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Hi,
I'm a mid-level Diamond player on the SEA servers, and so far i've been trying out this build.
It's worked decently at my level, just throwing this idea out to see others' ideas on the build.
Previously I used to go Mech against Zerg, however now that Magic Box mutas make thors ...less than optimal, i've decided to try some kind of fast-expand into a marauder/ghost combination.
The basic order is
10 supply
12 barracks - build marines, enough to defend against any early rushes.
15 Orbital Command
17 CC
Throw down double gas and engineering bay, and get a Planetary fortress when CC is done. Place bunkers at bottom of ramp near the PF, so that the PF covers the bunkers, and the bunkers prevent any runby into your main. The idea is that your 'expansion' becomes an exceedingly tough wall to break with any ground-based army. (It seems to work against early roach pushes)
Early game tends towards you cutting gas to get enough minerals for an expo, so early rushes, if scouted, can be held off with additional bunkers, given that your early mineral mining is significantly higher than normal.
From there, add additional raxes and a ghost academy, build a few ghosts to counter mutas (which invariably seem to appear in TvZ), get ghost upgrades, and start build a marauder/ghost unit composition. Get a starport after the 3rd rax for medevacs.
The basic idea is that the common zerg build of sling,banes and mutas don't hard-counter any part of this army - ghosts can be massed decently off 4 gas, and they counter mutas (with snipe, and even their auto-attack), zerglings (who take quite a while to kill a ball of ghosts and marauders, both of whom have a decent amount of health), and banelings (who hurt, but don't ANNIHILATE your army as they do marines).
Normal one-base ghost/marauder is way too gas starved to build ghosts in any decent quantity, but i've found that 4 gas is quite adequate to build a force capable of holding off mutas and roaches.
So far, i've lost a few games against someone who went mass hydra, and my snipes didn't go off (there is an issue that if your ghosts are set on attack move, and your queue snipes, they DON'T snipe. Probably my fault, though.), and someone who for some double expand into ultras.
It has, however, decently countered sling/baneling/muta, as well as someone who went for a fast tech to broodlords. 
As I said, i'm not a good enough player to write a definitive guide, and I'm not even entirely sure if this build is viable against higher level players. I'm just seeing if anyone else does something similar, and if there are any glaring vulnerabilities in the build, or ways to optimize it.
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hmm sounds interesting, although since you utilize techlabs do you throw in 1-2 ravens? i know they gas heavy and take away gas from your ghosts but they see baneling mines, can help HSM mutas althought thats not necessary as ghosts are pretty dam good against mutas, and the fact that they provide vision and PDD vs hydras, and they can harass a little. also you can use auto turrets almost like a FF to protect you from ligns and slow down ultras. also since you make medivacs, and with ghosts long build time, unless your running a lot of rax you will have a few extra minerals which i think you can put into hellions for harass
i really like the transition though, with the Ebay already up you can start upgrades almost whenever you want.
and ghosts are pretty good against muta harass on maps that dont have huge airspace behind your mineral lines
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(there is an issue that if your ghosts are set on attack move, and your queue snipes, they DON'T snipe. Probably my fault, though.)
Happened because the Ghosts are trying to complete the 1st command before moving into the snipe command. So they are trying to kill everything in the area and then start sniping. Just like queuing up the other commands (after the 1st completes the 2nd in done then 3rd...etc). I did the same thing a few times too as much as I hate to admit it.
EDIT: Sorry, new to the forums and not used to quoting on here yet.
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This will work against any Zerg who is dumb enough to attack your base from the front (and there are plenty).
However, if you did this against me, I would double expand, tech OV speed and drop, and come in the back. Your bunkers and PF will do you no good at the front door when I am destroying all your production facilities from behind.
Hell, even mass speedlings + fast tech to Nydus off 1 base will beat this.
A few siege tanks behind the bunker walloff will give you just as much damage against a ground-based army, and can also be repositioned if the enemy attacks from behind. Not to mention the bonuses that OC gives over PF.
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The double expand into nydus sounds good to me. Ghosts are what irritate me the most as Zerg as they can cloak and snipe your overseer and be next to invulnerable for awhile.
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@Uranium
Thanks for the advice! I did once lose to a zerg who double expanded into Ultras, as I said. Nydus worms seem more map-situational,since they die pretty fast to any marauders I might have in-base, though an overlord doom drop is definitely harder to hold off.
The problem with seige tanks is that they come out far later than the planetary fortress - which is there to prevent early pushes, rather than ... bait an enemy army into attacking, or something. If I went for an early 2nd OC, a well-timed push would almost certainly crush my smaller army, and bunkers.
It happened once when I accidentally clicked the wrong button, and built an OC instead of a PF. A roach push wrecked my bunkers, and my marines.
Still, the dangers of a Doom Drop/ double expo into nydus are something i'll definitely look out for now. The build was made to counter the ever-prevalent muta/sling/bling builds, and now at least I know what could counter this build.
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Could we see some replays? Pretty interested in this build, but I'm also pretty bad and need a replay to help.
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Found that, since you have 4 gas early, it is quite possible to start ghost cloak after your first ghost. Against a Zerg who expands before teching to lair/decides to go for banelings early on, it almost certainly means there is a good, long window wherein your ghosts can become completely invincible.
Move whatever ghosts you have into his base, murder drones.
Yes, it is entirely possible that a Zerg who sacs an overlord may be able to anticipate this, but its like a DT rush - if he doesn't have detection, it can result in an early GG.
Need to test if this can be done faster off 1 base, or if your really need 4 gas to get 2-3 ghosts+cloak faster.
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On September 05 2010 06:59 pat965 wrote:
Could we see some replays? Pretty interested in this build, but I'm also pretty bad and need a replay to help.
Yes please. I would really like some replays, I've been trying this a lot on the ladder, but I just can not seem to get it to work. 
Edit: Any replays. Anyone going ghost marauder would be nice 
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I'd like to see replays too. Is there any timing push built into this build?
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On September 01 2010 12:53 TheImpact wrote:Show nested quote +(there is an issue that if your ghosts are set on attack move, and your queue snipes, they DON'T snipe. Probably my fault, though.) Happened because the Ghosts are trying to complete the 1st command before moving into the snipe command. So they are trying to kill everything in the area and then start sniping. Just like queuing up the other commands (after the 1st completes the 2nd in done then 3rd...etc). I did the same thing a few times too as much as I hate to admit it. EDIT: Sorry, new to the forums and not used to quoting on here yet.
This is incorrect actually. From my testing, the reason for this is the ghost's auto attack interferes for some reason. Even if the ghost just starts attacking by proximity, he can bug in some way making him want to kill the target he is shooting before sniping.
Did some tests on this on ghost training map, where I shift moved the ghosts running them around for like 20 sec while I queued up snipes on the enemy. This went perfect, but when I lured enemies into proximity of the ghosts and they started auto attacking shift started sometimes bugging out.
But I've been incorporating ghosts more into my play lately and it has worked well. That being said, going straight for ghosts hasn't worked well for me. You need to be able to punish a greedy zerg early on, and ghosts like tanks need numbers to back them up. This is why my zerg build is more, get a few rauders, a few rines, 1-2 hellions and a ghost for initial poke, then expo, get more stuff and add medivacs and finally add tanks for big bling buster(when micro doesn't cut it anymore).
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EPT
