The Strategy Guide to. StarCraft The Boardgame

Transcription

1 The Strategy Guide to StarCraft The Boardgame

2 Contents Introduction 2 Basic Principles 2 Orders 3 Races 6 Units 8 Techs 14 Combat Cards 20 Gameboard 21 Event Cards 22 Diplomacy 26 Leadership Cards 27 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 our 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 put 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 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

3 own 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. 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 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. 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 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.

4 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 later 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 waste. 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. 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

5 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. 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 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, and the discard pile is shuffled back into the combat card pile! That means, your valuable, but discarded combat cards are coming back into the game much earlier than with your opponents, and your hand is richer, so you are more flexible in which units you use and force the enemy to play his best cards against you. Never seen it like this? Though 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 the bring with them.

6 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 to 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. 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. 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 enemys and splash them down. In your bases, you will profit from tremendous health bonuses. Keeping the initiative is always important in StarCraft, but more so with the Protoss.

7 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 areas and so getting 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. 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 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.

8 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 are. 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. 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. Dark templar 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. 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, cancelling 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

9 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. Dark Archon Unlike the video game, the Dark Archon only needs one 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 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. 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 upgrage, 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 much units on the ground. 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. Arbiter The Arbiter is an 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. Zerg units 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

10 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 or Scourge, while the enemy needs to invest much more resources and looses units capable of fighting, which are left to you. 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 rely 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 to buy the Metabolic boost. You will conquer areas then instead of loosing herds of Zerglings because they simply can take much more punishment that way. 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 littlebit 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. 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 enemy! A pitty they cannot attack air, but Wraiths, Scouts and Mutas don t have a chance when not supported heavily. Get Ultralisks. 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. 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. 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 be kept up with the techs, you never

11 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 recourse, 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, with 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. 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 lings. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 mount of damage (7/3 and 7/4) and the bunker adds health in masses

12 (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. 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. 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. 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. lings, what you can leave up to your splash-card-infantry. Wohoooo! Just stay away from enemy flyers and see that you don t overlook detectors which take away the splash damage from these units. 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,

13 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. 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? 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. 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 battlecruiser 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. 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.

14 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. Protoss Techs Cloaking Field If you re going to concentrate on Arbiters, you should consider to take 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. 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. 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. 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. Get the tech if you get 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. 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 Psi- Storms directly back on your hand. Your enemies will hate you for it. When the game becomes tech-heavy, you should get the Kayderin Core.

15 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. 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. Normally, you don t need this tech. Shield battery It s normally not high on the priority list to have a defensive tech researched, especially one blocking space in your hand. But if you are attacked in your base, your carriers can have 11 health with it definitely worth the bucks and the effort to keep 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.

16 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. 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 every 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. 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.

17 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 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.