ZvT: Counters to mass Marine + Marauder pushes

LF9

United States537 Posts

July 13 2010 03:38 GMT

I recently played a game where I was hit with a large amount of Marines + Marauders somewhere between Tier 1 and Tier 2. Build order isn't really my problems because I feel I had my opponent out-macroed and everything so I'm not asking for a specific build, but rather simply this: what is the ideal unit combination for standard Zerg when fighting against Marines and Marauders? He was Marauder heavy, but had quite a few marines mixed in the middle. This makes it hard for speedlings to surround I would assume. I had a lot of Roaches and had just hit Hydra so had a few of those in the back which were intended to be protected by the Roaches. This unit combination pretty much melted, I guess because I had no Zergling. So timing and build aside, I guess my very simple question is, if you see a mass of Marines and Marauders coming at you, what are the ideal units that you want to have as a Zerg player? Thanks.

Looky

United States1608 Posts

July 13 2010 03:41 GMT

banelings roaches go in first. then use lings to surround

knyttym

United States5797 Posts

July 13 2010 03:57 GMT

Ideally you want mutalisk, speedling, and banelings to combat bionic. Roaches are bad against significant marauder numbers so speedling surround when he engages your sunkens and delay until mutalisks.

holybad

United States9 Posts

July 13 2010 04:06 GMT

what i usually do is get burrow and let him walk right over my army or roaches and lings. banlings are also great if u choose to invest in them. pop up when they are right over u for maxuim effect. some times u will catch him while he's macroing at his base and he wont even get a stim off. if he gets a raven it will delay his push enough for you get infestors with fungal growths.

N(o)sarcasm

11 Posts

July 13 2010 04:29 GMT

Between tier one and tier 2. I'll assume this is at the.. 7-10 minute mark? If you're not teching to t2 incredibly fast that is. Hum, well.. I agree to the utmost with banelings. Though they can be a bit gas heavy when throwing them in with roaches and hydras. This probably forces you to open up a 2 gas.

In the case of a few practice matches against various friends of mine who went a marine/rauder and 2 medivac within the 8:45 mark was when he began to push out. I went with the following build--
10 double extractor trick.
12- overlord.
12- after overlord, since the mins won't be up until then, do a spawning pool.
Continue to make drones until 15 food.
At 15, make another overlord so you don't get capped. This will finish just as you start to build a queen.
After the overlord, make another drone. At 16/18 your spawning pool will finish, you'll have enough minerals to throw her into the que, and build another drone. Build double extractors, 3 in each.
Build another overlord after the initial drone. At the 18/26 food mark. So you will have 19/26, and soon have 19/26 with an overlord in que.
For your spawn larvae, I usually go 2 drones, 3 lings, overlord. Then 3 drones, 2 lings. Rinse and repeat.This will give you a steady stream of income, as well as plenty of time to put down that roach warren, get your speedling upgrade, and baneling nest by the time their push comes.
He had a composition of 10 marauders, and 12 marines with 2 medivacs. Sending in 6 banelings initially, this was redused to 9 marauders and 6 marines with 2 medivacs.
At this point, you should have somewhere around 26-30 or so lings, depending on how well the hatcheries innate larvae ability popped for you. Sometimes the spawn larvae ends just as it should be giving you a larvae, and because you have more than 3, it doesn't. 26 lings is more than enough to run over his army, and likely tear down his supply depot, with 5-6 roaches on the way to do the heavy damage and catch any stray scv.
This was done on Lost Temple, with me spawning on the 5, and he at the 10? I guess that'd be as close to the numbers as I could get.
I hope this helps out some against those timing pushes. Best of luck in the future.

Buffy

Sweden665 Posts

July 13 2010 04:50 GMT

Speedlings/banelings only for me really, since you had some hydras I guess it would be possible to get 1 infestor in the mix as well with 1-1 for the lings/banelings, just my opinion

BlasiuS

United States2405 Posts

July 13 2010 05:48 GMT

sounds like he's going for a very strong 1base M&M attack to try and hit you before you get mutas.

I think you have a few options:

-speedling + spine crawler (on maps that don't have backdoor)
-speedling + baneling
-speedling + roach

I prefer speedling + crawler on maps that don't have a backdoor, and lings + banes on maps that do. Use the lings to surround so he can't run back, and hit his marines with banelings (only target the marines). The # of banelings depends on how many marines he has.

Harpwn

Australia253 Posts

July 13 2010 07:31 GMT

in short my experience is:

EITHER

Burrow : can burrow the roaches and pop em up,

Burrow Blings + roaches: if youre having trouble getting blings into middle you can burrow the blings and pop em up in the mid, a strategy i think is way underused atm and will prolly be a mainstream strat later in the game's metagame, think vulture mines.

1 base muta

bling ling with a sunken line

those are the 4 ways i tend to counter early bio push

SC2Phoenix

Canada2814 Posts

July 13 2010 07:54 GMT

I have been having alot of trouble with this also. I have just been going Roach/Baneling/zergling and it works pretty good.

cthulhudnb

Lithuania6 Posts

July 13 2010 08:14 GMT

#10

Balings/infestors

Fungal growth and then mass baneling attack or drop must do the trick

TobZero

Germany493 Posts

July 13 2010 11:14 GMT

#11

speedlings banelings and infestor demolish MM balls.
run in some speedlings as meatshield to get 1-2 fungual growth off. now he cant run from the banelings which destroy the marines. Last step is flanking with speedlings.
wen you run in the remaining speedlings (meatshield should only be about 20% of your lings)there should only be some low health marauders left. If he used stim - only better for you.

if his army is noticeable bigger than yours try to land fungual growth first, wait for it to nearly wear off and repeat. this requires more micro as stimmed MM moves so fast but it is devastating for his army and makes killing the left over simple.

another important thing is the choice where the fight takes place. you should know excactly when he moves out, have creep spread and fungual growth him right before he steps on your creep.
reasons why this is important:
1. infestor are to slow offcreep to Land their spell and survive
2. if you attack to fast the terran will retreat to his base and will snipe banelings and infestors with hit'n run
3. as his push will come quit early you wont have baneling speed = no chance that enough will reach the MM ball

after surviving his MM push you should get a spire and expand because sling/bling/infestor is not really gas heavy + you need some aa + spire enables and transition to broodlords.

i hope this will help you a bit
Zira

cr4ckshot

United States291 Posts

July 13 2010 11:17 GMT

#12

roach/hydra/infestor = the standard

be sure to fungal growth the marines, not the marauders.

If this is a 1base MM push then just spine up and make an extra queen or 2 to transfuse the spines.

RScott

United States15 Posts

July 13 2010 13:33 GMT

#13

Early game, Roach/Banes really seem to do best when I am going M/M as T. Roaches do well against the Marauders which really are the meat shields for the marines. And of course Banelings own marines. Usually marines stay in back, so make sure your Banelings get to where the marines are and don't all blow up on the Marauders.

Late game, Infestors really are what you want. Use offensive Fungal Growth or if he's advancing, pull your army up until he stims, throw a Fungal Growth and just pull back while he takes damage.

And of course, Brood Lord switch late game owns damn near everything if your opponent did not prepare.

Snowfield

1289 Posts

July 13 2010 13:42 GMT

#14

Timing pushes like that (3rax for instance) is easiest to stop with 3-4-5 sporecrawlers + your army

Cheerio

Ukraine3178 Posts

July 13 2010 13:54 GMT

#15

speedlings banelings mix. Ratios depend on his unit mix. And if you want to look sexy research burrow and use banelings explode under his army.

EnderCN

United States499 Posts

July 13 2010 13:59 GMT

#16

Infestor and anything

BlasiuS

United States2405 Posts

July 13 2010 14:25 GMT

#17

lol I like how the OP says the attack comes before lair tech, and everyone starts suggesting burrow, muta, infestors, hydra

EnderCN

United States499 Posts

July 13 2010 14:41 GMT

#18

On July 13 2010 23:25 BlasiuS wrote:
lol I like how the OP says the attack comes before lair tech, and everyone starts suggesting burrow, muta, infestors, hydra

Then he isn't going lair fast enough because you should be able to go lair easily before this hits. In small numbers zerglings do fine against marine+marauder, especially if you have a couple spine crawlers. By the time we are talking large numbers you should have lair.

Taniard

United States114 Posts

July 13 2010 14:42 GMT

#19

Initially you are going to need to use speedlings/banelings/roaches as your unit composition. Midgame best mix is that with infestors. Late game either broodlords or ultras will work. Ultras love to eat marauders and marines

hydras maybe but roaches are critical because they are tanks for the damage.
What I do (im diamond league top 20 zerg) is i will usually power drones initially and around the 6 or 7 minute mark (around 30 supply, give or take) i will switch to lings. I make sure to have gotten a spine crawler or two if you expanded. Then roaches when the lair goes up. As soon as you see bionic get banelings.

ViRo

United States137 Posts

July 13 2010 14:48 GMT

#20

ON maps like LT, i like the use of spine crawlers. especially if early expanding, as it's easier than one basing on that map. usually i'll stock up some speed lings and will be fairly safe with that for the first and maybe second push while i do some teching. I usually tech to muta, since they usually work fine as long as they don't have thors.

LF9

United States537 Posts

July 14 2010 09:13 GMT

#21

Thanks for the help everyone. Yea, it's a timing push that I'm having trouble with and tends to hit either before Lair tech or RIGHT AS I hit lair but before I can really see any benefit from it. The Banelings tip helped a lot - it might seem obvious, but I have played a few hundred games and have 2 accounts in Diamond and have never used a Baneling lol (this may seem funny, but I've never built or even seen a Broodlord either - are they good?). I also tend to rely more heavily on Roaches as my main combat unit in Tier1 most of the time and only use Zerglings in a pinch, so I usually don't have speed. I need to start incorporating Speedlings into a lot more of my matchups and trying to use Banelings more against Zerg and Terran. I'm still reluctant to switch over to Speedling/Baneling for ZvZ because it seems too gimmicky and not solid enough for me, but I will definitely start utilizing the combo more against Terran. This will help me to deal with MM pushes better without having to use Lair units, allowing me to delay Lair tech a bit and stay Tier 1 and get a much earlier expand. The better I can fend off pushes with Tier 1 units like Zerglings and Banelings, the better my economy will be in the long run I suppose, since I won't have to handicap my econ by trying to fast tech.

Piski

Finland3461 Posts

July 14 2010 09:23 GMT

#22

Speedlings are actually pretty good against this. If he has a lot more marines than marauders go blings

JaspluR

Australia174 Posts

July 14 2010 10:14 GMT

#23

roach baneling
banes do ridiculous damage to marines

StarBrift

Sweden1761 Posts

July 14 2010 11:10 GMT

#24

You'll probably need to make more spine crawlers because if he hits you while teching to lair that means that he is going 1 base. 1 base bio vs zerg is somewhat all in and you only need to weather the storm long enough to get mutas / banes to counter it. Don't be afraid to put 10+ spines up if he attacks you early. Obv you need a number of lings also to draw fire if he attempts to break your spines.

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ZvT: Counters to mass Marine + Marauder pushes

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