"christ, Scarab, this isn't fat guy goes nutzoid, we can't just airlift you out of every troublesome situation you get yourself into. and especially not when you're just scared, because I'm not going to risk my ass and my chopper piloting you out of the city every time you see a soya product."
- CynicalMagician
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| Mark4 and Jack Daniels take on Crono | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 07/17/99 06:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Dev: 7.8723 |  | Mark4: "For the record, I've had two shots of Jack Daniels."
Dev: "Okay. I'll write you into the BR as 'Drunken Mark4.'"
And so it begins.
The Map: The Lost Temple. Again. Sheesh. Does anyone not know how this map works by now? Good.
The Players:
In this corner...
The intrepid, boozed-up Mark4: Randomed to Brown Zerg, 12:00 start location.
And in this corner...
His evil sober adversary, Crono: Randomed to Red Terran, 9:00 start location.
Charge!
This promised to be the first game I'd seen where both Crono's marines and Mark4 would be saying 'Ah, yeah, that's the stuff.' That being said, the starting builds kicked off with Crono using his eighth SCV to construct a supply depot, then moving on to a barracks, another barracks, and another supply depot. Hmm, I bet he's used to going pylon, gateway, gateway, pylon, huh? (:
Mark4 dropped a big fat second hatchery at his ramp before anything else. He then dug out a spawning pool and whipped out the ol' cancel-extractor-for-extra-drone trick.
His scouting overlord moved to the 3:00 start location, scouting clockwise. His second moved to 9:00. Crono's turbo-SCV recon zoomed up to 12:00, where it skirted the ramp hatchery and got itself a good look at Mark's base before it evacuated the area at the sight of two zerglings. One of Mark's newly-morphed ramp defense sunken colonies slapped the SCV playfully on the rump as it ran screaming from the zerg hive cluster.
Neither player seemed overly eager to hurl his units into battle... probably because mark didn't have any. his four zerglings moved to the middle and Mark's scouting overlord at 9:00 moved over the cliff to watch for an expansion at Crono's natural. Mark moved to morph a hydralisk den and a lair, while Crono constructed a comsat station, and engineering bay, as well as a third barracks. Looks like marines will be the soup of the day.
Mark expands to his natural, defending with a pair of flanking sunkens and transferring a group of drones from his main to help speed the production.
A lone marine, under orders to scout Mark's encampment, is met with four hungry zerglings at the center of the map. The mutated dune-runners have a quick dinner.
Crono moves a big pack of M&M to his natural's choke point, floating a command center into place and constructing a bunker and tower. SCV's are constructed and Crono's economy is in business. He adds a factory to his main base and a machine shop to the factory.
Another intrepid marine moves to scout Mark's base. Unfortunately for Crono, this redneck boy meets the same fate as his predeccessor. (Sorry, no malt liquor reference.)
Not wanting to set a precedent, Crono moves a pack of 12 marines and 6 medics out to Mark's little corner of the map. They brush aside a scattering of hydralisks and zerglings in the center of the map and move to 12:00.
Crono cannily bypasses Mark's defended ramp and instead attacks his natural. The twelve marines halt outside the range of Mark's defending sunkens, stim, and then charge. First one colony, then another falls, along with a trio of marines. Mark immediately burrows all of his working drones and Crono beings to pepper the hatchery with bullets.
The marines have just enough time to get cocky when a pair of lurkers saunter down the ramp and decide to burrow right behind the marines. Four shots, a late comsat, and some hydras later, there's a big pool of blood in front of Mark's still-intact natural.
Mark unburrows his drones and orders them back to work while breeding hydras and putting up a queen's nest. Crono moves higher up the tech tree by constructing a starport and a science facility. Crono now has a few tanks, as well.
Mark has expanded to the 3:00 location with twinned hatcheries and a few sunken colonies when Crono musters up his troops yet again. Twelve unsupported, 1/1 marines march single file to mass in the center of the map, and a dropship cruises above them, apparently loaded with what Heartcutter would call a 'turbo newbie, baby, turbo newbie' drop.
Mark's scattered forces near the center spot the marines, and the dropship. Mark's hydras slither madly around under his direction and open fire on the hapless dropship. Luckily, the dropship pilot, under Crono's direction, makes a hard right turn and escapes to the cliff with a mighty 15 hp remaining. The turbo newbie drop commences!
Crono sieges his tank and constructs a bunker, loading his marines in. He's constructing a tower when Mark airlifts two lurkers up to the cliff to deal with the threat. The lurkers remove the tank, and a comsat with the bunker remove the lurkers.
The frantic maneuvering of Crono's dropship revealed the location of Mark's 3:00 expansion to crono. His 12 marine attack, still massed in the center of the map, marches up the ramp and drugs themselves. They smack down the sunken and a few of the drones when five mutalisks from Mark4 flap over to intercede. The mutalisks and newly hatched defending hydralisks arrive piecemeal and are riddled with bullets. Both players rush reinforcements to the area: Crono moves in two siege tanks, and Mark brings a pack of hydras from his main hive cluster (it's now a hive, by the way, not just a lair). Crono moves his remaining marines to the top of the ramp, securing the high ground, and engages in a vicious battle. Two marines are all that survive.
Crono's reinforcements arrive first: another batch of marines hot off the assembly lines, two tanks, and a science vessel. Mark's expansion has been pumping out hydras from the two hatcheries that Crono neglected to destroy.
The Terran forces march up the ramp and engage. Both tanks siege and the hydras charge, killing one before the marines eliminate them. Mark has a special delivery, however; two overlords dump hydralisks directly on top of the remaining siege tank and knock it out. The hydras then slice the marines, who are without medic support, to ribbons.
Another small group of M&M move to assault the expansion, but Mark's hydras gain the top of the ramp first and hold their position.
Mark now has a greater spire and drops hydras to clean up the remains of Crono's cliff drop while expanding again, this time to the 6:00 start location.
Crono saddles up yet another pack of M&Ms with two siege tanks and a science vessel, moving to assault Mark's natural expansion yet again. The attack meets and destroys a tide of hydralisks that swarm to the defense; one tank is destroyed, but Crono quickly generates a defensive matrix around the other. The natural expansion FINALLY falls in a burst of blood and ichor; but two of Mark's guardians float over the ridge and bomb the remaining infantry into oblivion. The matrixed tank is eventually destroyed by hydralisks and lurkers.
A reinforcing convoy of M&Ms from Crono (man he builds those fast) stop short of Mark's base and mass at the center. Crono summons his heavily damaged dropship and ferries them up to the totally undefended south side of Mark4's main base in two trips. With two science vessels for support, they engage and rip the majority of Mark's base to shreds. The two guardians that moved to help were irradiated before two of Mark's scourge could hit a Crono science vessel.
The marine contingent is engaged again by yet more Mark4 hydras and guardians; it is eventually removed, leaving Mark's core tech and choke defenses intact; the greater spire, spawning pool, hydra den, and a few evolution chambers are still standing.
Crono again leaps to the offensive with another troop of 3/3 marines that stream south to Mark's 6:00 expansion. Crono has to send two waves and science vessel support, but eventually the base is pounded into the ground. Mark is down to one last functional base, his 3:00 expansion. He fortifies the site with hydras while sending a strike of hydralisks and guardians to attack Crono's only source of income, his natural. Amazingly, Crono has kept up his massive production on only two bases.
Mark4's four-ship guardian formation is irradiate halfway to it's target; it does no damage at all. Mark quickly burrows his hydras just outside the natural, but a troop of M&Ms with Science Vessels overhead reveals and destroys them, one by one.
Crono builds up a large pack of goliaths and marines and moves to the assault; but they are met within the Lost Temple proper by a large pack of Mark4 hydralisks. The hydras push back the Terran forces all the way back to Crono's doorstep, but a pack of refurbished medic/marines (where does he get all the volunteers for this duty?) and two tanks quell the final offensive.
The tanks and marines roll across the map to Mark4's 3:00 stronghold and attack. In a grim replay of an earlier attack, Mark4 drops hydras to save his last base, but a massive fleet of Crono science vessels matrixes his tanks and irradiates Mark's hydras. The base is certain to fall when Mark4 has connection problems and is dropped from the game.
Crono takes it in stride. Victory belongs to him.
Lessons Learned:
- I don't do unit personification or malt liquor references. Mark, however, does Jack Daniels.
- Medic/Marines and Science Vessels are the bane of the Zerg. The only thing I can think of to use against this are a lot of scourge and a lot of guardians.
- Not even Mark's huge economic advantage could let him produce enough units to stem the red tide of marines and medics. Hmmm.
Cheers! (: | | Battle Shots! | 
This is what happens when lurkers sneak up behind M&M forces.
Assault on Mark4's natural, take two.
Crono FINALLY remembers to finish off a hatchery.
The epic final battle.
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