General Idea
Marines are strong, very strong. Marines are cheap, very cheap. Marines rip apart every Protoss unit and only run into problems against Colossus and High Templars. The main idea is that you always keep the Colossus count low (low as in 1 or none) and you never give them enough time to tech to High Templars. A fast expansion allows you to support 10+ Barracks and the map will soon look like a river of dots traveling across the screen. After a few back and forth fights you will eventually overpower your opponent’s army with your million man marine army and force him to GG.
Build Order
*Constant SCV Production Assumed*
10 – Supply Depot
12 – Barracks
15 – Orbital Command
@100% Barracks, que 2 marines
@250 minerals, move SCV to expo
18 – Command Center @ Natural
18 – Supply Depot
*Food count discontinued from here, constant scv/marine production*
@150 Minerals, Barracks
@150 Minerals, Barracks
@100 Minerals, Bunker
@75 Minerals, Refinery
@ 100% Refinery, 3 SCVs on gas
@ 64 gas, Tech lab on rax
@ 100 gas, pull two SCVs off gas
@ 100 gas, Research Stim pack
@100% Command Center, Transfer 6-8 SCVs to your natural
*Pump marines, SCVs, barracks, and supply depots constantly, build bunkers if necessary*
@Stim research 120/140 -> Push with your marines and salvage all but one or two of your bunkers.
You should have roughly 10 rax and 30 marines when stim is at 120/140 if you do this right.
Move out with your army and put two more SCVs back on gas, get an engineering bay and combat shields as you move out.
General Gameplay
After stimpack finishes constantly pressure the Protoss with your marine army. If your marine count drops below 10 or 15, pull back. Once it hits 30-35 go in again. Marines operate best at around 20-30 marines. Once the pressure starts, it should never stop for more than 20 or 30 seconds. You may need some marauders if you haven’t broken your opponent after 5 or 6 waves. Also make sure you are upgrading and getting attack/armor upgrades for your infantry. Don’t forget to get combat shield as well ASAP. If your opponent gets too many Colossus or HTs for your marines to handle, transition into Vikings or ghosts. Expand aggressively and add on reactors and additional barracks as the game carries on as well. The game should end in 12 to 18 minutes.
Reacting to Common Protoss Openings
1 gate expo -> 6 gate timing push:
This will be a fairly tough match. You might initially have to play defensive because your opponent will have a large number of gateway units and sentries with full energy. Focus on killing the sentries and make sure you keep your army size at least 20. Fall back to bunkers if things go wrong to build back up to 30-35 marines.
1gate expo -> 2 base Colossus:
This common opening should make for a fairly easy match because you will hit while the Colossus number is very low. They won’t have range either.
1 gate expo -> 2 base HTs:
This has potential to be tough. The timing window is very slim. If you hit him at the right time, you should be able to just straight up win. However if he has multiple storms ready you will need to split your army well and start to get ghosts. You cannot continue to build pure marine as HTs destroy marine balls and archons do considerable damage to marines as well.
1 base Dts:
If you don’t spot this in time and you don’t have scans available you will probably lose. Throw down an engineering bay as soon as you notice dts. You need to tech up to ravens quickly and push once you got one. Your opponent shouldn’t have enough time to get out multiple Colossus or HTs by the time you have a raven.
1 base ‘3/4gate-warp prism’:
You need supply depots around your base to spot this, if your opponent can get multiple warps into your main, you will have problems. If you spot it quickly this should be easy to handle. Make sure you snipe the probe/pylon/warp prism quickly.
1 base Colossus:
This is a really rare build, but your marines should have stim by the time 2 Colossus come out. Simply stim forward and snipe the range less Colossus as fast as you can.
2gate Robo:
The most standard Protoss opening, and one of the easiest to beat. By the time you hit your opponent simply won’t have enough stuff to counter your marine ball because he went for the safe opening. By the time he figures out what you are doing with his observer it will be too late.
3gate Stargate:
Void rays and phoenixes melt to marines so fast it’s not even funny. This should be an auto win once you hold off the first void ray.
3gate robo:
Extremely common opening at the diamond level. Your opponent will most likely have 2 or 3 immortals; you will need multiple bunkers and SCVs ready to repair. Marines do well against immortals, but your bunkers will evaporate quite quickly leaving you potentially vulnerable.
4 gate:
A well executed 4-gate will hit when you have 1 or 2 bunkers. You will need to turtle and throw down multiple bunkers to defend. Try to slow down his 4 gate as much as possible by controlling the watch towers and denying the probe/pylon. If you have less than 3 bunkers you might have trouble with this. However, marines destroy gateway units fast when they have stim, so just turtle till you get stim out.
Other Important Points
* You will probably get raped in the very first battle. The Protoss will forcefield and guardian shield and their army will probably roflstomp yours so hard you will probably think its gg, however as those sentries die off your army gets exponentially strong.
* Stim and dart forward and snipe any Colossus ASAP, you need to keep their numbers low. They won’t have the range upgrade by the time you hit them.
* Put supply depots at the edge of your base, you need time to react to drops. If you aren’t in position and the Protoss gets multiple warps or can elevator into your base you might be in trouble.
* Constantly update your rally points to where you think you will be in 40 seconds if all goes well. It’s better for your rally points to be too far forward than too far back because you can grab units as you retreat, where as in the heat of battle you might have trouble grabbing units a screen and a half in the back to reinforce the front lines.
* Make sure your control groups are setup properly. You need your command center, barracks and engineering bays at minimum hotkeyed. Preferably an SCV as well near your main to make supply depots if need be.
* Flanking with marines help, it helps you get that deadly concave quicker. It also prevents you from getting stormed and laser beamed to death while in ‘ball formation’
* Micro your marines constantly once the push starts. You shouldn’t have to look at your base ever. Your supply will go up and down constantly, meaning no supply depots are needed normally.
* Trade your army constantly with his. Your marines operate best when they are in small to medium sizes. If your opponent gets out multiple Colossus you may need to swap into Vikings. If he has multiple HTs you may need ghosts.
* Throw your brood war mentality away. I used to play Terran in BW and any BW Terran player knows that marines get raped by everything in the Protoss army. In StarCraft 2 things are totally different. Don’t let your brood war experience of zealots, dragoons and reavers ripping apart anything not made of steel effect your judgment in game.
* Do not make reactors until you have at least 12 barracks, this will cause too much of a production spike in marines and can cost you the game. When you do start to make reactors, do them one or two at a time.
* Expand aggressively; your opponent won’t have a chance to move out a screen width from his natural if you do this right.
* Poke the front constantly early game, if you don’t see an expansion build another 2 or 3 bunkers just in case. Control the watchtower(s) if possible at all times.
* After 6:30 make sure you have a scan or two available for DTs until you can confirm he isn’t going DTs.
* Do not get supply blocked ever. You need to build two or three supply depots at a time mid game. If you get supply blocked for even a bit, your army size will be substantially smaller when you push out.
* Hotkey 6-7 SCVs at your natural so you can pull them off and repair if you need to quickly. If you need to pull SCVs and haven’t hotkeyed them, double click a SCV, do not box your whole mineral line. By doing this, you ensure your mules continue to mine.
* Many Protoss respond to your 1rax FE by 4 gating you, make sure you have multiple bunkers up and are constantly checking your opponent’s front. Controlling the watchtowers and slowing down the probe/pylon is important.
Conclusion
Have fun abusing your “A” key on your keyboard and making Protoss’ around the world rage with this build! GL HF Terran commanders and remember A is for MARINES NOT APPLE! Comments and questions are welcome and I will constantly update and view this thread. [image loading]
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