Dealing with zerg EE as terran

Hey guys... Just wanted to talk about terran openings here. For awhile me and Gil were struggling against zergs because of their free early expansion... Gil suggested the other day for me to go for an early expansion too, just after getting a siege tank and a couple bunkers to defend.

I think gil still does it this way but I've been going reactor hellions instead which not only allows me to expand but allows me to do some sick harrass + do some great scouting at the same time.

If I scout a spire, I lift my factory and go for a tech lab and armory to get a thor whilst making a few rets, eventually going thor + mass rine. If they had laid down a roach den or hydra den when I scouted, I would've gone tank/marauder instead with some medivac.

I suggest any terrans having trouble vs zerg try this opening. I don't think I've lost with it yet :)

As a zerg player i find if i dont FE 2 base Muta harras with a roach base ground i cant beat a Terran.

MM ball and M-Thor is just way to aggressive for me to fight.

Don't get me started with tanks, Terrans that can micro marines and tanks around in a turtle can quite easily gain map control before i can secure a second expansion.

With good Nydus and Muta harras a terran can be broken relatively fast.

i just found another way to nullify the muta harass
2 fac reactor hellion
can buy me time massing up thor rine

i open up by 1 rax without addon and fac without addon. Then i harrass using 4 rine + 1 hellion while keep reinforcing. After forcing the zerg to make units, i backed up sometimes even before even engaging the zerg.

After that i transition to 4 fac with 2 reactor and 2 tech lab. The 2 reactor is mainly used to pump hellions while tech to pump thors. Mass thors can nullify the zerg muta/ling/baneling quite easily with upgrades. The only problem is neutral parasite which all down to micro to kill the infestor.

The hellions are used to keep harass the zerg non-stop and sacrifice them. The zerg usually use muta to kill the hellion because the hellions in groups can kill lings in 1 shot (blue flame).
Using the hellion,T can turtle abit while expanding to around 3-4 base.
Since the hellion killed tons of drones, Terran can easily engage zerg head-on after massing up 200/200

But it comes to variety where siege tank can be included as well. Since there are a lot of factory,mech is used

Good idea so your idea revolves around map control which is the point of the mutas. So it nillifies any of the zerg's map control and gives you map control pretty good. I think a roach muta combo is good against that but i think the zerg will have to try to gain map control again to win the game.

I've been losing a lot to t recently and i find, if i get bunker rushed i will lose (whether its successful or not). You are forced to make lings and early on u just dont have the larvae to be going lings and drones and fall behind.

also i find mech quite good in the middle game against ling muta composition. blueflamed helions or even normal hellions rip apart lings then like 1-2 tanks and 1-2 thors will often contain and win the game at arounr 10-15 min mark (i dont play terran so just going by approximately when i get hit) and i find you dont have the gas to have substantial muta roach composition. u can do roach ling but then already that means u have stopped the muta harrass which is a large part of the issue.

Roach,Mutas sounds good against the terrans marine and thor build but is it actually possible to fund that? Cause getting both would be pretty gas intensive.

Muta,bling,ling sucks so much against marine and siege tanks <,< People keep stimming the marines and running them back which means all the banelings die to siege tank shots. Any ideas on combating this other then roach muta?

Cool when ever siege tanks are involved its all about positioning, when he moves out run lings in stuff like that. But if he is running his marines to the back why not move the banes around to the back? if you can't move them to the back then you should let him push forward more until u can flank him.

SOOOOOOOO many zerg players get this wrong. You have to sandwich the Terran from at least two different sides. This will mean that he can not micro and spread his marines very well against you lings and banelings. Also getting the terran while he's unsieged is insta-win for zerg (don't be afraid to engage off creep if you feel that you have the larger army).

Just remember that attacking the terran while he's in good position with his siege tanks is like shooting yourself in the head and then falling off a cliff into a river filled with crocodiles. DON'T LET HIM GET INTO THIS POSITION. Having good map awareness is a good way of stopping this.

Wow Fight...your analogy about attacking into a terrans good posistion is really...graphic. =)

Getting a good sandwhich is a good idea but its borderline impossible sometimes to get a flank on the terran army. For example that game you played me on Meta with the close spawn positions. How can i possibly flank your army once it gets the 3rd base? If i waited up there with my army a slow siege tank push could probably push the ling,baneling back. How would it be possible to get a flank in those position?

In general, in either Brood War or SC2, the answer for Zerg again Terran when Terran's positioning make it impossible to attack his army on favorable terms you counter his bases and avoid his army. If he chooses to make it a base race, your army should be more mobile and your bases more spread out and if he chooses to pull back you can either catch him in a bad position or pull back and build up.

Close positions on metalopolis you want to be expanding aggressively away from him, forcing him to move out and attack you, then counter while you set up those new bases; you'll want to go with a very mobile force (muta/ling) for this style. Alternatively, you can expand more slowly and go with a slower army (read: roaches, roach/infestor), but use drops to keep him pinned back while you build up.

Letting terran get set up and then attacking into it just gets ugly. With a muta/ling army, keeping it moving is of the utmost importance - as you have seen, it does poorly in frontal assaults - because it not only keeps him worried about what you're going to do, but it also helps you maintain good scouting. The scouting is the key: when he moves out, you can predict where to, for the most part, and ascertain whether you can flank him along that path and then, if you see it's a wholly unfavorable position for you and you think you'll lose the fight, you just wait for him to commit and counter.

Perfectly stated by Dr. Maar. =). In a zerg vs terran, you almost always never want to attack in a head on attack unless your positive you can overrun his army.

I just discovered a fun way to open out as Terran. Rush nuke and blue flame hellions. Block off with a depot, barrack and a ghost academy, push with one ghost (with nuke and cloak) 7-8 marines, 3-4 blue flame hellions.
This tactic is purely aimed at MAJORLY scaring and flustering your opponent when he sees blue flame hellions and then hears a nuke go off. Even IF the nuke just damages the expo hatch a little, it forces him to quickly get overseers and remain paranoid of both nuke and hellion drops. I was just experimenting and was really lucky to pull this off but would like help with refining it as a build order :-) comments.. suggestions..

MultiSniper wrote:

I just discovered a fun way to open out as Terran. Rush nuke and blue flame hellions. Block off with a depot, barrack and a ghost academy, push with one ghost (with nuke and cloak) 7-8 marines, 3-4 blue flame hellions.
This tactic is purely aimed at MAJORLY scaring and flustering your opponent when he sees blue flame hellions and then hears a nuke go off. Even IF the nuke just damages the expo hatch a little, it forces him to quickly get overseers and remain paranoid of both nuke and hellion drops. I was just experimenting and was really lucky to pull this off but would like help with refining it as a build order :-) comments.. suggestions..

Whoa... would have to c a replay of it...

MultiSniper wrote:

I just discovered a fun way to open out as Terran. Rush nuke and blue flame hellions. Block off with a depot, barrack and a ghost academy, push with one ghost (with nuke and cloak) 7-8 marines, 3-4 blue flame hellions.
This tactic is purely aimed at MAJORLY scaring and flustering your opponent when he sees blue flame hellions and then hears a nuke go off. Even IF the nuke just damages the expo hatch a little, it forces him to quickly get overseers and remain paranoid of both nuke and hellion drops. I was just experimenting and was really lucky to pull this off but would like help with refining it as a build order :-) comments.. suggestions..

sounds interesting :) my main concern would be that getting cloak/nuke and blue flame hellions takes a fair bit of gas. would also like to see a replay :)

when i think about it though, i do a hellion into cloaked banshees into tank marine build most games. this would be like replacing the cloaked banshees with a ghost/cloak/nuke. if you made the build order 1-1-1 you could harass the from and drop the ghost with nuke in the main, im not sure if you could do more damage than banshees can, but if you were lucky to nuke a mineral line you would be looking good. maybe you could make it a double nuke and take out the pool/tech, but thats getting on the verge of all-in i think...

Open 2 rax, into mech. GG zerg ;)