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Guide: TvP 1 Rax Concussive FE![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4Yawvl.jpg)
Map Control for the Thinking Man
Table of Contents
>Introduction
>Build Order
>Variations and Transitions
>Execution
>Q&A
>Replays, VoDs, and Write-ups
>Acknowledgements
This build is the 1 Rax Concussive FE -- an FE that takes a gas and makes Marauders instead of only making Marines. It is distinguished by the ability to intercept and destroy the standard Protoss 1 gate FE scouting poke, and vulnerability to Void Ray all-ins. Its strength comes from the early use of Concussive Shells in low-unit-count situations that happen in the first few minutes of a game.
Introduction [Top]
Basically, this opener consists of rushing out a small number of Marauders with concussive shells, and taking away the traditional map control a 1 gate FE Protoss can assert against a 1 Rax FE Terran. There are many 1 Rax Marauder FEs-- this one doesn't cut SCVs, and only mines 125 gas. It is the fastest-expanding, greediest Marauder FE. I think it's the best :D
This version pushes out with 1 Marine, 2 Marauders.
After you've gotten your Marauders onto the field, you use them to try to pick off scouting gateway units, deny xel-naga towers, and generally make the Protoss player's life unpleasant until his warpgate finishes. This build is vulnerable to any sort of 1-base play from the Protoss, especially Void Ray all-ins.
Build Order [Top]
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
SCV scout after you begin the refinery. The goal of your SCV scout is to identify 1-basing play or "Safe Expansions".
Variation: Kas+ Show Spoiler [How Kas Does It] +
Kas uses this build rather extensively on Tal'Darim Altar. His Barracks is placed in the natural, and he makes 2 marauders with shells (no initial marine), and pressures with those, making his expansion at his natural and never stopping mining gas. He adds on more rax and gets a very fast stimpack.
16 Marine
17 Orbital Command
17 Supply Depot
17 Tech Lab (Start when Marine Completes)
Chase his probe out with your lone Marine. This is fairly difficult! He'll probably see your tech lab and know what you're up to, but in the off chance he doesn't, great hilarity may ensue.
17 Marauder, Concussive Shells
Your Orbital Command and Tech Lab will finish at the same time. Call down a mule, start your Marauder, start your Concussive Shells.
Variation: Reaper+ Show Spoiler [This Build with a Reaper] +
Do not take workers off gas-- instead, after your 2nd Marauder, make a reaper. This will cause you to bank up for your CC. During your pressure, use the reaper to either get all up in his business or to help against zealots/sentries. It's hilarious how many probes you can get.
19 Take your workers off gas, banking 25 for your next Marauder.
21 Marauder
If your opponent made a Zealot before Stalker, it would be prudent to wait for your 2nd Marauder before getting out on the map. If he did not, moving out with a just your Marine and your first Marauder will be sufficient. Do so now. Rendezvous with your scouting SCV and see what he's up to. SCV goes in everywhere first. Primary goal is preserving your Marauders.
23 Command Center
Brutally fast. Low-ground this like a boss-- your Concussive Marauders will keep his pokes away.
24 Supply Depot
25 Begin constant Marine production from Rax
If your opponent made a Zealot before Stalker, this is when you move out. Rendezvous with your scouting SCV and see what he's up to. SCV goes in everywhere first. Primary goal is preserving your Marauders.
Variations and Transitions [Top]
Variations: The two popular Variations for this build are Kas' Variations (marauder heavy, typically used on TDA) and the reaper variation. Both are included in the build order above in spoilers.
Transitions:
Normally: Add two more Rax, start mining gas again, make Marines and get stimpack and an engineering bay. Your play is basically standard from then on out, except you already have concussive shell, you have fewer Marines, and your stimpack is earlier.
If you did some damage: same thing, man. Just play standard and be aggressive or sneak in an extra expo or something. Actually yeah, if you somehow did a ton of damage with your concussive pressure (unlikely, but possible), just take a quicker third.
If you dun goofed: If you're in the middle of losing a concussive pressure fight, start your bunkers immediately. If you wait until the end of the fight, a canny Protoss will be knocking on your door before you can lock it.
If you don't want to play standard: Hey, to each his own. I Included a Mech transition replay but I'm honestly terrible at TvP Mech. I'm sure someone else could do it better. It's not very efficient since the Concussive Shells won't help you, but there are worse ways to transition I'm sure.
Execution [Top]
Move across the map with your units-- 1 Marine, 1 Marauder, and your scouting SCV. Your 2nd Marauder can catch up, but you may also wait for it if you wish. Your goal is to engage scouting Protoss units in small-numbers battles and pick them off with concussive shell. This is micro-intensive. If your adversary didn't go Zealot first, you can walk into his base and kill Stalker and maybe a couple of probes, then go home intact, maybe less the Marine and the SCV. Remember, a 1 hp Marauder still shoots at full strength from inside your bunker at home, so keep those units alive!
Remember, Forcefields are OP, so if you want to walk up a ramp into his main or nat, send in your scout SCV first to make sure it's safe. If you still get FFed in half, try to keep your uphill Marauder close to the downhill Marauder so they can support each other until the uphill Maruader dies horribly.
Most Protoss players will build a Zealot though, so I'll talk about those situations here.
15 Nexus
Kite some workers and Zealots, get your free kills, and get out. You won't be able to bring down the nexus with 1 Rax of production, I'm afraid-- but you can punish him bad enough to be competitive or even ahead economically. Begin retreating early, as probes move slightly faster than Marauders so you may need some wiggle room.
1 Gate FE Defense (Zealot then Stalker then Stalker)
This is the worst-case scenario, because these 3 gateway units can engage you on the open field and chase you home. It is a micro battle, but it will be hard-- this happens when the rush distance is long and you ran into his base for some reason, or Protoss chronoed out a 2nd Stalker. To micro, the Protoss player will grab all his units and right-click a Marauder.
You will have to do much, much more.
If you see these three units before engagement: Assuming your SCV is in front, when you see this 3-unit composition (likely chrono boosted out due to seeing your tech lab opening), go home. The fight is very difficult, and even if you win, you'll lose a Marauder and the other will be wounded, and you will have great difficulty defending your expo.
If you get surprised and have to engage: Do not run away, you are slower and you can't concuss all three of his units. Use your SCV to attack the Zealot. Stutter step your Marauders to mitigate Zealot damage and focus down the first Stalker. The Protoss player is trying to absorb hits with the Zealot and kill your Marauders with the Stalker. Be careful with your Marine, he dies very easily to Zealot stabs-- if he goes down your DPS drops considerably. If you're stuttering all your ranged units together, stutter them in time to the Marauder cooldown. Start a bunker at home as well, you'll need it.
1 Gate FE defense (Zealot then Stalker then Sentry)
With these 3 units, the Protoss doesn't move down his ramp. That's fine, let him hang out up there. Kill his low-ground pylon (if he has one), then go home. Don't go up the ramp. If he's willing to cower in his main, that's fine. You've low-grounded your CC, and he's not poking out to scout you.
1 Gate FE Scouting Poke
What great luck! Your adversary is poking with a Zealot and a lone Stalker, maybe also with his scouting probe. He must not have realized what you're doing. Stutter step and melt his Stalker, then kite his Zealot. After you do so, poke his natural to let him know you're a baller, then hang out on the map a bit before going home. Good work.
Safe Expansion
What? He 2 gate Roboed or 3 Gate Expoed? What are you running around on the map for? Cower in your base and make bunkers-- he's got way more infrastructure than you. When you scout anything but a 1 Gate FE, don't even try to take map control.
Something dumb with no units
Ok, if you see him like rushing a bunch of gateways with just a Zealot to defend or something dumb, bunker rush him to punish him. This will happen very rarely but it's worth noting.
--Caveats--
1) This build cannot move out onto the map against any “Safe Expand”ing Protoss-- you don't have enough units. Make some bunkers and pretend you're a 1 Rax FE. If you move out you will lose.
2) This build has difficulty. to any sort of Void Ray all-in. However, Protoss will not automatically react with VR all-in upon scouting a tech lab after first Marine, due to the possibility of a tech first 2 Rax or a 3 Rax Stim all-in. I have been advised that adding on additional rax and going for combat shields will give you a solid opportunity to defend 1-base Void Ray attacks.
3) This is basically the greediest build, since you cut an early Marine to tech up to Marauders, and you take a very quick gas. It would usually be safer to just get a 2nd Rax instead of all that gas and just defend. However you are probably a baller like me and do this instead.
Q&A [Top]
Q: But given the prevalence of 1base Protoss plays at my low level, what do you suggest as a followup after scouting no expo? In your experience is it safe to try to hold 4-gates with bunkers on low ground or is it a wiser idea to retreat up ramp until Medivacs/enough units/attack repelled?
A: If your opponent has no expansion, and you scouted 1 gas with saved chrono-boost before and standard gateway timing, that means he's 4-gating you. As soon as your CC finishes, lift it (don't wait to turn it into an OC) and fly it indoors. It should finish right around when his warpgates are finishing. Build bunkers on the high ground. On maps with a ramped nat (antiga, shakuras, etc) or maps WITHOUT a ramped main (tal'darim) you should stay at your nat and build bunkers there instead.
Q: Great guide! I noticed this opening used alot in the past in GSL but has since fallen out of favour. What are the reasons for this?
A (statikg): To directly answer your question I would guess that pros were having trouble doing any damage against strong scouting opponents and the void ray all-in was more popular at that time then it is now.
A (Blazinghand): This is basically correct. Also, during that period of time it was replaced by a more aggressive version of the build, a 1 rax stim attack-- you'd hit using a stim timing with 4 marauders, and kite heavily using your superior speed and DPS as opposed to using concussive shell. This 1 rax marauder stim pressure was no longer an option following the stim time nerf.
Q: Just curious, against a nexus first build, how do you micro against min stacked probe pulls?
A: Don't walk into the mineral line.
Q: Also, is this build simply worse than a gasless FE if toss is going for an expand that doesn't try to assert map control?
A: This build gets a quicker stimpack, and of course a quicker concussive shell. But against a protoss who FEs then doesn't do a scouting poke, yes, you might as well 1 rax gasless-- but a protoss would always scouting poke vs 1 rax gasless, the only reason he wouldn't would be that he spotted this build. That a protoss wouldn't assert map control against 1 rax gasless is unlikely.
Also, if the protoss doesn't assert map control, well, that's a good result of this build!
Q: Yea this build is super solid, if you only build 1 marauder you can actually just use 2 scvs on gas and get a slightly earlier cc, obviously you don't actually want to go up their ramp when you only build 1 marauder
A: Yeah I've also seen version of this build that expands slower and gets a 3rd marauder. I think it's pretty flexible in terms of "more or fewer gas units, quicker or slower expo".
Q: Great guide as always Blaze, but I immediately have to ask what this build gives that modern 2-rax concussive pressure doesn't do better?
A: This build expands more quickly, at the cost of being more vulnerable to certain all-ins and being able to put on less pressure.
Replays, VoDs, and Write-ups [Top]
Amateur Replays
Blazinghand's Replay Pack: http://drop.sc/packs/439
Blazinghand's Replay Links:+ Show Spoiler +
Don't assert Map Control vs 2 Gate FEs: http://drop.sc/91224
Build Order Loss to VRs: http://drop.sc/91219
Win vs 1 gate FE-> 4 gate press: http://drop.sc/91222
Win vs 6 gate: http://drop.sc/91220
Works in Standard Play: http://drop.sc/91221
Obligatory Mech Replay! http://drop.sc/91223
Pro Replays:
Kas vs WhiteRa at IEM Kiev: http://drop.sc/97179 + Show Spoiler [Description] +
In this game, Kas cuts the first marine and goes for constant marauder pressure against a nexus-first opening from White-Ra, killing 7 workers and 3 zealots but overcomitting and losing his marauders. He comes out of it economically slightly ahead, but has to make bunkers after losing some marauders. I think this is a good example of how this type of early concussive pressure can be used against unusually greedy Protoss play.
Pro VoD from Kas in NASTL against HerO: http://www.twitch.tv/nasltv/b/309105469?t=2100
+ Show Spoiler +
Okay, so he actually loses this. But it's still an example of the build in use. Kas skips the first marine and makes two quick marauders, then expos 
He takes map control, but HerO opens with a 3 gate, crushing his front and abusing a questionable barracks placement, eventually overwhelming him. HerO's a great player and reacted with a very strong BO counter. It wasn't unwinnable but these things together with the rax placement eventually overwhelmed him.
He takes map control, but HerO opens with a 3 gate, crushing his front and abusing a questionable barracks placement, eventually overwhelming him. HerO's a great player and reacted with a very strong BO counter. It wasn't unwinnable but these things together with the rax placement eventually overwhelmed him.
Acknowledgements [Top]
I'd like to thank Lucien for helping me iron out this build, spamming practice games with me and playing in YABOT. Thanks to NrGMonk for suggesting this topic for my next guide. I'd also like to thank wo1fwood for his article on TL BBCode (link)-- his knowledge helped me format this post.
Hope you enjoy the build!
Was one of my first TvP openers, sadly it's gone a bit out of style, but still good 
