Hey, if I could write poetry why would I spend my time entertaining you people? Anyway, let's get on with the show. Since this report has alot more pics than usual I will have a longer intro than usual.

The date is November 26, 2000, it an incredibly rainy day outside in New York State. Flashes of lightning and the rumbles of thunder are heard in the bedroom of {ahc}overmind. Another flash, then seconds later the rumble of thunder goes straight through the glass windows of {ahc}overmind's bedroom. He responds by rolling a bit to his right, falling off his bed and hitting the floor. His eyes flash open, with the pain in his side beginning to start. The rain begins to pour in sheets onto his window, and {ahc}overmind slowly gets up and crawls sluggishly towards his window.

{ahc}overmind (now known as I) turns his computer on, and rubs his side as the pain increases. I glance at my clock, seeing that it is 6:30 AM. The computer's screen begins to light up the room, and I twiddle my thumbs, listening to the rain outside. Windows loads up, and I enter battle net with a fury of clicks and tapping on the keyboard. As battle net loads, I minimize starcraft, surf br.com and look at the new brs that are currently online.

As he finishes glancing at the new battle reports, I enter channel clan ~nohunters. As usual, all the people in there are bots or afk. I stare at the screen for 10 minutes, waiting for someone to enter the chat room. Suddenly, SCV~007 enters, and we chat for many minutes in vain waiting for people to enter the chat room. Then Dialtone_ and (DH)Aldareas enter the chat room. We set up a game where Dialtone_ and SCV~007 will play 1 on 1 while Aldareas and I observe.

Aldareas switches from the observing force to the playing force at the last second, thus, Dialtone_ and SCV~007 in a fury at him for disrupting their game ally and kill Aldareas no problem. The 2 decide to play again, this time with the only player other than them being me. The game starts, with the name of the game named wtf56, and the password being 56. The map is little known, by the name of Ramparts, and the two decide to select their races instead of letting fate choose.
While here in New York, it is almost 6:40 AM, in the European theatre it is about 2. That is the time for the opponents, for Dialtone_ lives in Greece while SCV~007 lives in Sweden. SCV~007 chooses the flexible terrans for his race while Dialtone selects the noble and technologically powerful protoss.

The battle begins with the layout of the map being revealed to me. The map is designed for at most 4 players, and is incredibly hard to describe. Let's just say that the players are right next to each other, with a bridge being the passage in between each opponent's territory. Each player has a natural expansion, and another 5 potential bases to the south. SCV~007's color is orange, and his terran command center is located on the right part of the map. Dialtone_'s color is white, and his huge nexus is found on the left part of the map, about half a mile to the west of SCV~007's base.

The two player's build orders are nothing unexpected. SCV~007 starts with a supply depot, a barracks and a refinery. Dialtone_ begins with a pylon, a gateway, then an assimilator. The players are not expecting any kind of rush, and thus the 2 adversaries take it easy, sending out scouts relatively early. Dialtone_ sends his probe out while SCV~007 completes his barracks. The lone probe arrives within sight of the terran encampment that is stationed at the Terran player's choke. The probe meets no resistance, and zooms right past the barracks and supply depot, and takes shelter on a small isolated spot on the extreme right part of SCV~007's plateau.

It does not occur to me that both players know the layout of this map until the 2 players begin to send scouts out. The scouts go for the possible base sites of their opponents directly, and without hesitation. SCV~007 sends his first scout out, a scv, it sets a course for the possible base sites to the south that are not currently inhabited by anyone. At the same time, Dialtone_ constructs his first unit, a zealot, and the little protoss gladiator goes to the bridge that divides his territory and SCV's.

At the very same time that the zealot stops walking, SCV~007 begins construction of two factories, while Dialtone_ orders one of his probes to warp in a cybernetics core. The two sides pass the time by building more buildings and units. By the time more action comes, which is about 2 minutes later, nothing at all has changed except Dialtone_ has warped in another pylon, a citadel of adun, and has constructed a dragoon, while SCV~007 has built 2 marines, a vulture and a supply depot.

The vulture bravely ventures out towards the bridge midway between his master's territory and Dialtone_'s territory. The vulture flies (they hover) over the bridge and engages the dragoon and zealot now protecting the small pass. The vulture retreats, and the battle abruptly stops. Within minutes, Dialtone_ begins to warp in a templar archives and another gateway while SCV~007 has his two completed factories build machine shops.

A couple of minutes pass, with the scv sent by SCV (sounds strange, doesn't it) to scout finally encounters Dialtone_'s base. The scv is killed, and the game continues with Dialtone_ warping in a base at his natural expansion. SCV sends another scv (got to stop doing this) to scout out Dialtone_'s base. The scv goes around the bend, avoiding the bridge between the two players, and encounters the base being warped in by Dialtone_. The scv gets a good look around before being cut down by phase disrupters let loose by two dragoons protecting the new base. Both sides are in a state of heightened awareness about how far their opponent is up the tech tree.

As the two gateways controlled by Dialtone_ pumps out 2 dark templar, he also orders the construction of a pylon and a forge. To the east, SCV~007 begins to build an engineering bay. The two players continue to reinforce their growing armies, while at the same time never taking their eyes off the bridge that divides their two territories. On the eastern side, SCV~007 lays spider mines and sieges his tanks. To the west, Dialtone_ builds more troops, focusing mainly on dragoons and dark templars.

Time passes with a sense of danger in the air for both sides as SCV~007 constructs a command center in his natural expansion. On the other side of the map, Dialtone_ builds a robotic facility and reinforces the defenses near his expansion with 2 photon cannons. The two sides have various armies not composed of more than 3 different types of units. SCV~007 has an army of vultures and siege tanks. Dialtone_ has an army composed of dark templar, dragoons, and zealots.

Soon, the majority of SCV~007's forces detach from the main army stationed near the bridge, and escort a scv south to establish another expansion. The same thing is done with Dialtone_ and the two continue to stare at each other from not one bridge, but two. SCV~007 begins to construct Starports in his main base as Dialtone_ sends observers around the entire map, successfully finding all of SCV's expansions.

The minutes continue to progress, and SCV builds a small squadron of wraiths and escorts them with a science vessel. Meanwhile, Dialtone_ is preparing some kind of drop at his base, consisting of 8 zealots and 2 shuttles. As 3 siege tanks move down to SCV's expansion to reinforce the standing army there, the two shuttles begin to power their thrusters and proceed towards the Terran base. The resource line's defense is under average, and consists of a missile turret and 3 siege tanks in siege mode. The shuttles come in and are hit by a constant stream from the missile turret. However, both of the shuttles successfully drop their deadly cargo before one is shot down.

The zealots easily crush the three tanks in the area, and begin to attack the buildings to the south of SCV~007's base before a response mounted by the terran army begins. The entire army that protects SCV~007's southern expansion begins to move north, along with the terran wraith squadron. The wraiths obviously arrive first, but their lasers do virtually nothing again the zealots. After another couple of seconds, the terran ground army arrives and easily dispatches the zealots. The wraith squadron and the southern army return to their posts as the debris of what were once buildings begin to settle.

As the shock of his drop failing begins to subside, Dialtone_ sees through the gloom and an idea pops into his head. Now that his observers stationed in SCV~007's expansion report that the southern army has returned to its posts, does that mean that the forces that were stationed across the bridge were incapable of dealing with the 8 zealots? In order to see what his response would be like, Dialtone_ sends a dragoon and an observer to try and kill some of the spider mines that have been deployed by SCV~007.

The truth is, SCV~007 has a small army of infantry to the east, but the troops don't respond to the attack, so Dialtone_ assumes that he has caught SCV~007 napping with no troops defending his natural expansion and his main. Dialtone_ orders his army of 5 zealots to make a probing assault on the expansion. Spider mines deployed around the expansion thin the zealot's numbers, but the zealots finally are able to attack the scvs. As the innocent little scvs are blown up, SCV~007 (god, too many scvs in this world) sends his wraith squadron to try and stop the zealots.

By the time that the wraith squadron arrives, the zealots have killed most of the scvs, but they have their numbers reduced to 2 because of spider mines. The two zealots fall to the meager attack power of 8 dealt by the wraith squadron. At this time, both sides have sizable armies, but if all of their forces were thrown against each other, SCV~007 would win. Now, the reason why SCV~007 didn't send his southern defense army up because he was about to change this defense army into an attack army. The army of 6 siege tanks and 5 vultures have stationed themselves 10 yards away from the ramp that leads to Dialtone_'s southern expansion.

The defenses around Dialtone_'s expansion are incredibly, how should I say it, well crude. They consist of; 2 photon cannons, 4 dragoons, and 2 zealots. As the tanks advance within range of the 2 photon cannons located on the ramp, they siege and wipe one of them out with one volley. The small protoss army makes a suicidal plunge into the siege tanks, but SCV~007 orders 3 of his sieges to unsiege and retreat. As expected, the defense army follows, and is slaughtered by another volley of shells let loose by the tanks.

As his small defense army is slaughtered, Dialtone_ orders the majority of his army, 9 dragoons, to move south and help the expansion from falling to the terran army. The siege tanks to the south destroy the photon cannons, and before proceeding, 3 of the 4 are d-matrixed. The majority of the terran tanks and vultures move up the ramp and begin to lay waste to the expansion. However, because of his forces clogging up the ramp, 1 of his siege tanks stays behind. It is this lone siege tank that first encounters the protoss army.

Even though the tank is d-matrixed, it is heavily damaged, and is easily destroyed. However, because of this tank, the siege tanks and vultures that are attacking the actual expansion move to a cliff overlooking the dragoon army and morph to siege mode. As the lone siege tank on the ground below bursts into flame, the first volley of shells falls upon the unsuspecting dragoons. One dies as the dragoons turn tail and head back to their regular base. But the retreat is FAKE! The dragoons return to the cliff and begin firing their little blue balls at the siege tanks. The dragoons unfortunately given the confines of the space they have to fight in have to come in two waves. The first wave is slaughtered without mercy while the second wave begin to hobble in and prepare to fire at the siege tanks that will surely win this skirmish.

To the north though, things happen that are bad and good for Dialtone_ at the same time. While it's good because his dragoons will be spared instead of sacrificing themselves to attempt to win a losing battle, it means that his main base is threatened with destruction. SCV~007, taking the advantage of the situation where the majority of Dialtone_'s dragoons are not even near their base, orders his wraith squadron to make an assault on the protoss peon line. 3 dragoons in the area move to engage the wraiths, but the wraiths move to engage them at their sanctuary near the gateways that gave them life.

Suddenly, the wraiths disappear from the dragoon's vision, and they are slaughtered without seeing who their attackers were. The cloaked wraiths roam around shooting at stuff until a high templar comes out of the gateway. The high templar psi storms the wraiths, causing a couple of losses, but the wraiths easily kill the little templar, and continue shooting their little lasers. After killing all of the probes in the enemy's main, the wraiths move south to the enemy expansion. Here, the dragoons that were sent to defend the expansion have finally returned, and an observer is also stationed here. The dragoons open fire on the wraiths. The majority of the squadron is defeated, and by the time that SCV~007 comsats the area, and sees the observer, his wraith squadron is reduced to two.

SCV~007 finally has time to look at his other offensive to the south. You may not believe it, but the nexus and assimilator is still there, and after many a shell, the nexus falls completely. SCV~007 orders his forces to rally and sends another wraith squadron and a couple more ground troops to protect this expansion. Within minutes, the wraith squadron moves north, cloaks, and engages the dragoons and corsairs stationed there. But what's this? The wraiths are attacked, and the Comsat thing wriggles around the screen. The observer in the area quickly falls to Gemini missiles, and the protoss dragoons stop firing. The wraiths wander around a bit, and encounter a photon cannon, the wraiths in a panic retreat to the east.

Dialtone_ weighs the odds on whether he should or should not attack. While the time in between the attacks that will be made by SCV~007 may give him a breather to build more defenses, should he try and attack? Considering the option again, the protoss player orders his forces to make an assault on the terran expansion directly to his east. The attack force consists of 21 zealots and 3 corsairs. The zealots charge head on into the terran defenses that consist of 3 tanks really close to the bridge, and a bunch of infantry to the south.

The battle begins with a burst of shells hitting the zealots, with one dying. The corsairs fly ahead of the attacking force and casts disruption web onto 3 of the tanks in siege mode. However, the web keeps zealots from even hitting the tanks when they get in range. Thus, as the 4 tanks to the south that were not webbed continue to fire at the zealots now caught in the web cast by their own brethren. The zealots finally snap out of it, and move south to engage the 4 tanks, which have been reinforced with another tank, 6 marines, and two ghosts. The marines open fire on the approaching zealots, and successfully delay them for 4-6 seconds before the zealots can attack the siege tanks, 2 of which have had disruption web cast upon them.

This time also gives SCV~007 lastingness to get his wraith squadron from the southeast to engage the zealots. The wraiths cloak right before getting in range. While 3 corsairs are escorting the zealots, a total of 10 wraiths are attacking, overwhelming the corsairs that have 3 observers to the north, and opening fire on the zealots. As the last corsair is destroyed, the majority of infantry in the area have been killed, along with the scvs mining the resources in the region. SCV~007 comsats the area, and sees the 3 observers, killing them before moving on. In an effort to try and cause as much damage as possible in what he knows is a failed attack, Dialtone_ sends another force of zealots to destroy what's left of the buildings in the expansion. These include a supply depot, a command center, and a barracks.

The zealots arrive and attempt to kill the remaining tanks and buildings. The zealots are still attacked by the cloaked wraiths, and only cause significant damage to the mining operation in the area. However, about 20 seconds before the last zealot in the sector is killed, one by one, the wraiths begin to uncloak. Realizing that he has another opportunity to beat SCV~007, Dialtone_ orders his reserve force of dragoons up to the front. However, as another wave of dragoons leave the gateways, Dialtone_ orders his troops to halt and wait for these new recruits. The army then continues to cross the bridge to SCV's scvless (this is bad) expansion. By now, the zealot army has been completely annihilated and the wraith air fleet is taking a breather on the southern part of the expansion.

The dragoons get across the bridge undetected, but a lone marine left from the carnage sees the coming dragoons, and retreats, yelling to the wraiths that enemies are coming. The wraiths, with their energy stores depleted, are forced to attack the dragoons without their vital cloak. The dragoons, realizing that the majority of their numbers have still not completely crossed the bridge, retreat back towards the cover of a photon cannon. With this move, the dragoons have the advantage of engaging the enemy with all of their forces and knowing that if the wraiths cloak, the photon cannon will detect them. Indeed, that's what saves the attack, which has turned into a defense. After the wraiths kill 3 dragoons on the bridge, they cloak and attack the enemy dragoons head on.

At this time, SCV~007 orders an unaccompanied ghost to try and lockdown some of the dragoons to lengthen the survival time of his wraiths. Alas, SCV does not look at the energy the ghost has, and only performs one lockdown. But this does not stop the slaughter. When his wraith squadron is down to 2, the fighter planes retreat, vowing to avenge his fallen pilots. Indeed, a couple of seconds after the wraith squadron is defeated, SCV orders a new invasion force made up of wraiths from the south towards his expansion, ready to deal with the attack he knows will come. It should be noted that at this time Dialtone_'s two bases, his main and his expansion are mined out. Dialtone_ reinforces his dragoons force with more troops, bringing the army to a number of 9 dragoons, 5 zealots, 2 observers and a corsair.

As the wraiths continue to fly at deadly speeds to reinforce the weakened defenses found that the terran expansion, Dialtone_ orders his invasion forces to attack the demoralized base. The dragoons begin the advance with the two observers in the front line. But, suddenly a funny sound and 2 missiles fly from the other end of the bridge, and 2 dragoons are locked down. But these ghosts haven't finished yet, the 2 at the bridge lock down another 3 before starting to attack the immobile dragoons. While the locked down dragoons are blocking the way for more protoss units to cross, that doesn't stop them from firing. A dragoon directly in back of the front 3 dragoons locked in a stasis field opens fire, killing a marine that was with the ghosts.

By now, the alarm has been rung, and the expansion now knows that they are under attack. The wraith squadron decides to attack the dragoons as they are stuck at the bridge. All 9 wraiths cloak simultaneously and open fire on the dragoons. But, not all of the dragoons are in the front line. Even though there are 4 dragoons that have not been locked down, 3 of them stay a bit out of range of the wraiths. Only one dragoon is capable of firing at the wraiths, and he is killed trying to maintain his valiant defense. Dialtone_ orders his corsair to single-handedly kill all the wraiths that have killed another dragoon. The corsair is pummeled, and falls to the ground in a fury of missiles. But, the corsair has done something useful, casting a disruption web on the other side of the bridge, keeping the ghosts stationed there temporarily at bay.

Now realizing that he has 3 fully operational dragoons only a couple of yards from the front line, Dialtone_ orders them to engage the 4 ghosts and 9 wraiths currently in range. With 4 disabled dragoons in between them, the two forces battle it out. Dialtone_ orders another corsair that he has in his base to attack the wraiths. The corsair successfully kills 2 wraiths, and the dragoons kill 4, also killing a ghost. The terran forces have killed one dragoon and the corsair. But, the ghosts now have enough energy to begin enacting lock down on the dragoons. Right as the first lock down missile is launched, another dragoon is killed, bringing the troop count of active dragoons down to 1. Unfortunately for Dialtone_, his remaining dragoon is immediately locked down; thus his army is virtually helpless except for 5 zealots a couple of yards to the southwest.

These zealots immediately begin to march to the bridge as the ghosts and wraiths shoot at the powerless dragoons. When the zealots are about half way there, one of the dragoons loses its lock down and begins firing at the wraiths. The dragoon moves south across the bridge and returns to be in range of his photon cannon. The other 3 dragoons are killed. Finally, the zealots come and kill the ghost and 4 marines. They continue across the bridge and engage the 5 marines and 3 ghosts stationed there. The 5 zealots are all killed in the attack, bringing 4 marines with them to the underworld.

SCV~007 orders other infantry found in his expansion along with the infantry stationed at the bridge to cross the narrow, dangerous pass. The 7 marines and three ghosts open fire on the photon cannon, and 2 dragoons (one of which is locked down) on the other side of the bridge. In the opening fire, the damaged dragoon that is still locked down is killed instantly, while after 2 or 3 volleys, 3 marines are killed. Now, it looks like the battle of the bridge is almost over, when suddenly we see a bunch of probes come onto the screen. This reminds me of a historical reference, so if you don't like history, skip the next paragraph. However, since this paragraph will leave you a bit lost, I suggest once you finish reading the below paragraph that you read the paragraph that you are reading now again.

The year is 1862; the American Civil War has been going on for a year. The Confederate army led by Robert E. Lee has beaten the northern army at every turn. He decides to invade the north and meets the northern army at a creek town known as Anteitamn. The southern army is on the left side of the creek while the northern is on the right side. The northern army hammers mercilessly at the southern army, hitting them at 2 points. The first point, to the north is in a giant wheat field, where the infantry fire hot lead at each other for an eternity. The southern army looks like the victor, but the northern army rolls in artillery, and blasts them into oblivion. Hour later, to the south, southern forces are stationed in a sunken lane, and are attacked by huge numbers of northern troops. But with the protection of the indentation, the southern forces win the day. Now, the last action of the day is on a bridge on the southern part of the battlefield. The northern forces rage across the bridge, suffering heavy casualties, and almost beat the southern forces, but reinforcements arrive just in time to save them. These forces were incredibly tired from a heavy march, and were gathering supplies. Now, for all you history buffs, I know that I had a couple of historical errors, but this is all I remember off of my head.

I recommend that you reread the paragraph that came before the historical inference. The probes rush to the bridge, and activate their particle beams, and in conjunction with 3 zealots, drive back the terran attack force. As the last marine is killed, SCV~007 orders his wraith squadron up, and begins opening fire on the probes and zealots. But, there is one dragoon that was escorting the zealots and probes. The dragoon is killed, and the wraiths, distracted by the annoying photon cannon begin attacking the protoss defense forces stationed on the bridge.

As the probes and zealots cross the bridge into SCV~007's territory, the wraiths kill a dragoon and the photon cannon. There is one more dragoon to the north, and the wraiths rush to hit it. Meanwhile, in SCV~007's expansion, the probes and zealots attack a barracks that is currently under construction. Other zealots spread out throughout the base, trying to kill as many enemies as possible. By now, the wraiths to the north have killed the lone dragoon easily, and are now flying back to their own territory to try and fight off the invasion. The zealots and probes, having no air support, are easily crushed.

Before the invasion force is defeated completely, Dialtone_ orders up an army of zealots, but when realizing that his attack has failed, he orders them to retreat. This attack has again failed, with the battle over. Both sides now are preparing for the next battle. However, Dialtone_ has no resources. His expansion and main are mined out, and his southern expansion was taken from him a long time ago. With most, if not all of his resources depleted in his offensives, Dialtone_ can only watch and see whether or not SCV~007 will attack him. There are only 2 resource nodes left unmined, and these are easily within striking distance of SCV~007's forces.

He knows that, and when his last offensive failed, he surrenders with honor, knowing that SCV~007 will finish him off any time. Then, Dialtone_ accuses SCV~007 of hacking. SCV~007 then spits back with accusations of Dialtone_ hacking. Though the game is clearly over, both sides start a new war of words.

At this time, SCV~007 is preparing a force of marines and siege tanks. In preparation for his assault, SCV~007 orders his squadron of wraiths into the heart of Dialtone_'s main. Seconds after that, tanks cross bridge, and begin to siege. 2 marines accidentally continue to move forward, getting mowed down by a photon cannon. The siege tanks continue their transformation, and with a single burst level the photon cannon and heavily damage the buildings in the area. Marines move forward to finish the job with their rifles.

Now, after a huge amount of time watching these players in the ravages of war, SCV~007 asks me if I'm writing a battle report about this. SCV~007 cries for joy, and speeds up his offensive. Dialtone_ threatens to break the comments section if I do br the game, but the game continues with Dialtone_ surrendering as his nexus begins to be hit by shells and lasers, with accusations of hacking still on the screen.

The ending mini map

The stats