What makes the game of Starcraft so great is that after 3 years of playing, you can still come out the other side of a game with something that you totally didn't expect when you clicked on the Start Button in the Chat Room.

ONCE UPON A TIME

As most everyone knows, I've been working hard on my web page for the past couple of months trying to create my own little niche in the gaming community. I had recently transferred my How to Kill a Newbie series over to the site and on this particular day, I had logged onto Battle.net to forage for some fresh materiel for the series. This is how I stumbled onto bWc-gone~postal.

I scrolled down through the list of games seeking prey. I had an idea to try out on a newbie and I needed a victim. As I scrolled through the numerous 3v3's on Shared Bases and BGH my eye suddenly caught a 1v1 lost temple newbies! game. I quickly joined and after doing a quick /stats, saw that my opponent weighed in with a 3-1 record. Sadly, I realized that Postal was probably a lame newbie basher but I decided to play him anyway. I would need a few losses on my record if I wanted to don the ever popular "shitty melee record" newbie disguise.

Thus the game began with myself choosing protoss and Postal choosing zerg. My brilliant plan for this match was to build an army that consisted of one single serving of each unit. "What a great report this will make if I win," I thought to myself. However, my opponent's silence in the first 4 minutes of the game gave me a sense of forboding.

DOH DOH DOH!

In order to get the units in the quickest amount of time, I went for the two buildings that contained the most units, the Gateway and the Stargate. Things went smoothly at first. I had a zealot and a goon. A scout was building. I had a citadel of adun and a templar archives and my robotics facility was in the process of warping in.

It was at this point that Postal decided to rain on my parade. 10 zerglings charged up my ramp. My zealot and dragoon were hard pressed to defend. I microed my ass off and managed to kill 5 of the zerglings just in time for my scout to join the fray.

My scout was able to finish off the zerglings but the bastards managed to kill off my gateway. My plan was now in shambles. It would take forever for my gateway to build and I was sure that where there were 10 zerglings, there would soon be thousands more. Thinking that the game was a lost cause, I did what any "normal" Starcraft player would do. I started warping a second scout and a forge for cannons.

My prediction proved to be an accurate one. It wasn't long before another wave of 12 zerglings came scampering into my main. This time I pulled my probes off of mining duty and threw them into the melee. My scout's BB gun fired valiantly and the probes chopped efficiently with their mineral cutters and I managed to overcome the second wave as well. However, I lost 25% of my probes and my Stargate. My situation was dire now for I had no buildings with which to construct units except for my Nexus and only my 1 scout to guard against future Zerg incursions.

SO YOU THINK THAT ITS OVER? (Dref Will Find a Wa-ay)

Those of you that are seasoned battlereport readers probably looked closely at the minimap in the previous picture. If you did, you noticed a little green speck forming on Postal's plateau. You see, about the time that the second wave of zerglings arrived in my base, my scouting probe arrived in Postal's base. Unnoticed, I had begun the construction of a pylon in the corner of his main and as my scout was finishing off Postal's final zergling, 3 cannons were quietly warping in.

None of the cannons were in a position to do any harm to Postal and so I continued the cannon push with a second pylon covered by the 3 fresh cannons. This pylon also warped in unnonticed. Unfortunately, as this pylon completed its warp, a third wave of zerglings arrived in my main. This wave proved to be the most devastating of the three. I lost all of my probes and was left with 406 minerals in the bank.

With these 406 minerals, I invested in 2 more probes, and 2 cannons on the edge of Postal's creep. The cannons went unnoticed until it was too late. A wave of zerglings charged right at the newly warped cannons attempting to stem the madness that had suddenly engulfed their master's base. I chuckled as the cannons made mincemeat of them and I joyfully watched as the two cannons began firing on one of Postal's hatcheries!

SCOUTING YOUR OPPONENT

My two remaining probes managed to mine 250 minerals before a fourth wave of backbreaking zerglings arrived in my main. I couldn't hold off the lings and they ravaged my main tearing it to the ground leaving me with 23 minerals, 3 pylons, 6 cannons, and a scout.

I ignored his lings and with my 1 scout, I charged into Postal's main. He had 2 hatcheries, 1 sunken colony, and 1 spawning pool that were out of range of my cannons so unfortunately, he had been able to continue mining. I quickly shot up his drones, however, 1 drone managed to escape past my cannon wall. It ran down the ramp and headed toward my natural. My scout followed closely behind taking an occasionally potshot. But the Scout's speed was not upgraded and so the drone managed to save enough hitpoints so that when he arrived in my natural, he managed to start a hatchery.

I immediately got to work with my BB gun. I fired shot after shot into the montrous Zerg building. Even so, it still had over 800 hitpoints when it finished its morph. Immediately, Postal morphed in two drones. I killed the first one, but the second one managed to escape death by morphing into a Spawning Pool.

At this point, I had left my scout on auto pilot and shifted my focus back to Postal's main. You see, I was worried that he had resumed drone production while I was away. Fortunately, I used my cannon building probe as a scout and saw that there were no drones mining and I figured that he had run out of minerals. I switched my attention back to my scout. DAMMIT! The idiot scout had switched its focus and was now firing on the Spawning Pool. This was a waste of time since he already had a Spawning pool in his main protected by a sunken. I quickly shifted focus back to the hatchery and after what seemed like an eternity, the hatchery exploded into a bloody mess.

NO EXPANSIONS THANKS

With the expansion hatchery history, I worried that Postal had managed to construct a hatchery elsewhere on the map and so I began the grand tour. I started with my main, then flew to 12:00, then to 9:00. With each expansion succeeding expansion that was empty my confidence grew. Finally, I arrived at Postal's very own natural. Empty!

I couldn't believe it, I had won the game with one single scout and a few cannons. All that was left to do was fly my scout into Postal's main and slowly beatdown his remaining buildings. I was halfway to his main when suddenly...

I sighed, of course the bastard wouldn't be able to handle such a demeaning loss. "In fact, " I thought to myself, "If I had lost in such a manner, I very well might disc."

I moved my mouse pointer over the drop players button and clicked. The drop screen disappeared and I waited for the "Postal has been dropped from the game" prompt... but NO! he hadn't disced. The game continued. I sighed again and flew my scout into his main.

When the scout arrived over Postal's peon line, I was mildly surprised to see that there were 5 drones mining merrily away. I wasn't worried though, he still didn't have any gas and he couldn't have many minerals in the bank. I fired on the first drone and it ran over to the left side of the mineral line. I chuckled at Postal's tenaciousness and followed...

It took a moment for my brain to comprehend the sound that I heard. How was it possible. I blinked twice and stared at my screen in dismay. My ears had not deceived me. The sickening sound of a spore colony hurling its green mucous skyward had made its way through my sub woofer and into my living room. I cursed very loudly and quickly drew back my scout, preserving its hitpoints but losing its shields.

A second spore colony popped up shortly there after covering Postal's Spawning Pool and second hatchery. Then a third began to morph on the right side of his mineral line completing a triangle defense the covered his entire main from my scout.

I looked helplessly at the top right hand corner of my screen where the display read 23 minerals. It didn't take Postal long to morph in 3 control groups of lings. And then, my friends, those lings attacked... and I lost.