Strategy Guide to StarCraft the Boardgame

Stefan Sasse

The Strategy Guide to

StarCraft The Boardgame -1-

Contents Introduction Basic Principles Orders Combat Cards The Gameboard Diplomacy Races Units Techs Leadership Cards Race-specific tactics - Protoss Race-specific tactics - Terran Race-specific tactics - Zerg Event Cards Other Tactics

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Introduction StarCraft is one of the most complex games FFG ever published. It combines a ridiculously high amount of different strategies and tactics with a broad spectrum of units, a modular game board, and last but not least very complex rules. It’s absolutely no game for beginners and could easily scare off anybody who has never played something big as that. Further more, the game is very aggressive and nothing for the type of player that likes to build his empire and then assemble his stuff for a climatic final battle. There are seldom climatic final battles in StarCraft. There is a constant flux of fast, hard battles going on, and the one who remains the overview over what happens exactly on the board and forces the other players to simply react to his moves will win – much like in the video game. This guide shall introduce you to the various aspects of the game from the one and only point “How can I win the bloody game?” It is supposed to deepen your understanding of the mechanics and the works and to give you a superior advantage over your opponents. You may consider this unfair. Then you should stop reading. Because this is a game like chess: the one who masters it will win, the other will loose. If you’re just searching a game to spend some funny hours with, you should put it back in the box and play something like Descent. StarCraft requires your full attention and your efforts, and it will reward you highly for it.

Basic principles StarCraft the Boardgame won’t allow you to build up great armies, bring them to high technical standards and then fight the enemy in gigantic battles. In fact, you will have small groups of units fighting all over the gameboard in fast changing circumstances. To have an eye for these circumstances is most essential if you want to win the game. The guy you’re fighting with the first mobilize order may be your best friend with the second, because guy number three puts up a serious stunt and threatens to get away with it. That means, you should take nothing for granted and stay highly flexible while sticking with an overall strategy. How does this match? Easily. Your tactics have to be highly flexible, changeable any minute. Your strategy should not. Oh, and of course, no one should know -2-

your strategy. How is that possible, you will ask. We will come back to that question later in this guide. When you play this game, you must have the will to win it. It doesn’t make sense to play without it, because it won’t satisfy the other players and, worse, it won’t satisfy you. Always play as if you would like to want to win. Even if it is hopeless, fight with claws and teeth. You owe it to your fellow players, and even if they will try to persuade you to aid either of their efforts: don’t. They will thank you for it in the long run. Or at least they should. In this game, unlike in many other wargames, the attacker has a huge advantage over the defender: he is not only allowed to bring two more units into battle, he also chooses which unit fights which. Many skirmishes are ended this way before they have really begun, and a cunning leader knows how he can defeat enemy units and knows the values, because one advantage lays with the defender: if a single one of his units survives (if it’s not an assist unit, of course), he will prevail and the attacker has to retreat. A player who has no idea how the units work and what values they can achieve (and, more important, what values they can’t) will never win skirmishes against a player who can.

Orders The game is much about placing the right orders at the right spots in the right succession. Of course, this would be an easy task if there were no opponents. If you read this guide, you probably know how the orders work and how you have to use them if there was no enemy, so I spare you the details about what a build order does exactly. What I want to discuss is how the orders can be used in a not all too obvious way to bring havoc to your enemies. This article also includes some basic tactics; more advanced tactics can be found at the end of this guide. Obstructing The simplest of these tactics is to obstruct the enemy. You simply place an order on the top of an important stack (it goes without saying, also for the following tactics, that you should have an eye out to prevent that the enemy does the same thing to you). Normally, you’ll have one type of order to spare, and most often this will be the research order, since you will build and attack more than you research. But of course, there may be situations where you will want to take a different order for the job. The best case is when you can use the obstructing order later in the game for some good purpose, like attacking the base your enemy wants to build in with his obstructed order or something like that. Obstructing is also a very good strategy to force more event cards being drawn. This is especially useful if you want to speed up the game, either because you want to reach stage III before 15CP are reached so you can fulfill your SV (special victory) or simply because you want to have those “The end draws near”-cards drawn. Either way, remember that the obstructed orders will remain where they are, so you don’t prevent what the enemy wants to do, you simply postpone it. This is especially important in case of the SVs. Distract A very expensive way of using orders is to distract an enemy. If you come in one of those rare situations where you have a spare order, you may want not to research (because all the resources are planned for already), but to simply distract the enemy and gain a free event card by the way. Mostly, this tactic is used in combination with obstruction, but it follows a different purpose. If you place an order on a planet, everyone will begin to think what it could be (at least if it affects them in some way). Sometimes, they simply don’t get it because either option seems -3-

stupid. In case of a distraction, it is. But that’s not the point. What you want to gain is the attention of your enemy. He will think the planet you placed the order on has some significance for you, will damage his position and bring you closer to victory. He will think of counter-strategies. When he realizes that it was all a fraud because your real plans are at the other end of the universe where he paid no attention, it will be too late. Keep the overview This is very important, no matter what strategy you take. You have to be able to foresee the consequences of your actions. You can’t possibly plan ahead the next order, because it highly depends on the actions of your fellow players. But you should always have in mind who will be able to place the last order on what stack, what your enemy has to do and what he possibly wants to do and how he could achieve it. If you see that your enemy would need 3 build and 3 attack orders this round, you need to be able to figure out where you could take advantage of the obvious lack of possibilities your enemy has. A common mistake is to plan an invasion and to forget about the obstruction possibilities. Most invasions fail because the eager invader forgot that he needs to build a transport before, which was denied to him by an enemy who obstructed him in a way that he had to resolve the mobilize order before the build order, so both were useless at the end. Insure yourself against such follies. Standard expansion The following is a standard move in the first game round. It will be taken most of the time, but that doesn’t mean necessarily that it is always the best way to go. For this move, you put a research order and a build order on your homeworld (in that succession) and a build order and a move order on a neighboring planet (ditto). You resolve them, if there is no attack on you, by moving all starting units to the new world, spreading them wide, and after that building a base on the CP-area (if there is one) and the first building. After that, you simply build again at your homeworld, including a new building and units of the types you think you’ll need soon. After that, you research something. This basic tactic requires some medium-termresource-management and is good training for more complicated moves later. You won’t see this move much in mid- and late-games, but it is a good one for expanding in any case. Defending a planet If you fear that you will be attacked on a certain planet by someone who is planting a mobilize order on top of your stack, then simply try to achieve that your first order (and last to resolve) is a mobilize order. So you can counterattack the area that was invaded by the enemy (you did secure all areas on your planet, did you?) and drive him out again. Often times, this disencourages enemies who will look for easier targets after that. Never put the mobilize order on top of the stack after the enemy did to reinforce before he attacks – it’s wasted. The attacker has always the advantage, unless you really can summon a big force. Building oftentimes is more useful then, so you can stuff full every area. Attacking a planet If you are attacking an enemy planet, there are two possibilities for this: late or early. If you attack late, you have to place the order early, giving the enemy all kinds of ways to react. If you attack early, you have to place your order late, which means that your enemy can’t react properly to it. If you want to devastate an enemy, you have almost always to attack twice or even thrice. This is seldom expected, so the enemy might place orders on top of your first one that react to your (late) attack, but you place another (early) one after that – which has the positive effect that it foils his defense plans and doesn’t mess up your attack plans. -4-

Refreshing Cards Research orders are the orders used less in the game. Building and mobilizing is much more common. This is mostly due to the fact that people tend to see research orders only as an opportunity to buy techs, and if they need their resources for units, they forget about the other functions a research order has. First, there is a free event card. Many people will say “so what, I can have that with any other order I place and I will discard without effect, so why not place an additional mobilize or build just in case I need it?” That is an excuse for people not knowing how to play the game and trying to distract from their obvious lack of foresight. One has to play his orders in a way that he is absolutely sure about what he needs and what not. Research orders do another important thing as well, even if you don’t buy tech: you get three combat cards, so your hand is richer than your enemies and you are more flexible in which units you can use and force the enemy to play his best cards against you. If you research a tech, you additionally shuffle the discard pile back in the combat deck, giving you access to the already played cards supposedly bearing high stats. This can be worth a one-resourceresearch such as observers or scanner sweep, which are useful in their own way. Never seen it like this? Thought as much. Golden Orders The effects of the golden orders are widely underestimated. I will try to explain why it is good to be able to use them and which effects they bring with them. First, you get a third order of every type. This is extremely useful in any situation that requires much actions of a special sort like building up a great army very quickly, drawing a lot of cards or attacking often. The underestimated part is the special effect of the golden order. A golden mobilize order not only gives you +1 in all skirmishes, which is often totally forgot by your opponent when he chooses his cards (never remember him, but make sure he saw that you used a golden order!), but let’s you draw two additional combat cards, which is always a good thing. A golden build order gives you +1 build limit (not important for Zerg most of the time, but can be crucial for Protoss or Terrans) and lets you save one precious resource. The golden research order then gives you one of two options: drawing two event cards, which gives the game more speed, or taking a currently researched tech card directly to your hand. I don’t have to tell you how important that is if you direly need a special card like the nuke or the scanner sweep. Defend Order A new thing with Brood War is the Defend Order, and is frequently forgotten by players since it seems relatively week. It isn’t, though. The special thing about it is that it is executed directly in the planning phase, leading to react time on enemy attacks. Instead of mobilizing your units back to the attacked area before the attack by putting your own order on the stack, you can bring them over immediately. You may think “why’s that so powerful”, since you don’t obstruct the enemy attack until you build additional stuff like you could if you used a mobilize order. That’s true enough, but the Defend Order also gives you a Guard Token. These tokens give +2 Health in a skirmish, provided the units do not benefit from other additional effects. This should be a tough nut to crack for any opponent. Unlike its name suggests, it’s too possible to use the order in the attack. Here it is even more powerful. If you already have a small foothold on an enemy planet, but are not latest in the round (so the enemy will be able to flush you out before you can reinforce) you can bring new units in directly in the planning phase and bolster them for the inevitable counter attack. This move may be even more powerful than its defensive counterpart. Still, the order counts as one against the four-order-limit, and therefore is often despised. -5-

Combat cards Fighting in StarCraft is mainly about combat cards. This makes the combats calculable, but you need to have the right card on your hand. This system seems luck-based to some, but it isn’t. In fact, if you play properly, you have to be under serious pressure not to have the cards you need. So, that leaves two basic conclusions to be drawn before we go into detail: 1) Combat in StarCraft can be calculated and does not have much, but some, element of luck. 2) The right management of combat cards decides battles when both sides have roughly equal units. Keep the cards flowing To use the combat cards properly, you have to be able to choose from a wide range. Your hand limit is six (or eight, in case of the Terrans), but it is only checked in the Regrouping phase, so technically you could have your whole pile drawn in a single round. It is important to have enough cards on the hand, so how do you get them? Basically, there are two ways. The first is to attack enemies (or to be attacked, in case of Protoss and Zerg at least), the second is to resolve research orders. In both cases there will be cards in your hands. Always make sure that you draw some in any given round, because if you’re stuck with what is left over from the last status phase, you might get into trouble, since you normally draw more precious cards than you can hold, cards that rot in the discard pile after that and may not even been drawn again until the combat card pile is empty. With one research order, not only you get three additional cards, but you too shuffle the discard pile and the combat card pile again, giving you better chances to get the right cards (again) on your hand, provided you actually bought a new tech. Blind draw Never underestimate the option of drawing blindly the first card on the pile. Especially when you are the defender, it may be worth something, since the attacker places cards first and if you can determine if he will win anyway without you having a chance to destroy his unit, simply use the option of a blind draw. This way, you don’t have to play cards from your hand you may want to use later in the round, and the combat card pile is emptied faster to be reshuffled with the discard pile. Many people tend to forget about the option of blind draw, don’t! Counting cards You will be thrown out of any casino for counting cards, but in StarCraft, it’s a major step to victory. The good thing is that the rules help you with that since you are allowed to look through the discard pile of any player. For example, the Zerg have only one card for the Hydralisk reaching an attack value of 7 against ground targets. It is really important to know if this card was already played when you have to make your decision between a card with 7 or 8 health for your Goliath fighting the Hydralisk. So if you have an overview about which cards have been played – especially about the cards you played already! – this is a serious step towards being able to calculate the outcome of a given skirmish. Of course, to properly use this technique, you have to know which cards are in the game. So learn them. And don’t forget – the enemy’s discard pile is common knowledge, so ask if you are not sure whether a certain card may be at his disposal or not. Learning the cards -6-

This means work. There are some twenty cards in a combat card pile in the beginning of the game, later improved by techs. You have to know the values of these cards, and that means learning them. Of course you can use those convenient overview charts, but I wouldn’t allow them on the table. Every idiot can stare 10 minutes on them and then decide what to do, but this will lengthen the game and bore everyone to death, and it requires no skill or effort. If you learn the cards, you have a serious advantage over your fellow players. You have to know minimum and maximum values of a given unit, if it is possible or likely that it will splash and other stuff of that sort. If you don’t know this, you can’t use your units properly. For the beginning, it is sufficient to know the minimum and maximum values, but I strongly recommend to know all possible values, especially the combinations of said.

Gameboard The game board is used in a modular way. This means, you build a different game board every time you play StarCraft. Since this is not done on a basis of luck and chance, you have to seriously decide where to put your starting planets. There are some things to consider. Recognizing options If you have drawn your two starting planets, have a good look at them. Do they provide CP? Do they only provide resources? Are there any special areas? If you have Moria and Antiga Prime, for example, you might want Moria as a starting planet since it provides a CP and many resources, but the CP can only be reached by air and there are four connections to your planet, while Antiga Prime is much easier to defend. Things like that should be taken into consideration. Choosing the starting planet I always recommend to start on a planet with much resources rather on one with much CP. The reason is simple: most people will start with only one CP. If you start with two, you paint a crosshair on your chest. That’s never a good thing to do. CP are easily conquered, you only have to put one unit on them. So take the resources first and the CP later, this is the easier thing to do. It doesn’t do you much good, however, to take a planet worth seven resources if you only start with eight workers – you have six resources printed on your sheet, and even with all workers mining minerals you seldom exhaust such vast starting resources. You would then be better off with a smaller, more easy defendable starting planet and an easily accessible CP area. Placing planets When you place a planet, there are some things to consider. Which planet(s) do you want to neighbor? Do you want to deny additional x-axis or enforce them? This is especially a question with three-connection-planets, since the direction in which you lay them down decides oftentimes if an x-axis is placed or not. This is, as well with placing the z-axis later, a problem in the conception of the game. Oftentimes it’s logical and beneficial for you not to open additional routes to your home but to try to create a “hose” and place yourself at the end of that hose, later placing z-axis in a way that no one can come to your end with a shortcut. This is convenient – and boring. It may seem logical to create a position as defendable as possible, but it will make for a bad and boring game. So, in your own interest, don’t. Create ways in and out. Back to the neighbors. You may place yourself way away from the others, or you may place yourself adjacent to them. The latter is often taken as an aggressive move, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be one. Of course, if you want to attack in the first round, you need to -7-

place the planets adjacent, because else you are not allowed to play orders on the enemy’s planet. Placing z-axis What I said about placing planets is even truer about placing z-axis. Create opportunities, don’t shut them. It is not logical and often not in your interest, but it is in respect to a good game. You don’t have to cheat yourself, of course. Simply connect two of your enemies. They will return the favor soon enough. Placing starting units Last question: where to put the starting units? I always recommend to put the base in the CP area, if there is one, and as Protoss to place it in an area with a low unit limit if there is none (because the enemy can take fewer units, which is always good for you), while you should place it in an area with a high unit limit as Zerg or Terran. Normally, you should spread your starting units over every area of your starting planet, if able. This way you prevent devastating rushes crushing your economy. It’s true that your base is nearly unprotected this way, but since you have almost always a build order in your home stack in round one and such a surprise attack has to be at the top of the stack, you could simply raze the old base and build a new one – 2 minerals, but you keep the rest.

Diplomacy In StarCraft, there is not as much diplomacy as in, let’s say, Twilight Imperium. Some people may even say there is no use for diplomacy in StarCraft at all, given the fast changing frontlines. This is a serious mistake. Many people have lost a game of StarCraft because they weren’t able to deter enemies in the right way or because they presented themselves too much as targets. These things can be avoided by the right use of diplomacy. Advising Advising the enemy into doing things that are not necessarily bad for him but definitely helping you is a strategy that works with most wargames and is especially useful with uncertain players. Introduce yourself as his best friend, his advisor, show him how he can defeat this one and that one, what he should buy and direct his actions against your enemies. This has the advantage of getting two guys out of the competition, especially since the enemy you send the advised at will hear all you tell him and engage in countermeasures, so you have a guaranteed long and bloody struggle. Pointing on You should really learn how to point with the finger on someone, telling everyone at the table how powerful he is and how he will win soon. Explaining the strategy of someone to everybody else is always good, since they will think you’re right, and if you are – which you should be – they will trust you more and engage in countermeasures. This will prevent almost always that someone will get a leading position. Always a good tactic to follow on this road is to point out what the other one COULD do. Here you can exaggerate as you want, paint a horror image of total domination simply because he could theoretically take this area and that. That he would need more units than he could ever hope to possess and six mobilize orders in a row is something that no one will see in an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion. Pointing away -8-

Of course, it could always happen that someone points the finger at you. You have to be prepared for this. Explain everyone that the one pointing at you only does that to conceal what he wants to do (a variant of the latter topic), and why exactly you have no chance of winning. Everything you say will make perfect sense, with the exception that you don’t tell them the plan you WILL win with – but the atmosphere you are creating by doing that will prevent the other guy from pointing it out in a way that anyone will listen. Destroy his credibility. Alliances are short-termed! In StarCraft, no alliance lasts longer than the situation it was crafted in, and that is not very long normally. There is no reason, of course, to tell this to the poor bastard who would gain a serious advantage by backstabbing you. Keep it in mind for when your time comes, but present yourself as a trusted ally. Perhaps he will believe you and be hesitant about backstabbing you. You will profit from it. Use lost games If you can see that there is no chance to win anymore, use the time left to build yourself up a reputation. Choose one person you can influence and guide him truly to victory. Keep alliances, even when to your disadvantage, and punish every one backstabbing you even at expense of your own existence. The thing is that they shall “learn” that you always keep your word and that your counsel is true. If someone has adapted this “truths”, they won’t easily recognize facts in the next game that this isn’t the case. Oh, wonderful ability of selfdeception.

Races There are seven factions in StarCraft the Boardgame, including the UED, only accessible on the FFG homepage. Each of these factions belongs to a different race, which has certain unique strengths and weaknesses. The factions will be analyzed in the “Leadership cards” section of this strategy guide. Here, we will have a look on the different races. Protoss The Protoss are a highly developed race with very sophisticated units. In average, they are one or two points stronger in regards of attack and health values than their terran or zerg counterparts, but unfortunately they are much more expensive, too. If your enemies don’t do something fundamentally wrong, you will always have fewer units on the board than they do, and your production capability will be lesser than theirs. To be exact, it will seldom exceed three, and there is no need for that – but three you should have; the reasons for which will be explained in the “Units” section. So, what does this mean for the game? Obviously, you’ll need resources to pay for units and techs. The good thing is, that you don’t need as much techs as your enemies, since your units are pretty good to start with. You have high health values, high attack values and many possibilities for splash damage on the standard combat cards. A Protoss force is very hard to defeat, but then again, they are unable to cover large territory without being spread too thin – their Achilles heel. One should seldom try to engage an intact Protoss force, but instead spread out and take territories. The Protoss need much orders to clean them again, unable to secure them in a sufficient way, so they are constantly on the run if you deal the right amount of pressure. It goes without saying, that as a Protoss, you should not let it come to this. You are in a very good position to defeat enemy forces even with fewer units than the enemy has, so make use of that. Deliberately attack masses of enemies and splash them down. In your bases, you will -9-

profit from tremendous health bonuses. Said bases can be placed in the regions with lowest unit capabilities so your enemies won’t be able to bring in many units. Keeping the initiative is always important in StarCraft, but more so with the Protoss.

Zerg The Zerg are an insectoid race with no science and technology. That doesn’t make them weak, though. Zerg have the cheapest units, and they can easily bump their production limits into orbit. It is always wise to build the Queen’s Nest with your first build order, since then you can produce cheap queens that can occupy (air) areas and so becoming useful even without having researched one tech for them, and you have a production capacity of four. The downside is that a Zerg unit almost always dies in an equal combat. Their health values are very bad, and they don’t deal that much damage. The latter is covered up by sheer numbers, bolstering the damage via the support value. But the health value will always be a problem (with the notable exception of the Ultralisk). So, the Zerg have to constantly produce units, especially Zerglings. They can flood the board with these cheap suckers, and they only cost one mineral, while the enemy needs one of their precious orders to keep them in check – at the least. A Zerg should always try to have as much plastic on the board as possible. But one thing is mostly overlooked: the Zerg are highly dependent on techs. Not the sophisticated Protoss should use most research orders, no, they will have to make good use of their mobilize orders to get the Zerg flood under control. The Zerg need techs more than anyone, since their units are real crap without techs, the good units way down the production line or only accessible with the right tech. And, not to mention, many of your units are assist units, completely worthless without the right techs. So you have to keep a shaky balance between sheer power by numbers and teching up those, because the Zergling army and your infinite ability to recreate it which scared your opponent shitless in the first two rounds may only make him laugh in the third round, when he splashes your army to pieces without loosing one unit because you’re not able to do enough damage anymore. Oftentimes, since you attack with so high numbers, you will be forced to retreat units because they exceed the limit of the region. This is purpose, because you retreat the expensive stuff and leave the cheap. The enemy needs to play important cards to get rid of them, next time you return with nearly the same power, again retreating the expensive stuff and so on. This way, you bleed them dry. Never ever give time to your enemy. If he has to use vultures and firebats to fight back your Zerglings and hydralisks, he will never even get the notion of building siege tanks or science vessels. You have to execute permanent pressure, so your enemy isn’t able to play out his superiority in unit quality. Terran The Terrans are the middle between Protoss and Zerg. They have some cheap units, some expensive ones, good, but not over-the-top-values, and some nice techs. The price for this diversity is: you will never be able to use your entire disposal. One big advantage of the human empires is their cheapest unit, the Marine. Marines are the best units you can get for so few resources. One mineral buys you a unit that can attack land and air with an attack value of 7 and can reach a health value of 10, both without any supporting or assisting units. There are many of them available, and have I already noted that they are cheap? The Terrans have to decide early if they want to devastate their enemies on the ground or in the air. They have expensive production lines, expensive units in the higher positions of them - 10 -

and many differing techs. It is no good to bolster up your combat card deck with cards you will seldom use, or bring half upgraded units on the battlefield. A battlecruiser needs the Yamato-Cannon, and a siege tank needs Siege mode, but both are in the third tier of their respective buildings – and very expensive. So try to focus.

Units There are many units provided with the game, and they all come with a beautiful sculptured miniature and own strengths and weaknesses. I will try to detail them out in the following.

Protoss units The Protoss have, as described earlier, the most sophisticated and expensive units. You’ll have fewer of them on the board than the other races, so you have to try to keep as much of them alive as possible. Zealot The zealots are double as expensive as Marines and Zerglings, the cheapest units of the other two races. Plus, they cannot attack air. They have really high stats, compared to Marines and Zerglings, but that’s not really worth the higher price. A petty you don’t have a real choice. You need zealots to fill up your ranks against the cheap units of your enemy, if you don’t want to face them as supporting units. And then every advantage from your higher stats is reduced to zero. So you’ll need zealots, but you’ll never really love them, I’ll wager, except when you research the Leg Enhancements, since then they create a pre-battle-splash of their own. The Zealot possesses five combat cards and can’t add some from the tech deck, so rushes need a very high cycling speed. Two of these cards he shares with the dragoon, two with the Dark templar. This makes it difficult to execute a ground based strategy relying heavily on Zealots as FLUs. Their values range from 5 to 7, both minimum and maximum never shared with the same card. Your enemy always has to assume the worst, so its important to know if a certain card can be played or not when attacking Zealots. The lack of cards for them is not so bad if you’re willing to take some casualties since there are possibilities with minor values ranging from 5 to 6 on other cards like the Increased Capacities. Dragoon The Dragoons are mighty units, capable of attacking air and ground alike and with the singularity charge they can achieve an attack of nine (!) by their own. You should always have dragoons around, though you will not be able to have many of them – they are expensive, and you need to have other troops as well. Dragoons are good weapons against cheap enemy units, because they survive most of the time, and as supporting units against the big stuff. The Dragoon possesses four combat cards, with none added from the tech deck. Two of these cards are shared with the Scout, so it doesn’t pay off to combine the Dragoon with Scouts. The other two are shared with the Zealot. If you implement Dragoons in your army, make sure that you don’t rely on both other unit types, or you will find yourself running out of cards soon. One of these shouldn’t be a problem, though. Dark templar - 11 -

The Dark templar is much like his mundane counterpart, the zealot. His attack and defense values aren’t much higher, and he can’t attack air. But he has another very mighty ability: he is permanently cloaked. This means, if there are empty areas or you control more than one on a given planet, a dark templar is nearly impossible to kill. He can kill enemy invaders like Zerglings and then retreat, coming back together with the next wave killing off that sucking additional Zerglings or Hydralisks you don’t want to waste your big units on. And he only costs one additional gas compared to the zealot whose job he can do so much better. Oh, and his miniature is much cooler, of course. The Dark Templar only possesses three combat cards. Two of them he shares with the Corsair, which rules out the possibility of using them both. The last is shared with the Zealot. This means you can never make them the focus of your troops, but a – good – reinforcement. Their great advantage is that they are not dependent on the right card to be cloaked – they always are, so you can supplement them with minor values like the Increased Capacities. High templar High templars are very useful. Hard to kill like every assisting unit, they need some techs to work properly. And there are two techs for the templar, and both are precious. On the one hand, there is the Psistorm, increasing you’re attack by two (!) and giving detector AND free splash. On the other hand, there is hallucination, canceling the enemy combat card and forcing the other player to play another one. Very mighty against high tech units with rare cards like cruisers with Yamato, vultures with Spidermines, Ultralisks with Chitinious Plating or Carriers and Reavers with Improved Capacity. Plus, they can melt into Archons, a very expensive but highly capable unit. Archon The Archon is not really hard to get: you need the tech and two already existing templars on the same planet with the build order. This can be achieved easily in round two. To efficiently mass produce them, you need a building capacity of three, so you can melt two existing templars and rebuild them in the same step. This makes your archons even more powerful, because if you combine them with the templars, you can increase their anyway high values even more. They can attack ground and air and have splash damage on all their four cards. There is really no reason why you shouldn’t get Archons. If you not research any techs, you can cycle through the deck rather quickly and this way play up an archon rush, sometimes referred to as “Aldarchons!”. The Archon possesses four combat cards, two shared with Carrier, one with the Reaver, and one for him alone, and all of them grant splash damage (though not all of them Ground/Air). Should you consider to attack with more than one Archon keep sure you have enough cards; for one you should never run empty. The values range from 8 to 9, never having a 9/9, but unfortunately featuring an 8/8. The attack values can only be modified by supporting units or other external effects, and there are no reinforcement cards for him. Make certain not to overestimate the damage – it isn’t enough for the real fat guys. Dark Archon Unlike the video game, the Dark Archon only needs one Dark Templar to emerge from. He is useless by himself and requires some additional techs. These techs are relatively powerful, but expensive to get, and Dark Archons aren’t cheap to begin with. If you want to outwit your opponent in every step and have good control over the game, use them. But if you’re pressurized, they might be the wrong choice. Corsair - 12 -

The basic air-to-air-weapon in the Protoss arsenal is cheap, compared to the other Protoss units. The corsair possesses stats comparable to the terran Wraith, but he can’t attack ground units. His major job is to bolster up air combat armies and, most importantly, to cover those new air-only-areas that came along with Brood War. The Corsair only possesses three cards, two of them shared with the Dark Templar, two with the Scout, which makes it difficult to implement him in a mixed air force also containing Scouts. He’s not very tough, too, ranging from 6 to 8 in both health and attack. With a support value of only 1 he’s not exactly the right choice to destroy big enemy flyers. Reaver The Reaver is a must if the enemy is building up large amounts of cheap ground units like Marines or Zerglings. He splashes them away easily, surviving most of the punishment and isn’t too expensive. Even without the upgrade, he can deal an awful lot of damage. Since he can’t attack air, you shouldn’t buy these babies unless you want to destroy many units on the ground. The Reaver possesses four combat cards, two shared with the Carrier, one with the Archon also featuring Ground Splash damage and another for him alone, also gaining Ground Splash. The tech deck also features three combat cards with Ground Splash and Collateral Damage for the Reaver, but they have to be returned to the tech deck after use. His values range from 7 to 8 in unteched condition and from 7 to 10 in teched (with the tech cards never falling below 8). The difference between both values is mostly 1. The Capacity cards have minor values of 5/6 or 6/5, making them worth the purchase for use with Zealots or Dark Templars. Scout The Protoss Air Unit available in early game. It costs much compared to the Wraith and the Mutalisk and has slightly higher stats, especially vs. flying units, but one should ask if it is worth the effort. To have one just to freak off a ground based enemy is good, but more is really questionable. The Scout possesses four combat cards, two of them shared with the Dragoon, one with the Corsair and one for him alone. Scout values range from 7 to 8, which makes him slightly stronger than the Mutalisk and the Wraith. Arbiter The Arbiter is a really expensive and hard to get assist unit (comparable to the Defiler), but has amazing techs. The stasis field is a sure victory in defense, the cloaking field protects expensive units from being killed, and the Recall can warp in units from the other corner of Koprolu sector. The latter is not that useful usually. Get it if there is an opinion, but prefer other techs before it. Keep in mind, though, that the Arbiter is the most expensive assist unit in the game (because of his techs), so don’t buy when you can’t afford it – battles are won by firepower, not by fancy techs. Carrier The carrier is the mightiest air unit around, but it is expensive and hard to get - mostly the game is already over when the first carriers appear on the battlefield. Plus, they are really capable only with the increased capacity, and this one is returned to the tech deck, making the carrier order-intensive. If you have to defend certain areas, though, a carrier can make all the difference in the world. The Carrier possesses four combat cards, two shared with the Reaver, two with the Archon. Values reach from 8 to 9 on the combat cards and reach 10 with the Increased Capacity.

Zerg units - 13 -

The Zerg have some of the cheapest units around, and definitely they have the most. No one can fill up the board with herds of units like the Zerg can. Nine Zerglings and five Hydralisks speak an easy language. Have them on the board. With Brood War, it became eminent that the Zerg have much more flying units available than their enemies. On air-heavy boards, they can really shine, since the can hold air-areas with 1-gas-units like Queen, while the enemy needs to invest much more resources – and looses units capable of fighting, which are left to you. The Zerg are the race most dependant on adding combat cards from the tech deck, since many of their units aren’t capable of surviving and dealing proper damage without them. Zergling The Zergling is – in my eyes – mainly a defense or support unit. That may be surprising to some, but I try to explain the point. The Zergling itself has not as many cards as one should expect by the pure number of figures you get. But it adds a +1 strength in a skirmish supporting, and they are really cheap to get. So you can use them as cannon fodder to eat the splash damage and to linger in newly conquered areas, forcing the enemy to loose units to the cheapest shit and coming back with your own capable units. If you want to use them in the attack, especially early in the game, I strongly recommend purchasing the Metabolic Boost. You will conquer areas then instead of loosing herds of Zerglings because they simply can take much more punishment that way. The Zergling possesses five combat cards, two shared with the Hydralisk, two for him alone. Values range from 4 to 6, with only one health 6 and one damage 6, never having both on the same card. Without Metabolic Boost, the Zergling’s likely to go on a one-way-mission. Since it’s cheap, that’s no problem, though. If you possess the Metabolic Boost, the Zergling can reach up to 8 health attacking and never has below 6 – making him deadly dangerous, since more surviving Zerglings means more areas occupied. Never fear running out of cards for Zerglings, though – many minors feature 5 attack (like the one of the Scourges), so you should have no problems attacking. If you’re not planning to use Metabolic Boost the low health values of the minor aren’t a problem since the Zerglings are going to die anyway, so you can discard their cards in the Regrouping phase to keep more precious ones. Hydralisk The Hydralisk is the key unit, the backbone of the Zerg force. It requires an upgrade of the spawning pool, and costs two resources (what makes it a little bit inferior to the Marine in this way), but it’s worth the price. You have a lot of them, and their combat values are out of question. Plus, they can attack air. But be aware! You are running out of combat cards faster than you think. Really hard for the enemy is the card giving 7 strength, but it is shared with the Mutalisk, so you are in dire need of it. When you use Hydralisks, always have other units around to rely on to put the Hydralisks as supporting units if need be. Hydralisks possess four combat cards, two shared with the Zergling (both 5/6, one 6/6 against flyers), one with the Lurker (6/6, 7/6 against air) and one with the Mutalisk (7/6). For the opponent of a Zerg facing Hydralisks it’s most time important to know if the 7/6 card was already played, since it’s the strongest one the Hydralik can offer. The unit is comparably weak, but it’s the only ground unit capable of attacking air the Zerg can offer. It’s seldom used for ground combat except as supporting unit if you want to flood the enemy, since it’s expensive and weak. Ultralisk The Ultralisks are killers. You can get them fairly cheap, compared to the killer units of other races, and with the (essential) upgrade of Chitinious plating they are hardly to kill. If you give them a queen assigned with ensnare, wish every enemy good luck trying to kill the beasts. The Ultralisk is the perfect answer to the reaver, likely to survive the skirmish and to kill the - 14 -

enemy! A pitty they cannot attack air, but Wraiths, Scouts and Mutas don’t have a chance when not supported heavily. Get Ultralisks. The Ultralisk possesses three combat cards, all shared with the Guardian, featuring 8/9, 7/8 and 8/8. Not bad for a Zerg unit, but if you use these big tanks, you have to get Chitinious Plating. This gives you two cards (9/9 and 8/10) making your Ultralisks rocks in the tide.

Infested Terran Infested Terrans are very hard to get, since you need the Tech AND to conquer a Terran base. But if you do, you can swarm enemy ground armies like there is no tomorrow, since they only cost minerals and are a nearly guaranteed kill. They have three cards shared with the Scourge featuring 7, 8 and 9 attack, thus capable of killing most enemy ground units, especially when bolstered up with Zerglings or the like. Lurker Whenever your enemy attacks you on the ground, consider buying Lurkers. You need many building orders for them, but they provide essential ground splash and are permanently cloaked, so you can really use them often if you have more areas under your control than the enemy – and you should have, if you play the Zerg right. The Lurker has only three cards and can’t get more, which is an Achilles heel of this unit. One card is shared with the Hydralisk and two with the Devourer. All three cards have high health values, allowing the Lurker to stay in his area much better than most other cloaked units, and all three give Ground Splash. It goes without saying that if you face enemy ground forces, you need Lurkers to keep them in check. Queen Another “must have” of the Zerg forces is the Queen. It is ridiculously cheap (1 gas) and has very capable techs. Ensnare gives +1 health in the skirmish and cancels enemy support. Deadly! Parasite is powerful, too, forcing the enemy to play his cards first and heads up. It serves as a detector, too, a sector on which the zerg have problems. The Broodling is a free kill. Always have three queens on the battlefield and supported with the techs, you’ll never regret it. Another point about queens is that they can easily protect those air-only-areas for nearly no cost at all. Defiler Gas is a rare resource, and the Defiler cost lot of it, which a Zerg player may be tempted to put to use in combat units. Don’t make that mistake! Defilers are deadly, their techs amazing. Let’s have a look. You have plague, which grants free kills on every enemy unit. The one thing you need to cope with cruisers and carriers or generally to have a large ground army and facing a mixed enemy one. You have dark swarm, one of the deadliest techs in the game, making your ground armies nearly invincible. And you have Consume, which is perfect to gain cards AND to avoid splash damage by killing the cannon fodder by yourself! Get them, get them, get them. Scourges Scourges are the one thing to kill enemy Scouts, Mutalisks and Wraiths at nearly zero cost. With some supporting units, they are even a danger to the big flyers like cruisers and carriers. Of course, they die after every battle if they weren’t killed first, provided that they can damage the enemy, which makes them very nice to defend areas. They are cheap, and the enemy needs a unit capable of killing them which can’t be used on the serious stuff. They have three cards shared with the Infested Terran featuring 7, 8 and 9 attack, thus capable of - 15 -

killing tier 1 and 2 flying units. It is a deadly tactic to support them with Devourers, so they deal between 9 and 11 damage. This way, a 2-gas-unit will take out even enemy Battle Cruisers and Carriers while the fat units take the area. Mutalisks Mutalisk are not the best flyers in the game, but the best thing available for the Zerg. They are as cheap as wraiths, but they require one building more to be built. Their great advantage is the splash damage vs. Marines, Zealots and Zerglings. With the attack rate of 8 on one of the cards they are capable of killing nearly every unit in the game, especially if bolstered up with Devourers. Mutalisks possess four cards, one weak shared with the Hydralisk (who should be used by the latter since its strongest), two for himself, and one shared with the Devourer. With the exception of the Hydralisk-card, the Mutalisk’s values reach from 7 to 8, every time giving Ground Splash against Zerglings, Zealots and Marines. This makes the Mutalisks the backbone of the Zerg air force. You use them to fight the enemy tier 1 units and to reduce the enemy support forces. You should get them, since two of their cards are only for them, and these shouldn’t go unused every time you get them on your hands. Devourers The Devourer is the counterpart to the Valkyrie, however it is more expensive since it requires the Improved Flyer Attack to work properly and the morphing of a Mutalisk. But then, they provide the essential air splash along with very good attack and health values. Plus, they have a +2 supporting value, which makes them ideal to help the cheaper scourges of Mutalisks who bring along their own firepower to destroy their targets without being exposed to enemy fire. Devourers possess three cards, one shared with the Mutalisk, two with the Lurker, neither gaining Flying Splash. The values are 8/8, 8/8 and 7/9, which is ok to fight enemy tier 1 air units but doesn’t justify the high cost of two build orders. If you use Devourers, you need the Improved Flyer attack. Here you have 9/8 and 9/9, both with Flying Splash. If you don’t have these cards, use the Devourers as supporters, since they give +2 attack and can help a great deal for the cheaper Mutalisks or Scourges. Guardians Guardians are the other option you have when evolving Mutalisks. They can destroy nearly every ground based system and get away with it, and they have the devastating Collateral Damage, which allows them to raid very effectively. They are expensive, of course, but if your enemy uses ground forces like tanks, Ultralisks or Archons, get Guardians. They have three combat cards, all shared with the Ultralisk, making it difficult to mix both of them into a devastating ground force. The values reach from 7 to 8, making the Guardian extremely vulnerable at much higher cost as the Ultralisk. This changes when you get the Improved Flyer Attack: You gain 9/8 and 10/8, as well as Collateral Damage. If you need to overcome strong enemy ground units like the Ultralisk or the Siege Tank, the Guardian is a good choice, as well if you want to destroy bases. But in most cases, it’s too expensive and vulnerable due to its lack of air-combat capabilities.

Terran units Most terran units are weaker than the Protoss but mightier than the Zerg. They have some very nice combinations at their disposal, though, which needs a little foresight planning. Note that unlike the Protoss, some Terran units need tech cards to work properly.

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Marine The Marine is a highly capable unit. Several tech-combat-cards are likely to be used with him though not originally intended with their minor values: the Yamato-Cannon as a reversed Stim-Pack (4/7) and the Siege Mode (6/6), both worth more than most Marine cards. The Stim Packs add a significant amount of damage (7/3 and 7/4) and the bunker adds health in masses (especially combined with Bunkers and science vessels with Defense Matrix, allowing to reach a health value of 11!). So Marines are, additionally to their masses, a highly capable unit that can attack nearly everything. They are literally the backbone of any Terran force in defense and attack, and the only thing really dangerous to them is splash damage. The Marine possesses five combat cards, two shared with the Firebat, two with the Ghost and one with both. Values range from 4 to 6, with the strongest card 6/6 and the weakest 5/4. The Stimpacks add two other cards worth 7/3 and 7/4. The Marine therefore has many combat cards at hand, and including the suitable minors, you should never run out of cards for Marines. Firebat The Firebat is slightly more capable than a marine, especially because of the splash damage cards (one he shares with the vulture). Firebats are expensive, though. They need the first upgrade of the barracks and one gas more than the marine, and are limited on ground attacks. One should always have one in reserve, though, because of some cards and because they are immune to the Dark Swarm ability of the Defiler. Most games won’t see them bought much, since the ground splash they provide can be given by the vultures too in a mightier version. The Firebat possesses five combat cards, two shared with the Marine, two with the Vulture and one with Marine and Ghost. Three of these cards give Splash Damage (Zealot/Zergling/Marine only). He also can get two additional cards from the Stimpacks he shares with the Marine. This makes the Firebat as versatile as the Marine and thanks to his Vulture-shared cards able to take slightly more punishment. Firebats are very good in reducing enemy hordes, which makes them perfect encounters against Zergling swarmes or Marine attacks (or Zealot rushes, but these are rare). Medics The Medics are the unit that makes the barracks tier more useful than it was in the original game. They are able to give every infantry unit +2 health, which doesn’t seem much, but that means that they survive all the time against Zerglings and play in the same league as the zealots or above. Plus, they are able to reduce the attack strength of an enemy unit to zero if said unit hasn’t supporting units with it, which is a nearly guaranteed case if you are the attacker and can save your ass as the defender. Medics allow you to draw more combat cards, too, and are versatile units which should be researched if you have the time and resources – which you often don’t have, unfortunately. Ghost The combat values of the Ghost are fairly poor (5/5 in average), and they are really expensive (2 gas and two upgrades of the barracks needed!). Additionally, you need certain techs to use them properly. If you have them, though, the Ghosts can be highly capable. Their problem is that they aren’t assist-units, making it easy for your enemy to destroy them. For that, it is highly important to research Cloaking and always have one at hand. For purposes of using Nukes it is a need, too, because the Ghost with Nuke only has a health value of 6 and needs to survive, and 6 can be cracked by nearly every enemy unit. The Lockdown is very useful versus Protoss and Terrans, but useless vs. Zerg. If you are in doubt to go for Ghosts or another tech and don’t have the resources for both, I recommend to ignore the Ghosts because of their immense cost and difficulty to play. The Ghost possesses four combat cards, two - 17 -

shared with the Marine (5/4 and 5/5), one with the Vulture (5/6) and one with Marine and Firebat (6/4). He also can get the nuke (0/6) as an additional combat card, triggering two killings if he survives, which is best ensured by Lockdown or Cloaking. Note that the Ghost is very fragile and doesn’t deal much damage of his own. In fact, he’s an assist unit happening to be a FLU. Without proper protection by Lockdown, Medics/Science Vessels or Cloaking, the Ghosts will die without accomplishing anything on their own. When you attack, assign them as supporting units.

Vulture The Vulture is one of the most underestimated units in the game in my eyes. They have fairly high combat and health values and many cards. Their costs in minerals are relatively high (2 each, plus 2 for the factory I), but they’re worth the price. At least one should be in every base. It is important, too, to have the Spider Mines. They give them tremendous attack and health values (7/7 and 8/7) and, at last, Splash damage vs. ground units. I ripped apart some Zerg armies with a little help of these guys, especially because you can easily kill Hydralisks with them and don’t need to pair them vs. Zerglings, a job you can leave up to your splash-cardinfantry. Wohoooo! Just stay away from enemy flyers and see that you don’t overlook detectors which take away the splash damage from these units. The Vulture possesses four combat cards, two shared with the Firebat, one with the Ghost and one with Valkyrie and Siege Tank. The Vulture also gets two additional cards with Spidermines. While the standard cards are fairly weak (ranging from 5 to 7) and only having one ZZM-splash, the Spidermines are mighty. 7/7 and 8/7 are very tough, with unlimited ground splash if the enemy doesn’t have detector. Without Spidermines, the Vultures will die too much for their cost and are only a Terran version of the Zealot. If you’re going after the Vultures, make sure you have the Spidermines ready. Goliath Here we come to the point of the factory track. Goliaths experienced a major boost with Brood War, so a look at them is in order. They have slightly better air-to-air-capabilities than the Wraith by similar cost, can fight both ground and air and have the advantage of the Charon Boosters. This tech allows you to destroy one flying unit before the battle even starts, simply because the Goliath is there – a better deterrence can’t be imagined. So if you have researched this tech, you should always have those guys around. The Goliath possesses four combat cards, two of them shared with the Wraith, one with the Siege Tank and one with the Valkyrie, giving the latter Flying Splash. He’s not able to gain more cards, and the values range from 6 to 8. Against flying units, the Goliath always deals between 7 and 8 damage. You should avoid making him and the Wraith together the backbone of your forces since you’ll run out of cards quickly then. The Goliaths are good supporting units to fight enemy flyers and protect bases (in which they gain even more damage against air). Bolstered with Science Vessel and Repair they can reach 10 health, making them very difficult to overcome. Siege tanks Siege tanks weren’t much used before Brood War, since they provide only ground splash on two cards you have to research first and are very expensive. Now they got the new “Collateral Damage” ability. This improves them a lot. The option to destroy a base you just conquered instead giving the enemy a chance to reconquer it is very effective, and every raid will be much more devastating if siege tanks are used because you can destroy everything instantly what normally is much harder to get at. Their price will prevent excessive use, but if you know how to integrate them in your tactic, why not? The Siege Tanks possesses four combat cards, one shared with Vulture and Valkyrie, one with the Goliath and two with the - 18 -

battlecruiser. Values on this card range from 7 to 8, never giving splash. The Siege Tank needs his two Siege Mode cards giving Splash Damage and Collateral Damage and featuring values 9/8 and 8/9, making him able to deal and receive some punishment especially if repaired. Siege Tanks easily reach Health Values of 10 and 11 (Science Vessel with Defense Matrix and Repair), so you should be able to defeat enemy ground forces in nearly all cases. Siege Tanks are also very good for taking enemy bases, since they are destroyed instantly if you wish so, or to drain resources from the enemy by destroying his modules and buildings. Wraiths Here comes the Wraith, one of the best air units in the game. Why? Because it’s cheap and one can lay his greedy hands on it in turn 1 without any problem. The Wraith is a flyer, can learn cloaking with small effort which will make them last much longer, and makes appropriate damage and health values (average 7/7). Plus, it shares combat cards with the battle cruiser, making it really tough and much better than the Goliath in that respect. The Zerg need to have two upgrades to come up with their Mutalisks, and the Protoss pay one gas more, which is rare and precious. Putting into account that a duel Wraith vs. Scout will usually end with both units destroyed, it’s a good deal for the Terran. Have Wraiths. Wraiths possess four combat cards, two strong shared with the battlecruiser (7/7 and 7/8) and two weaker shared with the Goliath (both 6/7, one of them 7/7 against flyers). You might want to use the two cards shared with the cruiser most, since the cruiser only makes sense with Yamato anyway. A Terran player will almost always have some of these flyers around, since a Terran without Science Vessels is a dead Terran, and the Wraiths are tier 1 of the Starport. They are fairly strong and good in getting rid of the smaller ground or air units the enemy can throw at you, leaving the bigger ones for the great units in your arsenal. Bolstered with Repair or Irradiate/EMP, the Wraith even plays in a much bigger league and is able to excel the Scout. Science Vessels One should not imagine, but the Science Vessel is one of the core units a terran player must have. Without techs, it isn’t worth shit, but the two gas are really good paid in this ship. Fighting the Protoss, you can count on the power of EMP, granting a +1 attack in the skirmish and a +3 vs. Archons, who loose much of their might over it. That the enemy’s reinforcement card is cancelled is also really intriguing. Versus Zerg, you get irradiate and kill EVERY Zerg unit for free via splash damage for which you needn’t kill a single Zergling. Plus, it grants a +1 attack. What do you want more? A must is, too, the Defense Matrix. Even with no appropriate reinforcement card at hand, the science vessel will add +1 health to the skirmish it is assigned to. Really worth the debt, should be bought whenever possible. Valkyrie The newly introduced valkyries are devastating air-to-air-units. They provide a +2 as supporting units, are cheap and bring up to 9 damage in the battle – and, of course, their best attribute: air splash. Your enemy has a Scout and a carrier in an area? You attack with one valkyrie. All three units will be dead, but you have lost three resources, the other guy nine. Sadly, valkyries won’t survive most of the battles they are FLUs in. But they are really worth their salt, and if you see flying units with your enemy, build valkyries. You will never regret it. The downside is you can’t rely on them alone, since they have only three combat cards in the deck, one shared with the Goliath (counting them out as companions), one with the Siege Tank (which isn’t bad) and one for itself. Also, note that the attack values exceed the health values up to three, so expect attacking valkyries to go on a suicide mission. The Valkyrie only possesses three combat cards, one useless without Flying Splash shared with Vulture and Siege Tank, one for it alone (9/6, Flying Splash) and one shared with the Goliath (8/7, - 19 -

featuring Splash). It’s the main problem of the Valkyrie to have enough cards ready, and the 9/6 card almost always ensure a one-way-mission. That doesn’t matter much, though, since the Valkyrie kills two flying units with it most of the time and flying units are expensive. Battle Cruiser Battle cruisers are the single most powerful in the game. With Yamato-Cannon, which is a must-have, you reach combat values of 10 without any supporting units, so you can rip apart nearly every enemy unit. The downside is: battle cruisers are very, very expensive. For the price of one battle cruiser, you can get five marines. If you have the need of that firepower in a single unit because the enemy has other big units around, buy them. If he doesn’t and you just want to show your big cohones, don’t. The Battle Cruiser possesses four combat cards, two shared with the Wraith with bonuses for it (7/8 and 8/9) and two shared with the Siege Tank, also granting bonuses (8/8 and 9/8). That makes the Battle Cruiser fairly strong, but he really shines with the Yamato Cannon (9/9 and 10/9). Nothing can withstand the Battle Cruiser with Yamato, and if you go for them it’s imperative to get the Yamato Cannon, or else you waste the whole potential of these babies and, worse, run out of combat cards soon, since you will bolster up your air forces by the Wraith sharing two cards (the best) with the battle cruiser. Normally, you won’t have the time and resources to go for both Siege Tank and Battle Cruiser, so the sharing of those two shouldn’t be a problem.

Techs There are many, many techs in StarCraft the Boardgame, and you can research them all from the start. Of course this doesn’t mean that you should, because most techs don’t help you in the beginning – but you should know what’s possible and what isn’t. Advanced tactics using these techs can be found in other sections of this guide.

Protoss Techs Cloaking Field If you’re going to concentrate on Arbiters, you should consider taking the Cloaking Field, since it’s cheap and is a passive tech, meaning it’s always in effect. Your FLU simply gains Cloaking, which can be really annoying to the enemy if it is something big or nasty always returning to harass him. Disruptive Web If you rely much on flying units and fight an enemy having much ground units, you might want to bolster your Corsairs with this tech. Any enemy ground unit in the skirmish looses air-attack-capability, and the Air-Defense-Module looses its AA-ability too. That’s not all too powerful, but if the above conditions are met, it may decide the battles to your fortune. It works best in the Defense, though, if you don’t want to deliberately loose the skirmish without using the unit, or with the Corsair being a supporting unit, but it seems too expensive for that line of use to me. Feedback This cheap technology is devastating if the enemy relies on his assist units. With one stroke, you kill the assist unit, which is very difficult normally and requires precious splash damage, and you cancel his reinforcement cards in nearly any cases. This tech makes the Dark Archons really shine. - 20 -

Hallucination If you fight very specialized units (say, Ultralisks with Chitinious Plating or Cruisers with the Yamato Cannon), meaning enemies that rely on very rare combat cards, Hallucination comes in handy. The enemy has to discard his combat card and draw a new one. If he hasn’t got it on his hand (you’re counting cards, aren’t you?), he’s screwed. This card is seen very seldom, though, since the Psi Storm deals a lot more punishment and your hand size is somewhat limited, so you don’t want to discard the Psi Storm in the Regrouping phase to keep the Hallucination. Increased Carrier capacity If you are building carriers, you need these cards. They provide them with the power and health they need if they shall serve you as flying fortresses, and there is no other reason to buy them except a Zealot-rush when you need the minors. In case of a rush, you also keep the cards since they are only returned to the technology deck when used with carriers. Increased Reaver Capacity If you are playing with Reavers, this tech is a must. Not only does it provide your Reavers with powerful stats, it also grants them the power of Ground Splash and Collateral Damage, the only way the Protoss will have access to that technology. If you don’t plan to use Reavers, you don’t need this tech – except maybe you want to make a zealot rush, because then you get three cards with 6/5 minor stats. In case of a rush, you also keep the cards since they are only returned to the technology deck when used with carriers. Khayderin Core Your handlimit is increased by one, that’s always a good thing since it enhances your options. It becomes a must by the Recharge capability, since now you can get back those nasty PsiStorms directly on your hand. Your enemies will hate you for it. I recommend taking the Khayderin Core in most any cases since you’re getting back the important technology cards your assist units are using. Leg enhancements If you’re playing much with zealots, or plan to rush with them, consider buying this tech. It’s very expensive, but you destroy one enemy ground unit in every battle before it starts, equaling out the numbers for the Protoss and making them even more dangerous. The tech is very expensive, though, and requires much of the also expensive zealots, so you should carefully consider if you want to use it. Maelstrom You have a certain area you want to be protected from enemy invasions? Set a Dark Archon in it and buy Maelstrom. Your enemies will hate you for it, especially if they haven’t planned it. This may safe you the one crucial CP you need to win the game in a given round. Never tell them that you have Maelstrom and hope they forget about it. Mind Control A powerful weapon against any powerful enemy unit. You instantly convert it. However, using this enemy unit is nearly impossible since you don’t know what cards you’ll get. The main effect is getting the unit from the board and forcing the enemy to bring his full potential against it, not knowing if you make a lucky draw. Plus, until he doesn’t kill the mindcontrolled unit, he can’t rebuild it, since he is stuck with the plastic limit. The tech is very expensive, though, and doesn’t see much use in my games. - 21 -

Observers If the enemy uses many cloaked units, you may want to have observers ready, especially when fighting Kerrigan, Lurkers or those nasty Dark Templars. For only one gas you may have observers in the whole battle; just make sure you can always pay the cost.

Psionic Storm The Psionic Storm is nearly a no-brainer. It’s expensive, but once researched, it has devastating effects on the enemy. +2 attack, detector and ground/flying splash speak a very clear language. Can’t imagine a reason somebody would not like to have this. Just remember to have a templar near your important units. Recall Another passive tech for the Arbiter. Basically, you can beam one unit from anywhere in the galaxy to an arbiter on the active planet. This is cool if your empire is widespread, but that’s something you should avoid in most cases. Normally, you don’t need this tech. Shield battery If you fear you’ll be attacked in your bases, consider buying these. It will be really hard to overcome your units then, and the enemy will have a big problem destroying them. Singularity Charge If you plan using Dragoons, research this tech. With it, they will stand a much better chance against enemy flyers. If you plan to use them merely as supporting units, don’t. And don’t make the error to purchase this tech too early, because in the beginning of the game there is nothing that can withstand your dragoons. Stasis field The most powerful tech of the Arbiter. In the defense, it is a near certain victory, since the enemy is unable to do any damage and so your unit will be left over if not splashed. It’s very expensive, though. In the offense it’s mostly useless, since your own unit won’t be able to overcome the enemy unit, too, except if you can count on it being destroyed by splash damage. Summon Archon and Dark Archon A must-have in my eyes. Archons are very powerful weapons, and the Dark Archons provide you with some unique qualities. It’s cheap, too. I would consider buying it in round 1.

Zerg techs Burrow If you have many areas under your control and want to give your enemies the fits, use Burrow. Most of the time I think the tech is not that important, but if you’re in a situation where you need cloaked units, it may come handy. Chitinious Plating If you ever buy Ultralisks, get this tech. It makes them nearly invincible and is the only time the Zerg really have more health than their opponents. Your Ultralisks will serve you as tanks after this, and this has a greater effect than with any other race since you may take more units in every area even as defender, since you simply have more. Beware of splash, though.

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Consume This tech is seldom researched. At the expense of an own unit or worker, you get three combat cards. This is really handy if you lack a specific card and have a worker or unit to spare, but most of the time you won’t research this tech since you need your research orders elsewhere. It has another nice side effect, too: if you know that the enemy wants to kill a cheap unit of yours to splash the expensive one, simply consume the cheap one so he has to face the expensive one. Oops. Dark Swarm One of the mightiest techs in the game. It makes most ground armies very, very hard to attack, especially when fighting a Terran player. I would always consider buying it if you go for Defilers, another thing I always recommend. Ensnare Ensnare provides a health bonus of +1, which is crucial to a race that has the worst health values of all three. Additionally, it takes away the support bonus of the enemy, a thing often overlooked which can have deciding effects when it comes down to who survives a battle. I see it as a must-have. Gamete Meiosis I don’t know what a Gamete Meiosis is, but its effects are very powerful. Not only are you allowed to have one more card in your hand, you may too recharge one, which is very important to a tech-heavy race like the Zerg. Guardian and Devourer Aspect You need this tech to evolve your Mutalisks, so grab it on the way up the tier of the flyer building. Improved Carapace This gives any unit +1 health, a bonus every Zerg unit needs. If you can, take it on the way to other techs, but it’s not so important you should loose focus of more important techs like the ones for queens, flyers or defilers over it. Improved Flyer Attack If you want to evolve Mutalisks, you have to purchase this tech. It makes your new flyers devastating weapons, granting them flying splash and collateral damage. Without this tech, you will never rule the skies. Infest Command Center The expensive prerequisite for building Infested Terrans. If you play against a Terran, you might purchase it only that he will be over-cautious with his bases. If he relies much on ground units, you might even try to get the base so you can build the Infested Terrans to kill his ground force fast and cheap. Lurker Aspect The prerequisite for getting Lurkers. I don’t think they are that strong that you should go after them all the time, but if the enemy relies much on his ground forces, especially the cheap nasty ones, get the beasts. Metabolic Boost - 23 -

The prerequisite for every successful Zergling attack. Provided your Zerglings kill their enemies, they will get +2 Health and survive most of the times, giving you more units to cover the conquered ground. If you only use them as supporters, don’t buy the tech since it doesn’t work in the defense. Parasite A passive tech for your queen and a must-have. Not only do your queens become detectors, which the Zerg really lack, the enemy has to play his cards first and face up in skirmishes containing a queen if you are the defender, and since you may assign your assist units freely, you will be able to determine where that will be. Plague Splash damage and detector, the first triggered even without actually killing an enemy unit? Wow. This tech makes the Defilers worth their two gas, and the high expense of the tech itself of course. Pneumatized Carapace This is a must-have for the Zerg: you may exceed an areas unit limit by three rather than two. In combination with the assist module, you may take up to eight (!) units in a given area. Without this tech, your overwhelming numbers doesn’t mean as much as they could. Get it a.s.a.p. Spawn Brooding A guaranteed kill at the end of the combat, but with very restricted targets. If you fight Zerg, get it if you want, same goes for Terrans. Against Protoss it is not so useful. I wouldn’t recommend getting this tech, because Plague is much more devastating. Sunken Colony To win a battle as the defender, one doesn’t necessarily need to survive; it can be enough to simply kill all enemies. This opportunity is provided by the Sunken Colony, giving you +2 against all ground units in your base. You don’t need it often, but when the day comes, you will be happy for it.

Terran Techs Bunker If you want to defend your bases with infantry, you need bunkers. +3 Health is an awful lot, and the enemy will have to fight Marines with 8, 9, even 10 health. So he needs very big units to break through your lines, and he needs much of them. Bunkers only cost one mineral, so you can get them even early in the game if the enemy attempts to rush you. Charon Boosters Ever heard what the term deterrence means? Charon Boosters were invented to show you. If the enemy wants to attack you in force with air units, build Goliaths, add them to your armies and get this tech for them. The enemy will think twice before attacking you, loosing precious and mostly expensive air units this way before the battle even started. The Zerg may afford this, but it still blocks a unit capacity that could otherwise be used, and the Goliath hasn’t even started firing at the enemies. Cloaking Field - 24 -

This tech is often underestimated since it provides Cloaking not only for the expensive Ghosts, but too for the Wraiths. Resources saved by a cloaked Wraith can be put in research or new units, and the Wraith continues to defend other areas of harass the enemy. Defense Matrix The basic tech of the science vessel. I would always purchase it first. It is a passive tech, and gives every unit +1 health without using a reinforcement card.

EMP Shockwave Another tech you simply have to buy. It gives you additional damage against Protoss units, heavy damage bonus against those nasty archons that now can be killed even with Marines and of course the mighty ability to cancel the enemy’s reinforcement card, which comes in handy nearly all the times. Heal If you want to use your infantry, you should have Medics with the Heal ability. Your infantry unit gains +2 health in the process, allowing it to survive the basic enemy ground and even air units and forcing the enemy to put expensive units in the front, which you can defeat by superior numbers. Improved Reactor Same as with the other races: hand limit increased by one, and you may recharge a card. The Terrans are the only race who could possibly say “we don’t need it” since they do not so much rely on reinforcement cards as the other two races to get their awful amount of splash damage. Irradiate This tech is a must if you fight Zerg, otherwise it helps best if the enemy concentrates on infantry. It always gives +1 attack, which is often overlooked, but mostly you buy it because of the splash damage it provides. I think you always should get this tech (and science vessels). Oh, and the tech is cheap. Lockdown The reason why it is cool to have Ghosts around. They can lockdown enemies, which means the enemy looses his attack capabilities if matched by the card, which unfortunately means that it doesn’t apply against Zerg. But the Ghosts are really cool defenders with Lockdown, especially if you possess the defense module to ensure that they meet the right foe in the process. Nuke A highly overrated tech, since it is very expensive and very difficult to use. If you can use it effectively, you kill two enemy units, but the card is then returned to the tech deck, and if things are going bad you killed Zerglings worth 2 minerals for the expense of a research order, 1 mineral and 2 gas. Keep your fingers away from nukes, I recommend. Optic Flare Make your Medics the horror of enemy units without support! Every attacking force wants to have a medic with Optic Flare, since he reduces the attack value of any unsupported enemy unit to zero if not supported, and chances for that are best in the defense. Even in the defense you can find such pairings, though, especially against Protoss, so use your Medics wisely. - 25 -

Restoration A passive techs for your medics. If you have one in the battle, draw one additional combat card. Comes in handy, but is not a must. If you can grab it on the way and go for Medics anyway, do it, otherwise get cards via attacks or research orders.

Scanner Sweep If you are in need for a detector and don’t have a science vessel handy, you can use Scanner Sweep. Since you always should have a science vessel around, if only for their great techs, this tech is a waste of resources better used otherwise. Siege Mode Tanks aren’t used often. They are very expensive, require this expensive tech and are bound to the ground and ground targets. But then again, the siege mode provides the ability of collateral damage, which is devastating if you want to destroy enemy things immediately instead of holding the ground until the end of the round. Spider Mines If your enemy didn’t go for air units from the beginning, show him why he better had. Ground Splash, provided the enemy doesn’t have detectors, high attack and fair health values make your vultures deadly weapons in your arsenal that can be used through the entire game at very low cost. Stim Packs If you want to fight with infantry, you need Stim packs. They provide you with 7 attack, and combined with Medics your Marines could even survive the punishment. Especially in the beginning you can use stimpacks to kill zealots and dragoons, effectively burning twice or thrice the resources of your enemy that he kills on your side. Yamato Gun Without the Yamato Gun, the cruisers aren’t worth the money you put in them. With it, they really shine and defeat nearly every enemy. No one can cope with them, maybe except for the bolstered carriers. You should consider to buy this tech very early and even if you don’t actually plan to build battle cruisers since it provides you with 4/7 minors, making it possible for infantry units to reach 11 health with a bunker and a science vessel.

Leadership cards Aldaris I experienced in a resent game that Aldaris has grown in power since Brood War introduced the Leadership cards. In the vanilla game, it is nearly impossible to achieve his special victory without using the advantage in CP - the cards were simply no real alternative for him. Now, with the Leadership cards, he has a major edge on following the goal to win by "the End draws near" cards. Why? Because in every stage there is something to bring him near that goal in a very useful way. - Stage I: Predestined: Many players won't anticipate the SV of Aldaris if they are accustomed to the vanilla game. If they plan to go with any other Leadership card than - 26 -

their Special Victory Condition, they need to go for CP, and you just added 30% to the effort they need to achieve that goal. Save for you of course, which can come in handy should your event-card-plan fail. This is highly unlikely, though. The following stages will show you why. The card has a downside, of course – seven workers and three starting units, two of them being Zealots. - Stage I: Conclave Fleet: The Conclave Fleet is a very nasty thing. You gain an offboard-area where only you can build, and you can get the units in this area to any attacked area without using an order. This is especially useful if you need to hold certain areas. Imagine an Arbiter with Stasis Field and/or a Dark Archon with Maelstrom on the card. Your enemy will not be able to do anything about it. You start with two Dragoons and one Zealot, too, and eight workers, which is ok. - Stage I: Riches of Aiur: Even Aldaris has a resource option. He may near freely deplete areas, since he can restore them and render them immune to the related event cards. That means that he needs fewer areas to hold for the same amount of resources as other players. You get only two starting units, though, but nine workers. - Stage II: Khala Devotee: This offers you the possibility to mess up order stacks, which is nearly invaluable. Not only can you defend your precious positions much easier, no, the main purpose is to create discarded orders, thus forcing enemies to draw event cards, or obstructing them, for that matter. This helps a lot on the way to SV and is anything but useless in the CP-path. You have to watch closely what happens across the board and empathize a lot with your enemy. You don't want them to come down on you like angels of revenge, but you want to mess up stuff a bit. Here you need some social qualities, or the board will hate you. Use this power never against those neutral to you, except it gives you a real edge, or else you'll find yourself swarmed by some guys remembering that eliminating you rids them of their 20CP-problem. - Stage II: Fenix: This hero has one big disadvantage: it’s a dragoon, which means it can be killed easy, even with the +2 health bonus. In addition, there are not many cards for him. The good thing is that Fenix can use Templar techs, so he can protect himself with Hallucination or cast a Psi Storm into the enemy ranks saving you the templars for other frontlines. Generally he’s one of the weaker heroes, though. - Stage III: The Will of the Conclave: This is the real hot prize. Both Leadership cards will help you a great deal, but this one brings you right on the path of special victory. When you can see that no one will reach the 20CP the round following stage III, you'll go for the 8 orders. That'll make a hell of drawing cards for everyone if you do it right. 15+ event cards in a three-player-game are a minimum, and cycling through the whole Stage-III-deck is not impossible. That ends in certain victory for you. You should be certain to end the game this round, though, because the others will take a dire revenge on you if you fail. - Stage III: Destiny: If someone can reach the 20CP and no one is likely to prevent it, you simply skip the "Check for normal victory" and "Check for special victory"-steps of the Regrouping phase and hope the best for any stage III cards already drawn. The likely event is that no two "The end draws near" cards are drawn. So, you'll go for the 15CP. Aggressive expansion is the key. You only have four orders, use them wisely. You need to bring havoc to reach the number and remember - the CP are counted in the Regrouping phase. Hit any one around you, especially guys not expecting it. This is the last round of game, and you’re the only one to enforce the will of the Conclave! All in all, chances to win with Aldaris' special victory are much better with the Leadership cards. It is a likely choice to enforce the special victory of Aldaris. Tassadar - 27 -

Tassadar's special victory always was the hardest along with Aldaris'. That hasn't changed, and the Leadership cards don't help Tassadar much. - Stage I: Domination: I would seldom if ever go for the special victory condition. It is nearly unpredictable if you will be able to hold that many areas with units as expensive as are the ones Tassadar is forced to use, and you want to get rid of elements you can't control. So the likely variant of a Tassadar victory is the CP victory. If you choose this path, make sure that you control parts of the board without actually having units there (a base in your back without units, for example), which can easily be bolstered when it comes down to stage III. If you have to fight for any area, you won’t win. You get three Zealots with this card, along with eight workers, which suits you best for a Zealot Rush should you wish to go for it. - Stage I: Orbital Platform: You can go the boring path of having more minerals (to pop out more zealots, for example). The advantages are rather obvious, and the interesting thing is that you start with a Dark Templar, providing you with a sweet option for early game harassment. You also get nine workers, ideal starting position if you want to expand early. - Stage I: Warp Gate: Like the Overmind and the Cerebrate this way you’re telling every one you want to be attacked. But hey, the Warp Gate is nearly as powerful as Aldaris' Conclave Fleet. Why flying when you can beam? You can reinforce through the whole galaxy, which becomes extremely nasty if you get your hands on one of those reinforcement event cards and your enemy left an area on his home planet open. You can beam units through the galaxy without a mobilize order, which forces the enemy to get rid of the thread, thus distracting him and pulling of direly needed resources. It’s not so much an instrument of defense as it is for offense. You also get two Dragoons and one Zealot, along with only seven workers. Mixed feelings about this, to be sure. - Stage II: Gantrithor: If you have need for a unit the enemy is not likely to overcome, you can choose this Carrier. It reaches health values with two digits, and that is really tough. Ideal if you have to defend certain positions. The Gantrithor also adds the nice bonus that if it is brought down, you may destroy one installation, unit or base on the same planet. So if you fly it on the same planet as the Overmind or the Cerebrate, for example, they are as good as dead, one way or the other. In all other cases the Gantrithor will take some big guy with it. - Stage II: Zeratul: This guy is very cool in his own right. As long as you control where he fights, he is nearly not vulnerable and you destroy 2 ground units per battle, one even before skirmishes are set! That way you can destroy at least half of the enemy's ground force with one single hero who survives the battle no matter what. Of course you have to keep an eye out for detectors and make sure that there is always an empty of friendly area to retreat to. - Stage III: Return to Aiur:. I can't imagine a situation where I wanted to place eight transports, especially since the game only provides seven and at least two of them WILL be on the board where I need them. This card rates highly for the weakest stageIII-card in the game. Of course, you could place the transports on routes you normally couldn’t reach due to a lack of bases and initiate a planet hopping no one has ever seen before, but this will seldom be useful. - Stage III: Ultimate Sacrifice: This one is much more important, since it allows you to kill a high templar to sweep empty the most defended area of an enemy. Especially nasty when Mengsk chooses before you. "You got two battle cruisers? Well, can't see them anywhere."

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Tassadar is a harder faction to play, I find. In the vanilla game, he was easier than Aldaris, but with Brood War, this changed. His stage-III-cards are not as powerful, but he may pull some unexpected stunts. The Overmind The Overmind's special victory was always one of the easier ones to reach. This hasn't changed much since the expansion and the Leadership Cards it provides. Basically, the Overmind provides two equally balanced ways to domination: either you go for the CP, or you build up your bases. You're equipped for both. - Stage I: The Swarm: If you decide for special victory, your path is fairly determined: you need at least one uncontested base, from which you can launch assaults in multiple directions. This is important so you can quickly build new bases and defend old ones. When stage III comes up, you should grasp out on several planets and establish bases there, so the loss of one doesn’t hurt. The card comes with 4 Zerglings, 1 Hydralisk and 8 workers, which is a fairly balanced setup. You can attack quickly, but you too can defend yourself a while with it. - Stage I: The Overmind: This option is more important for the race for CP. You give yourself a headstart and paint a crosshair on your chest by choosing the Overmind, because no one will like the extra CP each round for you. Here diplomacy plays an important role, since you can voluntarily take fewer CP-areas, thus seeming no threat – and then grab some of them in the decisive rounds. With 3 Zerglings, 2 Hydralisks and only seven workers you’re badly equipped for a rush, but better suited for defense and early buildup. - Stage I: Endless Hunger: You can simply choose to have more uncontested resources with which to pop out units like hell. But beware: you start with nine workers, but only one Zergling and two Hydralisks, which isn’t exactly much. A terran starting force can wipe them out without sweating. - Stage II: Cerebrate Doggath: You can go on crying for a good beating by introducing the Cerebrate. Should you go for the special victory, the Cerebrate is a must. Placing a fifth order first in every single round means you can defend bases, because this first order is a Mobilize (we remember the uncontested base where all those troops just wait to drive out those overzealous wannabe-conquerors). That means, when they all recognize you're going to win, you stand a real chance against their combined efforts. Always remember too that you may build at an already taken base, then destroy the base and rebuild it in another area on the same planet still hold by your troops. Your enemy will hate you for it. - Stage II: Torrasque: That one is much weaker than the Cerebrate, but also much more conservative and good to reassure the people that you are not soooo bad after all. To make optimal use of it, the Torrasque should be used every round. This way he will suck out enemy combat cards while costing naught himself. - Stage III: The swarm flies: The third stage is not so important to the Overmind. Especially if neighbouring Jim Raynor, the destruction of transporters is nearly useless since they're easily rebuild. It can delay the enemy, 'tis true, but in many situations it won't help you much since you may only destroy one per navigation route and not all. Of course, the other benefit to consider is that it may delay your opponents squabbling over the pieces they need for victory. - Stage III: Teeming Spawn: The other option is the "Fuck you, there are more defenders than you thought"-option and can be needed to keep either your home uncontested or to build out another foothold. I normally would recommend that one, but it's highly up to the situation. - 29 -

So, now you should have three or even four bases and the knowledge that anyone is pretty fucked. Or else you'll reach many CP this round. If not, await the Ganthritor and hope that Kerrigan will finish the job someday. You clearly failed. Arcturus Mengsk Mengsk was a fairly reasonable enemy in the vanilla game, and he still is. His Leadership cards are nothing over the edge, and like the Overmind, he is more in the brutal force and may as well try to accomplish his special victory as if trying to go after CP. Like with the Overmind, you want to decide early on. To be honest, you have to. - Stage I: Terran Dominion: Mengs’s SV. You have to control two planets entirely, which is fairly easy if you’re not mad enough to choose four-area-planets. Just make sure you’re ready to turtle in the decisive turn and have enough mobilize orders down in the stack. This card is interesting because it provides you with a Ghost from the very start, along with two Marines and a Firebat and eight workers. If you research a Ghost tech quickly, you can surprise your enemy. - Stage I: The Sons of Korhal: The star-order is very straight-forward. On the one hand, it’s a joker, especially nice if placed on the bottom of the stack: if you're attacked, you can counterattack, if not, well, then you build or research. These are the situations where the other poor bastards have to discard orders, draw event cards and help Aldaris to victory. Later in the game, another reason for the star-order may be apparent: you may attack, build or research four times, not just thrice. This can be very important. The starting units are a bit queer, though: you get one Marine, one Medic, and a Goliath. The Medic’s worthless if you don’t research something for him quickly, so think of a good way to use this strange starting units combination. - Stage I: Emperor Arcturus I.: The problem with choosing your starting units is that it will gain you the envy of everyone else on the board and much pointing on you and calculating how obscenely good your position is if they don't crush you. It’s very good for one-on-ones, though, and if you’re interested more in winning than in having an exciting game, since then you can create a hose of planets by choosing two-axisplanets and placing them right. Also consider that you deal out the starting player token, so you get yourself in a situation where you choose where to place your planets and when to place your orders. You get three Marines, one Firebat and nine workers, further enhancing your defensive play style. - Stage II: Norad II: You get a very tough battlecruiser and the right card directly on your hand to use it. The Norad can storm in an enemy position this way since stakes are high that the other guys don’t have such sophisticated weapons at their disposal yet. - Stage II: Tactical Mastery: I strongly recommend to sacrifice one of the tokens and place it between two players who have been on friendly or neutral bases because they determined their zones of influence there. This is no time to be greedy. They will constantly fight over the CP, while yours is yours alone. Of course if you already created a hose or another similar fortress, give them both to yourself and enjoy to see their forces breaking at your defenses. - Stage III: Scorched Earth Policy: You get two really big units in an area where you need them, and they can knock out bases or installations. This can be crucial to defend certain areas (imagine an important land-only-area reinforced with two siege tanks!) or to make ready for a fatal blow. - Stage III: Terran Civilization: It is likely that you already have most buildings on tier 3, and if you don’t, you lack the techs to exploit the units it grants you. You can mass produce in that round, though, since every build order is treated golden and therefore can give you an additional Marine to bolster up your forces. - 30 -

Jim Raynor Raynor is opposed tot the brutal strength of Mengsk's. He's a deal more cunning and can compete with the Queen of Blades on that field. Small wonder, if you know the video game. - Stage I: Raynor’s Raiders: Raynor’s SV is relatively easy. The six areas can be taken in no sweat, but holding it is more difficult. You might want to have an eye out for depleted areas, since the other players won’t look out after them too much, as well as the one-resource-areas. You start with two Marines, a Vulture and a Firebat, which makes for a fine combination to start and even to rush with, and eight workers to quickly produce more stuff. - Stage I: Storage Facilities: If you want to make for a resource dominated game, get this card. You will almost never lack resources, especially if you’re fighting much the resource tokens will soon pile up. You get nine workers along with it, but only three Marines and a Vulture. - Stage I: Covert Operations: The covert ops require some skills. You need the Ghost techs a.s.a.p. but then you can do some nasty stunts, including taking away attack capabilities and landing in protected bases or nuking them clean. It is especially nice since you don’t need a transport to the planet you want to land the Ghosts on, so you could blitz the enemy with your nukes. It is even possible to convert this in a firstturn-rush by throwing all five starting units (three Marines, two Firebats) and the three Ghosts at the enemy with all three attack orders (and the build order, of course, for the research module). This all is very, very, difficult and risky, though. - Stage II: Make Do with Little: You may press your economical advantage by fast getting the 15 workers and all the transports at your disposal and guaranteeing a very efficient use of the modules. The advantages are clearly to see for everyone. - Stage II: Jim Raynor: To many players, “Make Do with Little” seems the obvious choice, since the other, Jim Raynor, "is only a vulture". Yes, only a vulture. But Jimmy's not exactly the type to be a front-line unit. Look up what he's doing: +1 attack in every skirmish just when he's there. Hell, that's a golden attack order every time you attack, and if you actually attack golden it's like using a flawless attack plan (which can't hurt used additionally, of course). Marines will be the dread when Jimmy's around for all those strong, expensive crap the other guys are building. Don't mess with him. - Stage III: Psi-Disruptor: You force anyone to withdraw a special planet, preferably one where most of the retreating stuff is killed. It’s as easy as it sounds. This way, you can wipe clean a planet nearly lost to you, and quickly spread newly built troops around it without loosing one single attack order. Of course this is most efficient when you’re last to place your order on that planet so you can build before they all come back. - Stage III: To the Bitter End: You take 2CP from any enemy. This is an option to prevent someone from winning, not to win by yourself. Hopefully, you won’t need to do that in any of your games. Kerrigan Kerrigan is a vile, evil, scheming bitch as we know from the video game. That is represented in her cards as well. - Stage I: A New Power Rising: Kerrigan is as likely to go for special victory as is Aldaris. Holding three CP-areas can be difficult, but normally this is a SV in easy range of grasp. Just make sure that you can hold them, so either have some nasty combinations there like Defilers with Dark Swarm or simply have enough CP-areas. The card comes with 3 Zerglings, 2 Hydralisks and seven Workers, leaving you for a somewhat crippled start. - 31 -

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Stage I: Glimpse the Future: Kerrigan may choose all Z- and Y-axis, which is especially useful if there are only two or three players on the board. If there are more, the chance of a Navigation Error is over 50%, and thus your advantage will be short lived. The real gain in this card is another, though. Your starting planet receives transports on each navigation route, so you’re highly versatile. You get an Infested Terran, which can defeat any enemy ground unit for a certainty at least until round 2 and four Zerglings, so you shouldn’t be too bad off and can even attempt to rush the enemy. The card also goes with nine workers which makes up somewhat for the crappy units. - Stage I: Forward Planning: Same goes for the two bases: you have much resources, but are spread thin. That's ok if your neighbors like to build up for themselves, because you will be faster and attack them before they are ready, but when they attack you first you're pretty much screwed. It’s especially strong in 1vs1-situations, though, since you have guaranteed access to the enemy’s main base and six Zerglings to attack them with and eight workers to build up new stuff. If you plan to rush one enemy, this card is indeed very useful. With two build orders, you gain additional six Zerglings (Order 1: Two Zerglings, Queen’s Nest and the Research Module, Order 2 (golden): Four Zerglings). - Stage II: Hasten to the End: This is useful in games with few players to quickly reach stage III, provided you have an edge before the others in reaching the special objective (which you should have since collecting CP comes naturally for knockdown when both reach the special victory), but normally you won't take it. I still don’t see the worth, especially if Aldaris is in the game, too. The card especially sucks because of the absolute value in favor to a relative one, so the more players are in play the weaker the cards gets because there are more event cards. I would think of houserule it like “draw two event cards per player”. - Stage II: Sarah Kerrigan: Sarah herself is very cool because she is the strongest hero in the game. She splashes and kills good, but the low health values on Zerg cards are her Achilles heel. Research everything that gives health if you want to keep her, especially the Ultralisk combat cards. The Improved Flyers may also come in handy. - Stage III: Subtle Influence: With this card, you can block efforts of the other players to unite to deal you the killing blow. In a galaxy with the right setup, this may decide the game, because if you go for SV and have one safe base, you can easily reinforce the contested area up to three times (one build should be necessary). - Stage III: Death Blow: If you have to get some things together to end the game in the next round, then you choose the Deathblow and attack golden up to four times to simply devastate the enemy’s forces and gain control of CP-areas. This tactic requires enough troops of course, and a readied hand. But then you will devastate them for good. Generally, a long game is not Kerrigan’s friend. Try to keep the speed high and give the weaklings what they deserve. UED Lastly, the UED. They were brought to you by the FFG homepage, should anyone have missed them. Like in the video game, they are the ones for brutal force, even more than Mengsk. Let's see why. - Stage I: Eliminate Alien Threat: You decide to go for CP or to go for CP as UED. You will be faster and more direct in one way on this path, but there is no other possibility. You'll hate Aldaris when he shows up with his SV. You’re perfectly suited to destroy enemy bases or installations, though, and there is a strong possibility that the UED will go for the factory tier simply to destroy the enemy bases, thus forcing the enemy - 32 -

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to develop countermeasures and go on air units. You even start with a Siege Tank, but only three additional Marines and seven workers. Stage I: Advance War Machines: You start with all buildings on tier 1. This allows you to produce new units fast, even better since you start with nine workers. The downside is, of course, that you get only three Marines and one Firebat to start with, making you vulnerable to enemy rushes. Stage I: Special Funding: You gain many additional resources at the start of the game and one resource token every round, giving you access to a resource normally only Raynor has and making you less dependant on the resource areas. Your starting units are especially well suited for an early game rush: two Marines and two Vultures. You could golden research the Spider Mines and rip an enemy starting force to pieces. Stage II: General duGalle: You may get a hero-battlecruiser that will be the bane of all cloaked units, but for that you should have a science vessel with defense matrix with you all the time no matter what. The cruiser also has a great health value and cannot easily be destroyed. Stage II: The Element of Surprise: This is nasty, since you attack or build before the round begins. In the latter you lack the used workers in the next round of course, which is no problem of you planned a great military campaign anyway (and when didn't you?). You can spread out real far with this, attacking or building up to four times depending on what you want to do, but I think it really shines for building up and then use the round for attacking. Anyway, it saves you an order. Stage III: Orbital Bombardment: An enemy is turtling? Bombard him. He looses any guard orders he had, and a module like the Orbital Defense Module. This is nice if you want to attack anyway, but not really strong. Stage III: The Time for Victory: This is much more brutal. Placing four guard tokens will cause headaches with the enemy, and destroying one transporter on each navigation route seems familiar, doesn't it? The UED doesn't need no swarm for that, no. You’re enemies will seriously be slowed down, and you have enough secured CPareas to ensure victory, or didn’t you?

Race specific tactics - Protoss Rushing The Protoss are a race well-suited for rushes. Basically, there are two ways of doing this. The first is the zealot rush, the second is the Archon rush. The Archon rush can’t be done before round 2, but this doesn’t mean it’s not effective, since Archons are very strong and splash. The way of doing it is always the same: get a support module, so your building limit increases (two are even better) and then pop out the unit you intend to rush with, constantly producing and attacking and not burdening yourself with research. It is important doing this tactic is to have the right cards. There are only 5 zealot cards and four Archon cards in the deck, so you have to find a way to quickly cycle the deck, either by researching or by attacking with minor values if need be (especially against Zerglings when you know that the high cards are already used). The tricky thing is not to do that but to know when to stop. You don’t need to wipe out your enemy. Crippling him and leaving most of his areas occupied can be as hard. You have to stop before the enemy or other enemies can gain a significant technological advantage, since you’re not able to research while rushing and the enemy is. Avoid too high causalties since your units are very expensive and you need at least to build another building to not fall behind too much. To a certain degree, casualties are unavoidable, though. Stasis defense - 33 -

Imagine an important area hold by only one FLU and an assist unit against whatever-maycome. Impossible? But no. you have the Arbiter. With a researched Stasis Field and Khayderin Core, the enemy needs to use three (in numbers: 3) attack orders to overcome your one lonely zealot. The only use against you is a Terran EMP Shockwave or a Protoss Feedback or Mind Control, but the latter are researched very seldom and extremely expensive. If you research Maelstrom and put a Dark Archon with the others in the area, the enemy needs four mobilize in the same round against it. Wish them luck.

Race specific tactics - Terran Rushing The Terrans are able to rush, but it takes a bit more in the preparations than with the Protoss. Marines alone won’t suffice, since they die too easily, but you can go for real nice infantry tactics. Firebats are a must, since only they give you the Splash Damage you will need to effectively kill enemy units (let’s face it: there will be more Zerg to kill than you can and to defeat all Protoss zealots with Marines is a risky bet at best) in early game. Later they prove useful if a Zerg player goes on Dark Swarm, but that’s only a sidenote here. With Marines and Firebats you have a nice force with nine plastic units at your disposal, but if you add a Medic with Healing, you really can match the enemy and rush him down. Unlike the Protoss, you can glide from one form of the rush to the next more easily. Adding a factory gives you Vultures, also coming with splash damage. By now, you can easily at least hinder enemy forces to actively engage you so you can research yet more splash cards like Spider Mines and go for more expensive stuff. Ghost Stories Ghosts are widely underestimated unit of the game. Oftentimes, they are not built at all due to their great cost. If you go at them, especially with Raynors Leadership card, you have a unit behaving like an assist unit but being capable of fighting back at least smaller units. There are very useful techs like the Lockdown explained earlier, and you can add them to any other force. The difficult thing is not to use Ghosts if you have them and their cards but to come to that point, though. You need a lot of research orders, build orders and resources. In my eyes, the Ghost is no weapon for early games but for midgame, should you not happen to start with one. Slowly get the requirements by the way, and then use them when the enemy does not think of their possibilities. Vehicle versatility The Terran factory tier provides you with a wide spectrum of units if you don’t have many air-only-areas to conquer. The Vultures provide splash damage and comparably high values, the Goliaths are very suitable anti-air-units, especially in the defense, and the siege tank can splash, take much punishment and has collateral damage. The downsides of such combinations are that you need many reinforcement cards for bolstering up health and are vulnerable to enemy attacks, since two of the three units are helpless against air attacks and the third does not deal out much damage. This can be compensated by buying the Defensive Module, which is mandatory for this kind of tactic, as well as the Assist Module, so you can bring in Science Vessels. The tactic itself is very costly though. Air strikes - 34 -

Going on air units has a major advantage: since the science vessel will be built by any terran player worth his salt, you will see the level 2 starport in nearly every game. The battlecruiser deals out the most damage in the whole game using the Yamato cannon and has very high health values, while the Wraith can be cloaked. The latter is used not quite often, but if you fight on a planet allowing you to withdraw it gives your enemy the fits. He needs to pair the Wraith with comparably much force to eliminate it, and then he doesn’t succeed in it. This becomes especially nasty when making air strikes with the Valkyrie. The cloaked Wraith is paired with a strong enemy air unit you’re unable to defeat anyway, while the Valkyrie defeats another, weaker one. Bam, both enemy units dead, and you didn’t even lose your Wraith.

Race specific tactics - Zerg Rushing The Zerg can rush pretty well, but they do it different than the Protoss. In the first round, they can build up to six Zerglings with two build orders (two Zerglings and Queen’s Nest, then four Zerglings), leaving two orders to attack. I don’t recommend trying to rush the enemy with Zerglings later than round 1, and even then you should time your rush in a way that at least one attack is done before the enemy builds one single unit. After that, the Zerg can always “rush” the enemy since their build limit is so high. Air potential Zerg aren’t the race with the best air units. They are relatively hard to get (research the aspect and two build orders for the better ones), but they feature 12 air units capable of dealing out high damage, 15 with the queen – no other race has as much. If you bolster them with Zerglings for ground support, you can use every combat card but one – this force will never be reduced to minor values, that’s for certain. Dig in the ground The Zerg have very strong ground units, so oftentimes one won’t see much of their flyers on the board. Unfortunately, one versatile unit from the video game is not as strong in the boardgame: the Hydralisk. You’ll have to rely on the fairly cheap Scourges to wipe clean the skies. On the ground, no one can mess with your Ultralisks. They have the highest health values in the game, and supported by Zerglings, they can deal out tremendous damage. Defend the spot Like the Protoss the Zerg have the possibility of defending a single spot quite good. The key to that is an upgraded Ultralisk and a Queen with Ensnare. The enemy can bring as much units as he wants, their support value will be reduced to zero, while the Ultralisk has 10 or 11 health. Get through that. Defiler In my eyes, the Defiler is the best assist unit in the game. He has the mightiest techs in the game, and it should be the goal of a Zerg player to get him. With Plague, he can splash two enemy units without that splash damage is even triggered, with Dark Swarm most enemy units are unable to do any damage and the Zerg units really shine since they have strong melee ground units like the Ultralisk. This is especially useful against Terrans who can only bring the Firebat in the frontline against that. The third tech for the Defiler, consume, can be very useful, too. Not only can it give you combat cards when you need them most, it can mess up the enemy’s plan to splash your units. If it is clear that the enemy wants to splash you by - 35 -

the tactics described later in this guide, you can easily consume the weak unit he wants to use as a cheap trigger and thus forcing him to face your strong unit – that improves your odds very much. The tactic has become mostly redundant with Brood War due to the Defensive Module, though, but still can be a nasty surprise.

Event cards Drawing event cards serves as a game clock in StarCraft. The more are drawn, the faster the game will end. It depends if you want this or not. If not, try to avoid placing research orders or discarding them without effect or to obstruct enemies. Do the opposite if you want them to flow. Be also aware of the fact that unless you play with six players, not all stage I and stage II cards will be in play. You should have at least a rough overview about the event cards, so you can calculate what might come up and harass your plans. Never hope for one special card (except The End Draws Near), because the chances you get it are ridiculously bad. Use strong cards in your enemy’s hand to point fingers at him. The event cards vary greatly in their power, but all of them have positive effects for the one using them. We will have a detailed look at them now.

Stage I Advanced Reconnaissance Very strong card. Keep it until it counts and then win the decisive battle. Aggressive Strategy Your hand limit is increased by one AND you draw one additional card in combat when attacking – I see no reason to forego this one. Base construction A free build; one of the better cards. Defensive Strategy A very good card to have. It is permanently in effect and grants you two additional combat cards if you are attacked. This way, you draw much more combat cards than you usually would, which is always a good thing since it enhances your options. If you don’t have a better strategy, go for this one if you can. Desperate Measures You may play one golden order more one time. Weak card, take it only if you don’t have anything useful. Emergency Rerouting You almost never want to move transports, but to get one free, especially where you normally can’t place one or don’t want to waste a build order is always welcome. Nonetheless one of the weaker cards. Encrypted Data Chip You receive two resource tokens, which are very cool, and a free tech, provided you don’t already have it. This event card is something like a safe bet, not too powerful, but useful nonetheless. - 36 -

Flawless Defense Plan Not only +2 health in every combat, the main strength lays in the fact that your enemies are likely to forget this card is in your play area. Just make certain you don’t, and you will decide a major battle for you. Navigation Error You don’t like the layout of the board? Simply change two z-axis. This way, you might get rid of an enemy and even drive him directly against someone else. But resist the temptation to create a convenient position for you, since it will destroy much of the game. Preemptive action The most powerful card in stage I. Always take it. Refinery bombardment The weakest card. Since you don’t know where the frontlines will be later, it is dangerous to destroy areas, and you almost certainly provoke an unfriendly reaction. Retreat A relatively weak card. Use it if there is nothing else and escape an unwanted combat. Scouting Party Free units are always good, but where to put them? If you are not in dire need, I would always recommend to put them deep in enemy territory when your opponent was lazy enough to leave a free area. Without wasting an order, you force him to do exactly that if he wants to get rid of them (if he doesn’t, raid his backyard). Subtle Planning You may choose the next Leadership card after the others have chosen theirs. Wohoo. Your choice is seldom dependant on their choice anyway, so discard this one with a calm conscience. Technological advance There has to be something else really powerful in your hand to forego this opportunity for a free tech. Versatile Strategy You may execute two event cards instead of one. Almost useless when you don’t draw much of them, but really cool if you want to speed up the game anyway.

Stage II Adaptive Strategy A good strategy. Your chances with the blind draws grow by 100%, which makes you less dependent on your hand. Air support Free units are always good, but where to put them? If you are not in dire need, I would always recommend to put them deep in enemy territory when your opponent was lazy enough to leave a free area. Without wasting an order, you force him to do exactly that if he wants to get rid of them (if he doesn’t, raid his backyard). - 37 -

Brillant engineering A free building is always good, especially when it comes down to the more expensive modules or if you need a special unit type a.s.a.p. Flawless attack plan You really need to destroy those enemy units? The Flawless attack plan comes in handy. Since the enemy tends to forget that you have it and may feel secure due to his high health values, teach him otherwise. I’d take this strong card if nothing really more powerful is at hand. Fortified Position Safe bet. Heroic strategy If you want to destroy enemy bases and workers instantly, this is your card. Attack single units out there and destroy the enemy’s infrastructure by the way. Industrial strategy If you want to go straight for CP-victory, this is your card. Safe the resources needed, which works even better if you have access to resource tokens, and get an additional CP every round. Invasion preparation Gain two transports or one flying unit? Choice will almost always go to the flying unit. Use it to harass the enemy backyard, if able. Progressive Strategy Your choice if you want to speed up the game. Refinery Sabotage The weakest card. Since you don’t know where the frontlines will be later, it is dangerous to destroy areas, and you almost certainly provoke an unfriendly reaction. Reinforcements Free units are always good, but where to put them? If you are not in dire need, I would always recommend to put them deep in enemy territory when your opponent was lazy enough to leave a free area. Without wasting an order, you force him to do exactly that if he wants to get rid of them (if he doesn’t, raid his backyard). Retreat A relatively weak card. Use it if there is nothing else and escape an unwanted combat. Rich vain May come in handy. Not too strong, but a safe bet. Saboteur One of the weaker cards, but very good if the enemy has something powerful in his play area. Most of the time you should take something that benefits you instead of only harming another one if you have the choice. Specialized Strategy - 38 -

If you are dependant on a special reinforcement card, you might want to think about this one. Else, you should try to have more cards flowing and get Recharge, since this strategy takes much of your hand limit. Not recommended. Stellar Maelstrom A weak card, but may temporarily hold off an enemy. Unexpected Action The strongest card in the deck. Take it!

Xel’Naga artifact You receive three resource tokens, which are very cool, and a free tech, provided you don’t already have it. This event card is something like a safe bet, not too powerful, but useful nonetheless.

Stage III Accelerated Process Some kind of a “last chance to get this End Draws Near card”. Not much use otherwise. Double Time Very powerful. You may build twice at one round. Just make sure your building limit is high enough, or this card is wasted. But getting three cruisers or carriers on the field is easy with this baby. Flagship This time, I would recommend to put the free unit where you need it to bolster up your forces. Informant The improved Saboteur. Very good to steal those really nasty cards in the enemy’s play area. Inspiring Leadership Very powerful card. Another stage-II-Leadership card is executed, which gives you great benefits. Material shortage You may partially deplete a whole planet. Powerful, no doubt, but you may destroy your own foundation of victory if you ever conquer these areas. Double-edges sword indeed. Stalling Tactic You don’t so much stall as simply gain one CP. This can be the crucial one you need for victory. Surprise Assault You may give to of your units a lift, but since you don’t attack in that move, it’s highly situational if you want to do this or not.

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Technological Breakthrough You not only get a free tech, but you get it directly on your hand. Your chance to get an expensive tech you never only thought about. The End Draws Near Take one CP if you don’t need to end the game, or execute another event card. Most times I’d recommend the CP. Unconventional Strategy You may use all golden orders; at this point of the game, you shouldn’t need that really. Weak card.

Other Tactics This section features all tactics and strategies that didn’t fit in another category done earlier. It will also try to round up the whole thing by describing some sample tactics. Using cloaked units Cloaking is a powerful weapon, but it doesn’t work like in the computer-game. Your units won’t be undying until the other guy has detector; they simply withdraw from the battle if he doesn’t and they are killed. So, that means there has to be a free or friendly area on the same planet, or else your unit will die anyway. So this is actually hard to use in the attack; in the defense it’s simpler: the same unit will be able to defend a maximum of four regions before finally being killed. In the attack you have to clear another area first before effectively using the benefits of cloaked units, which requires another mobilize order. Beware of bases equipped with the Orbital Defense Module, since they always have detector. Anti-Swarm The Zerg and Terrans can oftentimes mobilize great numbers of small units such as Marines and Zerglings that will stick around to bolster the attack value. You can counter the rush before it even begins by splashing them away. This you do essentially with the Vulture (or later Siege Tank), the Reaver (or Archon) and the Lurker. You simply attack with fewer forces than your enemy has, thus making some of them support units, and then destroy the FLU and another unit with the splash. Two units can kill four this way. Since the splashers are much more expensive than the splashed units (normally double the value of both combined), they need to survive this attack! Sometimes it can be worth the effort nonetheless just to hinder the enemy attack and protect an important area. Using Splash Damage right It’s always satisfying if a unit dies due to splash damage, but let’s be honest: it has to be the right unit, or the effort’s wasted. When you attack, you can direct the splash damage, if you’re attacked, you normally can’t, since the enemy will take some cannon fodder with him when fighting splashers able to trigger their splash damage. So, let’s focus on the attack. When you have a weak and a strong, splashing unit against a strong and weak enemy unit, the thing is clear: pair the weak with the strong. That way, you splash the strong by killing the weak, and the deed’s done, leaving your strong unit unharmed. Always pair enemy units in way that you kill them all, because if one is left over, you loose. Splash damage also allows you to attack with lesser numbers, since you may splash the surviving units. This is especially useful if the enemy made the mistake of leaving strong units paired with weak in the same area. You - 40 -

attack the weakest unit with only one of yours, splashing the other, strong one. Oftentimes you won’t survive due to the high support values of the strong unit, but it is most times worth the effort. Recharge The Recharge tech is essential if you use any assist unit, and assists units are essential for victory. So use Recharge. It gives you your most important cards directly back to the hand. This can stop entire enemy offensives like with Stasis Field, Hallucination, Dark Swarm or Ensnare. Use it wisely, use if often. The Defensive Module The Defensive Module is a very powerful tool. It allows you to switch two of your units after skirmishes are set, so you can react to most nasty buildups by the attacker who wishes to splash away your units. This is the obvious part. But how to react on enemies having built the support module? There’s a way for that. The module can only be used if the switched units are capable of attacking the FLU they are to be assigned to. So, since every side has units restricted to ground or air, you simply pair them respectively. Now, the enemy won’t be able to use his Defense Module. Pairing Corsairs with Siege Tanks would be an example for that. Killing supporting unit Imagine you want to kill a special unit (say, a hero) but don’t have the force to kill all units in his area. Let’s imagine you want to kill the Gantrithor, supported by a Zealot. Now, your enemy will be confident since the Gantrithor can’t be splashed by simply killing off the Zealot, a tactic you would normally use. But there is another way: simply set a air-unit like the Valkyrie against the Zealot. It shouldn’t be hard to penetrate its health, and then the supporting unit will be destroyed. The only defense against such things except of course to avoid these pairings in your areas is to build the Defense Module. Detour maneuver This maneuver was first developed by Haslo on his blog haslo.ch. It basically features the idea of drawing your forces away from an anticipated attack to later move them back to counterattack. This is a variant of the tactic I described under “Defending a planet”, since you need a mobilize order deep down in the stack. You first move your units to another planet, ideally to attack a weak enemy position, and later move them back to free your base. This maneuver is only efficient if you restrict it on your expensive units, though. Should you decide to retreat all your stuff, the enemy will simply occupy all your areas and force you to undergo major efforts regaining them – not a pleasant prospect. So keep sure all of your areas stay occupied. Weasily Retrograde The name may seem odd to you, but it was given to this tactic by its inventor, the user MrWeasely on boardgamegeek.com, who shouldn’t go unmentioned. The tactic basically works to reinforce planets you technically couldn’t reach by actively loosing battles. Imagine three planets in a row, A, B and C, with you owning A and C and the enemy B and you having transports on the navigation routes AB and BC. You attack an area on B with forces from A in a way you’ll loose the battle with minimum casualties (e.g. by pairing units that can’t attack each other, which works especially well by attacking a small enemy force) and then retreat to the other planet. You got new cards and your hand and your troops are where you wanted them. Perhaps you even tempted your enemy into wasting precious cards or messed up his order stack. This works especially nice with event cards giving you transports - 41 -

in regions where you couldn’t build one, so you can move on planets no one would expect you to reach. Build and Rebuild Common situation: you own a planet with three or more areas, in every area’s a unit. The area with the base is subject to an enemy attack, of course you loose and of course you don’t have a mobilize, but a build order down in your stack. So what now? You will loose the base in the Regrouping phase, which sucks. So, what you can do is the following: when executing the build order, you simply build units and buildings as normal, then raze the base and rebuild it in one of the other areas. This is a perfectly legal move, and if your enemy is the UED, it will give him the fits. Rushing It is possible, like in the video game, to rush an enemy at the beginning of the game. Of course, the starting planets have to be adjacent for this maneuver. If you see that the enemy is expanding, you can smile. You shouldn’t, of course, if you plan to get through with this (if you don’t, smile as smirk as you can, since it will distract your enemy, which is always a good thing). This tactic works best if you are to place your orders after your enemy, so that your last order can be a mobilize order on top of his stack, so he is forced to resolve other orders first and either open his home planet to you or discard his expansion orders – in both cases, you win. The best thing is, you can still combine this with your own expansion tactic by skipping the research step. Now, and this may come surprising to some, the Zerg are the ones worst equipped for such a strategy. Especially in the beginning of the game, their lack of technology is apparent. Oftentimes, their units will be slaughtered, unable to defeat all enemies. The Protoss are the ones who can really devastate their enemies with a zealot-rush, but this is a dangerous tactic, since there are only five zealot combat cards in the deck. As already mentioned, this tactic can have its deadliest effects by simply not doing the rush, but threatening the enemy with it so he discards orders or builds units he doesn’t really need while you push forward to an early headstart. Planet Hopping If you are in the defensive and the enemy is constantly pushing you, having better units and giving you a very hard time, sometimes it can be better simply to leave. Grab your stuff and attack the next planet. You can hop through the whole galaxy with this tactic, even switching place with the unfortunate attacker, since he certainly has not thought about securing his seemingly safe backyard you are about to invade. Or you go at the balls of another unfortunate player, maybe even forcing him into an alliance with you against the aggressive neighbor as a price for stopping harassing him. Planet Raid Sometimes you want to attack for other reasons than for conquest. You could, for example, attack a Protoss carrier with one or two Marines not to destroy it but simply to force the enemy to play his precious carrier cards to protect the flying monster (and to give you three additional cards to your hand, to be sure). You could conquer unprotected areas just for the one purpose that your enemy has to take them back so you can’t harass his backyard – he will use orders where you don’t need to put one ever again. This is especially useful if you can take several undefended areas with one order, leaving your enemy in need of retaking them one by one. Often it is not worth the effort for him, so you can get a whole new base which eventually forces him to focus on. - 42 -