The humblest offensive unit the terran army boasts, yet the most versatile, and destructive if used to its optimum capacity. What do I mean by optimum capacity? Everybody knows that marines are a VERY effective mineral dump, and they works wonder in pockets, or in big numbers, isn’t that already optimum? Not really, the optimum way to use marines, is with support, and with support they are various scenarios, where they can be utilized to maximum capacity.
Most of the marine play that I know of has been inspired by two geniuses, oGs.TheStc, and TLO. They are the two most spectacular players so far in SC2, and nobody else(biased view here, :X), imo, does not even comes close to them. Before I start, let me recommend a few replays, which is so easily accessible on youtube, but I cannot embed it here because I’m at work, in any case, do go look them up. In particular STC vs Cool, TheWind Tester, ArgosZenith.
Before I start, let me get the basic dynamics of Marines to one side,
HP : 45/55
Damage : 6/7/8/9 (AND THE LEVEL 3 WEAPON UPGRADE ICON LOOKS BAD-ASS!)
Armor : 0/1/2/3
MS : 2.25(+1.12)
AS : 0.83(0.42)
Cost : 50 Minerals
Prerequisite : Barracks
Abilities :
Stim Pack. The most bad-ass skill for any terran user, 1.5 times the movement speed, 1.33 times the attack speed, is there anything else you want? Yeah, actually I am looking for a 2 times damage buff too! LOL. Minus 10 HP per use.
Drawbacks is that without medivacs, you cannot engage in hit and run skirmishes, u cannot stim to attempt to kill a lone stalker, neither can you stim to run around your base to catch the most annoying unit in the game, mutalisks.
You know I always crack a stupid joke with my friends, drinking red bull is like stim pack. Gives you lots of powerrr, but makes you damn tired later! And of course, sleeping is medivac!
Combat Shields. +10 HP. Needless to say, when is more HP not welcomed?
Drawbacks of either, you need the tech lab, and GAS.
Before you go wtf, which noob doesn’t get a tech lab? Well, there are some cases which you won’t have ANY gas at all to spare! Jump over to the last section on timing pushes, and you will understand where all the gas went to.
Counters to poor marines : Zerglings, Roaches, Collossus, Psi Storms, Siege Tanks, BANELINGS, chargelots with a few FFs behind your marines.
Well, that’s fine, because we as Terrans are proud to mix MANY units in our army! A typical army of mine will consist of about 5-6 units? Ghosts, Marines, Maruaders, Hellions, Medivacs, Ravens, Banshees?
Well, those are my favorite units, and to be very honest, I HATE the siege tank. :/ hate hate hate! I’ll rather a stimmed immortal! Or if ever possible, nothing would excite me more than something like a double barrel, fast shooting single target mobile tank!(like C&C style!)
Okay, so enough of the small talk, here comes the stuff. When do you mass marines, why, and how do you control them in battle?
When : almost ALL the time. They are too good for 50 minerals, and the only time you should stop massing them is when the opponent gets insane amounts of colossus(something that has no hard counter), HTs and banelings are fine to continue massing, as with all the other counters stated above, because they CAN die. Collosus CAN’T, unless you have like 5-6 vikings already, which is very unlikely you would mass out so many as you still need medivacs. So in such a case, tech lab switch! Mass marauders and you should be fine!
Why : they attack both air and ground, occupy little space, and is very very mobile. Deters sudden outburst of 3 VRs owning your whole Maruader Medivac Ghost army if you so choose to go that, and is also a soft counter to annoying units like phoenixes and mutalisks!
How : The idea is that Marines are very fragile, in 10s, in 20s, in 30s, whichever it is. Think of them as glass cannons(I’m sure anyone who has played a decent amount of MMORPGs would know what this is), you have to PROTECT them. Also in MMORPGs, who doesn’t aim glass cannons in a guild war? Same thing, your opponents HATE your marines, so use them as bait!
This is utilized most commonly by siege tanks and marine usage, luring the opponent to commit to slaughter a “stray” 20 marines and you pull back and they walk directly into tank fire. Not the best way to start the morning huh. Witness TheStc does utter ownage micro using this against a zerg on scrap station, I believe it was thewind, watch his awesome marine lure siege tank settlement, and insane micro afterwards.
Beyond that, marines are very good for early game pushes! Be it an offensive bunker, insane SCVs all ins and the such, marines slot into any early game composition easily
Timing Pushes
In fact, I would like to add that A LOT of timing pushes revolves around the massive amounts of marines that you could get off pumping from 3-4 raxes…
Banshee timing pushes, around 60-70pop,
Thor timing pushes 40ish pop,
1 Tank timing push 35ish pop,
Hellion timing push 27ish pop,
Ghost timing push, 40ish pop
The list goes on, and on, and on!
Off-topic, I love to use marines vs mutalisks, it kinda excites me when a mutalisk dies, and it was from massive marine focus fire! LOL! :X
Okay, I know by now you’ll probably be half-asleep, as many of the utilizations here, are pretty obvious, still, for those that I may have given a fresh insight to, hope this was a decent read!
Cheers, and have a great day playing SC2, while I’m stuck in office. ):
PS: Sorry Team Singapore I couldn’t turn up yesterday!!!! Anddd cow, blame ice! Not me! :/
Last edited by OxygeN; Mon, 27th-Sep-2010 at 12:57 PM.
Some things to add.
1) Marines are bad against armoured units, more so against toss players who upgrades shields/armour and have a a guardian shield. Their basic damage is 6 so a reduction of 1 means a loss of 16% of their dps.
Extreme example => BCs own marines for free cos its starting armr is already 3.
2) On the other side of the coin, attack upgrades significantly increases the dps of marines, especially in sizeable numbers
3) Marines can kite melee units, engage and retreat as needed. The key thing is they are ranged and do NOT need gas and can be generated quickly and cheaply via mass barracks/reactors.
4) It might be quite obvious but i have to state it here. Do not attempt to build pure marines. At the start yes maybe to mass a critical number. Maruders with their slow and bonus to armoured and good hp really strengthens the composition. Aim to get stim/shields as a priority OR factory=>starport=>vacs. I have a nice build where i build pure rax, not even having addons; saving all the gas for 1/1/1 into medivacs and even ravens.
Marines can be yr main attacking force but they need some form of support to defeat opponent counters.
5) Load yr most injured marines into bunkers(build 1 or 2) in suitable locations to preserve their dps (until vacs arrive)
6) Marines are very weak when scattered and in small numbers. Try to put some effort in preserving them(using scvs as shields if needed) if you get harassed or just simply position them into bunkers. You can always salvage bunkers so nothing lost there.
7) Marines are especially vulnerable to banelings and in midgame infestors/colossus/storm. Just be aware of this and take the appropiate action.
a)If you see banelings, string/spread out yr rines so the splash dmg is reduced. Try not to target the banelings, aim to hit the rest of the enemy units(probably lings) 1st. Another alternative is to stim and RUN AWAY...or maybe just stim, run, stop-attack, run. stop - attack. It helps greatly to have marauders to tank/slow the lings..1-2 siegeD tank can make a big difference if you focus the banelings quickly.
b) If you see infestors, u r screwed. Fungal Growth is an instant spell and most of the time you will be unable to prevent the casting. What u can do is to immediately kill the infestor once it appears, stim and retreat yr marines to let them recover their hp. Or you can just let them die and take as much of the enemy with them.
c) If you see colossus, you are screwed. If you build one too many, you have just handed the game to your opponent by your poor build. Marauders at least can last a bit longer and hope to take down the colossus fast. So avoid a mass marine build when u see colossus tech / OR use them exclusively as a support force behind or as harassment..not on the FRONT LINE where they will get roasted like nothing. It might be best to include Vikings in yr unit mix to counter colossus.
8) Don't underestimate mutas. If you see them, dont just continue to blindly build marines. Immediately set up a bunker at yr important spots (like behind yr mineral lines) where mutas would want to attack and garrison some rines. Mutas can mow down marines in large enuf numbers and choose to engage where they want. I might be adding more here than needed.. but the counter is one thor (with scv on standby to repair) to chase them away with their range 10 missles, vacs(positioned inside away from mutas) to heal stimmed rines if they come again and maybe vikings to keep kiting/hitting them if they still want to harass.
9) Sentry + Chargelots + Templar > Rines thats why u need siege/banshees/ghosts to prevent toss from rolling all over you. This is a complicated matchup but main thing to know is toss have GOOD counters against mass rines. Against a mixed bioball..well that is a different story.
10) And finally Rines might look on paper but they are incredibly fragile and can be easily lost in battle. Some care must be taken to preserve them early game if you are building them or you will find you have insufficient forces to push or defend. If you have to suicide, take an equal amount of enemy in resource cost with you. Probes/Drones/SCVs are ideal targets if you manage to get into their base.
11) Harassment with drops. U can fit 8 marines into one medivac => and that is huge. With vacs, you can have a mobile force capable of reinforcing positions quickly (bypassing obstacles!), harass/kill enemy expos or even do a major drop bypassing static/heavy defenses for a surgical attack to hurt the enemy. Such a versatile unit that lends itself to being transported easily. Yes - the marines
Last edited by dtarchon; Mon, 4th-Oct-2010 at 5:04 PM.
Reason: Refinement
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