OK, while the rest of this report is loading, have a quick look over this problem. To your left you will see what can best be described as a "Zerg frontal assault," but more commonly known as a "staged picture for the purposes of a bored teenager." Below is another of these staged pictures, this time being a terran defense. If you've read part 1, then you know the deal and you can go onto the next paragraph. If you're new, then basically this is an attempt to make my reports stand out above all the rest. It failed, but is not quite dead. Take the part of either force and say how you would go about attacking or defending the other force, with the best results possible.



As you can see, the zerg have 3 lurkers, 4 hydralisks, 8 zerglings and 1 overlord. The zerg have burrow and the ability to transport units, but not all at once (only 1 overlord). The defending terrans have 3 wraiths (cloaking available), 2 tanks (sieging available), 2 bunkers with 3 marines and 1 firebat in each and, in the corner, 1 turret. I eagerly await all responses to this problem. By now my report should have loaded (unless you have a crappy modem, such as mine) so go and read it after thinking about this for a while.

In case you hadn't realised, this is a BR about a 1v1 between myself and a person named Elgene. The game was played on, you guessed it, The Lost Temple. We both selected random and as such were ready for anything and everything. I received a vicious zerg brood, while at the same time being placed at the 8:45 position (not quite 9 o'clock, but close). My nemesis, Elgene, was somewhere on the map, controlling a force that was unknown for a while to me. As it turns out, he was controlling the terran armada at 12 o'clock.



As you can see, I went for an early second hatchery (started it before starting my spawning pool), but my spawning pool finished first. I also grabbed an extractor soon after my hatchery finished. After creating extra overlords and 6 zerglings, my first lord found Elgene. He had gone for an early tech to factories. Against zerg I assumed that he would be using tanks with marine support. I quickly went for a lair and soon after, a spire. The best thing against tanks is, after all, air units. My scouting overlord got blown out of the sky before I could relay any more useful information.

After testing the water with my zerglings, I decided a mutalisk-in-the-peon-line would do just fine. I quickly oredered up 6 mutalisks at my dual-hatcheries (well OK, one of them was a lair, so sue me!). Also, being the insanely imaginative genius that I am, I threw down another hatchery at my main as I had an excess in minerals, but was not yet equipped properly to take on an expansion without keeping the pressure on Elgene. My mutalisks entered the peon line of Elgene like a well-lubricated, uhh..., pen. Doing mass damage to his worker line, Elgene was getting desperate.



The answer to Elgene's problem was simple. Wraiths on my overlords's collective ass. Without a hydra den, the only option was to pull my attack back. Oh well, the damage had been done. Elgene's economy was crippled, or so I thought. When I went back in after dispatching of the wraiths, nearly 10 SCV's were back in there mining. It appears that I attacked exactly when Elgene had moved a whole lot of workers to his natural ready to expand. When my mutalisks left the scene to deal with the wraiths he slipped them back in there. Sneaky bastard!



After beating down a couple of my mutalisks, Elgene decided to continue on with his sneaky ways. A tank push (consisting of 5 tanks and a marine) entered the scene at my newly functional expansion. This forced me, once more, to pull back my mutalisks from attacking Elgene's miners and deal with his forces. After dealing out pain to these tank-like vehicles (otherwise known as seige tanks) I decided to rest from my attacking. My queen's nest was half done anyway, so I figured that hydras + queens + a few mutalisks would be better than continually attacking with mutalisks.

After a short tech to queens, I began producing hydras while getting transportation for my overlords. Hydras seemed the logical choice as he had just launched an attack with siege tanks that got badly beaten by air units. It was deemed likely that he would go hard anti-air after my recent mutalisk attacks, so my hydra-queen combo would go nicely. Any cloaked wraiths would be useless when covered in goo, after all. Now, this plan went to shits when his anti-air units, rather than be goliaths or wraiths, were marines and ghosts. Elgene, being the bastard that he is, launched another attack right after I fought off his tanks.



(Well not right after, but before I had a decent army of hydralisks.) My now-undefended expansion soon fell to the might of the marines and ghosts, and I was left to pick up the pieces with the combined might of broodlings and a little thing called "High Ground Advantage." I fought off these intruders with relative ease, but I had still lost my expansion and my main was getting dryer by the second. I went scouting with my broodlings and found that the ramp to 2:30 was covered by 2 siege tanks. An expansion? I think so! There were also a few tanks at Elgene's main, but that was not important. I had a plan brewing...

I quickly grabbed 6 o'clock's main and natural to set up an advantage over Elgene. My plan (mentioned about 3 seconds ago) was to expand to everywhere possible until I could pump units continuosly, while at the same time attacking all of Elgene's expansions so that he would be forced to hole up or risk leaving himself wide open. It may not be original, but it works. As I knew that Elgene had expanded to 2:30 that would be my first port of call. My attack force would consist of some veteran queens, that had already broodlinged some ghosts, and about a dozen hydralisks.



I started out with 2 queens turning some tanks into miniature zergish things, then left my broodlings there. I sent in my hydralisks and started ripping up a rather undefended expansion containing a dozen workers and roughly 8 marines. After destroying the pitiful defenses, I saw something that scared the shit out of me. A nuke silo. My broodlings served their purpose and spotted a whole heap of units coming in to kill my hydralisks so I quickly loaded up my force into 3 overlords, then ran for it. Upon leaving the bloodied battleground, I heard the most beautiful sound that an attacker can hear when fleeing. The CC had burned down and blown up just as I was leaving. Perfect. Now, being the nice person that I am, I decided to cut my losses and return home to prepare for my new assault. Mutalisks, hydralisks, queens and overlords were already part of my growing force. What next.....DEFILERS! Plague against terrans works wonders. (Next part said in best Mr. Burns voice possible) Excellent...

I quickly ordered up a hive and started building up my forces again. I had just started my defiler mound when I felt the urge to give birth. I gave a quick message "Pit stop" and paused the game. Upon returning I saw that there was a little red dot above my main base. That's right, the bastard had resumed the game after I had left the room! A word of warning to you all : in public games, pausing doesn't do so well. I didn't know how much time I had before the nuke dropped, so I ran. I ran all of my troops and it paid off. Moments later, the red light disappeared. Knowing that I couldn't stop it, I did what any rational person would do. I took a load of screenshots and called Elgene a dickhead.



Abandoning the idea of defilers (my mound got nuked) I sent in what I had for a revenge attack. I started off by moving my queens into position and then broodling the hell out of my enemy. After that, my mutalisk force ran in and started unleashing hell. To back them up (they were really only a diversionary force) my overlords ran in full of hydras and started to kick the crap out of this bastard. Oh how I hate Elgene! Just kidding, I don't know him enough to hate him. My attack seemed to be going to plan, but then I realised that the reason I wasn't losing any units was because all of Elgene's units were attacking my overlords. Cloak. That dirty little bastard! How dare he use intelligence in a game of StarCraft?!?



My forces soon got wiped out by the might of cloaked ghosts and wraiths and, without the help of overlords, my hydralisks' escape route was cut off by tanks. It was at this moment that I realised Elgene ahd taken up residency at his natural expansion aswell. After a quick scout around with scourge, I found that his only base with resources left was at his natural so that is where I would hit! I had an advantage over Elgene because I had 2 expansions with resources, whereas he only had 1, so if I destroyed that, well you get the picture. At the time I thought it was a brilliant idea, but then I realised that it was quite ordinary. Oh well.



I assembled a quick strike force consisting of hydralisks, mutalisks, zerglings and a few overlords. After a hard fought battle by both sides, I finally over-ran his forces of 3 tanks, 8 wraiths with cloak, 5 ghosts with cloak and a handful of marines. Numbers had prevailed as he was still sore from my previous attack. Just as I was finishing his CC off, I nearly shit my pants. (Good thing I took that pit stop before, after all!) Another nuke. I checked around my units, nothing. It was then that I noticed a small orange dot on my minimap. At 6 o'clock's natural, there was a ghost. Luckily for me, I hadn't attacked with any queens and one got there rather quickly. The overlord sitting atop that ridge had saved the game from going into overtime. Using my trusty broodling abilities, the cloaked nuker sooned turned into more units with which to attack.



With his master plan failed, Elgene was in the shits now. His forces were decimated from my 2 attacks in a row, he had nothing left to mine and I had destroyed a fair few factories when I attacked his main at 12:00. With my excess cash I produced 12 mutalisks and then sent my survivors of the "Expansion Killers Squad" to attack some things up in Elgene's main. This battle was over, my friends. The zerg swarms had prevailed through the help of broodlings, but it was still a good game had by all. Elgene made a last ditch attempt to set up shop again (a true sign of a worthy opponent) but with around a dozen mutalisks flying around the place his last few buildings fell. I hope this BR was better than my last one, because it sure took a lot longer to do.