This battle report will hopefully be helpful to newer players on how to deal with an aggressive terran who is slowly tank pushing his way into your base. Enjoy!

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I was indoors on the computer. I had just lost 3 consecutive 2v2's with random partners and was feeling pretty down because I had played poorly in each game and each loss could be attributed to myself.

I wanted one more game to boost my confidence so I didn't give up Starcraft forever. So I wandered into a "1v1 @ temple" game. I was greeted with a hasty "starting…," so I selected my race (Zerg) and we were off.

My opponent, we shall call him Murray, because it would be quite tedious to type his name over and over again, which consisted of many ASCII characters, chose random. I spawned in at the 9 o'clock position, which is good because I can't stand the 12 and 6 positions. Something about having green grass underfoot is quite soothing.

Not knowing my enemies race, I sent my overlord south and my 6th drone to the 12 o'clock position. Playing it safe, I started a spawning pool with my 9th drone. Shortly afterwards I found Murray (Terran), in the north. Seeing a barracks and a refinery I decided then and there to secure my natural ASAP. It was about this time that a wandering SCV tried to get a glimpse of my base but my watchful zerglings eliminated it before it could report back to the enemy.

My tech to lurkers had begun, and there has yet to be any further contact between Murray and myself. The next time I encountered my opponent was outside my base. He had about 12 marines and three medics outside my base. I wasn't too worried because I had 3 sunkens at my natural along with a host of zerglings and I would have lurkers shortly.

It was then that I noticed a couple SCVs building turrets outside my natural. Being the territorial type that I am, I decided to do something about it and eliminate the threat. I gathered up a host of zerglings and about 4 lurkers and maybe a hydralisk or two and sent it all at the gathering outside my base. The attack would have been more successful had he not just brought 3 tanks to join the party. I destroyed a turret, a tank and a few marines before my last lurker was killed.

Ok, now I was worried. By this time he had brought more reinforcements and had quite a throng of troops knocking at my door. I was only mining gas at my natural at this point, not having enough minerals to spare to build more drones. Only one thing was going to save my ass, guardians. Simultaneously I plopped down a queen's nest and a spire. While I was waiting for these to build, I made a few more lurkers to try and delay Murray's arrival at my main base. I burrowed one at my natural, and two at the top of my ramp.

Things are not looking good. There are about 5 tanks pounding on my staggered sunkens and M&Ms backing them up. It would only be a minute or so until he gets to my main and nearly defenseless, I would be dead. I was a keyboard stroke away from a "gg" and a surrender.

Lucky me…Murray has made a critical mistake. Thinking I was without any defense he unsieged and headed up my ramp directly into the waiting spines of my lurkers. His marines were wiped out and only his medics and tanks remained. Easy fodder for my newly hatched MUTALISKS! It was only a minute or so later that my greater spire completed and my mutas were morphed into 6 guardians. With those, and a handful of zerglings I proceeded to wipe out his camp of 3 tanks and 6 turrets outside my natural.

I took my guardians and newly made mutalisks to the west side of his main base and proceeded to pound the living daylights out of his refinery and miscellaneous marines. It was then that two wraiths showed up but turned and ran when they encountered my mutalisks. I had been researching the speed upgrade for my overlords fearing cloaked wraiths and it was ¾ done when Murray returned with 4 wraiths, but cloaked this time. Fortunately I had a nearby overlord and took shelter under its piercing gaze with my remaining two guardians and 6 mutalisks. I returned to my base to rebuild my fleet and wait for the speed upgrade to complete. I reclaimed my natural expansion and was milking it for all its worth.

When I returned to Murray's base, it was with six guardians almost a full control group of mutalisks and four overlords. My enemy surprised me with perhaps 12 upgraded cloaked wraiths, but my four overlords were too much and my mutalisks eradicated his entire air force before much damage was done.

From this point on it was just a matter of clean up. He had taken his natural of course, and had started on the 3 o'clock main when I arrived with my ever-expanding air force. gg's were exchanged and with that, my confidence was restored :-)

Lesson's learned:

• When contained by terran, delay with lurkers, and get guardians ASAP
• Don't forget the speed upgrade on your overlords
• Bring more than 2 overlords with your air force
• Take screen shots next time you're thinking of doing a battle report

Please comment!!