The Great Battlereporting Contest (Week 1): Bob & Kobold Vs. Krone & Syncmaster
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Author:	Drefsab
IP:	rliv218.XXXX
Date:	06/10/00 02:06
Game Type:	Starcraft
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Report Rating: 9.5, # of Ratings: 4, Max: 10, Min: 9 Lifetime Rating for Drefsab: 8.1165
THE GREAT BATTLEREPORTING CONTEST (Week 1) Welcome to Week 1 of The Great Battle Reporting Contest. If you are reading this and you haven't e-mailed me your guesses, then you're too late to enter for this week's game. However, don't despair. There are still nine weeks to go and you can still take your shot at winning a cash prize in the weeks to come. For those of you wondering what the hell is going on, here's a quick review. I posted on the Battlereports.com Forum and Shockwave's Forum the basics of a game that I recently observed. I asked those interested in participating to e-mail me the winners of the game and to rank the unit score of each player from highest score to lowest score. Those participating will see how they fared by reading this report. I will post the standings at the end of the report. Finally, there are 31 picture files in this report so do me a favor and let them load. Each one does a small part in making the report more interesting. I've included alt text for you alt text junkies out there. So without further adieu, I present: Bob_the_Newt & Ko[B]old Vs. -=Krone=- & Syncmaster_6ne PREPARING FOR WAR Bob and Kobold both went random and both got terran. They were very pleased by this as is demonstrated by their comments: Syncmaster also went random and drew Protoss while Krone chose Zerg saying: The starting positions were: Krone Bob Sync Kobold

Sync and Krone don't consult on strategies, they were obviously communicating telepathically. Sync throws up two quick gates while Krone puts a second hatch at the bottom of his ramp and morphs a spawning pool at his main.

THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD

Sync's first zealot pops out of its gateway. With a scouting peon, Sync had discovered that Kobold had decided not to wall in, so he sent his first zealot to Kobold's main.

When Sync's zealot reaches Kobold's main it is greeted on the ramp by an SCV and a marine. The zealot punches through both of the terran units with relative ease.

Once through this obstacle Sync's zealot heads across the plateau towards Kobold's main. His zealot is greeted by two marines who insist that the zealot surrender. Sync's zealot will do no such thing and it charges at one of Kobold's marines.

However, Kobold's marine can run just as fast as a zealot and while the zealot tries in vain to catch the marine, the other marine stands by and takes potshots at the zealot.

Enraged, the zealot charges at the other marine, but it is to no avail as now the marines switch roles with the marine being charged by the zealot running away, and the other marine taking potshots. Finally, the bullet ridden zealot has enough and is warped back to Aiur.

However, Sync's rush is not yet finished as two more of his zealots arrive on the scene right about the time that their companion falls. The troop count now stands with 4 marines for Kobold and 2 zealots for Sync.

Kobold's marines retreat back, using their barracks as cover. Sync's zealots make the mistake of trying to follow the marines through the small opening in between the two barracks. They get hung up when an SCV blocks their path and marines start firing from behind. The zealots get confused and run back the way they came and around the outside of the barrack. This allows Kobold's marines to get in enough shots and they are victorious in suppressing Sync's early zealot rush.

YOU DON'T FIND GOOD COUNTERS IN A KITCHEN

While this early battle is being fought, Krone has taken the opportunity to expand to his natural, and has put two sunkens at the entrance to his bases. Bob has put together a small task force of marines/medics/firebats with his early academy. Sync wasn't idle during the battle either. He warps in a third gateway, a forge, and one cannon for base defense.

Bob and Kobold decide to make Sync pay for his early rush by double teaming him with a mixed force of infantry. Kobold sends along 2 SCVs as well. They meet at the entrance to Sync's base. Kobold has 7 marines and Bob has 2 marines, 3 firebats, and 2 medics.

They charge up the ramp together and find 3 zealots guarding the top. The zealots don't even attempt a defense and run back to their main where they can attack under the cover of the cannon.

But Bob and Kobold don't run into cannon range. Instead, they stand taking potshots at Sync's gateways while one of Kobold's SCVs begins constructing a bunker. Sync knows that if the bunker is completed, he will be in deep trouble. Two more zealots arrive through his gateways bringing his total to 5. He chooses this moment to charge his zealots at the mixed terran infantry.

At first, the battle looks to be turning against the zealots when suddenly, a control group of lings courtesy of Krone arrive on the scene, attacking the terran infantry from the rear. Completely surrounded by melee units, the terran infantry is defeated just as the bunker is completed. The remaining 2 zealots and 3 lings quickly destroy the bunker before more terran troops can arrive.

Meanwhile, Krone's expansion at his natural is now operational and he's morphing in a spire. Bob's scan discovers this and he expresses his distaste for the zerg structure.

Without hesitation, Bob and Kobold combine their forces again, this time for an assault on Krone. As Bob's troops head towards their destination, they fail to see the overlord floating above the cliff. But the overlord sees them and Krone calls out a warning.

Bob and Kobold's forces form up outside of Krone's natural. Kobold has 12 marines and Bob has 4 marines, 4 firebats, and 3 medics. They charge in guns blazing and are met by 18 zerglings, 3 mutas, and 2 sunkens.

The terran infantry comes out on top. 12 marines, a firebat, and 3 medics remain. However, they have no time to celebrate their victory as a fresh wave of protoss reinforcements hit them in the rear. Included in the reinforcements from Sync is the sickening, swiping sound of a dark templar. The dt is accompanied by 2 zealots and 3 dragoons.

Sync's dark templar gets 6 kills before a terran comstat lights up the field. The remaining terran infantry doesn't have the firepower or the hitpoints to hold off the powerful protoss troops and the attack fails. Krone breathes a sigh of relief and offers his gratitude.

GUERILLA WARFARE

Having survived the assault, Krone continues to tech putting up a queen's nest and then morphing a hive. The other three players take their naturals. Sync has a total of 5 gates with templar tech, Kobold is teching to wraiths building out of 3 starports, and Bob has his own starport.

Bob's starport produces a dropship and he loads up 6 marines, 1 firebat, and 1 medic. The small force flies north and lands on Krone's plateau right next to his unprotected spire. The sound of stim fills the air as the infantry tears into the spire with a fury. Even when a control group of mutas flies overhead and starts pelting them with glauve worms, the terran troops continue their singleminded assault on the spire. The end result is 6 dead marines, 1 dead medic, and 1 destroyed spire.

But wait!! Where did the firebat go?!?! Bob's firebat snuck away from the main assault group and headed into Krone's undefended peon line. Before Krone realizes what is happening he has lost half his mining peons at his main. A large group of zerglings destroys the firebat, but not before a heavy price is paid.

Not only was Bob's attack useful in the fact that it destroyed Krone's spire and hurt his economy. It also helped with scouting. Bob made this report to Kobold.

Meanwhile, Sync decided to try a little drop of his own. A shuttle flew down behind the mineral line of Bob's natural and dropped a templar. The SCVs saw the shuttle and ran for their lives. Marines ran in and started firing on the templar and in desparation, the templar cast its storm. The storm was not one of the more well placed storms that I have ever seen although that one marine and that large patch of sand enjoyed the lightning.

As Sync's templar was blown away it had the satisfaction of knowing that it took one marine with it. Little did it know that when it reached templar heaven, it would be the laughingstock of the community.

ALL OUT WAR

While all this ruckus was going on, Kobold managed to expand to his mineral only expansion. He constructed two bunkers for defense and was building two supply depots in front of the bunkers when all hell broke loose.

During the guerilla warfare, Sync and Krone had been building up troops for one massive assault. Krone had managed to get his spire back up and immediately morphed it into a Greater spire. His troop count consisted of 24 lings, 12 mutas, and 12 guardians. Sync supplemented this force with 18 zealots and 2 dragoons. All of these troops smashed into Kobold's mineral only expansion simultaneously.

At first it looked like Kobold would be completely overrun. His mineral expansion was quickly razed. However, a group of wraiths came flying in and that is when Krone and Sync realized one minor mistake... no detection.

Kobold's wraiths' first order of business was to pop the guardians. Most of the guardians were blown quickly into oblivion. However, just as the wraith pilots started to get cocky, a crackle of psi storm filled the air. A couple of high templar had been trailing the group and most of the wraiths burst spectacularly under the lightning. However, Sync gets a little excited with his storms and a second one tears through a large group of Krone's troops causing him to curse.

The air support is dead, but Krone and Sync still have quite a few melee units left at their disposal. They charge into Kobold's natural causing him to lift off his command center and run his SCVs up the ramp. However, with a few firebats, marines, a couple of tanks, and his few remaining wraiths, Kobold is able to hold off the opposing force at his ramp and immediately gets back to mining.

Krone sends two more groups of zerglings to assault Kobold's natural but by this time, Bob's reinforcements have arrived and disaster has been averted by the mighty terran duo.

TERRAN STRIKE BACK

Its now getting to that point in the game where the mains are getting mined out and the players are depending more and more on their expansions. Krone has managed to take his mineral only and is mining it heavily with the drones from his main. Sync has just started warping in a Nexus in the bottom right island.

Instead of expanding, Bob and Kobold decide to try and take down Sync and Krone's expansions. In a simultaneous assault, Bob sends a group of terran infantry to clear out Krone's undefended mineral only. At the same time, Kobold sends a group of wraiths around the cannons at the entrance to Sync's natural and behind to his undefended peon line.

Bob's attack on Krone's mineral only is very successful. He completely wipes the undefended expansion off the map, drones and all.

Kobold's attack is also highly successful. His wraiths kill quite a few peons and when the peons run away, they continue taking potshots at the Nexus until it is destroyed.

These setbacks are very disheartening to Krone and he says:

WHO WILL WIN? DO YOU KNOW YET?

Bob took the infantry that he had used to destroy Krone's mineral only and assaulted Krone's natural. At first Bob seemed to have the upper hand but a large group of protoss reinforcements hit him from the rear and suddenly, Bob found himself with a very low troop count.

The reason that Sync couldn't fight off Kobold's wraiths is because he had been focusing almost exclusively on zealot production. After disposing of Bob's troops at Krone's natural, Sync came charging across the lost temple plain with a force of 24 speed upgraded zealots. The zealots ran directly into Bob's natural in probably the most devastating counter of the game.

Bob's defense at his natural consisted of a small assorted group of infantry and one tank on his cliff. The force is no match for Sync's mad zealots and Bob's only mining expansion is destroyed. Some wraiths arrive courtesy of Kobold and Sync is unable to finish Bob. However, Bob is now operating completely on his reserves as he has no SCVs mining minerals.

While Sync was concentrating on his assault on Bob, Kobold lands a small terran assault force on Sync's bottom right island expansion. Sync has two poorly placed cannons for defense and they are insufficient to stop Kobold's troops from destroying his Nexus. This was Sync's only remaining source of income and he is now forced to long distance mine his natural expansion for mineral income.

While all this has been going on, Krone has managed to secure the top left expansion for his own. He decides to try and do what his partner couldn't and finish Bob off. He sends a control group of hydras to do just that.

Not only is Bob able to hold off Krone's assault with some well placed bunkers and a couple of tanks, but he also manages a counter on Krone's island expansion. He completely flattens the defenseless expansion with a dropship full of infantry.

Not only has Krone failed to finish Bob off, but he has also lost half of his economy to him!!

LET THE TRUE POWER PLAYER STEP FORTH

At this point in the game, Bob has a small assortment of troops and buildings left in his main. They are under fire by another group of hydras courtesy of Krone.

Sync has no mining expansions left. He tried to rebuild the nexus at his natural expansion but it got turbo newbied by Kobold.

Krone is still mining at his natural and is pumping out hydras as fast as he can.

Kobold is mining from his natural. He has rebuilt his mineral only and is mining there as well. However, instead of powering he has a group of 6 science vessels and he begins attacking Krone's expansions by irradiating his science vessels and then floating back and forth across Krone's peon line.

This causes Krone to curse a lot, but most of his drones escape the carnage and the attacks don't do much to hurt Krone's economy.

While this is going on, Krone is continuing to build hydras. He also rebuilds his expansion at his mineral only. When Kobold finally attacks with a sizable force, Krone has enough hydras to hold him off and Sync throws in a few random psionic storms for good measure.

After surviving the assault by Kobold, Krone once again expands to the top left island. This time he drops 12 hydras there for defense. He is able to successfully establish the base with only a few minor irradiate attempts by Bob's remaining science vessels. With 3 mining expansions and a massive collection of hydras, Krone is suddenly in command of the game (Those are 7 words I thought I'd never say)

THIS LOOKS LIKE... THE... END

Not realizing how powerful Krone has become, Bob and Kobold believe that they can still survive the game by turtling and irradiating everything in sight. They fly their vessels around and start irradiating zerg troops indiscriminately.

However, Krone is able to organize a large group of hydras just outside of Kobold's base. They hit his mineral only first which is not well defended. Kobold runs his SCVs away, but his command center is destroyed.

Kobold has a pretty decent choke defense, but this doesn't bother Krone at all. He loads up 24 hydras into his overlords and lands them on Kobold's plateau. Chaos ensues as Kobold scrambles to defend himself from this unexpected attack route. Unfortunately for Kobold, the 3/3 hydras are too many and his troops are too few. His main base is finally overrun with hydras and he is left with a few buildings at Bob's natural.

Krone is truly dominating everyone now. He has taken Sync's mineral only and he's still pumping hydras. The end is inevitable. Bob and Kobold are forced to admit defeat. Good games are exchanged and this seasaw battle royale has come to a close.

NOW THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR

Well, you now know which team won the game. Surprised? But now I'm sure you're dying to know how you did with the unit scores. So here they are...

THE STANDINGS

Well, I ended up with 26 entries and I decided to include them all, just so everyone can make fun of the people who got 0 points... hehe. If you did get 0, don't despair. Try again next week and you may get a perfect score.

IN CONCLUSION

What a great way to get this contest started. As you can see, not many people picked the winning team. This did not surprise me. I expected to see a lot of people pick Bob and Bold to win, even though they both used terran.

What did surprise me was the small amount of people that failed to pick Krone with the highest unit score. Even if you didn't pick Krone and Sync to win the game, chances are with Krone being the only Zerg player, his unit score would be the highest.

Anyway, this was a lot of fun. If you didn't send me an entry this week, I will be releasing game details again next Thursday night on the BR.com forum and Shock's forum. There's still plenty of time to catch up.

See you next Saturday night with Week 2 of The Great Battle Reporting Contest.

Cheers,
DREFSAB