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So I've been searching for ways to beat the mech build that zerg has been struggling with and after watching one of Day9's shows I decided to take up his suggestion of banelings but with a twist. Basically i found out that banelings + zerglings are very very strong, zerglings in late game sounds like suicide I know but .. watch these replays and enjoy. Terran basically cannot build a land army. These games are 1650+ platinum players I know their not perfect but I think its still some fairly descent play on both ends. I apologize for me semi nerd ragein one of them as well =).
Replay 1 - http://bit.ly/937MlC
Replay 2 - http://bit.ly/aFfpZW
Replay 3 - http://bit.ly/9s4KmK
Basically I open with speedlings into a fast xpand, transition to mutalisk to get early air control ( keeps terran from going air ). Then transition over to baneligns/zergling mix as I upgrade everything, and I mean everything for zerglings and banelings. Against bio you just go almost 100% banelings with mutas to mop up after. Against mech you want a very healthy mix of both. Zerglings need to draw fire from the terran as you send the banelings in, pretty important to get that timing right as you can see a few spots where I fuck it up in these replays and things go badly.
Synk
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I have tried this and im sure u have too but it just doesnt work. Im atm playing at 2000+ and this is really easy for terran to counter, a lot of helions will make ur baneling/zling vanish instantly while just a small number of thors can deal with just about any number of mutas. The build from the terran is also versatile enough to get some tanks if u decide to switch to hydra/roach.
I personally think meching vs Z needs to be toned down just a tad but the most effective strat I have found is to open very defensively, grabbing ur natural and defending any harras/push. After this I essetially get mass roach with tunneling claws and a nydus network and try to abuse the mobility as much as humanly possible. Attacking his different bases and harrasing where his army isnt at. This will usually make terrans slip up and make a mistake you can take advantage of.
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Hellions lose to banelings very badly, banelings are not a light unit and hellions are. If you watch the replays you see nearly every single terran trying to counter me with hellions and getting rolled up by my banelings. I just hold my lings back until the banelings have destroyed nearly all of the hellions.
Also the mutalisk are only there for mop up, I almost never engage the terran army with mutas until the thors are retreating from my lings. Mutas mainly discourage the terran from going air and also helps me defend against drops and harassment. They really aren't part of the main army for me, just a support unit.
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On May 21 2010 04:22 Synk wrote:
Hellions lose to banelings very badly, banelings are not a light unit and hellions are. If you watch the replays you see nearly every single terran trying to counter me with hellions and getting rolled up by my banelings. I just hold my lings back until the banelings have destroyed nearly all of the hellions.
Also the mutalisk are only there for mop up, I almost never engage the terran army with mutas until the thors are retreating from my lings. Mutas mainly discourage the terran from going air and also helps me defend against drops and harassment. They really aren't part of the main army for me, just a support unit.
That is interesting I will have to try it. Although it does feel like with good micro hellion/tank should never lose to Baneling/Ling.
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In my expierence enough helions actually do kill banelings, at least if u do any micro at all. Also tanks are very effective at killing banelings aswell. And now when ur saying that u dont even use ur mutas in battles I'm even more sceptic. This tells me that u are simply out-macroing your opponent or he is moving out with way too few units and if you are put against a terran that can keep up this will not work. Muta/baneling is gr8 vs bio but a terran mech army has too much HP for the banelings.
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Even some very early in beta cowgomoo replays show how to micro hellions to beat banelings. Even easier with 6 range acquire, though yes banelings will rip hellions a new one if there is no micro on terran's behalf
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Banelings mop up any units that could counter the zerglings, then the zerglings go in and mop up the thors and tanks. I find it interesting the 3 people who have posted in this thread saying this might not work haven't even watched the 3 replays I provided because in all 3 your skepticism would have been answered. People try to use hellions, they try to micro them it just doesnt work, banelings move as fast as hellions do once upgrade and if he stops to fire the banelings catch up and detonate. Also the banelings are keeping up so well that even if he does destroy them they splash dmg the front line of hellions. Moreover hellions are a light unit and banelings get a huge dmg boost against them, while banelings are not light so hellions do very little dmg to them. Also in many cases I wait for him to engage me ( because I'm just macroing up and he has to do something ) so I'm able to fight on creep or near it which makes hellions fail even more. I will say siege tanks can take the wind out of a baneling heavy army but with good timing and positioning you can find good angles to abuse his immobility.
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Ok the 3rd replay didn't work for me but these terrans don't seem so good. Also lol at the QQ in the 2nd one.
The 1st game the terran kept trying to micro his hellions but he lost a lot of them for nothing. The last battle he seiged up late which allowed your banelings plenty of time to run them over.
The 2nd game was a bit weird you let hellions with pre-igniter get in your base and kill a bunch of drones and then he didn't try to counter attack once he had a thor but waited a bit too long so you could get your economy back up. Also he had very few scvs for a long time.
I will agree that i see the potential for baneling/ling to counter mech (run in your army while the terran is unsieging/sieging) but I don't think these terran are the best examples.
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Zerg need to abuse nydus worm more, and start dropping way more, as well as being greedy with an earlier second expansion. Versus mech that is. Versus bio ofc don't do that.
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Why should the game be set up in a way such that people rely on a tier 1 unit to defend against higher level mechs? Call me crazy but make hydra tier 1 with 1 supply and switch it with roach. Adjust the costs of the units accordingly. There need not be much of a hp change which brings into question the current hp set-up.
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i use Bling Speedlings and mutas against T who goes Bio but it just doesnt work vs mech 
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Siege tank range and splash and micro. 0/3 replays show the barracks-factory-starport open, only 1/3 replay can be said to use mech. Speedling-baneling-mutalisk demolishing the non-mech Terran games is not surprising. 0/3 replays show terran unit micro between just siege tank and Hellion.
Baneling are very population efficient so you can get insane amounts of them if you can afford them, but my personal experience has 50 baneling just getting obliterated by siege tanks. While Hellion are only out in front to scout forward to give time to put siege tanks up, any Terran should move-shoot them back anyway to avoid friendly siege tank splash.
This is really a "catching Terran out of position" thing, in which there are a lot of combinations that potentially dismantle mech.
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the links seem to be down!! could someone fix this
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I think that people dont realise how high the skill cap for zerg is and try to view them as terran or protoss. Meaning i think that a zerg if they do things right wont lose however getting things right is so damn tricky that it feels underpowered.
Example FE speedlings buys you time to get banes and depending on the situation get burrow.
A single burrowed ling in terrans nat wastes a scan puts behind in mules. Now try 1 ling in the nat with 3 hiding nearby to run in and burrow when the scans finished. He's out of energy he doesnt get an exansion till scans up again or a turret wasteing time and minerals. Simple right? hard to pull of? Moderatly.
Burrowed banes in the path of terran's army = need for constant scans like sc1 tvt or a raven to be built.
Ive been experimenting with long distant gas mining on my nat while hatch is going up, weird yes but it allowes you to get OL speed/drop if you see mech with out losing if he pushes early. Drop lings/banes on the mech ball while speedlings run around and banelings go in, no way tanks will get your banes unless terran micro's extremely well.
Air control with mutas but do you see people making 3 overseers and constantly running in and stopping production on rax/facts? I see people macing overseers and suiciding them in to get scouting but dont even stop to use up the energy.
Can you get an overseer near the terran nat before he gets his expansion up? yes, can you as soon as the cc is up stop scv production? yes, can you constantly do this until many many turrets are build to keep you out? yes.
Infestors x3 = 24 infested terrans, can be used while burrowed, can be shot into the mech ball, spread out wastes scans.
On defence 24 infested terrans built faster then any unit in the game does more damage and you wont lose your infestors trying to fungal growth IMO. Instant stop to air harass as well.
overseer + burrowed infestors to lob infested terrans up onto a cliff extremely easy.
Now ask yourself how many of you put these simple things into practice or are able to confidently pull these off.
For opinions about lacking gas for other units infestors pay for themselves with infested marines.
Overseers make up with stopping production.
Burrow means you dont have to waste overlords for scanning and dieing then rebuilding them. It can even force terran into ravens whittling down their army and again cost of burrow vs a raven seems a fair trade.
Back to the starting post. He's doing it right with saying you can easily stop that mech with his build you just have to do it correctly. Theoretically hellions being light, same speed as banes is all correct and yet people are argueing that no hellions beat banes etc it just doesnt seem right?
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if you scout ~30-35 food and see multiple factories you can do a roach timing attack while the mech army is small and the T expo is going up. I found that this counters a mech build or significantly slows them down.
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EPT
