The match began with myself starting in the middle left position and my opponent, Hulk1571, in the bottom right corner. He went with a somewhat unusual, although not altogether unsound build with Alter, Hunters Hall and a Moon Well. When the Hunters Hall completed he made an Ancient Protector. Obviously the benefit of such a strategy is to make any early rushing fruitless, while the drawbacks are also clear; no units and a subdued economy (my Acolytes were several hundred gold ahead on their mine -- usually its the other way around). I had thumbs up to all maps so he may have had some special strategy worked out, on this, a specially selected map. I'm guessing to solo creep the weaker Centaur camps with his Demon Hunter -- something he would be more than capable of doing.

Unfortunately this Demon Hunter ran into a demon, namely Din Frostfire and a pack of angry Ghouls. Nothing can be more unsettling than when you have an early confrontation and lose. You lose out on creeping and thus gold, experience and items. I had already creeped the Centaurs to the immediate left of his main gold mine and gained a Health Stone. Probably the best possible item you can get when seeking an early confrontation, especially with a vulnerable hero like the Lich. But then I realized I had made a tiny mistake, I had forgotten to research Cannibalize. I managed to keep all of my Ghouls alive but several we're badly damaged and in the red. Cursing myself, I belatedly began researching and headed away leaving the rotting carcasses behind, untouched. While this was going on his Demon Hunter, Ragerunner, was making his second and final run on the Centaurs, above and to the right of his base. He had taken out one archer and had taken a significant amount of hitpoints away from the two Outrunners thanks to immolation before having to return to the life-giving waters of the Moon Wells. When I met up with him, Rage was working over the last archer and was himself badly damaged. He also neglected to pick up a Claws of Attack +6 which I was more than happy to do for him. Being wedged in between my ravenous force of Lich and seven Ghouls and the still remaining Centaur Archer, Rage had no choice but to turn and fight. A correct decision considering a level one hero only costs 200 gold to retrieve while another scroll would cost him 350 and would be better saved for another time. I lost only one Ghoul -- to the Archer after the Demon Hunter died.

By this time cannibalize had finished and my Ghouls dug into the fresh corpses. Hulk got his hero back along with a couple Huntresses to assist in creeping. Figuring I had left or wishing to catch me in the act of creeping Hulk moved his units northwards. Instead he ran into me and my reinforced army coming back towards his base. Immolation was activated and he bravely began taking shots at my passing army on move orders. Quickly, I came to my senses and returned fire. Ragerunner set his sights on my level 2, 525 hit point Lich and focused fired with all his might. His trio of units absorbed a Frost Nova and another Huntress joined the fray. My Ghouls quickly enveloped the enemy force while Hulk desperately tried to make something of this outing by killing my Hero. At 75 a mere volley away from death my Lich consumed his egg and casually moved out of the way of further fire. The Demon Hunter tried to find a Ghoul to kill but as soon as he attacked he was slowed as the Ghoul obtained a Frost Armor. He tried to switch targets but my mana drained Lich managed a second Frost Armor. Having his hero die a second time he retreated the remaining Huntresses so they might live to fight another day.

My growing army of Ghouls took up residence outside of the Night Elf base. When Ragerunner finished resurrecting he and four Huntresses preceded to head out once more. Again he hit a Frost Armored Ghoul and was slowed for several seconds. He switched targets and managed to kill several Ghouls gaining a level. However he lost all of his Hunts and was forced to Town Portal, right in front of his base! This last battle occurred while just out of range of his Ancient Protector, which had not yet thrown any rocks.

My Lich had also leveled and now had Frost Armor, level two. I knew if I could get it level three and my Ghouls maxed out on armor upgrades plus a scroll of protection, their armor could be as high as 15. This would make them incredibly durable as the only units in his army capable of doing significant damage would be either the Demon Hunter or Bears (although he only made one I think) and yet even these would be slowed by the armor's chilling effect. Maybe a few DoTT's for Fairy Fire we're in order.

Not wishing for me to contain him any longer, he had a Ballista built to try to shoo my units away whilst taking cover from one helluva nested Ancient Protector. As it was coming out I had an Acolyte summon a Graveyard. With a Ballista on the ready he had his Demon Hunter attack again. And the Demon Hunter died again. He tried to run back to the safety of his Moon Wells and the Protector but the Wells were drained and the lone Protector was not a significant enough force to give me pause about charging after the Demon Hunter.

I imagine he was rather frustrated at this point having just lost his Demon Hunter for the third time, he also lost the Ballista. With my Graveyard finished, I sent back some weakened Ghouls to revitalize while more reinforcements came to the aid of my Lich. I also had a Slaughterhouse built and producing a Meat Wagon to take out that machine-gun-nest-of-an-Ancient-Protector and all the other Trees and Ancients for that matter.

Not wishing to have a repeat happen, he tried for a more forceful approach to breaking the blockade. He made another Ancient Protector and walked it out with Huntress and DH support. This ended up working but before that he decided to make another attempt on my Lich's life with his pimp-daddy Hero and four of his bitches. The Demon Hunter got off to a bad start however and was slowed up with a hit to my Frost Armored Lich, who immediately began running away like a scared little girl. Afterward the poor Demon Hunter was an easy kill and two of his Huntresses were lucky to get away. Before he died I noticed some of my Ghouls were scoring miss counters. Apparently he put his second point into Evasion. Evasion and Immolation are a great combo against Ghouls usually but not when there's a mean Frost Armor casting machine backing them up. So probably mana burn would have been a better choice. At least I fell that would have been more annoying for me to deal with.

The battle forcing me to vacate his front door saw him taking on my 15 Ghouls with his 5 Huntresses and Ancient Protector, which had rooted in order to fling boulders. The Demon Hunter wisely avoided a Ghoul with my dastardly armor spell and moved to a different one. Also my Meat Wagon had just popped out and was rallied to the Lich. Hulk had an Ancient of Lore by this time as well.

The huntresses all perished but not before taking out at least six of my Ghouls and wounding many others. I retreated my Ghouls as he ran his Demon Hunter out of the way. I did this because I knew my Meat Wagon had arrived. I immediately had the wagon begin pumping bodies into the retreating Ancient Protector, which soon perished.

Hulk moved his damaged Demon Hunter in which basically just ran around taking shots and then having to run away immediately, barely avoiding another trip to the Alter. However some reserve Hunts and some newly created Dryads came in and started killing off weakened Ghouls and I Tp'd out with one Ghoul and the Meat Wagon. I realized now that the containment was broken and I would have to formulate a plan. Having recently bore witness to a rather severe demonstration of the power of the Dryad/Huntress/Ballistae combo on Undead bases and Ghouls, I knew it had better be a good one. One thing that particularly struck me was the sheer number of Ghoul corpses that littered the ground in this replay. It got me to thinking, "why does Blizzard bother with corpses in Warcraft?" They aren't really in Starcraft, just some animation of blood or blue goo sinking into the ground is all you see there. There must be some reason, some kind of purpose. Then I realized that it would be the dead that would serve. I put up a Temple of the Damned and got to work making some Necromancers. I knew I would have one good battle to surprise him before he would have WON's and or would be manually clicking Dryads to dispell my skeletons. I realized that I had some options even in that case. My Frost Armor spell for example, which was so effective for me in the early battles would now be useful to me for the purpose of draining the dryads mana. This is what made me so fond of this game. There were so many elements that were useful in one stage and then found use again in a later stage for a completely different reason. However, knowing my lone Lich would not be enough, I researched Banshee adept training. The Banshees two spells, curse and Anti-Magic-Shell would further serve to reduce dryad mana. If I wanted to go over the top I could even use scrolls of protection.

At this point, due to all the action that had been going on, his Demon Hunter was close to level 4, while my Lich was even closer to 5. Also, Larodar, a Keeper of the Grove, was brought in to assist Rage. He also seemed to be making Hunts and Dryads evenly. He began creeping as did I. I noticed as I watched the replay how easily Night Elves can creep with just the Demon Hunter, two Huntresses and two Dryads. He took out one of the Quillboar/Medicince Man/Spirit Pig groups with no more micro than focus fire. I usually have to micro a good deal to keep from losing a Ghoul to those foul creeps. Maybe in the future Ill sneak a hero to the Item shop for a WON. If done correctly you can probably get the Spirit pigs and the ward in one shot.

He found my base while creeping, I happened to still be there making myinal preperations to depart for some creeping of my own. I had one Necromancer built and Hulk went right for him with his Demon Hunter and a Huntress while the rest went to work on some Ghouls who were resting. I gained level five for my Lich as a couple Dryads and a Huntress died. He still had some forces and those two deadly heroes so I decided to retreat to within the confines of my city. He was getting ready to leave to when he noticed a ghoul on the perimeter, happily chopping wood. Lulled at the prospect of claiming another Ghoul he chased after it with full force. He managed to nick the Ghoul but caught a Frost Nova in the process costing him a Huntress and his Keeper's TP scroll.

Thinking it would be a good time to expand I sent my Lich, some Ghouls, a Necromancer and a fully loaded Meat Wagon to the gold mine directly above my main to clear it. With Acolytes standing bye I successfully did so losing a Ghoul but getting two skeletons for the trouble. I also was presented with a Sobi Mask, a very useful treasure, especially with the plan I had formulated. He must have been thinking the same thing as me because he expanded to the gold mine above his base at the same exact time.

The two skeletons I had raised, raced to the next group of Centaurs, two mines over. Hulk was also creeping, and obtained a Ring of Regeneration, which he gave to his Keeper of the Grove. I defeated the Centaurs having lost another Ghoul who was low on hit-points already. As fate would have it, Hulk's next point of attack was the very mine I had just cleared and which I was still milling about at. By now I had four adept Necromancers and skeletal longevity researched. I also had the Meat Wagon and five or so Ghouls along with my Lich. Hulk felt confident of victory with his four Huntresses, three Dryads and two Heroes. The Demon Hunter probably had level two Evasion and Immolation, while the Keeper provided the deadly Thorns Aura. I made sure Raise-Skeleton was on auto-cast and then cast Unholy Frenzy upon my Lich. The frenzied Din Frostfire's attacks contrasted heavily with the slowed Ragerunner who must have felt like climbing a mountain toward the Lich through the Frost Armor's and Nova's. In fact, the brief pauses to cast these spells were the only respite the Night Elves received from the Undead Champion's relentless attacks, which did a minimum of 48 damage a volley. This, coupled with my skeletons, left Hulk's army in tatters and his Demon Hunter dead for the fifth time. Hulk to his credit, got off several Entangling Roots leaving me with no Ghouls, two Necromancers (both near death) and a Meat Wagon with 3 hit points. In the end he had to run his Keeper away alone. My Lich and my remaining two casters had used up virtually all their mana. Most important of all though, was that my Lich had just achieved level 6.

After I gave up chasing the Keeper he turned around a bit and bought some hirelings from the nearby Mercenary Camp (night had fallen). With Trolls and Ogre Mauler in tow and joined by some Dryads and the recently resurrected Demon Hunter, the KOTG set about creeping the northern Item Shop. A potion of restoration was given to the Demon Hunter. My Lich also went to the Item shop to the south and thought about buying a Scroll of Teleportation but thought better of it due to a serious funding problem called low-upkeep. A scouting shade had informed me of Hulk's new expansion and I was eager to test out my recently acquired Death and Decay spell.

A Night Elf with no Scroll of Teleportation has two choices in this case. He can either furiously run after the Lich with his whole force with intentions to exterminate with extreme prejudice (and lose the expansion in doing so) or he can soberly uproot the Tree and move it off of the area of effect (and eat some trees) thus saving the expansion. I think you can all figure out for yourselves which option Hulk opted for based on my description of his previous play.

I should note, one thing to be conscious of if you ever wish to emulate my play, is to turn off Frost Armor auto-casting either before or as soon as humanly possible after you begin casting Death and Decay. The reason is, if an enemy simply attacks you while you are deathing and decaying and you have this spell on, the Lich will stupidly stop Death and Decay and cast Frost Armor on himself (and causing you to go short-bus mad), effectively acting as an interrupt. Hulk did cast Entangling Roots, which he might have thought interrupted my devious spell but it does not (It will interrupt maintainable spells in TFT) In the Night Elf army, only the Druid of the Talon's spell Cyclone can interrupt the Lich's Ultimate. Not having a scroll to get away with I cast a spite Nova on his Shadow Priest before shrinking to death. In retrospect it was probably better that I didn't wait to buy a scroll as he might have headed back to his main to heal after his battle at the item shop and consequently caught me in the act. I knew once I killed that expo I would take a decisive lead in gold mining and the death of my Lich would be of very little consequence. After disposing of my lone Hero he proceeded to the south Item shop and got, wouldn't you know it, a wand of the wind. The very item that would have stopped me and expansion ending ways dead in there tracks. He then attacked my expansion shortly thereafter.

Luckily my prize Hero was nearing completion and I had a Halls of the Dead plus six Necromancers and a ton of Ghouls waiting for him. His Demon Hunter had purchased several scrolls of healing and used two up very quickly but still lost his front line of Huntresses. My Lich entered the battle but it was already well in hand. Then, either because I forgot to before the battle, or because I wanted to be gosu and summon a bunch of skeletons all at once to surround the Demon Hunter, I then put raise skeleton to auto-cast (I would rather like to think it was the latter). For some reason he also used all three charges from his wand of the wind on my Meat Wagon. I'm still clueless as to why. It did stop me from dropping its payload of corpses but like I said I didn't have auto-cast on yet anyway and even if I did, plenty of corpses where being produced by the Demon Hunter via my Ghouls.




As a result the Demon Hunter found himself abruptly surrounded by about 11 skeletons and having no way to teleport himself or otherwise get out of there he had to lose the Demon hunter for the sixth time, a mere 95 experience points from level 6. And after he lost his Keeper of the Grove and remaining units he left the game. He knew he would be unable to prevent me from taking down his expansion.