StarCraft 2 – Battle Craft Guide
Hello fellow Starcraft 2 addicts and those who are only interested in Battlecraft – the most popular UMS map at the moment! This is a guide on how to beat your opponents using some of the latest Battlecraft strategies.
Ok, let’s start with the basics:
This is probably a flaw in the current Battlecraft design, but the first thing you should do is wait until your opponent sends you some units. This can be boring at first because you will see that most of the time all the players are waiting for someone to make the first move. But the one who will send some units first puts himself in a bad position which can lead to a loss. I’ll tell you later what you can do about it and how you can turn the match in your favor by using a little coordination with your partner (if you’re playing Battlecraft 2v2).
Now let’s see which units and combinations of units are contrary to others. Remember: your job is to counter units by sending them lower priced units so you can have more minerals than your opponent for a final killing blow.
zergling. More or less then you can see someone sending zerglings against you. They are very fast and can deal significant damage until you take care of them. You need to pay attention to how many stacks of units your opponent sends against you. If there is only one stack of zerglings, the best way to deal with them is to send a stack of zealots against them. Zealots are very good against an even amount of zerglings, but that’s not exactly what we’re working on. If the opponent sends you multiple stacks of Zerglings, you should consider countering them using Hellions (against 2-3 stacks of Zerglings) or Colossus (against up to 5 stacks).
fans. Zealots are now fairly strong against light ground units (marines, zerglings, hydralisks), but weak against armored unit types. If there’s only one fan stack, it’s probably best to go with banelings. If there are more of the stack of Zealots, you should also pick Colossus.
banelings. This one is pretty tough if you don’t consider cockroaches as a counter. Roaches are pretty good against Banelings and there seems to be no better counter. You can also use Colossus to be a very good light anti-ground unit, but if the number of Banelings is significant you will eventually blow up your entire Colossus with more Banelings rolling towards your Pilon (or Life Crystal as they call it).
Mutalisk. The Mass Mutalisk attack can be hard to beat if you don’t know what is best to counter them. And the best counter is Archon with his strong aoe attack. And again, you have to watch how many stacks or Muta your opponent sends against you and surely you can counter him with half this amount of Archons.
ultralisk. Mass Ultralisk can be scary. There’s no point in trying to counter them with air units, as the heavily armored ultralisks will just run through and stomp on your Pilon. The best way to counter Mass Ultralisk is Immortals. If your opponents send you heroic ultralisks en masse (the biggest and toughest), you can counter them with a combo consisting of a stack of immortals (which should hold them off easily for a while) and a stack or two of siege tanks that blast them with a ridiculous amount of damage they deal against massive armored units.
Ok, now that you know the basics, let’s look at some of the deadliest combos that are nearly impossible to counter.
Tier 2 Zealots, Tier 2 Immortals and Ghosts. You will need a limit of minerals (2000) to build this combo. Be quick and build units in the correct order, which is as follows:
1 stack of level 2 zealots (will trample all zerglings and marines that are good against immortals)
1 stack of tier 2 Immortals (will be ultralisk tanks and Archons, the ghosts’ toughest nemesis)
2 stacks of level 2 ghosts. This should set your ores from 2000 to 0. As you keep getting more ores, spend them all on Zerglings. Just send them wave after wave until your opponent loses their hand. Zerglings are necessary to take damage that would otherwise be dealt to your main group of zealots+immortals+ghosts.
Battle cruisers and Thors. This trade-off is pretty simple: as you earn 2000 ores, spend them on 2 battlecruiser stacks and one thor stack (since battlecruisers and thors cost 600 ore per stack). You also want to send out waves of Zerglings, but a bit later, when your Battlecruisers and Thors are halfway to your opponents’ Pilon. This is because Battlecruisers and Thors are pretty slow and you don’t want to waste Zerglings when your main group of units is still on the way.
I hope this guide will help you win more games in Battlecraft! Good luck and have fun!