Have any of you tried the lurker rush. use a stage one leadership card that gives you some hydras. opponents planet place mobilize,build,mobilize. Home planet place a research on top.

research lurker aspect.

Attack your opponents planet by moving into an empty area or an area with an easily dispatched garrison.

execute the build on opponents planet building a base and morphing your hydras into lurkers.

Attack opponents base splashing things into oblivion, if your lurkers get killed they withdraw to the base you just built.

Can be cool but needs the right setup.

I did kinda tried that once, but I was not directly adjacent to an opponent base. But lurkers are great at base defense w/ sunken colony! and a def module!

I think that you can't do this. Because you can build units only on the planet where you have base, so your hydras can't morph in this build order. I think that you will need 2 build orders on opponent planet to morph your hydras.

ice_cz said:

No, I think Blarknob is right.

Because all technology units (archons, devourers, guardians and others) do not require a base while transforming from their previous/prerequisite units (templars, mutalisks...). It is an exception confirming a rule .

However they do require a build order on a planet where such a prerequisite unit is present. So you can not execute a build order on a planet A a want to build a lurker on a planet B (but it is written on those technology cards...)

In addition, it doesn't have to be a build order. Building Hydralisks on planet A and then Mobilizing to planet B (having the done the research), you can then pay the appropiate amounts for a Lurker. Using a mobilise order.

The Lurker Aspect (=LA) card says "You may now build .... on the active planet ."

To build something you need a buildorder, thats for sure. And the active planet is always that planet where you execute an order.

Long story short: Blarknops strategy works exactly as he described.

There are lots of interessting lurkerrush strategies. And there are all devastating.

Sounds like a good strategy, as unless the target opponent knows your strategy (s)he is very unlikely to have detectors first turn. Of course iI guess some people might argue that the 'normal' Zerg Rush is better...

And not rushing at all as Zerg is a good way to test your abilities

So basically awesome idea, i wish i thought of it, round of applause, you rock etc

I gave this a try in a two player game with the Overmind yesterday. The Overmind stage one leadership gives you 3x zerglings and 2x hydralisks and seven workers.

That was enough to get two lurkers and a research module for a special mobilize on the first turn. I totally crushed my protoss opponent with the lurker rush. I killed his base and three zeolots and lost one zergling then next turn I finished off his remaining plastics before he was able to build a base, it was savage, the cloaking on the lurkers makes them almost indistructable if you attack a planet with plenty of sectors, particularly a protoss opponent because they can't really afford to fill all the sectors with plastics.

1) Lurkers can attack only ground units

2) Air Support Module offers Detector

3) Building Lurkers requires units and Build orders

Only those 3 things may help agains Lurkers at the start of the game. They are deadly especially against Protoss (few and expensive starting units).

Protoss player should never let his starting units to die because of Splash Damage. So the best what your oppotent could do, was destroying your Hydralisks at start. You practically couldn't avoid that.

It can be countered of course but so can any strategy, this one just gives you some really powerful weapons from the get go, it reminds me of the pre expansion reaver builds.

Getting the air defense module for detector is an option but then they have 3x crystal that they didn't spend on re-enforcements, and I usually use two mobilize orders for this rush allowing me to attack them from on planet.

You can't proctect your own base with 2 Mobilize orders on adjacent planet. So a smart enemy can use it against you. That's the one more reason to put transport on route to enemy starting base.

Note that your 2 Mobilize orders are uselees , if the oppotent put additionaly own Mobilize at last place of order stack. He can just run away to your own planet, being the attacking side twice.

Another option: Guard tokens offer +2 health what can help to avoid Lurker splash. Especially when playing Protoss.

Really depends on turn order too. If I can get a mobilize on the top of their home planet then they won't really have much to attack my planet with. If I place my starting forces after his and he placed his transport on a connector to an expansion instead of to my system then the rush is of course much more effective.

It all really depends on players anticipating moves, the depth of strategy that this game provides is amazing, every time I play it I find something new.

Very nice strategy, thanks Blarknob! The only problem I see with those tactics is that they completely devestate an opponent right in the beginning of the game, thiuus kicking him out of the game. It's a bot of a social aspect, but I see that one in every game where you are able to defeat an opponent right from the start and am not using it because of this. If someone makes up a playable onlineversion, though, it becomes interesting for me too. The tactic is not limited for early rushes, though. You can devestate a new founded second base with that, too.

It's pointless IMO to resign of the strategy, which may be quite easily countered. Each strategy works as well, as the enemy lets it work ;-)

If you don't quess oppotents' plans, you will lose. And, mostly, it happens very fast in SC, errors can't be corrected later. When you fell defeated in lame way, without having any true chance to defend, it's quite probalble that you did sth wrong much earlier.