Hello fellow Starcraft 2 addicts and those who are just interested in Battlecraft – the most popular UMS map for the moment! This is a guide on how to beat your opponents using some of the latest strategies for Battlecraft.
Ok, lets start from the basics:
This is probably a flaw in current design of Battlecraft, but the first thing you should do is just wait until your opponent sends you some units. This might be boring at the start because you’ll see most of the times all the players wait for some one to make a first move. But the one who will send some units first puts himself in a bad position that my lead to a loss. I’ll tell you later what you can do about it and how can you turn the match in your favour using some coordination with our partner (if you play battlecraft 2vs2).
Now let us see what units and unit combos are a counter to others. Remember – your job is to counter units by sending against them units of a lesser price so you can have more minerals then your opponent does for a final deadly strike.
Zerglings. Pretty ofthen you can see someone sending zerglings against you. They are very fast and may cause some significant damage until you deal with them. You should pay attention on how many stacks of units your opponent is sending against you. If there’s just a one stack of zerglings the best way to deal with them is send a stack of zealots against them. Zealots are very good against an even amount of zerglings, but that’s not quite what we are working on. If the opponent sends against you multiple stacks of zerglings you should consider counter them using Hellions (against 2 or 3 stack of zerglings) or Colossus (against up to 5 stacks)
Zealots. Now zealots are pretty strong against lite ground units (marines, zerglings, Hydralisk), but weak against armored types of units. If there’s just one stack of zealots you are probably better to go with Banelings. If there’s more the one stack of Zealots you should also chose Colossus.
Banelings. This one is pretty tough if you don’t consider Roaches as a counter. Roaches are pretty good against Banelings and there seems to be no better counter. You can also use Colossus for beeng a very good anti-light-ground unit, but if number of Banelings is significant you’ll eventually get all your Colossus blown up with more Banelings rolling towards your Pilon (or Life Crystal as they call it)
Mutalisk. Mass Mutalisk attack may be hard to overcome if you don’t know what’s best counter against them. And the best counter is Archon with their strong aoe attack. And again – you should watch how many stacks or Muta your opponent sends against you and you can surely counter it with half of this amount of Archons.
Ultralisk. Mass Ultralisk may be scary. No point trying to counter em with air units as high armored Ultralisks will just run through and stomp your Pilon. The best way to counter Mass Ultralisk are Immortals. If your opponents sends you mass heroic Ultralisks (the bigger and tougher ones) you are safe to counter them with a combo consisting of a stack of Immortals (that should easily hold them for a while) and a stack or two of Siege tanks that will blow them up with ridiculous amount of damage they deal against massive armored units.
Ok. Now that you know the basics lets see some of the deadliest combos that are nearly impossible to counter.
level 2 Zealots, Immortals and level 2 Ghosts. You will need a cap of minerals (2000) to build up this combo. Be quick and build units in a right order which is the following:
1 stack of level 2 Zealots (they will stomp all the zerglings and marines that are good against Immortals)
1 stack of level 2 Immortals (they’ll tank ultralisks and Archons – ghosts toughest nemesis)
2 stacks of level 2 Ghosts. This should set your minirals from 2000 to 0. While you keep getting more minerals spend em all on Zerglings. Just send em wave after wave until your opponent loses his pilon. Zerglings are needed to take damage that would otherwise be dealt to your main group of zealots+immortals+ghosts.
Battlecruisers and Thors. This comp is pretty simple – as you gain 2000 minerals spend em all for 2 stacks of battlecruisers and a stack of thors (since battlecruisers and thors cost 600 minerals per stack). You want to send waves of Zerglings as well, but a bit later when your Battlecruisers and Thors are half way to your opponents Pilon. This is due to Battlecruisers and Thors are pretty slow and you don’t want to waste zerglings when your main group of units is still on its way
Hope this guide will help you to win more matches on Battlecraft! Good luck and have fun!