"I may be in the minority here but the thought of Heartcutter in a tub of chlorinated water splashing about with some moistened tarts trying to (apparentely) gain some sort of sexual favor in order to procreate truly frightens me. Little Heartcutters....((shivers)) makes Blair witch look like disney."
-Thundercracker
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| Corsairs tipping the balance | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 05/29/99 11:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for patheto: 6.2500 |   | One day I got together with a friend ( he's not in BNet)to play a 1:1 over IPX. As a map we chose Astral Balance(SW and NO corner mains with one choke, NW and SO expansions reachable air only, in between 4 expansions). I had shown him before how BNet works, and played a 1:1 on Blood bath to show him my Zealot rush. My presentation failed when my opponent 6-linged me.
I therefore expected him to rush, so I quickly built up a cannon defense at my choke, consisting of 5 cannons. The expected rush never came. It later turned out that he had expected me to Zealot rush and decided for defense. Happily, I climed the tech tree, first warping in a warpgate( I was scared shitless at the prospect of a single guardian massacring my cannons) and a robotics facility.
I commenced corsair production while building for a reaver drop. With 3 corsairs up and running, I conducted an expansion search. Luckily, he hadn't expanded yet. Even better, I found 2 OLs at the corner exps. May they rest in peace. A further one ran into my cannons and without speed upgrade there was no rescue for him. Let us spend a minute in silence in his memory.
My 3 corsairs entered his base from the east, finding 2 spore colonies, a heap of lings, and 3 OLs. Gritting their teeth, my corsairs stood the spores long enough to down them, and escape. Meanwhile, corsair production had continued, the reaver drop was in construction (2 robotics facilities, by now), and work was just beginning on an observatory. Looking at my bank account, I decided to wrench out all the benefit there was in those corsairs. I warped in a fleet beacon to get this pesky thing called D-Web.
At this time my reaver drop took to the airs, entering his base from the north, dropping the 2 reavers and killing all the peons, then succumbing to lings and a couple of hydras(3 at most). I was now working to establish observer coverage above every possible expansion site, at the same time researching D-Web and energy upgrade for my corsairs. It would eventually pay out.
Judging that it had so far been a lucky day, I decided to expand to NW corner. After all, my air superiority was as of yet uncontested. I flew in a probe and 2 reavers. The probe initiated a Nexus and a cannon perimeter, as well as
a second warpgate to speed up corsair production.
My observers (speed-upped and sight-upped) were beginning to form a ring around his main, showing scores of scourges and OLs on perimeter patrol, backed up by colonies of both types. Second reaver drop, good bye. An OL with scourges in escort reached the SO expansion, managing to unload a drone before being blotted out of the sky by neutron flares. It followed the only confrontation between corsairs and scourges. It took a whole dozen of his scourges to kill two of my 8 corsairs. I never saw scourges again after that. A flown-in reaver and an observer eventually killed the drone and I decided to expand there. Same story as in NW, nexus, 2 reavers, cannons.
I had been building reavers for an attack on his choke all the time. I was just about to get going when an observer spotted a zergling mob pouring out of his main. I just wonder how he fitted them all in there!
To cut a long story short, my reavers and cannons were overwhelmed by the inundation( a single templar would have saved the day! Argh!), though they managed to kill all but a good dozen. I quickly set to warp in every building for which the requirements were still standing at my two expansions.
I was a bit worried, but not overly so. With my corsairs and the observer recon, I could shoot down any invasion attempt at my expansions. While reestablishing reaver and zealot production, I used my corsairs' D-Webs(which had failed miserably to make a difference against the lings) to shut down all of his main's spore colonies and set my corsairs on his overlords. If I hadn't done this, I think, he would have expanded all over the place before I again had reavers to drop on him.
But this did it. He expanded once, but zealot drops killed his main, then I repeated the D-Web thing at his expansion.
He commented with "I'm dead" or something like that and surrendered.
Lessons to be learned:
-Take care of your Overlords. Hydras, scourges and spore colonies can't protect them against corsairs. You'll need Devourer-mutas. Mix them 1:3.
-Don't think your reavers own every land unit there is. That mistake cost me my main. Reavers can only keep up with lings and ultras when you go HARD reaver. Don't keep 3 at every base and think you're delivered from all gound fighting units( I did just that).
-One word: RECON
My observer ring played a crucial part in keeping him bottled up. He never got any recon on me, cause I was warned and intercepted every scout( he twice tried with queens). I admit this is difficult for non-protoss, but lurkers and ghosts will do it just the same, though the ghost will have to decloak when energy is scarce.
-take the initiative. reaver drop and corsair raid slowed him down badly, thinking defensively lost me my main. risky expansions saved me at that point. |
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