Sherlock Holmes, Vikings and The Joys of being an Amateur Starcraft Player

Howdy guys, Hatlicks here!
(Just incase you were wondering, I'm going to start consistantly updating on Mondays.)

Okay, so this weekend I finally saw Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.
Alright, I know it's late, but I was putting it off because I had no idea how it was going to be. I mean, I really like Jude Law, and who DOESN'T like Robert Downey Jr. but come on, how could they do a remake of Sherlock Holmes when there have been so many classic representations already spawned?
I was very clearly wrong.
This rendition was soooooo much closer to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and I loved seeing the Edgy cocaine-using-best-friend-insulting-obsessive-asshole-Sherlock Holmes. (Best of all, he didn't wear that stupid deerstalker cap, and he never uttered "Elementary my dear Watson.)
For any of you who still haven't seen it after almost a year, I command you with all my blogly power to watch it ASAP.

Next up, I'd like to point out that even with all the stupid cliches that have come to represent vikings and norse culture, they're still extremely awesome now only for being powerful warriors but also TOTALLY badass explorers, sailors and craftsmen. Now perhaps you guys have a different idea of awesome, but I've been getting rocked pretty hard by a Viking Folk-Metal band called Týr that is absolutely (If you'll pardon my French) fucking awesome. Now, the only wall I've reached in the persuit of my viking metal is that when I listen to new bands, I hear the insturmental parts of their songs and they are pleasing to me. The only problem is that as soon as their vocalists (More like Choke-alists!) start wailing and screaming, I'm filled with the almost-unavoidable urge to gouge my eyes out.
I have literally no idea where these bands got the idea to take songs about viking culture (Some of which ate actually tratitional songs) and then make them insufferably bad. Remember guys, screaming isn't music no matter which genre it's in...

Alrighty. For the final piece on this week's agenda, I'm starting a strategy topic about some of the adventures I've had in the wonderful world of Starcraft II, and a few of my favorite strategies to pull on Bronze League noobies that are almost guaranteed to work.
Blizzard Entertainment's newest installment in the Starcraft series is absolutely fantastic. Literally everything about it is a worthy successor to the greatest RTS (real time strategy game) of all time (Starcraft, of course.) from the Single-Player Campaign to the online Multiplayer, and I HIGHLY recomend it to any gamer from the amateur (like me!) to the professional Korean Starcraft player with 800 APM (actions per minute) who probably doesn't need the recomendation from some no-life blogger (like me!)
Now, after my long time playing Starcraft and my brief stint getting trounced on the Starcraft II Beta, I went into the game thinking I was hot shit. Now if you're like me, you'll want to see the action as much as possible, and I cannot stress how important it is to not consistantly watch the actual battles progress. As always with any RTS, your main focus should be your economy and troop production, because they are vitally important to your success as a player. (They're also vital to not wanting to kill yourself out of sheer frustration when you get hit by a wall of units from your opponent.)
I don't want to get too deep into the theory of this game, because quite frankly, I suck at it. So instead, I'll talk about some of my favorite Zerg units (Sorry, that's all I've got time for this week), the bronze-league level strategies you'll use them to counter, and how to use them in a way that will make your opponents want to leave the game. (You would seriously be surprised how often that happens.)

Of the three playable races, my favorite is by far the Zerg. They're cheap, nasty (Seriously, they're gross.) and very powerful if used correctly. Utilizing horde of anamalistic tricks and traits in combat, the Zerg are easily the least technologically advanced race in the Starcraft universe.
The first, and probably most important of all the Zerg units I'm discussing today is definately the Queen. The Queen (As far as story goes) plays a limited command roll in controlling Zerg nesting sites, but in reality, what you'll use her for is barfing massive ammounts of larvae (Yeah, you read that correctly.) onto your hatcheries so you can produce hordes of inexpensive units to quickly outnumber your opponents. For a unit that functions as an early defender against rushes, the queen is basically useless in combat, and it's for this reason that I recomend using her to pump out as many units that ARE helpful for defense as possible. Another use for the queen is the expansion of creep (A disgusting slimey shit that Zerg structures need to be built on) which can actually prove problematic to any other race trying to expand, as well as providing your units with increased movespeed and life regeneration.

An absolute MUST for playing in Bronze League is the Overseer. I can't say that these flying buggers are exciting, but I can say that they'll be useful for countering many of the cheesy strategies that other bronze league players will try to pull. The most useful trait of the Overseer is that it is a detector, which successsfully counters your opponents attempts to rush you with invisible units. (Such as Banshees [For Terran] or Dark Templar [For Protoss]) Apart from a few useful (albeit disgusting) skills (like literally shitting out creep), the Overseer isn't very useful for a lot (that I can tell) except providing the role of an excellent scout.

Now, for my absolute favorite unit. The Baneling.
Banelings are goddamned NASTY. They are vermin, filled with massive ammounts of chemically volatile pus and liquids that explode on contact with units and buildings causing heavy damage in a wide area of effect.
These pesky little sappers can be used to counter the most common of Terran strategies and several Protoss ones. What one tends to see in Bronze League is an abundance of turtles. (and no I'm not talking about those cute little anphibious beasts) Turtling is a technique where players will wall off entrances to their bases with defensive structures, (or just any structure for that matter.) and mass units until a time when they feel aptly prepaired to deal with any threat. An obvious downside to this is that it is extremely hard to expand while using this technique, and that's where banelings come in. Banelings can lie burrowed around nearby mineral deposits waiting for enemy workers to come in and attempt to build. OR, Banelings can be used to smash through your enemy's defenses creating holes for your faster units to reach the delicate structures within a base. Banelings are also hellish to small clusters of light units, allowing them to break up groups of marines, zealots and zerglings at any stage of the game. While they are a valuble unit, they shouldn't be relied upon for terribly long. The baneling's strength is in harrassing your opponent while you build up a substantial ammount of stronger more versatile troops (like Hydralisks) before you go in for the kill.

I might do some more Starcraft strategy in the future, but for next week, probably not. I hope you guys enjoyed that, but if you didn't, tell me what you would enjoy reading about for the future.

Momentai, friends!
-Hatlicks