"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you�re a hacking lamer."
-AQD3
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| 7 Man FFA on Continental Divide: Khas Has Returned! | | | Author: | | | IP: | ool-18baXXXX | | Date: | 06/20/01 05:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Image Heavy(1), Starcraft(1), Great Writing(1), Problem: Broken Images(1), Long(1), Funny(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Khas'andro: |   |
Come one, come all, to my return to the land of BattleReports.com! Some of the relatively old members may remember my attempts at reports, and they weren't too bad. I grew tired of StarCraft, and lost the desire to do battlereports. Weeks, even months passed, and finally, the 1.08 patch came out. One night, I was thinking to myself, "Hey, with this replay feature, I can just sit back and enjoy a game, and then watch the replay to get pictures and notes!" Well, I went to ~NoHunters, and guess what? I found absolutely NO good games to report.
So of course, I got bored, and decided to join up in a 7-man FFA on Continental Divide. As I neared the end of the game, I realized, "Wow, this was a great game. I'm gonna report it!". So I did, and here it is. Enjoy it, read it, whack off to the pictures, or read it, hate it, and may you have a 7 ton llama dropped on your head while you sit on the toilet.
Warning: Readers should be in good health and free from motion sickness, back or neck problems, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure; expectant mothers should not read. Adult supervision is required. Those of us with weak hamsters should head for the hills. Once you scroll down, there is no turning back.
After you've read the report, feel free to pick up the replay here and watch it to get a better feel for the game!
I know you're probably thinking "Wow, it's not Lost Temple!" now that you've seen that picture. Well, wake up, smell the dog shit on your favorite shoes, and remember that I said there were 7 people in this report.
Now, time to introduce our players. First, we have Eradicate~Me, playing Blue Protoss in the upper left hand corner. Erad is the kind of person you either love or you hate. Most people hate him. But hey, he's a good sport when he gets his ass kicked.
 Secondly, we've got Psyduckie! using the new and improved Purple Terran in the top/center of this map. Psyduckie! was kinda quiet throughout the game, although there were numerous snickers over the similarities between his name and Pokemon.
 Third of all, there's )Seizure(, who commands the Red Zerg in the left-center of this map. )Seizure( is another guy I don't know. He's kind of a passionate player. In other words, he gets angry easily. =)
 Then there's RainFall... controlling the Brown Terran in the bottom left corner of the map. I've played a few games with RainFall... before this, in which he ungracefully lost to Eradicate~Me. But that's all behind us now. Rain is a stolid commander, and he doesn't seem to let things bother him.
 Next we have livingexception, controlling the Orange Zerg in the north-middle. He's quiet, but when you pair him up with badtz_maru, they're a dangerous...well, they're really fucking annoying.
 Here comes the resident bad boy/bastard of NH - badtz_maru. Many may recognize him for inane comments, or for just being badtz, but he's damned funny. And this game does a great job of showing how dumb he is. badtz controls the Yellow Terran in the eastern sector of the map.
Then comes the best player of all. Khas'andro, controlling the White Protoss in the lower right of this lovely map. 'nuff said.
Now that we've gotten that done with, let's get into the game. Erad, all by himself in the upper left, starts off with a relatively normal build, getting a Pylon, 2 Gateways, another Pylon, and a pair of Zealots. Seizure and LE use similar strategies, starting off with an early Spawning Pool and 2-3 hatch Zerglings. Rain goes for early gas and a quick tech to StarPorts, and Psyduckie also goes for early gas, although he is more content with building mass infantry than StarPort - level units. Good ol' badtz is just content with massing SCVs up to 10 supply, and then he masses minerals from there.
Seizure quickly gets his Zerglings, and sends them in the direction his Overlord had taken - directly toward LE's base. Taking the long way around, Seizure arrives at LE's base only to find the totally unexpected.
)Seizure(: wtf he's on an island?
Yessir, LE has been lucky enough to spawn in the gayest spawn on the whole map - right on a plateau in the center of the map. Lucky bastard. By now, Erad has built up a Cybernetics Core and has started his first Dragoons, while Rain already has two StarPorts and Psyduckie has gotten StarPorts, which begin construction of Wraiths. Before Seizure's Zerglings return to base, badtz has actually built a Supply Depot and a Barracks! LE is researching his Ventral Sacs upgrade, so he can get off that accursed "island", and Khas has supplemented his Pylons with 4 Photon Cannons.
Here's where the action starts. Erad has built up a standing army of 5 Zealots and 4 Dragoons, and has scouted Rain with a probe. Rain, due to his quick tech, has already built up a Science Facility with a Physics Lab attachment, and a Bunker full of marines in the center of his setup. Erad sends his force down to Rain, and at almost the exact same moment, Psyduckie sends out 4 Wraiths on a crash course with Erad's mineral line.
As you can see, Psyduckie's four Wraiths have gotten the Cloak ability and are using it to their advantage. Erad, who seems to not only be on a deficit of units, but intelligence, too, sends his Dragoons to attack the phantom menace invisible enemies. Fortunately for Erad, he is able to lure the Wraiths back into the Photon Cannons that he has been hastily constructing, but Psyduckie isn't as stupid as Erad probably looks, and manages to retreat the Wraiths. Sadly, Wraiths only have so much energy, and as it begins to run out, the Wraiths decloak, and the Dragoons easily pick off the disabled Wraiths.
Unfortunately for Erad, Psyduckie isn't the only player who has come knocking. Seizure has taken his standing army of 5 Zerglings and 7 Hydralisks and sent them to the south of  Erad's base. They do minimal damage, however, before Psyduckie's Wraiths spot the attack force and repulse it. This all happens between the time Psyduckie's Wraiths hit Erad's mineral line and Erad builds his cannons. Meanwhile, badtz has been constructing a Command Center at the low ground to the extreme east of LE's plateau. He begins to float it up and over onto LE's plateau, and seeing what we know is LE's natural, but appears to be a simple expansion, lands his Command Center and begins construction of SCVs. LE, obviously looking for his natural, runs into this intrusion on his virgin island, sends an attack force of a Drone and 2 Zerglings to remove badtz, who, in turn, floats his Command Center to a safer haven.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering? Well, if you are, no, I won't do that for twenty cents and a pound of bellybutton lint.
If you aren't, then you're probably wondering what happened to Erad's attack force that was last seen heading toward Rain's main. Well, that's what I'm here to tell you about. Erad's 5 Zealots and 4 Dragoons hit Rain's Starports, on the outskirts of his main. Rain has a stroke of genius, and empties his bunker of Marines, effectively luring Erad's Zealots back to the bunker, where he promptly re-shelters his Marines. However, Rain can see that a bunker-full of Marines won't hold off the Zealots, so he takes his SCVs off mining to repair the besieged bunker.
After two of his Zealots fall, Erad gets the idea, and retreats his forces. He's also retreating because he sorely needs to defend his base, which is slowly being reduced to rubble at this point in time. As his forces return, the Dragoons are able to get off a few shots before the invading Wraiths have been repulsed by cannon fire. Meanwhile, badtz and LE have been keeping to themselves, quietly teching and "massing" their forces in their respective bases. Now then, we've got good old Khas, sitting all alone in the lower right hand corner of the map. What's Khas doing, everyone? Why, he's building Dragoons!
Seizure, fresh off his defeat at Erad's main, scouts Rain, and decided that our Terran "precipitation" is a ripe target. Seizure moves out with a small army consisting of 9 Hydralisks and 5 Zerglings. Rain, fresh off his victory against Erad's force, hasn't been sitting idle. Rain has been teching like a madman ever since the beginning of the game, and his objective has finally become clear: BattleCruisers. By the time Seizure's force has made it to Rain's base, Rain has constructed 2 of the bowel-moving behemoths. Seizure's Zerglings are taken care of by Rain's bunker, and the Hydralisks make a brave last stand against the BattleCruisers. Let's just say that the Cruisers make short worth of the Hydralisks. Seizure hasn't been sitting idle while his attack force gets owned, and has grabbed the expansion to the near east of Rain's main. A few minutes later, he has rebuilt his force, and decides to try his luck against Erad for the second time. Unfortunately for Seizure, Erad is done reeling from the double team by Seizure and Psyduckie, and has built up a considerable defense of Dragoons and Zealots, which quickly lay waste to the oncoming Zerg.
It seems that Psyduckie is on the prowl again, as his Wraiths run into Seizure's near-undefended expansion, and turn their deadly lasers onto the defenseless Hatchery. Lucky for Seizure, Rain's scouting Science Vessel just happens to run into the attacking Wraiths, and draws them away, back to his own base. Needless to say, after the Vessel has been decimated, the cloakable Wraiths quickly beat the crap out of the BattleCruisers, who turn and run from the unseen foes. |
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As you can see in this picture, Rain's BattleCruisers didn't fare too well in this fight. The Wraiths and their Gemini Missiles take out the doomed duo in record time, then turn their attention to Rain's mineral line and the rest of his structures. Sensing the danger, Rain counts the seconds until his precious Engineering Bay completes, and then takes 4 SCVs and immediately sets them to the task of constructing a quartet of Missile Turrets to launch their deadly warheads at the attacking Wraiths.
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Before the Turrets are complete, however, Rain has lost many of his valiant SCVs, but Psyduckie's Wraiths have lost their energy, and are forced to decloak. Rain's bunkered Marines open fire on the revealed aircraft and begin to tear them apart. While the Marines distract the Wraiths, the SCVs finish their task and a group of four Missile Turrets begin to blow the Wraiths out of the sky. Rain wins this battle, but unfortunately, he has lost the majority of his SCVs, and it takes him some time to rebuild.
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Of course, just like in all good FFA's, this isn't the only place that there's been some action. badtz has attempted a cross-map expansion, using the same Command Center that was denied a resting place on LE's island. This time, badtz attempts to set up shop east of Erad's main base, where Erad is slowy building an army.
While badtz is watching his Command Center slowly creep across the map to land, LE has taken his Overlords with their newly evolved Ventral Sacs and transports his Zergling force off his island. They quickly scurry across the map to find badtz's relatively undefended base. He also takes a couple of Mutalisks, evolved thanks to his two newly formed Spires, and sends them to back up the Zerglings, who are already wreaking havoc upon badtz's hapless SCVs. Luckily for badtz, he had chosen the short peaceful period before the Zerg onslaught to expand to the base south of his main, the first expansion that actually remains for longer than 25 seconds, as his cross-map expansion has just been struck by Seizure's Zergling. Yes, one Zergling. Anyway, to mort a short story..well, longer than it deserves, badtz gets owned, and is reduced to the few structures he has at his southern expansion.
Here, you wonder why LE does not move to take out badtz's expansion, as the retreating SCVs have obviously revealed the location, and LE could easily wipe out badtz's base. Well, badtz, bastard that he is, pauses the game, and types:
badtz_maru: has left the game
As I'm adding this into my report, about three weeks after the game (=/) I was chatting with LE over AIM:
ExceptionToDRuLE: After I sacked badtz' main he paused the game and typed "has left the game". And cause all text looks the same it fooled me.
KhAsAnDrO: LOL
ExceptionToDRuLE: And that's why I didn't go after his exp
KhAsAnDrO: OMFG
And this shows how dumb LE really is. No, really, it shows how something people dismiss as cheese can screw up the course of the game, as will be shown in the future.
And now, folks, we have reached the 10 minute mark. I have included pictures such as this at strategic points during the war that was raged on the Continental Divide. Here, it serves as something to tie together everything that has been happening. You've read about it, but the entire timeline when put together may sound extremely confusing. Now, here it is, the 10 minute minimap, with a commentary by none other than *gasp* me!
I'm sure you can relate to certain things in this picture, having (hopefully) read the entire BR up to this point. In the upper left corner of the map, you can see Seizure's attack force and badtz's cross map expansion, soon to be ruined. You can see LE's Zerglings about to hit badtz's main base, and you can see his expansion below that. You can see Psyduckie's Wraiths about to hit Seizure's mineral line at his expansion, and if you look closely enough, you can see the brown spot that symbolizes the Science Vessel that distracts Psyduckie's Wraiths. If this doesn't bring together everything that has happened up until now, then you'll just have to go watch the replay to see how everything fits together. I apologize for the picture quality, as the minimap was blown up to 200% of the original size so it would be easier to see.
On a side note, despite everyone's massive tech trees at this point, not one player has gotten a single armor or weapon upgrade for any unit, while certain skill upgrades have been researched by many players.
Now, back to the game. You may have noticed a small white spot moving around the bottom of the map in that picture. That is Khas's probe, looking for his natural. Khas was extremely frustrated and screamed out numerous times:
Khas'andro: ASDF WHERE IS MY FUCKING EXPANSION?????
Back at badtz's old main base, where the ground is still smoking from the previous battle, LE ships in a squadron of *gasp* drones, who proceed to remain underneath their transporting Overlord for a few minutes before they move to build up a contingent of Hatcheries. In other words, LE takes over badtz's old main.
It's time for Rain and Psyduckie to see their share of the action. While his Wraith force devastated Rain's main, Psyduckie sized up his opponents defenses, and decided to take his army of Marines and Medics and hit Rain's main shortly after. Psyduckie sends his Marines and Medics in three different groups, possibly to allow at least ONE group to make it to Rain's main in case of an ambush. The army makes its way across the map and meets up just outside Rain's base. Meanwhile, Rain is recovering from Psyduckie's previous attack, and has sent an SCV to scout his territory for an expansion. What happens next can only be imagined, but fortunately, I'm here to make it real!
Now, as you can see in the above picture, Psyduckie has sent almost all of his Marines and Medics, and some of his brand new Wraiths, to take out Rain's main. Luckily...well, somewhat luckily for Rain, he was able to construct two more BattleCruisers, but as you can see in the picture, they didn't fare too well against Psyduckie's force. Building after building falls in the wake of the onslaught. Rain panics, and with only a few seconds to spare, remembers the SCV he sent out to scout earlier. Quickly, he instructs it to build a Command Center on a ridge that overlooks what appears to be a like in the lower left hand corner of the map, but it has a slight distance to travel before it gets there. Fortunately, the SCV begins construction when Rain has about 3 buildings remaining, and is left to its own devices. Rain begins gloating about his "SCV Track Star" while the Command Center floats its way down to the island in the lower left corner of the map.
Meanwhile, Khas has finally found his expansion, and proceeds to guard it with a set of Pylons and Photon Cannons, while his two Gateways at his main continue to merrily pump out Dragoon after Dragoon.
Elsewhere, Erad is building up his army. He has a strong force of Dragoons and Zealots, which are soon to be supported by a Reaver, which is under construction in Erad's Robotics Facility thanks to a Robotics Support Bay nearby. While the Reaver is being completed, Psyduckie comes knocking with a good-sized force, grouping up right outside of Erad's base.
Erad's Zealots are the first to fall under fire, as they charge into the battle against the Marines. The Reaver completes, and Erad begins to build scarab after scarab. Dragoons remove some of the Marines threat from afar, while the Zealots keep the Marines occupied. The Reaver proves to be the turning point of this battle, even though Erad's lack of micromanagement results in each scarab killing only 1-2 Marines. Eventually, Erad has been beaten down to only a modest force of Dragoons, but Psyduckie has suffered greater losses. All but three or four of his Marines have met their maker, and of the 3 Wraiths that were sent for backup, only one badly damaged flyer remains. Unfortunately, Erad isn't exactly a tactical genius, and he lets this victory go to his head. Picking up his remaining Dragoons, Erad sets them on a crash course with Psyduckie's main base. Moving across the map, these cocky Dragoons don't know what they're about to run into. Psyduckie appears to be a master of macroing, as he hasn't left his Barracks idle during the entire attack. Marines and Medics alike are continuosly pumped from Psyduckie's numerous Barracks, and when Erad's Dragoons reach Psyduckie's base, they realize just a little too late how stupid this move of Erad's was. The Dragoons are quickly beaten to a pulp, despite some fultile attempts by Erad to micro them into better  formations. Now, you may wonder why I am tagging Erad with the label of "dumbass" as a result of his attack. Well, Erad had also gotten an Observatory in addition to his Robotics Support Bay. Erad had an observer stationed directly over Psyduckie's Barracks, and I can't help but be amazed in his lack of intelligence when he had exceptional recon and was planning for a counter-attack. Erad definitely should have scouted out the base before he started his attack. He even admitted to this when we watched the replay shortly after the game. Still, Erad made this decision, and Psyduckie sure didn't have anything to complain about.
Unfortunately for Erad, he isn't the only person who has a soft spot for counter-attacks. Siezing the initiative, Psyduckie again moves out with his restored army of Marines, Medics, and Wraiths, this time suppLEmented with a pair of Science Vessels, which deftly cast a defensive matrix on a pair of Marines just before this large force smashes into Erad's nearly defensless base.
Wow. To make a long story short, Erad throws everything he has at Psyduckie, but to no avail. As structure after structure falls, Seizure and LE make a surprise appearance. Where'd they come from??? Well shit, just because I've been paying attention to the happenings of Erad and Psyduckie doesn't mean that the rest of the world has come to a standstill! While Erad and Psyduckie wage their private war, Rain has expanded to just south of Erad's main base. Seizure, itching for another expansion, efficiently removes the Terran presence, and begins his own expansion. Meanwhile, he has teched to the ends of the Zerg tech tree, with the construction of an Ultralisk Cavern and a morphing of a trio of the huge beasts. Of course, LE isn't just going to sit around and wait for someone to do something, and has dropped off a contingent of Drones west of this same expansion, while also grabbing the natural expansion on his personal plateau. LE is quite surprised when his Drones run into a defensive force of Zerglings, and immediately burrows them. He sends in a small squad of Mutalisks to wipe out the enemy Zerg presence, and they do their job quickly and efficiently. At the same time, the rest of LE's Mutalisks hit Seizure's main, hitting the trio of Ultralisks and causing them to panic and run north, directly into Erad's base, just as Psyduckie is annhilating it. And that explains the Zerg units you'll see in the last picture.
Surprisingly, not only has Erad conceded the match, but suddenly, Seizure quits the game. In an after-game chat, he was convinced it was the infamous sunken bug, yet through watching the replay 16+ times, I have not seen a single Sunken Colony of Seizure's under attack. I am assuming that Seizure realized he was doomed, and quickly left the game to avoid further humiliation.
Now, within fifteen short minutes, our 7 man FFA has been reduced to a 5 man FFA. Seizure has left the game, and Erad has been beaten down; although quite a few of his structures remain, he has neither Probes nor Nexii. Of course, LE isn't just going to let the loss of his Mutalisks become lost in the past, and sends a squadron of more Mutalisks to add insult to injury. Fortunately (for Erad, and no one else =D), Psyduckie's Marines were still idle at Erad's base, and they fight away the Mutalisk menace. LE has finally figured out that Psyduckie means business, and decides to leave Erad alone.
About two or three minutes after Rain's SCV track star runs the life-or-death marathon, Rain's Command Center has made it across the water and landed next to a modest mineral deposit, beginning production of SCVs as soon as it lands. Strangely, I look back a few minutes later, and I see this:
Now, what the fuck??? Rain's SCVs are just piling up outside his command center. You probably want to know why...well, like I said before, Rain watched the replay of the game after it ended, and laughed when I asked him what was going on. Here's his explanation:
Eventually, Rain finishes his cheesefries and sets his SCVs to begin mining, and begins the long and tedious work of rebuilding his tech tree. Meanwhile, badtz has been building up an air fleet, consisting of... a lot of Valkyries. Once he has what is actually an intimidating force, thanks to the improvements of the 1.08 patch, badtz moves north against the Mutalisks sitting at LE's expansion; badtz's former main base. Of course, even though badtz has totally removed the Mutalisk threat, even the powers of 1.08 won't allow Valkyries to demolish entire bases, and badtz flies around, searching for more targets. Eventually, badtz finds Seizure's base, shortly before the aforementioned leaves, and is content with picking on the poor, defenseless Overlords that remain.
Once again, we have reached a landmark: twenty minutes have passed in this game. Our 7-Man FFA has been reduced to a 5-Man FFA, with the resign of Erad and the "retreat" of Seizure. Of course, the action's just heating up! In the picture below, Seizure hasn't left yet, but Erad has already conceded. More action is ahead, so don't stop reading here!
As you can see in this picture, Psyduckie is still present in Erad's base, and you can see Seizure's expansion being hit by LE's Mutalisks. In the lower left hand corner is Rain, who is doing a bang-up job of re-teching. Khas is still massing Dragoons and is perfectly content with keeping to himself. Finally, you can also see badtz's expansion in the upper right hand corner of the map. Now, for an upgrade update. Seizure is not included, as he is really not an important part of the game at this point. However, I have included Erad's upgrades, as it shows one reason he may have had it easy repulsing Psyduckie earlier, but cannot beat him later in the game.
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RainFall...:
Ground Upgrades:
None.
Air Upgrades:
None.
Rain hasn't really had the time or the money to invest in upgrades.
livingexception:
Ground Upgrades:
Level Two Melee Attack
Level Two Carapace
Air Upgrades:
Level Two Flyer Attack
Level Two FLyer Carapace
LE's double Spire and double Evolution Chambers have really allowed him to get lots of upgrades for both his air and land forces.
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Eradicate~Me:
Ground Upgrades:
None.
Air Upgrades:
None.
Erad has been busy keeping up a small force for defense, so he hasn't really had the time OR resources to upgrade.
Khas'andro:
Ground Upgrades:
Level One Attack
Air Upgrades:
None.
Khas hasn't really put much thought into upgrades at this point in the game, as he is happy with massing Dragoons.
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badtz_maru:
Ground Upgrades:
None.
Air Upgrades:
Level Two Attack
Level One Armor
badtz has gotten a surprising amount of upgrades, considering he lost his entire tech tree to LE's last attack.
Psyduckie!:
Ground Upgrades:
Level One Infantry Attack
Level Two Infantry Armor
Air Upgrades:
None.
Even though Psyduckie has built some air units, he has been getting all ground upgrades for his Marines, which are his primary attack force.
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LE has been teching like mad the entire game, and now, he's gotten a Greater Spire and has begun the morphing of Devourers, which I'm assuming he built in response to badtz's Valkyrie fleet. After Seizure left the game, LE also took over the expansion south of blue, bringing his expansion count to three.
badtz has been on the move recently, and his Valkyrie fleet owns the skies. Scouting out the map, badtz runs into Rain's island base, hoping to find some air units to beat on. badtz rests his fleet there, asks Rain if he has any air units, and is answered in the negative, so badtz just picks up his fleet and leaves. Nothing to it, although I'm sure Rain was puzzled as to where badtz came from and why.
Everyone seems to be expanding at this point, so Psyduckie decides to follow the plan, as he has begun to run low on minerals. Remembering the base east of Erad's base, he sends an SCV over and begins construction of a Command Center. By the time it is complete, his mineral supply at his main has been exhausted, so he sends every single one of his SCVs from his main over to his expansion.
 Meanwhile, Psyduckie picks up his forces and sends them all on a crash course with LE's main island. Unfortunately, the Marines and Medics weren't able to scale the cliff, and they had left their climbing ropes in their OTHER combat suits, so they were forced to sit out while the Wraiths did the dirty work. Well, it was dirty work until the Overlords moved in to combat the cloaking abilities. LE's Devourers and Mutalisks made short work of the detected Wraiths, and the Marines were quick to write a reminder to NEVER wear their other combat suits again. The Marines were immediately ordered onto their next mission.
 And oh, what a mission it would be. The Marines are moving toward LE's expansion at badtz's old main base, which means Psyduckie must have located it with a ComSat sweep. They hit, and surprisingly, LE offers little resistance to the attack. Surprised, I looked over his expansion, and saw every single one of his Devourers engaged with badtz's fleet of Valkyries and cloaked Wraiths. It seems that Psyduckie and badtz had pulled off a surprise double team on LE's expansion. LE puts up a good fight, and manages to force badtz to pull back, but he stupidly sends his Devourers to follow badtz, running them straight into his base and wiping them out. Meanwhile, LE's Guardians over at his main slowly fly over to attempt to destroy Psyduckie's army. They succeed, but it is much too late for them to save the majority of LE's base.
Well, LE manages to repulse the attackers, but not before his base has been heavily beaten upon. Meanwhile, Psyduckie suddenly comes out of nowhere.
Psyduckie!: Wow, guys, I can't keep up. I'm out.
In a surprise move, Psyduckie has thrown the game! He seems to have realized that beating down on Erad and Rain was like taking candy from a baby, and when he moves against the real enemies in this game, he doesn't do quite as well. I guess Psyduckie decided that he couldn't re-align his tech tree, and decided to resign from the game. Oh, and Psyduckie doesn't pull a badtz, but he actually DOES leave ;).
Speaking of badtz's little trick, lets take a look back on how it has affected LE's game. First of all, Psyduckie's attack could have been totally devastated had LE not been concentrating on taking out badtz's force, and LE's expansion would have been up and running throughout the whole battle, instead of him having to rebuild afterwards. Also, LE has said that if he hadn't been busy with badtz after he pulled his trick, he would have attacked Khas's expansion and discovered that he was massing Dragoons... at a point in the game where he could defend against the imminent attack.It seems LE's mistake in actually thinking that badtz left has taken its toll on LE's game.
Around this time, Khas suddenly asks Erad if anyone has cloaked units. Erad points out that badtz has cloaked Wraiths, and Khas thanks Erad. Anyone who was watching the conversation would have been easily confused, but Khas knew what he was doing. Right after he gets his answer, Khas begins the construction of a Robotics Facility and an Observatory, obviuously to enable detection of cloaked units. By now, Khas has built up a formidable force of Dragoons, but he's not done yet.
Meanwhile, Rain's SCV Track Star is busy picking on Seizure's old base, while Rain is still rebuilding his tech tree. He has two Starports now, and his Physics Lab is almost complete. Moving over to survey his base, a couple of SCVs suddenly run away from the minerals and sit over behind a wall. Rain seems to be totally puzzled by this behavior, and immediately sets them back to mining. A few seconds later, three SCVs run out of Rain's base and slack off only a few meters away. Suddenly, Rain sees how many SCVs he has mining, and realizes, "Wow, they have nowhere to mine!". Rain quickly solves this problem by telling these rebellious SCVs to mine Vespene gas instead of minerals.
If we're going to talk about players who are out of the fight, let's take a look at his base. He actually still has a couple of powered structures left, and from those, the bastard has built a formidable force... of a Reaver, 5 Zealots, and a Shuttle. The little rat bastard loads up his Reaver and begins running across the map, directly towards Khas's base. Khas had given Erad vision, and Erad decided to be an ass and attack him.
Unfortunately for Erad, massed Dragoons are better than a Reaver and 5 Zealots. Khas repulses the Reaver when it tries a direct drop on his main, and repulses it easily. Erad tries a more indirect method and charges his Reaver into some cannons at the southwest of Khas's base. The Reaver pounds on the cannon from afar, and Khas angrily sends a squad of Dragoons to deal with the pest. Just as the Dragoons arrive, the Reaver launches another scarab at the outmatched Photon Cannons. The result was rather interesting, as it seems that large units and tiny units crowding a small path don't fit together well.
That's some funny shiznit. Back to the game, though. Erad pulls his reaver out and returns to his base to comtemplate his next move. Just before the 30:00 mark, Khas realizes that he has hit his supply limit, and begins to group his Dragoons and Observers outside of his base, preparing to hunt down his foes. Meanwhile, Rain is still hiding away on his island, building up a massive fleet of BattleCruisers. Holy shit, I just realized something. If you take the B and C in BattleCruiser and switch them around, you get CattleBruiser! Sweet!
Erm..sorry. Back to the game. Some interesting things are about to happen. First of all, LE decides he is bored, and loads up his Zerglings into a group of Overlords so he can unload them on Seizure's old main base. Quite a pastime. At almost the same time, badtz takes his Valkyrie/Wraith fleet and moves them to his northern expansion, which is flourishing. It seems badtz is not only crazy, but psychic, too. LE has been building up a rather large fleet of Scourge, and suddenly sends them all towards badtz's main base. Of course, things don't go exactly as LE had planned.
Reality hits LE faster than a hamburger disappears in front of Fat Albert. He quickly realizes that badtz isn't keeping his fleet there, and in a panic, sends his Scourge fleet down to the south...directly into Khas's cannons. Now, poor Khas is just moving his Dragoons around the map, trying to find stuff to destroy, when all of a sudden, he hears his cannons firing at something. Surprised, he zooms back over to his base...only to see LE's Scourge fleet being ripped apart by his cannons. Khas is puzzled, but he makes up for the confusement that LE has caused him by hitting LE's expansion south of Erad's base, marking the beginning of Khas's Campaign of Doom. LE compensates for this intrustion on his base by preparing his Zerglings, which are done ravaging Seizure's old base, for attack. A group of Overlords pulls them up into their Ventral Sacs and begins the journey over to badtz's main base. While waiting for LE's Overlords to get across the map, let's take a look at Rain. He's built up a massive force of BattleCruisers, which are paid for thanks to Rain's reclamation of his old main.
Finally, LE's Overlords complete their journey to badtz's base, where badtz is demonstrating his short attention span by attempting to crush one of his own Siege Tanks with his Barracks. Yes, badtz built a Siege Tank JUST so he could attempt to crush it. badtz isn't very happy when a shitload of Zerglings come knocking on his door, though, and immediately yells at LE for interrupting his experiment. LE takes no notice and quickly begins the demolition of badtz's base. In just a short minute, the entire base has been razed. Meanwhile, Khas's Dragoons are making their way across the map, and due to Erad's horrible attempts at directing them towards any actual players' bases, runs into LE's attack force. Khas doesn't seem to care what he kills, as long as it doesn't get back up after he kills it. He terminates the Zergling force with extreme prejudice, and then starts heading north.
Ladies and gentlemen, these events have brought us to the 35:00 mark, and the final minimap update. In the following picture, you will see scenes of nudity, violence, blood, gore.. actually, you'll see a bunch of colored dots moving around on a representation of the map Continental Divide. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
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RainFall...:
Ground Upgrades:
None.
Air Upgrades:
Level 2 Ship Attack
Level 3 Ship Attack
Rain's dual Armories have allowed him to almost fully upgrade his BattleCruisers in a short amount of time.
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livingexception:
Ground Upgrades:
Level 3 Melee Attack
Level 3 Carapace
Air Upgrades:
Level 3 Flyer Attack
Level 3 Flyer Carapace
Finally, LE's double Evolution Chambers and Spires have helped him reach full upgrade levels for all of the units he is using.
Khas'andro:
Ground Upgrades:
Level Three Attack
Level Two Shields
Level Three Armor
Air Upgrades:
None.
Khas's dual Forges have allowed him to quickly upgrade his ground units to maximum efficiency.
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badtz_maru:
Ground Upgrades:
None.
Air Upgrades:
Level Three Ship Attack
Level Three Ship Armor
badtz's air units are fully upgraded, even though he has few left at this point.
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As you can see in the above minimap, Khas's humongous force (which bears a striking resemblence to a large sperm, don't you think?) easily removes LE's Zerglings, while Rain sits back at his expansion and badtz retreats to his final expansion. LE is sore from his defeats at the hands of Khas, so he takes a small force of Mutalisks and moves to pick on Erad's undefended base. Erad quickly convinces him to stop the assault, and LE returns to his base, waiting to decide what he should do next.
Khas has located badtz's final expansion, and it doesn't take long for badtz's base to be destroyed. badtz was a quick thinker, this time, and managed to lift of his Science Facility and retreat it into the extreme northeast of the map, guarded by the remnants of his Valkyrie/Wraith fleet, and a couple of Science Vessels. badtz decides to take out his anger on LE, however, and sends everything but his Science Vessels and a trio of Wraiths to hit LE's base from behind. The Devourers and Mutalisks, supplemented by the detecting Overlords, prove to be too much for badtz's "victory" fleet, and the attack force is wiped out, leaving badtz with nothing but what remains guarding his Science Facility. Soon, however, badtz won't have much of a Science Facility, though.
While badtz was losing almost everything he had in the game, Rain has prepped his BattleCruisers for attack, supporting them with a few Wraiths and Science Vessels. The expeditionary force moves out to explore the unknown, heading directly north from Rain's base. Yep, right into LE's main. The Devourers and Mutalisks have been weakened by badtz's previous attack, however, and quickly fall to Rain's fleet of doom. Rain's BattleCruisers are left to freely devastate LE's main, although they totally miss LE's expansion on that same island.
At the same time that Rain is kicking LE's ass, Khas is kicking Rain's expansion's ass. Badly. The base is almost totally defenseless, and Khas makes short work of it. He moves east, and runs into the water separating Rain's island from the rest of the map. Khas realizes that Rain is parked across the water when he runs into Rain's returning BattleCruiser force. The battle that ensues is the largest in the game, although Rain's attempts at micro turn it into a defeat for our watery friend. Rain's fleet attempts to retreat so that it is hovering over higher ground, in an attempt to decrease the amount of white Dragoons that can engage the force at once. Unfortunately, Khas's Dragoons pound on the retreating fleet, and manage to find two different ways to get onto the higher ground. Rain's last CattleBruiser BattleCruiser explodes in a glorious eruption.
Khas's Robotics Facility has been busy making Shuttles to ferry Khas's forces over the river and into Rain's base. When about 1/3 of Khas's force has made it over, Rain strikes with the six Cruisers he has been keeping at his base. The undersized force of Dragoons has considerably more difficulty removing this Cruiser threat, and much time and care is taken to make sure the last Cruiser is destroyed. Basking in the realization of his imminent victory, Khas moves to torch Rain's base. Quickly, Rain concedes, and Khas simply allies and removes both of Rain's last Command Centers. Meanwhile, LE has gone on an expansion spree, taking three of them: the expansion east of Erad, the expansion south of Erad, and the expansion north of badtz's old main base.
Meanwhile, badtz is bored with watching the game through the players' eyes, and decides to figure out how many HP his Science Facility can lose before it goes into the red. It's all fun and games, until the Facility has reached the red and badtz suddenly realizes that he has nothing to repair his last structure with. Screaming for help and cursing out Rain for not helping him, badtz watches as his Science Facility's hit points slowly deplete, ending with a spectacular explosion and tons of laughter by all who were still in the game.
With badtz gone, Rain defeated, and Erad long given up, all that remains is for Khas to hunt down LE's many expansions and wipe them out. Knowing of LE's island base thanks to Erad, Khas loads up his shuttles and drops them right onto the expansion. Khas moves the remainder of his force around the map, first getting the expansion where Seizure's old main was, followed by the expansion east of Erad, and then south of Erad. While Khas is removing the Zerg presence from the South of Erad, the little rat bastard decides to take his Reaver against Khas's Dragoons. Let's just say that one Reaver doesn't fare too well against a shitload of Dragoons.
Khas moves out, and finally LE is reduced to one expansion. A new contingent of Dragoons, fresh out of Khas's Gateways, hits LE's last base from the south, only to be surprised by a shitload of Lurkers defending the base. Frustrated, Khas quickly moves in his forces from the west of the map, hitting LE while he was concentrating on the southern front. The Lurkers are mowed down thanks to the combined efforts of Khas's Observers and the Lurkers' inability to intelligently navigate LE's base.
And that, my friends, is the game. Khas emerges victorious after a game of doing absolutely nothing. Now, it's time for the awards section.
Most Annoying Player: This one goes to Eradicate~Me. Erad refused to stay down, even after he was definitely defeated. Erad remained true to his rat bastard roots until the end of the game, when Khas angrily bore down on Erad's base, causing Erad to flee from the game and bring the "Victory" screen up for Khas.
Stupidest Move: Again, Eradicate~Me takes the cake, Erad's game-losing attack against Psyduckie's forces cost him to have his base totally undefended for Psyduckie's counter-attack.
Most Valuable Unit: RainFall...'s SCV Track Star wins this one. This little guy ran around the map for Rain, saving his ass twice and constructing the expansion that allowed Rain to fuel his fleet. Sadly, our little friend was mowed down in Khas's final push against Rain's expansion. R.I.P., little guy.
Best Laugh: If you didn't guess it, you suck. badtz_maru wins this award twice over, both with his ability to mislead LE by typing the infamous "has left the game" and by owning his own Science Facility. Thanks for the laughs, badtz.
And now, the scores, for those of us who are so inclined.
This truly was an epic battle. I hope everyone enjoyed reading my report, and if you thought it was too long, then why the hell did you read up until this point?
This has been a
Khas'andro BR!
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