Drefsab Enterprises Inc.^tm Presents...

INTRODUCTION:

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Like most Starcraft players that compete on Battle.Net, I have 5 or 6 different aliases that I use for various purposes depending on what mood I'm in.

One of my more recent creations is a fellow by the name of Sgt.Dref. Had Sgt.Dref known the purpose for his creation he very well might have put in a request to Blizzard to have himself deleted to save himself the misery.

"Why?" you ask. Because I chose this alias to play on the Battle.Net ladder with the Terran race. (Screams of terror and horrifying music fill the air)

As you can probably guess, I faired poorly. By the end of my 20th ladder game I was 8-10-1 with 2 Futher Muckers disconnecting on me and one of those Futher Muckers giving me a disconnect/loss as well. My sorry rating was 988. I got sick of that account and seeing no progress coming any time soon, went back to my Drefsab account.

THE LIGHT BULB GOES ON:

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While having some meaningful SC discussion/debate with a couple of my B.Net buddies the other day, the talk of cannon containment came up. Instantly, thoughts of cannons in an opponent's choke, on the cliff above their natural, and of course, in their base, filled my head.

I decided to try my luck with cannons on the ladder. As an interesting plot twist, I decided to use my Sgt.Dref account. The question being, Would I fair better with my Sgt.Dref account using only protoss cannons as compared to when I had the combined resources of the entire terran race?

I chose The Lost Temple for my fun as it was a wonderful map for cannon tricks.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN...

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In my first game, I was facing a fellow by the name of DTC-Marine. DTC chose White Terran as his race while I, of course, chose Protoss. DTC started at 12:00 and I began at 9:00.

My basic stategy and build order consisted of a pylon on 7 and a forge on 9. (I know it's complicated, but stay with me here.) I threw in a little twist by warping in my forge in an obscure corner of my main. Hopefully by doing this, I would make my opponent think I was a newbie when he scouted my base and saw no buildings.

This particular game, all went well because DTC didn't even bother to scout me.

In order for my plan to be as effective as possible, I sent my 9th and 10th probes out to scout. I needed to find my opponent as soon as possible.

My 9th probe went south to the 6:00 position and my 10th probe went north to 12:00. As my 10th probe went up the 12:00 ramp, he spotted one of DTC's SCVs loitering around the top of the ramp. As my probe headed toward an obscure part of DTC's base, the SCV followed. I cursed. If DTC chased my probe around in circles, I would never be able to warp in the first pylon.

The SCV didn't chase me for long and for a moment, I thought I'd be able to pull it off. But then, the reason for the SCV giving up became apparent when a marine started taking potshots at me. I headed my probe for the ramp trying to escaped the base but the marine was able to get in one last shot that put my probe over the edge and he exploded in an orange/blue haze. However, his last transmission showed an SCV building a bunker at DTC's ramp.

AS GameOverZ WOULD SAY, I LIKE THE BACK DOOR:

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With a bunker being constructed at the only entrance to DTC's base, I knew that there would be no way to sneak another probe inside. So I did the next best thing. I brought my scouting probe up to the entrance to DTC's base and constructed 3 cannons there for containment.

Back at my base, I quickly teched up to shuttles. It was important that I have shuttles before DTC got tanks.

While I worked on the shuttle tech, I sent my industrious probe along the bottom edge of DTC's plateau to the back side of his base. There, below the cliff, I constructed a pylon and 2 cannons.

When the shuttle arrived, I moved my probe up onto the plateau. I had placed the pylon in such a way that I could immediately begin construction of 2 cannons on the plateau. This was good because the cannons had just completed their warp when a lone, wandering marine discovered my trickery. He was quickly taken down by the cannons, but he was followed shortly by a group of 4 marines and 4 firebats. They came charging at my cannons however, they came in a straight line and my 2 cannons easily picked them off one by one.

By this time, I had more pylons and cannons warping. Another group of marines attacked but they made the mistake of attacking warping cannons instead of warped in cannons. This proved to be devastating to DTC's infantry and by the time he refocused his fire, he was too late to destroy the cannons.

With the destruction to DTC's infantry, I was free to warp in my next row of cannons. This row was within building range and it took down a barracks and the refinery. The next row was in range of the command center, the academy, and the second barracks.

With cannons at the entrance to his base and cannons pushing across his plateau from behind, DTC was caught in the middle of a deadly squeeze play and was forced to concede.

With a 12 minute, 16,000 to 9000 point victory** under my belt, I was ready to move on to my next challenge.

** Picture of the score left out to decrease load time

CANNONS WORK ON ZERGLINGS TOO...

I started at the 6:00 position and once again, I went with my classic forge first build order. (Its classic now because this is the second time that I've used it.) I followed the same strategy constructing the pylon and forge in an obscure part of my base.

This would be my downfall. Just as my forge started to warp in, a big bloated yellow object floated over my Nexus. That's right, Flawlezz had morphed in at the 9:00 position and he knew exactly where I was. This would not be good for business.

Sure enough, my scouting probe was halfway to the zerg base when he ran into 6 ravenous yellow zerglings. I had just started warping a pylon at my mineral line.

I sent a couple of probes to my ramp to hold the fort as long as possible, but the zerglings quickly charged through my puny defense and then charged into my mineral line.

Unfortunately for me, my first cannon was only about a third of the way complete when the zerglings began assaulting it and it was quickly torn down leaving my Nexus naked and helpless.

So, going back to the title of this section. Cannons may work on zerglings, but they have to warp in first. An important lesson for all people who plan on using cannons as an offensive weapon.

LOSERS APPLY HERE:

Real intelligent fella there. Not to worry though, it didn't take long for another person to join. This guy's name was Ender'Wiggin' and he chose protoss as his race. We had been playing for about 15 seconds when he started this discussion...

So basically, he joins a ladder game and then leaves because I didn't choose fastest as the speed. This was getting ridiculous. I was beginning to wonder if there were any non gay people left on B.Net that evening.

I THINK I'VE FOUND SOMEONE...

I started out at the 9:00 position with White Protoss while JavaGod started out at the 3:00 position with Purple Zerg.

Once again, I broke out my brilliant, well thought out build order of a pylon on 7 and a forge on 9. I built the forge over in the corner of my base, but because of the 4 pool zerg disaster last game I quickly built a second pylon next to my Nexus so that I could build cannons immediately if I had to.

I sent my 9th probe south to scout out the 6:00 position and of course found it to be empty. However, as my probe went down the ramp and started heading for the 9:00 position, 6 purple zerglings came charging directly at my probe. I cursed as I helplessly watched the zerglings.... Run past the probe without giving him a second glance!! No attack move there folks.

Seeing JavaGod's zerglings heading for 6:00, I knew that they would be arriving at my base shortly so I immediately started warping in two cannons.

In the meantime, I sent my shaky, but still functional probe over to 9:00. As my probe walked up the ramp, 2 more zerglings ran by. These zerglings were also very rude and didn't even stop to say hello. I shrugged my shoulders and headed over to a quiet corner of JavaGod's plateau where I started a pylon.

Meanwhile, JavaGod's zerglings had finally arrived in my base. They ravenously attacked my cannons, however the combination of cannon fire and probe attacks proved to be more than enough to handle the threat. In fact, it wasn't even close.

As soon as the pylon on JavaGod's plateau finshed warping I started 3 cannons in close proximity to each other. I waited nervously as the cannons warped in. I was vulnerable only until these cannons warped in. Once they were activated, I would be set.

They warped in with no incident and I began my constructing pylons within cannon range. When those pylons were done, I expanded my web. I was building cannons right on the edge of his creep before he discovered my devious plan. He immediately began building creep colonies but they were within range of my cannons and he was only able to take down one cannon before his sunken was destroyed.

Seeing that I would soon have his base completely surrounded he ran his zerglings around the 6 cannons that I had containing him and headed off to my base.

I saw his troops head out so I quickly built 3 more cannons around my Nexus for protection. Then I continued constructing the web. Pretty soon, I had his entire base surrounded with cannons from the edge of his plateau on the left to the edge of the screen on the right. JavaGod was able to build one sunken out of range of my cannons but this sunken was not in a position to protect any of the buildings except for the spawning pool and the extractor.

As cannon fire began to pummel his hatchery, I, being the smartass that I am, sent this message:

Eventually, JavaGod's zerglings arrived at my base. But their single file formation attack was no match for my cannon/probe defense.

JavaGod's offensive was smashed and his Main base was basically out of commision but he didn't leave. I began to get suspisious. I sent a probe (Since that was still my only mobile unit) out to scout.

The first thing I discovered was a hatchery morphed in at his natural. This was no problem for me. The base wasn't operational yet and there were no sunkens yet to contend with so I simply expanded my cannon web out to take out the expansion.

However, my probe continued its scouting mission down to 6:00. As he climbed up the ramp he was forced to make some moves around a zergling to get onto the plateau. He had only gone a few yards when he ran into another zergling. I microed that probe like crazy until it finally died. JavaGod had spread zerglings out all over the plateau to prevent anymore cheese cannon strats. Notice the capacity to learn folks. That is the first sign of intelligence in a species.

Okay then, let's pause to take stock of the situation. I have put JavaGod's main and 1 attempted expansion out of commision with my cannons. However, my cannons cannot move and my only building besides numerous pylons is a forge. I have just started warping in a Nexus at the spot where JavaGod's first expansion attempt was but I still have 0 gas.

JavaGod has begun rebuilding his main on the 6:00 plateau and no probe rush is going to penetrate it. I'm pretty sure I saw a hydra den morphing before my probe scout was popped.

There was only one recourse of action at this point. The cannons had done their job and now it was time to throw together some troops to finish the game.

Luckily for me, my economy was far superior to his and once I got the vespian gas rolling in, I teched up to templar and started archon production. When I had six archons (With one templar to spare) I started dragoon production. By the time I produced my 12th dragoon I had 4 gateways going.

I was about to launch my assault when I heard the dreaded words, "Your base is under attack". Pushing the spacebar, I saw that JavaGod had been able to throw together a hydra drop while I was busily teching. Unfortunately for him, he chose to land his troops in the middle of my soon to be offensive force. The massacre wasn't pretty. I don't think I lost a single man in the attack. By the time my view was centered over the battle, it was already over and a pool of hydra blood lay at the feet of my goons and archons.

I quickly turned my defensive force into an offensive force and gathered outside his base for a final assault. My troops quickly ran over the few zerglings and hydras left to defend the base and victory was mine!.. errr, no wait... Mommy, look, those numbers are going backwards. 35... 34... 33... 32... What's it mean mommy?.. He WHAT?!?!

After dropping JavaGod the DISCONNECTOR (That's his new name from now on (or JGD for short)) I checked out the scores.

THE END... FOR NOW...

Truthfully though, I'm not upset. In fact, this really was pretty exciting and it shows promise. Maybe if I refine my build order to pylon on 7, forge on 10; or pylon on 8, forge on 10; or pylon on 7, forge on 8; or......... Errrm, you get the point.

I've still got 10 games left on Sgt.Dref before I hit the 30 game K factor. Maybe if I keep using my cannon strat I can reach 1100 by then...

Stay tuned to this station. I know you're just dying to find out how this will turn out...

Cheers,