[G] Zerg versus Zerg: Glaive Guillotine

Defending versus Hydralisk Pushes



The most common follow up to this sudden need of anti-air is the Hydralisk. Here I will explain how to deal with that option.

Now this is one of the money decisions you can force your opponent to make. Everybody loves to make fun of the Hydralisk and this guide won't skimp on that. It would be better to train a dolphin to swim in creep and suddenly pounce up in the air to slap the Mutalisks and die when it hits the ground than to make Hydralisks.

The largest strength of our army is mobility. Hydralisks are really immobile compared to the rest of the Zerg army. This stark contrast with the blazingly fast Mutalisk ups our chances to harass and keep his push back. The longer you delay his push and delay his third, the more you will get ahead simply by having an economic advantage. Unlike you, he HAS to attack to even out the score. You can actually just stall for a long time because his push will eventually become weaker and more all inish by every passing second.

The Hydralisk has a couple of unfavourable traits to it that I would like to dub the “Hydra-effect”. What this simply entails is this:

• Hydralisks need to be in a large group to be effective, a single Hydra won't throw the battle around in your favour.
  
• Hydralisks cost a lot of gas, so you can't tech and get a large group of Hydralisks at the same time.

The Stalker suffers from the same kind of traits but it has other advantages in return. Because Hydralisks delay tech, you are basically safe knowing that he won't have Mutalisks or Infestors out of his own.

Knowing that Infestors can't be out fast, you can be sure that our Banelings will not get stopped from rolling. Double awesome is that Hydralisks aren't really on good terms with Banelings. It takes only 3 Banelings to one-shot a Hydralisk pack even if they are upgraded to 3/3. So you can effectively trade your opponent's gas with yours almost instantly. Unupgraded Roaches take 8 Baneling hits to die, so it isn't all that cost effective unless you hit a large pack with Hydralisks mixed in. Regardless, the extremely fast weakening of the opponents force will balance out the upgrade advantages he has.

Stopping at the golden 12 to 14 Mutalisk number will give you enough money to tech towards Baneling Speed, which allows us to close in towards the squishy underbelly of the opponents force much faster. It doesn't matter if you overproduce on Banelings because all you have to do is kill off his attack once to get an insurmountable advantage.

Transitioning into your own Roach warren and just pumping out Roaches before the opponent moves out will give you a nice buffer that the opponents Roaches can't cut through quickly. The longer the fight goes on, the more it goes in your favour due to the Mutalisks. You just produce more Banelings after he pushes out of his base, they will be done in time for his push to hit.

Even if he still has a large force of Roaches left after all the Hydralisks have evaporated, they can't shoot up. Keeping them still with your Roaches while bombarding them with Mutalisk glaives will whither his push considerably disallowing him from inflicting major economic and structural damage.





"All those things seem nice, but eventually he will knock on my door. How do I engage in the right way?" Well this actually isn't all that hard to perform really. Your main objective here is to move your Banelings into the Hydralisks and let them have a hay-day with 'em. Because the Roaches can't surround the Hydralisks fully, you can set up some Baneling flanks and obliterate him by attacking from the back. Hydralisks tend to stay at the back of the army due to the unitspeeds anyway, but good players actually put the Roaches in front of the Hydralisks to tank damage.

Putting up a flank with Banelings will help a lot, but choosing where to engage is also a really important decision. Do you engage near the Spinecrawlers with Roaches or do you just move out? You really need to save your third in this play, so whenever he attacks your third you immediately need to spring into action to prevent him from taking it out. Don't let him get a favourable position though, with your faster units you can't let him get the better concave or a high ground position while you engage.

The next question is his exact army composition. If it is pure Hydralisk or a high Hydra to Roach ratio you can easily roll through his force with Banelings. When he goes for more Roach focus with some Hydralisks mixed in, you just roll in and attack with all your forces including your Mutalisks to take him down. When his push is down to the size that it won't ever kill off your Spines and you are losing your Roaches, simply retreat with them and destroy him with the next wave of units.

If he goes for some Banelings mixed in though, you need to be more careful with your engagement. Two stray Banelings can kill off a LOT of yours if you mismicroed them. So keep your Banelings back and see if they move forward into your Roach army. Just take out as many as you can ( within reason ofcourse, no need to use all your Roaches to snipe off retreating Banelings ) before you use your Banelings.

If his push is delayed enough you can simply drone up and get more and more Roaches. He will probably go for a Roach/Hydra/Infestor composition but you can harass him a lot and get a much higher economy and unit count than him with your third, so you shouldn't really lose to this kind of all in desperation push. If it takes long enough just get out Infestors and a large Spinecrawler wall and win by starving your opponent out.

If you follow these steps and don't overcommit in your counter attacks, you should win here as long as your transitions are crisp and well executed.