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For a long while, TvZ was my weakest match up. I tend to play variations of the 1/1/1 build in my games but I generally ended up allowing time for the Zerg player to out macro me. Lately, I've started using the same build for every TvZ matchup that I get into and I haven't lost so far... not once in 5 days playing against platinum and diamond Zerg players.
I'll save the details of the build order but essentially I rush mass marine from 3 barracks (1 tech lab, 2 reactors). I build my engineering bay very early and rush out weapons upgrade 1 along with combat shields from the tech lab... as both upgrades are working, I simply mass up as many marines as possible and use small groups of marines to hunt down scouting overlords to deny sight of my base and strategy. Once the upgrades are finished, I push out with a flood of marines streaming constant reinforcements from my barracks and this is about the point in a Zerg players game that they've thrown down 1 or 2 spine crawlers at their natural and have a handful of zerglings... all of which fall easily to an all in, upgraded marine ball.
I checked over my replays and I've been very consistently pushing out at the 7 minute mark with 20 marines with combat shields and +1 weapons while reinforcing with 5 more marines every 25 seconds from the 3 barracks.
The most reasonable way to defend against this that I can imagine would be to 1-base roach/ling since pushing out the fast expansion seems like a certain death sentence. However, 1-basing puts the Zerg player at a rather dramatic disadvantage then for the mid-game.
I'd like to know how an epic Zerg player would defend against this or what they would have done in a game to prevent it from happening. I'm presently of the opinion that this is much, much harder to deal with for a Zerg player than a 4-gate rush in PvZ.
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I guess a Baneling Rush would work, or just proper scouting with Lings ond Overlords, you should get a feeling that theres many marines...
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Baneling rush? If all he's making is marines the zerg can just make ling/bane the whole game... It only takes a few banelings to decimate a large number of marines, very efficiently.
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Baneling rush while teching would rape 3rax.
The double depot wall in or double rax wallin would allow the zerg player to know that the terran was going heavy bio or have an easily destroyed wall with banelings.
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On July 18 2010 03:17 ToastieNL wrote:
I guess a Baneling Rush would work, or just proper scouting with Lings ond Overlords, you should get a feeling that theres many marines...
I had one game where he had 4 or 5 banelings ready but I believe all but but 1 where sniped by the marines. I suppose there's no way to block a players "sense" but the idea behind the small packs or marines that I use to OL hunt is to keep my opponent from seeing the huge ball of marines building up in my walled-off base.
Banelings certainly would do the job if the Zerg player had the foresight to prepare enough of them.
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Sometimes Terran do this to me. I never lost to it with speedlings+banelings.
You have to hide your extra barracks because I don't understand you greater success against zerg players scouting this.
You didn't use the word baneling in your post about mass marine it's crazy 
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So the consensus seems to be banelings... and I agree with that certainly. The remaining difficulty I suppose is realizing how many banelings will be needed. I'll have to test it out but I wonder if stim where mixed in along with the +1 weapons if that would give enough power to the marine ball to handle a reasonable number of banes? (I actually don't know, so someone tell me... also a few SCVs at the front might help unless he has great micro)
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I would send a sneak overlord to your base to see what you have while I am doing the roach opening and going expo at natural. And after I see you have at least 2 barracks (and if I see any reactors, that's better but I may not make it), then I would go lair tech and go hydras + roach, upgrade hydra range, and 3 sunks at natural. :O
Or, after I see you having some barracks up in your main, I would try roach + sunks and put burrowed banelings in your rushing path.
Note: I may be completely wrong on timings, but those are just my general ideas. :/
Edit: Of course, I do scout with a couple of lings close to the opponent's ramp. Also, I think I would actually go 13 pool, 15 hatch and then go roach opening since that gives me more time to build some spine crawlers ahead of time. :O
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i constantly send lings up T ramp to scout. if i saw a large amount of marines, much larger than it should be, i'd just make a bunch of sunks, like 7 or more. i mean, if you're sticking on 1 base, with 3 rax and no factory or port, you're completely all in. it's pretty much like a sunk bust in broodwar, though i guess your busting abilitiy is greatly enhanced by +hp for marines and marauders just existing. then it's pretty much down to whether or not you can break a ton of sunks before my mutas go rape your base. im pretty much the antithesis of an epic zerg though, so take it with a grain of salt.
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I've seen sunks used to great effect so I think that would be my biggest fear... I think I can concede that I've had some luck getting opponents that assume I'm turtle-teching and therefore prepare for the wrong thing. I agree that banelings mess this up badly... especially sunks.
However, I do think that proper micro on the part of the Terran player can prevent any direct sight of this strategy.. I keep my marines scattered in small packs around my base so it becomes incredibly difficult to bring in a OL to see more than 1 pack of marines at a time and I NEVER clump up all my units directly behind my wall. But again, I do agree that if the Zerg player has the correct experience and insight, then a big ball of marines becomes a very easy thing to counter.
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Russian Federation145 Posts
2 base speedling baneling into mutabling stops any sort of stim timing attack. Banelings are really scary units that hard counter marines. Yea I've used a reaper harass into stimrauder shieldmarin with medevac push that came as most zergs dropped their spire and it was invincible against lower level zergs, but the tougher zergs just absolutely crushed any attempt at bio.
Also, since you're terran you might as well learn to mech, don't worry about the zerg being 1-2 bases ahead of you, just keep your macro up and get vehicle weapon upgrades. 2 thors+8 tanks generally crushes any zerg ground that's not mass roach.
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Banelings. Contamination on the barracks with reactors. Burrowed traps and flanks. Spine crawlers (with transfusing queens) - outrange marines with 2. Fungal growth. Infested terrans. Ultras (later).
Marine balls are especially vulnerable to pairs burrowed banelings along their way. After each pair takes out lots of them, they re-clump, so the next pair can again deal maximum damage. A couple of these baneling pairs is usually more than enough. In mid-game also baneling drop is great.
In case the Terran is skilled enough to not move the marine ball as a clumped mass, and thus reduce the damage from banelings and fungal growth, then he becomes a lot more vulnerable to just lings. Using well placed scouting overlords, and spreading the creep, usually helps to know what kind of marine formation is coming and react accordingly.
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uhh zerg makes roaches and you lose? This feels terribly easy to stop
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Marines are really powerful units, but they are SO vulnerable to banelings, it makes me apprehensive to ever make them in TvZ unless I have to.
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To stop this zerg needs to fast expand and pump banelings and roaches. I really cant imagine this working incredibly well. Marines are great but without stim and medvacs they are much less viable.
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To avoid the Zerg player considering a baneling bust so he wouldn't have banelings at all, I would suggest walling with two barracks if possible. Then, he'll probably fall into the default fast expand that most Z players turn to leaving him open for the all in.
I have a feeling one base roach would crush this however.
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I used to do that... then I realized that I lost to roaches... basically every time they went roaches. but not many zergs make roaches for some reason anymore, so it's not that big of a deal.
also, two rax wall off basically gives the zerg knowledge of what you're doing, so it's not all that nice, but it beats baneling busts, so it's really a matter of whether or not you think you can beat roaches with it.
also, this beats banelings if you have stim and don't suck.
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This probably works because the zerg is going for a macro posture and the terran is going for an allin posture.
All of one unit isn't really viable no matter what it is if the two players are playing on same resources.
But the zerg expanded and is spending time droning and crawling. He's probably teching as well. So an allin rush may be able to break unsuspecting zergs.
If he survives, the terran is in a bad position because he has invested so much in tier 1, has no tech or expansion.
For example, if the zerg got a chance to tech, infestors, banelings, speedlings, mixed with mutalisks would counter a marine heavy army (just any bio in general i suppose). And that's in lair. Thankfully a bio build is safe against ultras but no ground based build is safe against broodlords.
So a purely marine based build or a marine heavy army composition wouldn't really be the ideal army a person wants to invest in if he is looking for a macro game.
I frankly think speedling+spines+queen/transfusion or roaches+spines+queen/transfusion would defend this pretty well with some skill and appropriate maps (non-backdoor maps)
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All it honestly takes to counter this build is scouting -> banelings. Banelings absolutely rip through marines against better players a mass marine strategy even with shields/upgrades.
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Roach should work just fine. Who cares if his expo is delayed? So is yours. But if he can't do good damage with those roach he has to switch to ling/hydra or something after you naturally switch to maurauders. He could be in a tough spot if you get enough maurauders to just attack. Banelings won't be as effective against your maurauders obviously.
Baneling should work too if he gets roaches after expoing. The banelings don't need to kill you, so a wall isn't going to change much. He just needs to use banelings to secure expo while you have too few units to move out with threat of baneling. But baneling won't last forever, if you switch to maurauder, or if you just get a high enough marine count he'll need something else. Baneling probably the safest option, I feel like baneling threat gives z a larger time frame to mass/tech/expo with.
He could even try something like nydus rush if he scouts it early enough. Mass speedling/nydus threat should prevent you from moving out for a while, giving him time to tech and/or expo. This is probably the least advisable option though.
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EPT
