Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
On June 28 2011 18:02 TheKillers wrote: very...amazing. i played toss last game (i play zerg mostly) on ladder in plat, and while i normally get crushed, i just demolished the guy. his muta/ling didnt stand a chance...
Yes, well, mutaling is the worst possible composition against zealot archon.
On July 22 2011 06:01 CrAzEdMiKe wrote: Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
Do you have some replays? Would love to check them out!
Ive been trying this build a bit and get stomped by mass roaches and zerg just out expanding me since it seems really hard to do any early pressure before at least 4-5 archons are out. I initially read this and thought it was a 2 base pressure build to take your third or alternatively just 2 base all in. However upon watching a couple of the winning replays it seems as though you just turtle up and defend till 200 200 and go in and like 1 shot hatches lol. Which is the right way to play this can't really seem to get this to work but I would like to know what I am doing wrong.
Here is a game I just played on Taldarim Altar. I'm actually very upset about this game, as I made a number of mistakes (first, not denying his overlord scout at ALL... taking a super late third as well as a bunch of macro problems). But I feel that this is a good game that illustrates how powerful the composition can be.
In this game my opponent sees my Dark Shrine before it's even complete, and as a reaction, chooses to go heavy on Roach Hydra with the transition into Brood lords... A composition which should in theory eat Zealot/Archon alive. Keep in mind, I am a low diamond level player and the Zerg is a rank 4 diamond player so don't expect to see super tip top play int his replay =P
One of the reasons I didn't go too far with the air play was because I saw a lot of Hydras. Since I saw Roach/Hydra there was little likelyhood that he had many infestors, if any at all. So Void Rays seemed more appropriate as they would help clean up the roaches more quickly.
As said, I made a lot of mistakes in that game and I certainly wasn't playing my best (certain beverages may have been involved). But I still lend credit to the strength of the composition.
As a side note, the following is an example of how opening with DTs can win you the game. Obviously the huge mistake on the Zerg player's part was not getting ANY detection whatsoever. But the nice thing about opening up with 3-gate into DTs is that is comfortably sets you up for the mid-game, and Hallucinated Phoenix can really get a lot of quick scouting done so you know where your opponent may be vulnerable to DTs. This was something that occurred this game I'm about to link, as I saw that he had no evolution chamber and his lair wasn't completed. I've worked out the timing (I think I already pointed this out in my last post, but I'll say it again), if you attack a hatchery with 3 DTs, they kill the hatchery before an Overseer can be morphed in (and that's assuming he starts the morph immediately after the DTs start hitting the hatchery). In the case of a lair, it's 5 DTs it takes to kill it off within 17 seconds. That's why in this game I waited to spawn two more DTs since I didn't know when his lair would be finished. The game was concluded very shortly after.
I personally like the DTs more for this build, as it allows you to put on pressure and gains some map control back from the Zerg. It also makes the Zerg reluctant to move out until they have everything secured at home, buying you time to get your army producing and ready. Admittedly, I've been having problems with Infestors... So when I do the Phoenix scout I will immediately lay down Robo for Observers and Templar Archives for HTs. It's messy though, I don't like Infestors. =P
I just watched both games, and while good they're not exactly what the OP was refferring to. Since the Tal'Darim was more of a get one of everything on three bases, because the Archons only really helped vs the hydras and Brood lords while your immortals wrecked pretty much everything. And the Chargelots were more of a diversion/meat shield than front line damage.
I've been this when I DT expand. It's such an effective and easy transition. Against roach infestor add in some HTs and you have a force to be reckoned with
On July 22 2011 11:17 Mikelius wrote: I just watched both games, and while good they're not exactly what the OP was refferring to. Since the Tal'Darim was more of a get one of everything on three bases, because the Archons only really helped vs the hydras and Brood lords while your immortals wrecked pretty much everything. And the Chargelots were more of a diversion/meat shield than front line damage.
Still good games.
Yeah I realize that my strategy isn't quite what the OP is referring to, as he is basically going for PURE Archon/Chargelot vs the haphazard composition that I've got going on. But in my experience with Zealot/Archon it simply cannot handle mass mass roach... And the problem is that roaches are super duper easy to mass. I know there are replays which "prove" otherwise, but if the Zerg is smart he's going to play like a Protoss and use choke points to his advantage and that just eats Zealot Archon alive. A 2-unit combo might be able to mass up more quickly, but as a result it is much much much much much easier to counter and solve.
In my game on Taldarim, the Zealots and Archons are definitely the meatshields for the army... Because they are super quickly replaceable and for cheap... Nevermind that they have a higher movement speed which allows for faster reinforcements. By having Zealot/Archon as your shield for the Immortals and Void Rays, it essentially annihilates non-infestor play. The Immortals and Voids wreck Roaches so hard that they are only able to do a limited number of damage to the meat shield before falling, and the Hydras get eaten alive by what's left of Zealot/Archon + Immortal/Voidray support. The Zerg is unable to just reinforce with a bunch of lings to take care of the Immortals since they get SHREDDED by the Archon/Zealot, and the Zerg tier 3 is pretty much hardcountered by Immortal/Voidray (Ultras are absolutely worthless vs large numbers of immortals, and Brood Lords can't shoot them Void Rays).
There are still a lot of kinks in the build, but if you can get it up and running it is ridiculously difficult for a Zerg to stop. As I've mentioned before, the main trouble I've been having has been against Infestors. The build is still in a stage of heavy refinement, but I feel like it has potential. But I digress, I do admit that my post is quite irrelevant to the particular build the OP is proposing. However, due to the infrequent number of posts in this thread, I find it quite likely he has dismissed the pure Archon/Zealot composition already... As he would have experienced many of the same problems I had when I first started playing around with Archon/Zealot... Namely mass roach, roach/hydra and Brood Lords (Brood lords being one of the biggest ones, as Zealot/Archon has an absolutely horrendous time dealing with them). You could see in my game that the Zealot/Archon got pretty wittled down when going up his ramp, and it is no different (in fact, much worse) if you're going pure Zealot/Archon. The two compositions (Zealot/Archon + Immortal/Voidray) lend the appropriate amount of strength to eachother to make it very difficult for the Zerg to counter.
Just played a game and did this and I was blown away by how easy it felt. I am 1.5k masters.
I played really bad this game too. My macro was bad, I lost tons of probes to baneling bombs. and I had several failed attacks including one where I was about to kill him but Had to run all the way back to my base cuz he had burrow and I had no detection.
But none of it mattered. Who knew just sitting in your base and making archons good be so good?
When you've been staying at home too long and you've got a lot of blue balls... xD
There's actually a cast done by Husky and Day9 for the NVIDIA GeForce ProAm Tournament, the game between Cruncher and Goldenfou where he does this:
I personally don't think that Goldenfou reacted to the archons properly. But regardless... It's a fun game to watch. This build is incredibly strong when the opponent either doesn't make or is light on Infestors. Once infestors start hitting the field though, it starts to get really ugly.
I like the way CrunCher executes this Archon/Chargelot build the best, as opposed to DT's or a Zealot push, by going early stargate he gets map control, denies a lot of scouting, and forces more queens, spores and hydras hurting opponents roach and infestor production. Also you can see up cliffs with air mixed in as well as get off shots later from way behind main engagement with just a couple voids mixed in.
When I play this style my two/three VRs have something like 10-20 kills.
Edit: I've tried to make this build work with DT's but I never have enough minerals for zealots off two base. The key is to save your archons and not having enough zealots to buffer them doesn't go well. So basically for me it's air into HTs for archons.
I personally don't think that Goldenfou reacted to the archons properly. But regardless... It's a fun game to watch. This build is incredibly strong when the opponent either doesn't make or is light on Infestors. Once infestors start hitting the field though, it starts to get really ugly.
The zerg just had a bad build vs toss. Hydra's don't work, not against pheonix, not against gateway, certainly not against archon or w/e else.
Cruncher had no robo, no detection, where was the burrow? Pure roach into infestor/corruptor is how you deal with something like that. And you have to kite back while killing off zealots to minimize their damage done.
After I watched this game I've been more inclined to go Stargate first since it is something I end up getting anyway... It also makes the Zerg less inclined to bring Overseers along which is great for when you have DTs as an option.
I still think going DTs are better since they are more versatile than High Templar early on, and cost less gas which allows you to get more tech and upgrades. Once you have a third up and running I lay down a Templar Archives so I can pump out the really lean unit mix as my "reinforcement" group.
Since I'm using a fairly large force of Void Rays + Immortals, I've been bringing a Warp Prism along with me to serve as my mobile proxy pylon. I just keep it behind the army and warp in reinforcements directly. If I see there is no detection at the engagement, I warp in a big round of DTs and they do tremendous damage to the Zerg.
I think once you get into the mid-late game, you want that Templar Archives up since you've got the gas to make use of it, but while you're still on 2 bases I think DTs are the way to go. The Void Ray/Phoenix harass can buy you some time to set that up as well.
EDIT @ Above:
On July 27 2011 11:28 Blarginator wrote: The zerg just had a bad build vs toss. Hydra's don't work, not against pheonix, not against gateway, certainly not against archon or w/e else.
Cruncher had no robo, no detection, where was the burrow? Pure roach into infestor/corruptor is how you deal with something like that. And you have to kite back while killing off zealots to minimize their damage done.
I completely agree. That's why I think this build should be the transition to getting your third base up and running and possibly a fourth. If you can get those set up, you can then start to afford a Robo producing some tech units. The way Cruncher played it out was not quite optimal or developed yet I think... But it has a lot of potential. The Zerg reacted poorly and I completely agree there. But I wanted to link that game mainly because you can see the mid-game potential of the build.
I really like this style, I usually do it after a dt expand and try to keep the dts alive if I can. Throw down a templar archives later but that initial map control, forcing overseers, and forcing spores makes up for the cost of the dark shrine in my mind. I keep a dt at the third and when I see them taking it, wait a bit until they're going to be pumping drones, then rush in with a big two base timing. Works surprisingly well even though archons are still not their BW counterparts. If you turtle up and get an immortal/archon/blink stalker army it seems literally unstoppable, much more of a deathball than stalker/colossi. 10 archons, 10 immortals, rest blink stalker, gg. When I get up to this I go for shield upgrades more than armor since all benefit a great deal from +1 shields, which is cheaper than +3 armor, but armor definitely is better for chargelots.
I do agree that going for earlier DTs is cost effective even just having the shrine down. The games where the Zerg scouts it they are forced to make detection and are usually on their toes for a while. I've often been able to deny the third for quite a while with DTs making them extremely worthwhile.
Something I've also done on occasion if I know that the Shrine is going to be scouted if I lay it down at that moment is start the Chargelot upgrade and chronoboost it. Zergs will often think that you're going for Blink and they start massing up lings as a result. Sure it delays the DTs by quite a bit, but it's better to have them a bit later and unscouted than earlier and scouted if you ask me... Especially since you'll be getting that charge upgrade anyway.
As for shields, I personally like shields more in my build than armor, since I'm incorporating a number of air units and the Archons are meant to be the meat shield of the army. Since I'm going for large numbers of Archons and Immortals, I usually get the +1 attack really early and then start working on shields, as it really benefits the Archons hugely as well as helps secure your base + expansions as cannons and blocking gateways will become just a little harder to kill.
On July 22 2011 06:01 CrAzEdMiKe wrote: Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
Heh, I did this by accident yesterday, and it was really effective. I opened 3 gate expand, and got fast dt and sent to every base, managing to kill the third. In the meantime, I got quick third with cannons, and got up 10 gateways for archon chargelot push, and it worked beautifully. The dt's were really critical in getting map control and being able to preoccupy the zerg long enough to get a third up.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-222610.jpg)
