to secure the island for himself. The three marines Pitt has produced attack once they see the protoss force, dodging a storm from the first templar and gunning it down.

The second templar fires off it’s own storm as the marines attack the first and kills all three. Then the probes move over to the barracks and wait for the next marine to be produced, swiftly killing it with their sonic probes when it emerges. =] Pitt decides he isn’t going to tolerate any more embarrassing probing incidents and lift the barracks to his main. Bob quickly drops a few dragoons and begins warping in cannons to defend his newly acquired real estate.

Pitt’s wraiths finally finish off the lower left expansion and proceed up to harass Bob’s expansion just below Bob’s main. Concentrated laser fire from a control group of wraiths swiftly knocks out the three defending cannons. Two corsair arrive just as the last cannon falls and are killed by the cloaked wraiths. Pitt then concentrates fire on two newly created templar, killing them easily and proceeds to destroy the two defending dragoons. Pitt gets a good twenty seconds of probe molesting in before an observer and two shuttles of dragoons arrive and finally end his fun, causing him to withdraw the remnants of his wraith army.

Now Bob has a good feel for the game of starcraft. And the feeling he has been getting up to this point is “Damn, how bad can I get owned?” To reverse this discouraging trend he figures he needs to break out of his current mindset and take a few risks to get back in the game. Bob does a double expansion, once to

the bottom left side, and once to just below his previous expansion in the upper middle. In the meantime Pitt has created a mass Command Center field to the right of his main, making nuke silos on all three CCs. Pitt quickly found the expansion in the upper middle and moved to interdict with his wraiths. A templar and a dragoon quickly fell to the three wraiths, but four corsair and an observer turned the tide, killing the wraiths with no casualties. Six more wraiths attacked, killing the observer with a comsat, then attacking the newly made cannons. One of the cannons finished warping before it could be destroyed, and the corsair and cannons managed to end the threat at the loss of a few corsair. Not discouraged by this setback, Pitt dropped the first nuke of the game on the upper middle expansion that was fully functional. Bob had a handy shuttle nearby and loaded all his probes into it, flying to safety before the nuke landed.

Bob had reaped enough profits to start to put together an offensive. He dropped six dragoons on Pitt’s first expansion. A corsair sped in and used dweb on the first bunker,

not realizing that Pitt had been bluffing the whole time and both defending bunkers were empty! Six wraiths darted in, using comsat to kill both observers Bob had brought along. They then chased off the corsair and began working on the dragoons. Three dragoon died before an observer arrived on the scene. The dragoons started working over the wraiths, despite Pitt’s last second attempt to repair the wraiths with the SCVs he had mining. A few marines produced from the barracks were not enough to save the expansion when Bob brought in another two dragoons to help finish the job.

Feel the burn!

Pitt quickly prepares a counterstrike to try and regain his advantage. A ghost moved to the edge of the cliff surrounding Bob’s main. The “nuclear launch detected” message sounds through the air, and Pitt slaps an EMP on the nexus just before the nuke hits. The resulting fireworks are flashy, although as FLS points out, don’t take out anything significant. Pitt expands to the resource area just to the south of the expansion he lost, then begins some hit and run raids. He plays a deadly game of tag with corsair, luring a few over the bunkers at his upper left expansion, then goes for broke, making a shuttle killing raid right into Bob’s main. When he takes fire he comsats and kills the observer, then destroys a few helpless corsair. Sighting three more shuttles at the bottom of Bob’s main, he pursues them, killing all three. This short pause let Bob get an observer into position, and he counters the wraiths with a few corsair. The superior numbers of the wraiths count for little because they have all been damaged in the previous skirmishes, and they eventually fall, killing all but one of the corsair.

Pitt has kept up on his wraith production, and his scouting. He finally finds the base in the mid left that Bob established in the beginning of the game as part of his double expansion strat.

A few seconds later the wraiths begin their assault, focus fire taking down the cannons with ease. Bob reacts in his typical fashion, choosing to expand again just below the expansion under assault, and to the place he lost his first expansion to wraiths rather than defend the expansion now being attacked. Pitt finishes the base, then continues on his recon, finding the new base in the place he already killed one expansion. With a sensation of déjà vu, he attacks the expansion with the same degree of success. Bob is understandably upset.

But time is running out for Pitt. Bob realizes there are a great many counters for a mass wraith strategy. Mass wraiths work if you can deny expansion, but Bob has been expanding faster than the wraiths can take them down. Now it’s time for a little payback.

Bob hooks up a ten dragoon two archon drop on Pitt’s upper left expansion, thoughtfully dwebing the defending tank. The force is nearly unopposed, and Pitt can do nothing to stop the attack. In retribution he launches a nuke at the upper right expansion where another of his bases once stood. Bob has established a new nexus on top of the rubble of the destroyed base. Unfortunately, Bob once again sees the warning red dot and runs the probes away, but the nexus is destroyed. A second attempt to nuke the upper middle expansion Pitt has nuked once before is stopped by two watchful dragoons and an observer.

A few corsair and wraith skirmishes in the bottom left turn out in Bob’s favor, Pitt being a little distracted and failing to cloak in time. This leaves Pitt without a mobile reaction force against Bob’s next move. Having finished off the upper left terran base, Bob picks up his dragoon and archon assault force, adding in a few zealots and templar, and moves to Pitt’s main. Corsair clear the way, killing wraiths freshly produced from the starports, .

The landing is unstopped, and Bob begins to lay waste to the terran base. Starport after starport falls, taking away the very unit producing buildings Pitt needs to stay in this game. Turning his attention away from the battle at Pitt’s main, Bob finds the time to attack a new expansion being built on the same island in the upper right that first Pitt occupied, then Bob, then after the last nuke Pitt was building on again. A few dragoons puts an end to hopes of expanding there for Pitt.

Not discouraged, Pitt expands to the lower right, then launches another nuke at the protoss upper middle expansion. Once more Bob moves his probes away, letting only a single dragoon be killed in the attack. The ghost is swiftly hunted down and executed. Bob’s use of psi storm to kill the ghost when he has a dragoon handy prompts a quick discussion on storm, imbalance, and Bob’s sexuality.

If one nuke is good, two is better. Targeting the protoss expansion right under the one he just nuked, Pitt lets fly with another nuke from the island below it.

This nuke is directly on target, and although a few probes survive, the island’s defenses are severely degraded.

Party Time

Bob isn’t going to let himself be distracted by nukes. He has more than enough resources for what he needs to do. Six dragoons, a templar, two archons, and more gayweb than Bob really needs descends on Pitt’s upper right expansion. Pitt hasn’t had the opportunity to switch over to the ground forces he would need to counter this sort of attack, and the island falls quickly. Steadily losing his most important expansions, and having lost most of his unit producing structures, Pitt struggles gamely on. Where a lesser man might have given up, Pitt chooses a slightly different response:

Bob is even more upset when a second nuke is launched right after the first one. This one finds it’s target also and destroys the nexus.

End Game (finally!)

But no sort of destruction at his bases is going to stop Bob now.

He continues using his doom drop, taking out yet another expansion. This one is barer than the rest, showing Pitt is reaching the end of his resources. Bob’s corsair fleet is momentarily stymied by a cloaked wraith over Pitt’s next expansion, when Bob tries the old “attack your own corsair with the others and hope the splash hits the wraith too” trick. Needless to say he managed to kill three out of his six corsair, a lot more than the wraith would have done on it’s own before the observer got there =].

With the air defenders so painfully cleared, Bob has a clear zone for a drop at Pitt’s second to last expansion. The archons, zealots, and dragoons are opposed only by lowly SCVs. FLS remarks casually that if Pitt had spent his minerals on barracks and marines rather than three more naked expansions he might have done a little better at this point in the game. Pitt pays no heed to this comment and orders up a few more command centers.

It’s all down to one last expansion for Pitt. The archon and dragoon drop is met with a desperation tactic: Pitt nukes his own base. The Protoss forces run away and Pitt quickly cancels the nuke. When the forces return Pitt nukes once again, then cancels again when the protoss forces retreat. There is no more delaying as Bob sends in his forces once more. Pitt realizes he is at the end of the line, and decides to go out with a bang. Just before the silo is destroyed, Pitt launches his final nuke of the game from the ledge overlooking both his last expansion and a protoss expansion. Walling himself in with a depot, he buys just enough time to get the nuke off. Unfortunately, he gets only a single kill, but at least he went out swinging. Bob finishes off the Pitt’s last few command centers with a growing scout fleet. Total game time: 58:16

Congratulations to Bob for not getting smoked in his Rook’s Corner game! And a great job from Pitt with his never say die attitude.

You can check out the interview with Bob HERE.

Thanks for reading my report. I hope you enjoyed it.

Mark4