"Apex-X is trying once again to prove that his balls are bigger than his brain, and starts teching to arbiters."
Bob_The_Newt
|
| Just when you thought it was safe: Mark4 versus Pitt | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/09/99 08:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Dev: 7.8723 |  | They say that animals are at their most dangerous when cornered. I say that Army guys with .357s on their desks because they just watched "The Blair Witch Project" are no exception.
The Map: Fading Realm, now with observer support! Please send cash, check, or money order to...
The Players:
Mark4: Randomed to Orange Protoss, Lower Right
Pitt: Randomed to Brown Terran, Upper Left
Part I: The Reckoning
Mark4's opening build started with a pylon, a gateway, a pylon, an assimilator, and a forge. He send a fast scouting probe for a look-see in Pitt's base.
Pitt began with a supply depot, two barracks, a refinery, and an academy.
Seeing this, Mark's probe high-tailed it to the top of the ramp leading down into Pitt's base and set up cannon containment. A pylon was warped in and a zealot from Mark4's main was dispatched to protect the investment.
A curious SCV from Pitt sauntered up the ramp just as Mark began warping his first cannon.
Pitt: Oh boy.
The SCV tried to attack the probe. Two marines arrived on the scene to aid the SCV, but the whole scene became a bizzare game of 'Duck, Duck, Goose' as the probe ran in circles around the pylon and the warping cannon.
The Marines and SCV decide 'the heck with it' and open fire on the first warping cannon. The kids successfully prevent the cannon from warping, but then Daddy comes home in the form of an angry Protoss zealot. The zealot spanks one marine and sends the other back to Pitt's base without dinner, and the cannon containment is complete.
With a comment about wasted money, Pitt resumes business as usual at his main base, constructing a comsat station, factory, starport, and a bunker to cover his command center and SCVs.
Mark proceeds up the Templar tech tree with a cybernetics core, a second gateway, a citadel of adun, and a templar archive.
A Zealot is sent in to scout, then sent right back out as spitwads and bullets spatter across its back. Mark reinforces his cannons with a second zealot and begins an expansion in the upper right corner, protected by his cannon container. Mark puts up two additional gateways to establish troop production at this expansion.
Pitt makes his move. Five marines, a firebat, and two medics are sucked into a brown dropship and whisked across the map to Mark's main. The infantry unloads next to a lonely dragoon and proceeds to blast the defender to kingdom come. Stimming continuously and taking advantage of his medics, Pitt smashes Mark's templar archive and carves right through a warping photon cannon.
A hastily summoned dark templar spends a pair of slashes to take out Pitt's firebat, but a comsat and an overdose of stimpack sends the dark templar to the citadel of adun in the sky. Pitt rips through nearly all of Mark's probes, burns down the nexus, and begins dismantling Mark's base while brushing aside scattered resistance.
Mark has successfully ran a line of probes away to his expansion and begins to recover his economy there. He lays down a cybernetics core and a third gateway while rallying newly built troops from his main.
Pitt increases the pressure on Mark, delivering another load of medics and marines via dropship to support his dwindling attack. Now reinforced, the marines renew their drive and the remainder of Mark's main crumbles to dust.
At this point, Pitt has over 1500 minerals in the bank and clearly expects Mark to surrender. He requested that I note that in the report; consider it duly noted.
Mark tries to divert Pitt's attention with an attack of two zealots, three dragoons, and two dark templar on Pitt's main base. They meet with a walled-off siege tank and bunker, along with scattered infantry units and a science vessel. Mark micros his dragoons and swings north, avoiding the bunker and destroying the lone siege tank. The zealots suicide against the bunker and the dark templars are revealed and destroyed after halving Pitt's marines (get it? heh heh. Halving like in number, and cutting them in- ah, never mind).
Pitt is forced to rally his SCV's to beat back the dragoons with fusion cutters. He loses quite a few, and his production is stalled, but that's okay, because Mark's dead, right?
Mark4: Sigh. Just kill my cannons now.
Pitt floats a command center to the 9:00 expansion slot, but doesn't pay it much heed. After all, he's already won the game.
Pitt takes his remaining marines from his main and generates a defensive matrix around one of them. That marine moves forward, absorbing blasts from Mark's containment cannons, while his fellows move forward to burn the cannons down.
It doesn't work as advertised; Pitt loses all but one marine and two medics. He starts to pull his drop forces from Mark's main back home, but that's okay, because Mark's dead, right?
Right?
Part II: The Return of Mark4
Apparently no one told Mark this. Four dragoons and three zealots storm down the ramp into Pitt's main base. The bare defenses of marines straggling out of Pitt's four barracks take up positions to fight off the menace, supported by medics. Pitt generates defensive matrixes around two marines and uses stimpack judiciously; Mark allows his zealots to take the hits while he manually targets his dragoons on the medics.
Mark sends two dragoons from his new base to reinforce, but they run into Pitt's old drop assault force en-route. Mark wisely pulls his dragoons back into range of the lone photon cannon at his expansion and cranks out more dragoon troops.
Using good micromanagement, Mark manages to avoid Pitt's evil matrixed marines until the field begins to fade. Combined with reinforcements from home, Mark pushes forward yet again through sporadic marine and tank resistance. This time, Mark has the upper hand, with dragoons cranking from three gates and an economy bolstered by an expansion at the 3:00 location. Reinforcements arrive in groups of three and soon a huge force of dragoons is pounding down the front door of Pitt's base. Structures disappear in flames as the last of the resistance is pacified.
Amid a stream of curses, Pitt hurls all of his SCVs at Mark's dragoon army and lifts off his barracks and factory to float down to his forgotten command center expansion at 9:00. Mark's army pops each SCV with a cute noise and a flash of fire, and soon Mark is looking for dinner elsewhere.
A lone dragoon spots Pitt's last hope for victory. Four marines dispatch the dragoon, but too little, too late. Pitt desperately tries to set up an offensive bunker behind the assimilator at Mark's 3:00 expansion, but the marine group runs headlong into Mark's Army of Darkness (groovy). The last of Pitt's buildings are blown away or shot from the skies and the talking of the trash ensues.
Lessons Learned:
- There's something about breathing room and mercy that inspires hostility in ex-Army guys that just got their main base smacked down with a precision drop.
- Cannon containment did Mark little besides leave his main base undefended for Pitt to crush. Pitt's only mistake of the game was the one you're never supposed to make.
- Don't tease the octopus, Kids.
Cheers,
Dev | | Battle Shots! | 
Mark gets an air-delivered package from hell. Pitt knew his priorities, and took out Mark's Templar Archive before more than one DT could be spat out to defend.
SCV: "Ah, this might not work." Pitt: "Shut up and charge!"
|
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
