"I'd like to congratulate Worry2 for slappin' me around liked a red-headed stepchild."
-Omnipresent
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| Balrog VS ScreamStalker: A Swedish Tourney! *lotta pics* | | | Author: | | | IP: | static-2XXXX | | Date: | 03/21/00 07:03 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Famous Reporter(1), Old Classic(1), Great Writing(1), Problem: Broken Images(1), Long(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for |]agomar: 8.6667 |   |
Hello again, and welcome to another |]agomar battlereport.
I realize most of you are shocked and dismayed that I didn't release a report last week. Well, I feel I have some explaining to do!
First, I was in Ottawa. That'd be my main excuse. This would also explain why I wasn't in nohunters all last week, why I lost a couple friends due to my absence, and why I didn't post any comments here. Side note: playing versus the computer for hours at a time on 256x256 maps is not only is very boring, but also leads to extremely long games. I played an 8 and a half hour game one night. I'm serious. I may actually have a screenshot of the scores on my sister's computer. It's amazing how long a battle between 3/3 carriers by a shield battery and continually reinforced masses of mutas can last. Multiply that by 6 ( I was playing against that many computer opponents ) and you can guess how arduous this game was. I slept through most of it ( lol ).
Returning to my apology, these reports with massive amounts of pics and html take alot more work than I previously expected, especially with geocities acting up with file downloads ( there's nothing more annoying than uploading ten files, then waiting 20 minutes only for the action
canceled screen to display ). I'll still try to get one out every week, but it's tough.
This report, by the way, marks my second attempt to get a 10. My first was named SNOW, but was only marked an 8, with Probe spamming the comments section all the way ( instead of upgraded Probe he should change his name to spamming probe ). We'll see how this is marked.
So, anyway, it's on to our feature presentation!
Game One - Orbital Smackdown 
Pregame Report
I was hanging around in nohunters, and was approached by a couple cool people who had just read a couple of my html battlereports. After discussing how cool I was with them, we decided to set up a game which I would observe together with a guy named Kosher ( who did, by the way, miraculously get his html right when commenting on the most recent WC3 William report ). This was to be my attempt to get a 10, so we quickly started a pubbie game on that legendary map:
Orbital Death. We started out with three observers, and no contestants, not a promising beginning in any attlereported game. Somehow an arial duel with command centers did not seem to be the road to a 10 for me, so I frantically messaged no fewer than nine friends ( including the glorious InfestedBlade, the mighty Leopard and the strange yet cool Fox^1 ), only to find that none of them were online. In the end, the Swedish Hero ^Balrog^ was forced from the observer slot, and finally a guy named ScreamStalker joined up. The valiant Swede seemed to know he was about to lose, yet agreed anyway and the game was on! Little did we know this was to be the start of a best of three tourney between the two skilled Europeans . . . .
Kosher Landed as Terran at top left, and quickly lifted his command center, sending his SCVs towards me with alarming speed. I also ordered my Center to rise, and suspecting the upcoming conflict, rolled my peons in a tight semicircle. What followed next was the mightiest battle of the entire evening, and the greatest test of my brutal peon micro:
A glorious struggle in which 2 red SCVs survived! These, surprisingly, would play an important role later in the game. I summed it up nicely afterwards, but, inside, I was of course devastated. Everyone knows my peon micro owns!
Yet for now we were content to sit back, and watch Balrog, who warped in as Protoss at bottom left, and ScreamStalker, who morphed into being as the hideous Zerg at 9:00, battle it out to the death! Both players uttered the usual miserable proclamations that they were going to lose, as I fervently explained that I wanted a ten for this br, so they'd better tech up, fast. Tension rose as both pursued chosen builds, and rapidly scouted the map.
Early Game
Thanks to Kosher's idiocy, one of his SCVs was just returning from scouting the bottom of the map, when it ran into ScreamStalker's eighth drone, also on a reconnaisance mission. This was perhaps the biggest observer blunder I have ever seen. I cursed at the blundering Kosher, for now in all likihood the Zerg believed they were facing a Terran opponent, who hadn't even found the Main base yet, even though a purple probe had stealthily crept onto the Creep and uncovered Stalker's lair just moments ago. Yellow, now with a false ense of security, began to morph a second hatchery before he even started on a sunken, obviously wanting to win the production game and secure victory as quickly as possible.
Balrog, on the other hand, followed a far more conservative build. He started out with a pylon, a gateway, another pylon, the second gateway and yet another pylon. Obviously he wanted enough supply early on for mass zealot production, which he commenced when two of the brave warriors phased in from Aiur a minute later, ready to slay any Zerg opponent that came in their way. Soon, the Executor had a powerful legion of zeals ready to rock, and he sent them out against his confident foe, single file, of course, the way to go against the sunkens he thought he'd face.
Finale? Already? I'll never get a 10 this way!
ScreamStalker, in his own mind, was doing good. His second hatchery had just, erm, hatched, and he was busily morphing both an extractor and his first sunken colony. However, look at the picture at right. Do you notice anything wrong? Two zerglings don't fare very well against 8 Zealots, by the way.
The Protoss, of course, mowed down all resistance, and started hacking apart both hatches at a time. That's when a glorious idea struck me: why not a 3 game tourney?! That was sure to get me a 10. As this glorious epipheny floated through my mind, Balrog contented himself in speechlessly slicing apart the Zerg structures, one at a time. Too much snow up there in Sweden had a way of freezing the mind, I guess.
When the first wave of zeals burst into his main, however, the Cerebrate did, um, a very clever thing. Rather than foolishly spend all his resources on defense ( who needs it, anyway? ), he decided to retreat a couple drones and morph an expansion at 3:00. When the hatchery finally finished, the last organ-like building in his primary base exploded into bloody destruction with the Executor fully expecting to win the game within seconds. It was not to be . . . .
A New Hope!
The crazy little base was now in full operation, with the annoyingly persistant ScreamStalker frantically queing up drones to stay in the game.
The vile cerebrate was actually able to morph a spwning pool into being, followed by a number of zerglings, before the extremely irritated Balrog stomped his zealots down the ramp and angrily into the outpost. With a fanatic laugh, Stalker ran his little 'lings into battle, which performed surprisingly well, yet were eventually cut to pieces by the furious Protoss soldiers. The following exchange captures the mood of the moment, even if it's cryptic to some:
The zealots began to pound on the defenseless Zerg structures, yet in the last surviving Main Base, two Stargates had phased into existence. A Carrier emerged from one, Balrog's attempt to appease my high-tech wishes. I proptly offered my opinion upon the nature of the glorious weapons, after having seen platoons of zerglings, drones and zealots battle it out for far too long a time:
Although two of the glorious ships sailed towards the enemy base, they were never put into use, as the Cerebrate was pathetically eliminated before they ever came into range. Well, some match. Here are the stats, by the way:
Game Two - Medusa Madness
Pregame Report
Luckily, both of the contestants were just as disqusted at the previous occurance as I was, and resolved to create the tourney I had earlier dreamed of. Thus, it would be the best of three; if Balrog winned this next game, he would be the official Swedish Hero of the Day.
I decided to initiate the Second Round on a little played map that happens to be my favourite: Medusa. I hoped that neither player knew this dark world ( makes the game more interesting, plus if one guy had fought on the map before, it would give him a totally unfair advantage ). Luckily, I was right, both were slightly dismayed when they entered, but due to the sheer size of the battlefield I knew this was gauranteed to at least be a reasonable war.
The countdown slowly ticked down to zero, and within moments both enemies appeared upon the enormous world. Balrog found himself descending his first massive Command Center at the 11:00 position, while ScreamStalker phased in his monolithic white Nexus at 7:00. Let the games begin.
Early Scouting and Lightning Raids
Both players sent out their eight peon on what they hoped would be a quick scouting mission. The brave resource gatherers crossed paths at roughly the middle of the map, yet only Balrog seemed to notice. He realized the direction of the alien peon, and proceeded down the map to where he believed his opponent would be.
Sure enough, the Terran Captain soon slid into the Protoss Main, observing the sole pylon and warping gateway that illuminated the darkness. The Executor, however, was not so lucky. He went first to 9:00, then 3:00, where his exhausted peon stayed for a while, probably to take a nap. After a while it moved again, skittering to 10:00, followed by 2:00, then down to the bottom corners, finally dying to the vulture that Balrog had teched to by this time. Poor little thing. If only it had made it into the enemy base, to discover the two depots, double barracks, refinery and single factory that had been constructed by now.
Looked like early vultures, my favourite build on maps like these. Use the cycles for hit and run and mine defense, then tech up to air. That's exactly what our favourite Swede had set his mind on, and he was already proceeding on his high tech plan without a single hint of resistance.
After the first vulture had been built, a machine shop was added on. A second factory was constructed, and both vulture upgrades were researched. Now cycle production began in earnest, and soon one of the speedy little bastards was already on his way over. He arrived very soon after his departure, of course, only to find that the enewmy Executor had already amassed a formidable army of zealots, supported by a couple menacing dragoons. Off into the fog of war, a citadel was phasing into existance, precurser of the dreaded Templar Archives that would soon be created . . . .
Anyway, the vulture raced up the ramp, and started taking pot shots at the zeals, which raced up to destroy their foe. The tricky cyclist veered away, only to stop for a second, lay a mine, then twist a quick half circle around its foes and fire more shots. The soldiers blundered right into the trap, and consequentially lost the vast majority of their hit points. They were easily picked off by the outrageously inexpensive vulture, yet now another two warriors marched to kill their murderous foe. However, it was not to be. The exact same thing as before happened, and both died! That's 400 minerals!
The cycle killed another zealots before it was finally shot dead by goons, not before it had left a solitary mine at the ramp. I wonder, how many players could massacre 5 protoss units with a single vulture? Not many . . . .
Makes for good brs, though.
More Harassing, and the First Expansions
Another two vultures screamed over to do some damage, yet now ScreamStalker had already seized his first expo, and had teched up to Dark Templar ( those guys deserve capitols ), the first of which quickly reduced the leading cycle to scrap metal. The second was more lucky, and managed to evade destruction to plant a mine which destroyed the miserable dark warrior.
More mines were laid, more zealots died ( three to two mines, crazy, isn't it? ), propting ScreamStalker to whine in dismay, Balrog to laugh and me to gape in awe.
What followed was a brief lull in action. The Executor had the economic advantage, yet the Terran Commander resolved to make up for this by building a base at his natural, supporting this with a full brigade of marines and newly constructed tanks. SCVs were built with extreme speed, and quickly the place was fully operational.
To speed past his opponent in the resource game, the wise commander built another outpost about a quarter map width to the north east of his natural, soon getting that up and running as well, also defended by a healthy force of infantry and heavy metal.
The Search for Balrog, and the first real attack
ScreamStalker had still not found his opponent! Although he now had a powerful army of goons, zealots and templar which was surely able to slice through any Terran defense at this point, he'd first have to scout around even more to find his enemy, even though he was convinced he'd scouted everything. When the Terran jugernaut finished his physics lab and his towering constructs dominated the entire northern portion of the map, the Praetor still had no clue, and voiced it openly, to my amazement:
Our Protoss hero became extremely frusterated, and even issued forth some mild profanity as he continued on his strange, mid game quest:
Finally, however, as was bound to happen, the second model in the series of valiant scouting probes stumbled into the Terran main from a rear passage, only to be blown to dust, just like his brother. Stalker wasted no time, and rallied his formidble army to attack from he undefended back door ( isn't it fun to see players fight on maps they have no clue of ).
However, on the Executor's sneaky way over, his forces come across a lone SCV, just moments away from the descending ramp. The peon acts as an advance scout, even though it is slaughtered, and Balrog manages to scramble a resistance of three newly constructed battlecruisers to the scene. The vast ships don't arrive in time by just seconds, and the Protoss legions casue some serious damage beore they are barely vanquished by blasts of laser fire thanks to atrocious use of dragoon micro.
Don't ask about the bright green dots, BTW, those are mine, not yours. Nothing to see there.
Expo Squirmishes
Balrog, recovering quickly from his losses, now moved to cement the game and establish the 9:00 expansion. Confidently he unloaded four vultures into the depths of the valley, right close to the mineral line, and prepared to set mines. Yet surprisingly, he was blown away by heavy dragoon reinforcements, and even the dropship plummeted from the sky under devastating plasma bombardment, followed by the sole supporting Science Vessel.
But Balrog was not about to let this stunning defeat stand. He amassed his doom fleet, now consisting of roughly eight battlecruisers, and sent them over to eradicate the equal number of dragoons. He also rallied his ground forces for a cliff side tank push that would have to succeed. Neither player would know just what a battle they were getting themselves into . . . .
Apocalypse Now
The ground legions got their first, and the tanks quickly seiged from their position of superiority at the top of the ramp. However, they were heavily outnumbered, and were starting to be overwhelmed when the Armada broke the horizon. The tide of battle turned in and instant, and the dragoons were routed, retreated rapidly back into the fog of war. They were wiped out, however, with only one survivor.
However, despite Stalker's best frantic efforts to hide the panicking warrior, he died a second time when he was found shortly after he managed to sneak into a corner to the right of the arial formations. Two shuttles worth of probes and templar managed to escape, crossing the black lagoon and making it to two of the Executor's 4 starports, each of which was producing the feared carriers.
Now Balrog did a very strange thing. He lifted three Engineering bays, and glided them over to his enemy's natural, which was bristling with cannons and was gaurded by a powerful fleet of four carriers. "Reconnaisance," breezed the Terran Commander. Suicide sounds more like it. Was he so certain he'd win? I wouldn't be . . . .
The outcome, of course, was obvious. Carries are indeed more powerful than flying engineering bays.
After this blasphemy, the Cruiser fleet moved in to engage. First, a Tank push was initiated, and the Protoss leviathans moved up to blow away the mighty offenders. The battleships now faced off against the carriers, and for a few moments the outcome was uncertain, since the cannons were also firing upon the enemy arial fleet. However, when these were eliminated the tide quickly turned, and all Toss resistance was smashed with the sizzle of Yamato.
I'm not sure of the wisdom of the "moving the carrier up beneath the enemy fleet for camoflauge" tactic, but it didn't influence the battle much, as you can see.
But ScreamStalker wasn't about to vanish silently away into the night. Somehow, he had managed to warp in another 4 or 5 Carriers, and sent these roaring over to his enemy's main. What followed was for Balrog the biggest surprise of the war, and for me the most amazing testimony of the complete unpredictability in a good game of Starcraft. The Capitol Ships coasted in, crushing all resistance and blowing away the first couple structures with great ease. The Carriers zeroed in on the Command Center, blasting it to dust, then proceeded to generally sack the rest of the once glorious base.
Although Balrog mocked the attack at first, he generally became more and more worried, sending in his massive battlecruiser fleet to finally meet the enemy forces face to face - and exterminate them, once and for all.
Battleships move very slowly, however, and the Carriers were able to do a huge amount of damage before the Terran Aramada broke the horizon. It was time.
Showdown
There seemed to be a pause. Both opponents knew what this battle would mean. The defining moment of the game. Both enemies had caused great damage upon each other. Balrog had the obvious economic advantage, yet ScreamStalker had the momentum. Tension reigned.
The interceptors raced out to engage as the enemy laser batteries powered up for the first devastating volley. The carriers held their ground when nuclear fireballs formed in front of the cruisers, and hurtled outward, blowing away the shields and causing critical damage. Indeed, the battle was over, and soon all that remained of the Protoss Doom Fleet was a feeble whisp of blue dust drifting over the landscape.
With a diabolical laugh, Balrog ordered his cruisers back to the Seige, and tightned the loose around his enemy, who desperately phased in an ultra chobo line of cannons all around his main.
ScreamStalker never ceased to amaze me, and yet another two Carriers left his base! The entered the enemy main, just in the process of rebuilding, yet were shut down by a small squadron of wraiths and valkyries after only killing a single turret.
The End is Nigh
Ow, I'm getting a bit of an asthma problem here . . . oh well, I'll keep typing.
Anyway, it was time to lay the Smack down. The tanks began to pound on the line of cannons, which quickly fell. Now the Battlecruisers coasted majestically into the base, blasting everything to dust with their awesome nuclear weapons. Indeed, it was over. I quickly teched up myself, got some vultures, raced them over and contributed pathetically to the attack, as the last Protoss building blew apart, and smoldered silently into the ground.
Well, congrats for a great game! Maybe this will finally give me the 10 I'm after, although I rather doubt it ;)
Here are the Stats:
For those of you who are thinking "Hey, where's Game 3?!", go away. It was best of Three Games. That Means Balrog WINS!
Congrats to the Swedish Hero!
This has been a |]agomar production
Final Note: I didn't check this for spelling mistakes. If you find alot, keep quiet about it, don't want anyone to know. Go ahead and post in the comment section how cool I am, though. That I always like.
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