Deathmatch, Part 3: Calvin Vs. Chris

"Sir! You alright?" Felix slowly opened his eyes and focussed on Calvin's face. With a grunt, he got up, hand planted on his forehead where he smacked it against the wall.

"Damage report lieutenant?" Felix asked as he surveyed the damage to the command centre. Personnel was tending to each other, code red alarms were active, and the power was cut.

"Sir, we've lost the majority of our SCVs and front line defense" Calvin read off the top of a holographic list in his palm, "All of our turrets, bunkers and our ComSat station were destroyed. What SCVs we have left we're currently repairing the command centre and other buildings with, and we're actively recruiting more personnel to replace them. Most of our marines in the bunkers have survived, and we currently have about 5 scattered regiments of marines and 2 support troops of firebats and medics. All of our siege tanks were destroyed in the blast. We have one Squadron of Vulture troops"

Felix, pacing back and forth as Calvin spoke, suddenly stopped and looked at him. "And the ghost?"

"Sir, we can't any trace of him. Right before the nuclear missile, there were reports of a dropship, last known vector approaching the ghost"

"Damn..." Calming himself, Felix righted a chair from the ground and sat down.

Damn that Ching. Here was a man who wasn't afraid to send entire squadrons of his own army to their deaths. The dropships and wraiths were obviously diversionary tactics to buy that ghost some time. From reports before Ching's counterattacks, it seems he committed most of his troops to this attack. The logical thing right now is to counter-attack with all our forces... it's do or die time. Felix looked at Calvin once again.

"Lieutenant, order up full production of dropships from all operational starports, and prepare for a drop of all marine regiments and support troops. Load up those vultures with spidermines and speed upgrades, and send them out for diversionary hit and run tactics on the enemy base!"

Calvin saluted and rushed off.

Meanwhile, inside a factory...

"Almost done... whew" Corporal Yang breathed as he finished maintenance on his gleaming gun-metal grey and blue vulture. He tweaked the ion thrusters for more boost off idle and changed the steering geometry for sharper handling. With a vulture's thin armour, they're notoriously easy to destroy, and life spans of pilots are typically even less than those of marines. Thus, survival all depends on quick speed and reaction.

"Load 'er up with spidermines and grenades!" Chris motioned to the nearby Factory workers, and then blinked as Lieutenant Poon came running up to him.

"Hey, how are damage repairs after the blast?" Chris asked Calvin as he slowed down and pulled out a document.

"We're working as fast as we could. Corporal Yang, here are your orders... you are to take all remaining vultures and proceed on a hit and run attack on the enemy base. Good luck" and with that, Calvin disappeared.

Chris stared grimly at the papers. "So we're to create a diversion eh? That's our lot in life". He went to his vulture and picked up his helmet, then mounted his bike. "All units, we're heading out. Follow me!" he said into the mouthpiece as he twisted the throttle and rode off into the dawn.

Meanwhile...

"Sgt. LEE! Are you slacking off again?" Jacky woke up with a start and snort. Fumbling around in his science vessel, he finally found the microphone. "Uh, no sir, I'm on full alert". Operating a science vessel has to be one of the most boring jobs in the world. To kill the time, Jacky read various manga, most notably involving scantily clad women. Alas, even that doesn't fully alleviate boredom.

Little did he know, however, that a small group of vultures passed right underneath him, silently and swiftly travelling to near certain death.

"All units, lay down your spidermines!" Chris' plan was simple: lay down mines, draw the enemy out, and then run back with enemy forces in tow right into the trap.

Moving forward again, the gun-metal grey vultures reached their maximum speed of 640 km/h, and headed right into Ching's base. Confusion reigned as surprised enemy troops hastily grabbed their guns and started firing... too late as they hit nothing but thin air. But the vultures didn't stop, instead heading right towards Ching's command centre. "Fire at those SCVS" Chris shouted, as the vultures dove behind the mineral line. Confused SCVs started to scatter as the vultures started firing grenades into the mining SCVs. Several started to explode as they nearly trampled over each other trying to run to safety.

The vulture to Chris' left exploded as a seige tank shell came hurtling down. "Follow my actions!" Chris lead the vultures right into the face of a small regiment of siege tanks, now firing furiously. Knowing that if the vultures got close enough that the tanks won't be able to fire in siege mode, the nimble and fast vultures dodged shells as they got ever closer. "Lay down your mines!" Chris shouted, as the vultures ground to a stop in front of the tanks. "Now run back!" The siege tanks tried to transform back to their mobile form to escape the mines that were laid down in front of them, but too slowly as huge explosions rocked the ground. By this time, the vultures were already running back to their mines they planted earlier... but the enemy was waiting at the gates and closing in. Several vultures faltered and exploded, their riders thrown off, as concentrated gunfire tore into their ranks. By the time Chris got through, only a handful of vultures remained. The enemy, oblivious to their plans, followed them right into their trap...

"Sir, we've detected several explosions coming from the enemy base" Calvin said as Felix looked at the holographic map.

"Good... are the dropships prepped?"

"We have 4 squadrons of marines awaiting command in the dropships"

"Send them out"

Felix looked out a window as the dropships took off and flew off, thrusters silently glowing in the morning light.

Who will prevail? Will Ching get the last laugh? Will Chris make it out alive? Will Jacky ever finish his manga? Stay tuned for future installments!

Welcome to the last part of a three part deathmatch series! In this final, epic series, it's a battle between Calvin and I. Because the other 4 players held up their end of the bargain and got the ball rolling, Calvin and I were obliged to play as well. So, without further interruption:


Once again we played on the Lost Temple- Gamei map. We both randomed our races, I ending up with the rather manly colour (purple) Terran starting at the 9 o'clock position, and Calvin starting as red zerg at the 3 o'clock position.

Build orders were pretty standard for me. On my 8th SCV I built a supply depot, 11th Barracks, 13th Refinery, and on my 17th another barracks and supply depot. My initial plan was to get mass marines, while getting an early start on gas for siege tanks later in the game. Knowing that marines are critical against zerg (especially if they go mutalisks), I elected to skip vultures entirely and keep things simple.

Calvin, meanwhile, morphed in a spawning pool on his 10th drone, and followed it up with a creep colony, extractor, and then another creep company. At the same time my second barracks was started, Calvin built a hydralisk den.

About 3:45 into the game, I sent out two marines and Calvin simultaneously sent out 4 zerlings. They met up in the centre of the map and first blood was spilled


Calvin ran his zerglings around the map after he lost two of them, and my marines chased them around the map since they were on attack move and I was pre-occupied with building my base.

4 minutes into the game, I started on my first factory. At almost the same time it was finished and I started on my second (while building a machine shop addon for the first one), Calvin expanded to his natural



At this point I finally regained control of my marines and sent them over to Calvin's main to harass him a bit. At first I didn't actually notice that Calvin had already expanded to his natural...


I did notice, however, that Calvin's sunken colonies were poorly positioned and easy to walk around. So I did just that, walking all the way to the back of Calvin's base and started firing at his spawning pool. Calvin sent over zerglings and I quickly retreated my marines, losing one in the process.

However, I had two more marines as reinforcements, and they fired back at the zerglings

We exchanged attacks and gunfire a couple of times, both displaying quite a bit of micro (at least more than in the previous two battles =P). Finally, I retreated my marines down the ramp as I saw Calvin had spawned a huge overwhelming force of zerglings.

It was finally at this time that I noticed Calvin had a natural expansion set up, so I proceeded to attack the morphing creep colony, hoping to slow Calvin down a bit




Calvin managed to counter-attack with his zerglings though, and I lost all my marines.

Now 7 minutes into the game, Calvin took the brief lull as an opportunity to expand, as he sent his drone up to the 12 o'clock starting position and started a hatchery



At the same time, I sent out my first siege tank and a small control group of marines towards Calvin's base. Thinking twice, I also sent an SCV after them.



At exactly 9 minutes into the game, I started a bunker in front of Calvin's natural. My plan was originally to contain Calvin (I did not know about his 12 o'clock expansion until the game was over!), but seeing as he didn't have too many troops, I decided to bunker push him instead.



Calvin spotted my attempt, and for the next 2 minutes it was a furious display of micro from both sides. With a second tank now arrived, I moved my marines forward of the bunker to engage Calvin's zerg, while my tanks took the time to set up and my SCV to finish the bunker



When the bunker was just about complete, I ran my marines back into range of the tanks and into the safety of the bunker



Calvin, knowing that he had to stop me now before I establish a foothold, sent zerg after zerg at my tanks and bunkers, and then ran them away. This display of micro went on for quite some time









It was a good thing I had my SCV to repair, otherwise my tanks would have been destroyed.


By the end, with reinforcements arriving, I had established a firm foothold, and proceeded to destroy Calvin's natural


Knowing that I have to press my advantage before Calvin could find an effective counter, I sieged my tanks near the lower edge of the cliff, and sent my marines up into Calvin's plateau. He had troops prepared there, but now that my marines are on the cliff they provided sight to the tanks, which began to kill Calvin's hydralisks


I built a bunker on the cliff to establish a new foothold into Calvin's base. I moved a siege tank up on top to continue shelling Calvin's Natural and to hit any incoming enemy units. My siege tanks provided cover as my SCV completed the bunker



At this point I continued to bunker push, but Calvin had built a spire and was beginning to create mutalisks. My tanks started firing on Calvin's sunken colonies when the first Mutalisks began to attack my tanks



My SCV managed to finish the second bunker at the same time one of my tanks were destroyed. I rushed my marines, which were residing in the first bunker, into the second one before Calvin's mutalisks had a chance to stop them, and they fired back at the mutalisks.



However, I still had a couple of tanks out of range and my SCV was killed. I sent over a couple of reinforcements while I used marines from a bunker outside Calvin's natural to provide mobile support





My new SCVs arrived and I quickly tried to put up another bunker while repairing one.



Calvin at this point had a huge number of mutalisks, and they managed to destroy another SCV and bunker. However, the marines inside were still alive, and at the precise moment my bunker was destroyed, another was built. I rushed the marines from the destroyed bunker over to the new one before Calvin had time to react, and continued to fight off the mutalisks









Finally, after a furious display of micro from both sides, I managed to kill off Calvin's mutalisks. More reinforcements have arrived from my base, Calvin was running low on gas, and my tanks were starting to shell his spire now. Without many options left, it was GG as Calvin left.

GG!

Final score:



Click HERE for the replay!

Out of all three games, this was probably the most closely matched and most exciting.

Lessons learned:

The reason why Calvin lost was probably partially to due with the fact that he expanded too fast. He had three running expansions, while Felix in the previous game made do with two. Also, he probably should have concentrated on creating mutalisks from the very beginning. This way, he could have fended off my attack better. Or he could have even attacked my base altogether as I had very little defense other than the troops I produced for attacking. At least, he could have crippled my economy by quite a bit.

The other mistake was that he gave up the ramp to his base too easily. In Lost Temple games, the game is won or lost depending on who could hold the ramp better. As soon as I was able to move my marines to higher ground, they were able to reveal Calvin's enemy troops to my tanks. Normally, if I were to attack Calvin, I wouldn't be able to see any troops from the top of his plateau because it would be covered by the fog of war. As soon as I was able to take control of the ramp, however, I was able to see everything and thus gave my siege tanks significant control. Calvin probably should have concentrated his attacks early on defending his ramp and not allowing my marines up there or my SCV to build a bunker there.


And finally, the last thing really isn't a mistake, and is kind of a lot to ask from ANY of us casual players. But, mutalisks in even small numbers, when used properly, are more powerful than any unit in the game (except for corsairs, their natural counter... though we weren't playing Broodwars).

Take a look at this Replay. In this game, the zerg player got only a few mutalisks, but look at that level of micro! Using just a few mutas, he managed to destroy ALL of the enemy force's scourge. This is an insane level of micro, for sure, but it showed how powerful they can be when stacked together and moved around. Even Scourge are no match because mutalisks are so damn fast. Mutalisks are even more gay against Terran ground forces, also because of their speed. If Calvin had something like this and selectively attacked my units (especially my SCVs and tanks), then I would have been in big trouble because terrans really don't have any effective counters against properly used mutalisks.

As for my own mistakes, I had quite a few too. First of all, I missed Calvin's natural expo. If I took a look at it first, I could have caused major headaches for Calvin, and perhaps even cripple his economy a bit.

Oh, and speaking of economy, mine was very bad. I spent most of my time trying to outmicro Calvin, but by doing that I basically ignored my own SCVs. I didn't expand to my natural until late into the game, and I never got it up and running as well as Calvin has with his three expos. If I did, I could have had even more troop production.

Also, while I was teching, I didn't bother to upgrade my marines, and they suffered horrendous deaths as a result. I should have stopped for an academy, even somewhat later into the game. Not only would this mean upgrades for my marines (especially Uranium rounds, which would have helped immensely against mutalisks), but I could have also gotten a comsat station, which I probably could have used to find Calvin's 12 o'clock expo.

All in all I honestly believe with no bias that this is the best game of the night. Calvin's micro has improved drastically, to the point where it's extremely hard for anyone to keep up with him. If I were Zerg and he were Terran, the game could have easily turned the other way around. It made for a very entertaining and exciting game.

I would like to thank my opponent, Calvin, therefore, for a wonderful game, and once again to everyone who showed up that night for yet another fun filled start to the weekend.

As for battlereports? Well, it's mid November now and from here on out it's going to be extremely hectic for me. A couple of labs, plus exams starting December 6th, so don't be surprised if there's no updates for at least a month =P