I saw Forgg doing it on his stream. It seemed easy enough to execute even though Forgg is obviously not easy to copy. I tried it myself and it worked beautifully. The banelings tickle the marauders and all the lings get roasted by the hellions. *thumbs up* I've only tried it once though so 1/1 success rate.

KangaRuthless

United States304 Posts

February 20 2012 19:57 GMT

#62

I hate this strat because it directly counters my 4 Queen +1 Melee opener.

Best used on maps with wide ramps, like Belshir Beach.

DoctorFunk

160 Posts

February 20 2012 20:01 GMT

#63

On February 21 2012 04:43 celeryman wrote:
I watched all 3 replays (the 4th is the same as the 3rd) and only 1 opponent made 2 spines, but did so far enough apart you could focus down one without being hurt by the other. Also in 2 of the games they made macro hatches in their main as you moved out. Not to mention every game was on wide open naturals, not maps where they sim city like Shakuras.

So do you just avoid doing this on maps like Shakuras, and how do you deal with 2 spines? Many zerg put down 2 as a matter of course, and usually right next to each other. Running around with the hellions could work if they don't block with the 2 queens and the handful of speedlings they'll have (one of your opponents didn't even have speed).

I'm curious if this is at all viable if the zerg's getting 2 spines and more than 4 speedlings? Does anyone have replays of those games?

yup, I don't do this on shakuras, I go for fast 3 orbital there with 3 rax to wall. But I'm sure I have some replays of this on metalopolis. Antiga can also be tricky. I'll sort through some of y games later and post replays of me both losing and winning to 2+ spines. As far as dealing with mass spines, it's difficult. Sometimes I just run past them. Can't do that on shakuras though.

oOOoOphidian

United States1402 Posts

February 20 2012 20:01 GMT

#64

The best way to beat this is to hatch first, get a third queen and a spine crawler. Overlord scout or sneak out lings to see if there's an expansion and try to find out what units are coming toward your base.

The terran's job is to deny scouting so the late expansion doesn't tip them off. Given you have so few marines, you'll probably not be able to deny a proper overlord scout, but you can deny ling scouts and prevent creep spread. The key is to only show 4 hellions before pushing. Some people make 6 for builds like reactor hellion double expand, but if you do that a lot of people will get scared and build extra units/spines or a lot of roaches which will all shut down the attack rather easily.

I'd also say it's a build order loss against unusually fast muta (9~ minutes) assuming they have a decent spine/ling count, but it's possible that you can barely kill them. A more common build order loss will be against the roach/baneling all-in, which can both demolish your push and kill you easily. Though they typically don't make tons of units until roughly 8 minutes, they can have 11 or so roaches quite fast and they can scout with speedlings or overlords before your push to adjust if necessary.

Entteri

Finland108 Posts

February 20 2012 20:26 GMT

#65

I don't see how you are supposed to keep zerg from scouting this. Zerg will be able to see you being on 1 base with overlords alone and there's nothing you can do about it. Even if you manage to keep lings from seeing anything zerg can just sac an ovie and very likely scout this. 2 marines aren't enough to cover the sides of your base and it also takes them quite some time to kill an ovie.

Definitely a very strong all-in but imo kinda easily scouted.

OSM.OneManArmy

United States509 Posts

February 21 2012 04:31 GMT

#66

hey OP, instead of pulling guys out of gas, do you think conc shells would be good to fit in the build since its a quick upgrade and makes it so queens cant run away?

Whatson

United States5357 Posts

February 21 2012 05:13 GMT

#67

On February 21 2012 05:26 Entteri wrote:
I don't see how you are supposed to keep zerg from scouting this. Zerg will be able to see you being on 1 base with overlords alone and there's nothing you can do about it. Even if you manage to keep lings from seeing anything zerg can just sac an ovie and very likely scout this. 2 marines aren't enough to cover the sides of your base and it also takes them quite some time to kill an ovie.

Definitely a very strong all-in but imo kinda easily scouted.

If I have map control, I typically just rally all the marauders and hellions somewhere else on the map, and leave 3-4 marines in the base and 2 hellions at the natural. Zerg will probably still see all my infrastructure, but he has no idea if I'm using that techlab for CS and stim or for marauders. Only works a few times, but it's so rewarding when it does.

blade55555

United States17423 Posts

February 21 2012 05:27 GMT

#68

On February 11 2012 06:18 ArcticRaven wrote:
Interesting... but it would be nice to have some clues as to how to defend it

Its really not that hard to defend tbh. Roach/ling will hold it (you just need to know its coming to produce the amount of units, 1 or 2 spines doesn't hurt) or pure speedling + spines will hold it as well. This should really only kill you if you don't see it coming until its to late