The two players scout each other out successfully, and by the time both players are firmly established both players know where their respective opponent is. The first major action of the game comes when ThanatoZ orders 2 dragoons south from his main to test CattleBruiser’s wall in. The dragoons are able to open fire on a supply depot in the wall in without getting in range of the marines defending it. As another dragoons is dispatched to assist in the destruction of the supply depot, 3 scvs arrive from the west and begin repairing the depot. While the dragoons deal some damage, it is rendered useless by the repairing power of the scvs. Realizing that his dragoons are doing virtually nothing, ThanatoZ orders his dragoons back. As the dragoons continue their retreat, a tank controlled by CattleBruiser arrives on the scene and fires a single shell, severely damaging a dragoon.

5 more minutes into the game, we see that neither player has expanded. ThanatoZ has just warped in a Templar Archives, and CattleBruiser is constructing a control tower add on to his Starport and is adding missile turrets to his wall in. Unit wise, ThanatoZ has a large strike force of dragoons stationed at CattleBruiser’s closest mineral expansion. Suddenly, ThanatoZ orders 2 dark templar to attack CattleBruiser’s wall in. Unfortunately for ThanatoZ, a missile turret is located there, and the dark templar are forced back by both tanks and a bunker full of marines.

Minutes after, ThanatoZ sends a probe to the mineral+gas expansion to his northwest, the main of a nonexistent player. The probe warps in a nexus as CattleBruiser sends a dropship northeast, encountering ThanatoZ’s attack force of dragoons and dark templar. The dropship is destroyed within seconds, but CattleBruiser now knows that ThanatoZ is preparing an invasion. Realizing that if he attacks, he will have lost the element of surprise, ThanatoZ orders his force of 15 dragoons, 2 high templar and 2 dark templar south to make a frontal assault on CattleBruiser’s wall in. But, CattleBruiser has anticipated this move and has placed 3 tanks in siege mode on the northern part of the mesa, and when the protoss forces begin moving, death rains down on them in the form of article shells. ThanatoZ orders his forces north, but loses 2 dragoons to the tanks.

CattleBruiser is relieved that he has driven the protoss attack force out, and is now safe to build an expansion at his natural. The expansion begins construction, and CattleBruiser places spider mines around his base at separate intervals. The majority of them are at the choke to his natural expansion. Meanwhile, ThanatoZ is warping another expansion at his natural. The majority of his troops are about 2 screens north from CattleBruiser’s natural expansion.

The next major action of the game comes when CattleBruiser loads a dropship with 1 scv, 1 tank, and 3 marines. The dropship sets course for the mesa towering above ThanatoZ’s natural expansion. The scv begins construction of a bunker, and the tank rolls so that it can see the probes and nexus without them seeing him. When the bunker is complete, the tank goes into siege mode, the scv begins construction of a missile turret and a science vessel is sent to watch over the attack force. To make matters worse, CattleBruiser orders another dropship, with another tank to reinforce this incision into ThanatoZ’s territory. ThanatoZ evacuates all his probes, and continues on as if nothing happened. He does not respond immediately since he does not have a Robotics Facility.

CattleBruiser, knowing that while he has been able to expand to his natural, he will lose the game if he allows ThanatoZ to take control of the map, orders 2 dropships, full of vultures out of his base and to the prospective base sites. One finds ThanatoZ’s top-center expansion, and unloads its vultures on top of the nexus. Right behind it is the second dropship, and the vultures begin destroying the probes in the area. The local garrison, stationed there because ThanatoZ is constructing troops with gateways in the expansion, engages the vultures and destroys them successfully. Suddenly, my speakers blare “Nuclear Launch Detected.”

Apparently, CattleBruiser has equipped an expansion’s command center with a nuclear silo, and one of his dropships was carrying a ghost. ThanatoZ guesses where the ghost is, correctly assuming that the ghost didn’t move when it was dropped. Thus a storm kills the ghost before the nuke completes its delivery. To top off this victory, ThanatoZ drops 8 zealots onto the mesa above his natural expansion. The zealots destroy the spearhead that CattleBruiser has held for the last 10 minutes, but before they destroy the last missile turret, 2 wraiths fly in from the south. The wraiths open fire, and kill all the zealots within 20 minutes (big surprise).

CattleBruiser, in response, orders his vultures to place additional spider mines at the choke to his expansion. One vulture strays too far, and encounters ThanatoZ’s attack force in the center of the map, which has increased in size 5 fold. The attack force begins a pursuit of the lone vulture, and encounter the spider mines before they even get in range of the tanks currently in siege mode. The protoss forces suffer about 10% casualties before the terran tanks begin their long-range bombardment. The Protoss forces get to about 10 yards north of the Terran command center before they have to begin their retreat. The casualty count stands with the Protoss forces having 70% casualties and the Terran defensive force has lost maybe 5 tanks and a whole lot of spider mines.

CattleBruiser, in response, orders his wraiths, which have just killed ThanatoZ’s zealots on the mesa, to make a hit and run assault on the Protoss natural expansion. The wraiths destroy 3 probes before fleeing south, back home. The wraiths flee because CattleBruiser’s forces at his expansion’s choke report that what remains of the Protoss army is moving towards the expansion to ward of the wraiths. CattleBruiser uses the time to send vultures to lay spider mines at the protoss staging area, and orders them, when they have finished laying all their mines, north to engage the probes at ThanatoZ’s mineral only expansion.

ThanatoZ dispatches a dragoon to solve the problem, but the vultures are just scouts. Seconds after the dragoon arrives, CattleBruiser orders his entire heavy metal force north to destroy, annihilate, consume, end, obliterate, and wipe ThanatoZ’s base off the face of the Earth, err, I mean Aiur. ThanatoZ dispatches the main part of his ground army from his main, and engages the terran forces. Battle rages, and both sides suffer heavy losses, but when the dust clears we see that CattleBruiser’s attack force has survived the counterpunch, and continues the destruction of ThanatoZ’s mineral only expansion. But ThanatoZ has one more trick up his sleeve.

From the north, CattleBruiser sights a middle-sized army coming from ThanatoZ’s other expansion. The terran forces are already both tired and heavily damaged, but CattleBruiser orders them to hold their ground and engage the enemy. CattleBruiser, in his infinite wisdom, orders malt liquor to be distributed to his invading forces before the counterattack. The reason for this is unknown, but legend has it the CattleBruiser was trying to get his troops drunk. If that was his objective, he might have regretted it later, for when the protoss forces got locked into hand to hand combat with the terran forces, his siege tank’s splash damage cost him the battle.

The protoss forces are successful in driving the Terran mechanized forces away, but not before the nexus at the mineral only expansion is destroyed. Another negative aspect of driving off the Terran forces is that when the Terran forces begin their retreat, the remainder of the protoss garrison followed, right into the jaws of CattleBruiser’s home army, destroying what was left of the protoss defense. At this point in the game both sides have sustained substantial losses. CattleBruiser has lost almost 90% of his armed forces, while ThanatoZ has lost both his mineral only expansion and almost every combat unit he has. But not all is lost, for protoss warriors do not fear death, and for a Terran commander, virtually everything is expendable. In other words, both sides nurse their wounds for 5 minutes, replacing all those that had been lost, and resume the action.

About 3 minutes after his mechanized fiasco, CattleBruiser orders 5 vultures to move around the map and lay spider mines at the chokes to ThanatoZ’s bases. The vultures perform their missions successfully, but about 2 minutes after the vultures return to base, about 18 zealots and 6 dragoons, recently recruited by ThanatoZ, are ordered south in another offensive on CattleBruiser’s base. With the assistance of an observer, the protoss forces seem unstoppable, only being dealt some damage by spider mines. However, because of the spider mines, CattleBruiser has advanced warning of the rapidly approaching invasion. By the time the attack force is on the outskirts of CattleBruiser’s natural expansion, he has gathered a large force of recently constructed tanks.

Luckily for CattleBruiser, ThanatoZ has not upgraded his observer’s speed yet. Thus, the protoss forces are moving very much ahead of their observers. So, when the protoss forces reach the outskirts of the Terran natural, the mines catch them off guard, and inflict a couple of casualties, and heavily damage others. The tanks heavily outnumber the protoss forces when the two opponents engage in battle once more. With the remaining protoss forces already heavily damaged from the spider mines, the tanks easily dispatch the sons of Aiur. Tanks also kill late reinforcements sent to the site earlier by ThanatoZ. ThanatoZ begins gathering zealots and dragoons in the center of the map again, preparing for a frontal assault that he hopes will end the game once and for all.

At this point in the game, CattleBruiser is pretty much on the defensive. While he has inflicted many more casualties on ThanatoZ than vice versa, ThanatoZ has many more expansions than CattleBruiser. ThanatoZ, with 4 active expansions, has lost huge numbers of troops already. But, he has the resources to pump them about 2 times faster than CattleBruiser. CattleBruiser, in an attempt to fill his empty resource coffers, sends a drop ship loaded with 4 scvs east, to start an expansion.

Suddenly, we hear the dreaded “Nuclear Launch Detected” message, and ThanatoZ rushes around the map trying to find the disturbance. We find it at ThanatoZ’s western most expansion, at the natural of the remaining player base site. ThanatoZ does not have any observers, and must passively watch his expansion crumble to a single nuke. ThanatoZ, angered by this nuke, orders the army he has assembled in the center of the map south, to crush this Terran menace once and for all. The moment the protoss forces get in range of the siege tanks, chaos breaks out. The article shells punch holes in the dragoon armor, and take off the heads of zealots. 30 seconds after the opening shots, it’s over, and not a single protoss unit is left in the area.

CattleBruiser, wanting revenge for the few units he lost in the recent offensive, launches another nuke on ThanatoZ’s westernmost expansion, intending to finish it off. With the majority of his forces killed anyway, ThanatoZ has no way to respond to this nuke. All he does is evacuate his probes in the area, and the nuke falls with no opposition and destroys his expansion.

CattleBruiser, believing that he now has the initiative, orders an all or nothing invasion of ThanatoZ’s northern most expansion. The preliminary steps for the invasion come in the form of vultures laying spider mines. The vultures draw minimal fire from the photon cannons located on the top of the ramp alerting ThanatoZ to CattleBruiser’s actions. The mechanized terran force now has a screen from which they can attack. The terran tanks convert to siege mode, and ThanatoZ sees the entirety of the invasion that is at his back doorstep. The Protoss commander orders his army from his main to deflect and destroy this invasion.

Unfortunately for CattleBruiser, he wasn’t anticipating an attack from the south. He has placed very few mines there, and the few troops he has placed there are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the attack force. Before launching his counter attack on the main portion of the terran invasion, ThanatoZ casts several storms on them, destroying the majority of the mines in the area. The protoss forces then move in, and destroy the Terran invasion, but with heavy casualties.

ThanatoZ, correctly assuming that CattleBruiser has expended almost everything he has on the recent invasion, orders a couple of dragoons south to scout the Terran encampment. The 4 dragoons are killed, but are successful in destroying a couple of tanks. The scouting mission shows that CattleBruiser’s defenses have been strips to its bare bones to give troops to the Terran offensives. ThanatoZ thus orders 12 scouts from his main to destroy any resistance to ground troops. The Protoss army moves south to destroy the Terran encampment. With his forces destroyed, and his only expansion running dry, CattleBruiser gives a hearty gg and surrenders.

What should of, would of, or could of happened

CattleBruiser smiled as the spider mines he had stationed to the south of his mechanized invasion detonated. His invasion of ThanatoZ’s northern most expansion was going smoothly. While he had considered placing his spider mines to the north of his forces, he had realized that the majority of all of ThanatoZ’s forces had come from the protoss main, therefore he decided to place the mines to the south. His efforts had been rewarded, with the mines inflicting heavy casualties on the protoss forces. Article siege tank shells instantly leveled those that did get through.

In a desperate attempt, ThanatoZ ordered the garrison stationed at his expansion in a desperate assault on the Terran invasion force. The counter attack was easily dispatched, and CattleBruiser decided to split his force in two, 1 would destroy the expansion, the other would attack ThanatoZ’s main, and win the game once and for all.

As the expansion was leveled CattleBruiser’s forces en route to the protoss main met last minute resistance in the form of zealots, many of which had been recruited within the last 30 seconds. These were killed easily by the siege tanks, and the mechanized force rushed through ThanatoZ’s natural expansion. Probes were exploding left and right, but zealots rushed down the ramp in a desperate attempt to beat this invasion back. But CattleBruiser was confident he was going to win. However, 4 units from the north changed his confidence to dread when 3 high templar entered the scene. The templar cast psi-storms, and these destroyed a couple of tanks, and heavily damaged those that were left. But CattleBruiser plowed on.

Realizing that his forces were inevitably going to lose, ThanatoZ gave a hearty gg, and tried to salvage the situation. Probes charged at the tanks, only to become scrap metal seconds later. ThanatoZ’s last hope was gone, and he left the game.

This report is now complete, please vote in the poll below, and put comments in the comments section. This was a very interesting game, and I congratulate the players for their excellent play. Farewell dear readers.