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Meching it up on NA
 

Greetings and salutations my fellow SC2SEAers, I've been enjoying some of the blogs on here so thought I'd contribute something of my own, in the form of an oldskool battle report.

About myself, I'm an average Masters Terran that uses Mech primarily in all match ups. I mostly ladder these days on NA as Optus provides better latency there. Go figure.

At present I ranked 21 in Masters league with 59 wins and 51 losses, with a bonus pool of 197.
While I would one day like to reach GM, that day is not coming any time soon (if ever).


I did a bit of laddering today and begin my tale on, what is probably my achilles heal as a map, Tal Darim Altar. It is shitful for mech, but alas, I do my best.

My opponent is a Protoss, a matchup which has become significantly harder for the meching Terran post patch. Immortals are no longer useless sacks of crap, and Zealots now appear to enjoy bathing in blue flame.

My opponent goes by the name of isurusShooku and who decides to respond to my uber mannered "gl hf", with the almost standard on NA, "ur terran u dont need luck", he follows this up "and i don't wish u to have fun"

Now, for some reason I thought I had played this gentleman earlier in the day, so I deviated from my standard opening somewhat and go with a build on the fly (rarely a good idea). Basically, I open with a reactored rax, reactored fact and a late starport. My scouting SCV got denied hard but most protoss (in my humble experience) like a fast expand on Tal and I saw thorzain do damage with something similar. I figure, worst case scenario, I kill some probes, keep the toss on his toes and expand behind it with some bunkers.

I push at around 6 with a squad of marines, 2 hellions and more rallying. I charge gleefully into his base to find a dt. ****. Oh to make it even better, he has a warp prism and is warping DT's into my main. I.e. I'm fucked. I scan a bit, waste some time, GG with my tail between my legs.

I don't sweat the loss too much, not getting a proper scout I was unable to see his gas count and had no idea something tricky might be coming. T_T


I hit the find match button straight away only to see isurusShooku within seconds. Right. Game on biatch.

I go with the standard, gl hf, to wit Shooku replies "i told u what was not gonna be fun". I attempt some humour with "nah, i enjoyed it" but Shooku is not fooled. He baits me some more and I do my best to ignore him.

I am 6 at Shattered Temple, I soon find he is at 12. His scouting probe arrives suspiciously early which prompts my to send an SCV to look all over the shop, I was NOT going to get proxy gated. Shooku noticed this, however, and decided to pipe in "haha got in your head".

Now I'm a pretty mild mannered player. I really don't CARE all that much. I'd rather win, but if I lose, it's no biggie. Not this time. This guy just pissed me off. I make a quiet resolve that I will win this game, and most importantly I will not get fcking cheesed.

I get an scv into his base early enough to see his double gas, with a bit mined on each already. This throws out my normal build order and I end up going for some bastard child of a fast expand (got myself supply block too! - the lesson kids is don't Starcraft angry).

My thought process was he was either repeating his move from the previous game, or void raying my ass. To that end I go heavy on rines, plan for a seige tank expand and get a fast engineering bay. I send my first hellion to scout and successfully get it inside his base and see a...... robotics facility. Hmmph. Disappointingly conventional.

I expand while bunkering up heavily, my fear at this stage is a heavy immortal gateway push which can be lethal if not bunkered up sufficiently.

At the 9 minute mark I'm feeling comfortable and planning on moving into a safe mid game when a Colossus gets dropped into my main mineral line. The ****?

I run my SCV's quickly, and send my marines over to harass the Warp Prism whilst building a viking. I do some sheild damage to the prism which is enough to drive it off. I rally my viking into what I figured would be a good retreat path, and hit pay dirt. Sniping the prism.

Naturally, my opponent accuses me of hacking, though I suspect he didn't mean it

I'm feeling way better at this point, I'm up a Colossus kill and I know what the ****** is up to.

A note on Mech play for those interested. It can work TvP, but unit composition is all important, and switching it up is slow. Colossi are easily countered, as long as you get those Vikings out - like wise immortals and ghosts. Naturally you'll want both later, but in the mid game you don't want to get caught with your pants around your ankles.

Now I'm what you might call a "get more ahead" kind of guy. Mech timings are very powerful, but they've become a lot more risky TvP post 1.4. So I decide to grab the tower in the middle, slap down a 3rd command center and go for a blue flame drop to keep Shooku on his little protoss toes.

I land the drop ok but Shooku reacts well, I get 7 probes which is a disappointing return, but far from a disaster, especially considering I got my medivac away. It gives Shooku something to think about, and that matters.

My feeling of positivity does not last long. At the 13 minute mark Shooku comes strolling down the center of the map with a couple of Colossi, an immortal and a healthy squad of gateway units. At this point a cold sweat forms on my brown. My third isn't up yet, and I have **** all of a unit count. There is every chance I'm about to get my front door kicked in, which for a mech player is an even bigger slap in the face than a DT cheese.

Thankfully the SC gods smile on me, Shooku waits for a minute, and arrives at my front door with an extra immortal and what looks like slightly more ground units. By this time I have around 7 tanks, a squad of marines, a viking and a thor. I'm able to hold his push, and even land a couple of sweet Colossus kills. Excellent.

At this stage I'm brimming with confidence. I take my third and charge across the map. I think I have this. I have a good squad of tanks, hellions, a thor and some vikings. And the replay later showed I had a ~25 supply advantage. Unfortunately I forget the Meching Terran rule of War #17, scan for fcking observers. You simply CANNOT let those thanks get hit unseiged.

Unfortunately, as I push into his natural, this is what happens. My opponent flanking me as I have 3 tanks unseiged. I realise my mistake almost immediately, but with his excellent use of blink, combined with 3 immortals against my ghostless mech, and we trade our armies away. I have squandered my advantage.

I setup a defensive line around my gold expansion, whilst adding a 4th CC, brining my fact count up to 6 and ghost production from 2 barracks.

A minute or 2 later my opponent strikes, and strikes hard. He has a doom squad of about 8 immortals, with twice as many sentries, and launches his assault from the north of my gold. Had I had my tanks in position, and controlled my ghosts well, this could have been a major victory. Instead, I was an inch away from defeat.

I got off one decent emp, not nearly enough, and as his stalkers blinked into my tanks and his immortals started kicking the crap out of everything insight I genuinely thought it was GG.

But I pulled my SCV's to buy time, rallied troops from my facts and I was soon faced with only 6 immortals, thankfully mostly shieldess, staring me down. A seige volley to two and the emergence of a Thor later, and Shooku retreats with only an immortal and some reinforcing stalkers remaining.


I wipe the sweat off of my brow and assess the situation. I am about to take my bottom right 4th. My opponent almost definitely has his, and there wouldn't be a lot I could do if he took a 5th. I am well upgraded, I have ghosts, and I have money. At this stage there is only one rule, it's called attrition. I am a mech player, I am slow and unwieldy, but my tanks go BOOM. If I get into a straight fight I have to make it hurt A LOT more than I have been doing.

I mass units, I hit 200, I thrown down a CC for a 5th, and I charge. I have tanks, thors, hellions and ghosts. It's go time. I head straight for his gold expansion, I want to take away the easy money and it's a good place to seige up and control the map.

Unfortunately my opponent has switched back to Colossi, he has about 5. But I'm able to force a fight with my tanks in semi decent position, my emps go down, and we trade armies.

I start pumping vikings, and send my newly minted CC to land at the 3:00 natural. Let's try this again.

I hit 200/200, and grab around 10 scv's for repairing. I have the full mech arsenal this time around and 9 factories to supply reinforcements.

I drive up the center of the map and my opponent backs off. At the top of the Xel'Naga towers vision our armies engage, I seem to have misplaced a ghost or two which hurts, but despite a massive immortal count I take the battle, with 3 tanks, a ghost, some vikings (now landed) and some hellions remaining. I spam my factories, If I control this right I can win right here.

I keep rallying, sieging and EMPing when I have the mana. I also get a couple of hellions into his 9:00 natural, and grab some oh so satisfying probe kills. Despite some really excellent use of blink, my opponents units are trickling in, and I start to get that warm glow of imminent victory.


As I push into the 9:00 Shooku has the final word "shame on you", before leaving. I shouted VICTORY, Johnny Drama style (not really).


I was exceptionally tempted to send him a message or two of heart felt "**** you" after the game, but decided to be the bigger man, and I write about it instead on a public forum


Final Thoughts: I BM players, they keep you competitive.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

Nice writeup, got me all nervous when you lost that tank push but awesome how things turned out. Just curious, what is your build for mech in TvP?

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

Always love these slap-BM-players-around stories GJ!

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

I needed a new pair of pants after reading this.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

this warmed my heart

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

taking out BMrs, though i've done my fair share i spose.

Good write up.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

Thx for the guys.


Something like this:

Depot 10
Barracks 12
Gas 13
Orb 15 (or 16 post patch? I'm really not sure which is more efficient)
Marine
Fact when you have 100 gas
Depot

3 marines from the barracks before adding a reactor - you need a good marine count before meching harder in the mid game, or else you'll die T_T

I bunker at my ramp 9/10 to avoid marines getting picked off by stalkers

As soon as fact is done, a hellion to scout

You're really looking to see if he taken an expo by around about 6:00, if he hasn't, be on your guard. It's also quite surprising how often you can get it into a base and pinch a probe or two.

From there you've 2 pretty solid paths, throw down a CC, take your second gas and seige tank expand. It's not the fastest quick expo in the world but it's safe as houses as long you're vigillant with your first hellion to get a read on any crazy all ins.

The other option is to get a starport, a medivac, while pumping hellions. If (and only if) your opponent took an earlyish expo, an 8 marine drop in their main, with some hellions coming through the front probe hunting, is a nice way to lead into taking your own expo. It's very rare you wont AT LEAST break even.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

I'm going to have practice this a bit... can't say I'm a big fan of bio play in general... I guess you can just afford to make ghosts out of 1 rax while meching hard off 2 bases (3 fact style)?

Any chance of some replays of this style?

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

Goody is the man to mimic, you can find a tonne of his reps here: http://www.sc2-replays.net/en/replays/ - tho alas not so many post 1.4

I'll be laddering this arvo, if I play any decent games I might post them.


You used to be able to do excellent, ghost free, 2 base 4 fact pushes which could be really dangerous (fast expo, hitting around the 10 minute mark). The new patch makes that a lot harder, but a fast ghost 'might' be dangerous, if you get some clutch EMPs. For the moment i've just been aiming to take it late game when you can get a bit of a death ball going.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

ty for sharing but could use some pics! just press print screen in sc2 then go to the same base folder as your replays

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

fur's mech play knocked me out of the Melbourne Wcg qualifiers!

Good games though.

Nice blog mate.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

I might not be in a position to suggest terran builds to a masters (I'm diamond protoss), but recently (on EU) I've encountered an interesting mech build. Left me puzzled, and I lost too. Map was Shakuras.

1) Depos and rax at natural ramp for wall
2) 2nd gas very early (like 17).
3) Cut scv production at 20.
4) Mine from both gases to get enough gas for factory, 1 tech lab, 1 reactor, siege upgrade and 2x tanks.
5) Pull probes from gas, build natural CC when enough minerals.
6) Squeeze in scv's whenever minerals start to float
7) Once 2nd orbital is up, drone like a pro and pump marines.

I did 3-gate robo in response to 2x fast gas, as I suspected multiple starport banshees, then realized how much behind I was, and went for 1-base blink all-in with obs and blinking up cliffs from backdoor. Didn't do enough damage to stop his econ, and lost later to major marine-tank push.

Three reasons this build might be of use:
-2x tanks with siege arrive same time my 3-gate push was ready, and with wall at natural, it might even be very good vs 4-gate, because it's shakuras.
-Expo timing is almost same as protoss 1-gate-robo FE after scout, though later than 1-rax FE obviously and 1-gate-FE-robo. And I suppose cutting workers is justified because you get earlier 2nd orbital.
-Confuses the shit outa protoss. I see 2x fast gas early, and at the same time natural wall. Could be banshees, could be FE, and no way to see till I get obs. And to be safe against 2-3 port banshee, need robo and 3 gate stalkers. Funny enough, it's neither, since he does parallel siege tank and FE. Also, could be a trick to make me think he is going 2x gases, and just pulls scv's after scouting probe dies.

I totally felt like a zerg, with bashing into natural wall to see nothing but marines, and then have stalker destroyed by siege volley.

Re: Meching it up on NA
 

Hahaha the NA posts are off the chain.