Drop Wars

As the Light has now taken away my PC, the nerfing up of Raz will have to wait. All the replays of Raz domineering 419 were all stored in the old PC so until the suppliers provide me with a new replacement, its back to the old and plain posts once again. But the loss of one PC does not stop the flow of evil in 419. Cruelty still prevails over 419 and it is up to me again to write this sad chapter of 419 – The Drop Wars.

The game started out as follows: YC (Brown Protoss at 4) Raz (Blue Protoss at 7) versus Pip (Yellow Zerg at 1) and Druggy (Red Terran at 11). The map tile set was none other than Andromeda 1.0, a map obtained out of Raz’s training database. No sooner than 1 minute in the game, YC pulled his first dirty tactic, allying Druggy. By allying Druggy, YC gained full sight of Druggy’s base allowing him to save the hassle of scouting. Innocently, YC apologised to Druggy on the pretext of always forgetting who his team mate was. Druggy, not certain of whether that this was a trick or an “accident”, grumbled, and brushed off YC’s apologies.

But Druggy’s misfortune did not stop there. Pip, his ally, suddenly realised that he had forgotten to block the ramp at his base. The sight of an open ramp was a dangerous one. Enemies such as the Protoss dark templars could slowly creep into the base and cause havoc. It was no later than three minutes of blocking his ramp, the sight of dread began to approach Pip. Two brown Corsairs immediately flew into his base and started attacking his poor unarmed Overlords. Fortunately, by this time, Pip had a few Hydras running to provide some flak against the Corsairs. Yet, a dark shadow was seen looming over Pip’s base. The sight of the Corsairs being turned away by the Hydralisks made the dark templar turned away from Pip’s base. “How evil! The KV tactic” yelled a spectator observing the match.

In the midst of the battle between Pip and YC, Raz had successfully manage to infiltrate Druggy’s base with his Observer. Once again, fog of war was no longer relevant in Starcraft. To make matters worse, Druggy had no idea that the Observer had opened exposed the blind spots in his base and defences. Meanwhile, back at Raz’s base, a Protoss shuttle was slowly loading up Reavers. “Druggy will never know what hit him” thought Raz. Watching professional Starcraft players against each other had helped Raz improved his game tremendously. Even the reigning champion of 419, GAME, has a hard time dealing with Raz now. “Research complete” the artificial AI informed Raz. The Protoss shuttle ship was now upgraded to travel faster. Aligning the Protoss Shuttle in a straight line, Raz manoeuvred the Protoss shuttle straight into Druggy’s base utilising the blind spots.

“Your base is under the attack!” prompted the Computer. Druggy immediately saw the Protoss dropship unloading two Reavers. But it was too late, the Reavers had already unleashed their Scarabs against the harmless and defenceless SCVs. The sight of the SCVs exploding in a straight line was akin to a heavy bombardier executing a series of carpet bombing. But in Starcraft, what was more damaging was the players economy. Druggy’s economy had already suffered a huge downturn due to the damage done by the Reavers. Recovery was only possible thanks to the help of a Siege Tank.

“Revenge. Dammit” thought Druggy. Nothing was more important now than getting revenge for those SCVs. Unloading his own Terran Dropships with marines and medics, Druggy began to scurry over his Dropships to the nearest available base: YC’s. But this was all leading to nothing but a great big trap set by YC. The sight of dropships did not bother YC at all. He had anticipated this miserable attempt of dropping for awhile already. The Observer in Druggy’s base had given all the information he needed. As the marines began to pour out of the dropships, the atmosphere became dark and uneasy. “Aaaa!” echoed the dying marines. “A psi-storm?” thought Druggy. But there was no High Templar at sight. Unknown to Druggy, YC had used the most forbidden technique in 419 ever. Psi-storming from a ledge. With only a handful of marines left to take out YC’s base, the marines scrambled to try and do as much damage as possible to YC’s base.

A sight of relief came for the marines though when a half of dozen Overlords began unloading Hydralisks on YC’s base. The Hydralisks began to attack everything at sight, destroying YC’s probes and finally the Nexus. Alas, victory was short lived when the forces of Raz arrived with Zealots and upgraded Dragoons. With the aid of YC’s high templar, the game was starting to look solid and sexy. “Aaaaa” more marines yelled. This time however, they were joined with the screams of Hydralisks. Blood flowed in the battlefield and what was left remaining in the battlefield were pools of blood. “Ouch That’s got to hurt” a spectator yelled.

“Gather up! It is time we take this battle to their base” yelled Raz. Cracking his knuckles, Raz began to type his instructions to YC. “Fall in line! Fall in line” Raz typed. Like a commander leading his troops, Raz slowly merged his forces with YC. Moving in unison, they moved towards Pip’s base slowly. “Send in a scout” yelled Raz. A small probe was sent in to check on the new battlefield. Scouting carefully, the probe began transmitting information over the battlefield to Raz and YC. Pip had carefully built sunken colonies all over the ramp. To charge blindly towards the ramp would be suicide. Worse, if Druggy were to siege them from the above, the casualties would be catastrophic. But Raz had a plan…

Raz knew that he would need some support fire to entrench his position but at the same time he would also need to be on guard against artillery siege from the above. Carefully selecting the scouting probe, Raz began to warp a Pylon and this was followed by several cannons. So far so good. To carefully counter against the unseen siege, an observer was despatched to provide line of sight against siege tanks at the upper ledges. It was all according to plan, no sooner than a few minutes of warping in the cannons, Raz charged. The sight was a blood bath. Hydralisks were busy blocking any attacking forces from coming in but it was all in vain. A psi-storm electrocuted the defenders leaving nothing but horrors and fear. Druggy failed to even loan his support to Pip as the observer had taken care of the tanks at the ledge. Eventually, Raz had to pull back for awhile to replenish his troops.

As Pip surveyed the remains of his base, a surprise awaited him. His workers were all gone as a result of a splash attack. Closer inspection by an Overlord revealed four high templars at a ledge below together with another observer providing line of sight. “Dammit. YC. “ he muttered. As the spitefulness began to cloud Pip’s mind, he began loading what was left of his own troops for one last attack. Like Raz’s observer, the overlords travelled in a straight line utilising the blind spots until they finally approached YC’s new expansion. Once again, the Hydralisk began to shoot with all their might, taking out the expansion and its probes. But once again, Raz’s troops leaped into the pray wiping out the remaining of Pip’s troops. “Mercy” Pip typed. “Mercy....” he typed again. The cry of mercy was soon heard by Raz and out of pity, Raz left what was remaining of Pip’s base and turned to the last of his enemies, Druggy.

Druggy too shocked to react, was busy placing siege-emplacements on his ramp. He had to defend his base until he can muster enough troops to launch a counter attack. The siege tanks were backed up by marines to provide an additional support fire – just in case the tanks weren’t enough. Suddenly, the ground shook.....

The SCV’s in Druggy’s base began to explode due to a psi-storm assault from the ledge below. “Dammit. Not again” thought Druggy. True enough, there were two High Templars at the ledge below. Laughing. But the assault did not stop there – Raz began to move in with his troops. With troops fully upgraded with speed, Raz added one special unit to soak the damage from the siege tanks – Archons.

Seeing that all was lost, Druggy had no choice but to click “Exit”.......