Introduction

This is not a game between top players, and it is an example of many things done wrong. Combatants - =Nightfall= and me, logged in as Glawobolie. For those who might wonder, Glawobolie means "headache", it's a nick I use when... well that's not important actually.

Game started!

Battleground was Lost Temple, I won't be speculating on the map being overused and stuff, because I love it and I don't care.   I had chosen Terran and received a red CC at 9. =Nightfall= randomed so I didn't know his race. Since I was on 9 I wasn't worried of a zergling rush in case he was Zerg, because of the unique way you can wallin at this spot, not allowing even the smallest units to pass through.

So, my build order was Supply 8, Barracks 11, Refinery 13, which is solid against Protoss and Terran but I don't like it against Zerg... Well since I was eager to know my opponents race early, I scouted with the SCV that built the first supply depot, and I found a yellow Zerg at 3. That's what his base looked like:

He had expanded, and his Pool finished while my SCV was wandering around his base, later that SCV died to his first zerglings =[. Now knowing my opponent was Zerg, I was a bit angry because I wasn't in the mood for turbo-newbieing his cliff (which is what I usually do when I fast tech and the Zerg expands), and there I made a big mistake - I built a second Barracks while continuing to gather gas... The result - since I hadn't ever done such a thing I started messing up my build order, and because of the late second Barracks and the 3 SCV's gathering gas instead of minerals when I had Stim and 4 Medics I had just about 13-14 Marines, and usually when I M&M rush I have at least 18 Marines... But I couldn't afford to wait anymore, since =Nightfall= had a Lair completing and a hydra den (I used my ComSat). So I control grouped my troops and sent them towards my enemies expand. There were some zerglings and Hydras and 4 Sunkens I saw at first sight... STIM!!!

When all the Hydras and Zerglings died, I had 8-9 Marines left, and I think a sunken got destroyed too but there were sunkens on the high ground as well and reinforcements coming down the ramp, so the attack was a total disaster, soon I had to run my Medics and 3-4 Marines back home, without being able to do any harm to the expansion =[. At home I had built a Factory, Starport and an E-bay, I already had a tank but since I didn't have enough units to successfully attack, I took a rather defensive position for a while, knowing that I would get attacked by Lurkers soon... I finally decided to make a dropship and siege =Nightfall='s expansion cliff as well. And remember I was collecting all that gas since the beginning? So I started a second Starport and a Science Facility, to go mad Vessels =].

So when my Dropship popped out, I filled it with 3 of my bravest Marines, a SCV and a Tank... While the dropship was on it's way, =Nightfall='s Lurkers finally came up my ramp... I stimmed my marines there, and my sieged Tank fired too...

Right after that cool Lurker deaths ( I pressed "printscreen" amidst the battle for your enjoyment ) I decided to expand, using a CC I had already built inside my base... I ran my marines down the ramp, after precautiously doing a scan of my natural for hidden Lurkers... and there was one that died after killing a marine. Simultaneously I built a bunker and a turret at the cliff overlooking =Nightfall='s natural expand and sieged my tank there. It killed some drones before he reacted, then it started hitting his hatchery. He reacted slow because he had launched a hydra attack on me and our forces had just met at my natural... I had my marines there, and I was just moving my tank down the ramp to establish a defense for my CC that was about to land, when all the Hydras arrived.

The screenshot was taken at the end of the battle, when my tank was finally sieged and I ran my marines back a bit to draw the rest of the Hydras in the Tank's range. When the battle was over, I scanned his main to see what he was up to next...

Mutas hatching... With a group of them he attacked my forces on his natural's cliff and managed to destroy my turret, bunker and Tank, effectively saving his hatchery with 200 HP left! Then I scanned 6 and discovered he had a hatchery completed there, and he was hatching mad Drones!!! I built a second Dropship and filled it and the first one with 12 Marines and 4 Medic (by the way those 4 Medic survived the whole game, they were taking part in every battle and always saving their asses).

While I was preparing to drop 6, =Nightfall= attacked my base with a fair amount of mutas. There I made a lot of mistakes... =[ First of all, I didn't unload my dropships, and they just stood there waiting me to deal with the mutas. Also, I hadn't rallied my 4 Barracks to one point, so when the Mutas came, they raped the separated groups of marines, and there were no medics as well... And on top of that I hadn't control grouped my Sci Vessels... Well it was a badly managed battle, until I finally got off some irradiates and the Mutas got fried.

Afterwards as you see I dropped 6 and it turned out there were no defenses at all... That was because =Nightfall= had just sent all he had - Zerglings, Hydras and Mutas, towards my expand =[. There I made another major error, after I loaded the dropships I am "sure" I commanded them to unload at my expand to help save it, but much later in the game I discovered them still floating at 6 with my Marines and Medics inside... so I was in deep shit now, and on top of it I had stalled my production during the battles... taking neat screenshots and microing at the same time doesn't leave much time for "less" important troop pumping heh ;(

The Zerglings and Mutas were easy to deal with thanks to Marines and Irradiate, but the Hydras coming behind were too much for me... My Vessels didn't have enough energy and the Marines had vanished already, so it was just 2 Tanks at my Ramp doing damage. My CC got razed before I could move it into safety. When all the hydras finally died I started a new CC and trained some marines with the resources I had piled up (piling up resources up is actually very bad =[ I guess I was playing pretty badly that game).

=Nightfall= realized I had mainly Tanks left, so next he sent huge waves of Zerglings at me, I don't have a shot since I was already in a very desperate situation and I was trying to do my best using the Sci Vessels, but I didn't have energy yet, so my idea of D-Matrixing and Irradiating my tanks didn't work, I was just clicking madly receiving "not enough energy" messages... When I finally had energy in some of the Vessels, my Tanks were dead already ( I think he broodlinged one, at least I am sure I saw Broodlings running around my base) I used the energy to D-Matrix some of my new Marines, and then I attacked with some SCV's I had saved, and that killed the Zerglings.

Then I saw my Shuttles at 6 and brought them back to my base. There their cargo (namely 12 Marines and those 4 Medics I was talking about) took part in the final bloody battle, first making short work of some hydras, but afterwards dying to Guardians. With nothing left but some burning buildings I said "gg". Good game =Nightfall= !!!

BTW I asked =Nightfall=   about BR-ing and he got dropped then after telling me "ok, bye" which was weird, I owe him one victory now. Here are the final scores:

Some additional notes:

Scouting - I wonder if he had island expands, he didn't seem to have overlord speed or ventral sacks researched so I never checked, but this might have been another of my mistakes if he had any

Upgrades - I didn't follow =Nightfall='s, mine were 2/2 at the end, I suspect =Nightfall= wasn't upgrading his ground troops much since my SCV's at the end killed too much zerglings... (you know SCV's attack doesn't increase with upgrades, but armor does)

Lessons learned:

1) Terran vs. Zerg you should either tech or go hard Marine/Medic, a mix of both strategies early on doesn't work well

2) Keep your marines together, it's a good idea to have your Raxes placed close to each other or use rally points to always have new troops joining the safety of the pack.

3) Sometimes I  suck at Starcraft but I have fun playing

Thanks for reading this! =]

Breeze