Human on Twisted Meadows - the New LT?

[Prozerran]

Here's a B/O for human on Twisted Meadows that you can see in current replays on wcreplays.com. Use this to creep the lab next to your starting position (the one with the Golems and Trolls) for a quick level 3 AM and a semi-FE.

5 Peasants to Gold
Queue 3 Peasants
Take 2 peasants off Gold - Altar, Farm
Next peasant out - Double up on Alter
Next peasant out - Double up on Farm
Rally Farm building Peasants to wood
Queue up one more peasant (2 building) - Rally both to gold
Alter complete - use both peasants to begin building Rax and another Farm
Next peasant out - Double up on Rax
Continue peasant production
Rax complete - build a Footman
AM comes out - Militia 5 Peasants and creep Goblin Lab w/ WE's

This gets you to level 2 right when your opponent's hero comes to harass. Build a farm next to your lab and creep your green camp. Put up an arcane tower and militia 5 fresh peasants. Clear your natural expo for level 3 AM and expand. Start a lumber mill and continue production of peasants and foots. Throw up towers. When expo is up, buy a Shredder from the Lab, use the scan option from the lab to scout your opponent's position and natural expansion area. Go harass opponent and put the pressure on. It's your game from there. Human on Twisted Meadows is easily the new LT.

Thoughts, anyone?

-Proz

[Monty]

I always liked fast hero builds on TM, since it is so easy to grab a level 2 AM. You have be very precise with your creeping and build order if your opponent spawns clockwise from you, though, which is one of the problems I have with the strategy (provided you don't scout your opponent - normally I would scout him and go for the gnolls). A) It's difficult to creep the camp without having a few militia get beat down upon - not too much of a problem until your peasants submit to long range coils, etc. B) If you don't know where your opponent spawned, how will you know which natural you should expand to?

On a non-theoretical matter, you only need one peasant to construct the farm while the altar is being speed-built.

I like the strategy, and had used it quite a bit in the past (not to the same degree of accuracy, since I usually got pressured into changing a few things) - it's interesting that this gamestyle has only recently been applied by many Human players to TM.

[GenocideAlive]

Well, I am such a fan of Goblin Lab militia-creeping that I took up watching for it myself when my HU opponent chooses to do so. Let me say, that if you permit him to engage for roughly 7-8 seconds, then jack with a hero such as FS/DK/BlM/DH/KotG, the game is pretty much over right there. You can Coil/Wolves/Entangle/Chase at least 3 or so peasants dead, perhaps steal the item, and make damned sure that basically everything he has leaves in the red.

At that point, either a slow push to contain the HU or some harassment while creeping with other forces, and you've basically crippled the HU's entire game. On the other hand, if you can manage to get in and out right before their hero shows up, you're gold. I'm not sure how I feel about ramming right into more creeping from the Lab because of the danger in leaving yourself vulnerable to harassing heroes either at home or at the creeps.

And I have always loved TM, because there are so many dandy things about it--save for the spots that permit ToLs to spawn BELOW mines. That just seems blatantly abusive.

[Prozerran]

B) If you don't know where your opponent spawned, how will you know which natural you should expand to?

Simple. Use the lab to scan your opponent's position. It costs what, 50g? Scan the opposite spawn. If they're not there, scan an adjacent spawn, and by a simple process of elimination (and a meager 100g) you'll know which natural to use.

GA:

I thought that was the whole point of speed building the alter for a quicker hero and earlier creeping results. I completely see your point, the mirror might not work out so well. Do you use this tactic when you random Human on TM? If so, do you have any micro tips for creeping that spot? Just wondering if you'd treat it differently than any other creep...

-Proz

[Monty]

Ah gotchya, I was under the impression that you scanned later on, at the same stage as when you buy a shredder.

[GenocideAlive]

Simple. Use the lab to scan your opponent's position. It costs what, 50g? Scan the opposite spawn. If they're not there, scan an adjacent spawn, and by a simple process of elimination (and a meager 100g) you'll know which natural to use.
Actually, it's a meager 50g. You run a WE to the adjacent spawn as you're leaving the Lab, and you Scan the other adjacent spawn. You don't care if he's cross-spawn, if he is then he's in an extremely shitty position to try to stop your creeping or your expansion. You only want to see the neighboring spawns, so you can get an idea of which direction you should be expecting pressure and what he might be building.
I thought that was the whole point of speed building the alter for a quicker hero and earlier creeping results. I completely see your point, the mirror might not work out so well. Do you use this tactic when you random Human on TM? If so, do you have any micro tips for creeping that spot? Just wondering if you'd treat it differently than any other creep...
I don't speed build the Altar, usually. Speed building cripples some of your early resource harvesting and it gives you, like, a 5s edge on your harassing opponent. You can still be jacked all the same as you're leaving (your most vulnerable point), so I prefer the relative safety of an extra footie or two to soak damage and the extra peasants so I can have a shop up as soon as they get back.

As far as micro, I start building the shop as soon as my AM comes out. Then I highlight the AM, pick WE, get to the outer edge of my base, summon it, begin moving it to the camp. Call militia, run them to camp, send AM along with small cadre of 2-3 foots. Rally foots to AM, queue 1-2. By the time everybody gets there and is properly arranged, the WE should be just about there, and engaging the mud golem. Then you summon another WE and FF the mud golem with your two WEs, AM, and any nearby melee units.

Once the mud golem goes down, you can breathe a little easier. Slow will guarantee deaths upon jack. Usually once he goes down I'll run a hurt militia all the way back past my AM so he can act as a scout for any approaching units. If one runs up, I'll run the now-peasant AWAY from the Lab. This baits them into chasing it for the kill, meanwhile I can finish off the Golem, get the item, and GTFO before I can lose more valuable units. The logic behind the peasant-scout is that both militia, WEs, and footies are all higher level units than peasants--so kills on those will be much more beneficial for my opponent. If he chases the peasant, even for a little ways, it gives me time to get out (or finish off myself) more important units.

[h0bgawblin]

I intend to master that build when I get back. It's really a fantastic way of clearing out an early creep. Even in the replay I saw where the spawns were beside each other, and the far seer and grunt poped out right on the human, the human got level 2 and didn't lose a lot. He lost his level advantage afterwards because the orc played very well(i think it was kiwikaki or some hoorai person) and dominated him through out tier 1. Spotted casters and instantly went wyvs.

[PsychoPath]

This is a pretty old strategy and was used much more in the past before people really stopped it as RedRag said with harassment and when the better summon items used to drop from it. Obviously a viable strat vs someone that's probably not going to harass you (some noob) but as RedRag said, not necessarily the best idea.

[Prozerran]

This is a pretty old strategy and was used much more in the past before people really stopped it as RedRag said with harassment and when the better summon items used to drop from it. Obviously a viable strat vs someone that's probably not going to harass you (some noob) but as RedRag said, not necessarily the best idea.

Pro's do it all the time. I don't see your basis for saying it's "not necessarily the best idea." Yes, item drops probably made this a more incredible strategy, but a level 3 AM in the first few minutes of the game and a reasonably fast expo are not things to shy away from either. Check Human replays on TM from WCReplays covering the WCG. You'll see what I'm talking about.

[h0bgawblin]

There is a risk/reward concept to wc3, this is one of those cases. Whether its good or not is really not debatable, however, whether or not it's your preference is. Obviosly everyone here is aware of the bonuses, it's a personal decision whether or not to try it. I personally, would do this against NE, and orc. Also, for this particular strategy(i'm a risk taker) I like to bring 7 militia to get it done all the faster. My recource score will be hurt like the dickens, but those item drops are obscene and would make up for it. This is all of course, whether or not my enemy can stop me. If he does, than I can't really complain seeing as how I decided to play it risky, without to micro to back it up.

[GenocideAlive]

To illustrate my point eg creepjacking:

Me (Random) vs. L33 (Random).

[Basan]

Wtf? That has got to be the shortest replay I've ever seen, GA. *Sheesh* Quitting as soons as you barge in on his creeping. :P

[GenocideAlive]

That's what I was talking about earlier...you get jacked while you're doing it and you're fucked.

He could have tried to TP, run, or do whatever, but it would'nt have mattered. He would have been behind on economy, units, and levels. There's next to nothing he could have done to improve his situation, especially after taking AM vs. BM and getting fucked on the first move. I took out a footie, then a peasant, then he still hadn't killed the mud golem. Since I didn't aggro the creeps, he was going to keep casting Slow on his units even after he ran.

And considering he ran his ass over there to try for the fast L2, he wouldn't have had an arcane in his base. Thus, when he TP'd, he'd still have a bunch of oj/red units that I was going to immediately come to pick off. There's basically nothing he could have done to catch up from that.