Strategy Guide to StarCraft the Boardgame

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Stefan Sasse

The Strategy Guide to

StarCraft

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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

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- 3 - 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

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- 4 - 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-term-resource-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.

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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-resource-research 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.

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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.

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- 7 - 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

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- 8 - 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.

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- 9 - 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 self-deception.

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

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- 10 - 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

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- 11 - 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.

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- 12 - 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.

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- 13 - 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.

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- 14 - 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

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- 15 - 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

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- 16 - 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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- 17 -

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

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- 18 - 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-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. 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

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- 19 - 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,

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- 20 - 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.