A TALE OF 3 PEONS

One day PeonSanders got tired of sitting on his ass staring at the Katie Holmes picture he has set as wallpaper.  He made some long rambling diatribes on everyones favorite battle reporting site and given assurance that no harm would fall his way if he decided to write a battle report, he moved his little Peon butt over to NoHunters.  He then saw many fellow peons, PeonRapist, PeonHarasser, Peon-Power, and Shitty_Peon.

After settling in for the night PeonSanders discussed with Peon-Power and Shitty_Peon the inherant humor involved in an all Peon grudge fest.  But PeonSanders is and always will be a little cry baby Peon so he decided to battlereport instead - and leave the task of extending his 4 loss streak to another day.  So the contestants were chosen, it looked like the might of peon-power was up against the, umm, overall shittiness of Shitty_Peon.   Lets take a look at these contestants (you may as well get to know them as you will NEVER, EVER see a battlereport on these two players again).

Peon-Power hails from Germany, and has a decent 300-200 ish record on all nohunters games.  He assures me that all these records are well earned, and i really have no reason to doubt this.                                                                                                                                         Shitty_Peon has an impressive ladder record of 560 ish. (NOT A TYPO) He intentionally loses ladder games in his quest to reach a ladder rank of 1.  Shitty Peon assures me he plays his regular games to his full ability, and is a decent player, and an x member of X17.  He just thought that it would be an interesting pursuit to try and lose every single ladder game he could.  Some one with this much grit and determination, with these lofty goals must make for an interesting BR PeonSanders thought to himself, and so he commenced with the insanity... 

Note: from now on Peon-Power will be refered to as Power, and likewise Shitty_Peon, will be refered to as Shitty (no comment).                                               

Game The First

Here ensued a long debate over which map to pick, and eventually Power, swayed by the public clamor for original BattleReports, coerced Shitty into picking - not that boring Lost Temple - but the VASTLY different Dark Temple - for your enjoyment only.

Power drew blue zerg at 9 o'clock, while Shitty drew red terran at 3.                                                                                                                       

Shitty went for a standard terran wallin build heavier on infantry than metal, going supply and 2 rax (one of them as his wall-in), whilst Power went for an extremely risky build order.  Peon-Power did anything but Power with his zerg - going Extractor first and then spawning pool.

At this point it was apparent that Power was teching hard, and due to help from a scouting scv - Shitty knew it too.  What was not apparent was whether zergy was going for fast muties, or fast lurkers.  Only time will tell...                                                                                                                      

Ok so not much time - as Power quickly morphed his lone hatch into a lair, built a second hatch in his main, and plopped down a hydra den, it was obvious that Power was going directly to those creepy little lurker things, and their nasty zergy wet noises.                                                  

Power had 4 glings to defend his base, and Shitty had 8 marines and a shiny new acadamy and factory to boot.  Had Shitty attacked - the game would have been over in 10 minutes, but instead it took slightly longer.  Power used his zerglings judiciously as scouts - so that he would know well in advance of an attack, and beable to compensate by holding off on the teching to lurkers, and building more zerglings.  One zergling remained just outside the 3 oclock natural, while the other three decided to go on a hunt.  The hunt seemed quite comical at the time, a lone marine had been sent out by Shitty to scout Power's base.  If it had made its little voyage - it would have seen the impending lurker rush - and a control group of its buddies and their newly trained girlfriends would have removed the zerg infestation with little to no trouble.  Needless to say - the 3 little zerglings that could were only too eager to stop the scouting expedition and replaced the hapless marine with concentric circles of infantry soup.

Power now had the element of surprise but the game was far from in the bag.  Shitty had a comsat, an engineering bay on the way, a tank with siege mode, and about 10 marines and 5 medics.  Given some micro it seemed that the 4 lurkers (which had for 30 seconds been wandering back and forth in Power's base due to some hydras blocking the way) were largely overmatched.  Then came that variable in Starcraft that makes it such an interesting game- chance.  It just so happened that as the lurkers arrived - Shitty had lifted off the rax in his wall-in in order to expand to his natural.   Half his medarine force was behind his now defunct wall-in - and the rest just outside his main's choke.  Had Power's hydras not have been blocking his own units- the attack might have actually been LESS successful!  Lets not get bogged down in hypotheticals though - given 2 scans 1 tank ,20 scvs , and12 m&ms, Shitty pulls out some moves that can only be described as shitty.  He wastes his precious scans - he doesnt repair his tank, and he doesnt seige it in a good location in order to give it a chance to fire.  Power siezes the opportunities given to him by the poor micro and burrows next to the tank. 

 Of the initial forces - 2 lurkers were lost - and almost the entire terran army was wiped out.  Reinforcing zerglings serve to distract Shitty and allow him to move the more important 2 reinforcing lurkers into the peon line - and around the comsat for the final blow.

In most pieces of crappy, obvious literature there is foreshadowing- and this is no exception.  When Shitty - faced with his humiliating loss to lurkers is waiting for his burning buildings to fall into rubble, he makes a comment to the effect of, "all you zerg are the same, you only have one strategy; fast teching to lurkers".   Power shrugs off the accusal of poor gamesmanship saying.

Translated from german-english - this means - theres also fast tech to mutas...

TURNING POINT: The kill of the Shitty scouting marine by the Power glings.

With this little gem - and Shitty's comments on how the first game was a fluke we bring (all 2 of you who are still reading that is)...

Game the Second

Well Shitty is only too eager for a rematch after his quick departure in the first battle, and all that is left to be decided on is the logistics.  Well Peon-Power wanted a fresh and new kind of battle report, so of course he forced Shitty into playing the oft overlooked Dark Temple once again.

The starting positions were the exact opposites of the 1st game (we love contrast) as Power chose Brown Zerg at 3 o'clock and Shitty randomed to Yellow (errrr... red so that you can read it...)  zerg at 9 o'clock.  Try to contain your excitement with the prospect of a zerg vs zerg on TEMPLE!!!!                                                                                                    

Both Players pumped drones until 9, Shitty opting to go the 10/9 refinery cancel route to 10 - and Power morphing an ovy the old fashioned way.  This is where their plans began to diverge, as Shitty went for an early expansion hatch to his natural while Power decides if it aint broke dont fix it, and builds an extractor first, followed by a spawning pool.  Power scouts with a drone and begins the most annoying series micro with one drone that I have ever seen.  He scouts the entire base- and finds it completely defenseless- much like his own.  He then builds a creep colony, and  although he has no spawning pool with which to further its development, Shitty has no way of knowing this - as he has opted to scout exclusively with those zippy ovys.  Shitty takes no chances and attacks with some  of his peon line, about 4 peons - they missed about 2 mining runs to attack the creep colony by my estimation.  Thats 2x8x4 or 64 minerals which easily pays for the costs of the creep colony- which is canceled before it runs to completion.  Shitty does some micro of his own shouting OMG GAY GAY GAY while defending himself from that deadly creep.  

Just as Shitty thinks he has rid himself of the bad ass Drone, saying "thats right, run along", it returns to the North of the base - building another creep colony.  Shitty has to once again take off some drones from mining duty to attack.  If Power was able to do this micro while managing his base at home I think he proabably gained about a 200 mineral advantage, which isnt as significant as the psycological effects it has to be constantly pestered during whats supposed to be a pretty quiet part of the game. Or as shitty puts it...

Power morphed his hatch into a lair, and followed with another hatch- very closely mimicing his build of the first game, while Shitty throws up 3 sunkens, even though at this time Power has no attacking units of any description.  Shitty could have powered with glings at this point and taken the game due to his 2 hatch to one advantage, but like in the first game Shitty takes a defensive posture- with nothing to defend against.  He decides that his ovys will be used as his only way of scouting early on, and doesnt send any drones/glings. This choice would prove to be disastrous.

Finally Shitty sends a solitary zergling to scout - and it is taken out by a well placed sunken before it has all the data it needs.  Finally seeing the sparsely defended zerg base, Shitty sends the  glings i had spoken of,  but just 12 of them.  His  hydra den then morphed in.  What Shitty's scouting gling had failed to see before it popped, was one well placed spire - neatly hidden from the prying eyes of the gling - (and out of sensor range of the ovy that had finally arrived) in the extreme back of Power's base.  

Shitty didnt find out about the tech leap to muties until it was too late - and the muties popped out at the exact same time as the zergling squad arrived.  Shitty's reaction says it all:

Luckily for Shitty - 6 hydras morph in just in time, and he produces enough to stop the first batch of mutas from overrunning his base.  Rather than rushing in headlong into the hydras, Power pulls back and waits for an oportunity.  Shitty is either desperate, or believes Power has pulled back across the map, because he sends all but 2 of his hydra - (his only way of defending his main) to mount an attack.  His attack consists of taking the expansion hatchery down to half its hitpoints, taking the mains 2nd hatch to half its hitpoints, ignoring the sunken raping his hydras - attacking the sunken with 5 hydras - then running into the back of the base with his hydras - presumably to take out the spire.  By this time the muties arrive from their holding position and kill off the attacking hydras - or rather what is left of them.  Shitty could have killed a sunken - and 2 hatches before the muties arrived, instead he killed nothing, but he did get them down into the yellow, and thats worth something right?  Shitty blames the problem on unit pathing, but I think the attack would have done better even if Shitty patrolled into the base.  Shitty also tries an expansion to the main at 12, but is never able to mine significantly from it.

With all of his hatches/lairs intact Power is able to pump muties galore, and attack the now thinned out group of 4 hydras and 3 sunkens defending the Shitty expansion.  The expansion is taken out easily with a mutie/gling combo.  Shitty does a good job of transfering his drones to his main to save them - and help power his now struggling economy.  He tries to defend with 7 hydras and 4 glings, but even with his micro skills (cough cough) 20 muties and 12 zerglings beat off his forces and destroy his main. At the same time the expansion attempt at 12 o'clock is discovered and dealt with handily (it never exceeded 3 drones).

TURNING POINT: Power's hidden Spire, and the failure of the scouting gling to see it.

After being raped on a scale with a prison inmate romancing you with a plunger - Shitty decides to whine about how he hates zerg and blah blah blah.  I decide that to complete our trio of cutting edge maps we must do Rivalry, much to Power's chagrin - who "only plays on LT."  Even though Power has already won the series, he agrees to play another game.  Maybe Shitty can save some face. (If that is possible for someone who calls themselves shitty, and whose life time dream is to achieve a ladder rank of 1)

Game the Third

Shitty's Revenge...

Rather than bore (too late) you further with the details... Shitty decides on purple terran upper right, while Power randoms to white zerg lower right.  

Shitty does a much improved version of his build in Game number one, having: earlier siege tanks - more marines, and missile turrets, so he doesnt have to worry about any micro whatsoever. (comsats are tricky) Power does a much less efficient version of his original build with one serious slow down- in his words "I didnt morph a spawning pool until after 6 minutes into the game".  Power builds a second hatch early which is fairly normal - but it deviates him from his very clean build in the first game.   Shitty scouts with an scv and again sees an undefended Power, and this time takes the initiative and attacks with 4 marines, unfortunately Power is a good guesser and makes 12  glings directly after he sees the scouting scv from both his hatches- they are easily able to handle the group of marines.  The morphing of glings also serves to slow down the tech to lurkers however.  The 12 glings pursue Shitty's marines back to his base where they find them self on the wrong end of Gauss Impaler rifles. Power techs hard to lurkers, while Shitty techs hard to stop the lurkers he knows are going to come.  By the time that lurkers arrive they are completely outmatched by 4 tanks in seige mode on Shitty's cliff, and a group of 8 marines guarding the choke.  

At this point Power has a ridiculously low troop count - and he has completely collapsed his economy in his tech to reavers.  His lurkers arent very effective - and they only serve to contain Shitty for about 1 minute - with the advent of science vessels all the lurkers are dealt with.  Both Players take a main to their west at this point - Shitty takes upper left, and Power lower left.  Shitty displays some not entirely shitty timing and attacks as Power is trying to get his sagging economy back on track.  Power tries to stop the mobile detection of the sci vessel with 2 scourge, hoping to force Shitty to use comsat, but the scourge pops before hand, and the lurkers are destroyed.  Shitty then simply drives unhindered to the main - pulls up on the plateau and lets the siege and medarines do their stuff.

GO PURPLE POWER!!!!

There was no turning point in this one - the zerg, Power was anemic the whole time.

Whats the moral of the story PeonSanders??

1) Shitty isnt just a clever name, its a way of life.

2) Peon does all or nothing buildorders, if they work, he wins, if they lose he fails.  Shitty builds fairly conservatively.  When you put the two together you have very short, very crappy games.  Although he managed to win the series, I dont think these tech-over-power build orders would work in a well scouted game.

3) This is my first BR, and although the games weren't that interesting, I think that I need the practice, so Im doing it anyway.  In the future I wont bother with games like this.

Shitty can go to sleep knowing that he is only partially true to his name, Power can go to sleep knowing that he is perfect on the only map he plays on - Lost temple - and I can go to sleep at 3 am.

And it seemed like such a good idea when we were discussing it earlier...