EPTTvP on Xel Naga
I send my initial force to his base and see canon wall off. Dimly my old brain tells me that means one thing: he is massing something. When Protoss turtles and masses something it is usually void rays. Also, he hasn't taken his natural. That is un-natural, but I'm not quite ready to believe he took a Ninja expansion.
Anyway, fast forward to later in the game, I realize he has a ninja expansion he sends a mass of voids there to eat my marines that have just destroyed it. Great. So it definitely is mass voids. Stupidly I waste quite a lot on turrets on my main and natural. Turrets are good against some air. But against mass air, they are hopeless. Stupidly also I try to get a reactor starport going when I should have realized what this means: mass voids --> mass carriers --> mothership (vikings .. no good).
Fast forward further into the game, I'm not expanding aggressively enough given his turtle and he has now got carriers, voids and a mothership. I've got a large ball of +3/+3 marines with shields. I'm holding my own, all things considered.
Fast forward to the final engagement, he counter-attacks after I fail an attack to my natural with mothership, carriers and voids, and I have pretty much rebuilt my marine ball. My marines are streaming in from the north, and his interceptor numbers are dropping fast. There are enough turrets to get vision.
However I'm not confident and have been in this situation before. Suddenly my army is gone and he has zealots hacking away at my structures. I quit out.
But it bugs me, how could I lose so suddenly with +3/+3 marines? I KNOW they do ok against carriers, even upgraded ones. It should have been closer..
I look over the replay, lots of mistakes on my side for sure then see it: 5 seconds before I quit out in disgust he has dropped a vortex which has sucked in 50 (FIFTY!) marines. The vortex is just north of the main engagement, just off my screen. By that stage, he has almost no interceptors left, and his zealot force is pretty low health. I didn't see the vortex, and assumed in the mess of flying crap that all my marines had died.
DOH !!!!!!!
