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Norway839 Posts
Build order
13 Hatchery
15 Pool
17 Overlord
03:14 - Extractor. Should you use a drone to scout early on, delay this gas timing appropriately.
16/18 drone
17/26 drone
18/26 drone (in expansion)
If 2rax bunker pressure is spotted, cancel the extractor, cancel this build and defend. If not, proceed:
19/26 pool finished. 19/26 Queen in natural expansion. 21/26 Roach Warren.
20/28 Gas finished - move 3 drones on gas smoothly.
20/28 drone in main
21/28 queen main
23/28 overlord in main
-- Wait --
23/36 creep tumor in expo
23/36 3 roaches in expo, 1 in main.
31/36 creep tumor in main
31/36 overlord
What does this build leave me with?
- 2 bases and a good economy.
- 4 roaches at your disposal. You can be offensive with all four, or go for a more safe 3-1 to stop runby hellions from killing the queen blocking the ramp to your main base. 3 roaches is also the magic number you need to one-shot SCVs and marines.
- 2 queens, meaning 2x tumors or 1 tumor/1 inject very early.
- 1gas, allowing lair to start as early as 5:40 if you desire. You can also go for zergling speed, melee or carapace upgrades after the roaches go off on their mission. You can also take drones off gas and transition into Ice Fisher while you use the roaches to kill off rocks, should they be unable to do damage.
![[image loading]](http://www.labocaprods.com/mambomanga/beginners_files/image006.jpg) The terran's expression as he encounters your roach force AND an expansion
What does this not work against?
- 2rax
- Medium computer
- 7rax all-in
- 1 Bunker
- Marauders
Why is it worth it then?
It is very powerful when not scouted. Terrans need bunkers to be safe. If not scouted, this build exploits that. It's aggressive. Roaches are powerful on the offense against hellions, marines and SCVs. It's defensive: This build keeps you safe against hellions by damaging them halfway and having the opportunity to create more roaches for further protection.
You do not need to wait for zergling speed to finish. Any terran can keep on mass producing hellions should he scout your mass lings: from there, it's your game to lose. With this build, you set the score even against reactor hellions instead of having to be on the defensive. As your bases become saturated, you will reap the benefits of double larva injects alongside the already-placed creep tumors.
It's flexible. If early pressure in form of 2rax scv arrives, you will be able to spot it in time and transition away from this build.
You get a good starting point against 1/1/1 and can softcontain your opponent until he can break out, should you be unable to do damage. When he breaks out of the soft contain, you will already be raining creep down over his natural with your Lair-enhanced overlord, effectively delaying his already delayed orbital move. You can pull your roaches back home and defend against elevator drops or clear rocks.
Terran builds that are weak against this opener
- Reaper Expand
- Double/Triple reaper
- 1rax expand
- Delayed 2rax
- Reactor Hellions
- 1-1-1 without proper scouting
- 1 hellion 5 marine pushes
When should I try this?
This build is good on 4-player maps where the terran is unlikely to apply 2rax/bunker pressure and is likely to go for mobility heavy builds such as reactor hellions. Strong maps:
- Typhon Peaks
- Tal'darim Altar
- Backwater Gulch
- iCCup Testbug
- iCCup Neo Enigma
Enjoy, if you find this useful please write down your favorite transition from 31 supply and out!
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14 hatch 15 pool is better, 13 hatch and 14 hatch go down at the same time any way..
I'll try it, thing I miss about no gas fe'ing or late gasing atleast is the lack of aggression.
Zerglings are to larva inefficient to make, roaches arent though, as well as the 2 queens you can send with them.
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Do you have any more replays to check out? Seems interesting.
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Not going to comment on 13 hatch...
The build itself is solid. Extemely similar to what Sheth has been doing for ages. LZGamer's Zerg also plays a very similar style to this.
Try it out. Its a great answer to any 1 gas Terran build.
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Thank you MrBitter, I was on the fence reading so far. And obviously thank you Snute for posting the thread 
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Just a question: when do you send a drone to scout with this build?
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Norway839 Posts
Generally you don't, most of the time the SCV scout tells the timing that you are looking for together with the scouting of the first overlord. If the process of elimination and timing doesn't work out, you can maybe send a drone scout around the 4:15 mark? It varies with the map of course, but you need to know where he is approx. 5:30.
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I'm surprised that reaper expand is weak to that opening since the terran can get a marauder out right away if needed. This seems like a nice answer to gas first yes?
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On July 19 2011 02:22 ReachTheSky wrote:
I'm surprised that reaper expand is weak to that opening since the terran can get a marauder out right away if needed. This seems like a nice answer to gas first yes?
I'd have to look at the timings but generally you don't have that much money when reaper expanding. Marauders are quite expensive but it could work out fine.
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Norway839 Posts
On July 19 2011 02:22 ReachTheSky wrote:
I'm surprised that reaper expand is weak to that opening since the terran can get a marauder out right away if needed. This seems like a nice answer to gas first yes?
I'm not sure. I feel it's strong against reaper expand because of the double queens and pressure power. Many terrans use their scouting scv for offensive bunkers right away instead of scouting the zerg main, so most of the time they don't really know what's up.
Even if the terran gets 1 marauder out, it should be slightly delayed because of the CC and it will be no match for 4 roaches if he doesn't add a bunker as well. But I don't know the timings that well yet. Either way, if the terran overconfidently builds his CC outside of his base, it's a very easy task to snipe the SCV and force even more marauders from the terran. It's a catastrophy for him if he doesn't see it coming.
It's maybe not the best build against reaper expand if it's scouted, but it keeps you safe and allows a small amount of pressure to be placed, and in addition you are quite safe against multireaper since you have 2 queens already.
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I use a hatch-first roach build in ZvT almost every game that I scout terran going 1 gas. However I do what Sheth does and try to hide it as a normal hatch-first build until the scouting scv is dead or runs back to base.
Use 14h14p or 15h15p instead of 13 hatch. 13 hatch will leave you idling at 3 larvae for a bit.
Also I don't see any zerglings in the build, which means you can't stop a SCV from hanging around your base and seeing you start a roach warren. As soon as terran sees a roach warren that early he will have a bunker + marauders at his ramp when your roaches arrive and they won't do any damage at all.
This build works best when the scouting scv is stopped. Therefore I suggest you add at least 1 pair of zerglings into the build. Here's what I do:
scout on 13 (earlier on 4 player maps) - If you see 2 rax,
do your normal 2 rax response instead.
15 hatch
15 pool
15 gas, 3 drones on gas when done
2 drones
16 overlord
@ 100% pool, 1 pair of lings and queen
as soon as scv is chased away or killed, put down roach warren
3 drones and an overlord, once overlord pops you will be at 22/36
@ 100% roach warren, 1-7 roaches (7 puts you at 36/36 supply)
Once you have your roaches, go attack. If everything went perfect you should have all your roaches + 2 lings to break his depot extremely quickly. I recommend at least 5 roaches, and if you are able to deny his scouting scv from seeing your roach warren or roaches, I would go for 7. 7 roaches + 2 lings will destroy a depot before pulled scvs can arrive. And if he sees roaches mid-map and starts a bunker, he will only be able to make a round of hellions and 1-2 marines. 7 roaches will do serious damage to that.
If his hellions try to go around your roaches, put your queen on the ramp to block while your roaches continue.
From here on you can change depending on what you see. The good thing about roaches is that they will force terran to show his tech:
-banshees: try to break the ramp. While you're attacking, take drones off of gas, make 2 queens and evo chamber ASAP. When evo chamber is done put 1 spore in mineral line at both bases. If he uses his banshees at his base to kill your roaches, you'll have plenty of time to get these up before the banshees hit your base.
-more hellions: keep drones on gas, keep making roaches (most terrans won't do this).
-tanks: If you see tanks at this point it means he is going 1 base tank push. Retreat your roaches, keep drones on gas, make ling speed @ 100 gas, put the rest of your gas into roaches and make lings with remaining minerals.
-marauders: retreat your roaches, keep drones on gas for another 100 gas to get ling speed, then take them off. Mass ling and drones, get at least 1 spine crawler at nat, get a 3rd queen.
If the scouting scv manages to see your roach warren, you can either cancel the roach warren, or you can only make 1-3 roaches for hellion defense then go back to droning.
Edit: also in general I don't recommend playing defensive with this opening, there are very few maps where 3-4 roaches are the best hellion defense. In almost all maps it's better to evo chamber + spine + queen sim city, this lets you use your gas on upgrades and/or lair. Lastly, it is of course much more larvae efficient (spines/evo chamber use 1 larvae, queens use 0 larvae), which lets you drone up hard.
Edit2: upon closer inspection Sheth does almost this exact build. Get gas a couple of supply earlier, make 1-2 pairs of lings when pool is done, don't get 2nd queen and you'll easily be able to make 5-7 roaches when the roach warren finishes while denying scouting
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Even if you don't do any damage, this build seems pretty useful for marching up the ramp, forcing the terran to show his tech, and then retreating if you see something you can't take.
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Isn't this the perfect opening if you're going LosirA style?
Sheth's version does seem more optimized though.
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Norway839 Posts
Can you post the Sheth version by chance?
I'd like to run side-by-side tests to figure out what's optimal :D
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what do people find so repugnant about a 13 hatch? just wondering..
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On July 19 2011 05:06 KimJongChill wrote:
what do people find so repugnant about a 13 hatch? just wondering..
In the early game, Zerg has a very limited amount of larva to work with. A hatchery will produce one larva every 12 seconds, but it will stop producing any time it has 3 idle larva. (Queen inject not included)
So any build that doesn't make efficient use of your early game larva is usually considered kinda bad...
13 hatch will have you cut drones for quite some time, and you will be sitting on 3 idle larva long enough to have wasted 2-3 units worth of larva.
Might not seem like much, but consider ZvZ.
If your opponent's first 2 lings kill 2-3 drones, how behind do you feel?
Answer should be very.
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Norway839 Posts
I updated the main post with a replay against Reaper/Multireaper Expand into bio, I think it's very powerful!
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had to test this.
if you don't drone scout, micro your workers early game, send out drone on correct time etc etc, you avoid being idle on 3 larvae going 13 hatch by a few seconds.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/A4nCk.jpg)
