EPT![[image loading]](http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8803/ballmo9.jpg)
Allow me to introduce the Terran Ball, the fearsomest of mid-game attacks. This mighty force sweeps out shortly after the 10 minuits mark and tries to destroy everything we stand for: hatcheries, drones and extractors. It tries to vanquish our creep, tries to slay the Overmind itself. Stopped it must be, but by what and how?
Enter Siege's ball busting guide!
Unit combination
The best unit combination is a simple one known to almost everyone: as many lurkers as your gas allow, 2 scourges for every science vessel he has, possibly a few mutalisks if there's any left over from the harass (there better be!) and finally all spare larva should go into zerglings.
However, I can't help but notice how alot of people, especially on lower levels, include hydralisks in their army. Hydralisk are weak and expansive. A hydralisk deal less damage than a zergling pair, got slightly more hitpoints but costs approximately twice as much as a zergling egg. The only thing speaking in their advantage is their ranged attack. By the way, did I mention they need some costy upgrades to be used efficiently?
All that gas that could have gone into lurkers... What a waste.
Deleying the Battle
Most terrans never rienforce their push. Some of them have a hotkey setup set in stone that they won't change, and bringing unhotkeyed units might not appeal. Others fear the backstabb and therefore lock all possible rienforcements into bunkers, and some simply have never though of the possibility of rienforcing. After all, you rarely see someone else do it in replays.
No matter why they won't rienforce, it's a weakness which you can abuse. How? By deleying the battle. Your army grows stronger and stronger by every second that ticks by, his do not. The longer you wait before engaging him, the better are your chances of succefully devouring him. If you deley him long enought you might even get swarm or gaurdians in time to save the day! At least if you went for a quick hive.
This is a method that can be used to deley his army: First of all, burrow your lurkers outside his base – any choke works really, but the further away from your base it is, the more time you might gain.
![[image loading]](http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/8639/77727511kh7.jpg)
This is how you do it! Not very hard, right? If you don't have an overlord on the cliff like I do (it's not even possible to have one on many maps) you'd better place 1-2 lings in front of your army so he doesn't catch you with your pants down (could get nasty).
![[image loading]](http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/9901/44799472zb3.jpg)
Get ready for some (not so) sick micro once you spot him moving out. Wait for him to start sieging his tanks, then unburrow, run away and burrow just out of his tanks' range. Ideally you want to send in a pair of lings to draw fire, or the tanks might get a shot off before you're out of range.
![[image loading]](http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7193/42922316dn8.jpg)
Repeat...
![[image loading]](http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1599/63663198bj8.jpg)
... and again...
Now this is not a water-proof method. He might already be out in the field, then you'll have to abandon the idea, or start the deley further out in the field. He might also try to attack you with unsieged tanks, but that's fine.
You can react in two ways:
1) Ideally he wants to have his tanks sieged and hid behind a group of marines when encountering you. When he pushes out with unsieged tanks he uses the exact opposite formation; tanks in front and unsieged. Which means you've got an advantage if you engage, even if you do it from only one direction.
This is attacking becouse of weak enemy formation, the first of three situations when you want to engage.
However, this means that you have to keep all your support units hotkeyed and in-formation just behind your lurkers all the time. To avoid that we could asume that if he sieges the first time he'll continue to siege a few more times, and vice versa. Either we keep our support units in formation the first time and then just keep them clumped (a formation that requiers little to no attention to create and maintain) in case he tries to slowpush, or we keep them clumbed up from the start and in case he moves out unsieged we run back our lurkers a bit to gain time to set up the formation.
or
2) Abandon the idea of deleying him, you can use the landscape to your advantage just as well as time or formation – though using two obviously is surperior to only one.
Note that if you've got 12 lurker eggs morphing back at your base it's not a very good idéa to engage no matter what formation he's using, pick option 2. Also remember that losing units just so that you can get more time to build new ones is not a good idé, we're trying to gain time without losing more than a few zerglings.
Engaging
Okey, let's check the list!
You've deleyed him as long as you possibly could?
You've got ass few morphing eggs as possible?
You've forced him to a favourable battleground?
Hey wait! How do you do that, and what's a 'favourable battlegound'?
Where to pick your fights
The terran army will most likely try to sweep down upon any of our expansions if we let him wander about as he likes. If our remote expansion is rampless, that will most likely be his first choice; the natural appears to be harder to kill (rienforcements will arrive quicker and there's most likely sunkens in the choke), it's also easier to save the drones and it's easier to rebuild the natural than a remote expansion.
Now that we know where he'll most likely move we've to choose a location along that path that fits us. After all we're not some mind controling psychos whom can order him around *cough*protoss*cough*.
What we'll look for is this:
1: Inability for the terran army to run away from lurker spines
2: Possibility to flank
3: High ground
Thinking alittle about it we'll realise that the ultimate place is actually at the ramp to your remote expansion (if there's a ramp). If he walks up the ramp he can't run away back down.
The second best option is just outside our natural expansion. Your army is easily kept out in the field and your rienforcements naturally arrive in your natural so sandwhiching him is easy.
Engaging, attempt #2
Keep your army inbetween his army and your remote expansion, if he moves toward it you back away alittle (forcing him to slowpush as described above, if possible)
We'll be facing either of three scenarions:
1) He moves for the remote expansion. React like this: When you're finally sure he's going to strike the far-away base you move your army up the ramp and burrow your lurkers so that tanks placed just below the ramp can't attack you. Also bring whatever troops you've got in your natural (newly hatched ones ye know) and place them behind his army – make sure he doesn't see them, or even worse, can attack them.
If he tries to move up with his rines first you attack with your army in the expansion, he can't run away back, the ramp is too narrow, nor can he run forward; your army is blocking the way. Slaughter is inevitable. Meanwhile you bring your rienforcements and devour his tanks from behind.
If done perfectly it might look as beautifull as in this game (Orion vs Fantasy):
![[image loading]](http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/480/rampci7.jpg)
If he moves up his tanks first you'll engage anyway. His rines will hardly be able to shoot up the ramp and without tanks he can't kill many expansions...
This is attacking becouse of a terrain advantage, the second of the three situations.
If he abandon his attempts and moves for your natural instead you've to run down the ramp, then we'll treat it like if he'd gone for the natural first.
Or
2)He moves for the natural. React like this: Burrow the lurkers of your rienforcement army (the one you've been gathering in your nat) just youside your natural, this is to force one last siege and gain time to set up your other army in position. When you feel ready you come at him from both sides at the same time. To cordinate this is a hard task – you'll need some nice 123a4a5a6a7a skills - and you might not be able to do it flawlessly, not even close to, but practice makes perfect and beeing able to do this is a huge advantage. If succefull it might look something like this:
![[image loading]](http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3439/flankwk3.jpg)
This is attacking becouse of a strong own formation, the last of the three situations.
or
3) You've got a remote expansion out in the open. Like this one:
![[image loading]](http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5448/scscrnshot012108104922nx8.jpg)
Just like in all other scenarios it's important to attack from two different sides. I can't tell you much if you just came here hoping to learn how exactly how to do that flank, but this is the basics: You set up one army inbetween his army and the expo and sneak the other one around to come at him from the back. Have alittle patience, just couse one of his tanks can fire at your lings doesn't mean you can't wait alittle longer. Back away further and see if he unsieges. if he do, well, attack! If he does not, wait alittle longer - unless he can already fire at your expansion that is. Then you have no choice but going into the fight in slightly worse conditions, but still don't attack before your army is in position. You know, two wide fronts, everything hotkeyed. Make sure that there's no lings in the lurker hotkey, missing a burrow can be fatal - allthough alot of people, me included, select lurkers from the screen when burrowing rather than using the hotkey.
This...
![[image loading]](http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/8677/widefrontzx5.jpg)
...is not a good flank, just a wide front. Ideally you want two of those, one on eachside of his army. Actually you might want to use another unit combination than in that picture too...
This too is attacking becouse of a strong own formation, though it's harder to archieve it out in the open.
Small tips
Here's a few short tips that might help you save the day.
* Drops are annoying, especially if you have to micro a battle at the same time as those rines are killing your drones or your spawning pool. The best way to deal with drops is to never let him unload, but keeping scourges all around your bases is very expensive. Keep overlords spread out your bases at a perimeter instead. This will at least allow you to see the drop (if you got the attention to notice it that is) and 2 scrouges at every hatchery in an expansion. When you see the red dot on the minimap (use shift+tab to change the minmap colors so he's always red. it's easier to notice red dots, at least unless you're colorblind), double press the hotkey for the threatened hatchery, select the scourges and order them to attack the dropship. His drop ship will be heading for your expansion (where your scourges are) and your scourges will be heading for his dropship, collision course!
* Spread a few lings out around the map on critical positions, like outside his nat, outside your nat and outside the nat of your expansion(s). Also put a few in the middle of the map on positions that he's very likely to cross if he's heading for either of your bases. A few lings are cheap, intelligence is not. Alternative those lings can be replaced by overlords if there's cliffs or water to hide on – you really don't want to lose overlords.
* Get nydus channels asap when your hive finnishes. These are great help defending vs all kind of harass. You want one end in your natural and the other in your outlying expansion.
* If you want to burrow your lurkers from the screen instead of using the hotkey (makes sure no lurker is burrowed 2 miles away from the battle) you can do it like this: move your screen so that only lurkers in range of whatever they're supposed to fire at is visible at the screen, then ctrl-click on one and press "u".
* When you attack him, taking out his tanks is often enought to stall the push for the moment. However, if the battlefield is open and you haven't got a enough protection at your expansions he can still do some damage with only rines.
* When you hotkey two armies it might be a good idea (at least I think it is) to group them like this (or similar):
1: lurks in army 1
2: lings in army 1
3: lings in army 1
4: lurks in army 2
5: lings in army 2
6: lings in army 2
In this way it will be easier to keep track of which hotkey is located where on the map and setting up a good formation before the battle will be easier.
Afterword
If you think you've better ways to do things, then trust yourself, but at least try out these ones. Then you can stick to your ideas if you want to. Lessons learnt the hard way are the ones best remembered.
"Practice makes perfect", words couldn't be more true. One can tell you what to do, one can give you a few hints about how to do it but one can never do it for you nor provide the exact experience needed to execute the task.
your call
