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I've always played TvT using Marine/Tank/Viking/Medivac and up until recently, I've been having at a loss on how to beat Mech. There was a time whenI could just spread my marines with some marauders in the mix to stim and attack a tank line was sufficient but when I got to Platinum that's when it got really difficult.
Problems:
1. As the game goes on, I feel that the smaller a chance I have at winning, which is true when against mech. I'm having a hard time breaking through as a feel that I'm forced to end the game early. My personal time limit is 15:00 unless I feel I have done enough damage and can trade my bio with his tanks efficiently, or else I lose.
2. I almost open 1-rax expand into 3 rax then add fact and port, but since mech tends to open banshees then I would have to go 1/1/1 after the expo and then get bio and their techs. I feel that when I open 1/1/1 then it just plays into my meching opponent's advantage.
3. Being aggressive with drops is good until he gets vikings/turrets up. Even tanks sieged in-base are problem. I feel I don't have good enough micro and multitasking to switch between drops and my base.
4. Late game is out of the question. Once he gets a sizeable tank number then I feel its game over coz I can't touch his army with ground units. I've tried mass air but he could give up air control and cover his tanks with thors and still be able to slow push.
5. I feel that my opponent has less room for error since he has less mobile units and more firepower against my more fragile units. As long as his base is covered with turrets then I feel I do not have any way to stop him from pushing.
I have not played recently so I don't have any replays to share. But I would like some suggestions on how to handle mech. A general mindset would help and maybe some weaknesses and timings to abuse or focus on.
Thanks!
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One of the keys against mech is simply scouting it in time. 90% of the time there's going to be a hellion drop, or (cloaked) banshee opening. When you see that he doesnt have an expo and scan to see a 1/1/1, watch to see what is being upgraded, or what add-ons are being used. if I see mech coming, I leave one bunker in the front, and pull 4-5 marines into the back of my base to patrol against drops/banshee's and save orbital energy, and grab a quick third.
Mech is extremely immobile, and on many maps you can go up to 4 bases easily before mech really gets a decent tank count. If mech is slow pushing, simply take a defensive point, and hold it with your own tanks. He might have more tanks, but walking into a siege line is still nearly impossible, and unsieging the number of tanks he needs to defeat yours and moving them up makes him susceptible to the mass marines. Slow his advance through the map, and keep trading units when you can since you have more bases.
Lastly, I try to make my opponent max out on tanks, and then go for the air switch. When the mech push comes I've probably been maxed for a while and am still trading units. I usually take a large group of marines and get extremely aggressive attacking his expansions, and get up 4-5 starports. Your meching opponent wont have the economy to stay on par with your viking count, and you should both have ravens, while you have BC's and a few banshee's as well.
This is just my personal preference in TvT when I see mech, since I favor getting out an early economic lead, and then becoming as aggressive as I can, and punish an abundance of tanks with air units. Battlecruisers can easily deal with thors, and a good viking count with PDD handles the rest. Otherwise lategame TvT is stupid against mech. Allowing them to max out, have 3/X upgrades, and good positioning usually means game over, and a lot of 'cute' play helps keep the opponent from getting into that position. Otherwise, I dont believe that there's any composition that can hold back lategame mech.
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Thanks!
For the late mass air play. Does that I mean I have to cut medivacs in favor of vikings to keep my air control from the start? Or just rush for multiple starports later and eventually outproduce him?
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Personally I just throw down the starports later and just keep an eye out on my opponents viking count and air upgrades. With a better economy you should be fine simply making air units as you use the marines more aggressively and lose some of them. double reactor starport should quickly outproduce anything he has, though I dont make vikings against mech so I can make this transition more easily, and in return, use my map control to hold Xel Naga towers.
And note that I'm only Diamond Terran, so its likely I can be corrected on some points, but atleast up to diamond what I've been doing works.
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I much prefer being the marine/tank player than the mech player in the matchup. The mech army has to play defensively for a long time, which you can use by taking more bases faster. From there, you have a gas advantage, which you should use to take air control.
Once you have air control, it is quite hard for any factory unit to do well against sky terran. If they don't have thors, you make a banshee and it stops their push cold. If they do have thors, you make a lategame BC transition and at that point all those tanks are not efficient units in the matchup anymore.
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But if I manage to out-expand my meching opponent? wouldn't I be more vulnerable to BF hellions?
Maybe bunkers on each base would help?
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It's perfectly viable to play bio, but you can't attack into a massed tankline. Maybe doom drop on it, but I have never seen that done and don't know what would happen. Other than that obvious thing, that is your bio army melts to siege tanks in a direct confrontation as it should, there's a few rules I have for playing TvT bio. The first is that you still need some siege tanks no matter what, and why not as you have a factory anyway. The second is to abuse your relative mobility constantly, never sit idle with your stuff. And the last is, spend your gas on starport production late game. Your air army should be superior late game, if it isn't then something has gone wrong.
Oh and nukes should be fun, what's he going to defend a nuke harass with exactly?
Anyway, it's not easy but what is in TvT.
Against BF Hellions, I have always wanted to research neosteel frame, have a few bunkers at my PF and when the Hellions come, load everything into the PF (that has capacity of 10 with neosteel) and the bunkers. Who does that? I will.
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On February 23 2012 19:02 Marcus Arcadia wrote:
But if I manage to out-expand my meching opponent? wouldn't I be more vulnerable to BF hellions?
Maybe bunkers on each base would help?
yes if u try to just super out expand a GOOD meching player he will kill all of the scv's u try to send to your really fast 3rd, 4th etc. if u can get up planetary at those bases that will kinda help but being able to run hellions behind mineral lines where pf's cant shoot will mean u will need units at your bases or at least in positition to clean up hellions. staying up 1 base sounds reasonable but dont go crazy with the extra bases cause u think the mech player is "too immobile" to do anything. mech doesnt NEED to be maxed with 3-3 to kill u, just keep that in mind when trying to expand all the things.
as far as composition goes iv seen a lot of mass murader constantly running around the map denying bases and picking off weak points of tank lines and transitioning into sky terran on some streams, i think iv seen jinro lose to that a few times while meching on entombed valley because that map in particular has so much space to abuse immobility in the ways u actually should be doing.
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When playing against a mech just abuse his immobility and drop everywhere. Mech moves so slow and you can take down a lot of key buildings before he even would reach your drop. If he should be at the base, just expand, expand and expand. Make some stationary defense at your bases and that would keep the enemies from leapfrogging for a little while anyway. Have fun ruining mechs game!
// UnoS
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Thanks for the ideas! I just hope I can multitask fast enough to take advantage of mechs immobility.
Follow-up: Should I still open 1 rax FE into 3 rax like I normally do? Or consider getting tanks/a few vikings a bit earlier like a 1 rax FE into 1/1/1?
I've never been good on one-base plays... 
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You can beat mech with a superior economy, sound drop defence and then taking air control away from the meching player.
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Some bad advice in this thread. (I play mech TvT)
You cannot attempt to take air control until much later in the game (once you're way ahead in expansions) for two reasons: (1) making vikings means fewer or no medivacs, which means your marines will get pwned by BF hellions and that your drop capabilities are severely hindered (2) I can make a thor to support my inferior viking count
PFs are almost useless vs mech - even unsieged tanks can hit PFs w/o getting hit back + hellions can run behind mineral lines and stop mining.
The way to win vs mech is to spread the meching player too thin via drops and counter attacks, making lots of marauders, and getting the mech army into a bad engagement (attack when tanks are on the move, flank). Late game BC switches can work too.
Basically there is no easy way, you just have to play better.
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Im a Platinum Tank /Marine Player.
When i face a Full out Meching Player i have different goals that i try to achieve.
in the earlygame going into the midgame it should be easy to fend of each 3 tank timing with my superior marine count (with medivacsupport) and the one tank with siegemode i have by that time.
after that push i will try to get a realy fast third widely spread out on the map (on 4 player maps a far away natural or something like that)
my general plan after getting the third up is to try to spread hin out realy wide and deny expansions as a number 1 priority.
to achieve that goal i will try to deny him good siegpositions with my own siegetanks (Watchtowers most of the time) so that he can't pressure me with a slowpush. and always try to be active with my units (marine "runbys" on expansions if they have planetary park marines behind mineralline or drop a tank or two)
this all will buy me time to expand even more (Planetarys and buildingplacement at expansions to deny helion runbys)
on the other hand if i can't drop what else can i do to push him back?
i like to use ghosts with nukes to force an unsiege and get me better positions or nuke defensivly to deny him any footstep that he wants to take into my teritory) or even reaper harras (if this forces him to place tanks in his bases to deny that its still a win for me because he won't have a high tank count at the frontline)
that leads to following list of To Do's against mech:
1. spread out expansions
2. deny enemy key positions on the map (be aktive with you mobile parts of the army)
3. Buy time for more expansions. (pressure him and force army movement each step back to defend a drop or something ist a step to my victory)
4. Always try to keep mapcontroll check minimap very often to be aware of positional changes or runbys
5. deny him additional bases as long as possible ! (check for expansions!!)
6. expand a lot if you have 7 CCs when you gain minerals throug muling instead of scvs a runby is not that painfull at all.
generaly speaking i don't think Helions can be that effektive against a Propperly controlled marine medivac army.
in the very late game i will finaly add a thor or two as meatshield for my marines or to kill planetarys.
please take all that with a grain of salt but i think marine / Tank can beat any other Composition in the mirror matchup or stay on even footing with the other compositions.
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On February 23 2012 19:16 Demnogonis wrote:
Against BF Hellions, I have always wanted to research neosteel frame, have a few bunkers at my PF and when the Hellions come, load everything into the PF (that has capacity of 10 with neosteel) and the bunkers. Who does that? I will.
I think you can only load scv into a Command Center, not Orbital or Planetary.
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Just a thought: can't you use some supply depots to prevent hellions from running behind the minerals where the planetary can't hit, and a turret behind the minerals to prevent them from being dropped?
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No you do not! I am able to go marine/tank all the time.
The key is to drop as SOON as he leaves his base to take advantage of his immobility, and to do this, you will need to have constant map presence. (marine at watch tower, scan his army, drop his expos, etc.)
Late game, vs mech, if you see a lack of vikings, go for a BC switch. Battlecruisers will shred his army, and thors are epically terrible vs BCs.
Lastly, just know that because you will be able to get bases faster than him, you can afford to put up turrets to stop banshees, and wall off with supply depots to help stop hellion runbys. You can also leave 1 or 2 marauders at each of your bases if you are scared of BF hellion drops.
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Minimize the banshee/hellion drop damage, don't overmarine, expo faster than you can defend, and try to be aware of his viking position. You mention drop harassing his base, and yes as you mentioned turret/viking/tank in base eventually shuts this down as a possibility, but dropping (maurauder) his army is always a possibility if his vikings are even slightly out of position. Later in game as you get more money, and have your own harass defense (turrets, sensor tower, whatever's necessary) you can start to match his tank count and air power. If you stick to marine/maurauder the entire game, you really need to outplay him with good multi-tasking and scouting to win. Since that's not desireable (or possible potentially), invest your money into tech as well. So perhaps the answer to your question is yes in the long-run, for most (depending on the game's length) of the game you don't need to be mech to win, but if he has enough army you will need a proper tank or thor and viking/banshee/raven count to hold your own against his mech/air army. If he's careless with his vikings at any time and you can gain air superiority, just crush him with good drops.
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Drops are good, but what should you do once the mech player has a few vikings on patrol/mass turrets/sieged tanks inbase ? All these countermeasures are fairly common and effectively deny you from dealing damage.
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Marine/tank > bio > mech > marine tank
Realize it. Why? You have to play safe and slow and stagnant, just like mech. Except as you run around, hellions are faster and way more disposable as the real threat is the tank line. You will be playing an incredibly uphill battle going marine tank vs mech.
If you are already upgrading bio, and they go mech, cut the tanks and get a LOT more marauders.
Drops are good, but what should you do once the mech player has a few vikings on patrol/mass turrets/sieged tanks inbase ? All these countermeasures are fairly common and effectively deny you from dealing damage.
Hard to do, but expo expo expo. Make more barracks, be able to macro hard. Just make his push to your base like a ZvT game. Fight on his half of the map and keep falling back every time he sieges. Do what damage you can. Flanks, arcs, concaves are all your friend vs mech using bio.
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EPT
