Hey guys, for those of you who saw Sound all-kill NSH I'm sure you've seen set three where he takes apart Salvation with an extremely technical 2x medi hellbat drop build. If your a fellow Terran player like me I'm sure you literally bust a nut in set three.
Anyways I started to emulate this build and found its a fantastic opener in every matchup. In TvT it usually outright kills a no-gas opener, as the microed hellbats+medivac pick up micro just owns marines who will probably not have stim or CS at the time you are hitting. In TvP I find its fantastic offence because the current TvP meta has Protoss preparing for WM drops and thus will have either cannons, obs or oracle with envision preparing for your mines, and even if they scout your base, as long as they don't physically see the Hellbats, they won't know what hit them, allowing you to do massive damage. Same for TvZ with the added bonus that hellbats rips lings like no man's business. Also due to the 2 reactored mines you build, you are fairly safe with 2 mines and 4 marines in a bunker back home.
So here's the rough BO:
12 Rax 13 Gas depot @16, OC Factory 2 rines then reactor on rax take 2nd gas as soon as fact goes up bunker at ramp vs P(supply depots as necessary to keep production @ this point) when factory done, build armory factory>>>reactor, 2 widow mines @100 gas, starport build 2nd reactor on rax next to starport produce 4 hellbats soon as armory complete when reactor done on rax, switch to starport, 2 medivacs.
Basically if you haven't seen the game, the way you execute is your going to use your medivacs to chase down workers via boosters, avoid enemy troops, and to minimize damage to your hellbats by picking up damaged ones. Vs protoss you need to be a little bit careful and avoid fighting stalkers but vs T you can usually do a bit more straight up fighting VS marines/helions etc. so long as your micro is good. This build works great ATM because the opponents first reaction to seeing your medivacs is "mines inc, pull workers", you chase down workers easily with medivac+booster, drop the hellbats on them, do the damage then pick them back up to catch up the workers again. Also I like to split my medivacs so that it makes it twice as hard for the opponent to deal with as they need to micro their asses off.
I would post a replay of me doing it but frankly it would pale in comparison to the crispness in the VOD so just watch that if you want to see how deadly this build is.
Finally I know hellbat drops aren't new, been using em in Beta for ages. But the crispness of this build and Sound's Boxer-esque micro really impressed me!
That's a nice fun opening TvT for all those interested. 4 hellbat 2 medic drop. Used by ST_Sound I believe in GSTL, casted/walk through by mr Nathanias.
On March 31 2013 14:18 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote: Nice video, perfectly details this build! BTW it's tried and tested in TvP too
Likewise. It's working for me, for some reason, so far. I just poke with hellions, marine, scv, and hellbat/medic and drop an expo and go into 3 rax stim hell bat timing.
Of course it's vs bad protoss players. I'm still new to hots, about 70 games so far at ~640 pts masters ATM
On March 31 2013 14:18 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote: Nice video, perfectly details this build! BTW it's tried and tested in TvP too
Likewise. It's working for me, for some reason, so far. I just poke with hellions, marine, scv, and hellbat/medic and drop an expo and go into 3 rax stim hell bat timing.
Of course it's vs bad protoss players. I'm still new to hots, about 70 games so far at ~640 pts masters ATM
I'm about the same place masters and it works for me too. just one of those meta things that "shouldnt" work but it does.
I faced it twice, once before I read this thread (lost) and again after. Second game I absolutely crushed the drop by going siege expand.That being said, after I moved my xpo to my nat, I was quite scared about the next drop, I had 6 vikings and 3 AA towers and still felt scared, should have put up my sensor tower earlier. I got lucky and he dropped my main / where I guessed the drop might be, it actually lowered my scv count to match his. (I could have defended better though - especially with a sensor tower earlier)
I lost in the end, the player was top 8 Master terran, im not even top 8 Diamond, not even sure why I was playing him. Since siege expand is go to build, idc for this as much. I used it against a Zerg player who just wanted to go straight to muta! lol.
Next time I will put up my sensor tower and keep my army somewhere in the middle of my main and nat.
Thanks for posting it, gonna try it out. I think this build could be very deadly against zerg if they don't see it coming, and it's great for setting up a mech game. I love drops and multitasking so I'm gonna be doing this a lot. Thanks again.
I was just thinking about this. In TvZ, what do you guys think of this opening, into expand and then a marauder/hellbat timing attack. Can pretty much kill the zerg as long as he took enough early damage and possibly even if he didn't. I think the only problem would be mutas. The hellbat drop would delay them but do you think I could hit fast enough a hellbat/marauder timing?
On March 31 2013 23:27 LardMaster wrote: I was just thinking about this. In TvZ, what do you guys think of this opening, into expand and then a marauder/hellbat timing attack. Can pretty much kill the zerg as long as he took enough early damage and possibly even if he didn't. I think the only problem would be mutas. The hellbat drop would delay them but do you think I could hit fast enough a hellbat/marauder timing?
Possibly but it would be tight. I would recommend just adding some marines/marauders, combined with the 2 mines you built(and maybe another round) you might be able to work. However I would think you would need to save as much as you can from your drop!
On March 31 2013 17:39 ThisisRaider wrote: I faced it twice, once before I read this thread (lost) and again after. Second game I absolutely crushed the drop by going siege expand.That being said, after I moved my xpo to my nat, I was quite scared about the next drop, I had 6 vikings and 3 AA towers and still felt scared, should have put up my sensor tower earlier. I got lucky and he dropped my main / where I guessed the drop might be, it actually lowered my scv count to match his. (I could have defended better though - especially with a sensor tower earlier)
I lost in the end, the player was top 8 Master terran, im not even top 8 Diamond, not even sure why I was playing him. Since siege expand is go to build, idc for this as much. I used it against a Zerg player who just wanted to go straight to muta! lol.
Next time I will put up my sensor tower and keep my army somewhere in the middle of my main and nat.
I lost to a terran for the first time who did something similar. I made a plethora of mistakes(he had a money scan and i panic-cancelled my first two hellbats, then had to use them to crush a marine-helion attack which bought him time to prepare.) but he won because he had tanks out which meant I couldn't just kill him, then he countered with 3 tanks and i had 1...
On April 01 2013 00:19 ThisisRaider wrote: He dropped like 6 hellbats the 2nd time, that can kill 2 or 3 tanks still. I didnt feel safe pushing with my tanks and vikings. :\
Fair play, again I think my loss was down to cancelling my 1st round of hellbats. If I hadn't of done that, I would have dropped my hellbats on him when he had 2 helions a medivac and 8 marines leaving his base rather than needing to drop my hellbats on his push to save myself, and then arriving at a 2 CC Terran with a tank and a viking out.
EPT
