|
Before you even produce your first Mutalisk, research Caracape. After you obtain your first 5-6 Mutas, you can safely expand, provided that you keep harassing your opponent with your Mutas. This will be much more difficult to accomplish if you're at 12/3 and your opponent is at 12 or 3, because he can push to your base a lot quicker. When your expansion is a little more than three quarters finished, you would want to build an Extactor to harvest vespene as soon as the expansion is up and running. Normally your Hydra/Lurker opponent will place a Spore Colony on one side of his base, and have his Hydras protecting the other side. It's a waste to build 2 Spores when your Hydras can make up for the second one. Since you only have 5-6 Mutas, attack his buildings first off, if they're not well placed. Go for his Hydra Den and Extractor (Buildings with low hit points.) Even if you don't manage to take out these buildings you are succeeding in reducing their hit points. A few repeated attacks could destroy them. Just make sure you don't lose any Mutas in the process. As you gain a greater number of Mutas (8-12) attack his Drone line from the Spore Colony side.. Shift-Click your Mutas to each Drone. Try not to lose any Mutas. You will probably only be able to get a few lobs off before you are chased away by his Hydras. If he leaves his Hydras in his Drone line, don't even think of attacking the Drones. Look for the outermost buildings, and attack those instead. The key is not necissarily to damage him, but to delay him, and keep him confined within his base. He might attempt to push out much sooner if you do nothing.
Since i'm at 3, and my Hydra/Lurker opponent is at 12, i'll require Sunkens at my natural, when my Hatchery is morphed. I could opt for Lurkers instead, but I prefer to use Sunkens. If you use Lurkers, you leave yourself open for a greater amount of time. If your opponent has a good sense of timing, or he's good with recon, he *can* attack before you aquire Lurkers, and as they are morphing. You will also have less Mutalisks to harass with. Sunkens obviously don't cost any Vespene, so you can dump all of your Vespene points into Mutalisk production. Using Lurkers however, is not such a bad idea from these positions. You can contain the Hydra opponent very easily by placing them below his ramp. When your opponent attacks with his Hydras, distract them with your Mutas, so your Lurkers score free hits. However, the purpose of this strategy is to use an all Mutalisk attack force.12 is the only postion where you cannot use Sunkens from your natural to protect BOTH your natural and main. You can space them out so they reach the ramp, but they are easy to pick off since they are not compact. All your opponent will have to do is, destroy the Sunkens near the ramp and ignore the others at the natural, then progress to your main. I would like to stop right here, and explain the situation from 12, then continue to explain your position from 3 on the next page. When you spawn 12, and your opponent spawns at 3, you are 100% required to use flank tactics in order to reduce your troop loss as much as possible, since you cannot use Sunkens to protect your bases. When the Hydra/Lurker player does eventually push to your base he will have 2-3 Lurkers to accompany his mass of Hydras. The Hydras power grows in numbers, so if the Hydra/ Lurker player were to push out before 24+ Hydras, that would be really stupid, unless he was sure of a win. |
