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Heartcutter
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| Forcing the Zerg to turtle | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 07/28/99 11:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for -Flathead-: 6.5588 |  | -Flathead- worried again, as the game on challenger commenced. You see, he had picked Protoss, which was a hard match for this map, and his worthy opponent had gone with the hoarde. This was -Flathead-'s worst matchup, mostly because the early zergling threat, and the ease at which the zerg can expand. This time, -Flathead- was determined to out-expand the zerg. Would his plan work?
-Flathead- went with 2 gates early, while NFOP (Nameless, Faceless opponent) went with a 10 pool, and a second hatch as the pool was coming online. This made -Flathead- breathe a little easier; when the scouting probe reached the zerg base, there were not 6 zerglings on the way to his already.... The scouting probe then went a peeked at all the mineral only expansions available by land, and stayed at his mineral only expansion.
-Flathead-, liking the idea of punishing early tech, sent 4 zealots as soon as they were done in search of blood. When they reached the zerg base, there were 16 or more zerglings waiting for him, too many to defeat. -Flathead- quickly retreated, chased by zerglings, all the way back to his base. Rather than throw zerglings at 6 zealots (soon to be 8), NFOP retreated his zerglings back to base after going halfway across the map.
It wasn't two minutes later that the most crucial battle in the entire game took place. As -Flathead-'s 10th zealot popped, and he began the slow transition to gas/tech to templars, 24-28 zerglings ran into the protoss base. This is the greatest fear for protoss players large and small; large scale zergling attacks usually result in some dead probes. Luckily, 3 front zealots attacked the zerglings, who surrounded all 3 zealots. As this happened, the other 7 zealots flanked the pack of zerglings, and strung them out in a nice line. Right as the battle ended, -Flathead- looked and realized he had 7 zealots left. Badly beaten, every single one was in the red health-wise, but 7 nonetheless!! Let's hear it for zealots in a line!!!
Taking this as a moderate resource win, -Flathead- laid down a robotics facility (shuttles are key for expanding on challenger), a third gateway, and a citadel, one right after another. He wanted to expand and get psi-storm research at the same time, and was beginning to think that he would be facing muties or lurkers.
When 6 fresh zealots came out, -Flathead- sent them, plus the 8 injured, to the zerg base in hopes of catching the zerg with his pants down. When they got there, they were met by a group of 48 zerglings. As the +1 weapons upgrade had already been finished, -Flathead- managed to pull this one out with 4 zealots alive, at which point NFOP did a curious, but understandable thing.
#1, he burrowed about a dozen peons.
#2, he turned 5 of his peons into creep colonies.
NFOP had been relying on zerglings as defense, but hadn't upgraded defense to keep up with the zealot attack. This was crucial in the attack at the zerg base.
With all of the sunkens now morphing, -Flathead- was determined to do as much damage as possible. He sent one zealot into the peon line, to stop them from unburrowing for the moment. He shift-attacked the sunkens in order with the rest of the zealot pack, and left them to their fate. Two of the 5 sunkens were dead before they ever morphed, and the rest lived. As the fog of war enveloped the zerg base, -Flathead- saw the peons unburrow and two more sunkens starting up.
Now the world was open for the protoss. Templar's psi-storm research was just starting, and a shuttle had dropped off peons at both island expansions. The zerg had a lair, but had not transitioned to transports yet. Knowing that the zerg island would be the next expansion point, -Flathead- concentrated his efforts there, laying down a nexus, gateway, two pylons and two cannons. As soon as the gateway warped, templars were the order of the day on the island. -Flathead- ferried 8 probes from the (starting to deplete) main to the island expansion, and started up the other island.
It was then that a smaller group of probes (4-5) got shredded by 4 sunkens at the zerg mineral only expansion. This expansion was just starting up and was also protected by a single lurker, behind one of the sunkens. -Flathead- attack-moved 12 zealots and 2 archons towards the base, and qued up a psi-storm just at the spot where spines had been seen a minute earlier. As the templar stormed, the zealots ran in and wholloped the expansion. Although ugly, the archons took much of the damage as the zealots got free shots. One archon died, and one almost died, before the last of the sunken defenses were shredded. Just as this happened, the zerg sent in 12 hydras and 12 zerglings. One storm was enough to shred most of the hydras, and the archons/zealots took care of the leftovers. The zerg expansion fell with a flash of psi-blades and archon lightning.
-Flathead- sent a lone templar out, and encountered a minefield of lurkers. One storm killed a lurker, but he had seen two or three spines come up before the templar was killed. Having several other storms to spare, -Flathead- sent his lurker minesweeping mission out for blood. A
Minesweeping is really fun, -Flathead- thought, as he sent a lone zealot forward to attract spines. As the spines would come, -Flathead- would retreat the zealot, and que up a psi-storm to clear the area. Lather, rinse, repeat. 4 psi-storms later, and the 5 lurkers that were spread out protecting the entrance to the zerg base were killed.
Now with 3 fully operational bases, and 6 gateways (4 in main base, one on each island), it was only a matter of time. a group of 8 archons, backed by 24 zealots and scattered dragoons, slammed into a very large number of sunkens at the zerg main not 2 minutes later. The zerg had very little in the way of troop count, and the sunkens were just no match for the shock-troop nature of archons. The final zerg base fell at the hands of the protoss infantry!!
Lessons learned:
-Zealots early, zealots mid-game, and zealots late against the zerg!! Oh, and the +1 weapons upgrade ROCKS!!!!
-Get to Templars before he gets to mass mass hydras, or muties. If you have templars and lots of zealots, there isn't much he can do to you mid-game.
-Observers are gas-heavy and really aren't nessecary against zerg. Shuttles (hallucinated or otherwise) work just as well against zerg for recon....
-Reavers are really overrated vs. zerg. He had lots of zerglings, and the zealots were more than enough to take out the early zerglings. |
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