Pony Express Issue 85: July 20 - July 27, 2009

This game was between boxer and reach on python, with boxer spawning at the 2 oclock position, and reach at 12 position. In these positions where protoss and terran share a mineral only, it is in my experience, advantagous to the terran as they can take a very early third while putting pressure on your nat at the same time.

Both players opt for standard builds in the early game, boxer walling his ramp, and reach getting his core. However, after his core, he adds a pylon at the corner of his nat, probably just to confuse boxer who'll notice the absence of the pylon. Both players scout late, and reach fails to get into boxer's base due to the wall in. Wary of proxies, reach sends his first dragoon to search for hidden buildings at the top left expo, but finds nothing.




Despite not getting any scouting information, reach decides to expo with 1 gate ranged goons after getting a mere 2 goons, a fairly risky strategy that'll pay off vs boxer's 1 fac CC build. Their expansions warping in at almost the same time, reach adds an additional 2 gates and a robotics facility, while boxer gets an ebay and turrets, placing his tanks in anticipation of a reaver drop.




Boxer, looking to do some quick harass with vultures, immediately researches the speed upgrade after his siege mode is done, and nabs a probe taking the top left expansion. His vultures try to do more damage later, but reach's goons limit his movement. However, with some mines planted in the middle of the map, boxer starts another expansion at the bottom right base.





After setting up a defensive line of tanks, mines and trurets to defend his expo, boxer attempts more harass, but reach is well prepared with goons everywhere, so boxer backs off, and reach makes use of the lull to clear the mines in the centre of the map. In the meantime, he has added 3 more gates for a total of 6 and a citadel, preparing to build a huge army.




At this point, both players are probably about even, maybe with terran at a slight advantage due to equal base counts. In the first person view of reach, we watch him engage the side of boxer's push with roughly 1.5 groups of goons and a shuttle of zealots, and he picks of a couple of tanks, losing his zealots and the shuttle. He then sends his goons into the expansion, forcing boxer to unsiege his tanks to come defend, hoping to sandwich his units with goons from below, and reinforcements zealots from the top. His zealots get a successful surround on all the tanks, and boxer is forced to pull his SCVs to help to defend, losing many of them in the process. Amazingly, boxer is able to defend the attack with some new units, and he saves the expansion.






In this time, reach has macroed a new army of about 2 groups of goons, and he sends it down to apply pressure at the defensive line that boxer had vacated. However, with his tanks returning form the bottom right position, boxer forces reach into the retreat. With arbiters in the making, and having done some damage to boxer's economy, reach was in a pretty decent position now, though he had failed to take the left side expansions due to spider mines that boxer had strategically placed.




Once again, with boxer establishing his defensive lines, the action slows down a little, but reach makes good use of this time to clear out stray mines. The lull is broken with a drop by boxer into reach's main, however with a cannon and units awaiting, the damage is minimal and both players once again go into macro mode, reach taking the 2 left side bases and adding more gateways, and boxer probably waiting for a flashesque 2-1 push with vessels.




As anticipated, boxer moves out when his 2-1 is done, and a first person view of reach shows that he is near maxed already (although he promptly loses about 6-7 units to boxer's push). Initiailly retreating, reach's hesistance with engaging the push costs him some precious units, and when he finally makes up his mind (or maybe, when his arbiters finally arrive), he has lost too many units, and is forced to retreat despite some fantastic stasises on boxer's tanks.





Trying to buy time for himself to get a couple of production rounds out of his gateways, reach runs his army down and around boxer's units, applying pressure to the bottom right expansion. Boxer shrugs it off easily and reach ends up losing his entire army and getting his arbiters EMPed.




From here, it seems like its pretty much gg, with boxer going through the motion of taking out reach's expos, and reach attempting to defend in vain, his only hope being some amazing storms. Boxer, however, snipes off his non-shuttled templar with ease, and lays waste to the left side expoes.



For some reason, reach manages to macro up a huge army from nowhere, but with a 2 base deficit, and his main and nat probably running dry soon, he is about to face 5 base terran with 1 base. Surprisingly, boxer chooses to engage before his +3 weapons upgrade, which would have raped reach's dragoon heavy army, is done, and reach lands a bunch of good storms in the attack. Sadly, the terran army is too strong, and he is forced to retreat.







With his expoes drying up, reach ferries a probe to the island and warps a nexus there, while boxer simply takes more of the map, and adds more factories for a total of like 12 with 5 machineshops attached, not wanting to lose this game accidentally. After a couple more battles where reach simply just loses his units, he realises that the game cannot be won and he GGs out. Overall a good game, with reach making a critical error, hesistating in the first game, and ultimately losing the game.