Turning the Tables on Lost Temple

This report is long and has a reasonably significant amount of pictures so I don't know about you people with dial-up over there but I think I should give you ample warning

Pre-Game

I was playing really late at night, and having suffered 4 losses in a row (most of them humiliating ones) was really down. I checked in all my favorite channels and checked my friends list...THREE TIMES only to find no one was logged on (even more depressing was the fact that this was the only account my friends know I have)!!! You could tell I had absolutely nothing to do. With midnight fast approaching, I decided I should get in one more game before I go to bed. I clicked on the Join button again and searched throught the pubbie games, then landed on 1v1 temple again. It was hosted by a gentleman named Trey. and he was quite nice. We both said hi and bid each other good luck before the countdown started.

The Matchup

The Game

JakobderLudner finds himself commanding white terran at the 9 o'clock position, while Trey. randoms brown zerg at 12.

JakobderLudner, having no idea what his opponent is, starts a wall-in with his first supply depot and sends his 8th scv out to scout. Shortly after the supply deport finishes, he starts a barracks . His scout roams the map, and finds Trey.'s overlord floating over the 3 main, signifying that the opponent is zerg. He quickly sends a second scv to start a second barracks at home and floats the second away from the wall. JakobderLudner starts marine production immediately after the barracks lands.
Trey. is going easy and does the extractor trick at nine to get an extra worker, and shortly after gets a spawning pool. He isn't in any hurry to attack, as the zerg cerebrate is going to compose his army of mutalisks and zerglings. In a short while, six zerglings are hatched and sent off to get a scope of JakobderLudner's defenses. Before the lings set out, he makes a second hatchery at his base in case JakobderLudner was susceptible to a rush. He also makes two sunken colonies in anticipation of a counterstrike.

The six zerglings reach the base just as the second barracks finishes. There are now three marines in JakobderLudner's force, but the three zerglings scamper single file past a hole between the barracks and the cliff, just skirting the marines' rifle range

The zerglings then run merrily into JakobderLudner's mineral line, where he's just starting his refinery. They try to do as much damage as they can and actually kill 3 or four scvs while running rampant amongst the busy workers. The terran commander would have none of this and order all units in the vicinity to attack the pesky dune-runners. Soon, the brown pests turn into red splotches thanks to the furious fusion cutters and grueling gauss rifles (aren't alliterations fun? ^^)

JakobderLudner screams retaliation and sends his eight marines on to Trey.'s newly found base to do as much damage as THEY can. However, Trey.'s base looked something like this

Of course, everyone knows what happens to infantry when sunkens are around. The marines charge up the ramp, and after finding two sunkens, focus fire one one while desperately trying to live long enough on their 40 hp to destroy at least one sunken. But, as in numerous other TvZs in the history of Starcraft, basic Terran infantry (that is, just marines and no stim and meds) proves to be largely ineffective when faced by more than one sunken colony and a handful of zerglings. JakobderLudner tries to micro his rines out of the way, but a newly hatched batch of 20 zerglings quickly eat through the remainder of the force.
He pulls back the tail end of the attack and bides his time for a second attack. By this time, he had an academy in the works and full gas production in gear. He also adds a factory shortly after, just in case...

Just before the attack Trey. decided to expand. For a while, his drone sat at his natural, but deciding better, Trey. sends it to the 3 main to morph into a hatchery (shortly after, he begins gas harvest). In addition to the hatchery at the 3 position, he morphs a sunken or two more after the attack, knowing full well that more infantry are coming. He also prepares for his tech, and morphs a lair, followed by a spire.
But the terran at the other end of the map wasn't quiet either. He had acquired a new comsat and quickly scanned Trey.'s base for tech. JakobderLudner finds the morphing spire and quickly sets up an engineering-bay. He shortly after establishes a turret defense system, in anticipation of the mutalisks. By now also, he had amassed a sizable contingent of infantry, and sends it off to attack.

The infantry stim up and wait a while for the medics to heal them to full health before charging into the creep infested base. All at once, the might of the Zerg swarm (or at least the zerglings) were unleashed upon the infantry, but the marine bullets and stim pack quickly decimate the Swarm of zerglings before they even hit a single medic. A second control group of infantry pour up the ramp and begin to ravage the one of the two original sunken colonies.

Seeing this Trey. smartly (or stupidly, however you may perceive it) clumps his overlords over one of the original sunkens in an effort to reduce JakobderLudner to micro his troops. But at that moment, it was the only working sunken in range of the troops, it was targeted simultaneously and easily disposed of. Right beside that sunken colony was another sunken colony in its infancy, but it burst in a splatter of blood and guts before it could do much damage. Two more of Trey.'s sunken colonies sit right by his second hatchery, and are subjected to the might of the Terran army for a while.

But Trey. hatches reinforcements from his two hatcheries in the form of a few mutalisks. These help out for a bit and manage to feed their glaive worms the meat of two marines in their .001 second lifespan, but soon succumb to the power of the gauss rifles. After the mutalisks are disposed of, Trey. scrambles to morph his larvae into eggs to buy him time. JakobderLudner's infantry tear through the base and destroy both sunkens and the hatchery. But More mutalisks hatch from the eggs and then destroy the rest of the infantry. Trey. tastes victory for a while when he disposes of all the attacking infantry and the weeping medics are left to heal each other.

Having few available troops at the time, JakobderLudner makes use of the five m&m that had just arrived on the scene. The majority of the marines succumb to the flyers' attacks but the Magistrate micromanages his medics quickly and two marines are left to destroy the rest of the base. Between the two of them, they destroy six mutalisks, and (amazingly) the gargantuan living behemoth known as the spire. To the right is a picture of how big the force is, just to give you an idea of what caused the death of so many.

Soon enough Trey. hatches more mutalisks and kills off the annoying marines just SECONDS before they collapse the towering spire. But the wise Magistrate has a control group or two of infantry walking up the ramp at this very moment and the infantry at the head stim up and kill off the mutalisks before any more casualties are made of the medics. JakobderLudner's infantry rampage about Trey.'s base and destroy all the lurkers, plus the lair and the extractor (in a strange move, Trey doesn't evacuate his drones). But when the assimilator bore its guts, the regular "You are victorious" screen doesn't come up on his screen.

Suspicious, JakobderLudnersearches around, and finds six of Trey's Overlords escaping over the 12 o'clock cliff. He has rines fire at it, but the overlords escape without loss.

JakobderLudner panics and sends his infantry over to the 3 main. The infantry at the head of the force find, for the first time, Trey's new expansion there, now a full fledged main base. Everything is revealed now, and it shows Trey's risk in not evacuating his drones in fear of compromising his undiscovered expansion.

Remember Trey's hatchery? Well, the cerebrate has now added: a second hatchery, a spawning pool, FIVE sunken colonies and a hydralisk den. Well, well, well, looks like the guy is switching tech. He had his Hatchery in its final stages of morphing into a new lair when the marines arrive, and had his larvae curled up into eggs morphing into hydralisks. Once his hydralisk den finishes, he starts tech to lurkers.

Very pissed, JakobderLudner rerallies his troops to the top of the 3 ramp and starts the first of six offensives (each ending in the medics retreating) on the make shift base in an attempt to remove the zerg infestation. He also starts a starport and adds a machine shop to his factory in anticipation of the long battles ahead.

During the offensive, the zerg cerebrate has the same amount of sunkens in the base if you look at the screenshot above. But better placement turns the creep into a slaughterhouse for terran infantry. JakobderLudner tries to focus fire on the front two sunkens, but Trey's supporting hydras drive their needle spines deep into the terran armor. Eventually, only the medics are left to run for their lives, leaving the bloodbath behind them.

Trey, turtling in his base (like he has much choice since JakobderLudner has him contained) pulls back his hydralisks, morphs some more and morphs the others into lurkers. He then burrows these at the front lines, and these quickly demolish both the second offensives. BUt the Terran commander quickly comes back for more.

How is JakobderLudner able to maintain the constant stream of ammunition? Simple, look to the left.

But even this endless stream of infantry is not enough to soak up his enormous resource overhead. JakobderLudner decides to expand to his natural and start a science facility. He also sends his first tank to the front lines to help with the fourth and fifth offensives.

The third and fourth offensives were probably the bloodiest of all the offensives. At this point, Trey has expanded his infestation by one hatchery infront of his sunkens and morphed in two more sunkens. Both waves were subjected to this meatgrinder of SIX sunken colonies and about 12 hydras. Knowing there were lurkers, JakobderLudner sends his scv to build two turrets on the front lines right after the third offensive. But Trey's hydras discover the attempt quick and destroy the scv before it can complete the second turret. They then move on to crush the last one and attack the remaining medics. It was the first offensive on the cerebrate's part since the six zerglings sent to the terran base at the start of the game. They push the medics all the way to the ramp beforeJakobderLudner's reinforcements arrive and stand their ground below and on the ramp, being healed and walled off by medics. Eventually, all the hydras are killed and the offensive is ended.

These marines plus a tank then move on to begin the fifth and bloodiest offensive since the invasion of Trey's main. The following pictures should describe the ensuing battle more than words.

Frustrated after the last attack, JakobderLudner sends his two science vessels to take care of the minerals, but due to some misunderstanding on waypoints, the science vessels run right over the hydras and you know what happens after that.

Trey. decides to break out of his wall at this point. He loads up four lurkers into overlords and sends them on their slow journey across the map.

The sixth and final offensive by JakobderLudner is small and ends in a full retreat, but the climax is a spectacular two shell wipeout by a tank sieged on the 3 ramp.

JakobderLudner also decides to do a drop at this point on Trey.'s minerals again and produces two dropships. These dropships are filled with infantry and sent off to the 3 main.

But at this point, Trey.'s Lurkers arrive at JakobderLudner's natural and begin tearing up his minerals. The terran Magistrate begins overconfident and attacks the lurkers with his scvs (with medic support). Of course, as everyone knows, lurkers > workers with or without medics.

Amidst the confusion, JakobderLudner loses track of his dropships and forgets to waypoint them out of the way of the hydras. The two end up blowing up over Trey.'s Lair.

Knowing his stupidity cost him too much JakobderLudner decides that there's not much to do. With great sadness, the Terran magistrate congratulates the zerg cerebrate with a quick gg and concedes the game to his adversary.

TREY WINS!!!

K second report ever. Hope you guys enjoyed it! Again, any advice on the battle and the battlereport is welcome. If I get good comments on this, I'll move on to reporting more complex battles.

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