BW is for Newbs Pt 3

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 27 2013 00:23 GMT

Well folks. It's the Final Countdown. The Last Hurrah. The Ending Chapter of the Great Throwdown of Three Alliances and Seven Players.

If you have not read the First Part, here it is: BW is for Newbs Pt 1
And the Second Part: BW is for Newbs Pt 2

If you just need a refresher on who's who:
Here are the Players:
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Lord Bryon- My brother and fellow house mate. Doesn't enjoy 1v1's, but has always enjoyed team alliances in both BW and SC2. He macros fairly well for his speed and understand the need to not let me macro quietly in the corner and often pushes his allies to help attack.

Jdog- Also my brother. He is very new to the game. I think he's played at most four times, but I have become very efficient in teaching BW and he can macro very well. He uses both army hotkeys and hotkeys to jump to nexus' and gateway. New tactics throw him off and he is fairly passive in attacking.

Mike- Friend from university and former housemate who now lives in a nearby city. He is also new to the game, perhaps playing six games. He can macro quite well although this game he was short on gas. Admits he doesn't know when or what to attack.

eScapegoat- My cousin and my biggest threat. I recruited him to SC2 and he went on to ladder up to Diamond before switching to LoL. Of everyone else, he has the best game sense and has the best macro and tactics. He, LordB and I have played tons of RTS's going back to C&C, Age of Empires/ Mythology and before that turn-based strategy games such as Civilization, Imperial Conquest 2, and Space Empires 2.

DJB- friend from college and uni and former housemate for four years. He introduced me to BW back in 2007, but relies heavily on micro and sneak attacks rather than macro.

zac- DJB's young brother-in-law. Zac is still in school (large family) and has only just started playing SC, but is very excited about the strategy involved.

Passafist- yours truly. The only one that ladders in BW. In LAN games, I usually play with serious handicaps (Terran no tank) or play on my own team and off-race to balance out my skill. Whatever team I am on, I tend to win and so I have become the biggest target to attack. (The exception is my 1v1v1 games with eScapegoat and LordB. I have lost when they gang up on me, but if they ever forget about me in a corner, I will quietly remacro up to fight again.)

The Teams
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I (Passafist) am allied with zac. I am the most experienced and am paired with the least experienced plus I am off-racing. zac has followed my lead on a couple attack, but I am a bad ally and did not really communicate much with him. I tunnel vision on what I am doing way too much to type anything. We are in the South-East.

Jdog, Mike, and Lord Bryon's have been fairly quiet in the North. Jdog and Mike have each only played a handful of games, but macro fairly well for their experience and so were combined with LordB to help with Strategy.

eScapegoat used to ladder in SC2 and has the strongest macro after me. He is allied with DJB who is the king of sneak attacks.

2v3v2. gogogogo!

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Short Recap

This was a LAN game held at brother (LordBryon's) and my house in July of this summer.

Pt 1
In the early game, I tried to hit hard my biggest threat, eScapegoat, and my mutas eventually caused sufficient destruction to turn my attention to LordBryon in the north. The three sides began poking around with armies and DJB's DTs wiped out two control groups of Jdog's army. But now armies have grown in size and eScapegoat begins his mech push out onto the map. A poor engagement by me (where one wing of my army ran into some else's army and eScapegoat's maxed army begins setting up just outside of my base. The Triple Alliance in the north has massed up and are considering marching south.

Pt 2
In the mid game, the Two Cities were crushed on both sides and were forced to rebuild. I lashed out at LordBryon and reduced him to a floating Command Centre. However, as I began plotting to take another player down, eScapegoat's Battlecruisers swept through my base. I was forced to spread out hatches across the map to try and rebuild. eScapegoat and Jdog duked it out in the north and zac was forced out into the centre of the map and had just moved into LordB's main. I had just snuck a drone through and re-exanded to my main. (The Main's on this map started with 10K each. All the other expos are normal.)

The Map- UPDATED (again) - 'X' -mined out. 'O' Flying or Morphing.
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Supply at 48:00 min (The end of Part Two)
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Economy
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Lord Bryon- 3 SCVs, none mining. 2 floating CC
Jdog- 11 probes. 3 Nexus. 1 mined out, 2 depleted gas & 1 expo with gas
Mike 23 SCVs- 2 CCs, one mined out & 2 depleted gas

eScapegoat- 25 SCVs. 4 CC's, one nearly mined out, but fresh gas. CC @ 12:00 fresh, but cleaned out of workers. 4th- hidden island expo has only 1/3 resources left
DJB- 12 probes. 3 Nexus, but 2 depleted gas

Passafist- 20 drones. 2 Hatch, 1 fresh gas, and 3rd re-expanding to original main.
zac- 6 probes, none mining. 1 Nexus in the centre

ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE

At this point, DJB remained camped just outside Mike's base and just outside turret range with his Dark Templars and picked off any units he could.

zac had fought LordByron to get the old main, but did not like the real estate and the exiled army of DTs, zealots and probes returned home to the centre of the map.

LordBryon had been forced to flee to his allies bases with his two burning Command Centres and 1 SCV.

My reexpanding efforts to my main base were just next door to eScapegoat and DJB's Battle Cruiser & Carrier fleets which were destroying zac's remaining structures.

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Smelling blood, they go for the kill

This fleet then split. A small squadron swept the entire east side and killed Jdog's Carriers that had previously killed two of my bases back in part two. They then killed my mining Lair in the empty Player 8 natural. The rest of the fleet swung west and joined reinforcements.

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eScape's army found zac in the centre and fought the DTs while Mike's wraiths discovered my very top right expo.

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DTs are really good.

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Deja Vu

eScape sent his BC's north again. However, the force of his attack was blunted as Jdog massed cannons with his mineral stockpile. eScapegoat was gas starved making BCs and temporarily resorted to making marines in the late game.

54:00 DJB's Carriers join eScapegoat in the north and together they tore apart Jdog's base.

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Wonder Twin Powers we activate.

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Arrived just in time to weather an attack by the Two Cities.

Lord B was huddled in the back of Jdog's base where he had floated one of his CC's, hoping to use Jdog as a shield while he rebuilt. He had began rebuilding his factories in Mike's natural.

DJB sent in his DTs to fight Jdog while Mike sent in cloaked wraiths to help Jdog. They both do damage, but detection cuts both their work short.

Supply at 55:00
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Jdog's base was in shambles, but all his cannons had whittled down the attacking force. Only DJB's Carriers remained to clean up Jdog's base.
zac continued his March of the DTs. As I still solidly controlled Player 8's main, zac returned to LordB's main next door and began to rebuild his infrastructure.

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DJB's zealots unpowerd more of Jdog's base and hooked around to attack LordB's newly created Starport.

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A quick escape to the island expansion.

However, in the nick of time, LordB had created a drop ship which allowed his SCV to mine out the blocking mineral patch so he could land his CC in the NW pocket expansion.

Jdog's newly created expo in the North East was discovered and destroyed by eScapegoat's east squadron remnant.

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No new expo for you.

Mike's marines and LordB's goliaths rushed in to clean up DJB's remaining zealots and rescued Jdog from being eliminated. (He was still hanging in with 17-18 supply.)

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To the rescue!

At 59:00 I had escaped notice for awhile and had cobbled together a ground force of cracklings, hydras, and my surviving lurkers. Based on scouting and sounds from the other room, it was time to attack eScapegoat again.

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Incoming!

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Just as the new BC fleet moved out

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Doom Drop

eScapegoat's base was reduced to only supporting 50 supply and almost every factory was wiped out. The returning Battlecrusier fleet cleaned up the rest of the Zerg swarm.

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The Invincible Armada performing mop up action.

1:00:00 eScapegoat's lower 6:00 expansion was finally wiped out by me, which left him with no mining bases. However he still had an untouchable fifteen strong 3/3 BC.

His eastern squadron had found my protected base at the unused Player 8's main and another Battlecruiser found zac's new expansion beside me. Looking to crush both gadflies in one stroke, he directed his BC fleet to the north east.

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On the Warpath

Meanwhile I had teched back up to Hive and I to mass a fleet. I could sweep the ground with cracklings, but I needed one massive punch to wipe out the eScape's Battle Cruisers.

1:02:00 eScapegoat's BC fleet rolled over zac's base in LordB's old main and island, pocket expo in the NE corner. My Ovies run south. He then destroyed my saturated base in Player 8's main.

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Run For Your Lives!

1:03:00 zac rejoined me back down to his old base. (He had one pylon and an unpowered cannon keeping him in the game.)

By now I had amassed a control group of mutalisk, a control group of devourers, 5 guardians, and another swarm of cracklings in Ovies. Once more unto the breach, I returned to my old nemesis eScapegoat.

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We're back.

1:04:00 I lose another two bases in the North East to eScapegoat's BCs. eScapegoat then hit Mike's mined out natural. LordB's 2/2 Goliaths join Mike's marines and wraiths. eScapegoat cracked Mike's natural and LordB's factories, but was eventually thrown back.

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Engage. Because it's such a long trip south and LordB must never be allowed to rebuild. It's a rule.

Only a minute after dropping eScape's main and I had flooded into DJB's main.

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Next victim!

The severly weakened armada of eScapegoat now turned south and west to find my new (old) base. I tried to send cracklings through the Two Cities choke, but 2 of DJB's reavers held them off long enough before falling themselves.

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My mutalisks had now been spent in an inadvisable fight agains DJB's cannons.

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Battle for the Skies

1:07:00 The Airforces of Passafist and eScapegoat dueled, while zac sends his DTs into the main of DJB.

eScapegoat's fleet was reduced to 3 BCs with a total supply of 24/16; however, zac's base also fell.

1:08:00 eScape won the air battle with 3 BC remaining, but only had 24/16 supply altogether. zac's base fell to the BCs and they find my South West pocket expo and killed drones and the expo.

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Through two mains and down into the natural

Mike's wraiths killed my Guardians which ended my assault. He then killed eScape's floating engineering bay, the last of his buildings.

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Out of the frying pan...

eScape was eliminated and his BCs reign of destruction ended.

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And for a moment it is quiet.

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At this point, DJB was holed up in his still mining 3rd and held the inside 3rd which is protected by high ground and a narrow ramp. He had 9 DTs.
I was largely out of resources and most of my drones were dead.
zac also had 9 DTs with only one deactivated cannon keeping him in the game.

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Clinging to the edge of the cliff.

The Triple Alliance were massing back up again. Jdog had managed to spend his entire bank of resources, but has expanded to double gas in the centre.

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Mike's wraiths found a bunch of my Ovies and slaughtered many of them before falling to my mutalisks and devourers.

At 1:11:00, zac sent 8 DTs vs DJB and I send zerglings to assist. DJB just barely survived the attack. As a reward, LordB nuked the base.

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But somehow the mountain fortress STILL survived

Mike has begun to mass vultures as he was low on gas and had tons of minerals. He had also grown tired of DJB's DTs that have been haranguing him the entire game and sent a control group of wraiths to hunt down the remaining assassins.

zac had only DT left, but found Jdog's 10:00 expo and killed what probes he could before hacking at the Nexus.

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Even this late in the game...

LordB nuked one of my mining bases in the North East (I had re-expanded after eScapegoat died.)

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We will all be glowing green by the end.

At 1:14:00 Mike's wraiths returned to my pocket expo and killed more drones. zac lost his final DT and observed for a little while. But with nothing to do, he left the game to join eScapegoat watching over our shoulders.

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Another one bites the dust.

Mike and I battled and I eventually defeated him, but I needed to drone up yet again. I've lost more mutas than I would have liked. DJB has expanded to the upper 12:00 position. His DTs quickly found that with LordB going all nukes, there were no detection for LordB's factories.

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Don't rely on your allies for detection.

More of Mike's wraiths arrived in my main. Unfortunately he flew exactly to where I had been scraping together scourge to take out more Carriers. Mike's wraith vanished, but I lost half of the invaluable scourge.

At 1:18:00, a maxed out Jdog moved out with his giant fleet and army. I am now up to 132/141 and massing cracklings to snipe bases. (My gas count is low after losing all those drones.)

With both armies on move command, we bypass each other untouched as we raced to each others bases. They no doubt gave each other dirty looks. Or high fives.

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Oh hai there.

Jdog stopped to kill DJB's expo middle bottom, while one of my zergling columns discovered Jdog's double gas expo in the centre. The cracklings made short work of it.

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Jdog's expos were out of control.

Immediately after, my cracklings destroyed Jdog's fresh 10:00 base. I tried to turn north, but without any higher tech support, Mike's defences wipe out my zergling army.

At 1:20:00, Mike's wraiths discovered and destroyed DJB's 12:00 base.

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Go back to your mountain fortress and stay there.

Jdog's forces have been whittled to 173 supply (probes and goons dead) and I am up to 139. However, his fleet found my pocket expo and killed it.

Our air forces clash and I target fired his Carriers with mutalisks and devourers. At the end of the battle, he was down to 81 supply and I still have 116 supply. (DJB's DTs found more of Jdog's probes. These 3 DTs collectively have 43 kills.)

Just after, Mike's wraiths kill my final north east expo. My main was the only base still mining. I re-expanded back into the pocket expansion and back up into the north east.

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These expos were so hard to keep.

At 1:24:00, LordB ghost snuck in and nuked my main base from across a small gap. DJB still had a ninja DT near Jdog and Mike's base.

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STAHP

Jdog's Carriers attack followed by his goons while his zealots lagged behind.

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Yeah. I can't tell what's going on here either. But there Carriers in there somewhere.

Having cleaned up Jdog's carriers and his ground army and realing from a nuclear blast, I pushed out on to the map to try and crack Jdog who kept creating these giant fleets. I had devourers and muta to clear the skies and cracklings and Ovies to drop into Jdogs' main.

As I neared, Jdog's base, I had the supply lead with 124 to his 100.

However, just before I attack, Mike sends 2 control groups of wraiths in against my devourers and mutalisks.

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Not you. Not now.

I killed the wraiths, but it severely weakened my punch into the North West.

Jdog's new batch of carriers cleaned up the rest of my air force.
Frustratingly after my crackling had run through Mike's wraiths, DJB's DTs just happened to be at my zergling rally point. Any hope of another Doom Drop had rapidly evaporated. The Triple Alliance had picked up steam and my chances of winning were looking grimmer by the second.

At 1:29:00 Lord B nuked one of my three saturated bases and he followed up by wiping out the expo in the NE (which I had expanded to... again.)

I now realized that LordB was more than back in the game and furthermore, he had re-expanded in his old main... right next door to me. We clashed with zerglings, hydras vs goliaths and I sent mutalisks into his worker line. Meanwhile, the last of DJB's buildings were destroyed by the Triple Alliance.

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And then there were Four. SCVs I can face. But those Goliaths...

I sent in my cracklings desperately trying to wipe out his base. But his goliaths on the ramp slaughtered any such attempt.

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This did not work. At all.

Then, the combined armies Mike, LordByon, & Jdog marched inexoribably south to knock out my main.

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On the Move.

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They took no prisoners.

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Double Nuke! What does it mean?

I typed 'gg' and quit. A cheer "YES!" erupted from the next room. The Triple Alliance had won, besting both the Two Cities and the Sith.

Epilogue/ Afterword

It is hard to describe how I felt when I joined the rest in the living room of my place. I guess empathetic happiness for LordB, Jdog, and Mike. I have won many, many times against some of them and for others, they had not played very often. In this game, we had all fought tooth and nail with no restrictions and they were victors.

This was probably the best loss I have had in BW within recent memory. It was just that fun. After swapping stories on who did what when, we changed up the teams to play one more game. Mike needed to leave early, so he watched us for awhile.

BW players have often boasted on how hard BW is and how much practice is required before you can play well. I hope if you have never played SCBW, you have maybe seen how even casual BW players can have tons of fun. "BW is for Newbs" was tongue in cheek. (And considering our last 2v2v1 I got bunker rushed by eScapegoat/ zergling rushed by Jdog's friend and lost twice in a row, who is the noob now? I don't think I can off-race anymore.)

But the title was not so much specifically about our group so much as generally making the case that anyone can have fun in BW even if most of the players play it like pick-up basketball or soccer rather than going to practices and running drills all the time.

In the end, BW is for all. Young or Old, Chobu or Gosu.

The End.

Kill Count, etc
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Leeoku

1617 Posts

October 27 2013 01:11 GMT

Man I envy you having so many people you know personally that can play BW with you. So hard to find even 1v1 on iccup. I want to give my hand at teams now :D

Aerisky

United States12129 Posts

October 27 2013 03:36 GMT

Man I miss BW so much. This is amazing. Those carriers man :D

PineappleLumpsToss

New Zealand2434 Posts

October 27 2013 04:31 GMT

Epic conclusion to an epic 3-part series. Thanks for taking the time to write all this up.

Thought you were going to turn it all around there for a while. Glad the nubs won through though!

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 27 2013 04:37 GMT

On October 27 2013 13:31 PineappleLumpsToss wrote:
Epic conclusion to an epic 3-part series. Thanks for taking the time to write all this up.

Thought you were going to turn it all around there for a while. Glad the nubs won through though!

This is one of the reasons I got the bug to write this blog even a couple months after I had played the game. After watching the replay the next day, there were soooo many places where if this person had not attacked at a certain or place the game could have swung entirely in one teams direction. So many comebacks after being on the ropes. I think Mike's main was the only base that was largely untouched the entire game, but even he had his natural over-run.

MinscandBoo

252 Posts

October 27 2013 04:45 GMT

Love these blogs. Thanks for writing them! Really thought the Sith were gonna pull it back and win. Continues to make me sad that all my friends are largely console junkies and we'll never have a lan w/Broodwar.

decemberscalm

United States1353 Posts

October 27 2013 05:04 GMT

Now cast it!!

traceurling

United States1240 Posts

October 27 2013 05:11 GMT

I hope you do another one of these series sometime

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 27 2013 06:14 GMT

On October 27 2013 14:11 traceurling wrote:
I hope you do another one of these series sometime

Not for a long time, I think. These take way, way too long to make and I'm being in my other writing for the month.

Maybe when we have another lan and it's a shorter game. The last one we had was considerably shorter and much more straightforward.

art_of_turtle

United States1183 Posts

October 27 2013 08:08 GMT

#10

Man this story just reminds me of about 5 years ago when i was in your position. It was over virtual lan and when we filled the whole game things were epic. Glad to see your still going strong at just playing, cause now that I'm 10x better then the friends I used to play with they don't want to play or they have given up interest.

TopRamen

United States96 Posts

October 27 2013 10:11 GMT

#11

Ah man... this reminds me of my old BW LAN parties...
Me and my main group of friends back in highschool (before SC2 came out) played casual BW. Almost every weekend in the summer and at least a couple times a month during the school year. Full group of 8 players.

I have one game I uncovered fairly recently, 4v4 on River Runs Through It.
Super epic. Your game reminded me of it.
I got that feeling in my 4v4, that even though I lost in the end, I was super happy with the game. Tons of fun, probably most fun I've ever had in a game with my friends.
I guess somewhat similar to that empathetic happiness you got when your friends won

Oh also, the swapping stories on who did what when is a great feeling

Daaah... I really wish I could host BW LAN parties again, there are only 3 of us willing to play BW anymore

ALL MY NOSTALGIA!

Targe

United Kingdom14103 Posts

October 27 2013 13:18 GMT

#12

I have to say that your blogs reminded me of days when I would have massive aoe2/wc3/ra2 LAN team games, those were the days

EngrishTeacher

Canada1109 Posts

October 27 2013 14:12 GMT

#13

Awesome blog, wish I had someone to play BW with

Chef

10810 Posts

October 27 2013 15:11 GMT

#14

These were fun, thanks

[]Phase[]

Belgium927 Posts

October 27 2013 17:17 GMT

#15

Hey, great read man. Ive started hosting your map on iccup if you don't mind!

3FFA

United States3931 Posts

October 27 2013 18:01 GMT

#16

Man that was a great game through and through. I bet The Triple Alliance was very proud of themselves after that win.

LordB must never be allowed to rebuild. It's a rule.

You let him rebuild! This is why you lost.

Thanks for your hard work on this. I don't think I've seen a battle report where the maker put more time and effort into it. 5/5

Sorry again for that 1st one's 1/5 D:

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 27 2013 21:02 GMT

#17

On October 28 2013 02:17 []Phase[] wrote:
Hey, great read man. Ive started hosting your map on iccup if you don't mind!

For sure, go ahead. Were you able to get any games on it?

The version of the map I hosted should have all the expos down to normal numbers rather than the 10K mains as seen in the Battle Report.

3FFA

United States3931 Posts

October 27 2013 22:03 GMT

#18

On October 28 2013 06:02 Falling wrote:

Show nested quote +

For sure, go ahead. Were you able to get any games on it?

The version of the map I hosted should have all the expos down to normal numbers rather than the 10K mains as seen in the Battle Report.

Ugh I need to install BW on this computer now.... that map looks really fun to team on.

eScapegoat100

Canada71 Posts

October 27 2013 22:14 GMT

#19

Was a great game but man - it sucked to be eliminated with 3 Battlecruisers in the skies.

3FFA

United States3931 Posts

October 28 2013 00:53 GMT

#20

On October 28 2013 07:14 eScapegoat100 wrote:
Was a great game but man - it sucked to be eliminated with 3 Battlecruisers in the skies.

It could've been worse, you could've been in the middle of eliminating someone with a huge army and then suddenly gotten eliminated yourself without you even realizing it.

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