"With experience, you'll learn exactly how far you can go against a DT rusher. Then you'll be able to kick him in the nuts."
-Heartcutter
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| Kicking ass and taking names: Johnny_Vegas vrs .Praetor | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 06/03/99 11:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 10, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for Mark4: 8.6829 |   | I was looking to observe a game last night. After a few plaintive requests in nohunters .Praetor agreed to be one of the players I watched. Johnny_Vegas logged on shortly after and asked for the priviledge of being his opponent. Warriorprincess came along with Johnny and asked to watch as did Pitt[nd], Johnny's groupie.
I had an observer version of Fading Realm and despite a bit of grumbling from praetor, the map was agreeable to both parties. Johnny selected his much vaunted terran forces and started in the upper left corner, while praetor left his fate to chance, drawing terran in the lower right. Both players had nearly identical early game builds. Both put a depot down on eight, then a barracks on ten. Johnny chose to place a bunker on the plateau leading to his main while praetor placed his next to his command center. Both players scouted with SCVs, getting a glimpse of the others plans. The only deviation in build orders was that praetor made his factory behind his minerals, perhaps hoping to avoid detection by comsat. Unfortunately, he had to float it before he could produce units.
At this point the player's strategies diverged sharply. Johnny elected to fortify his bunker with tanks. Praetor went with a hard vulture strategy. He began placing mines all around the map, dropping one at each resource location and heavily mining the entrance to his base. Praetor also elected to begin fortifying the lower left expansion in preperation for expanding. Johnny has begun the battle for air superiority and his scouting wraiths found this new bunker, quickly retreating instead of facing the marine fire.
Johnny realized he can't tolerate an umatched expansion and comsats the upper right expansion. He saw the mine there and eliminated it with another comsat and a tank. Johnny never likes to be defensive for too long. He started to get that wild look in his eye and sent three wraiths into praetor's SCV line. Praetor countered quickly with wraiths of his own, only to lose them once Johnny cloaked. Praetor watched helplessly for a few seconds until his science vessel rolled off the production line, then emptied his bunkers and brought in his remaining wraiths. Johnny's blood lust was satisfied with the SCVs he had killed and he retreated his pilots from this show of force.
Praetor thought he had found the key to Johnny's strategy with the early air he faced. He established a command center in the lower left resource point and began producing goliaths to counter Johnny's air. Both players started down the tech tree to covert ops. Johnny found the new expansion quickly with comsat. He decided to focus on resource denial. He first established a strong point of a tank and two turrets on the middle left expansion's ledge. Then he moved down a SCV and made a turret just out of sight of the lower left expansion. Despite my initial misgivings, I soon became a believer as the turret finished. Johnny moved in two tanks next to the turret, as well as two science vessels and two wraiths. The tanks began assaulting praetor's command center. Praetor counterattacks with four goliaths. They quickly kill the science vessels, but not before both tanks are Dmatrixed. The goliaths die without scratching the paint on the tanks. The SCVs begin falling in earnest, and Praetor tries again with four more goliaths. These mechanical warriors also fall without effect. Realizing he will be unable to win the ground fight with his resources, praetor sends in four wraiths. They sit just outside the covering fire of the turrets and attack the tanks, when Johnny sets his wraiths on them. Both sides cloak but Johnny has a ready comsat and forces Praetor's wraiths back to turret cover. Praetor returns when he has enough comsat, but Johnny's superior unit control kills the remaining forces. The last buildings on the expansion fall in flames.
Praetor has not been idle during this time. Realizing that he will lose the resource war if he hesitates, he dispatched a ghost to the upper right expansion Johnny took. Panic ensues as "nuclear launch detected" is heard. Despite a flurry of comsats, Johnny can't locate the ghost in time and loses a turrets, two tanks, and a bunker as well as four or five SCVs. Praetor takes advatage of this distraction to fortify the middle, getting in a few lucky shots on some wraiths passing by with his goliaths. Having had such great success once, Praetor elects to nuke again in the same position. Johnny comsats frantically, massing troops to take down the ghost quickly once it's found. Realizing the futility of his search, he barely manages to evacuate the bulk of his troops, losing several marines and most of the SCVs as the nuke falls. Praetor is content after this to fortify the middle with goliaths, massing over 12 of them. He also begins scouting the map with vultures and discovers Johnny has expanded to his old position in the lower left.
Praetor realizes he is being outresourced, but believes his troop production has been superior. He also has massed his forces while Johnny has scattered his between three major resource points. With a slightly desperate grin, he moves his massive goliath force to assault Johnny's main. The first assault group of ten rolls over Johnny's token defense of a bunker and two tanks with only three casualties. Johnny fights him in the streets of his main base with his reserves of two tanks and few scattered marines. The battle severely attrits both forces, leaving a single goliath to hammer away at buildings unnopposed. Johnny realizes his main is in severe trouble and opens up a second front in Praetor's main with a dual tank and ghost drop. The tanks die in explosions of sparks and metal, but the ghost is cloaked and Praetor still has no detection in his main! A qucikly launched nuke flattens several supply depots at the cost of the ghost's life.
Praetor follows up on his desperate attack on Johnny's main with another gamble, sending his remaining defenders into the fray. Another eight marines and three goliaths marched into Johnny's main, encountering only light resistance from a few scattered marines. Praetor orders the emergency supply of construction helmets to be broken out and starts the wrecking crew to work on Johnny's main. About this time a cloaked ghost praetor had in the upper right died as it's cloak energy ran out while it was in tank range.
Johnny was growing short of patience. That wild gleam was in his eye once more and he ordered a dual pronged attack on the center from each of his bases. Three tanks advanced on the center from each side, accompanied by three wraiths from the lower left. The defending goliaths are no match for Johnny's Dmatrixed tanks and they quickly fall. Four of Praetor's wraith attck the tanks on the lower left side and destroy them after a long attack. Johnny reinforces his tanks with marines and SCVs on the upper right side, but the cloaked wraiths start whittling away at his troops. Comsat comes a bit too late to let the marines kill the wraiths, and the four turrets Johnny was making were all incomplete as the wraiths attacked the SCVs. Johnny's attack was successfully repelled, but at the cost of all the supporting buildings and SCVs Praetor had built there.
Johnny started to move into full macro mode, placing new factories and barracks at both expansions. He also expanded to the middle left and right start locations. Johnny makes another assault on the center, this time with marines and goliaths. These drive off the defending wraiths, but a new force of vultures and goliaths reinforcing from Preator's main secure the site again.
Praetor started to feel the pressure and decided he won't go out like a punk. He takes the forces which have finally razed Johnny's main and attack the middle right expansion. He is nearly unnopposed at first and kills all the mining SCVs. Johnny's relief column from the upper right expansion saves the command center with a fierce tank and goliath assault. Johnny counters with a twelve marine attack in the center, but the 2/0 goliaths and wraiths mow down the unupgraded marines in a blood bath. Praetor still refuses to give up hope. He makes a weak vulture attack on the middle left expansion, repelled by a marine counterattack. He then spots a large concentration of tanks massing to destroy him and tries to nuke them. Johnny ends the threat with a swift comsat.
Johnny starts his final push with tanks and goliaths. The final defending six goliaths and two wraiths die to three tanks and three goliaths. In a final desperate bid, praetor attacks the remaining two tanks with his SCVs, forcing them to unseiege but ultimately ending in the SCVs destruction.
Praetor, mining no resources and realizing he has lost, sends his final two goliaths to the lower left to go out in a blaze of glory. The are quickly destroyed by a SCV/marine combination. Johnny begins shelling Praetor's helpless main base with arclite cannon fire and Praetor gracefully surrenders.
Lessons learned:
o To attack a position defended with tanks as terran you need Dmatrixed tanks. Actually Dmatrixed tanks rule just about any ground war.
o Terrans more than any other race can come back from losing a main.
Mark4
"Is Johnny drunk?" Mark4 upon seeing the lone turret being made in the lower left.
"Praetor took the middle. That'll cost him the game with Johnny's forces on both sides." Mark4 | | Battle Shots! | 
Johnny finds Praetor's main without detection much to his delight.
Dmatrixed tanks assault Praetor's expansion.
Praetor puts the fear of nukes in Johnny's heart.
A second nuke showers destruction on Johnny's expansion.
Johnny returns the favor on Praetor's main.
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