Terran

Builds for Terran players

These are not proper strategies per-say, but rather different combinations of the soldiers available that use their unique abilities in the best possible way. No strategy will win without a powerful build.

The Deathball.

This build is one of the most common, used by almost everyone at one point or another. It is a large group      composed of lots of marines, some marauders, some siege tanks, some medivacs, a few thors, a few SCVs,and the occasional grounded viking. The idea of the Deathball is to make a single army that can counter anything that attacks it. It has no size limit. The more troops you have, the better.

The Viking Swarm

This build is, to quote one of the guys I used it on, "That is the strangest Terran strategy I have ever seen. Can't argue with the results, though. Good job." this was after I'd taken out his army and dropped into the back of his base to wreak havoc.

Setup

Go to Starport as soon as possible. have at least 2 expansions, and 2 starports on reactors. Don't bother going any higher up the tech tree, vikings have no special upgrades.

Strengths

incredibly mobile. can attack anything, anywhere. medium attack speed, medium attack damage. long range. decent health.

Weaknesses

cannot hit attack both air and ground at the same time, and has no AoE attacks. watch out for swarms and a mix of air and ground forces.

Marine, Marauder, Med-V

This is the most basic Terran ground force. It consists of marines (the Terrans cheapest unit and built from a barracks), marauders (a tougher, anti-armor unit also built from the barracks), and medivacs (a transport/healer built in a starport).

Setup

Build lots of barracks. build tech labs on the ones that will build marauders, and reactors on the rest. After you have started on the attackers, build to a starport, have it attach to a tech lab and research cadeus reactor (+25 starting energy, which is used for healing), then fly it to a reactor and produce medivacs. Also build an engineering bay to upgrade the attack damage and armor of barracks units.

Strengths

You can start building this as soon as you have your first barracks. It is flexible, able to deal with varied attackers. Loading your ground troops into the medivacs allows you make air drops with it. It requires very little gas. Both ground troops have stimpacks, an ability that sacrifices a small amount of health (10 points for marines, 20 for marauders) in exchange for a temporary +50% boost to attack speed and move speed. The damage can be quickly healed by medivacs.

Weaknesses

This build is extra vunerable to AoE attacks (as it is made of large numbers of weak units). It is also weak to anti-air when making an air drop. It has no AoE attacks, but a fast rate of fire, so it is only slightly vulnerable to swarms.

Marine, Marauder, Med-V version 2.0, (Viking, Hellbat, Med-V)

This is another version of the Marine, Marauder, Med-V build.  It combines vikings and medivacs with the new HoTS unit the hellbat (which is basically a firebat from the old game, only tougher.)

Setup

Build two factories, an armory, and 3 starports. make at least 2 expansions. Have both factories build reactors, while one starport builds a tech lab and the other 2 reactors. in the techlab, Research the extra starting energy for the medivac, then have the starport and one of the factories swap places. Now research the hellion transformation ability, and enhanced damage versus light units for the hellion. After it's finished, have it lift off a build an extra reactor. Have the other factory cranking out hellbats, 2 of the starports building vikings, and the remaining one building medivacs. Keep the research in the armory steady. make sure that you make enough medivacs to carry all the hellbats.

Note: to move around, load all hellbats in to the medivacs, and transform all vikings into air mode. When doing this you have a choice: you can load your hellbats in as is, ready to fight the moment they hit the ground, or you can transform them into hellions, doubling the number of units each of your medivacs can carry, but requiring some setup time upon reaching the target (around 8 seconds, 4 to unload, 4 to transform).The choice is up to you. You can have your units instantly ready to attack, or able to carry a much larger ground force. There is no right answer. Make sure your hellbats are in front of your vikings (because they are the meatwall).

Strengths

This build has more health, does more damage, has better AoE, better anti-air, is faster and more mobile, and not as vulnerable while doing an air-drop as the standard Marine, Marauder, Med-V (due to the fact that almost half of your soldiers are air-superiority fighters). The hellbats have wide, anti-light splash damage, and can be healed by medivacs (even though their other form cannot). It is also not weak against AoE or ground based swarms.

Weaknesses

This build is weak to mass air (because vikings are single target). It also takes a while to get going, so it vulnerable to early attacks. It is somewhat weak to a joint attack of both air and ground, but not as much so as either the viking or the hellbat is alone.