How to beat Terran in StarCraft II Beta: Part I

I play pretty much 100% as Terran during the StarCraft II Beta so far. I played a little as Zerg and Protoss in some custom games but honestly, they got boring to me. I don’t dig the play-style of warping in as the toss or having only one production building as zerg. Anyway here are the ways to annihilate a Terran player in the StarCraft II Beta.

Scouting, Terran Rush, and Infantry builds

It’s pretty much common sense from the start. A lot of players are complaining how underpowered this or that is or how rushing sucks or how they are getting steamrolled by other players. Listen, stop whining and scout. Scouting doesn’t mean seeing where the enemy base it. Scouting means sending a probe or drone or SCV into the enemy base, keeping it alive as long as possible and looking at what the enemy is building.

Early gas collection? Expect them to try and tech quickly to their T2 or 1.5 units which more often than not mean hard to kill mid-range troops that deal great damage against armored targets and don’t get dropped easily by anything in T1. Check for air production buildings like the Spire or Stargate/port. See a robotics facility, factory, or roach warren? Get ready to have to fight some heavy hitters.

Scouting means knowing what the other guy is making so you can make units that counter effectively. Also don’t jihad your scout. Don’t let him die because of neglect, shift+clicking some waypoints and then panning back down to your base isn’t scouting. Try to put him off to the side of the main ramp, maybe hide behind some graphical doodads on the map maybe the other player won’t see. Put him on elevated ground where he will have LOS with enemy movement, or best of all by a Xel’naga Watch Tower so you can see when you’ve got an incoming rush.

For Terran, tech labs at the barracks means Marauders for sure and maybe some Reapers. Reapers can still harass the shit out of your economy so keep an eye on your mineral line. Marauders too are insanely strong offensively at taking down buildings as well as kiting zealots, nuking roaches, or ripping any ground vehicle. If you see them focusing hard on infantry you might want to work up some infestors, immortals, maybe air units as well but watch out for marines massed. A common tactic is sending a group of 6 marauders with about twice as many marines to your front door, then sending 3-4 reapers up the back to kill your workers while your main force is otherwise engaged. Classic pincer move. Keep medium units at your mineral line for defense.

Sometimes you’ll see a quick tech up and build going for medivacs with mixed marauders and marines. This can be really deadly as most players don’t expect to fight aircraft early in the game. These all have to do with rushing mind you, very rarely will a Terran waste sending a bunch of marines into the base as the marine itself is a very weak unit versus zealots or zerglings unless they get upgraded with shields and some more tech. Toe to toe, you’re looking at a quick tech to more glamorous harassment or assault from reapers/marauders in regards to infantry.

Part II is coming up soon and in there I will talk about Banshees and how fucking insane they are now in the current build for an easy Terran win.