Introduction to Starcraft II: Terran

A focus on one of the three races in Starcraft II, Terran, types and styles with tips on execution.

In the first article of this series, I introduced the three races found in Starcraft II. In the next three instalments, we’ll be looking at each race in a little more depth, starting this week with Terran.

Terran units are classed as either Biological; units which are built out of the Barracks, or Mechanical units; built from the Factory and Starport. There are three different types of compositions and each of them has their own strengths, weaknesses and mechanical style.

Biological:

Biological or ‘Bio’ armies are made up predominantly from three units; Marines, Marauders and Medivacs. Marines are the lowest cost unit that a Terran player can build. They are made in the Barracks and in small numbers are fairly ineffective due to their low health. Marauders are a little more expensive than Marines and require the ‘Tech Lab’ add-on for each Barracks if you wish to create Marauders in them. Marauders are able to withstand a lot more damage than Marines but are restricted by the limitation of only being able to shoot ground units.

The combination of Marines and Marauders leads to a very powerful and versatile army, with the ability to win full army engagements with your opponent and the speed of being able to drop small groups of units around the map to really stretch the multitasking of your opponent.

Some important things to remember when playing the Bio style are your research and upgrades. The ‘StimPack’ research, found in the Tech-Lab on your Barracks, is vital as it increases movement speed and attack speed of your Marines and Marauders by 50% for 15 seconds at the cost of a small amount of health. The ‘Combat Shields’ upgrade grants 10 extra hit points to Marines and the ‘Concussive Shell’ research makes the Marauders shots slow enemy units for certain death.

Without doubt though, the most important aspect of playing Bio are your Medivacs, built from the Starport. These flying ships have two roles in your army. Firstly they use energy to heal all of your damaged units, allowing them to stay in the fight longer and ‘Stim’ repeatedly to really increase the damage output of your units. The second use of Medivacs is their ability to carry units and drop them in to your opponent’s base to deal devastating damage!

Mechanical:

‘Mech’ armies consist of units made in the Factory or the Starport. The basis of a Mech army is a mixture of Hellions, Tanks, Thors and Vikings. Hellions are incredibly effective at taking out any “light” unit such as Marines, Zerglings, Zealots and workers. The ‘Infernal Pre-Igniter’ or “Blue-Flame” upgrade increases the power of the flamethrower on the Hellion and improves their efficiency greatly. Siege Tanks are the backbone of a mid game Mech army. The massive damage when in Siege mode decimates entire armies that are unfortunate enough to step inside the range of your Tanks. A Mech army relies on a large number of Siege Tanks in the mid game so keep building Tanks! Thors are used to soak up a great amount of damage and deal a large amount of splash damage to any enemy air units. The Thor requires an ‘Armoury’ to be built but are invaluable for either breaking an opponent’s Siege Tank line or blasting a flock of Mutalisks out of the sky. Vikings are the final piece of the puzzle and are used to grant vision to your Siege Tanks and deny any kind of drop or harass tactics that your enemy is employing.

The biggest limitation of Mech is the immobility of your army. Thors are very slow and Siege Tanks need to be put in and out of Siege mode when they need to move. The Vikings and Hellions are used to counteract this, with the Hellions able to put pressure on your opponent and the Vikings being used to shut down enemy aggression. Vehicle armour and weapons upgrades are very important for a Mech army as your units are very high cost and therefore need to be as cost efficient as possible. The most important upgrades are Siege Tech and the previously mentioned Infernal Pre-Igniter, both found in the Tech Lab on your factories.

Bio-Mech/Marine-Tank:

Marine - Tank compositions are a hybrid style of playing Terran and encompasses some of the strengths of each style. The mix of Marines and Tanks is most commonly seen in the Terran vs. Zerg matchup and much like Mech, it is reliant on positioning. A Marine / Marauder composition is very susceptible to a Zergling-Baneling army which will tear through the majority of your forces with relative ease. The addition of Siege Tanks to the army provides the ability to destroy the Zerg army before it can connect with your Bio units. Medivacs are also required to make your army last far longer against Zerglings.

Recently, the TvZ matchup has seen a move to the Infestor tech path rather than Mutalisk, which is considerably stronger against the Bio-Mech composition. Dropping as you would with a Bio army and the positioning required for the tanks are the key components of this style. Unit upgrades such as Stim, Combat Shield and weapons upgrades are important. The siege mode upgrade is vital to get as soon as possible once you have tanks out.

These styles are effective in most situations, with the only exception being Mech in Terran vs. Protoss, where it has seen far less success than in the match-ups against Zerg and Terran. Bio is generally the easier style to play effectively, but succumbs to splash damage rather quickly. Mech requires more thought and consideration over your unit positioning, making it the sub-optimal choice of a newer player to the game. The key with playing Starcraft II though is to make sure you are having fun, so try out both styles and see which you prefer.

In the next article in this series, we’ll be looking at Protoss army compositions and the key points of controlling a Protoss army!

James 'Stress' O'Leary