"William, you have NO LIFE!"
-YourRoleModel
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| Showdown containment and scouting | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/04/99 09:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for sho_kosugi: 5.3333 |  | Map: Showdown
me: random draws Zerg, bottom
TheJizzless1: random draws Protoss, top
I met Jizz at channel NOHUNTERS and he challenged me for a little ladder match.
I've only played 3 ladder games all season (3-0, rating 1064) because I just hate
how slow they are and how sometimes I get disconnected and get a loss. Lately, I've
been playing team games and been learning to coordinate attacks with another player.
But I played him on ladder because he said that girls can't play and that he'll whoop
me badly. Anyway, I chose the map because it was a small map (I wanted a quick game)
and I don't do too well in the map, and I might as well get some practice.
I did my standard build of early production focus, then zerglings after my overlord
was morphed (9 drones, 9th morph to Z-pool, drone again, overlord, etc.) I sent
my 6 lings to his base and gave him a little scare, but backed off after seeing cannons.
I just hung out right outside the entrance to his base and decided to go mass Hydras.
The overlord I sent up there initially was finally close enough to take a look at
his base, and I saw that he was putting cannons in key locations around his base, and
that he was teching up.
I made sure that my overlord was near the cliff to avoid dragoons. I saw that he wasn't
going Air, but more Templars and Goons.
He went out his base a couple of times with 4 zealots, but was killed by my assembling
force of lings+hydras with an accompanying overlord (just in case he had DTs). The second
time he retreated back to his base and I couldn't follow because of the cannons.
I knew that he was either preparing to break my barricade with brute force of Goons, Zealots
and Temps for support ----OR---- he was doing some sort of expanding to the island on the right
and perhaps going air.
Anyway, he chose the former and overwhelmed my blockade force. That really was just like
30% of my force, the remaining I left at my base, and in the meantime I was expanding.
He met me in the middle and when I sent a few to prevent him from getting too close to my base.
It was a fierce fight, but both of our remaining forces retreated. I was glad because
I was only preventing him from gaining ground. He also overlooked an expansion of minerals only
to the side, but he later discovered it but failed to destroy it because I had 2 Lurkers there.
He hadn't gotten an observer, I guess. His rush to observer gave me some time to expand to island
and also parasite his shuttle and one of his probes.
Seeing that he had made a new Nexus in the island, I sent 3 mutas there and killed the probes off
before any cannons were erected. He then dropped 2 dragoons there and killed all but one of my
mutas (I made a spire just to make a muta for the expansion, I really wasn't going air). I decided
to drop his expansion with 3 Overlord-loads of hydras and his expansion was kaput.
Numerous little skirmishes near the middle happened during the game, and he also destroyed my expansion,
but I was often able to make him retreat with my large amount of hydras (I didn't attack and let him
feel good about his force until I had like 3 groups of hydras). He would retreat, but I lost numerous
hydras to his PSI.
If one of my hydras remained, I would burrow him/her. He really didn't discover a lot of them because
he probably only had 2 observers, and I destroyed any that my Overlord discovered. So this gave me the
vision advantage.
I had him beat on resources for sure, and I knew he needed to expand. He expanded to the mineral only
expansion at left, but I destroyed it with drops (his defense on his expansion seemed to suck).
By this time, I heard one of my Overlords explode (the one near his base at the cliff) and saw that he had
4 corsairs. I immediately moved my Overlords near hydras or spores, but he manage to kill off a few.
This delayed me because I was over my control limit. Then I saw that he had a huge force of goons and zealots
assembled right outside his base (which I didn't notice until they started to move).
The big group was going for an all-out attack. I prepared my defense at my main of lurkers/spores combo.
This will take care of the group and will be hard to spot by observers because of the spores, and I also had
hydras for support.
The Showdown map is thin but long from top to bottom, so I had time to prepare, and to also prepare for my
counter attack. The probe that I had parasited earlier allowed me to see his base and saw that he had a hole
in his defense (only one cannon at the very left edge of base). I loaded up all of the hydras I had that I wasn't going to use for my defense
and decided to drop him. As he attacked my main and slowly started to penetrate I started to drop my hydra load which
started to obliterate his main.
Seeing this, he retreated his force of now 'half the number' and went back to his base only to save just a few buildings.
He destroyed my remaining Hydras with PSI and dragoon combo but he was severly wounded. It was only a matter of time as
I had him outresourced and outnumbered.
I finally overwhelmed his remaining main base (I expanded of course as it only takes 300 to make a hatchery).
He resorted to hiding up the cliff of his main and making cannons with temps and corsairs up there. I was like "GG", but
he said try to take out my cliff." I tried a couple of times only to lose a lot of hydras trying to reach the cannons,
and getting PSI-stormed.
I still kept making hydras and decided to make greater spire for guardians. I can't believe he was gonna make me
have to do this. I made sure he had no other building anywhere in the map. The parasited shuttle revealed that he had
6 templars, 4 corsairs, and about 5 cannons in the cliff. It was going to be tough to penetrate.
What I decided to do was have 6 queens (broodling), 6 guardians, 12 hydras, and 3 devourers to do a strategic final
coup de grace. I hot-keyed the groups. I moved the guardians far back and all separated (so his corsairs attack won't be
too effective). I then had them Attack move. Their distance also gave me time to Attack move the hydras and the devourers.
The timimg was just right so that ALL of them arrived in range around the same time, and as I saw his Templars move PSI, I also
used all 6 of my queens to broodling while cannon crossfire occured.
I missed one of the temps but my guardians took care of him.
He said, "nice broodlings" and promptly waited for me to destroy this last outpost.
LESSONS LEARNED:
-just because Showdown is relatively small, games can last an hour or so because of back and forth fighting
and the enemy's hide the pylon or finish off my last outpost delay moves.
-Even though my skill (on scale of 1-10, 10 best) on the races if I had to rate them would be Terran - 7, Protoss - 8, and Zerg - 5
I was still able to beat my opponent with standard war tactics of containment and scouting.
-He should've used DWeb more, especially against my hydras.
-PSI is devastating to Zerg, but is not enough if the temps don't have support group to engage the enemy while he PSI-storms
-He also should've used Reavers, on drops probably.
-He should've put defense on his initial island expansion right away, because he lost valuable Nexus and probes there.
-make sure to check your troops regularly for parasites and if at all possible, get rid of the parasited unit.
Giving the enemy vision is a major disadvantage.
-He should've made observer early because everyone knows that Zergs have at least 1 Lurker which can delay you considerably.
-I should always be wary of corsairs as a Zerg because my Overlords are sitting ducks if not near hydras or spores.
-I'm not an expert but if I was on the other shoe, my usual tactic is DWeb-based, reaver drop which works well against Zerg,
with Corsair support (weird how I know this yet I am vulnerable to this as Zerg).
I am still learning zerg but I did well considering....
Thanks for reading my Battle Report. I'm sorry that I don't have pics (I need to learn how to do this).
Much respect,
Shelly Loren, aka sho_kosugi |
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