The power of Steel

Welcome to my second BR, I originally did this on MS paint, but realising how long it would take to download (and how lame it was), I promptly gave up and am now re-doing in Word, hoping to save it as an HTML file later on. It was the first game I took screen shots of as I watched, but it was a really good game, so although I started out with little intention of actually doing anything with them, I did take 95 or so (saving 4 for the scores). I have tried to write this report so that the images just illustrate points made in the text, thus if they don’t load, then it is still just as good a report and all action is described in word form.

The match-up was played on Lost temple (I know, but I don't care, at least you all know what it looks like as I explain the events), and when it started, (no idea if races were chosen or randomed) I saw it was a Terran vs Protoss. I had seen some Terran ownage with heavy metal earlier in the day, but I knew that the calibre of the players in this match were a little higher; so the Protoss would not just be sieged in, and the Terran would not be free to take map control. I was hoping for perhaps an example of the new deep 6 strategy or of the Protoss mass ground assaults, but we'll see if any of these strategies are employed.

The players are Let_Me_Win!!!, who received the purple Terran Command Centre on the northern plateau, and QuickSilver01 who received a glimmering yellow Protoss Nexus at the southern plateau, so the 12:00 / 3:00 imbalances will not be a factor in this game.

Let_Me_Win!!! started with a (fairly) standard double-depot rax wall-in at his choke (gas before second depot) and powered a bit with 3 factories very early on. His tech choice is quite clearly going to be mostly metal.

QuickSilver01 started with a pylon-gate-gate-pylon-gas build but I think he may have gotten gas before the second pylon as he only made one zealot, and managed to place a cybernetics core and pump dragoons very early into the game (once he found he was against a teching Terran). His choice of unit is the dragoon; the standard Protoss unit against Terran metal builds.

When he had 1 goon and a zealot, QuickSilver01 sent them up to join the probe at the Terran ramp for a bit of wall worshipping; the wall being a structure alien to the Protoss units. However, on arrival, the wife of the one defending marine started making smart comments about how fat Protoss ground troops are out of her depot window. The noble Protoss were not perplexed however, and replied that they were not fat, only "horizontally challenged" and that most of it was "insulation". At this the marine and his wife roared in laughter, a sound which seemed to irritate the Protoss, it being a sound roughly translated into their sacred language to mean "Screw you, you're all ugly and smell of zerg faeces". As you can imagine, this triggered a distinctly hostile reaction by the Protoss warriors who valiantly waddled around the bottom of the ramp in an attempt to scale it. They then ran up and swiftly murdered the marine and his wife, and a couple of their SCV children, but were eventually encouraged to leave (despite re-enforcements) by a tank and a couple of Hell's Angels. They stepped back into the valley, figuring that the perhaps the marine's mistake wasn't worth razing his entire base for, and they were content to sit in the valley, stocking up on blueberry juice while playing Mr. containment for a while.

Can’t a Zealot get through that gap? I guess not!

Typically unhappy with the wholesale slaughter of one of his sentries, Let_Me_Win!!! ordered up an army of Terran metal units to take down the stupid, horizontally challenged Protoss units. He researched spider mines first followed by siege ability for his tanks, and soon after he would’ve done the ion thrusters thing, so that hi vultures could arrive at their pointless deaths more efficiently.

QuickSilver01, intensely pissed at the insult bestowed upon his troops, orders up another gateway and a robotics facility, going for those cute little observers to spot the inevitable spider mines. He also re-enforces the dragoon containment that he has going outside the Terran main.

Soon though, Let_Me_Win!!! sends his beer can launchers down the ramp to bury a few explosive spiders, and he orders his tanks to sit behind the mines and siege up. Upon seeing this, QuickSilver01 orders his warriors forward, or else his containment will prove worthless. What follows is a short scrap where the mines take their toll on the Protoss ground troops. QuickSilver01 decides that he should probably just leave them to it, and so re-establishes his containment a little further down the map (out of range of the tank on the cliff of the 12:00 plateau). He took time in this attack to expand to his natural.

Let_Me_Win!!! has now established himself in his valley and feels that he is safe in expanding. But being the mineral whoar that he is, he decides to not only build a Command Centre at his natural expansion, but to build one in his main ready to float to the top left island. He also gets double armouries, and upgrades his mech units quickly throughout the game until they are at +3 armour and attack. QuickSilver01 has got his observatory, and is currently teching towards the Templar Archives, when a new player comes onto the field; a small invisible balloon named Bob (the obs).

This little character is to have quite a role in the upcoming game. His first task is to scout out the spider mines in the Terran valley entrance, then he heads off for a tour of the base, making careful note of the command centre floating off to the top left, and the one under construction in the 12:00 natural. He beeps the intelligence home and QuickSilver01 gets his double forges working to compensate for the armouries there.

QuickSilver01 knows that this has cost a lot of resources on Let_Me_Win!!!'s part, so he uses some of his money to build up more of a force. One of the best times to hit an opponent is after his expansion is just getting it's first few peons, as he will at that point have been investing the majority of his cash for a couple of minutes on them, not his troop count. However, QuickSilver01 has been just doing the same thing himself. At this point, Let_Me_Win!!! starts using the few tanks that he has got to push slowly into the centre of the map. The Protoss dragoons are on hold position in their containment, and each time a tank sieges within range, it gets one shot off damaging the shields, before the Protoss unit is pulled back a bit. This pattern repeats for a long time down the map, with QuickSilver01 making this an agonisingly slow push for Let_Me_Win!!!, who must remain patient and careful if he is not to get rushed. Bob the obs is constantly taking note of the troop count of the push, and QuickSilver01 clearly doesn't feel the time to strike is yet at hand. Soon, Let_Me_Win!!! decides to press his positional advantage home by making an expansion at the mineral only below the 3:00 plateau.

He decides to protect this from the east using a supply depot wall that becomes continuous with the walls surrounding the temple. Again Bob the obs is on hand to witness this event not long after it begins, and QuickSilver01 panics a bit realising that he has totally lost Map control, and that his fledgling expansion at the 3:00 main may soon be in danger. However, he has the perfect weapon now, as he has been steadily tutoring his High Templar to summon blue, acidic 'Silly-String' above the heads of potential enemies, so he now feels equipped to take on this new threat.

QuickSilver01 rallies his troops to the Southwest of the Terran encampment, and after a brief pause for blueberry juice drinking, charges headfirst into the mouth of the beast. Now the Terran army has been happily sieged here for a good while, and are now mining off 3 expansions, but they have little in the way of spider mines set up (as Bob was quick to note) and their tanks are mostly un-sieged for some reason (storm dodging, perhaps). 3 SCVs were still frantically constructing the supply depot wall, but it too is also incomplete. I think that the timing of this assault was perfect, 10 seconds later and the outcome could quite easily have been drastically different. The Dragoons, Speadlots (ooo, new word) and Dark Templar rushed in with silly-string support from High Templar, and after a few good storms and a severe lack of detection, the Protoss troops absolutely routed the ill-prepared Terran mech-army.

The assault razed the brand new expansion and everything in it. QuickSilver01 didn't stop there though as he pushed toward the Terran main. A couple of SCVs had gotten out of the Terran base during the fight and were constructing a new expansion at the 3:00 main, using a wall-in above the ramp to protect it. After the initial assault, who else but Bob the obs went on a little trip to check out the area, he is one cost-effective unit so far this game. He noted it all and beeped his message home to QuickSilver01. This was duly noted, but I guess he had his sights set on a bigger prize at the time, he had matched that expansion during the attack by taking the 3:00 natural, so it wouldn't put him at a disadvantage. He kept the pressure on, and ordered Bob to scout out the Terran defences, and I held my breath as a missile turret was being constructed directly below the fragile balloon. I felt like shouting out, but then, to my relief I saw him float off over the cliff of the 3:00 plateau, and I was able to breathe again.

With a huge Protoss army, QuickSilver01 is intent not to lose the initiative, and with good knowledge of his opponent's defences, he decided to end the game here and now. He invests in some gates at his 3:00 expansion (6 of them there now), although Let_Me_Win!!! has a factory at his 9:00 expansion, 2 in his natural, and many more in his main. The scene is set. Once more the Protoss troops hurl themselves across the temple grounds and into the 12:00 valley. Storm and DTs and many a dragoon are thrown into the fray, as numerous siege tanks rain arclite fire down upon all around. Mines take their toll and OMG….!!! Bob…. he gets hit by the turret in the natural…..but…..yes, I see him limping off with almost no health to re-charge his shields. He’s still alive, thank the Gods!!!!!

Well the attack is a success as more goons than I care to count run into the natural and raze much of it to the ground, and I get ready to type 'GG', but what's this? There are less and less Protoss still alive…. I check the upgrades to see that the damage being done by the Terran tanks and vultures is much greater than that of the Protoss army, despite this the goons push on, killing every last tank and vulture in the area. The SCV's run up the ramp to escape and the natural cc lifts off to take refuge over the natural cliff. Then a small pack of hell's angels come over the horizon (Terran main) and seal the fate of the last few dragoons, and the attack is stopped, but only after great losses for Let_Me_Win!!!.

Then, for the second game I have watched in a row, the SCV's are sent back to mine before the CC has been landed, so they do a big gay long-distance mining effort from the main CC…… ah well, at least when they were evacuated they were sent to mine the gas of the main so as not to get caught up with other units on the ramp. This long-distance mining is quickly quelled as a worker strike by the SCV union demands that Let_Me_Win!!! lands the CC again. He obliges, and with incredible speed begins to replace his army in defence of his valley.

The problem is that QuickSilver01 has over 10 gates pumping units (Go Macro boy) being funded from his 3 expansions. The army he has amassed by the end of this assault is getting geared up to go again, and this time they hit the 9:00 base. This was truly a high paced game; I was very impressed with the rapid recovery of Let_Me_Win!!! after this attack, and the just-so-swift build-up by QuickSilver01 during this battle, to make this new army. He assaults the ramp defences and the wall-in, but sadly for Let_Me_Win!!! he has been building up exclusively from his main, and so the few un-upgraded men and the token vulture force are unable to do much more damage than the wall itself. So after a brief scrap, QuickSilver01's loyal soldiers overrun the expansion.

This has to be the end of the game I feel as Let_Me_Win!!! is being out produced and out resourced, but just try telling him that! Extremely unhappy with QuickSilver01's new hobby of expansion killing, Let_Me_Win!!! expands to his mineral only, and leads an impressively large fleet of tanks (so tanks come in fleets now?… ok..) to claim the middle of the map, and he siege them up out of storm range of each other, dominating the temple grounds. Rumour has it that he also starts spraying graffiti on the statues of the 2 (weird looking) Protoss warriors that reside there. Bob the obs is sitting over the Terran valley entrance and sees this happening, he frantically tells QuickSilver01, who responds by recalling (not the arbiter spell) the majority of his troops from this from his expansion killing exploits. These run along the bottom of the temple, being shot at by sieged tanks, in an attempt to join their brethren beneath the temple. The Protoss macro has been lacking a bit during the expansion killing era, and the army gathered there is small, but the gates are all working furiously, transporting new troops in from….well…. from a few miles down the road I guess, seeing how we are already on Auir! QuickSilver01 is not happy to wait for his backup, as the Terrans will be re-enforced by then (according to Bob the obs), So yet again he orders his troops into the fray, in an attempt to yet again sack the Terran army. At this point in the game all troops on all sides have +3 of all available upgrades (Terran metal and Protoss ground) so the fighting will be intense!

The Protoss forces are too low in number to displace the Terrans, and AGAIN the tables have turned. It is 3 working expansions each (although Let_Me_Win!!! is only getting gas from his depleted main and his natural), and Terrans have map control. Their army was damaged in that last attack though, and through some impressive macro QuickSilver01 has a standing army of 15 or so dragoons in no time at all. Let_Me_Win!!! does not have the factories to keep up with this (remember he only built one at his expansion at 9:00, and now he has only one at his mineral only), and when the second assault wave hits him, his troops falter, and then begin to buckle under the pressure. The Protoss ground troops are just too much and with the help of storm again, they break through.

… erm, nice storm there!

QuickSilver01 does not make the mistake of pausing this time, and sends his troops crashing into the 12:00 valley, where they wreak absolute havoc (with more mine spotting by Bob the obs). They also stumble upon and destroy the expansion at the mineral only. This is finally too much for Let_Me_Win!!! as dragoons are being pumped continuously from 10+ gateways, and they totally overrun the Terran natural and main, despite the SCV's in the natural putting up one hell of a fight of it.

'GG's are exchanged by all parties, and I sit back as I have been at the edge of my chair for the last 10 minutes. This was one incredible match-up, with the winner eventually out macroing his opponent. All credit to Let_Me_Win!!! for putting up one hell of a fight, but the First prize goes in the end to QuickSilver01, who receives a lolli-pop and fame in a BR for his troubles.

The final scores are:

As before, sorry about the naff image quality, but they are taken from MS paint (it is overall / units / structures / resources).

Lessons learned:

1) Heavy metal owns pretty hard, but can be outdone by mass Protoss ground troops.

2) Upgrade ASAP, if either player had slackened off then they would have been swamped quickly.

3) Be aggressive, if QuickSilver01 had let Let_Me_Win!!! get set up at the 3:00 mineral only, the game would probably have been over in no time with a Terran win.

4) Expand whenever you can, it'll help in times when you cant!

5) Scout, Bob the obs owned the Terrans this game, and made it easy for QuickSilver01 to see what his opponent had.

6) Choose the right tech, neither player chose to go air as they didn’t really need it, remember Let_Me_Win!!! only really lost the game in the last 2 minutes.

7) NEVER GIVE UP! Let_Me_Win!!!'s recovery after his natural was razed nearly won him the game.

8) Power hard if you can, when Let_Me_Win!!! left the game, QuickSilver01 had over 25 goons tearing down his main

9) Cliff seiges (turbo newbies) may be gay, but they are cost-effective and could have been used.

10)Drops would have gone down well for Let_Me_Win!!!, if he had done an early 4-vulture drop……perhaps……

11)D-matrix would've helped too, as with maybe nukes, lockdown and EMP. Not a single Terran spell was used all game… tut tut!

12)Get more sleep, if it is 5 in the morning, GO TO BED!

13)SC/BW rules, so do BR's and so do Hula-Hoop crisps.

Thanks U 2 for playing so well, and thanks for letting me see this highly intensive game; And for all you out there who read battle reports and ban observers, please stop, because you are doing a dis-service to the entire NH community! Thanx, gw, good night all and have fun!!!

Ling-erie

Despite the title, Toss won =P