Duckspam at Start
The ducks were having a much harder time than I had thought. The pool wasn't regenerating them as fast as I'd have liked, and once he got defenders there it offered no cover either. Lauri's kodachi micro is quite good, and quite frankly I'm not used to facing kodachis that aren't being mishandled. Not without scorchers anyway.

I stole the reclaim in the middle at the start, but when his kodachi came in and killed my two mex, my economy was miserably behind. I had 6 metal income to his 14! I did have a larger army - but it felt quite hosed vs. his superior kodachi control, it didn't matter how many ducks I had his fire would wreck every engagement.
So all through the early game I was just trying to posture myself back into a comparable economy. I didn't actually mean to attack at all, just to pressure and force him to slow down his expansion. That I kept running into his well-placed turrets and losing countless ducks was just keeping me further behind.
This sort of posturing play means you can't not be using raiders. If I'd have made earlier buoys or scallops I'd have just died to a bigger better tank army, because these units cannot create the map pressure to cover your expansion with.

To be fair, making a single buoy and cockroaching in the center pond would have been a great idea, denying him two mex and killing some defenders free, while securing an avenue of attack.

The ducks to the East were controlling his expansion to the NE. They had little utility for anything else at this point as they get crushed by statics and can't do anything to real tanks. He had to slow push with lotus/defender, spending 1000 metal before he could take them. Without fighting him, the pretty much redundant combat value of the ducks was converted into something very meaningful by diluting Lauri's funds between SW and NE. To be fair, I could have quite possibly taken it myself, but I thought he had a much more firm control of the area. If I'd gone there and built a skydust straight up I'd have possibly been able to keep it, but depending on the timing I probably wouldn't have had enough metal to threaten the SE as I did.

Lauri's Gunships
I agree with the specs, the rapiers were likely a mistake despite winning him the game. They're not really matched well against buoys, especially considering other options. From the same factory, brawler seemed far more appropriate. Thunderbird would have massacred mass buoy. Sharp-shooter, or cloaked roaches too. Rogues are a very hard counter. While rapiers are generalist and 'safe', it could have gone south for him if I'd had the radar read to prepare. Despite his significant early advantage, if I'd have had a razor up the SW would have been well and truly mine - putting me on parity with a large reclaim field to work with.

Nice cast as always :)