My apologies in advance for the somewhat bad-quality pictures – my camera is not that awesome. I’m sure you’ll notice the color bleed from the minis to the white background.

Tzeentch Demons

I painted the Tzeentch ones first. Partially because, as I said before, it’s the one I like best in the board game at the time being, but also (admittedly) because I imagined the Horrors would have to be somewhat easy to paint – mostly a drybrush job.

Lord of Change, Back

The Lord of Change on the other hand was tougher; I wanted his robe to be white-ish with blue hue, with the inner bit being darker than the arm pieces, and there were all the gold details. I added highlights by washing the lower edges of some trims with black, and it seemed to work out well – I continued that with the other models.

Finally, the Warp Stones (green-yellow stuff) took a bit of time and quite some iterations to get right. I wanted these as close to the game’s tokens as possible.

Slaanesh Demons

Next, I painted the Slaanesh demons. Arzo, my wife, pointed out that the Demonettes weren’t purple enough at first, so I washed their corsets or whatever-that-is with purple. I took some care to make the claws of the Keeper of Secrets a different purple than its (more pink) body, so they’re clearly distinguishable.

I’m not absolutely happy with the way the Demonettes‘ bodies turned out. The color is fine as it is, but the drybrushing strokes are too clearly visible, particularly to their left (as seen from the front).

Khorne Demons

Khorne came next. I googled a bit for the exact coloring of the Bloodletters; I didn’t remember the exact color of their horns. Turns out I couldn’t actually possibly remember it, as there’s all kinds of variations between red and black horns. Still, inspiration was a good thing, it made me color them slightly more orange to try and get some of that “hellfire” feeling.

While painting these, I had to resist the urge to stand up and shout something along the lines of…

Blood for the Blood God!

Nurgle Demons

Finally, my favourite Chaos God, Nurgle. Lots of details on these models, with all the worms and blains and all – another reason (apart from me wanting to save the best for last) why I took them last, after having warmed up. The skin of the Plaguebearers took quite some layers until I was happy with the sickly-rotting green-brown mix.

Note how the Lepers, the Plaguebearers and the Great Unclean One all share the green base color, but have different color nuances themselves – giving a coherent picture while maintaining distinguishability. At least that’s what I tried to do

Are you painting minis as well? Any comments or suggestions?

The cultists are already done:

Cultists of all Chaos Gods

I’ll upload the pictures to Board Game Geek as well of course. Here’s a few mug shots of each of the four groups:

Khorne Cultists

Bloodsworn, the cultists of Khorne, the Blood God. He mostly lusts for battle, thus cultists (who do all the corrupting and pillaging for the gods) aren’t as interesting to him. Since the game really plays differently with the different gods, this means that it also provides less cultists for him (and more demons to beat stuff up with).

Nurgle Cultists

Lepers, the cultists of Nurgle, the Lord of Pestilence. Interestingly, he does most of his victories through corruption, which in turn is the main purpose of the cultists in this game – and he has less of them than Tzeentch. Ah well, he has more and cheaper demons instead. Nurgle hits a soft spot for me, I always loved his fluff. My all time favourite Chaos God

Tzeentch Cultists

Acolytes, the cultists of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. He’s the god of magic and intrigue, a control type character. So I think the mage style robes work pretty well. The demons will be in a lighter blue. Tzeentch has most cultists, and he teleports them around the board in a pretty unpredictable way. Currently my favourite god to play in this game.

Slaanesh Cultists

Seductresses, the cultists of Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure. It is interesting how these are the only cultists that are supposedly female. Not sure why “Seductors” wasn’t chosen. I added another layer of light (purple mixed with white) drybrushing here after thinking they looked too similar to the Tzeentch ones (before trims), I think they’re much more obviously purple now and it really brings out the detail in their robes.

Teaspooned Tzeentch Cultist

Interestingly, what took me longest with these cultists are the little trims around their hoods and sleeves; they’re just so tiny that it’s a lot of work to get these right. To the left here, you see one of the Tzeentch ones in a teaspoon for size.

The demons and greater demons will be next, I’ll do those one god at a time. With the cultists, I thought it made most sense to paint all of them at the same time: The steps I took with each of the Chaos god’s deluded followers were very similar, even though I tried to make them convey different moods through more vivid (Slaanesh) or muted (Nurgle) color schemes. Since the demons look really different for each faction, that approach really doesn’t make sense for them.

Here it is, the final post in this series on possible strategies in StarCraft TBG. The volume of these posts only came natural when I tried to pack as much info as possible into them – the game offers so much depth and breadth everything less wouldn’t touch more than the surface. I hope the posts didn’t get too boring or long-winded.

In this last post I want to tie some loose ends, speak about things that I didn’t have splace for yet, and (very important) say “thank you” to all those who contributed valuable feedback to the previous posts. It’s the shortest of all posts so far, too, and only took me so long because those painkillers make it so damn hard to concentrate properly.

More Things To Consider

Things that didn’t tie in anywhere, but are important for pretty much every game:

• Keep in mind that usually, units that you’re able to build later are stronger. Some people call those “unit tiers“, but that implies that they can be numbered – which I find hard to do. For example, is the Archon a tier 3 unit (as it requires a tier 3 Gateway) or a tier 4 unit (because it also requires tech)? Are Guardians and Defilers and Lurkers tier 2 (tier 2 Spire), tier 3 (2 buildings have to be built after tier 1, the Zergling), or tier 4 (2 buildings and tech)? Anyway. Those higher-tier units have better combat values, so teching up is usually a necessity and you better start it early.
• Rock-paper-scissors, it’s everywhere. Whatever your opponent builds, there is a counter for it – if you have the counter before he’s done building his force, good for you, otherwise you better hurry (as if you don’t have the counter, he can destroy you). Or alternatively, you can build units your opponent doesn’t have a counter to, and destroy him – although, usually those are two sides of the same coin.
• All those strategies I talked about in the race-specific posts: Eventually, it’s nearly always necessary to diversify and build other stuff as well anyway, maintaining a good hand with research orders (because the more you diversify, the more different cards you need, and the larger your deck will be). Unless your opponent doesn’t build the counters he’d need, then feel free to pound his ongoing Zergling rush with Reavers.

Random Artwork

Yeah, I know that picture doesn’t have anything to do with anything (except that it really is StarCraft), it’s from the StarCraft II Fansite Kit again.

Generic Kinda-Advanced Strategies

Some hints for stuff you might want to explore – the more things you have tried out, the better player you potentially are, so don’t be afraid to lose a game due to a mistake. Just make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.

• Recharging is awesome (particularly for assist units) – your opponent’s entire offense can come to a halt if you have a High Templar with recharging Hallucination at the right spot and the right time.
• Cloaking is awesome (particularly for defense) – or rather, particularly if you have somewhere to withdraw to. Some cloaking cards can even be recharged, that’s just evil. Every unit that survives are resources saved, because you won’t have to rebuild it.
• Offense > Defense. This is for three things mostly: Offense gets 2 (or 3 if they’re Zerg and nasty) additional units, draws more combat cards, and can place skirmishes, all of which are a huge benefit. Some exceptions / alterations do exist though – all those make defense stronger, but still not stronger than a good offense:
  • Defensive Strategy, giving you 2 additional combat cards – well, that cancels 1 out of 3 benefits, but still.
  • Protoss, gaining another 2 additional combat cards and having all those shield cards (plus Shield Battery if researched), can hold out where others can’t.
  • A Defensive Module can give you the edge against particular unit combinations, or lets you save that one strong unit that forces the opponent to retreat after the combat.
  • Finally, Guard Orders (of course), bringing everybody on par with the Protoss Shield Battery.
• Splash: Attack the weak to get the strong. For example, you have a Devourer, giving you air splash, and attack a combo of Wraith and Battlecruiser – of course you go for the Wraith, and take the Battlecruiser with you in the splash.
• Special Orders: Since you can use them right away now after building an R&D module, you can surprise your opponent with nice unexpected actions – 3 mobilize orders (one of them gold) in the first turn? Sure, go ahead

(There was something regarding Collateral Damage, but that was clarified by Corey to not work.)

Modules

I’ll mention those here as they really didn’t fit anywhere else so far. Generally, you do want to get modules, but you don’t always want to get the same ones.

All Modules

• The Air Support Module, you want this if you’re in the defense. In fact, if your neighbour is more aggressive than you, this should probably be the first module you get, mainly for the limited orbital defense – it’s a great way to protect your bases.
• R&D Modules, you always want one of those. Gold orders are that much better (and special order areas are rare and usually on not-so-awesome planets), and with the first such module you get to place 3 orders of the same kind if you want. If you have a tech-heavy strategy, getting a second one might be great, a third one is rarely beneficial.
• Supply Modules are the bread and butter of unit production, and you pretty much always want one of them – one more Marine produced is never bad, even if you build Battlecruisers mainly. More are necessary for weaker-unit strategies – and, who’d have thought, the Protoss usually want less of them than the Terrans.
• You want an Offensive Module if your opponent built an air support one and you plan to attack him – or if you want him to believe you plan to attack him. That’s pretty much the only use, but I think it’s the best of the new modules, as it enables tactics that weren’t possible before and reduces base turtling.
• The Defensive Module is necessary if you see your opponent do things like build Scouts and Nukes, or other assist-unit-heavy things like Science Vessel techs, or if you have single strong units that you want to protect from Splash. Weenie strategies benefit less from it.
• Finally, the Assist Module is perfect for most any tech-heavy strategy that also involves many units. Zergling rushes with Defilers, or Zealot waves with High Templar. Or of course later-game things like Battlecruisers with Science Vessels. It’s the most specialized of the three, and has great synergies with recharging tech.

Event Cards

Event Cards

Event cards are probably the biggest source of luck in StarCraft TBG – which is good, some luck is never a bad thing in a game. Even with the cards (of which you can still influence how many you’ll get), it’s probably one of the least luck-based games in my collection. Generally, if you put an order somewhere it’s no use after all, don’t feel bad for getting an event card instead – everybody should have at least one of them at the end of a round anyway, or you’re forfeiting some really powerful options.

In addition to this, since the event card deck also works as game clock, it’s possible to influence the speed with which the end of the game approaches by drawing many or few event cards – if you’re in the lead, you might want to place more than one research order just for maintaining your hand (which in turn allows you to maintain your board position) and advancing the game clock.

The following cards in particular are worth pointing out:

• Strategies. If you have no strategy card in play, and get one, you should probably play it, even if it isn’t what you’re currently after – it might be exactly what you want later, and strategies are the longest-term effects. Replacing a strategy with another one should usually only be done if the new one fits what you plan to do much better, or if you really don’t want to play any of the non-strategy event cards you have.
• Moving Z-Axis can thoroughly re-shape the game board. Make sure you don’t get too many enemies nearby when you use such a card, it might backfire. All the cards of this kind are in stage 1, so by the time you reach stage 2 your neighbours are set.
• Free units – there’s plenty of those, and they all have one thing in common: The units can be placed in empty areas. So, they can also be placed on enemy planets in the one area they left empty. Be mindful of this when you move units away from your own planets, and exploit it when the opponent leaves holes open – the threat alone that forces him to place one of his precious orders there is often enough to make it worthwhile.
• Depleting resources, mostly only do this when they’re already partially depleted – that’s when it really counts.
• Adding / removing transports can open new routes (for a Weasely Retrograde?) and deny enemy access.
• Double Time, I’ve seen more than one game that was decided by smart use of this card. It’s potentially really powerful, don’t underestimate it.
• Clock modifiers – I’m talking about Progressive Strategy, Accelerated Progress and Stalling Tactic. Those allow you to modify the game clock function of the event cards further, make good use of them where appropriate.

Even those cards I haven’t mentioned can thoroughly influence the game. Remember, I translated all cards (including event cards) to German earlier, the list can double as a nice player aid if needed.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the following people for having made this little post series possible and a lot better than I could have made it on my own:

• Christian T. Petersen and Corey Konieczka for creating this wonderful game (and a particular thanks to Corey for commenting here), Thaadd Powell for great customer support, and everybody else at Fantasy Flight Games for being so awesome.
• The folks at Blizzard for creating StarCraft in the first place.
• Everybody on the BoardGameGeek forums, the FFG forums and the older FFG forums.
• Everybody who helped out with comments and additions here on the blog and the aforementioned forums, in particular (but no particular order): Shadowsword, Wolverine, cyb3k, Mark T, blarknob, Stefan, Sheltem, MrSkeletor and MrWeasely. And even, admittedly reluctantly, magic gecko

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

The last of the three race posts, for the race that maybe should have come first – after all, the Terrans are the SciFi humans every SciFi world needs. They’re descendants of today’s humans, too. Which I find somewhat boring, I’m a human in real life already. Nevertheless, the Terrans are a very tempting choice for StarCraft.

Sorry for the delay in publishing this post – it was ready very soon after the Zerg one, but then that accident thingy happened (I’ll write another post about it in the next couple weeks, too), and now with painkillers and concentration problems, reading through it to make sure it was ready to publish took forever. In fact, I guess this sole paragraph took about half as long as the rest of the post did (including pictures). As always, feel free to point out mistakes and errors and alternate strategies.

Generic Terran Strategy

The Terrans are neither incredibly aggressive nor incredibly defensive. That makes them the strategic middle ground between Protoss and Zerg – and very flexible regarding what long-term strategy they pursue.

Terrans

The cheapest of the three new Brood War modules for them is the assist module, and indeed the Terran assist units are pretty strong and really are what can make the Terrans truly shine.

Something that is true for any race, but in particular for the Terrans: Watch what your opponents are building, and keep building counters to their strong units. The Terrans are particularly strong in that they have tons of counters available for many situations – making them particularly dangerous in an experienced player’s hands, but a bit harder to come to grips with for a beginner.

Strategic Focus

The Terrans have, unlike the Zerg with their tech building and the Protoss with their support unit building, three buildings that have full unit lines that work against both ground and air, with both the Barracks and the Factory being ground-based. Every line can be made to work. I’ll mostly skip Medic and Science Vessel tech in the descriptions here, as they apply to all strategies and are described further down.

Marines, with Tech

Let’s start with tons of Marines, something that doesn’t really work in the computer game but just might in the board game. You can build a small army pretty quickly, and unlike Zerglings they can attack air and have Stim Packs, stronger attack cards (albeit with lower health) that still work later in the game. Get plenty of Marines, some Firebats (since the Marines no longer have splash damage with Brood War, the Firebats have a reason to exist now as well), and add in enough Medics to make good use of your tech. You best supplement them with Science Vessels then. Make sure to suplement with Ghosts, for more units and for more available combat cards.

• Tech – if you want to stay with Marines, you’ll need quite a few things. For one, you’ll have to protect them – Bunker obviously, but Medics help out pretty well, with Heal and Optic Flare. And Science Vessels, with Defense Matrix. For the attack, you’ll need Stim Packs, and Irradiate is always nice. Consider researching the techs that have good minor combat values, Nuke (7/4) and Yamato Gun (4/7). Since you have so many cards in your deck after all that and probably want to recharge some reinforcement tech, also get Improved Reactors.
• Strengths are similar to the Zergling rush, you’re fast. But the Marines can sustain their damage and survivability longer because they have more tech that helps them with it. Where the Zergling rush is only a first-few-turns thing, Marines (if supported well) can well prove worthwhile throughout the game. Did I mention that a Marine (Yamato Gun minor values, Defense Matrix, Bunker) can have up to 11 health? Anyway, this strategy probably works best for Jim Raynor, as he has better Leadership cards supplementing the Marines.
• Weaknesses are simply, lack of air-bound units, lack of plastic miniatures (just 6 Marines, 3 Firebats, 3 Medics), and lack of unit space – as any weenie strategy, being only able to have 2-4 defenders in an area might hurt with low health values. Unlike Zerg, Terrans don’t have Pneumatized Carapace either and thus have it harder to overwhelm enemies. The tech dependency also bloats your combat deck, making it less probable that you draw the cards you need (although that’s moderated by Restoration, Improved Reactors, and the Terran’s bigger hand size). And you can only use 8 out of 20 combat cards.
• Variants are mostly, in what order you get which tech. If you want to play your Marines offensively (and suicidally, they’re cheap), get Stim Packs first and save the Bunker until later. If you mainly want to keep what you have, get the defensive stuff first. You can also supplement your Marines with Vultures (maybe with Spider Mines, they use 3 more combat cards) or Wraiths (with Cloaking Field, they use 6 more combat cards), and you’re pretty close to Ghosts with Nuke.
• Countermeasures consist of single strong units that survive against Marines (Ultralisks, Carriers, Battlecruisers, Lurkers, etc.), cloaking (Dark Templar, Wraiths, Lurkers again) with hit-and-run, or splash (Psionic Storm, Irradiate, Siege Tanks). Make sure you either take away the Marines’ advantage (their number) or make sure it doesn’t matter because you have even more health than they can penetrate even with support.

Tanks with Support

Then, there’s the vehicle-based ground force. Ultimately, it leads to Siege Tanks, who (with both collateral damage and ground splash damage) pack quite a punch. Unfortunately, they’re not much better than Reavers who are potentially available earlier (also see this thread). This line brings Goliaths against air, Vultures and Spider Mines for splash damage, and pretty high health values (plus the repair card for another +1 health) with immunity against some anti-biological things like Irradiate. Nevertheless, you should probably bring along some Marines as well, because while your vehicles are resilient, they’re not as tough as Protoss units can be. You might want to substitute them with Wraiths early on as well, since enemy air won’t sleep (and you do want those air-only conquest point areas).

• Tech is, again, plentiful. Spider Mines for Vultures, Siege Mode for Siege Tanks, and probably Charon Boosters for Goliaths are bare necessities. If you get Wraiths, always take Cloaking Field, and that alone makes it even worthwhile to pick up Improved Reactors. You can back up the mechs and tanks with either Medics or Science Vessels (or later, both), depending on the enemy.
• Strengths, collateral damage with the Siege Tanks, plenty of splash, and strong armor. That’s about it – you do pack a lot of punch per unit with this strategy. And, you’ll be able to use 17 out of 20 combat cards.
• Weaknesses against air are all over the place – Siege Tanks and Vultures can’t even attack air, and the Goliaths aren’t the super duper anti air thingies they should be if you rely on them alone. Furthermore, you don’t get any assist units with your primary building (the Factory), so make sure you have enough build orders to help out with a tier 2 Barracks or Starport.
• Variants are somewhat limited, the Terran vehicle line just has those three types. Get more or less Marines along with your vehicles, mix and match according to enemy unit configurations (more Siege Tanks if they stay on the ground, more Goliaths if they don’t).
• Countermeasures are, who’d have thought, mainly air-based. The strong ground splash damage all over the place makes staying on the ground somewhat suicidal. And make sure you protect your bases with an anti-air module, you don’t want that collateral damage to hurt you as much. Fun: Dark Swarm.

Terran Flyers

Next, we have the flyer strategy, focusing on getting to Battlecruisers quickly. The Terran Wraith is pretty strong already, this line has the earliest access to the strong Science Vessels, and Battlecruisers keep arguing with the Carriers about who rules the sky. Wraiths with their tech-induced cloaking can be hugely annoying. If your enemy has air troops, Valkyries are just scary. If your enemy has many ground forces, Vultures can make tremendous sense as a supplement.

• Tech, do get Yamato Gun, and Cloaking Field, and Defensive Matrix! Your Science Vessels are only operational if they have tech, so look into EMP Shockwave and Irradiate. Keep your hand supplied with Improved Reactors. If you go for Vultures, do improve them with Spider Mines.
• Strengths are that the units involved are indeed rather strong, and even more resilient due to the Terrans also having some +health cards.
• Weaknesses, the strategy is pretty slow and expensive. While Wraiths can be aired fairly quickly, until a reasonable fleet of Battlecruisers dominates the sky, some time passes. Also, you only have 9 combat units, with 3 Wraiths, 3 Valkyries and 3 Battlecruisers, only 6 of which work against ground targets – so maintaining a bigger empire could prove challenging, you will have to supplement with Marines or vehicles.
• Variants are mix-and-match things with other strategies. Get Medics to support you with tech, or Marines to help out with mass, or vehicles for strong ground level support. Essentially, the flexibility of the Terrans comes to full fruition here, but it comes at the cost of many build orders because no real natural variants exist for this strategy.
• Countermeasures are everything that’s anti-air – Devourers, Scourges, tons of Hydralisks or Goliaths, Dragoons with Singularity Charge. Relying on strong units, the strategy is also susceptible to splash damage from Psionic Storm, Plague and the likes.

Specific Units

Pretty much every unit has been covered by now, except the Ghost. Unfortunately, they’re not stronger than Marines for regular combat although they can have cloaking. Their only real use is the Nuke technology. If you want to get that to work, you need…

• A tier 3 Barracks
• Ghosts
• The Nuke tech
• A reasonable attack vector

For the attack vector, either you have a weak enemy unit that doesn’t kill your Ghost with 6 health – potentially, every single unit bar unsupported Marines without Stim Packs can have sufficient strength here. Or you need a mechanical unit that you can Lockdown. Or, you can survive through Cloaking Field, if you have an area to withdraw to. Finally (thanks Blarknob), a Medic with Flare can keep you alive. Add an enemy with a defensive module, and you’re in a tight spot. All these preriquisites, and all you get for it is 2 dead units, not even collateral damage. It can be strong, but only if you have isolated tough enemy units.

Terran Nuke

It is possible to house rule this, maybe you want to do that. A way to make Nuke work after all could be by using Jim Raynor and his Covert Operations leadership card. If you do get it to work, your opponents will certainly be surprised – it’s worth trying for that alone.

(The Nuke image is out of the Starcraft II Fansite Kit.)

Other Tech

The hidden strength of the Terrans lies in their assist units and unit tech, so they need some getting used to before they can shine. The generic techs we haven’t mentioned yet:

• Improved Reactors looks like it makes less sense for Terrans due to their inherently higher hand card limit, but the recharge ability is even better for such a tech-dependent race. Also, since you’ll probably research a lot of tech, you’ll also have a bigger deck than other players. Get it early, and use it well.
• Scanner Sweep is the Terran way to gain detector. It’s not as awesome as Observers, but probably better than the Queen. Downside, you have to keep researching it regularly if your opponents exploit cloaking, but the upside is that you don’t need any particular unit in skirmishes for it to work. If you have Science Vessels (with built-in detector), maybe you want to skip this.

Terran Tech Units

I said before that I wanted to get back to Science Vessels and Medics. Here they are:

• Science Vessel techs are worth taking apart a little, since not every one is worth it in every situation – you don’t want those you can’t use, as they’ll just bloat your combat deck. Science Vessels are awesome overall though, never play Terrans without them.
  • Defense Matrix is always good, a free +1 health.
  • EMP Shockwave is strongest against Protoss, and makes sense if your current enemies use assist units
  • Irradiate is strongest against Zerg, or Marines, while fairly useless against everything else – although, as Mark T pointed out in the comments, it’s still a +1 attack card that costs just 1 gas to research
• A similar reasoning applies for Medic techs, as bloat is bad, and Medic techs can decide games:
  • Heal, only take this if you build on Marines and Firebats.
  • Optic Flare, if your opponent builds strong units, it’s useless against rushes but can bring Carriers and Battlecruisers to their knees.
  • Restoration whenever you build more than one Medic, it’s awesome.

Factions and Leadership Cards

Jim Raynor is a rebel. He can survive against the odds, and make the best of limited resources – meaning, if he gains power, he can grow even larger (due to higher efficiency) than others. Not Zerg-like, but certainly faster than Arcturus Mengsk. His leadership cards are all opportunist – also meaning, the opportunity for using them well is not always given, but if it is, they’re really efficient.

• Stage 1 decides whether Raynor goes for Nuke or only maybe does so. The rest is still fairly open at this point.
  • Raynor’s Raiders, the special victory, does mean that he has to control a fairly large number of areas – if unlucky, he needs more than 3 planets to fulfill it. But he can be incredibly spread out, with everybody else going for conquest points and him only snatching remote 1-2 resource areas, and still win. It’s worth a try. True to the lore, too.
  • His Storage Facilities are perfect if you ever find yourself struggling with resources or areas. Even if you have no areas at all, you can have 6 minerals and 3 gas (or 4 minerals and 5 gas) at your disposal. Or you can save up for a big investment and then produce a Battlecruiser armada at once. Very flexible, maybe best used for getting out of a tight spot, but incredibly useful if you’re ahead as well.
  • Covert Operations are the Nuke plan I talked about. Particularly great: You don’t need transports to land your Ghosts. A big threat in your backhand, use it well and don’t forget about those Ghosts. This lets you skip the first two steps of “making Nuke work”, only leaving the Nuke tech and the attack vector to you. Also (thanks cybek), this card gives you tons of starting units, perfect for a Marine-centered early-turn strategy.
• Stage 2 either brings Jim Raynor to support you when things go well, or helps you out with resources and special orders.
  • Jim Raynor is probably the best support hero in the game. He gives everybody +1 attack – particularly if you have tons of Marines, well worth it. His own combat values are not that astounding, albeit still solid. Don’t waste him.
  • Make do with Little, a very good card name. I saw Raynor survive in 2 areas thanks to Storage Facilities and this one, despite efforts from all neighbors to destroy him. Also, by strict reading of the card you don’t need a base to build that transport, so you can hop planets fairly quickly (also see here).
• The stage 3 cards continue the tradition of being opportunist and occasionally awesome.
  • To the Bitter End is great if somebody is about to win soon, and it essentially means 2 free conquest points for yourself. If you’re behind, catch up, if you’re in front, charge ahead, if you’re close to your special victory, deny others their normal victory (even if they already have enough conquest points, since leadership cards are resolved before normal victory is checked).
  • The Psi-Disruptor gives you breathing space, and occasionally means your enemy will destroy his main force. Try to make them retreat to a planet that can’t support their numbers. I’ve seen it happen: A huge army of flyers, forced to retreat to a planet (one of those space stations) with only 2 air-allowed spaces in one area. That was fun.

Leadership Cards

Arcturus Mengsk, the I’m-not-sure-if-benevolent dictator. He’s certainly power-hungry, not really my type. But, his leadership cards make overlooking that fact tempting, as they do promise what he’s after: Power. Yummie. In a way, his leadership cards are opposite to Jim Raynor’s: Arcturus Mengsk benefits most from them when he’s already strong, so see to it that you never get into a situation where you can’t use them properly.

• Stage 1 is all about where you want your special privileges early on.
  • Terran Dominion, the special victory condition, lets you claim just two planets to win. Try to strike where nobody expects you to, have just one planet coming stage 3 and maybe obviously threaten another one, then see to it that you can sneak to another weakly defended planet through a Z-Axis connection.
  • Emperor Arcturus I is similar to the Queen of Blades’ Glimpse the Future – as it mostly affects setup. Being able to choose your planets is a pretty powerful tool, although they can be taken away. Don’t just take two high-resource planets, as they’ll have many connections (remember the Game Prelude post).
  • The Sons of Korhal, which is the star order. Unmatched in long-term flexibility. Although I hear it’ll be errata’d to have to be played face-up, it’ll still be powerful. Don’t know what you want to do yet? Star order. Want 4 build orders? Star order. Need 2 special mobilize orders? Star order. It really is powerful.
• Stage 2 doesn’t work well if you’re currently weak, but can well establish a position of power if you’re in one already.
  • The Norad II, only take this if you have or want to get Yamato Gun. The +1 health alone won’t save him, and if you have Yamato Gun already you can take it (or maybe some tech card?) into your hand, too. If you don’t have a hugely strong position, take this one anyway.
  • Tactical Mastery is best if you have a big empire at this point. More, somewhat free, conquest points, overtake everybody and leave them in the dust. Just don’t place them too tempting or you (or rather, the planets you formerly were on) might become prime invasion target.
• Finally, stage 3 is all about the final push. At this point you should really get both Battlecruisers and Siege Tanks, the strongest of the Terran’s land- and air-based troops. You’re a dictator after all.
  • Terran Civilization is mostly good if you want to diversify and surprise your opponent. You have strong air, but no Factory, and your enemy’s Dragoons spoil it all? Surprise them with Siege Tanks in the next round. The special build orders can be good as well – keep in mind that you shouldn’t really place any build orders since you’ll gain more flexibility if you don’t (kinda like with Deathblow). If you expect the game to take more than 1-2 turns still, a solid choice.
  • Scorched Earth Policy has two parts, and the good thing is that both of them are great. Supplement your forces with what they don’t have, but make it short-term – and if you have Battlecruisers, make them even more destructive than they already are. It’s really everything a dictator needs, a one-shot, but a very powerful one. Together with Norad II, you can have 3 Battlecruisers without even a Starport.

Printed UED .pdf

The United Earth Directorate, a faction that didn’t come with the expansion itself but was shortly after added by FFG on their homepage as bonus content (direct link to .pdf). Did I mention I love FFG? I’ll have to make a post about how great their customer service is some day. Anyway. I didn’t playtest these yet, so everything I say to them is just guesswork. They look like the middle ground between Raynor’s focus on getting out of a tight spot, and Mengsk’s focus on maintaining power.

• Stage 1
  • Eliminate Alien Target looks like a very special special victory condition, it’s closer to The Overmind than any other special victory condition. Probably makes going for collateral damage and Siege Tanks well worth it.
  • Advanced War Machines is a nice head start for air- or vehicle-based strategies.
  • Special Funding is similar to Storage Facilities and probably best if you’re in a tight spot, or saving up for something big. It’s more of a head start as well though, like Advanced War Machines.
• Stage 2
  • The Element of Surprise probably works particularly well if people didn’t anticipate the change to stage 2 just yet. So it might be worth working up to it with research orders.
  • General Dugalle prevents opponents from retreating, basically. Which must be lovely for defense, but not really working for the offense.
• Stage 3
  • The Time for Victory, more like “let’s dig in” – if you have a good position and want to fortify it, that must be the way.
  • Orbital Bombardment finally is more of an offensive card, although it doesn’t destroy any units it can push an opponent back and force them to place more build orders than they planned to in order to get back to former strength.

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

This is the second out of three race-specific posts, again I’ll try to make it newbie- and advanced-player-friendly, and I’ll be happy about factual errors that I didn’t catch sneaking into my posts.

Generic Zerg Strategy

In many ways, the Zerg are the opposite of the Protoss, the ones my first post was about. Where the Protoss are defensive, the Zerg are aggressive, where the Protoss have strong health support cards the Zerg give their troops more attack, where Protoss like it quiet early on the Zerg can really shine in fast and furious first-turn rushes, Protoss have few strong units while the Zerg rely on masses of cheap ones, where the Protoss leadership cards are laid out for the long term the Zerg want immediate gains.

Zerg

Add the ability to draw an additional combat card after every combat, and cheap troops, and the Zerg can overwhelm an opponent in a whim. However, their unit power is somewhat limited, so they necessarily have to rely on numbers even in the late game.

I’ll make no mystery of it: The Zerg are my favourite race – I just love their aggressive, all-out, honest attitude. They merely want to annihilate everything, who can blame them?

Strategic Focus

The Zerg basically have the option to either go head first into combat in the first turns, or wait it out and come in force a bit later. Zerg do have one building that is exclusively for assist units, the Queen’s Nest, which isn’t always brought to tier 2 – making the Defiler a very underplayed unit, much to its chagrin as it’s actually quite good. The fact that the Zerg tech hierarchy is pretty broad instead of deep thanks to three units (Lurkers, Devourers, Guardians) being buildable as aspects enables them to field units faster yet again.

Tons of Zerglings

A prime strategy for Zerg is the Zergling rush, something that FFG transported really well from the computer game. Since the Zerg’s unique spawning mechanism lets them build more units faster, it’s possible to build 6 Zerglings with just two regular build orders and 7 resources – leaving two orders for mobilization and maybe even tech:

• First build order, build 2 Zerglings and a Queen’s Nest – 2 Minerals, 1 Gas
• Second build order, build 4 Zerglings – 4 Minerals

Of course, there’s many situations where you want to build more than that: You do want to keep your neighbor small, make him have to relocate or at least lose troops and resources to your offensive. But you also don’t want to have wasted everything in that first attack; you want more workers for later turns, maybe an R&D module (for a 7th Zergling? – you can use a special order in the first turn already if you build the R&D module before it), maybe you want flyers later and thus prefer an early Spire to an early Queen’s Nest, or maybe you see an opponent building air troops and thus even already need Scourges. Keep in mind, only 5 combat cards work for Zerglings (plus 2 tech and 3 for Scourges), so keep your hand supplied with research orders – but, as Stefan pointed out in the comments, other card’s minor values work very well, too, as the Zerg usually have reasonable minor attack values.

The Rush is something that really only works for the first few turns. Although masses of Zerglings can still be useful later on (as Splash eaters, or as defense for your back planets), the opponents will probably out-tech you fairly quickly, and the unit limit on your areas will play against you. You have to change to another strategy after the first 2-4 game rounds.

• Tech isn’t really necessary, although of course Metabolic Boost is nice, particularly if you keep the pressure up into the second round. Pneumatized Carapace helps with overwhelming opponents with numbers. If you’re up against Terrans, getting a Queen alongside the Zerglings and attempting to make use of Infest Command Center is tempting – and it threatens the opponent with Spawn Broodling as well, making him fear making cheap units as counters to yours. If you want to keep rushing, get Dark Swarm and maybe Plague (against sole strong units).
• Strengths, nobody can keep up with your speed. No other race can produce as many units as quickly, no other race has the Zerg’s +1 attack card, and Zerglings have the distinct advantage over Marines that their combat cards are more varied, getting them a 6-attack card from the start. Also, it’s no big deal if one or two front-line units die, it’s in the numbers that the rush finds strength.
• Weaknesses to keep in mind, there are mostly two: Often, defense is neglected while the Zerglings are busy rushing the enemy, and the home planets are barren and inviting invasion – avoid that. And second, air troops can do horrible things to Zergling-only armies.
• Variants are limited, as the necessary speed really mandates that not much else beside Zerglings can be built. Where variants come into play is, which secondary building is built first and thus, which way you want to go later, and how long you keep up the rush before you make the transition to another strategy.
• Countermeasures are aplenty, although the very first thing you should get is an air defense module. Then: One option is air with Wraiths, Scouts or Mutalisks (but avoid Scourges). Another option is, strong base defenses like Shield Battery, Bunker, Medics with Heal, Queens with Ensnare. Or you can lose a few areas and then strike back with higher tech and splash damage; Reavers, Firebats, Lurkers, Spider Mines, Spawn Broodling (which isn’t technically splash damage). Just make sure you’re not eliminated before you get those goodies.

Zerg Flyers

Thanks to Brood War, the Zerg now have a viable possibility to go with flyers. Big Mutalisk hordes like the ones we love in the computer game aren’t possible, but thanks to Devourers, the Zerg can now field a good 9 airbound units plus Scourges. Just see to it that you get up your Spire in the first rounds and try to be faster than the enemies – as their air is, fully teched out, stronger than yours, but yours is cheaper and faster to obtain. Juggle Guardians and Devourers depending on the opposition you face – many ground units, build more Guardians, many air units, build more Devourers (whose air splash is particularly nasty against Carriers and the likes). And make sure you send your Scourges against any forming opposing air before it reaches your flyers. Nice: you can use 14 combat cards for this strategy, add a few back turf Zerglings and only one single card goes unused.

• Tech are a few obvious ones: Guardian and Devourer Aspect for sure, and without Improved Flyers your investment is wasted. Improved Carapace to stay alive against Scouts. Since you’ll probably want (flying) Queens over Defilers, get Parasite if your opponent stealths, maybe Spawn Broodling against Terrans.
• Strengths are that it’s a pretty fast way to build an air army, you’re flexible because you can specialize your Mutalisks if needed, and Scourges make it possible to maintain air superiority. Also, collateral damage (Guardians) and splash (Mutalisks, Devourers) are a nice bonus.
• Weaknesses, the Zerg flyers just aren’t as strong as a Carrier or a Battlecruiser (with tech), so the Zerg player needs to stay on his toes.
• Variants are somewhat limited, since it’s still only 9 “real” units, 3 Scourges and 3 Queens that are airbound. You can spice it up by adding some ground troops after all, maybe a Defiler with some Zergling support, or tech for Ultralisks for a nasty surprise.
• Countermeasures against air are all around. Scourges, Dragoons with Singularity Charge, Goliaths with Charon Boosters. Or get air of your own, particularly Valkyries or Scouts work well – or against Mutalisks and Scourges, Corsairs. If you can get Yamato Gun or Increased Carrier Capacity and use them well, the Zerg has problems. Generally, see to it that you don’t let the Zerg air lead the offense, pick your battles and skirmishes.

Ultras and Stuff

The other possible strategy is ground-based troops, up to and including the tough Ultralisk, which will be the tip of your offense. The thing is that the Zerg, if there’s not too many planets forcing you to go into the air or the opponents insist on making you build Devourers, don’t really need flyers – they’re fairly strong on the ground. Get Lurkers early, exploit that cloaking, support them with Scourges, and then go for Ultralisks. Unfortunately, the Hydralisk is not that strong, but still he can help you out against enemy air, so having a few standing around is not bad. The Defiler is the perfect companion here, with his wide array of tech, but the Queen makes sense as well (see unit combinations below). This strategy has only 4 combat cards unused as well.

• Tech is most plentiful in this flexible strategy. Of course you want Lurker Aspect, and then Chitinous Plating for your Ultralisks. Since you’ll only attack later, being a bit defensive with Sunken Colony and Improved Carapace can’t hurt. Consider the underused Defiler techs (Dark Swarm against enemy ground units, Consume, Plague). Also, this is the only place where I see Burrow making some sense. You might want a support module here. If you want to use Hydralisks against enemy air, bring many of them, with Pneumatized Carapace.
• Strengths are that there’s no enemy ground unit that is as strongly armored as your Ultralisk, and the Zerg assist units (unsung heroes of the strategy) are fairly strong. And still, you’re fairly fast.
• Weaknesses are enemy flyers. As said, the Hydralisk isn’t that strong against them, and the Scourge has mixed card qualities (9, 8, 7 attack). On the ground, if lacking Zerglings, splash damage can be a problem. Also, this is the most convulted of the strategies here, takes the most time, which can be bad for Zerg.
• Variants, go for Queens instead of Defilers, or throw in some Mutalisks (that use the remaining 4 combat cards). More or less Lurkers in relation to Ultralisks, more Hydralisks (masses work for them as well) if you see the enemy go air.
• Countermeasures, go air and kill the baddies from above. Well, if you want – or you can try bringing splash damage in the form of own Lurkers, Reavers, Siege Tanks (just make sure you tech them first) or even Spider Mines. Make your attack stronger so you can penetrate the Ultralisk armour – Psionic Storm, Irradiate, the Zerg +1 attack are nice.

Specific Units

They're Purple

As with the Protoss, some specific units and combos are worth pointing out:

• If you have an Ultralisk, and you think he’s tough, try adding a Queen and Ensnare, preferrably recharging the tech. See this thread. – MrWeasely again
• Scourges are very well-suited for defending air only spots, for example those with conquest points. Your opponents will have to bring overwhelming force in order to both destroy them and then keep the area – something that might well deter them from entering in the first place. After all, entering a spot just for you not to get the points makes less sense for them than entering another spot and getting conquest points themselves. And Scourges are cheap.
• I mentioned the Defiler a couple of times in this post – he sees play way less regular than I mentioned him here. He’s regularly overlooked, despite being really good – try building him more often.

Other Tech

Tech

The Zerg being very offensive in nature, even less things than with the Protoss wasn’t already mentioned. Let me briefly reiterate some techs though:

• Gamete Meiosis, the Zerg’s version of the “recharge and have more hand cards” tech, is as awesome as the Protoss version. Get it if you can afford it, particularly once you have a reasonably diversified force and want to keep more hand cards.
• Burrow is, unfortunately, not that good. Or more specific, it’s purely defensive, and only works for Hydralisks and Zerglings, both of which are both cheap and best used in the offense. If you have only few areas and troops remaining, it makes sense to preserve them, otherwise the tech is better left unresearched. Maybe I just haven’t gotten it to work properly yet though, feel free to comment if you disagree with my assessment.
• Parasite is good as soon as the opponent has cloaking units. Or when he builds on many tech-based assist units – then you know at least whether he has the good hand you’re fearing or not, and can keep your good cards for another day if it’s hopeless anyway.
• Infest Command Center, I briefly mentioned it, is tricky. When you have a Terran nearby, it might make sense to research it early, or you’ll be left with a Queen near a base after a combat without the tech. But if you research it, it’s very possible that you won’t get to use it after all, because other things were more pressing I see it mostly as a nice flavour thingy that’s great to get when you do, not something that it’s possible to build a reliable strategy on.

Blarknob made very good points and additions in the comments, be sure to check them out!

Factions and Leadership Cards

Leadership Cards

The Overmind, the great schemer. He’s better suited for higher-tech approaches, as his leadership cards are all about overwhelming the opponents in the long run. His leadership cards are equally powerful over all stages, more or less – he’s a constant threat throughout.

• In stage 1, you decide how Zerg-y you want your army to be. Do you want to spread out and fortify with bases, or do you prefer slowly gaining conquest points even if you don’t invade enemy planets?
  • The Swarm, the overmind’s special victory condition – you don’t even need to control the entire planet, so it’s possible to sneak in a victory by getting a sole third base when stage 3 is near. The alternatives are quite good though, so even this somewhat easy special victory condition might not be the most attractive choice.
  • The Overmind himself, all vulnerable and exposed, while very powerful (I found this to be the way that makes winning via conquest points easiest so far) makes it also easy to early lead on the conquest point track and necessarily make you a (metagame) target – particularly if there’s many air-only conquest point areas and the opponents don’t go for air first. It might even make sense to leave some conquest point areas on your planets unoccupied, so you can get them later when nobody else can catch up fast enough with you before you win. Did I mention I love installations?
  • About Endless Hunger, I said it before that I find the leadership cards only providing resources to be rather boring. And, they don’t scale well, unlike the Tassadar Orbital Platform or Jim Raynor’s Storage Facilities. While the Zerg don’t need pesky insurances, it’s still nice and makes you less dependant on the planets you get for growing quickly.
• Stage 2 is already predetermined by two things that might have to be weighed off against each other: Whether you have or are going to get tech for Ultralisks, and whether you have space (areas, planets) available to protect another installation.
  • First, there’s Torrasque. He’d be the weakest hero of them all – after all, he doesn’t have a special ability. However, he is a free Ultralisk every round. I say “every round” because if you don’t kill him every round, you waste his potential. He’s an offensive powerhouse. Or some base defense, if desperately need be. He’s best if you have Ultralisks the tech goodies needed to make him really powerful.
  • Cerebrate Doggath is, together with the Overmind, the prime reason why I think the Overmind faction works best for long-term strategies. Having 5 orders every round is very strong. But you will need to protect your installation(s) well – if you can’t do that, you’re better off taking Torrasque. That’s the only downside however, the potential in this cerebrate is huge.
• The Overmind stays strong in stage 3, either gaining some added game board control or letting him build his winning army. Or maybe letting him build his desparate last defense, who knows.
  • The Swarm Flies is good if your prime enemies at the time rely on structures spread out over multiple planets, if they really need their transports. You can interrupt operations at the other end of the galaxy as well, hurting everyone – and this late in the game, you do want to do that, as everybody will be tangled up in their own fights. However, I actually like this card less than the alternative.
  • Teeming Spawn is truly a Zerg card. The heck with whatever they do over there, just overwhelm them with sheer numbers. Terran Civilization comes close in building power (and has a different focus) but doesn’t give the immediate benefits that Teeming Spawn does. Just make sure you have enough space to actually build stuff – this card does require some preparation to work really well.

Sarah Kerrigan

The Queen of Blades, rushy from start to end. Even more than the Overmind, she likes the game fast and furious, and over quickly – and she does have the leadership cards to help her with that plan. Her strongest cards are in stages 1 and 2, unless you choose the special victory condition; then stages 1 and 3 are the most powerful. You’ll probably want to start the game with a Zergling Rush – unless you know your opponents expect you to, then you can always tech quickly while they’re still afraid of your Zerglings. Don’t underestimate politics

(The Sarah Kerrigan image is an official Blizzard wallpaper, and subject to this copyright notice.)

• Stage 1 determines how fast exactly you want to play your Zerg after all. There’s the immense rush, the rush, and the maybe rush.
  • Forward Planning is the immense rush. The starting units spell the direction this is going to take, so many Zerglings can’t lie. The two bases give (hopefully) plentiful resources, and multiple attack points. Make sure you don’t spread out too thin, rushes leave your back bare, so you should place your two planets close together and try to have just one enemy. Then, ruthlessly destroy him in the first turns.
  • Glimpse the Future is the rush. So much board control, the Z-Axis connections really are what shapes the final board layout. You can determine which neighbours you want, and who’s going to be next to who else. Set up the Protoss next to a Terran (or another Zerg) and give him a hard start. And, give yourself a (just one) neighbour that’s slower than yourself (to overwhelm and annoy), or maybe access to remote resource-rich locations. Just keep in mind that event cards can change Z-Axis connections later.
  • A New Power Rising, meh. It’s the special victory condition and can work really well, although everybody will probably like conquest point areas. It’s better-suited for long-term planning, so the Queen of Blades can do that, too. Consider playing the Overmind if you want that though, since he does it better.
• Stage 2, what you choose here depends largely on your goals, and your strategy so far. If you rushed a lot, you don’t want the game to take forever, as the other races will likely have out-teched you at this point. Or you can tech as well and catch up quickly – just make sure you don’t get caught before your new higher-tech units are built.
  • The Sarah Kerrigan hero is probably the most flexible of all the available heroes – great at killing stuff, with cloaking and splash and everything. You get your free tech with her, too. She’s most powerful if you have one of the top-tier unit techs – Chitinous Plating or Improved Flyers – so either make sure you have them already or get them quickly. So, she’s the longer-term choice.
  • Hasten the End on the other hand both gives you potentially powerful event cards (remember, they’re stage 2 cards, too) and moves the end of the game rapidly closer. Since it doesn’t scale with player count, it’s probably best with 3 or less players (where 4 cards are a large portion of the stage 2 event deck). If you’re still in the lead, but don’t know how long that’ll last, choose this one.
• Stage 3 either finishes the game or makes sure it doesn’t progress in ways that hurt the Zerg too much. It’s very good if you chose the special victory in stage 1, otherwise it’s rather mediocre.
  • Subtle Influence is subtle indeed, and doesn’t always work. If you have an endangered planet, or you still need time to tech up and catch up with everybody else (or overtake them), it’s very nice. It keeps you out of the fray really. It works well together with the secret objective, too, particularly if you have a planet with 2 conquest point areas – protect that one, then you need just one more of those areas.
  • Deathblow is good if you need a good offense to win. Might be that you want to deny somebody else victory, or you’re sitting on just one conquest point area and need another two for the special victory, or you just got your high-tech toys and no chance to use them yet (with enemies dug in and all). You can place build orders as second order on a planet and still use them as mobilize, abuse that flexibility.

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

This is the first out of three race-specific posts, going into how you can play a race if you want fun with the game. I’ll try to include pointers that help newbies as well as hints that might be new for veterans, let me know if I succeed. I’m also, as always, happy about factual errors that I didn’t catch sneaking into my posts!

Generic Protoss Strategy

The main thing that is striking about the Protoss, starting with the +2 drawn cards when defending and staying true when looking at the 3 +1 health cards in their standard combat deck and the cheaper defensive modules, is that they’re a defensive people. And, a high-tech, expensive-unit people. So you want to make your combats count, and you don’t want to be involved in too many struggles early on – as that’s when you still can’t necessarily keep up with the faster unit output of the other races.

Protoss

However, the Protoss can make better use of unit limits, simply because they have the stronger units to fill them with by default. Make good use of that, and keep others from attacking you until it’s too late.

A few minor points…

• As Protoss you’ll probably want to use less defend orders than the other races – since a guard token’s +2 health doesn’t stack with Shield Battery, or the regular +1 shields.
• If you can get Defensive Strategy, you’ll draw 5 combat cards whenever anybody attacks you. Just mentioning.

Strategic Focus

Essentially, there’s two ways to play the Protoss: Go for ground forces, or go for air forces. Unlike the Zerg, but kinda similar to the Terrans, there’s not technically a “tech building” – so you’ll get tech-y units either way, and the Robotics Facility is a good investment for both because it kinda evens out the strategy’s weaknesses.

Aldarchons

Going for ground forces can be incredibly simple, if you follow the guidelines dubbed Aldarchons! (note the exclamation mark) by their rather self-righteous creator, magic gecko. In vanilla StarCraft, that strategy was overpowered, which is why Brood War watered it down – although it can still be powerful, it can now be countered. Read the linked post for a pragmatic explanation – it will work with Aldaris and Tassadar, just make sure you have enough resources and also some anti-air for defense.

• Tech – if you want Aldarchons, you don’t want tech except for maybe Shield Battery, as it’ll diminish your chances of drawing Archon cards. If you feel adventurous, you can get some Dark Archons along and research some tech for them. What you need, obviously, is Summon Archon and Dark Archon.
• Strengths are simplicity and that it brings you to some top tier units that don’t need a huge lot of backup rather fast. They do pack a punch and have splash damage, never underestimate Archons!
• Weaknesses are mostly that you’re betting everything on one strategy and 3 miniatures, you will need loads of gas (so you can’t develop diversity), and you will bring up many enemies at once against you if they’ve seen Archons at work in the past. Archons, your focus, only have 4 combat cards, so you can’t tech without making them weaker. And the generic ground-based-strategy problem of air-only conquest point areas.
• Variants, there are none.
• Countermeasures to this strategy include defend orders to avoid splash, overwhelming numbers (rush him early!), splash of your own (supported Mutalisks, Spider Mines, or Lurkers) or cloaked troops (Wraiths, Dark Templar, Lurkers). Later EMP Shockwave, Plague, burning the Aldarchon player’s hand with Hallucination, or even stronger units than Archons (all of which require tech in order to be efficient - Yamato Gun, Siege Mode, Chitinous Plating, Increased Reaver Capacity, or Increased Carrier Capacity). Collateral damage to kill his unit producing bases is useful as well, you get that with Increased Reaver Capacity, Improved Flyer Attack, or Siege Mode. Particularly Mind Control is tremendous fun, too – think of the implications.

Weenies

Another alternative is whatever the Protoss mean by “weenies“. The standard combat deck has 5 Zealot cards, Zealots are among the strongest 2-resource units, and definitely the strongest unit available for the first build order. If you supplement them with Dragoons against air, a few Dark Templar for their cloaking, and High Templar with Psionic Storm against overwhelming numbers, you have a reasonable force. A great supplement here is the Scout, as he’s rather easy to get and has really good combat values (better than Wraiths or Mutalisks), and you might need some air support. If you have all that, continue with either Reavers or Archons, as out of the 7 still unused regular combat deck cards either will use 4 – or go for the Arbiter for some added techy-ness.

• Tech is available in masses for this. Zealots are made even stronger by Leg Enhancements, Dragoons truly benefit from Singularity Charge. Psionic Storm is necessary for High Templar to do damage. If you’re getting Reavers, you might want to get Increased Reaver Capacity as well, for the collateral damage. Finally, since you’re really close to Dark Archons, you can use all their fancy stuff (Maelstrom, Feedback, Mind Control) as well, and they might well be the things turning the tide for you – make sure you only research stuff you might use though, Feedback doesn’t make much sense if you have no opposing assist units.
• Strengths are that you can attack somewhat early (nothing like the Zerg though), and keep producing a steady stream of strong units. The strategy is expandable and remains flexible.
• Weaknesses are, like any ground-based strategy, aforementioned air-only conquest point areas. The big flexibility makes the strategy pretty solid overall.
• Variants are many, since you have so many units that are involved. Go for Zealot rush, or just have a few of them and concentrate on High Templar later, or skip the earlier steps nearly entirely and go for Dark Templar and their cloaking as fast as possible. Or if you see your opponents go airbound, get some more Dragoons than you would otherwise.
• Countermeasures, easiest, go air and avoid the masses of Zealots and Dark Templar without air attack capability. But mind their Scouts and Dragoons with Psionic Storm, you want to be the attacker here. Alternatively, go for ground splash damage, with stuff such as Reavers or Lurkers or Spider Mines or Siege Tanks, the list goes on.

Air Forces

Going for air forces means first getting Scouts, then going for Carriers as fast as possible. Keep in mind, those things are expensive. Then (or before if you have enemies with anti-air units), get Corsairs, or if it’s useful against the enemies you’re facing (or you want easy means of transporting units), some Arbiters. Since that’ll give you a strong force with few units, you’ll maybe want to get some Zealots as well, to protect the areas your offensives leave behind, and because that reduces unused combat cards from 8 to 3. Finally, if you have free time, get some Reavers, to have impressively strong ground units as well.

• Tech – Increased Carrier Capacity, definitely! You want to protect your investment. Maybe a Shield Battery, too. Disruptive Web if you got Corsairs. You want your Carriers to look intimidating and near impossible to overcome.
• Strengths are mostly, the units you get are really tough. This will give you the best unit limit useage in the whole game.
• Weaknesses are two: Cost, and concentration of power. If you lose just a few of your units, you do take a big hit – so avoid splash damage at all costs. While building up, if you want Carriers as soon as possible, you’ll have to conserve resources and tech up, and are thus still weak.
• Variants are somewhat limited, as there really are just three flying (combat) units at your disposal, and you’ll probably want more Scouts and Carriers than Corsairs. But you can always get the Arbiter a bit sooner, combine it with Corsairs, and surprise the opponent with a tech-heavy force – or charge in with your Scouts and make a point of rebuilding them right away.
• Countermeasures, essentially, exploit the weaknesses. Get some Archons, or Devourers (with Improved Flyer Attacks), or Plague, or Valkyries, to gain air splash. Also nice: Charon Boosters. Hit him before his Carriers are at full force (that includes him having collected good hand cards). Or try burning his hand (maybe with Hallucination) or even getting a lucky hit with cheaper units such as Scourges.

Specific Units

Some specific units and combos are worth pointing out:

• An evil combo that works particularly well for defending air-only areas is: An Arbiter with Stasis Field and a Scout or Corsair. Recharge the Stasis Field with Khaydarin Core to keep it. Only a Terran with an EMP Shockwave can get through this on the first try, all others need three attempts or more (and thus better leave it be). The Stasis Field works for regular areas as well, but there’s more countermeasures (Plague, Nuke, Mind Control, Feedback).
• 

  Reavers

  There was a strategy going for an early Reaver drop in vanilla StarCraft, however since you now need a tier 2 Robotics Facility and thus can only produce Reavers in your third build order, that’s not really a viable focus anymore. If you want, you can try it out anyway – Reavers wreak havoc in enemy rush forces, so if you see a Zerg rushing you early, try to survive the first round and you might have a juicy surprise with splash damage (and collateral damage if you get Increased Reaver Capacity, which you should) in round 2.

• A nice defensive combo is Arbiters and Dark Archons on the same planet, with Stasis Field and Maelstrom. Don’t even let the enemies enter, and if they do, don’t give them a fair fight. The trouble with this combo is that you rarely get it early, as you’ll need a tier 3 Gateway and a tier 2 Stargate for it. While you’re at it, make sure you have the Shield Battery, too.

Other Tech

Technology Deck

The Protoss have pretty high-tech units on their own, thus there’s not much tech that isn’t involved in their main strategies. Tech we haven’t mentioned yet, and its uses:

• Khaydarin Core, a must-have if you go for Psionic Storm, Disruptive Web, or any other reinforcement tech. The increased hand limit is incredibly useful as well, for any reasonably diverse force.
• Observers, research those as soon as you see the opponent going for stealth troops. Getting Detector with just 1 gas is the cheapest any race gets – Terrans have to research again, while Zerg need Queens in their skirmishes.
• Cloaking Field, this goes well with many forces, particularly in the defense or with a double invasion maneuver. But it’s somewhat expensive to field, as you need an Arbiter in that specific battle. The same goes for Recall, particularly now that the factions each got their own flavour of teleporting technology leadership card.
• Mind Control is a card that, depending on opponent’s troops, it might even be worth going all the way to Dark Templar and through the hoops of Summon Archon and Dark Archon for. And while you have Dark Archons, you can get their other tech as well. Oh, do I have to mention recharging Mind Control?

Factions and Leadership Cards

Tassadar is the more proactive of the two stock Protoss factions. He’s the only faction who can potentially have two heroes, too (if he gets that stage 3 event card that lets him play a stage 2 leadership card). He shines in stages 1 and 2, with a very situational stage 3.

• Stage 1 for him basically decides in what way he wants to be sneaky – as all of the leadership cards here are.
  • The Warp Gate is, for opponents, a very annoying card. If they leave unprotected empty areas on their back planets, you will find ways to go there. It’s a big threat, and in addition to that, the gate lets you reinforce your own key areas as well if necessary. Sneaky indeed. Also, I love installations.
  • Orbital Platform is as boring as the Overmind’s Endless Hunger, which is more boring than any other leadership card to me. Of course, additional resources are nice, particularly if you’re resource-starved on your planets – but when selecting this card, you don’t know yet if you will be. You get a Dark Templar and 9 workers to start with, which is nice. If you get a quiet corner on the map, you can build up fast.
  • Domination, Tassadar’s special victory condition, can be relatively easy to complete with the right planets, and it’s very flexible as you can take any areas to fulfill it – even those nobody else really wants. Keep in mind that here, just like with Orbital Platform, you get no anti-air starting unit. Also, you don’t know yet if the planets will favour your objective or not.
• His stage 2 leadership cards are then the two heroes we talked about.
  • Zeratul the slaughterer. His start-of-battle ability is really nice, just make sure you don’t overestimate his defensive capabilities: Cloaking only works if you have a place to withdraw to, and his +1 health only get him to 8 tops (before reinforcement cards). He is, funny enough, best if you did not go after Dark Templar – as there’s only 3 combat cards for them, so if he can use them all, he’s better off.
  • Gantrithor the behemoth. Carriers alone are impressive, even more so if they have +1 health, too. I love the thematic touch in memory of its suicide into the Overmind in the computer game. Best if you went for Carriers, since that means you should still have some Increased Carrier Capacity lying around.
• As for Tassadar’s stage 3, it’s very situational, and both cards need some building up towards them.
  • If you want to use Ultimate Sacrifice, you’ll need a few units on a planet occupied by a strong enemy force – one of yours is enough, but two are better (since you’ll then keep the area). If you’re prepared like that, Ultimate Sacrifice can be ultimatively good.
  • Similar thoughts go for Return to Aiur, although this is even more situational. It’s great if you somehow (at this late stage of the game) still don’t have all the transports you need, or if you destroyed a couple for your offensive module last round. The added protection is nice, but only very rarely foreseeably good.

Yay, random Leadership Cards

Aldaris is the staller. He wants to deny everybody else victory, while slowly closing in on his own throne. His strongest leadership cards can be found in stages 1 and 3. His starting units are rather strong, but not that varied, they’re all a combination of Zealots and Dragoons.

• Aldaris’ stage 1 makes the big decision whether you want to play Aldaris true to his roots and win by stalling, whether you’d prefer a still defensive role that goes for conquest points after all. Or finally, you can even start out relatively aggressive, and maintain resource superiority throughout.
  • Predestined looks like it draws out the game (but see stage 3), it does definitely make everybody’s special victory conditions even more important. Including your own, which is drawing The End Draws Near event cards.
  • Conclave Fleet is a purely defensive card – and good at that: You can build your defense on the card, and then use it wherever the opponents engage you! No more committing to the wrong place. Also, the card does make your offense more powerful as well: You don’t have to have troops sticking around in every single base that could be attacked, but you can commit more troops to your offense while still maintaining a healthy defense on the fleet.
  • Riches of Aiur finally is the aggressive card here. Personally, I think it’s better than Tassadar’s Orbital Platform or the Overmind’s Endless Hunger – as it gives you a risk-free additional resource for every resource-providing area that you have.
• His stage 2 leadership cards don’t seem all too spectacular, although with careful planning, they can be.
  • Fenix is really good if you chose to go for the cards he needs earlier on – but more so than others, because the High Templar cards he can use are all tech-based only. If you have High Templar cards, you make him more flexible than any other hero in the game bar maybe Sarah Kerrigan. He’s both a brilliant supporter and a strong front-line unit then.
  • Khala Devotee is very situational. It can be really strong – you can make sure you’re the first one to execute an order on a planet, or you can mess up other’s order stacks and destroy their entire careful planning. I found that it sounds slightly better on paper than it plays out, but it really does depend on the specifics of the game.
• Stage 3, finally, has great synergies particularly with Aldaris’ special victory condition – and generally stays true to his role as game staller (which can be awesomely fun, particularly for the Aldaris player, despite the negative connotations the word “stall” calls up).
  • If you selected Predestined early on, The Will of the Conclave is what you want as stage 3 leadership card – try to block everybody else’s orders, making them draw event cards, and have a couple (special) research orders of your own that draw you event cards as well, and finally choose the event card option with a few of your remaining orders – that can be up to 11 event cards from your own orders (if you have special order areas), plus the obstructed ones, plus those from opponents foolish enough to use research orders. Every drawn event card is particularly good for you now.
    The card is good without the special victory condition as well, it’s pretty similar to the Queen of Blades’ Deathblow anyway in that it lets you overwhelm opponents with sheer mass – you just need the resources to use it.
  • Destiny is good in exactly two cases: Somebody has a special victory condition fulfilled, nobody has a chance to deny him victory this round (or the odds for denial are bad), and you don’t want that someone to win. Or, somebody has enough victory points already and you know you can overtake him if you just have enough time. In all other cases, The Will of the Conclave is better.

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

The planning phase is the first of the three phases the game round consists of, and probably the most important one – as most decisions are made here. You decide where you go, where you build, and others decide where they want to screw with your plans.

Order Tokens

Always keep the following things in mind when placing orders:

• Yes, orders are indeed executed in reverse order, don’t forget to place the orders you want to execute later before those you want to execute earlier. On the other hand, you can put some orders where you don’t care when you execute them as “fillers”, making it more probable that the order you want to execute as your first will be on top of the stack at the end of the planning phase because you placed it as your last.
• Orders can be conceived as a threat where you don’t want to threaten – make sure you don’t enforce the impression that you’re invading somebody when you don’t, and don’t block those people’s orders who nicely ignore that you’re their neighbour – unless you really do want a fight with them (or they can’t place an order after you anymore).
• Offense is the best defense. Everybody can only place four orders, even those with tons and tons of resources and troops, so an opponent that also has to keep up his defense because you poke him has a weaker offense against you. Also, the 2 additional units the offense can bring along can decide battles.
• Adaptation, improvisation. Depending on your fellow players’ actions, some courses of action might open up that weren’t available at the start of the planning phase. If you’re suddenly all alone on your planet, you can research or build more than you thought, or grab an area on another planet.
• You might want to spray-coat your order tokens, or they’ll be prone to wear out prematurely. I took Games Workshop Purity Seal, having it lying around from painting miniatures and all.

On we go to specific order types.

Order Types

Reading the rulebook reveals pretty much what the order types are about, but it might be worth looking into what beyond the obvious they can do. I’ll refer maneuvers occasionally here, they’re described below.

• 

  Build Orders

  First, the build order. Obviously, it’s what you need to build troops, transports, workers, bases and modules. This one is rather straightforward, there’s really not much beyond that that it can do – but it is a lot:

  • Teching (for buildings) and rushing (for troops) needs a lot of those early on, but everybody should put down at least one build order in their first planning phase, if only to be able to react to threats from others and because you don’t want your tech to be hopelessly behind later.
  • If you see an invasion incoming, try to be able to execute a build order before their mobilize order, to strengthen your defenses.
  • And keep in mind that during your turn, you can destroy units as you wish, for example for replacing them with stronger units. Also nice for a base save maneuver.

  However, keep in mind that you have to read the build order in sequence. Meaning, you can’t build a unit, worker or transport without a base on the active planet, nor can you build a base, building or module without a unit on the active planet.

• 

  Mobilize Orders

  Then, the mobilize order. The obvious things are movement within a planet, or movement towards another planet (or both). If you don’t know what to do when placing one of your earliest orders in a round, if you want to react to what others are doing, put one of those down on a planet you want to keep defended. It will allow you to make a detour maneuver later on, or a Terran base save maneuver – or if it isn’t needed, you can still choose the event card option and know you’ve been on the safe side. If you’re close to extinct, you can use it to spread your units, to avoid elimination. Anyway, having the last mobilize order on a planet is always a tactical advantage.

• 

  Research Orders

  The research order. It’s very handy to have executed a research order before you have the first battle in a turn, to refill your hand of combat cards, even if you don’t plan to research new tech. Later in the game, you can use it to advance the event card stack (game clock). You do need a base on the active planet to execute it, so further uses are limited. However, you will still need this order fairly often, as many units only start to really work once you have their tech fully unlocked and researched.

• 

  Defend Orders

  The defend order. It’s not just a +2 health token, but actually also a (limited to just one friendly area) mobilize order during the planning phase – with units also from adjacent planets as usual. It can be used offensively if you already have units on a planet, to establish your position there and strengthen the tip of the spear. Obviously, you can also use the order true to its name, to react to an enemy threat by reinforcing key areas with troops from the same and adjacent planets – and do that in the planning phase already, so you know you won’t be obstructed later on (like you could be with a mere mobilize order).
  Update 2009-03-01 11:30: Also see this rules answer regarding how the +2 health from the Guard Token stacks with various other things that give health.

Special Orders

Special orders then, the change to the way they’re handled in Brood War (with the special order pool) makes them more flexible and, to some extent, more viable than before. You can now build an R&D module and, within the same turn, use it right away, giving you new tactical options. Which makes sense really. The first R&D module is very good because it allows you to have three orders of the same type (two normal, one special) for the first time, the second is still useful, the third rarely is worth it. Specific points:

• Special build order, don’t forget that it raises your build limit by 1 (so you can build 5 Zerglings with just 2 buildings, yay).
• Special mobilize order, wherever the battle really counts. Very useful for overcoming defend orders from your opponent, or taking back your home planet.
• Special research order, if you lead in conquest points but see the others catching up, getting 2 event cards is well wort it – particularly if you research something that will be placed in play.

Keep in mind that you can always use any order to obstruct enemy orders (on planets that have areas you control, and planets adjacent to any areas you control) and mess up their plans – you can always choose the event card option if the prerequisites for your order aren’t met (no base for the research order, no units for the build order, no transport for the mobilize order).

Maneuvers

Aah, the fun starts. StarCraft offers quite some tactical options within the order system. Let me describe some possible maneuvers. I named them myself, feel free to disagree, or add more in the comments.

• 

  Detour Maneuver

  Detour maneuver: Move your troops away to an adjacent planet (or spread them out on other areas on your last planet) before the enemy invades your home, and move them back later. Like that you’ll have the benefits of the attacker (establishing skirmishes, drawing more combat cards, increased unit limit) and still be able to defend your base – since it’s only destroyed in the regrouping phase and not immediately after its area falls to the enemy. It’s probably best if you leave one unit in each area still, so you’ll be able to stack your surplus units after the battle, and deny your opponent stealth withdrawals or further area gains. This is a favourite of mine.
  Requirements: One mobilize order on the planet you want to return to (in the picture, Braken), as bottom order of the stack, and one mobilize order towards the top of the detour planet’s stack (Torus)

• 

  Double Invasion Maneuver

  Double invasion maneuver: If you have stealth troops, you don’t want them to die – but if you invade an enemy planet and are able to gain just one area there, you won’t have the possibility to withdraw if they’d be destroyed. Particularly if the enemy is dug in with a defend order or bunkers, you losing the combat is also a possibility that has to be accounted for. So, invade with a smaller force first, getting one his weaker-defended areas, and only invade with the big force in a second mobilize order. Like that, you’ll have a place to go to if things go awry, particularly if you sacrificed the transport via your offensive module to invade his base. This will also allow you to establish a base next round, maybe with a defend order, and being a real nuisance on “his” planet. The downside is that it’s predictable and expensive in terms of used order tokens.
  Requirements: Two mobilize orders on the destination planet, preferrably towards the bottom of the stack.

• 

  Base Save Maneuver

  Base save maneuver: There are actually two variations of this maneuver – one of them only works with Terrans (and is rather trivial). They both aim for you keeping your base when the area it is in fell to the enemy.

  • Terran variety: Just move your base away from an area with enemy troops into one that contains troops of yours, so you keep it in the regrouping phase and are able to produce units again next round. Told you it’s trivial.
    Requirements: A mobilize order at the bottom of the stack.
  • Everybody’s variety: As a last order on a planet, execute a build order. You can then destroy your base (as you can at all times during your move) and build a new one in one of the areas that are still yours. This will cost you 2 minerals, however, unlike the Terran variety. (Also see here.)
    Requirements: A build order at the bottom of the stack.
• 

  Weasely Retrograde

  Weasely Retrograde: This hasn’t grown on my turf, but is well worth a note. Start an attack on an enemy planet where you have a transport to his undefended back turf, lose the fight and survive or win and overstack (so you’ll have to retreat), and retreat to the planet you didn’t have a mobilize order on. Surprise surprise, and described pretty nicely in this thread.
  Requirements: A mobilize order, maybe better towards the bottom of the stack, on the middle planet (here, Tarsonis). And, more importantly, a transport (maybe through a leadership or event card?) towards the planet you plan to retreat to.

I’ll be really happy to read about other sneaky maneuvers you pulled off in your games, I’ll also watch the FFG forums for more things that pop up.

The next posts will be about the individual races’ and factions’ strategies, and I’ll conclude with a wrapup that will touch some finer points and will also include much-needed acknowledgements and thanks.

Update 2009-01-27 08:43: Thanks to Mark T for pointing out the mistake in my defend order description – the area has to be friendly already! I played it wrong all along

Update 2009-02-03 08:53: Thanks to Wolverine (below) for pointing out the mistake in my research order description – there needs to be a base. Anything else I screwed up horribly like that with?

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

This is the first in a planned series of posts on StarCraft Boardgame strategy. In this first post, I’ll merely gloss over factions and races, and show up some general strategies that work with all races, and apply to all games. It will also mostly be about what choices are possible, since most paths can lead to victory at this stage. Later posts will cover orders in the planning phase, and individual races’ available rough strategies.

Lurkers, for no good reason

If you only have time to read a few posts, reading the one(s) about your race(s) of choice will probably be what’s best. Also, read this introduction by MrWeasely on the BoardGameGeek. The first post here is pretty generic and probably won’t teach you many new things if you played the game before, I plan to add more hints and tipps to the ones after this one.

I am talking about StarCraft plus the Brood War expansion by the way, as I really feel the expansion added some much needed diversity to some strategies and also balanced out some of the shortcomings of the original StarCraft.

Also, playing StarCraft and not having Lurkers is out of the question.

Politics

Keep in mind that StarCraft, particularly in its FFA variant, is a multiplayer game. This means that not only will you fight and threaten and act through game mechanics means, but also and in particular will you act through and with diplomacy, negotiation, generally ingame politics.

Some people don’t like ingame politics, and consequently don’t like FFA games, and that’s fine. If you play StarCraft FFA, be prepared to negotiate, bluff, and be bluffed. If you don’t like that, try to persuade your fellow players to play a team game instead, StarCraft does have rules for that.

Races

Race Sheets

Choosing your race is the first thing that will influence your strategy, and it is very fundamental at that. It influences all the other steps in this post – but since I’ll make separate posts for all races, we’ll skip this for now.

Leadership Cards, Special Victory

Leadership Cards

The next big choice you’ll make is which Stage 1 Leadership card you want – it decides whether you have a special victory condition, or whether you’d prefer having a boost earlier in, and possibly throughout the entire game.

Not having everybody have a special victory condition will mean that if you have one, people will make sure they try to deny it to you – that’s quite different from the original Starcraft where occasionally, it was possible to sneak your special victory condition past your fellow players. The “Oops, I won!” that we’ve all seen – I remember a player being surprised by it himself, needless to say it wasn’t the most climactic game. On the other hand, those who don’t choose their special victory condition will have to go after conquest points, which makes them more predictable.

The boosts offered by the non-special victory cards can be quite significant. They also lay the path for future expansion and benefit some strategies more than others – I’ll expand upon this point in the race-specific posts as well.

Another thing the stage 1 leadership cards lay down is what starting units you will get. Those also influence your strategy and available choices … if for example you have no air defense, you will have to build it sooner than if you start with anti-air troops. If you have Ghosts at the start, it might make sense to go for Nukes. If you have many troops, you can defend a bigger area without having to build more units early on, and can expand a bit faster without leaving empty areas (where enemy troops can fall in through Warp Gates, event cards, or other silly things).

Those starting units include workers – interestingly, every faction has a card each with 7, 8 and 9 workers, being stronger and weaker unit-wise in the start, but more or less open for later expansion. If you want a slow build or much tech, you’re usually (although there’s exceptions) better off taking the one with more workers.

Planet and Base Placement

Planet placement, setting up the game board, is a very important step in the game. It might be short, and a prelude to the actual game’s happenings and battles, but it will set the stage upon which later decisions are made. It establishes who is going to be neighbours with whom, who is surrounded by enemies, and who is sitting qietly in his little corner of the galaxy, able to tech up.

There is a formula for planet resources, as found by HëllRÆZØR on the FFG forums. Unfortunatly, it doesn’t work anymore for the new Brood War planets, if somebody knows of a new formula I’ll be happy to listen. The old formula is:

3x#CP + #resources + total (unit limit above 2) – #connections + 1 if (planet has only 2 areas) + 1 for dead-end planet + 1 if (planet is named ‘Braken’) = 8

Essentially, there’s a tradeoff: More resources means more connections and areas (and thus potentially more combat), and vice versa.

What planets you get is entirely random – it can be two resource-starved ones with few connections, or two rich ones with tons of areas and many connections. If you get both a small and a large one, you have a decision to make: Will you protect your home but have fewer resources at your direct disposal, or will you have an easier time teching without expanding, but be more exposed? Personally, I usually prefer better protection – good resource areas don’t help if they’re not under your control – but that’s a matter of preference.

Dead End, Perfect Defense

A good scenario is if you can seal off a smaller planet so you’re the only one who has access to it, starting from your larger planet. That probably won’t be possible if you’re among the first players, since too much will happen between your two planet placements (unless you can place the small planet second and help out with Z-Axis connections, although that would mean you’d have to place your base on the first planet), but if you’re among the last players it’s a very viable strategy. Particularly awesome if you have Typhon, of course. If you pursue that course, it can make sense to place your base on the first planet you put down. Since offense usually beats defense though, you don’t want to “dig in” or anything – treat the sealed-off planet like a satellite to the planet before it, and see to it that you have more than one connection there – or you might build yourself a death trap.

In all other cases, it’s usually better if you place your base only on the second planet – it leaves you way more strategic choices, and allows you to react to those who placed their base before you. Optimally, you want to negotiate with your neighbours, agreeing on planets you can expand to without bothering anybody too early, while preferably seeding dispute between two other parties.

Z-Axis connections then can fundamentally alter the game board, and for them it’s really important how many connections your planets have remaining – so think ahead to this bit while placing your planets already. An aggressive rush-prone Zerg will want to get close, while a Protoss planning to tech wants no direct neighbours.

As for placing bases, you’ll generally want to place them on areas that provide conquest points – as you’ll keep the resource areas even if they’re empty, but conquest points are only gained if you actually control their areas.

Strategic Rethinking

Moria as Central Hub

After the planets are placed, have a good look at the map. Not only is it important to realize which your neighbours are at this point, but also it’s important to see which areas around your base are available to which troops, and what areas and planets are strategically important – bottlenecks, central hubs. If you didn’t manage to get those Z-Axis connections on the board that you’d have liked, it might be time to slightly adapt your planned first turns to preemptively face a threat you didn’t anticipate.

It might even make sense to re-evaluate your long-term strategy. For example, if there’s plenty of air-only conquest point spots around your base (with Brood War and Typhon that’s the case on 5 out of 16 planets with conquest points), it might be wise to go for an at least partially air-based strategy. Or you can try and be the only one to go after the non-air spots and field anti-air (Scourges, Goliaths, Dragoons) instead. On the other hand, the Gehenna Station and Avernus Station with primarily land-only areas (and one air-only area with unit limit 2) don’t allow you to pursue an air-focused strategy if they’re the planet you start from, since you’ll just have too little space to actually build your army.

There are people who don’t like such forced strategic choices, particularly if they’re enforced by random planet distributions in the start of the game. If you’re one of them, you can always leave those planets out, or house rule that all troops can be in all areas (although you’ll probably increase the power level of the new planets by quite a bit then).

Alternatively, if you have chosen a special victory condition earlier, you might want to evaluate what the best (and sneakiest) path to that special victory condition could be – which planets have many of the areas you want to be going for, or which planets that have what you need are furthest away from what you think will be the main fight areas between other factions.

Outlook: Planning Phase

The planning phase, with its very innovative order system, is one of the areas where StarCraft really shines in my opinion. But I’ll make a separate post about this, this one here has gotten long enough already and orders do deserve special attention.

Prelude – Orders – Protoss – Zerg – Terrans – Wrapup

Whether you know the game or not, this FFG promo video is very well-made and worth watching either way:

Back when I got the original game, I invited some friends over to play it a couple of times, and we had a great time -- but people had problems wrapping their heads around the tech trees, and some would have preferred if I’d have bought the game in German. There’s plenty of cards that come with StarCraft, and having them just sitting there in a pile won’t help understanding which ones help which troops.

Furthermore, the expansion did add (of course) new cards, and even new faction-specific card types, so things didn’t get any easier. Having to mentally translate stuff all the time doesn’t help with forming strategies. So, here’s my newest little player aid:

A four-page spreadsheet that lists and translates to German all event cards, racial techs, leadership cards, abilities and modules (currently version 1.1).

I hope it helps my German-speaking, StarCraft-playing readers, all three of them

The Cyberdemons and the Spider Queens didn’t make it, but rushing them (or the marines) would be a pity, I’ll rather paint them well with ample time after the weekend.

Without further ado, here’s the whole bunch of the marines. I took Space Marine Scout miniatures from Warhammer 40k for them, as they just have waay more detail than the ones that came with the game itself.

Doom Marines

All the details did take their toll, time-wise, I spent close to 20 hours on them. But considering they’re the good guys and the only minis the marine players will ever control, they better look good.

I made individual pictures of the three strike teams (red, green, blue), have a look at them here:

Red Marines

Blue Marines

Green Marines

Note how they’re quite a bit cleaner (looks-wise) than the other minis – I didn’t drybrush a bit here. That and the strong color palette emphasizes a bit that they’re the good guys, I hope.

Time to relax now