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The zerg are completely biological, therefor they do not require repair. Instead, they slowly
heal themselves, one point at a time, until they are restored to thier full health. The zerg dont have high technological
units like the protoss and terrans, so sheer numbers are on your side to help you achieve the same results.
Ground Units
| The zergling |
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The Zergling
Theres not much to the zergling, its a simple creature so you get 2 per psi. But this comes for a
reason, because the zergling wont do much colaterol damage without about 50 of his friends. But when they're upgraded they
are a formidable force against an unexperienced player. Since they have such a fast production rate, they can be a quick fix
for a base with no defenses. Early in the game, large groups of zerglings can also wreak havoc on an unsuspecting enemy. The
zergling is particularly affective with their upgrades, making them choice counters for ranged units. Wether it be for attack
or defense, make sure to use alot of them to maximize their affectivness. Another practical use for the zergling is for scouting.
It is good for scouting for three reasons:
1)Its fast
2) Its cheap
3)It can burrow to mark land marks (i.e. new mineral deposists, enemy bases ect.) and monitor
enemy movement.
So instead of using an expensive unit to venture into the darkness, send an inexpensive zergling
to do the same job better.
| Mighty Hydralisk |
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The Hydralisk: Ahhh! The cream of the crop, a hydralisks is the backbone of your army. A player without
hydralisks is probably a player that doesnt know what he's doing. With Hydros you get twice the power and stats of a marine
at the same psi cost, making them the perfect unit to use in numbers. 10 full control groups of hydralisks (120) is a threat
to any force, land and air units alike. The hydralisk has a ranged attack and a decent running speed, so a mass of them can
be moved quickly to coordinate large scale attacks. A lone hydralisk is dead faster than it can get in a shot so use them
in groups of 12 to maximize thier affectiveness. They are equally affective in defense and attack situations, and they are
just as equal against air and ground units. The only significant threat to a hydralisk is splash damaging enemies such as
siege tanks, reavers, and lurkers because they can take out multiply hydralisks at once, countering the shier number affect.
Watch out for spell casters, a few well aimed psionic storms or erradiates can damage an attack force
considerably. The hydro works well coupled with other units as well. Mixed zerglings and hydralisks groups, although classic,
is still a potent attack force. They make great backup for guardians over open terrain, and coupled with a few friendly defilers,
the hydralisk mob can be nearly unstoppable.
| The Lurker |
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The Lurker: Because it's a close relative to the hydralisk, you can expect a truck load
of butt kicking power with a lurker. The lurker burrows underground and attacks any ground unit within range of it spikes.
The spikes do splash damage and, no matter how close the enemy is, travel out to the full extent of thier range; enabling
a handful of them to hold off masses on incoming enemy troops. In most cases, lurkers are invulnerable unless its spotted
by an enemy detector, so its best use is for base defense. Four or five lurkers and a dozen hydros at a choke point are a
spectacular team, holding back and even destroying whole armies of advancing troops. Its suseptable to air attackers though
so make sure to keep them protected from the skies. Lurkers dont make good offensive units because of their size and the time
it takes them to burrow. Because the lurker takes time to burrow it is usually killed before it can get a chance to attack.
Wasting lots of time and money on an unsuccesfull lurker attack can be costly.
*Lurker's attacks are considered melee attacks, therefore they are a good counter for dark swarm.
| The Drone |
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The Drone:
The drone is primarily used to gather resources and "build" the structures you need. The
drones actually mutate into and become the building that you create, thus you lose the drone. Be sure to replace any drone
you use from your mineral line, and, if resources and time allow, build seperate drones altogether at your Hatchery for the
building purposes and leave your mining drones to do what they do best. If, for some odd reason, you're down to just
your drones for defense, it may be wise to give up and start over.
| the Ultra |
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The Ultralisk is big, bulky and powerful, which makes it clumsy when it comes to covering terrain.
Plus, it can't attack air targets. But with these drawbacks aside, the ultralisk is a essential fighter in any balanced zerg
army. The ultralisks armor and speed upgrade boosts this beasts potential dramatically. The Best use for an ultralisk pack
is to lead your troops into battle with them. The Ultras can absorb alot of damage, sparing your smaller troops. They can
also infiltrate bases and take out annoying units like siege tanks, high templar and reavers while your other troops
mop up the weaker defenses. Ultralisks can become one of your most valuable assest in a tough zerg vs zerg battle. Coupled
with masses of zerglings and a few lurkers, ultralisks are a strong counter to a player that has gone "plague happy".
| The Defiler |
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The Defiler
Like all spell casting units, defilers have thier limitations, so you won't need to build them en'
masse, but it does have a couple handy tricks.
Dark swarm is an area spell that protects your troops under it from projectile fire, wether
its from the air or on the ground. The good thing is that your hydralisks can shoot out of it even though the enemy shots
are blocked. Dark swarm has no affect on buildings. Coupled with armies of hydralisks, dark swarm can be used to affectively
nuetralize any air attack and discourage any land invasion. If your enemy has nothing but powerful ranged defense, use this
spell to your advantage. Dark swarm cast over a net of photon cannons is cleared in seconds by a handful of zerglings. Be
advised; using dark swarm to protect your troops from a melee army is not a good idea.
Plague is a great technique for wearing down defenses like bunkers, turrets, cannons, armies and
sunken colonies easily. Any building or unit hit with a plague rapidly deteriorates to 1 hp. This is really devestating on
the Terrens because thier buildings explode on thier own after thier health reachs the red zone. Plague is great in battle
for gobbing capitol ships like expensive carriers and battlecruisers with a corrosive acid. Stacked flying units are
also juicy targets for a well aimed plague. Along with dark swarm, the plague spell can give you the upper hand in a
vicious head to head battle against another army.
Consume simply lets the defiler regain 50 points of energy by eating one of its fellow zerg,
but that is what makes the defiler such a deadly spell caster in comparison to the other units in the game. It
doesn't matter how big or small a unit is, so dont go using consume on an exspensive unit; keep a few zerglings around for
just this purpose.
Don't forget to use the defiler's burrowing ability whenever the opportunity presents itself! Keep
one burrowed behind your defenses and one hidden near the enemies front lines to help your attacks run more smoothly. It can
also help to burrow your defilers if the enemy is persistantly targeting them during attacks.
Air Units
The Mutalisk isnt for heavy assualt, because of its light armor and relatively weak attack, they
are much more effective as a support unit for other fighters. However, it is fast and can fire at land and air targets
with thier glove wurms that hit one target and bounce off and hit two more close units or buildings, but the damage decreases
dramatically after it moves to a new target. Unfortunately, it must get very close to the target; they have the shortest air
range in the game. The best unit to couple the mutalisks with is a set of devourers; making one of the most potent anti-air
forces in the game. The devourers acid spore effect cripples large fleets of enemy air units by cutting their firing rate
and armor level and the mutalisks finish them off with their faster rate of fire. Another common unit to couple the mutalisk
is the old fashioned zergling. Originaly dubbed the "Muta-ling" tactic, one can use large flocks of mutalisks and even bigger
hordes of zerglings early in the game to dominate both land and air based defenses.
| The Gaurdian |
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The Gaurdian is the zergs version of a heavy, long ranged bomber. This form is available to your
mutalisks when you have upgraded your spire to a greater spire. The guardian transformation comes at no extra psi cost, but
the unit becomes vulnerable for a short duration during the mutation. Once completed, however, the guardian is able to bomb
tough enemy defenses such as bunkers, missile turrets, spore colonies, and photon cannons from a safe distance. And, unlike
the other races' long ranged units, guardians are airborne and are thus capable of firing from any terrain. The guardians
base attack does 20 points of damage per shot, so use them in groups of 12 to enable them to take out heavy anti-air
units like goliaths and missile turrets in a single volley. Use Guardians to break enemy blockades and take siege of your
enemies base from any direction. Unfortunately, no firepower comes without a drawback. The guardian is completely defenseless
against air units and they don't move much faster than your overlords without the pnuematic carapace upgrade, making them
easy targets for a few well aimed psionic storms, irradiates or even plague. Loss of a fleet of guardians can prove to be
painfully expensive, so make an investment in some protection for them. A flock of mutalisks and even some friendly devourers
is essential to any heavy guardian fleet.
| The Devourer |
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Also available once you mutate your spire to a greater spire, is the devourer transformation. The
mutalisk carrys this ability, but sorry, its only available in the expansion pack: Brood War. The Devourer has medium armor
but it has a good stock off health points to chew through, and a devastating air only attack, so keep some ground support
standing by or be prepared to retreat if you want these expensive units to last a while. The air attack itself has many advantages.
The initial damage of a single shot is 25 points, not too shabby; but the after-affects of the attack are what cripples the
devourer's target. With each shot from the devourer, another acid spore clings to the ship (Up to nine spores maximum). With
each spore, the enemies' cool-down time is doubled and their armor level is reduced by one point. Best of all, the
spores splash onto nearby ships, enabling a small group of devourers to quickly cripple a larger force. With this in mind,
it would be a good idea to group devourers and gaurdians together to create a formidable air and ground combo. And last
but not least, the devourer has one of the zergs best air speeds so you can move across your base in a moments notice to eliminate
air attacks before they can do any serious damage. The devourers only real drawbacks are their slow firing rate and the fact
that they have no defense against a ground-based attack. Also, because a fleet of these units can be quite costly, it would
be wise to send some kind of escort with them to prevent their sudden disappearance.
| The Scourge |
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A Scourge is like an infested terran for the air. They are small and fast, plus you get two per egg,
making them ideal for a quick-fix if you're under a suprise attack from an enemy air fleet. Basically, the short-lived scourge
attack by ramming headlong into its target and exploding, causing 110 points of damage to it. The scourge, however cannot
attack land targets and doesn't have a very big stock of health points. Sometimes, if the fleet your attacking is large enough,
the scourge will be inaffective because they will be killed before they actually reach the targets and do any damage. Be sure,
when using scourge to attack in force, to use them in numbers.
| The overlord advantage |
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The Overlord is the zergs biggest advantage over the other species. The supply depos and pylons that
are needed for the other races are immobile and have little other uses, also they must be built one at time, unless u have
the resources and workers to build them. With enough hatcheries the zerg can rebuild their entire supply at once if it is
lost. The Overlord is the zergs only mobile detector unit so keep a few with your attacking troops to save u some grief
when you come under attack by lurkers, dark templars and wraiths. Overlords are your transports, and because they don't
cost you any control, you can make an unlimited number of air transports to accomodate even the largest armies. Unfortunately,
they are the slowest transport unit in the game, especially without thier speed upgrade, although they make great scouts
with thier increased vision. The abundance of extra overlords present in a zerg base makes cloacked units particularly
uneffective.
| The queen |
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The Queen is like all other spell casters, thier uses are limited as well. The queen doesnt have
any attack value but it does come with a couple of valuable tricks:
Spawnbroodling is a spell to use when you want an enemy dead instantly or if you just want to
annoy the enemy with a small pair of zergling like enemies at the
cost of thier own unit. The queen infects the unit with
the broodling and the unit dies and two broodlings pop out of the remains to do your bidding.
Note* Spawn Broodling doesnt work on Reavers
Tip submitted by Mage_Incarnate
Ensnare is good for a couple things. It reveals clocked units if they are hit by it and its slows
down the running (or flying) speed of the affected unit, slowing response time. It really hampers melee units, slowing them
down so theyll take more shots before they reach the enemy.
Infest Command Center is just what it says; infesting a command center and turning it under your
control. Even though its rare to infest a command center, you can build infested terrans there that make good kamikaze soldiers.
When you're finishing off a terran base keep a queen amoung your troops to take the building. Just move her close and she'll
enter it and infest it when it becomes damaged enough.
The paracite simply allows the queen to see everything the infected unit sees. it is very handy
for recon purposes. Also, a cloaking unit that is paracited wont be cloaking anymore. If you can manage to parasite
a patroling overlord, science vessel or an observer they also spot the enemy's cloaked units for you.
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