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For a long while, TvZ was my weakest match up. I tend to play variations of the 1/1/1 build in my games but I generally ended up allowing time for the Zerg player to out macro me. Lately, I've started using the same build for every TvZ matchup that I get into and I haven't lost so far... not once in 5 days playing against platinum and diamond Zerg players.
I'll save the details of the build order but essentially I rush mass marine from 3 barracks (1 tech lab, 2 reactors). I build my engineering bay very early and rush out weapons upgrade 1 along with combat shields from the tech lab... as both upgrades are working, I simply mass up as many marines as possible and use small groups of marines to hunt down scouting overlords to deny sight of my base and strategy. Once the upgrades are finished, I push out with a flood of marines streaming constant reinforcements from my barracks and this is about the point in a Zerg players game that they've thrown down 1 or 2 spine crawlers at their natural and have a handful of zerglings... all of which fall easily to an all in, upgraded marine ball.
I checked over my replays and I've been very consistently pushing out at the 7 minute mark with 20 marines with combat shields and +1 weapons while reinforcing with 5 more marines every 25 seconds from the 3 barracks.
The most reasonable way to defend against this that I can imagine would be to 1-base roach/ling since pushing out the fast expansion seems like a certain death sentence. However, 1-basing puts the Zerg player at a rather dramatic disadvantage then for the mid-game.
I'd like to know how an epic Zerg player would defend against this or what they would have done in a game to prevent it from happening. I'm presently of the opinion that this is much, much harder to deal with for a Zerg player than a 4-gate rush in PvZ.
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I guess a Baneling Rush would work, or just proper scouting with Lings ond Overlords, you should get a feeling that theres many marines...
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Baneling rush? If all he's making is marines the zerg can just make ling/bane the whole game... It only takes a few banelings to decimate a large number of marines, very efficiently.
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Baneling rush while teching would rape 3rax.
The double depot wall in or double rax wallin would allow the zerg player to know that the terran was going heavy bio or have an easily destroyed wall with banelings.
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On July 18 2010 03:17 ToastieNL wrote:
I guess a Baneling Rush would work, or just proper scouting with Lings ond Overlords, you should get a feeling that theres many marines...
I had one game where he had 4 or 5 banelings ready but I believe all but but 1 where sniped by the marines. I suppose there's no way to block a players "sense" but the idea behind the small packs or marines that I use to OL hunt is to keep my opponent from seeing the huge ball of marines building up in my walled-off base.
Banelings certainly would do the job if the Zerg player had the foresight to prepare enough of them.
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Sometimes Terran do this to me. I never lost to it with speedlings+banelings.
You have to hide your extra barracks because I don't understand you greater success against zerg players scouting this.
You didn't use the word baneling in your post about mass marine it's crazy 
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So the consensus seems to be banelings... and I agree with that certainly. The remaining difficulty I suppose is realizing how many banelings will be needed. I'll have to test it out but I wonder if stim where mixed in along with the +1 weapons if that would give enough power to the marine ball to handle a reasonable number of banes? (I actually don't know, so someone tell me... also a few SCVs at the front might help unless he has great micro)
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I would send a sneak overlord to your base to see what you have while I am doing the roach opening and going expo at natural. And after I see you have at least 2 barracks (and if I see any reactors, that's better but I may not make it), then I would go lair tech and go hydras + roach, upgrade hydra range, and 3 sunks at natural. :O
Or, after I see you having some barracks up in your main, I would try roach + sunks and put burrowed banelings in your rushing path.
Note: I may be completely wrong on timings, but those are just my general ideas. :/
Edit: Of course, I do scout with a couple of lings close to the opponent's ramp. Also, I think I would actually go 13 pool, 15 hatch and then go roach opening since that gives me more time to build some spine crawlers ahead of time. :O
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i constantly send lings up T ramp to scout. if i saw a large amount of marines, much larger than it should be, i'd just make a bunch of sunks, like 7 or more. i mean, if you're sticking on 1 base, with 3 rax and no factory or port, you're completely all in. it's pretty much like a sunk bust in broodwar, though i guess your busting abilitiy is greatly enhanced by +hp for marines and marauders just existing. then it's pretty much down to whether or not you can break a ton of sunks before my mutas go rape your base. im pretty much the antithesis of an epic zerg though, so take it with a grain of salt.
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I've seen sunks used to great effect so I think that would be my biggest fear... I think I can concede that I've had some luck getting opponents that assume I'm turtle-teching and therefore prepare for the wrong thing. I agree that banelings mess this up badly... especially sunks.
However, I do think that proper micro on the part of the Terran player can prevent any direct sight of this strategy.. I keep my marines scattered in small packs around my base so it becomes incredibly difficult to bring in a OL to see more than 1 pack of marines at a time and I NEVER clump up all my units directly behind my wall. But again, I do agree that if the Zerg player has the correct experience and insight, then a big ball of marines becomes a very easy thing to counter.
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Russian Federation145 Posts
2 base speedling baneling into mutabling stops any sort of stim timing attack. Banelings are really scary units that hard counter marines. Yea I've used a reaper harass into stimrauder shieldmarin with medevac push that came as most zergs dropped their spire and it was invincible against lower level zergs, but the tougher zergs just absolutely crushed any attempt at bio.
Also, since you're terran you might as well learn to mech, don't worry about the zerg being 1-2 bases ahead of you, just keep your macro up and get vehicle weapon upgrades. 2 thors+8 tanks generally crushes any zerg ground that's not mass roach.
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Banelings. Contamination on the barracks with reactors. Burrowed traps and flanks. Spine crawlers (with transfusing queens) - outrange marines with 2. Fungal growth. Infested terrans. Ultras (later).
Marine balls are especially vulnerable to pairs burrowed banelings along their way. After each pair takes out lots of them, they re-clump, so the next pair can again deal maximum damage. A couple of these baneling pairs is usually more than enough. In mid-game also baneling drop is great.
In case the Terran is skilled enough to not move the marine ball as a clumped mass, and thus reduce the damage from banelings and fungal growth, then he becomes a lot more vulnerable to just lings. Using well placed scouting overlords, and spreading the creep, usually helps to know what kind of marine formation is coming and react accordingly.
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uhh zerg makes roaches and you lose? This feels terribly easy to stop
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Marines are really powerful units, but they are SO vulnerable to banelings, it makes me apprehensive to ever make them in TvZ unless I have to.
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To stop this zerg needs to fast expand and pump banelings and roaches. I really cant imagine this working incredibly well. Marines are great but without stim and medvacs they are much less viable.
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To avoid the Zerg player considering a baneling bust so he wouldn't have banelings at all, I would suggest walling with two barracks if possible. Then, he'll probably fall into the default fast expand that most Z players turn to leaving him open for the all in.
I have a feeling one base roach would crush this however.
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I used to do that... then I realized that I lost to roaches... basically every time they went roaches. but not many zergs make roaches for some reason anymore, so it's not that big of a deal.
also, two rax wall off basically gives the zerg knowledge of what you're doing, so it's not all that nice, but it beats baneling busts, so it's really a matter of whether or not you think you can beat roaches with it.
also, this beats banelings if you have stim and don't suck.
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This probably works because the zerg is going for a macro posture and the terran is going for an allin posture.
All of one unit isn't really viable no matter what it is if the two players are playing on same resources.
But the zerg expanded and is spending time droning and crawling. He's probably teching as well. So an allin rush may be able to break unsuspecting zergs.
If he survives, the terran is in a bad position because he has invested so much in tier 1, has no tech or expansion.
For example, if the zerg got a chance to tech, infestors, banelings, speedlings, mixed with mutalisks would counter a marine heavy army (just any bio in general i suppose). And that's in lair. Thankfully a bio build is safe against ultras but no ground based build is safe against broodlords.
So a purely marine based build or a marine heavy army composition wouldn't really be the ideal army a person wants to invest in if he is looking for a macro game.
I frankly think speedling+spines+queen/transfusion or roaches+spines+queen/transfusion would defend this pretty well with some skill and appropriate maps (non-backdoor maps)
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All it honestly takes to counter this build is scouting -> banelings. Banelings absolutely rip through marines against better players a mass marine strategy even with shields/upgrades.
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Roach should work just fine. Who cares if his expo is delayed? So is yours. But if he can't do good damage with those roach he has to switch to ling/hydra or something after you naturally switch to maurauders. He could be in a tough spot if you get enough maurauders to just attack. Banelings won't be as effective against your maurauders obviously.
Baneling should work too if he gets roaches after expoing. The banelings don't need to kill you, so a wall isn't going to change much. He just needs to use banelings to secure expo while you have too few units to move out with threat of baneling. But baneling won't last forever, if you switch to maurauder, or if you just get a high enough marine count he'll need something else. Baneling probably the safest option, I feel like baneling threat gives z a larger time frame to mass/tech/expo with.
He could even try something like nydus rush if he scouts it early enough. Mass speedling/nydus threat should prevent you from moving out for a while, giving him time to tech and/or expo. This is probably the least advisable option though.
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I don't think anyone is arguing that this army is easily counterable using banelings w/ speed upgrade.
I think the problem, and why this works so well, is because most Terrans (read: 99%) go mech against Z. The Z is naturally expecting one or more of the following:
- Hellion Harass
- Thor Drop
- Banshees
- Vikings
The obvious defense to almost all of these harasses is to quick tech to t2 and rush either a few hydra or go muta to do your own harass and force the terran to missile tower up.
If you are going the FE approach, then you are usually relying on a relatively small group of lings + spine crawlers to hold off the hellions you expect while you make a third queen or maybe a few spores if you expect banshee/viking harass.
So a sudden push of 20+ marines with +1 and shields is going roll the anti-harass tech/eco build that is the right way to go against 99% of the terrans out there. Another thing to remember is that banelings are pretty terrible vs a large number of marines unless you have their speed upgrade, which you probably won't have unless you for some reason suspect this push.
Roaches would fall pretty hard to this as well unless you had a bunch of them, which most zergs probably wouldn't have quite yet. No reason for a zerg to be massing roaches at this point unless he suspects something fishy. A teching zerg might have a few mutas out right around his push time, but 4-6 mutas are going to do jack all to 20 shield marines with +1.
So basically, all he has to do is prevent scouting and any zerg will suspect some he's going for some sort of harass while building mech.
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The thing is, you're zerg and you see no gas/1 gas and a rax. Then later you see either depots and a rax with a few marines or a lot of rax, you kind of realize they're not going mech. If someone completely didn't scout and was completely unprepared for it, it's rough but it's fairly easy to scout and react to even if you get a pretty general sense of "he's doing a really weird bio build".
Also I don't think a rush to lair is how most zerg handle mech. Hellions can be handled with lings or roaches, thordrop is annoying but queens and lings can stop most of it, and banshees can be stopped by 3 queens. If they're doing a 1 base muta build, yeah the marines will be rough.
The marine push in general isn't too bad because it lets you stay mineral based/not too much gas investment and a relatively quick expo if you're not going allin but it's hardly unbeatable, unscoutable of revolutionary. Also it has the downside of ling/bling is very very fast so a counter attack is problematic if you mismicro.
Edit: also zerg has to keep scouting because it's not like on he's going mech i better get roaches to deal with the hellion harass because it could be one of several different mech variations: turtle mech, hellion marine push, blue flame hellion harass, basic hellion harrass, banshees, vikings, thorship, tank drop. That doesn't even really include the variations where you see the "mech" structures (factory/starport) but it's more bio based: maruader hellion push, marauder drop for building snipe, mass MM drop, marine tank, so to assume zerg isn't scouting that much because he knows "harass into mech" is coming isn't representative of higher (or even standard paranoid zerg because they've seen so much) level play.
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You can't do this at high level. Zerg will see no factory at the front and no hellions, and a lot of rines. Even if you manage to hide the marines magically, marines are completely terrible vs 3/4 of zerg's solutions in early game.
Banelings beat marines.
Roaches beat marines.
Crawlers beat marines, especially with transfusions.
Only lings do badly.
So you're cheesing by banking on zerg not going any of those builds from the start.
In addition, my 2 hatch infestor and muta builds are out before your attack by a good margin. I've timed holding off any allin bio aggression with just crawlers with those builds and its' elementary. You won't stand a chance if a zerg sees no FE and plays smart.
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3rax stim rush is fairly common i think. its a gimmick strat and with proper scouting easily countered by banelings/speedlings. it works on maps like steppes of war where the rush distance is miniscule, but if i were you id be worried more on the fact that your worst MU is tvz (because it is blatantly terran favored). watch a few replays and try hellion openers 
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I don't understand how you'll be preventing scouting, would any competent zerg just sac a overlord?
Basically what you're saying is that mass marines are great if unscouted, what about mass marauders if unscouted, or banshees, or, well anything if massed and unscouted.
If you mass one unit and your opponent isn't making enough of the units that are efficient at killing them they're screwed in any situation, not just with marines.
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This works on zerg players because for some reason no zergs on the US server sac overlords to scout. It baffles me. A scan costs about 270 resources but sacrificing an overlord for scouting is heresy for z players.
See marines -> make banelings -> win.
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A baneling nest is fully 100/50.
I always make one, especially given the first few zerglings I make to counter bunker rushes/reapers turn into a very nice 6ish banelings ... getting burrow and/or speed for the lings is generally a good idea in ZvT which means that the marines could easily run into a few pairs of burrowed banelings.
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I think going heavy roaches against a heavy marine buid is a bad idea. Sure roaches do all right against marines, but stemed marines can rip shit up, and once he sees roaches, he will get marauders and then your fucked as zerg. Better to go ling/banelings to start (against a very fast rush), then at tier2 get eather burrow and baneling speed, or overlord speed and drop. You can move a bunch of overlords over marines, and as they arnt all full of banelings the empty ones can tank for the full ones till you get over the marines, then its nights out for all those marines, follow up with lings (and muta too if he gets any marauders or hellions).
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Roaches....Banelings....Infestors....Lots of speedlings....
If the Zerg adds a decent amount of spine crawlers before you push you're pretty much screwed from there when Zerg hits midgame and starts busting out a nice muta/baneling/ling army.
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It's a variation of this: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/3_Barracks_(vs._Zerg)
I used it a lot with success at the beginning of beta but when I got high enough on the ladder Z's started getting good enough to stop it.
A straight up baneling bust is NOT a counter at all, in fact I'd let them bust down my wall and then I'd clean up with the rest of my forces.
What worked best against me when I did it:
- Banelings off 2 base, but more defensively. They'd flank with the banelings when I reached their nat and the rines die very quickly. Even if the battle was close, my infrastructure was all rax with reactors and they'd have baneling tech so the rest of the game was heavily Z favored.
- Fast expo into spine crawlers and roaches for defense at the nat. This would be a close battle but if the Z survives he is in much better economic shape.
Other stuff that does NOT work:
- Mutas. If they attack the T mineral line, just attack with all your infantry and T will win the base race by far.
- Speedlings. Marines > lings in large numbers
- Infestor - doesn't come out quick enough
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This seems like it would only work on zergs who don't scout properly (yes there are plenty of those even in diamond).
Mass roach probably won't work, since marines out-range them, and a big enough ball of +1 marines will kill roaches too fast.
However banelings should definitely work. Especially if you do it DIMAGA-style, by surrounding the marines with speedlings so they can't stim & run away from the banelings. And you didn't say you got stim upgrade, only +1 and combat shields. banelings on creep > non-stim marines. And if you wait too long to attack and zerg gets lair, speedbanes on creep >>>> marines, stim or not.
if you're zerg and you scout only 1-2 marines at terran's wallin, and you haven't been hellion harassed, thor dropped, or banshee harassed, you should know something weird is up. Sac an overlord into terran's base and see what army he has.
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i saw my enemy doing 3 racks so i put up a banelings nest and insta lair into muta. using changelings to watch his armies movement (right click on of the marines and they'll move with them, he never noticed unless he was looking at the army while the changeling ran in :D ) and had burrow. burrowed on the big choke on steppes and unburrowed when he went over the minefield and meanwhile the lings cleaned up my mutas moved in to kill all of his SCV's and any missile turrets he had.
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Hey, do you have a replay of this ?
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If you have a rax with tech lab why don´t you build some marauders anyway? Should probably go for stim instead of shield or +1 then but if you have just some marauders that you can park in front of your marines roaches sunkens and banelings become much easier to handle and they don´t even take that much longer to build: marine(25s) marauder(30s).
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It's a very interesting strategy, and it's looking like the metagame favors it rather heavily nowadays. When the beta went down, people were still doing MMM balls against me as Zerg, and I was wiping them out fairly easily with Muta/Ling. Now that the beta's back, I'm seeing a LOT more reactors on barracks in my ZvT games.
Once in particular I got pushed fairly early by a ball of Marines, Unsiege'd Tanks, and a few medivacs, and my Mutalings got slaughtered. To this day I'm still trying to figure out what I should've done about it.
On a slight tangent, it always bothers me when I see good players using siege'd tanks to kill buildings when they're clearly in mobile range. The numbers clearly show that DPS is better in mobile against single targets... I guess it must just be a throwback to Brood War....
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Zergs go banelings on me after they see like 5 marines. Doing this would end so tragically vs banelings. 
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i'm not contribuiting, sorry, i just want to state it for the record that you're probably the first Terran who wrote this sentence "TvZ was my weakest match up" on this forum
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I've lost to this 3 Rax marine build 3 times in a row before figuring out how to beat it.
It's very very simple, even if you're FEing. Sac an ovie at around 25 food, that's usually when the other 2 barracks are being built or almost complete. You have to scout his 3rax early or an variation of it (2 rax Factory for hellions in the mix etc etc.) and respond to it appropriately. After seeing the 3 rax, immediately put down a bling nest, 2 spine crawlers in the front of the natural and bring your queens to transfuse. Spam your speedlings while teching to lair in order to upgrade your blings. Usually the terran force comes to attack either before their stim is done or after. Your speed upgrade for your blings will be coming VERY close to the timing of stim, so you need to becareful not to die before then. If you see the terran using stim, do not engage, wait for stim to go away for as long as possible and then push in. If you don't have speed upgrade for blings they'll melt away to stimmed rines.
That's how i handle the 3rax, I haven't lost to it since. I honestly really sympathize with Idra when he rages to these kind of timing pushes. It's very hard to deal with, and takes a lot of skill to survive and follow up. When I held it off for the first time I felt a HUGE amount of satisfaction, I mean I felt that my determination to survive all these timing pushes from Terran and Protoss players makes you stand out in the SC2 community. Now there's the tank push to deal with... there's always something for us Zerg players to deal with, we need to stick together and beat these Terran and Protoss bastards =).
Zerg Fighting!
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How to counter if t he doesn't allow to scout? T just places the rines at the ovie path, no way to get in to see raxes before the push. After he moves out there no way to build > 4 sunks, which die. TT
I cant go bling if i see walling, since if goes banshee or CC i will get rolled later cause of sacrificing economy for bling.
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What's the exact timing of this push? I'm curious because I've been doing my own unique variant without the +1 attack, and with stim instead of combat shields. My push leaves with 21 marines + stim at 7:25 gametime. If you can squeeze in a +1 weapons upgrade and still leave the base 25 seconds earlier than me, I might have to switch builds =P.
For the zerg out there: the proper counter to this strat is banelings (you need about 8), or mass spinecrawlers (4+). Pure massed roaches can work too, but you need a LOT (I believe 15+).
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EPT
