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"I have made a decision not to have sex with the hottest girl at my school, i dont care if other guys want to do it, thats their decision, but i'm not going to."
-Merlin


Snowy vs. -pitt-: NWTR League Week 2
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Author:SnowSquall
IP:XXXX
Date: 12/12/99 12:12
Game Type: Starcraft
Labels:none
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Report Rating: 9.2, # of Ratings: 4, Max: 10, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for SnowSquall: 7.4828
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Introduction

I strolled into week 2 with a buttload of baggage, being 0-1 already and losing a game that I thought was one of my better chances to win on the season. Now I was staring the reality of starting 0-2 straight in the face as -pitt-* and I were set to square off.

* Pitt was not drunk at the time of this fight.

I decided to be conservative and selected Lost Temple as the map since I was the "Home" team this week.

SnowSquall: Terran at 6
-pitt-: Protoss at 3

In the beginning...

...there were Terrans and all was good. Then protoss scum had to land on the same planet. Sighing, I ordered my SCVs to start mining with an ineffectual clone and got down to making a game plan.

I decided to screw walling in. I'm not liking the passive mode it puts me in and the protoss never has to worry about an early rush and can match your tech or expand like crazy.

Snowy's Build:

8 Depot
11 Rax
14 Rax
15 Depot
20 Depot
22 Refinery
24 Academy
28 Depot
29 Rax
32 E-Bay
33 Depot
38 Depot
41 Factory

I'll refer back to this so you can get an idea where I was in my build when early game events happened.

I scouted counterclockiwse, thus I found Pitt in the first place I looked. I arrived at 14 control and saw he was doing a 2 gate build, the 2nd gate still in the process of warping.

I went ahead with my conservative build, but not as passive as heavy metal is. When I reached 30 control, my SCV which I had posted just outside Pitt's choke reported a column of enemy units headed southbound toward me. I had one bunker at my ramp filled with marines and 5 more standing at the top of the ramp.

Pitt attempts to force up my ramp with 1 zealot and 4 dragoons but quickly aborts that idea as I start shooting troops down on the ramp. He retreats with 1 zealot and 2 dragoons still alive.








During this time my first medics pop out and stim is being researched. I also add a comsat to my CC and promptly scan Pitt's base when it's done, still seeing 2 gateways and a cybercore which is spinning. There's no sign of a citadel of adun or a robotics facility yet.

I decide that to sit around doing nothing is to effectively relinquish the map to Pitt, so I quickly gather up 12 marines and 4 medics and head on out. Range is in the process of researching at this time. I also add a turret at my ramp at this time, being mindful that Pitt could have very well hid his citadel and templar archives someplace else.

I promptly run into a far more sizeable force than I had expected; namely, 2 zealots and 8 dragoons. It catches me by surprise that over half my number is cut down before I'm able to turn tail and retreat to my ramp.












Things are looking pretty grim for me as 8 dragoons in various flavors of damage arrive at my ramp and try to advance. Fortunately a bunker on high ground can sustain a considerable amount of punishment, especially with a SCV repairing it.








I also quickly block my ramp off with my medics, forcing Pitt to engage the bunker.

With some slick micro, and an extra SCV to continue to repair the bunker, reinforcing marines are able to hold the goons at bay while my first tank rolls off the line.











Ouch. I seige it up on the cherry spot on my plateau and it starts to punish the goons. Pitt elects to retreat his few remaining hurt goons at this point.

As my 2nd tank rolls off, I take a group down to my natural and begin to fortify it for an expansion attempt. I seige the tank up, and start building a bunker.







Pitt instinctively knows I'm going to attempt to take my natural at this point, and brings 7 goons back down to check. Sure enough they run into my fortifications before they have a chance to be properly installed... and are burned to the ground.

Once again, Pitt thinks that he's going to push up my ramp.. but my tank on my ledge is having none of that.


The noose is feeling a little tight..

I'm fully aware that if I dont bust out of this containment, it's going to be a very short and unenjoyable game -- at least on my end. I start on a 4th rax at this point and currently have 2 factories and one starport with an addon in progress.














I start construction on a CC, intending upon floating it down into my natural at *some* point. Meanwhile my SCV which is still scouting around tells me that the 12 is still empty, and a comsat reveals a nexus in progress at Pitt's natural. Ahhhh.. I smell a turbo newbie and a chance to get the pressure off of me. I wait for my 2nd dropship to finish, and load up 2 tanks, 2 scvs, 5 marines and 1 firebat.



I head off to his ledge while impatiently waiting on my CC to finish so I can float it down. I continue to pump marines and medics out of my now 4 raxes, and tanks out of my 2 factories.










I discreetly unload my troops, at least as discreetly as a couple of megaton tanks can be anyways. However once again Pitt shows himself to be a master of exactly knowing when to attack. Another sizeable force comes barreling down into my natural, but fortunately my completed CC is still on my ledge. This time Pitt shows he has high templar, and I'll let the following collage speak for itself...








Pitt actually manages to push up my ramp this time with judicious placement of storms to lead the way for his dragoons. His advance stops shortly thereafter as my fresh tanks seige up by my barracks and newly trained marines throw themselves at the remaining goons, finishing them off.









I hope you hadn't forgotton about my turbo newbie group because I hadn't. While I was struggling to hold Pitt off at my main, I had constructed a pair of turrets, seiged my tanks, and started working on a bunker. I was forced to rush this before completing the bunker in the hope of diverting Pitt's attention.






I'm able to get the bunker up anyways and proceed to lay waste to Pitt's natural. He attempts to drop a shuttle full of unknown goodies but I stamp it "Return to Sender" and send it back to Aiur.

With that threat aborted, Pitt's natural is destroyed.


Get that noose away from me!

I feel like I've bought myself a breather and begin to float my CC down into my natural. No sooner than I begin to float it down, Pitt brings yet another sizeable force into my natural, and I'm forced to float it back. Again, my ramp is the focal point for a lot of action. 4 zealots and about 10 more goons attempt to scale it once again, and this time I have the ramp blocked fairly well and my tanks reach out and bitchslap a lot of goons.











The attack is pretty much a collosal failure until you pause to consider that I'm still bottled up to my main base and Pitt undoubtably has expanded to somewhere. Before the last goon dies, my CC once again floats into my natural and this time I'm able to land it and get it up and running almost immediately. I start scanning to see what is in Pitt's main, and I see 4 gateways which are pumping an assortment of troops as this picture shows:








Things are definitely not looking good for my newly trained infantry.

12 is stil empty, so I scan around looking for expansions and a solitary wraith I produced is checking the upper island as well. I hit paydirt as I fly eastward and see that Pitt has taken the 12 mineral-only, and also see that he has his own mineral only from a scan of mine.




















My wraith is amused at the budding expansion and starts picking away at probes until a high templar abuses storm to show... well, to show just how abusive storm is. I'm aware that Pitt has the edge on expansions 2-1 and I need to even the odds very quickly.



I hastily scrounge around and load up 1 tank, 6 marines and 2 medics into a pair of dropships.. realizing halfway there that somehow the 2nd tank never came along for the ride. Oops. But the story still has a happy ending as I drop the defenseless mineral-only at 3, destroying a goodly number of probes before Pitt is able to run them away.









Needless to say Pitt doesn't take too kindly to this.



Pitt presumably takes those same forces and immediately launches a counterattack on my natural. At first it doesn't look too intimidating with zealots trickling in.. but soon the trickle becomes a veritable downpour.











Quickly they steamroll through my defending tanks and the bunker and begin to tear into my CC which has seen better days. Fortunately zealots can't attack floating buildings, although I'm sure patch 1.09 will fix that bug. :)



I whip into the micro bag and block the the goons that are following from coming up my ramp. The zealots eventually are overwhelmed by more marines and SCVs assisting. The dragoons die a slow death, unable to get past the blocking SCVs.

While that donnybrook is raging in the south, another 2 dropship force of 2 tanks and assorted infantry is dropped just south of Pitt's mineral-only at 12. I seige and take out the defending cannons, and quickly the expansion is razed to the ground with minimal losses from storm on my end. Comsatting around a bit more reveals Pitt has started a nexus at the 12 main, and another at the 9 main... but neither are operational yet. By my calculations he's only getting income from his mineral-only natural at 3 right now.





Things often look brightest before the darkness arrives...

And arrive it does as a couple of control groups of zealots patrol into my (once again) rebuilt natural. I've trained firebats but they're no match for the sheer amount of zealots that are arriving.

It's worth noting that while my forces are 0/1, Pitt's are 0/0/3, which really isn't helping matters. Once AGAIN I'm forced to float my CC away, and once again Pitt starts up my ramp. My SCV's really start going above and beyond the call of duty, once again acting as lineman and killing a fair amount of the zealots as well even. The zealots pathing is thrown off by the blockage of the ramp, but Pitt has a cruel card yet to play in his bag of tricks. A shuttle unloads a few high templar and Pitt begins storming. My poor SCV's start dancing left and right as storms start flying. As if I need any more bad news, the game has to inform me my geyser is depleted. Oh wonderful.

Incredibly, I'm able to hold the ramp with just a handful of marines thanks to my usage of dancing SCV's. Pitt's shuttle is forced to limp home with many gauss rifle holes and once again I attempt to rebuild my natural exp.

Realizing that I have to go for broke, I disassemble my forces at my turbo newbie, which was still holding firm, and load them onto my pair of dropships which had managed to survive many harrowing trips back and forth across the battlefield. I unload at his 12 main, but he's left freshly produced goons there.




Aside from some gratuitous probe killing, the drop doesn't really accomplish much besides making me feel good that I'm still attacking.

Pitt has been able to get his expansions back online and operational however, and is ready to kick me off the map once and for all. A very sizeable force, several control groups at least, of goons and zealots come strolling into my natural, and this time it's burned completely to the ground.



This time Pitt is able to easily scale my ramp, dancing SCV's notwithstanding, and begins the process of base destruction. Sharing vision shows how he was able to easily run me over.. with more gateways at 12 to complement the ones shown here at 3.








Wrap Up/Lessons Learned

I hadn't tried a non-heavy metal variant build in quite some time, and need to remember.. if I'm going to academy rush, I need to try it FAST or not at all. Doesn't do me any good if he's got goons like he had.

I was planning on trying out Deep Six, but never got past making 4 barracks.. the constant fighting just never gave me a chance to build up. It really is a strategy that is good at expansion busting, and building very strong turbo newbies as well. The problem, which is illustrated here, is it's very difficult to try to stop 2 or 3 expansions at the same time. I'd stop one, or raze one to the ground, but another would be building or already running. I can definitely see the potential for it though, as it's an expert level strat and I'm nowhere near an expert. So far I'm finding 2 tanks and 8 assorted infantry units is a good combo to expansion bust with. You need those tanks to be able to eat storms.

Nice containment and constant pressure by Pitt, knowing exactly when to attack to keep me from building up. I just never could get my natural running for any length of time.

So now I drop to 0-2 on the season. Week 3 has me playing Diogenes'_Dog and he will have home map advantage. 0-3 and I can forget about making the playoffs.



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