[G] Synystyr's TvZ 0/3 Hellion/Thor Build

Finished Season 1 as a 3300 pt Masters Terran and haven't played too much Season 2 due to work. I am currently picking the game back up as I was recently inspired by MLG Columbus to play again. This build is my go-to build in TvZ

The goal of this build is to quickly establish a phenomenal economy off of a 2 Barracks single or double expand. Because of the nature of double expanding, this opener is only viable on certain maps. After successfully securing a powerful economy, we aim to get a 200/200 army comprised of 0/3 Thors, Blue flame hellions and Marine or Marauder with their respective Tech Lab upgrades depending on whether Zerg went Roach/Infestor or Muta/Ling/Bane.

Why get 0/3 upgrades?
One of the best counters to Thors are Infestors with Neural Parasite. Without control of the main portion of your army, you die incredibly quickly. With 0/3 upgrades, when your Thors get NPed, they both take and do less damage. This is absolutely critical as it reduces the amount of friendly fire dealt immensely while also making your Thors super tanky against the Zerg army. With repairing SCVs, your Thors become almost unstoppable, even if NPed. Attack upgrades on mech make very little difference and only hurt yourself more with this build.

This army composition in my eyes is superior to Marine/Tank/Medivac in any standing fight. Instead of having Tanks destroy speedlings and banelings, you focus on blue flame hellions to roast them. Thors are the main damage dealing unit that cover both AA and dealing with armored Zerg units along with tanking massive amounts of damage. Marines or Marauders are used as a support unit to deal help deal with either Muta or Roach.

This is a very turtle-style build, so if that is not your style, then this may not be the build for you. Because of its map dependency, you will find results to be much different if you were to double expand vs a single expand. Let's get down to the build order and analysis.

This opener is only viable on the following ladder maps: Shattered Temple, Shakuras Plateau, Tal'Darim Altar and Typhon Peaks.

10 Depot
12 Barracks
14 Barracks
15 Orbital Command
16 Supply Depot
23 Command Center (in base)
27 Command Center (at Natural)
27 Supply Depot
Move barracks to create wall-in (more detail in Analysis)
30 Bunker x3 at Natural

Supply counts are no longer consistent, follow general layout

CC1 finishes, load SCVs and float to third(more detail in Analysis) -> OC when landed
Double Gas at Main
CC2 finishes, maynard 4-5 SCVs and build OC
Factory at 100 Gas -> Tech Lab
Double Gas at Natural
Armory upon Factory Completion
Blue Flame and Hellion upon Tech Lab completion
Thor and +1 Vehicle Armor upon Armory completion
Double Gas at Third
Add additional Factories until you have 5 -> All build Tech Labs
Continue Vehicle Armor research to level 3, build Marine or Marauder to deal with Muta or Roach, max 200/200 and push with army and 10-15 SCVs and take 4th base.

We open with a 2 Barracks Double Expand. The 2 barracks allows lots of marines to defend early pressure and forces early lings from your opponent. Applying pressure is optional. You expand once at 23 supply and again at 27 supply. Your first CC will be build in-base in the direction closest to your nearest third and the second CC will be at your natural. Here are the locations you would expand to on each ladder map.
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Once you've established your expansions, you want to do a 3 Bunker wall-off and move your barracks accordingly to defend against early Bane/Ling aggression. Here are pictures for examples to what your wall off should resemble.
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These wallins are super robust and should hold against even the strongest of baneling busts once you get your Hellions out.

The next step is to begin teching. You want to grab both gasses at your main and quickly saturate them so that you can begin your Factory asap. Once the factory is done, go straight for a tech lab for Blue Flame and an Armory for armor upgrades and Thor tech. Add double gasses to your natural and third as you start to need more. Add 4 more factories for a total of 5 and build tech labs on all of them. With 5 Factory production, you will always be able to spend your money well. Thors will soak your gas and minerals and anything spare will be able to go into hellions. Perfect off of 3 bases.

Next you need to find out what the Zerg is doing. With 3 Orbitals, a scan is practically free. Scan the main first and if you do not glean any information, scan the nat. Checking both places should allow you to figure the tech tree out. Place addons to your 2 barracks and add marines or marauders with their respective upgrades accordingly. Your goal is to defend until you are 200/200 and 0/3 armor is finished. Push out at this point and take your 4th base.

This build order is for maps that are a little harder to double expand on. Not as powerful, but is a viable build on these maps.

10 Depot
12 Barracks
14 Barracks
15 Orbital
16 Depot
26 CC at Natural
27 Supply Depot
27 Refinery x2
30 Bunker x3 at Natural
Move barracks to wall off (see Build Order 1 Analysis)

Supply counts are no longer consistent, follow general layout

OC at Natural, maynard 6-7 workers over
Factory at 100 Gas -> Tech Lab -> Blue Flame
Armory upon Factory completion
Double Gas at Natural
Add 2 Factories, one with Reactor and one with Tech Lab
Research Armor and start Thor production upon Armory completion
Choose a transition (see Analysis)

As you can see, this build order is extremely similar to the first. Because you can't double expand, your gas intake is lower and you can only afford production off of 3 factories. Double tech lab factories + one reactored factory allows for easy money allocation. With this build, you have two options once the three factories are complete:

2 Base All-in
Take a Third Base

2 Base All-in:
Similar to Build Order 1, you max out with 0/3 upgrades and push. You need to do absolutely critical damage to the Zerg because your army is not replaceable. Bring more SCVs than you normally would to help sustain your army. Reinforce with Hellions only.

Take a Third Base:
Once you get a few Thors, you can safely take a third if you so choose to. Beware of the mobility of Mutalisks though because Thors are slow and are your source of anti-air. An engineering bay at this time is not a bad idea. Turtle up to 200/200 and push at 0/3.

I would only recommend this build on Shattered Temple close spawns

10 Depot
12 Barracks
14 Barracks
15 Orbital
16 Depot
23 CC
27 CC
27 Depot
30 Bunker x3 at Natural
Move Barracks to create wall-in

Supply counts are no longer consistent, follow general layout

Double Gas + Engineering Bay at Main
OC at Natural, PF at 3rd.
Start Factory at 100 Gas -> Tech Lab -> Blue Flame
2 Turrets at 3rd, break rocks immediately with marines
Double Gas at Natural and Third as you need more.
Armory upon Factory Completion
Thor and +1 Vehicle Armor upon Armory completion
Add additional Factories until you have 5 -> All build Tech Labs
Continue Vehicle Armor research to level 3, build Marine or Marauder to deal with Muta or Roach, max 200/200 and push with army and 10-15 SCVs and take 4th base.

I only use this build on close spawns on Shattered Temple. This is because you can safely place a third there, even though it will be scouted. The rocks in between the bases allow you to get a PF up before Zerg can break those rocks down. With this in place, you have an incredible rally position to launch attacks from as well as a super robust wall guarding your natural. Missile turrets allow you to defend against Mutalisk harass at that base as well. The benefits of establishing a PF here are gamebreaking and pretty much guarantee a win. (Close spawns imbalanced >_>)

Same as before, push out at 0/3 upgrades and 200/200.

You want to immediately push the natural of your opponent as soon as you are ready. The reasoning behind this is because you need to do incredible damage and taking the natural and pushing the main is the best way to do that.

Thors are at the front of the army with your hellions and bio layered behind them using a follow command. This allows streams of Zerglings to get roasted without being able to touch the hellions or do any damage. Marines stop magic box Mutas easily and marauders + Thors crush roaches.

You MUST micro your hellions. They are extremely important for killing off lings quickly and can die to banelings or reinforcements if you aren't careful. Do your best to keep your hellions behind your Thors and out of harm.

Reinforce with units according to what you lose. You want to keep a critical mass of Thors but also have enough hellions to quickly roast Zergling reinforcements. If your opponent went Roachs, add more barracks and keep marauders flowing in. If you need to send more SCVs, feel free to do so and also spend extra OC energy on MULEs to repair as well.

Brood Lords
At a glance, one would assume that Brood Lords would roll over this entire composition because Thor AA simply isn't sufficient. However, that is not the case. Thanks to Griffith, we have this method detailed in this link to help us fight this:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=205159

Ultralisks
Ultralisk vs Thor is a very close matchup where the Ultra wins by the smallest of margins. However, with auto repair and Marauder support, you shouldn't have to worry about them. Your Thor number will most likely be larger as well. Because of our unit composition, we will never have to worry about dealing with the BL/Ultra tech switch that punishes Viking production so hard.

Luck plays a part in having a double expand work. Your real factor in this is time. You shouldn't expect your third to stay alive forever, so you are trying to get as much out of it as you possibly can. At the very least, you should be able to make up your initial investment of a command center and save it by lifting off.

Regardless of what happens to your third, you should still maintain the same course of action. Just cut down your factory production a little bit to match your 2 base income instead of 3. Remember that you have already gained a lot of benefit for having a third for any substantial amount of time and retake it when you see fit. Losing it does not put you as behind as you would imagine.

There isn't very much flexibility in this build unfortunately. Your tech tree is dedicated deeply into Mech and very little into bio. Starport tech is nonexistent. A possible Marauder tech switch is possible to counter mass Roachs, but that is as flexible as you can really get.

The only real counter I can really consider for this build is Roach/Infestor. Roaches do the best at tanking and dealing damage for its cost against this army and nullifies the Hellion portion of the build well. Infestors with Fungals and NP can also turn the tide in Zerg's favor as well, which is why we cushion this by going 0/3 upgrades.

Our means of dealing with this is keeping up Thor and Marauder production with a heavier concentration on Marauders. Instead of pushing the main, aim for crippling Zerg's economy by denying and sniping other expansions.

Build Order 1: Double OC Expand
http://www.mediafire.com/?jf720mtmnm6ijfn (Spanishiwa Style->Muta Ling Infestor BL)
http://www.mediafire.com/?cjb4498x4g9mz47 (MASS Infestor vs Thor/Hellion/Ghost)
http://www.mediafire.com/?g4fj1efhhfz5gzx (Roach Bane Infestor)
http://www.mediafire.com/?w6hbsj9hsd380fe (Muta Ling Infestor Comeback)
http://www.mediafire.com/?aeh79l212t27gcs (Muta Ling Roach)
http://www.mediafire.com/?2fp1yq4bcelfp1w (Ling Infestor Bane 3rd denied)
http://www.mediafire.com/?itt6lz9m3k8735k (Lategame Brood Lord Infestor)


Build Order 2: Single OC Expand
http://www.mediafire.com/?z5s47xoo5u378su

Build Order 3: Aggressive PF Double Expand
http://www.mediafire.com/?o93us32tp4bt65x