"lurkers kick very little ass when unburrowed"
SCV~007
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| 1v1 Zerg vs Terran Amazing Action Fight | | | Author: | | | IP: | e214.parXXXX | | Date: | 04/05/00 07:04 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 7, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for MaitreMordicus: 6.6667 |   | L'ilnips[fatal] VS ~]+)aShes(+[~
CIVILISED TERRANS VS DISGUISTING ZERGS
I had just won a 2V2 teaming with Fatal against ashes and his partner when Ashes challenged Fatal to a 1V1. Lost temple was chosen, as both players randomed, and i took my seat to observer the fight.
Briefing on the players : I have known Fatal for long and we often play together , 1V1 or 2V2. His best race is protoss; Hes very good. I have only been knowing ashes for 1 day, we played 3 or 4 1V1s (which i wont mention for humility reasons bwhehe). He's still very good and capable of surprisingly fast expanding and troop gathering.
Fatal (yellow terran) landed his command center at 6 oclock, and Ashes (orange zerg) spread his creep at 9 oclock. The first 10 minutes were very quiet, and the players went on with the following opening build orders:
Fatal:
8 depot
11 rax
12 gas
send scv to scout
14 depot
15 factory
Bunker
Starport
As you can see, when fatal found zergs he had already started his gas, so he opted for technology and chose to go for a fast tank drop. This build is risky against zerg, because if your technology doesnt pay well, you will be overwhelmed by a powering zerg who will have all the time he wants to mass drones.
Ashes build order:
Sends his overlord at 6 and finds Fatal quickly
12 hatch at expansion
13 pool
Gas
Hydra Den
Sunken + 6 lings
However, Ashes doesnt morph a lair, and prefers to start pumping hydras from his 2 hatcheries. The advantage of this build is that Ashes can harrass Fatal rapidly with hydras, and could eventually overwhelm him.
Now let's see what actually happened and how the build orders competed.
LET THE ACTION BEGIN:
While scouting , Fatal had hidden his scv on the upper plateau of 9 oclock. He uses this scv to scout the 9 oclock main again, finding a hydra den, but no lair. He drives his scv down to the expansion and find out that there is no lair there either. It is very clear that zerg is going mass hydras. This is also very good news for our terran friend, because he knows that Ashes will never get mutas, lurks or drops in time to stop his tank drop.
I take a look back at terran's main, and i see 2 tanks patrolling along the cliff. A science facility has also been added in order to start producing science vessels providing detection. Soon, a dropship pops out , and immediately is loaded with the 2 tanks. At this very moment however, zerg sends 7 hydras to the terran main and takes out the bunker at choke. Fatal is forced to land his 2 tanks to kill the attacking hydras. During the attack , orange has taken his mineral only. He is now aware of a teching terran, and knows that his best chance is to overwhelm him. He therefore sticks to low tech and hopes his mass expanding will ultimately pay.
Fatal decides this agression will not stand. He loads again his tanks and sends his dropship to the zerg cliff , coming from the right side in order not to be intercepted. About 5 seconds after the dropship arrives on the cliff, Ashes sends 5 hydras patrolling on the right side of the cliff to intercept drops....tough luck , the enemy is already here!
Fatal sieges his tanks and we hear the joyful sound of arclite blasts as shells take out the natural expansion hatchery.
While all this happens, a Lair is finally up at 9 oclock main, and Fatal ( terran) adds up an academy. He also has a vessel ready and is floating a command center to his natural. It seems that Fatal's strategy is to occupy Ashes with his tank drop in order to give himself a breathing time to expand.
Back at the zerg base, the natural expansion has been destroyed. Fatal doesnt spot , however, the mineral only, and loads his tanks and return home, leaveing the mineral only untouched.
Facing this expansion loss, Ashes feels he should expand to the 12 oclock main, and puts up an evolution chamber to start up some upgrades on his hydras armor.
This is where terran technology starts to pay. The tank drop has enabled Fatal to expand, and now he is switching to a mass infantry/ tank combo. He starts upgrades from 2 engineering bays, and sieges 4 tanks at his natural , with a few marines and a vessel. After setting up this defense, he transfers half of his scvs. He then adds up a 3rd barracks.
Fatal now feels he has gathered enough light infantry to start putting pressure on Ashes again. He sends a force of 16 marines, 4 tanks, and 1 medic to start a tank push on the zerg mineral only expansion. However , he chooses to siege only half way on the way, just near a narrow path, so that hydras will get stuck and come down one by one when reacting to provocative tank fire. This micro trick pays well ,and Ashes loses 12 hydras to almost nothing. However, Fatal makes a micro mistake , and sends his marines ahead without his tanks , thinking the way is clear. There were still however some hydras, and 14 marines die.
Ashes then takes the 12 oclock natural expansion and Fatal expands to his 6 oclock mineral only.
Fatal sends 10 more marines to reinforce his tank push, and finnally manages to take out the 9 oclock mineral only. Ashes has chosen to reatreat his hydras instead of losing them to medirine fire, and sends his mining drones to the 12 oclock bases.At this moment, the marines upgrades reach 1/1. Ashes' hydralisks are still 1/0!
Ashes feels the need to expand some more. He grabs the 12 oclock mineral only , but it is quickly spotted by a scouting scv , and a small force of 8 marines is sent to take it out. Ashes had troops at the upper plateau of 12 oclock , but he chose not to send them to defend the 12 oclock mineral only so that Fatal wouldnt suspect his presence at the 12 oclock main and natural expansion.
With his low upgrades and falling expansions, Ashes understands he cannot win the game with pure hydras. He builds an ultralisk den at 12 oclock and starts pumping big beasts =)
Fatal, feeling confident, decides to contine his push on the 9 oclock main base. This is however a failure. As tanks and marines move up the ramp, hidden hydras suddenly burst in and kill the push.Fatal sends some reinforcement, but the higher ground advantage helps Ashes to defend. All marines die to 10 hydras and an ultralisk. Now both upgrades have been reasearched at the ultra den, which makes the ultras 0/3 (3 for armor).
I then notice a big group of ultralisk at the 12 oclock main,about 8 or 10. Ashes doesnt attack yet to keep his bases secret.
Back at 9 oclock , the push is reinforced, and finally ends up as a success for the terrans. Fatal then takes the 3 oclock main, since his natural is starting to become dry.
As the pushing force finishes cleaning up the 9 oclock main with all the technology buildings, Ashes sends 12 ultralisks to the 6 oclock bases, which are only defended by 1 or 2 tanks. A disaster happens! Fatal starts irradiating like mad , but there are just too many ultralisks. The 6 oclock mineral only and natural are totally devastated. More hydralisks are sent to clean up the 6 oclock bases!!! The cruel Ashes also sends 2 hydras to take out the fresh 3 oclock expansion. Now the only hope for Fatal is to withdraw his troops cleaning the 9 main to save his ass!
In the meanwhile , Ashes starts rebuilding an entire base at 12 oclock. He puts up a spawning pool. At 6 oclock , he targets barracks with his 15 hydras and 2 ultras, to make sure Fatal's production stops.
However Fatal doesnt withdraw his troops from 9 to save his main. Only when all the buildings are taken down, does he send his 18 medirines to the 12 oclock bases. He finds the 12 oclock main empty, and manages to raze it entirely before reinforcements arrive. Indeed Ashes has had to withdraw some of his troops from 6 oclock to save at least his 12 oclock natural , the only base he has left , with the 12 oclock mineral only that is barely mining.
At this point Fatal only has 4 vessels left, a cc floating to the bottom right island, and some technology buildings flying to 9 oclock...
All hope seems to be lost, and fatal concedes after playing this great game.
Good game to both players ! Details turned the tide...
This game is aa very interesting sample of a variant to what terrans can do against zergs. Most of terrans go for a conservative 2 rax acad build, with rush if the zerg is going fast lurk, or fast tanks if he expands and sunkens up.
However Fatal chose to tech up to metal. He could have also wraith rush, but he did the best call by tank dropping because Ashes was going hydras.
However the inconvenient with early terran tech against zergs (and thats why i really dont like it ) is that you can be overwhelmed by zergs afterwards. Ashes was the perfect example of a zerg who "slides on" the technological tricks of a teran: he mass expanded, and losing his expansion early on didnt hurt him that much.
Fortunately , Fatal did what a terran can do best after technological pimpage: he switched to marines, and used his tank drop as a breathing time to expand.
During the first part of the game it looked as if his strategy was doing great, but he eventually lost because of lack of scouting and micro mistakes.
The problem is he could have had much more trouble if zerg had gotten a lair faster, and had started making spire+guards, and cracklings.
Hydras were easy to take out because they are quite static, and die well to tanks, but 60 1/1 cracklings lings with 12 mutas is an excellent counter to teching terran. Most of the time they are taken out. My advice (god knows i suck though) about this game is not to tech as a terran. Go instead for safe low tech unit masses so that you can keep the pressure on the zerg better and make sure he doesnt expand.
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