Introduction
Comon you fucking sheep, blow the fuck up. That's what I was thinking when I was at 2490 experience and about to hit level 10. Why can't that sheep just blow up. So here I sat for 2 minutes straight, clicking on a critter that was supposed to erupt into flames. Instead, I saw its gross head filling up my 3d picture portrait. Big red flashing symbols were erupting on my minimap for some reason and this faint sound like "you're ally's base is under attack..." fuck. As I zoned into his base, I saw what my curiosity had done. His base was gone, mine not too long after. And there was that sheep, still grinning "sheepishly" at me. Stupid fuck. Sigh, I'd have to win a good game to tie this up. And that, brings me to this game. I was pretty irritated getting into this game. First, I was undead, which is my 2nd worst race. Next, I asked for lost temple, hell I pressed those thumb things like 5 times each! But noooooooooo, they give me Duskwood. Well, everyone is sick of LT anyways... Knowing this was my last chance to reach 10, I decided I'd just have to make do with what I had. And thus, I end this intro with a cool picture. Something that I couldn't quite accomplish in my last game. :\
So Who's Playing?
Red6 - Random Undead - Northwest - Ahh, that's me. Red6, short for Redemption6. I gave a brief introduction with my last text only battlereport, however I'll go into more detail now. Basically I was originally a BW player, but when war3 came out BW just vanished. That's because war3 > bw. Going on... I'm usually a Human or Night Elf player, but once in awhile I get a little "tricky" and decide to go for the other two races. (this is for all the people who probably think im an UD player since my last report also featured me as UD) I'm a level 12 random team player (rank 974, thx) :D, because I hate 1 v 1's. When I played this game though, I was only level 9. With undead I usually just go with my ghouls and necros, but maybe I would change this game...just wait and see. O yeah, and my win % is about 43%. (ive played about 300 games)
DeathMizra - Chosen Nightelf - Southwest - My ally is someone that I didn't know before this game, and frankly I thought he was a dumbass for a lot of it. But of course, I usually think that about most of my lower level allies. Mizra is a pure night elf player, and has played about 50 games with them. Lastly, he's a level 7 random team player with a win percentage of about 53%.
Jaden - Chosen Undead - Southeast - After checking back at the statistics, Jaden is a Night elf player but has played about 40 undead games. His micro is okay and he is about my skill level. He was level 10 at the time of this match, and seemed like a nicely mannered person. For some reason he has recently lost a lot of EXP and has sunken down to 9 again, o shucks. His win % is 48%.
phlow[RC] - Chosen Orc - Northeast - phlow is someone that is not known for his good manners, judging by the constant whining in the game whenever anyone lagged or paused. Playerwise however he is decent. His orc is a typical orc, nothing too weird like going mass raiders or like burrow rush or some s**t like that. He was a level 8 at the time, which put the odds against our favor. His win % is around 63.
With the players introduced, lets go onto the game. Actually, wait a minute, let me introduce the map
 The Map
The first thing you probably see in this map section is the fact that it isn't Lost Temple. Duskwood is an official blizzard 2v2 or FFA map that has the 4 start locations in the corners of the map. Each start location has 2 entrances (the only two possible directions that can enter a base) and each entrance has either 3 timberwolf creeps or one giantwolf and 3 timberwolf creeps. To the south (or north) of each base is a pair of woods, and behind them an expansion gold mine. Since the goldmine is reflecting outwards from your base, and the back is guarded by trees, it is harder to defend it. To the left, right, north, and south are merc camps and alternate gold mines, guarded excessively by huge stormlizards (level 9) and dragons / whelps. Near these are goblin labs and merchants. In the center there is a fountain of health guarded by 4 level 2 lizards and 3 whelps (level 3). Surprisingly it is bad to trespass these creeps early - middle game because they have both slow and deal tons of damage, plus you need anti-air. Other then that the map has a good amount of trees and gold, like all other maps.
Starting Builds
The first day began with light shining over the yonder, reflecting from the fountain of health to the four corners of the map. Yet the light was quickly halted by the blight extending from the northwest and southeast positions.. The nasty blight had taken its toll on the fertile duskwood soil. Of course, this was not my concern. I quickly placed all 3 of my starting acolytes on the haunted gold mine and began the production of two more in my necropolis. The next acolyte produced a crypt, altar, and zigguart before being kicked right back into the mine. A graveyard soon joined my other buildings, and ghouls were quickly produced with a prospect of eventually teching to necros. My ally had gone with an altar first, quickly joined by a moonwell and an ancient of war. A Hunter's Hall was built soon later, obviously a sign that those "imbalanced" "crazywomen" would be fighting along our side.
Jaden had taken a conservative build like me. Going Crypt with one of his starting 2 acolytes, then going altar, zigg, zigg, graveyard. All the while producing ghouls. Phlow went altar, burrow, barracks, and then got to a stronghold asap.
Action Time
The first day ended, and the darkness of night quickly replaced the sparkling sun. The wolf howled, and all fell silent. This was the time to strike. With my dreadlord and my only four ghouls, I decided to creep the easy 3 level 1 creeps (timberwolves) outside of my base. I set my crypt rally point to the trees, and produced 2 ghouls in que so I would have a source of lumber I could depend on, and possibly switch my hurt ghouls with healthy ones after i "crept". Three timberwolves presented no match to my stronger ghouls, and only one was in yellow health before all 3 wolves died. I had decided not to cast sleep on one of these lowly creatures. I went back to my base, got 2 more ghouls (and kept producing), and set out to my expansion. There I slept the large wolf, and once again killed the 3 smaller ones. The giant wolf, seeing how his companions were dead, quickly awoke in a mad frenzy. It was this time I decided to see how my ally was doing. When I got back to my attack force again, I saw that one ghoul had died to the wolf's razor sharp claws, but 5 of them were still intact. I quickly returned to my base to mine lumber and to rest up before quickly setting out again to kill the two level 3 creeps and level 5 creep guarding a goblin merchant near my base. I gave no thought into upgrading my necropolis yet, but decided that perhaps another crypt wouldn'thurt. My ally on the other hand had been a bit more courageous. Using his 4 archers and priestess, he set out to clear the goblin merchant near his base. The merchant was guarded by 2 dragon whelps and a level 5 stormlizard. Hurt archers were taken out and the newly healed ones took the damage as my partner microed his troops in battle. The two whelps died the quickest, and the stormlizard soon after. Despite decent micro skills *see below to the "Micro" section*, my partner lost 2 archers, and had 2 hurt ones. HIs hero however, had taken a significant jump in exp, and was now level 2. (Just like my hero, except I creeped two places). Strangely though he chose to neglect creeping his expansion, choosing rather to build up a force of huntresses and archers as well as getting a tree of ages.
Sadly, Jaden and his ally had not been idle at this time. Jaden had set out to creep his expansion just a bit after I had cleared the "easy creeps" near my base. Like me he slept the giant wolf and easily cleared the other 3. Instead of continously creeping (as I had), he decided to build up a large contigement force of ghouls while upgrading to a halls of the dead, obviously showing that he would be gonig necros. His partner followed a similar creeping pattern as his ally, taking down his expansion creeps with a far seer and 3 grunts and then choosing to upgrade to a stronghold for shamans I presume. Phlow also sent two wolf scouts and found both my base and my partners base.
Micro Management + Strategy
When Warcraft 3 first came out people had the impression that it would increase the use of micro management. After all, the food limit was 90 and you were not encouraged to raise large armies with the new upkeep rule and all. People thought that micro would take a new turn from starcrafts "shitty micro". Well, for the most part the interpretation is wrong. War3 uses a 3d graphic technology that has 2 things, special effects and fancy stuff. The special effects color the screen, making huge lightings (like the shamans attack) and preventing you from seeing the battle clearly. Ask any war3 player, battles are harder to see now then it was in starcraft with the 2d, even though there are less units. The fancy stuff causes any comp 900 mhz or below to experience HUGE lag when there is a battle involving more then 50 units, and thus micro is impossible then also. Since war3 has come out, from my observations it is strategical thinking that distinguishes players, not micro, which is really only used for creeping now
First blood was a poor acolyte, who was found hiding near a canceled gold mine. I had decided to expand to my natural after creeping the level 5 and 3 creeps. Thus, my army was about half the size of my original one I had set out with. It was either hacks, or timing, because team 2 decided to hit my expansion with a combined force of 8 or so ghouls, 8 grunts, and two level 2 heroes. Knowing this battle was away out of my league, I cancelled the mine, leaving the poor acolyte to watch as a huge axe was cleaved upon his head. Team 2 then proceeded down to my ally's expansion, thinking that perhaps he had also expanded. So obviously they were surprised that not only he had not, but the wolves were still there. However, I had rebuilt around two ghouls, brining my total to 7 1-0 ghouls, and I had followed team 2 down to my ally's exp. Dumb move. Team 2 realized this and suddenly flung at me backwards, catching me totally offguard. My ghouls were quickly surrounded and my dreadlord was slept. Thinking that I could micro, I tried to free my ghouls so that one of them could hit my dreadlord, thus waking him. Unfortunately this took too long, and my ghouls were just like damage magnets while they did this. Once my dreadlord was awake I slept his and then fought to the death, and I actually thought I would die before my ally FINALLY figured out what was going on and woke up. He quickly sent 5 or so huntresses and 3 archers, as well as his hero, to help my now battered 2 ghoul and hero army. Luckily he came just in time, and saved my ass. The remaining 5 grunts and ghouls were no match, and were quickly forced to retreat. The far seer was chased down and slaughtered in an attempt to escape northbound, but the dreadlord was able to make it away. Thus ending the first huge conflict in the game. However, this would be just the first of many to come.
Countering would be a smart idea at this moment, or so I thought. But first, I would rebuild a little. I quickly sent 6 ghouls I had built during the battle to my ally's expansion, where we were "grouping". I also reexpanded, as well as upgrading to halls of the dead. I had not started a temple of the damned yet before we decided to counter. 7 huntresses, 2 archers, 8 ghouls, and 2 heroes made their way down to Jaden's expansion. Sadly however, he had fortified it already. 4 spirit towers butchered my poor scouting ghoul, and I decided that it would be dumb to attack him. Jaden, though I had not known yet, had already gotten a temple of the damned and was producing necros while I was just starting both of my temples. Not discouraged by the fact that we couldn't hit Jaden's expansion, we decided that we would try to hit phlow's, hoping that he would be offguard. Two towers stood in our way, and were strategically put between the peon line and the trees int he back. An orc burrow was also present between the towers. My ally decided that he would want to attack the level 5 and 2 level 3 creeps before attacking the expansion, which was DUMB seeing as how it would limit our attacking potential. But I could not undo what had been done, and I helped him. After the creeps were gone (in which he did gain a level), we hit the exp. There were a few things wrong with our attack however. (1) I went in there with 7 ghouls and my hero first, way before his huntresses actually got there, thus the towers hit my ghouls and not the more damage-prone hunts. (2) The towers were IMPOSSIBLE to reach with more then a few attackers at a time, and the orc burrow didn't help either. (3) His ally still had a portal, and came in with 4 ghouls and 2 necros, but came in through the main base, thus catching us by surprise because we thought they were going to hit the back. These three factors, combined with the fact that phlow also brought in 2 shams and a few grunts in himself, spelled one word. DOOM. My ghouls were killed first, because grunts > ghouls. Chain lightning didn't help me either, because chain lightning also owns ghouls, and was used twice on them. My dreadlord was instantly put to sleep, because I was surprised that Jaden's force had come from his ally's main. I woke my dreadlord and slept his, however seeing as it would become surrounded soon, I ran its ass off. My partner had run his potm into the thick of battle, rofl between two towers and 4 grunts. Lets say that tiger would be on the orc menu tonight. Without a leader, the remaining 4 huntresses were butchered by the opposing 4 ghouls, and 8 grunts. Jaden hadn't even used his necros in battle.
I knew my team was a bit behind now. Both of the enemies had an expansion, while I only had one, and my partner 0. My expansion was well guarded with 4 towers though. Knowing that we could not be lost resource-wise, I told my ally to expand. The creeps were STILL there, and he was forced to rebuild a small 8 hunt force along with his hero to kill it. Then he started a tree of life. I on the other hand had NOT gotten any necros yet, sadly, and had about 10 ghouls and a DL. I knew that my ally's expansion was more important to protect then mine (which could hold off the enemy for awhile) so I sent all my forces down there to protect it (and bought a wand of negation along the way). I thought that they would give us a bit of breathing time to "recooperate" our losses, but boy was I wrong.
 Wand of Negation
The wand of negation is one of the most underused anti-undead item I have seen, and thus, I make sure I use it against ALL undeads. Basically each wand (one wand comes with 3 "spells") deals 200 damage to all summoned units within a medium size area. (about 2-3 wide and 1-2 inches up and down). So it can be used on water elementals, and infernals. However, it is best used against skele's, because they only have 180 health.
Four necros and 8 or so ghouls came slamming into my ally's expansion, along with 8 grunts and 3 shams, with no lust yet. At least we can thank our lucky stars (gay phrase) for that. I knew the battle would be a hard one to win, and I microed my ass off. I slept his DL first for once, but he came right back with another sleep. The turning point in the battle was my use of wand of negation. We were already outnumbered, and the skeleton warriors being spawned every 10 seconds or so were not helping. As the number of hunts dwindled from 7 to 4, it was evident we would need a miracle. Thinking that the necros had used all their mana, I used all my wands of negation on 4 or so skeles, and then took my dreadlord to hit his necros. But his necros suddenly summoned 8 skeleton warriors and surrounded my hero. My hero spiraled up into the air and vanished, his remains in the altar. Everything fell from there. The tree my ally had started was canceled, and his hunts were slowly ripped apart. 20 or so skeleton warriors littered the battlefield, having a 5 on 1 on my remaining ghouls. I looked helplessly as my partner was denied an exp yet again, putting them further ahead in the resource race. I went into menu, and was this close from pressing the "quit mission" button, for the game seemed hopeless. But then I thought, "what if I tried really hard, could I do it?"
Minimap Update
As you can see from the map, there is no action going on, yet troops are amassing. Yellow X's indicates creeped out areas. There have been no greater then level 5 creeps that have been creeped yet. RedX's indicate expansions BEING MINED. As you can see, the only person without a mining expansion was Mizra at this point. Blue X's indicate past areas of conflict. At this point the heroes for team 1 were DL 4 (medium exp) POTM 4 (low exp). Team 2 had DL 4 (low) and FarSeer 3. Team 1 has JUST been defeated in a large battle, and team 2, though with lower hero levels, have much larger armies. At this point Mizra is still going hunts while I have teched to necros at this point. Jaden and his ally are still going the same units, ghouls/necros and grunts/shams
I had kept producing in the battle, but I only had 4 necros and 4 ghouls, and my hero was not yet revived. My ally had nothing, and his main base laid open like a gift from god. However, team 2 denied this gift, and decided instead to proceed to my expansion. Gulp, 20 skeles, 8 grunts, 2 shams, 5 or so ghouls, and two heroes against 4 spirit towers. The skeles came into my expansion, ramming it. My army was not yet fully rejuvinated, and thus I decided to see if my 4 towers could defend it. The 20 skeles for some reason all ran out of life one way or another, but not at the same time. So it looked like my towers were dealing out the damage, because skele after skele died. Perhaps it was this that intimidated my enemies, and prevented them from totally massacring my expansion. Team 2 did send a few ghouls in, however with the help of my acolytes, who could NOT be hit because they were walled in to my expansion, my tower survived and I fended off the ghouls. Then my 10 person army came in to my expansion, thus sealing the outcome. With most of their original force, team 2 retreated back to their expansion. This gave me a little hope. Sadly stupid Jaden retreated through the middle, losing a few ghouls by doing so.
This time, I was pretty sure that they would give us some time to rebuild. And I was right. The time they gave us, along with the time that it took to hit my expansion, had given my ally proper rebuilding time. He had re-expanded back to his natural, and had a nice huntress force. Our heroes were both at level 5 now, with my hero having a bit higher exp. I had built 12 more ghouls and around 3 more necros, brining up a grand total of 16 or so ghouls and 7 necros, along with my newly revived hero. Phlow had gotten lust by this time, and had gotten about 10 grunts and a few head hunters to join his force. Jaden had just continued producing necromancers (now had 9) and ghouls, like I had. With a huge army like that, how could they resist attacking? The answer? they couldn't. Once again they hit my ally's exp. They lost surprise because my ally spotted them above the hill (near his exp) when they were "grouping" and thus I was able to get down in time to wait for the impending battle.
Steel clashed upon steel and bone clashed upon bone as the huge battle unfolded before my eyes. The first thing I noticed upon entering was that their heroes were only level 4 at the start of the battle, which gave us the upper advantage. I quickly slept the other dreadlord first with my quick reflexes ;). The huntresses and ghouls moved into to the battle while my necros stayed back, casting skeletons at a fast rate. Strangely Jaden had forgotten to bring in his 9 necros at the beginning, thus making it so I was the only one who was producing skeletons. With 7 necros 20-30 skeletons were created, and with the large huntress force my ally possessed, along with my ghouls, even bloodlust couldn't stop our larger numbers. We pressed them back up the hill, when suddenly I realized that my hero was missing. Actually, it turned out he was in the middle of everything. I watched as my hero combatted with bloodlusted melee grunts, and was slowly surrounded. Quickly clicking to get him out, I ran him back to my base, but strangely the computer AI made him stop, and run back to the battle. I didn't notice that, because it was at this point Jaden brought his necros in. Alas though, my skeles were already created, and they had already weakened a large chunk of the enemy force. I realized once again that for some weird reason, my dreadlord was still fighting! Ack, I ran him away, and this time saw to it. But suddenly, a weird light shone upon him, and he reached level 6! I knew that I couldn't let my DL die, but I also knew that if I let Jaden's 9 necros cast that horrid skeleton warrior spell, then the battle would slowly be turned away from my favor. Thus, I ran my DL back and casted inferno straight onto the necros, and then kept him away from battle. The stunned necros could only watch as my infernal raped them one by one. It turns out that one infernal can take on 8 necros, and the necros quickly died off. Phlow's farseer followed soon later, as well as the rest of the bloodlusted force. Jaden's dreadlord tried to retreat, but ran the wrong way, running INTO our forces instead of away from them. The dreadlord quickly died, however not before he reached level 6 and had cast an infernal on my forces. But the total amount of the ghouls and necros I had, plus my infernal, easily overpowered his. A huge battle had been won, my ally had secured an expansion, and now, our army was larger then ever. Things were looking good.
We had a slight advantage now, and I knew it. They had been rebuilding their army, but they had no heroes. Phlow still had an impressive amount of 15 or so grunts and shams, while Jaden had started the production of abominations from a slaughterhouse and had about 3 of them, along with 5 necros and a handful of ghouls. But our army was a bit larger. Adding some more ghouls to my force, we once again grouped at my ally's base. Mizra's POTM had achieved level 6, and the dreaded starfall presented a terrible tool within our hands. Knowing that starfall > towers, and that we had the "momentum", I told my ally to hit his expansion and cast starfall immediately. Ghoul after ghoul his the spirit towers as the necros lofted huge balls of flame and energy into them from a far distance. Unlike the towers at my exp, Jaden had 5 towers, but they were not completely blocking off his exp. Thus my ghouls could get in through the cracks and surround each tower, maximizing the damage. Knowing his expansion would fall, Jaden sent his force in without a dreadlord to save it while he still had spirit towers left. It was then that my ally casted starfall. Basically, starfalled owned. All of Jaden's troops came in through the northern border of his exp ONE BY ONE because they were all caught in the trees. Thus the aboms and expecially the necros were especially easy to kill as star after star slammed on them. Phlow had rushed to help his ally with his army and newly revived far seer, however seeing starfall he dared not to enter. Jaden was not that bright, and kept sending his troops in. Because of starfall, and the fact it was a 2v1 (because phlow stayed out of battle), Jaden's army was demolished, rather quickly. The spirit towers buckled under the collision of each star, and fell soon after. Once starfall ended, phlow slammed his army into our still strong 7 necro, 5 ghoul, 8 huntress army. Once his troops got in, sleep casted its enchanting spell on the poor far seer. Without chain lightning, the greater numbers made even bloodlusted grunts seem weak. Right after that, we slaughtered the farseer. Knowing the game was lost, Phlow showed his poor sportsmanship by leaving his ally to die, without as much as a "gg".
And Its Over
Jaden portrayed the disgust he had for his ally before admitting to defeat and saying gg. We had gotten into his main base, where a dreadlord, 3 aboms, 3 necros, and 3 towers laid waiting. (333!). Lets just say that starfall owned them once again (we had waited for the cooldown period). Without any force at all, and an infernal crashing down on his black citadel, the game was done. The victory screen popped up, and I was level 10.
Lessons Learned
(1) Starfall owns everything, its simple logic. If there are falling stars, retreat, and DONT run in your forces one by one.
(2) 2 armies together are much stronger then two separate ones, ALWAYS join your ally, even if he does something dumb. You cannot undo what has been done. (that is unless you convince him to retreat).
(3) Wake up your hero when he sleeps by hitting him with a friendly unit ONCE. Eventually the opposing dreadlord will run out of sleep.
(4) Enclose your expansion with spirit towers. If only 50% of the enemy forces can attack, you have accomplished a lot already.
(5) And lastly, don't be a bad manner idiot, Phlow = bm!
This has been a Redemption6 Report
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
