I'm a high-diamond zerg on the SEA server and I'm looking to punish the protoss forge-FE with the 3 spine crawler rush I've seen first from NesTea in the GSL and then from IdrA in the EG Masters Cup. I tried it a couple of times on the ladder and failed miserably, so I thought I should actually study the build first so I might have a better chance next time!
The basic idea, for those who haven't seen it: fast lair, dump creep out the front of the protoss expansion and build three spine crawlers there. Punch a hole through and run your zerglings in for the win IdrA style, or do some damage and run home with an economic lead like NesTea. The VODs will explain it better than words.
Based on the VODs (I don't have replays to analyse so the numbers are not exact), here's IdrA's build order:
9 overlord 15 hatch 16 extractor 16 spawning pool 17 overlord 17 queen and 2 pairs of zerglings 22 lair with first 100 gas 24 overlord, final drone produced, only zerglings after this 30 metabolic boost with next 100 gas, drones off gas
IdrA stops at 22 drones. Attack starts at around 36 supply shortly after the Lair pops.
And here's NesTea's (roughly) build order:
10 overlord, extractor trick 13 extractor 13 spawning pool 15 overlord, queen and 2 pairs of zerglings 19 metabolic boost, 2 drones off gas 19 hatch, 3 drones back on gas 22 lair, all drones off gas 26 overlord 35 overlord
NesTea chooses to continue to build drones (he makes a few pairs of zerglings, it was hard to keep track) and expand again behind his attack, transitioning into hydralisks to counter anypro's voidrays.
It seems like a great build, based on the fact that you can transition to it from a gas-pool or a hatchery first or probably even a gas-less expand, after you scout your opponent. The obvious counter to this is the stargate, but you can see from NesTea's game that it's not a hard-counter, the protoss is going to have to think quick and know what to do. Makes a nice change from the standard responses to the forge-FE IMHO.
Would love to hear other's comments and thoughts, particularly a protoss who knows how to counter this. Cheers.
Hi, could you explain, why you failed miserably? Because in my eyes, this rush can only work in certain situations and I think it is very rare, to see a player going nexus first or forge first on a a ladder map that is not tel'darim or shakuras (where this rush obviously doesn't work)
It only works on like 2-3 maps. And thats if the toss puts valuable buildings upfront. It is a very risky build that only worked because nobody had seen it before imo.
On June 16 2011 16:30 zezamer wrote: Stargate @ 25 supply will beat this
How many toss's go 25 food stargate? Not many
I've tried it but the spines weren't in range of the nexus because he walled off further infront. I think it worked so well for Nestea because he knew his opponent would FFE and wall off in a specific way which made the spine crawler rush perfect.
On June 16 2011 15:43 Big J wrote: Hi, could you explain, why you failed miserably? Because in my eyes, this rush can only work in certain situations and I think it is very rare, to see a player going nexus first or forge first on a a ladder map that is not tel'darim or shakuras (where this rush obviously doesn't work)
On my failed attempts I basically waited too long to get lair and didn't get my overlords into position quickly enough. The protoss had enough units to walk out and start killing my spines, I didn't reinforce with enough zerglings. It's important that as soon as you decide to make this play you start sending your overlords to your opponents front and you get your lair as soon as possible and only go to about 22 drones, as per IdrA's build.
I think it could work on Shakuras Plateau, you have overlords there that give you vision of the high ground (I think). It would probably be difficult on Tal'Darim Altar just because it would take so long to get the overlords into position.
I got another chance to execute this on the ladder against a diamond protoss on Metalopolis, close-by-air and it worked extremely well. I can upload the replay if anyone's interested. I don't think it's that rare to see a protoss forge-FE, I see them regularly on all sorts of maps.
On June 16 2011 15:59 Halcyondaze wrote: It only works on like 2-3 maps. And thats if the toss puts valuable buildings upfront. It is a very risky build that only worked because nobody had seen it before imo.
Risky, maybe. What's the correct response? I've seen it work on three maps already, granted only one from the ladder pool. This attack starts before 7 minutes, I would argue at that point all protoss buildings are valuable.
On June 16 2011 16:36 DarKcS wrote: Saw Sen praccing this on stream with someone. Stalker + 5 probes stops it easy.
How would idra's version lose to that? He had lings guarding them, plus it was a full block, so what, they spawned a stalker out and blinked the probes over the building wall? Or is this a different map, not full wall, not the same build were talking about...
This seems awesome! I'll def try to practice this with a friend before trying it out in the ladder tho.
And TL trollers stop trolling, if Nestea and IdrA did it then there's obviously some value to it. Jeez, the post has been up for only a few hours and half the posts are wanna be pros who think they can get a thread closed because they're obviously better than IdrA and Nestea.
Saw Sen praccing this on stream with someone. Stalker + 5 probes stops it easy.
Stargate @ 25 supply will beat this
It only works on like 2-3 maps. And thats if the toss puts valuable buildings upfront. It is a very risky build that only worked because nobody had seen it before imo.
Just relax and take the build for what it's worth: a rush that most people have not seen before. It makes your opponent have to make quick decisions and if they decide wrong they you gain an advantage.
@ any Tosses, what sort of unit compositions will you guys have when it hits? Obviously it'll vary so maybe getting a few Toss's feedback.
And also, is there any viability in backing this up with some roaches? It'll delay it a little but could make it a bit stronger IMO (not that i don't have love for my zerglings, I do <3 )
This rush will work to an extent on tal'darim and shakuras, since you can take out the forge/gateway/cybercore on the outside of their wall.
The way I've been doing this rush is actually cancelling ling speed and getting lair once the intial scouting probe is out. You will be sending out 3 drones I think around the 26 supply mark if I recall correctly.
hehe spinecrawler pushes are great, reminds me of the great proxy-hatch + spinecrawler cheese i used to do when i was in the mood for a laugh (which are way more all-in than this but also work vs a standard gateway expo). For a toss to stop this, they need a voidray out in time to snipe the spines. Re-walling helps as well, as do sentries obviously, even though neither are enough to really break the contain.
There are some issues i see with using a mainly roach force with this: they require a higher econ to get a sufficient amount of, possibly postponing the push (don't know, haven't tested the ovie - crawler thing yet). Also, with their lesser speed, they're easier to get isolated with forcefields and they have to attack the natural, while you could easily split up some lings to hit the main as well.
Still, all in all a fun build to have in your repetoire
This works well in close positions against toss I find cuz your screwed anyway so go all aggro on them. Go 3-4 queens and just dump the creep out then put up 5-6 Spines with Hydra roach backup and just hit the wall then back into spines the poke and back it forces the toss into basically 1 or at best 1 and a half base and you can hit him hard. This really only works on Metal and kinda on shatter but shattered is so funneled at choke you can't poke much so it isn't that great. This shouldn't be a cruch play though on any map.
I'm neither toss nor zerg, so take this with a grain of salt. Wouldn't hasuobs have been fine if he had placed his new buildings around the south side(and blocked from ramp to nexus)?
In any case, I like nestea's version a lot more, since it's less allin and seems to be more about just getting in your opponents face rather than to win.
im gonna try this on shakuras. since every protoss goes forge/gw full wall off. the ovies will give vision of the high ground. kill lot of buildings so they got to waste money on rewall. then reinforce with roaches to keep working on him.
As a protoss who FFEs every single game, I've lost to this build quite a few times. Obviously you only do this build when a protoss puts buildings in front to wall off cannons. People saying to get an early stargate - that's a horrible idea, because you should be able to scout the super fast lair from the Zerg, which normally means fast 2 base hydra or a nydus - neither of which you want to get a stargate against. Stalker + 5 probes does not work either like someone before me said, because lings will kill you.
The best defense seems to be rewalling behind your cannons, since if you don't you're highly susceptible to lings just killing you. In the Hasuobs vs Idra game, Hasuobs could have defended much better but he missed a forcefield which allowed lings to kill his sentries for free pretty much.
I'm not sure yet if this is a build that relies on the protoss overreacting or reacting poorly, or if it's a good build regardless against FFE. I will need to play around some more against this.
And those mentioning hydra + spine crawler, that's completely different because it hits much later. Also IMO hydra+spine crawler is redundant and just "looks cool." Both hydras and spine crawlers do pretty much the same thing in terms of being long ranged units that can easily break down a protoss wall. I feel that hydra/ling by itself with creep support is good enough. But that's a different topic.
As a new addition to the swarm, I really like this build. Since my friend plays toss and forge FE's constantly I'd love to try the spine contain on different maps. On MLG testbug this would work well with a hydra den. You'd easily roll the toss over and claim the win in minutes. That is Ofc if you can get your overlords in position, but then again if he's forge fe-ing then he revokes his own map control.
Great build, I'll play the shit out of it this weekend.
A couple zealots from the protoss player will be able to put the zerglings at bay a little bit (with some probe support/micro). When you scout the creep, start chronoing out of ur gateway as well so u could get additional units (i would aim for 3z/1s).
Just put some cannons up front at the same time. Just need to be careful and actually make zealots out of your gateway (stopping probe production more than you usually would).
You could rewall, but I found i was able to stop it with just this.
On June 17 2011 00:35 Antimage wrote: A couple zealots from the protoss player will be able to put the zerglings at bay a little bit (with some probe support/micro). When you scout the creep, start chronoing out of ur gateway as well so u could get additional units (i would aim for 3z/1s).
Just put some cannons up front at the same time. Just need to be careful and actually make zealots out of your gateway (stopping probe production more than you usually would).
You could rewall, but I found i was able to stop it with just this.
You don't have time to chrono out 4 units, at most you can get out 1-2 additional units before your gateway dies. How many additional cannons do you get? And where do you put them?
Firezerg kills me with this all the time -_- The issue is that the first time he did it to me I overreacted and made too many cannons and slowed down my tech (as well as having to rebuild tech). In the meantime he was just droning up and taking a 3rd, so even though it didn't kill me I was pretty behind in the mid game. The 2nd time he did it to me I only made 1 additional cannon while trying to chrono a few units out of my gateway, and then he overran me with speedlings + the 3 spine crawlers which pushed forward as soon as my wall died. I held it off but lost many probes and again he was ahead.