Starcraft

Terran usually have the best defense and tend to turtle in most games. However, a strong defense can be an even stronger offense. By efficiently containing your opponent through the methods listed below, you can drain you opponent to death. Appropriately dubbed the Marshall plan ( for those of you who know the slightest bit about history ) it should effectively lead your opponent to a self-destructive rampage.

This was designed to help lower skilled players (but can help anyone) for a 1v1 map with only one way out of your base and favorably with a choke-point funnel after the exit ( Like Python ).

This strategy has many variables that can be changed depending on what your opponent does, but there is some generality for most cases. It works effectively against Protoss, Terran, and Zerg; but does have some major exploitable flaws which in turn have their own counters.

The Plan:

The whole idea of the plan is to stop your opponent from expanding early on, even if it requires losing more than your opponent is. For example, sending a few marines near your opponents base will almost certainly cause them to think you're rushing and they will build excessive defense or train more than tech.

In the very beginning, Terran are the only race with a ranged unit ( Zergling and Zealot ) so with a careful macro of moving the damaged to the back, and a constant [Retreat, Hold, Fire, Retreat], it should work fairly well.

After your initial attack, you should start pumping a few more marines, and make an academy. Create a scanner and then make two factories.

Research both stim pack and range at academy and make research vulture mines and siege tank at machine shop while making marines.

NOTE: If indeed you lose your army outside your opponents base, and cannot regain a foothold, move your army out of the LOS of your opponent a step backwards. If you know he will retal after your loss, bunker and make marines around your base.

Assuming your opponent is teching to a stronger army to defeat yours outside his base, siege around his base and scan if you can hit buildings. The knee-jerk reaction to anyone would be to make air units to combat your siege tanks. Tech up to Valkyries or make Goliaths. Marines should do well enough in the mean time.

Now many players make the mistake of siege tank pushing or bunker pushing at this moment, while your opponent has been teching and defending well the whole game. At this point I like to take every expo I can, on Python, I usually take the ones farthest from their base first, in case of dropships. Attacking their base with your sieges and marines could work, but could also easily fail.

Fully tech as much as you can and start to bunker / siege tank push, your opponent will send generally fully teched small armies to you, in which you will lose large amounts of marines or goliaths. However, you can afford to lose a small part of your army since you control the map. They should be running out of minerals at their main base if not already, and if you let them have a close expo, should be low there was well. Their next natural reaction is to drop on your base or at an unused expo.

Prepare for a drop by creating missile turrets on the outskirts of your base ( a few ) and near your minerals ( more, but still few ). I Generally build a bunker in the middle of my mineral area, but leave it empty as to not waste marines. It's good to have 2-6 marines around each base in case of this. Enough to hold off a droppable force with enough time to create more.

With a careful Siege tank push / bunker push, your opponent will be wasting supplies killing your army and will eventually run out. Everytime your opponent loses a battle, move up ever so slightly ( scan first . This is, in my opinion, a very strong beginner Terran strategy and is very efficient and applicable to even higher level plays.

Counters to Basic Builds:

Early Rush- with either zealots or zerglings, you should have a sizable force ( since your making marines ASAP ) and with a good micro, should be able to stop it. Remember to keep creating SCVs and Marines.

Drops- Early drops can be killer for this plan, I usually don't create an Engineering Bay for some time, and Missile Turrets aren't that helpful in the first place. Against a Reaver or hydra Drop, I'd suggest making a bunker near your minerals while moving your SCVs away. If they stay nearby ( go back into dropship and move to an unreachable corner ) go to Engineering bay -> Missile turrets. If you destroy their ship, then it may not be the biggest priority since they aren't likely to immediately come back unless they did ALOT of damage.

An Attack on your base when you're out- Difficult to do unless they dropped their entire army out, but in the chance that they do, defend your base with 1-2 bunkers, have marines around, and maybe even a couple siege tank at home to keep in case. DO NOT move you're army back to your home. It's what your opponent would expect and will probably kill your main army while still damaging your main base.

Fight for an Expo- If they drop to an expo, which you're at, understand that they probably can't reach it without a drop. Make missile turrets or bring goliaths and they'll have a hard time landing an army to stop your command center construction.

Aerial Attack- Make goliaths and Valkyries, maybe even Wraiths. Goliaths are probably the best unit in this, because they attack air like none other, and in numbers, own ground units.

Stealth Units- Against Dark Templars or Lurkers, a scanner can run out very quickly. Make sure you have a science vessel ( will probably want one for Nukes/BCs ) and have a scanner at all expos except one (maybe 2) which you'll use for nukes.

NOTE: Many Zerg players will place their lurkers just where they can barely hit your front lines, causing your marines to move up when you attack them, falling into their trap. You always want to scan so that the front of the scan is the lurker, and the rest of it is what's behind the lurker.


Overall, Mass marines early on, tech medics, make vultures and sieges, and wait for you enemy to keep attacking you until they can't anymore while you take more expos and tech faster and higher than they can afford to.

The Build order is tentative, and is based more on reactions ( when to make Missiles, when to upgrade tech, whether to get air earlier, and so on )

This is my first guide and isn't a pro one, so don't call it dumb please.