Delay Zerg Early Expand For Free With This Trick

by Taerix

August 2nd, 2010

Many Zerg players will expand very early and get two bases up and running even before they have a spawning pool. This can be a very bad thing to be up against as a Terran player since it means they will have a better economy than you almost right from the start.

But since you play Terran there's a way you can delay his early expand for a very long time with this tactic.

Start your base like normal with a supply depot at 10/11 and a Barracks at 12. After the SCV is done building the depot, rally him to your opponent's base to check out what's he's doing. It's important that you scout early so you can find him (if it's more than a 1v1 map) and get in position.

Once you're SCV gets into his base, check it out and make sure he's got a spawning pool being built. If it's done before your Barracks is complete, you may be up against a player that is about to rush you, so get a wall up fast to prevent from losing quick.

After you check out the Zerg base, go out to his natural expansion and build a bunker in the way of his Hatchery as soon as you can. When it's done you should hop back up into his base to see what he's up to.

This will force the Zerg to make zerglings before getting his expansion down, which can throw him off if he doesn't have a back up plan ready. As soon as your SCV sees zerglings pop out at his base, be ready to salvage your bunker (but don't do it yet!).

If he only makes 4 zerglings it will take over 15 seconds for him to kill your bunker, so when it's at around half life start salvaging (hotkey: S) This takes good timing so don't get discouraged if you lose the bunker.

After some practice you'll be able to salvage the bunker, returning your 100 minerals, and will have delayed the Zerg expansion by a long time, forcing your opponent to get behind or change strategies in the early game which can allow you to pull ahead.

Categories TvZ Strategy
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Terran vs Zerg Strategies & Tips

by Taerix

August 1st, 2010

As a Terran player, fighting against Zerg can be one of the hardest matchups because they are so mobile. While mech is one of the strongest play styles to use against the Zerg, a good player can really take advantage of your immobility. Mech is just so slow to react that you can quickly get a nydus worm or drop in the back of your base and lose half of it before you can react.

So to combat the Zerg we need to hit them where they are weak. Instead of expanding away from your Zerg opponent take expansions that get you closer to them. That way you can set up a line of tanks that slowly spreads across the map towards their base.

One of the keys to defeating Zerg is being on the offensive. If you sit back in your base with your immobile mech army, you leave yourself wide open to harassment. Plus Zerg is the easiest race to expand with, so if you're too slow your opponent will out expand you and beat you with sheer numbers.

If you take a more aggressive stance and get your mech up in their base, they will have no choice to fight you since they will lose their base if they don't. Just be wary and always expect a quick counter attack.

As you expand, use your supply depots, barracks and bunkers to form walls that block your mineral lines and main base. One of the easiest zerg counter attacks is a swarm of speed zerglings that kills all of your SCV's. You can prevent this if you build your buildings in the right places.

Creep is another huge advantage that Zerg has against you. A good player will spread that purple gunk across the map in a hurry, giving all their units 30% faster movement speed. To combat this, make a raven to move with your army so you can kill creep tumors that are burrowed along the way to his base.

You can also send a banshee out with a raven to pick off creep tumors. Doing so will greatly limit the Zerg's ability to move around quickly and react to your attacks. The trick is to think about the advantages that Zerg has against you, and cut them off wherever you can.

Categories TvZ Strategy
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Wall-In With Terrans To Fight Early Zerg Rushes

by Taerix

July 29th, 2010

The Terrans are without a doubt one of the weakest races in the beginning of the game. Marines have so few hitpoints and bad mobility so they will quickly die to zerglings unless you have awesome micro skills. So to keep yourself alive against early zerg rushes, be sure to wall yourself in at your main base's choke point.

A popular strategy used to be to use 1 Barracks and 2 Supply Depots to complete the wall off at your choke point. While this technique might work ok against Protoss, it's less effective against Zerg. This is because banelings pose a huge threat at your front door if you have any supply depots.

Depots are fragile with only 350 hit points so it only takes 5 banelings to blow one up. Even worse is if there are 2 depots right next to each other, the splash damage will destroy them both! Then a whole stream of zerglings can get through that opening and flood your base, which means an early loss.

Instead, use a Barracks and a Factory to wall yourself in. That way you won't get supply blocked by an easy depot kill, and your wall will be much stronger since both buildings have over 1000 hit points.

If you are expecting a Baneling bust, complete the wall by adding a bunker behind your 2 buildings to fill the gap, then load it up with marines and you'll be pleny safe from any early rush shenanigans.

To get your Factory up fast, put a refinery down before your first barracks, this will help you stockpile a bunch of gas while your barracks builds and give you the fast factory to complete your wall early enough to survive.

Categories TvZ Strategy
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Terran Vs Zerg – Quick Win With Reaper Rush

by Taerix

June 29th, 2010

This game is taken from the HDH Invitational. It shows how powerful a Terran Reaper rush can be against a fast expanding Zerg player. Terran basically starts out with a 10 Racks, then takes the gas and gets his first Reaper as soon as he can.

With excellent placement he puts a bunker right outside the sight range of the expanding Hatchery so Zerg can’t see it until it starts attacking or the Hatchery is finished. Once the bunker was done the Reaper could jump in and start killing everything close by. Reapers do a lot of damage to buildings with their grenades so this is a great choice to take out that Hatchery.

The Zerg player should have canceled or abandoned that Hatchery as soon as he noticed what was going on instead of sacrificing all those units trying to kill the bunker. If he would have saved up his forces he could have saved his drones and had a chance at winning the game later.

Getting units like Reapers out quick can be very devastating to players that aren’t ready for it. Here’s the game:

Categories TvZ Strategy
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