So you're Terran and you find that its quite annoying that you can't harass as early as the Zerg and somehow your Marauders don't come out fast enough for you to deal with Zealots.
Also somehow for the life of you, your micro isn't good enough for using Marines since the Marines are too "slow" for you.
So what else can you do?
I'm sure you've played the campaign and have finished the mission where Tosh gives you a unit called the Reaper.
Ah Reapers what kind of unit are you?
Well for one thing they climb cliffs by jumping up using jetpacks. Also the only other unit that can catch up to reapers are speedlings which don't come out as fast as most zerg players like them to.
So then what's the most effective way to use a reaper?
Definitely in the Early Game where there are few units who can really deal with a reaper.
Well now let's get to the lesson.
THEORY
So what's the theory behind the reaper rush?
Well its an early all-in strategy which if it fails might put you behind in economy but if successful will deal a heavy blow to your enemies.
At the present moment before patch 1.1 which will extend the reaper build time by 5 seconds(omg that's a lot), right now you probably have the advantage of an early reaper before his zerglings(lest he doeas a 6 pool) can come and chew up your reaper.
The basis of the reaper rush is to damage his economy and snipe off any units of his.
For example if a Protoss player uses Zealots to deal with your reapers. You've just hit Jackpot!
Reapers are ridiculously fast even without their Jetpack upgrade. After their Jetpack upgrade anything short of speedlings and proper micro will probably not be able to kill your reapers (with the exception of blink stalkers and siege tanks)
What you're supposed to do in a Reaper rush is clear out the enemies drones/probes/SCV's. They are usually 2 shot kills so no worries.
EXAMPLES
Here's an example of how to use the proxy/reaper rush from HowtoStarcraft.
And now here's an example of a Proxy Bunker Reaper Rush from ForceSC2
Since this Tactic has a few common Variations we shall go into detail about what goes on in the examples
HOW2STARCRAFTS PROXY REAPER RUSH
So you've seen the video and read the build order. But how to do it?
Should you follow the build order alone?
What if something goes wrong?
Well now I shall explain what can be done to prevent your Rush from succeeding.
To prevent this Reaper Rush, all anyone needs to do is place up cannons,bunkers or spine crawlers.
Heck even 1 queen with 4 Zerglings would probably kill you.
It requires heavy micro and might not be the best for new players (Lest you're asian and when you play them other people be saying your micro be haxxors).
So remember to watch out for those things I've mentioned.
Since pretty they pretty much could corner you in a corner and eat your heart out.
ForceSC2's PROXY BUNKER REAPER RUSH
Hmm this one on the other hand requires SCV's to actually enter the enemy's base to build a bunker.
Well to tell you the truth this one is easier than the first one despite more steps.
You truly only need to really care that your macro keeps up and that your SCV stays alive.
In the video he sends 2 SCV's. Well that is rather smart since you probably could continuously leapfrog your bunkers closer and closer and closer into your opponents base.
Reapers deal high damage but have low health so that's why this technique is better than the other one.
However to prevent this one would be much harder on your opponents part than the last one.
To prevent this from happening they'd probably require to build defenses of their own to try to corner you without losing too many units of their own.
So look out for early siege tanks, Massive amounts of banelings or in some cases mass voidrays.
BUILD ORDER
If you look carefully there are a few ways to go about this.
Let's just for this tutorials sake place 2 BO's for you
This is a more standard early reaper rush BO
6 SCV
7 Barracks
7 Refinery
7 SCV
8 SCV
9 Reaper
Of course you can change this
and here is ForceSC2's BO
Build Order:
(6) Start by mining with 5 of your initial 6 SCV's send the 6th out to build your proxy Barracks near your opponents base
(6) @ 150 minerals build your proxy Barracks
(6) @ 75 minerals build a Refinery
(7) @ 50 minerals build an SCV and have it rallied to your refinery
(7) When the refinery is finished building be sure you have 3 SCVs gathering from it
(7) @ 25 vespean build a Tech Lab on your Barracks
(8) When the Tech Lab is finished building start making your first Reaper, be sure the Barracks is rallied to your opponents base
(8) Pull one SCV off of your Refinery and bring it to support your other SCV when building your Bunker in your opponents base
In conclusion this is a good early game strategy that many lower tier players won't be able to counter.
Here's a mental checklist for you to keep track of when you attempt the reaper rush.
1. Do I have my early gas?
2. Am I reaching supply cap?
3. Do I see any Queens/Stalkers/Marines/Marauders?
4. Did I research Jet Pack?
5. If I failed do I have enough to start massing Marauders?
Well I hope this was a helpful tutorial.
For any request please send them in to fireport@gmail.com
This is Fireport with another article for thebronzeleagueplayer.blogspot.com Signing Off
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