419 Prehistoria - The Battle of Wits - Kheve vs. FreeFrag

As promised, another 419 prehistoria battle report, this time between Kheve (Yellow Toss) vs FreeFrag (Orange Zerg) in the classic lost-temple, the RAMP-map . The Yellow starts at the bottom left while the Orange is situated in the top middle. As expected of most battles, there would be early skirmishes but an unlucky timing by Yellow to send his troops out allowed the orange to penetrate an undefended ramp, and straight to the booty, the yummy workers.

While initially a slight setback as innocent probes were gobbled by zerglings, Yellow rebounded by positioning a squad of zealots at the ramp to prevent any more mishaps (Game Time 7:52). From this point onwards, it’s the battle of wits, the red carpet encore of this game. Orange went on producing more ground troops and went full steam in mining for its natural expansion while Yellow tech-up and went for 4 corsairs.



Then the hunting time starts and Yellow's corsairs reduce Orange's supply from 65 to 27 (Game Time 9:52) in less than a minute, truly a nightmare for Orange. However, Orange being FreeFrag (this is the epitome of what the HORDE means), mass churn overlords (possible since Orange expanded) and send in to all possible locations and it paid off. By (Game Time 10:57), 3 overlords escaped unscathed while the rest are being hunted by corsairs.



Orange did produce mutalisks ASAP after corsair sightings on the horizon but the numbers were not there initially and the hunt continued. Predicting a windfall, Yellow prepared 18 zealots (Game Time 12:17) and went straight for the drones. Given two bases, Orange will definitely resupply fast enough to produce a sizable amount of mutalisks to kill the corsairs (Game Time 12:25). When Yellow waltz right into Orange's expansion, he walk into a deathtrap of sunkens, mutas and zerglings.



While the rush left Orange’s expansion with most of the workers gone and several mutas alive, Yellow is made much worst off as he lacks an expansion and must now not only re-build his air force but also replenish his troops guarding the ramp. At (Game Time 14:10), Orange retaliated by sending at least a squad of mutas to break Yellow’s ramp, defended by several zealots and 3-4 corsairs. Quite unexpected (maybe to to reduce losses), both withdraw from the ramp (Game Time 14:22), a sight you seldom see, a wide open inviting ramp.



Now, Yellow retaliated by sending his remaining corsairs to hunt overlords. Though initially successful, Orange is prepared now and the hunter became the hunted at (Game Time 15:18). However, Yellow quickly resupply with more corsairs, and the hunt starts all over again (Game Time 16:40). Orange responded by pumping more mutas and the hunter and the prey role is reversed again (Game Time 16:46). Its like watching a corsair-muta tug-of-war (Truly micro micro micro ....).



At the end of the day, Kratos smiled on Orange as this was a numbers game. While Yellow successfully countered the air and pressured Orange's supply, this puts a constraint in its ground force since he had no expansion. Slowly but surely, every hunting trip by Yellow slightly ends with Orange in a more favourable "numbers" advantage. Finally, the hammer stikes when4-5 squads of Orange's zerglings went for a direct frontal assault against Yellow's ramp, defended by a Templar and several zealots (Game Time 17:24).



Author’s Note:
One corsair to another “Wanna go hunting ?, that fat flying cow-shaped ugly sag of meat with tentacles look easy !!”