Non-Covert Nuking Is there anything more satisfying to a Terran than watching a nuke atomize large groups of buildings and units? Alas, nuking seems to all but disappeared in most competitive games. The main reason is that people have gotten pretty good at finding nukes. The other is that time, cost, and micro work that is usually done in nuking is not worth what you kill. Non-covert nuking changes that.
Non-covert nuking is good because of two basic principals: 1) Once a Terran has control of an area, it is usually very costly both in time and units to remove them. 2) A TACTICAL nuke is supposed to supplement your forces, not be the dominate weapon.
This can usually be done the best against a Terran or Protoss.
Okay, basically non-covert nuking uses the Terran's others forces to keep the ghost alive instead of relying on cloaking.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty start screen
Day 241
A Terran marine depicted in StarCraft II ' s conce...When the ghost is escorted by infantry, mechanical units, and especially siege tanks it can be hard for an enemy to get in and kill them. (exception is broodling). In addition, the use of a d.matrix (remember cloaking doesn't matter here) can allow the ghost to last long enough to get the nuke down. The goal of non-covert nuking is either to 1) Get the nuke down, duh!! 2) Have your opponent use up a lot of forces in killing the ghost, thereby covering the cost of your nuke.
There are two situations that are perfect for non-covert nuking (and one that's kind of crazy:) 1) The Tank Push/Tank Siege. This is the ideal situation for non-covert nuking. With the nukes range, your ghosts can stay right near the tanks. Put a d.matrix on him and give him a medic and your opponent is going to have a HARD time killing that ghost (exception again is broodling, it can go even through a dmatrix). Your opponent can either go after the ghost, getting hammered by your forces, or go after your forces and get hammered by the nuke. Protoss can use storm and Terran can use irradiate, but both can be countered with the dmatrix. I especially like this move against the Protoss. Most toss players I know like to control the pace of the game versus a Terran. In a tank push, unless they are way ahead of you, they will not waste all their forces trying to take you. They use tactics like baiting your tanks and then storming; careful reaver drops, or dropping forces behind the tanks and attacking. All of these tactics require a certain timing, and your nuke totally screws that up. They have to deal with you right now, and often times will screw it up in their haste.
Your targets for the nuke are any key buildings like cannons, bunkers, or the cc if your in range. If your sieging, you want to comsat and nuke the top of the cliff. Could your tanks do all of this without the nuke? Yes, but the nuke can do it much quicker and can speed up a Terran attack, a big advantage since Terrans already attack and move very slowly.
2) Drops. This is a harder tactic to pull off, but it can have big rewards as you can often hit key buildings inside the base. Your main goal is to set up tanks and infantry to protect the ghost, giving it a dmatrix and a medic to sustain its life. If you want, you can try to set up some bunkers first and then fire the nuke. However you do this, I promise that once his forces start coming this can be one of the most exciting (and nervous) moments in the game.
3) Obtaining map control. This is just plain cool if you pull this off. Basically, your in a war for mapcontrol. Your forces are battling his in the middle of the map usually, so you decide to fire a nuke right in the middle. This requires GREAT timing on your part. His forces will probably pull out almost immediately, you should unsiege your tanks and get ready to move also. Your goal is to move just outside of nuke range. Once the nuke hits, you move your tanks right back into the blast and siege up. You WILL lose units in this unless you're a god but if you do it right you can get most of your tanks sieged and effectively take that section of the map. This isn't one of those tactics to win a tournament or anything, but if you happen to have your girlfriend near your computer, GO FOR IT!!! The last one was mainly for fun but the top two make nuking with it is supposed to be, just another Terran weapon (although a very powerful and very expensive one). Nuking should not require much of your time and money, you should consider it simply a strong siege tank, one that you set up and allow to do damage while you move on to other things. If it fails, you try again (do you stop building tanks just because you lose a few?) Once you get accustomed to incorporating nukes into your regular army you can increase your power greatly without a great deal of added cost. Not only that, but it allows a small group a great deal of destructive power, something the Protoss have had over the Terrans for a long time.
A Protoss Zealot, as displayed in StarCraft II.
A Protoss warrior and a Zerg creature, as they app...
Terran Confederacy