Pony Express Issue 82: June 29 - July 6, 2009

I've decided to do a battle report on a game I recently played against artosis at the singapore TL lan meet up. In the event that you haven't checked out how that went, here're some links for you.

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=97044
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=96959
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=96999

Anyway, so I created the game on the map python just cause I have a good amount of practice on it, being one of those mass python players, and artosis doesn't, since it has rotated out of play like 2 years ago. I choose the easy race (protoss), and the game quickly gets underway with me spawning cream protoss at 6, and artosis with yellow terran at 2. The early game plays out standard with artosis getting a wall in, and me scouting after getting a gateway.

Due to the close starting positions and me finding him on first try, I get into his main before his wall in is complete, and he is forced to pull an SCV, which is later replaced by a marine, to chase my probe. Because of his 1 fac CC (before third supply) build, artosis only has 1 marine, and is unable to kill my scouting probe, which gathers a tonne of valuable information, and only dies after he gets his tank out.



With this information, I know it is safe to do one of those ridiculously risky builds like 1 gate range double expo. In fact, since he has no information on what build I am doing, having lost his scout a while back, I press my advantage further by pretending to get aggressive with goons at his nat, forcing him to only expand after a third tank and siege mode. When he finally does establish his nat, my third has already warped in, and I probably have a huge economic advantage.




I quickly add 3 more gates for 4 and a robotics facility for observers, while artosis has decided to do some fast scan with ebay, which according to idra is a confused version of the fantasy build, also with a starport thrown into the mix. As soon as his dropship is out, artosis quickly loads a drop of 1 tank and 2 vults and flies across the map, and takes out a huge group of probes due to my poor reaction time, having been distracted by 2 vultures dancing at his choke. By the time I pull my probes, I'd already lost 13, and he simply unsieges and flies out with his entire drop, his vultures having sustained some minor damage from returning goons, after scouting out my entire main.





The threat is not over yet though, as artosis quickly discovers the location of my third base at my mineral only, and drops a tank in the 8 main to fire down on my helpless probes, while a vulture lays mines at the ramp of 8 to hinder the goons. With my shuttle still being warped in from aiur, I had to send my goons via the mined ramp, but they make it there eventually, to which artosis just responds by loading up his tank and flying it to my main where it is finally taken out. Thankfully this time the probe casualties are minimised and the only thing lost is mining time, but unfortunately the dropship gets away. (After the game, fakesteve'll tell me that I let the drop fuck me up too badly).




Having handled the drop, my obs at artosis' choke notices only 3 tanks for defense, and only 4 fac, and I start wondering where all his units are. I reason that since he went for a drop, maybe he's compromised on his macro, and only has 3 tanks, and with my new shuttle loaded with zealots, and roughly 2 groups of dragoons, I head into his nat for a bulldog style bust.




What naive thinking. I'm playing a top american player (and as I find out later, the stars have to be aligned for me to beat artosis), and it turns out that his factories were simply rallied above his ramp. As my shuttle flew over to his tanks sieged on his cliff, 6 unsieged tanks and 10 vultures come into view, and I go into panic mode, with multiple options running thorugh my mind. My first thought was to snipe off the command centre and retreat, and I quickly put that thought into action. However, my shuttle zealots had been unable to take out the cliff tanks, and with artosis making a very decisive action of putting another 2 tanks in siege mode on his cliff while sending the rest of his army down the ramp, I quickly pulled my units out to minimise casualties. At this point, artosis was floating a CC over to his island and dropping a bunch of SCVs off, with his supply at 118, while my fourth base at the 8 main was coming up, but my supply at a dwindling 100. Thankfully, artosis was still only on 4 fac, and was probably opting to play it safe, not pushing against my 7 gateways, instead sitting back and macroing up on a 3 base economy.





Shortly after the failed bulldog at artosis' nat, I catch a group of vultures out in the centre of the map as artosis is macroing, and I take them all out, evening the supply counts slightly. With my 4th base up, I move up to 9 gates, with speed completing, while artosis gets a 7th fac, and prepares to push out with his army. What happens now is the standard protoss/terran dancing, with protoss trying to pick off stray vultures, and forcing terran to siege and push his way very slowly across the map to not lose too many units, delaying for more units to finally engage the push with.





During these back and forth shennanigans, I fly a shuttle over the top of all of artosis' units, with a drop of 4 zealots to take out the SCVs at his island at top right. My macro starts slipping slightly and I accumulate 2.6K minerals cause I miss a round or 2 of production from my 11 gates (also a problem of too few gates). However, my observer catches sight of all his tanks unsieging, and his vults out of position to defend his tanks. He was probably unsieging just as my zealots hit his island, and was slightly distracted, preparing a drop of 4 vultures to save his island. I run my army up near his tanks before he finally notices, and he tries to retreat and pull his vultures in front of his tanks, sieging only when all my zealots were dead. Our armies battled, and at the end of it, both armies suffered major casualties, him surviving with a mere defense matrixed tank and 3 vultures, and me with 4 dragoons.








Having relied on that push to provide cover for him to expand, artosis' freshly completed mineral only was now defenseless, and he sents most of his army there expecting an attack. Beginning to accumulating a lot of money due to poor macro (2.4K minerals), I take the 8 nat expansion, and start more gateways to replenish my army, also ordering a probe to build an arbiter tribunal that I later discover, did not start T.T. I'd previously scouted artosis taking his mineral only and the top left corner expo, and I decide to send my new army up to take it out.

In the meantime, artosis is sneaking 4 tanks from his mineral only to my expansion at 8. Due to lack of obs at his min only, I fail to notice the tanks moving across the centre of the map, and although they pass within sight range of my army, I am too preoccupied with his vultures, and he makes it up the ramp. This proves to my undoing, as my main, nat and 3rd are now running dry, and by successfully taking the ramp, he'd be able to take out 8 and force a cancel on the 8 nat. After the game, artosis jokingly remarked that he does that every game, making the protoss army chase his vultures all over the map, while he sneaks 4 tanks over, then plants a whole bunch of mines to prevent the army from saving the expo. Indeed an advanced tactic.





My initial reaction is to go save the expansion, but I decide against it as I have no ob with my army and walking through the minefield and the tanks on the cliff would mean major losses to my army. I instead attack his min only, taking it out and killing a good number of SCVs, while taking bottom right, as my 3rd is now out, and my main and nat are running dangerously low. Now, artosis is the one who has been macroing poorly, accumulating 2.1K minerals on his island, nat and the min only that he just lost. This showed in the supply counts as I was far ahead with 165 to his 125. In fact, at this moment, his nat was defended by a mere 5 tanks and 7 vultures, which I could've easily broken with my 2 groups of goons and 1.5 groups of zealots. I even had an ob there. Don't know what I was thinking !@#%!@#!@#. He did have +2 weapons though.





Anyway, shortly after losing his min only, artosis sends 2 SCVs down to the bottom right expo where my nexus is warping in. The 7 vults previously mentioned, immediately head down, as my army moves northwest to take out the corner expo that had been left untouched due to the spidermines protecting it (but did not have any SCVs anyway). The vultures quickly killed all the probes (that I had sent from my depleted min only), and laid waste to the nexus before my army could come save it.





With my main and nat down to a total of 500 minerals or so combined, things are looking grim for me, with artosis' island still running at full tilt. I start an expansion at the 12 nat, but artosis is already maxed, and is simply waiting for +3 weapons before committing to any attack. Once it completes, he rolls out, I engage with my 180 supply army, but +3 weapons is too strong, and my only hope is his tanks splash killing each other from zealot bombs. Unfortunately he targets my shuttle with his goliaths, and it dies in a single volley, and my goons melt quickly under tank fire. I tap out before my entire army becomes blue goo, feeling pretty good about myself.








replay link: http://www.repdepot.net/replay.php?id=16170&key=15781f
If you're interested, also check out the games vs idra. They were not quite as close though. I forgot storm T.T. Overall some good games were played, and we all had plenty of fun. Hope there's another outing soon (though not too soon. like maybe december or something when I'm next back).