Unit of the Day: The Baneling

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.  Today’s unit of the dayis one that I’ve fallen in love with and terrans have fell out of love with… the baneling.

History

In Starcraft zerglings are introduced as the basic melee unit of the zerg.  It is recognized as a mineral dump.  In Starcraft there was only one mutation, mutalisk into guardian.  Two if you count the spire turning into a greater spire three if you count creep colonies transforming into sunkens and those AA things.

For a race that was purely biological and was said to be ‘evolving’ you never really got to see much of it, it sort of just stayed the same.  So when brood wars came out blizzard added in the lurker an underground attacker that evolved from the hydralisk.  People loved this and a lot of early game tactics focused around getting a fast lurker.

But that’s where it died.  It felt silly that the basic unit couldn’t become something else.  People often think of zerg like an evil pokemon.  You start off with some unit and it evolves.  The lack of that sort of triffled a lot of players.  It felt weird that you could just make your zerglings hit harder and move faster.

So the baneling gets introduced.  It created a unique anti-zerg/terran unit that gets used more than almost any other zerg unit in the game.

In the campaign the baneling shows up in some odd places.  If you are doing it on casual your first time running into these guys is on the second last mission where you have to chose between wiping out air or ground for the final level.  You have to choose to wipe out his nydus worms in order to encounter them.  They show up and the Steadman tells you to “stay away from them.”  As you try to micro away one of them is bound to hit you and he tells you that you’re sort of dumb for getting hit by it.

And that’s it.  If you do the casual round you’ll never see banelings ever again, until multiplayer.

You see banelings once more in Hard Mode reaper level.  A reaper jumps down and destroys one and takes no damage from it, yep nothing big.  I may have spotted one in The Moebius Factor where you have to destroy the buildings but I mean you’d never engage it.

All-in-all the baneling is non-present in the terran campaign probably because of how explosively powerful they are.  I think blizzard had a sense of humor by making the zergling evolution into a suicide unit considering many zerg players will use zerglings as suicide units.

Strengths

It’s really hard to talk about the ‘strengths’ of the baneling unit.  Anything they are strong against they coincidentally die to.  Banelings DO NOT do bonus damage against any types.  Unlike their counter part the tank which does bonus damage vs. light units.

The baneling is mostly used against terran bio balls and zerg lings.  Two other common uses for banelings is to destroy command centers and kill harvesters.  Each baneling will cost you 50 minerals 25 gas (including the zergling you are morphing) so in order to make this worth while you need to kill a mere 3 units.

Banelings mix in well wit most army compositions.  The most popular is the terran buster, baneling/mutalisk.  But banelings also work well with just zerglings for the famous “baneling bust” where you use banelings to break open the terran door as well as baneling/hydra

Banelings have one upgrade that requires hive tech.  This makes it so that your banelings will roll instead of crawl.  It’s the most ridiculous upgrade but what it’s doing is increasing the movement speed of banelings.  When they crawl they’re only going to be good very early game with smaller numbers of enemy troops.  But once your enemy gets large mass and tanks then suddenly banelings aren’t getting to their target enough.  Rolling makes them a potent enemy.

Banelings also have the ability to BURROW which is insanely cool it makes your banelings transform into land mines.  This way you can plant them and detonate them as your enemy moves on you.  It feels kind of anti-climatic since you can’t see the damage they deal but it does end up being insanely cool.

They’re also the only unit that has the ability to auto-unburrow.  This makes them more like land mines as soon as his ball runs over it they’ll unburrow and detonate.  Pros don’t do this.  The simple reason is because they lose control on the vicious numbers they’re looking to kill with it.

One other powerful use of banelings is to load them into overlords and use the overlords as bombers and CARPET BOMB your enemy.  Some people will use this to drop them into piles of terran units while others will use it to bomb enemy structures.  It’s very challenging as you have to detonate these units as you drop them.

Weaknesses

The obvious weakness of banelings is that every time they have success you’re going to lower your army count by one.  There’s no other unit in the game that is literally trading army count for victory.  So one significant weakness of this unit is a player who makes poor choices.  If each baneling isn’t destroying 100 minerals worth of structures it may not be worth while.

Another weakness is that they die very easily to everything.  This is part of the design function, they wanted to make it so that they are going to hurt you for trying to kill them.  A lot of terran players (myself included) will bind sacrificial lambs who will absorb baneling hits making them really worthless.

Banelings as a final weakness have no other attacks other than suicide.  This makes them vulnerable to every single unit in the game.  They also cannot blow up air units meaning if your enemy has banshees, void rays or phoenixes maybe baneling play is over.  On that note I think if a phoenix kills a baneling in the air it should do air splash damage.

And that’s the baneling!

Unit of the Day: Marauder

It’s not just a keyboard it’s an important unit in the game!

History

In Starcraft the Firebat was introduced as a yokel anti-infantry unit that would become effective against infestation.  The firebat appeared again in Starcraft 2 as a support unit in a single mission.

The firebat for all it’s glory had no place in a Starcraft 2 world with hellions.  It saw limited use and sort of just fell off the charts.  It’s replacement however became one of the most powerful units in the game and indeed terran’s answer to everything protoss.

The Marauder is introduced in the fifth level of the campaign “Smash and Grab.”  Swann indicates that he has been ‘playing with these suits” and Raynor tells him no testing.  The marauder deals with the massive amounts of stalkers and archons found in the level.  The Marauder is the anti-armor unit that has the added benefit of adding a snare (teched).

The marauder/marine ball becomes the corner stone of every Terran army and is most seen in tournament play out of any builds.  The marauder fills in a void that the firebat simply could not, tier 2 units.

Strengths

Marauders do bonus damage against mechs this makes them better cost for cost against mechs.  My favorite matches are those where terrans mass up thors and rush them in only to be torn down by my marine/marauder/tank setup.  At 100 mineral 25 gas they are simply too cheap to not have.  Many times people will just start with this unit instead of marines because of their tankiness and ability to take on nearly any early units.

Another huge benefit is the tech concussive shells.  This neat little tech adds a snare to every shot.  What this adds up to is the ability (early on) to kite zerg and protoss melee units as well as an effective way to deal with those nasty reapers.  At end game level it will allow you to pick off the enemies army when it is attempting to micro or retreat.

Weaknesses

Marauders can only attack ground units which means they are necessarily weak against any air assault.

Marauders are also type biological meaning that they are going to take large amounts of damage from tanks, banelings, and colossus.  Having said that…. marauders also counter them so it’s a numbers and micro game here.

Marauders are also not terribly effective against biological types (marines/zerglings/hydralisks) and because of this will just get wrecked economy wise.

Unit of the Day: The Siege Tank!

And today’s unit of the day is the siege tank in need of a nerf or just enough punch to throw back the zerg?

History

The siege tank gets enveloped into the backwater resistance army about the same time as General Duke crashing and joining the Dominion.  Although General Edmund Duke (like all generals) likes to fly in style in a battlecruiser his sociopathy leads him into also being an amazingly accurate tank driver.  Of course an amazingly accurate tank driver doesn’t do much.  I say sociopathy because a person who rides a tank is going to do damage to their allies and enemies.

Siege tanks were just adequate in Starcraft nothing amazing.  It wasn’t until Starcraft 2 when the upgraded Crucio Siege Tanks came out that they were a force to deal with.  These new tanks are introduced by Swann in The Dig where you must defend off waves of tanks against enemy units.  These tanks make a perfect ally as their siege mode now does excessive amounts of damage, so much so that they are in line for a nerf.

There are tones of defensive missions so there’s always room for siege tanks in the campaign play.  The most important of course is their key role in completing the hard mode All In achievement with nydus worms where siege tanks just destroy all incoming waves fast.

Strengths

Siege tanks are unique in that they have two attack modes.  The only thing that may come close to this is stimmed and unstimmed units… however their functionality stays the same.  The tank deals bonus damage against two different types in the two different modes.  Tanks are extremely effective against light units while sieged up.  Their range is increased by nearly double and suddenly their damage is splash.

Their second transformation is regular mode which deals bonus damage against armored units (ultralisks, immortals, and thors).

Because of this duel-functionality this has made them the power component of many unit builds including marines/tanks, tanks/vikings, hellions/thors/tanks, and of course tanks/marines/medivacs.  All of which are targeted against different strats and races.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately tanks do not have any air capabilities meaning that whatever build they come in has to have something that is anti-air.  Tanks are also detector free meaning you’ll need to scan to catch dark templar and roaches from encroaching on your tank line-up.

One of their biggest weaknesses is also one of their biggest strengths, splash damage.  Unfortunately if you don’t spread out your tanks enough the splash damage you cause to tier-1 units (zealots/zerglings) will destroy your own tanks.

Unit of the Day: Hellion

Today’s unit of the day is the Hellion!  Go-kart with a flame thrower or destroyer of zerg?

History

In Starcraft there was a clever unit called the vulture.  Vulture’s were “overpowered.”  At 75 minerals and requiring only a barracks and a factory to deploy these little suckers could 3-shot almost any light units.  As well these um… vultures would sore in and drop mines so that any enemies that try to engage these cockbags would instantly get blown up as the vultures darted off.  It was a hard counter and indeed the BEST of the BEST Starcraft players used vultures and stormed in like a hurricane.

Blizzard deemed them to be too powerful a force.  They were introduced as James Raynor’s vehicle of choice, of course that cheap bastard would ride around in these.  They were introduced early on as a backwater army vehicle however they became powerful enough that Mengsk would add them into his defense force and mercenaries used them.

However it befell developers to come up with a replacement.  Something that was as powerful after an upgrade but at the beginning wasn’t completely retarded.  What they came up with was a dune buggy with an attached flame thrower in the front.  Named after the mythical fire breathing snake these hellions live up to their name.  Just think of the person driving this thing.  You have an engine and all it’s parts up front.  You have oil coursing through the vehicle.  You fire so powerful that it can seer zerglings.  And with all this a pilot in the front seat driving this bad boy.  I want this guy’s air conditioning unit.

With the upgraded flame jets this thing is at retarded over more retarded than the vulture.  The vehicle is introduced in the campaign when you need a “fast vehicle that will deal high damage to light units.”  The specific level involves destroying an infested area in order to save ‘the colonists.” It seems the zerg are now zombies and deploying zombie like infested terrans only at night time.  The helions were quite effective at toasting down the enemies and were mobile enough to wreck all the infested structures.

You end up being kind of lucky that your enemies never seem to deploy hellions meaning you can just mass up marines and really just never use this unit again.

Strengths

The Hellion or “hellion play” as it has been known as is a key strength of TLO (The Little One) gameplay.  Hellions are extremely effective against light units (marines, zerglings, zealots) meaning that have 2-3 of these in your army will always be a strength.  They are specifcally powerful as harassment units because of their very fast speed and the area of effect type damage their main cannon deals.

The upgrade makes them amazingly powerful against zerglings and even better for harassment.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately the range of units that hellions are good against is quite limited.  Hellions get squashed by anything beyond zealots/zerglings/marines.  This means that if the enemy stops making these units really you should stop making hellions.  After this the only benefit is maybe some hellion drops on harvesting lines.  But even then I wouldn’t make any fresh ones for this when stimmed marines will be able to defend themselves against a counter attack.  Since they countered by nearly everything they will need support in any sort of frontal assault.

Unit of the Day: The Mother Ship

Well now that I have everything setup again it’s time to get back on track.  Today’s unit of the day is the Mother Ship!

History

In Starcraft there was a unit called the Arbiter.  No heroes rode in arbiters.  Arbiters were peaceful devices with weak attacks.  All of their abilities were designed around peaceful resolution of conflicts and transportation.  Their two main abilities were one that contained units within prisms that made them immune to damage but made them inoperative and a Mass Recall to bring units in to assist.  They were very mobile and had the added benefit of providing units with cloaks.

The arbiter was presumably too powerful when paired off with carriers.  With 4-5 carriers and 1-2 arbiters micro was too powerful against any opponents.  Arbiters ability to mass in ground troops and stun opponents made this air assault too powerful against terrans and zerg who unfortunately did not have units with range to hit the arbiters cloaking the carriers.

The Mothership was a very effective nerf on the arbiter.  The Mother Ship instead of stunning units now uses a black hole (vortex) that takes all units including your own inside of it.  This provided an excellent offensive and defensive element.  Reapers attacking your probes?  Black hole your probes while you move your stalkers in position.  Mass ground army heading your way?  Vortex your ramp while your allies come or new units are being made to deal with it.

The Mother Ship gains the mass recall it had before and has become part of a mother ship/zealot rush strategy that has won many games at MLG.

Lore wise the mother ship’s role is different from an arbiter.  Arbiters are inter-planetary transportation units that work for peace.  Mother Ships host large conclaves of protoss so when one dies it is likened too losing an entire city.  On the final protoss side-campaign mission the mother ship hero informs you “this is the remainder of our kind host in this mother ship.”  These large inter-planetary war cities now try and rid the scourge.  The “Purifier” that shows up when you attempt to show the colonists is only interested in purging the world of zerg.

Strengths

Mother Ships have the highest base health and it doubles up with shields.  This makes them extremely tanky for when the enemy sends an air rush, stimmed marines, blinking stalkers or infestors to try and take out the mother ship.

An obvious advantage is the cloak.  However as a secondary advantage it will spread over everyone else’s units so it will not only protect you but also your allies.  Sure detectors are going to be able to spot the cloak but if you have a mothership you are going to be able to deploy forces to wipe them out.

Another huge strength of the mothership comes in it’s damage beam.  It is actually quite high.  It won’t be strong enough to take out higher tier enemy units but it’s strong enough to roast some marines.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately unlike most units mother ships do not stand well alone, they require support.  Although mother ships may have large health pools they’re defenseless against air rushes and stalkers so compliments of carriers or zealots/stalkers are needed to keep this bastion in the sky alive.

As well the Mother Ships come with an insanely high build time and resource cost (400 minerals 400 vespene gas).  It takes quite a bit to deploy these monsters.  On top of that the tech tree requiring this is gateway, cybernetics core, starport, and a fleet beacon to make. On top of that you are also going to lose probe production while creating these things.

The final and greatest weakness of this bad boy is their speed.  They are slightly slower than carriers.  So really to make a huge assault with these things you have to have your forces protecting your slow mother ship as it slowly moves to drop doom on your enemies.