The Trusty 1 Rax FE

Recently I have been favouring a fast expand strategy, in every match-ups, so today I decided to try out a proper 1 Rax fast expand build instead of making it up myself and the results were varied to say the least. Over the course of the game I played many games and experienced both massive highs and frustrating lows. The lows came from repeated losses even when I had prepared for a strategy, such as cloaked banshees. The highs came from the wins where early pressure was deftly swatted aside and my investment in economy paid off, unfortunately these were few and far between. I still struggle with late game Zerg and Protoss so I normally try to finish those in the mid game; versus Terran I'm much happier to allow it get into the late game as I find TvT much more manageable. As a quirk of probability I mostly played against Zerg today so it felt like I was practicing this build specifically with Zerg in mind and in the end I was winning a high proportion of them; though I started off to an abysmal five loss streak.

Good positioning overcomes mass Roaches and Ultras

My highest point came in the last match I played, which was against a Gold Zerg, who fielded every unit available including Brood Lords and Ultralisks. I don't think that I have won a game where my opponent has gotten up to hive tech before, mostly because their macro is so far ahead of me, but  in this game I managed to keep up with what they were doing. I dealt with both Brood Lords and Ultralisks which I normally get obliterated by but I knew I was so far behind that I had to play my best to win and after 44 minutes of standing on a precipice I came out on top. Over the last day I have learned a number of things from my games. I learnt that you have to move forwards carefully slowly on creep because it is very easy for your army to get cut off from your Siege Tanks if they move forwards too greedily. I also learned that Vikings are essential in TvZ because surprise Brood Lords end the game quickly and you can always use them against Overlords or Mutalisks if there are no Brood Lords.

A well done split helps to keep most of my units alive.

Another high point came when I split up a medium sized force of Marines and Hellions to engage a force of Zerglings and Banelings. I remembered in the back of my head that if you patrol click your units towards the enemy not only will they automatically attack but they will also not condense back into a ball so quickly so I managed to keep a large chunk of my army alive to move forwards and win. Earlier in the day I had come to similar point in the game but just attack moved forwards and lost everything so I was pleased with myself when I managed an awesome split. Probably my lowest point was when I was playing a Gold Random who Baneling busted me even after I told myself to be prepared for early pressure because that is what Randoms do best and I only had about three marines because I had spent all my money on bunkers - which were of course empty. Also I fell for the retard magnet in one game where I send some bunkered marines from the front of my base to kill an Overlord only to get swarmed and destroyed.

Bunkers I have plenty; units not so much.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to stick with the 1 Rax build and make sure that I'm constantly producing units and workers and not being too scared to take a third to try and perfect this build. Any tips you guys have in how you fast expand would be great, leave them in the comments section below, I always read any comments people leave and your experience is appreciated.

Where I am now.

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