After reading up a bit on reapers, I think this could be a viable defensive tactic. It is best used against the zerg or the terran. Using it against the protoss is much more of a gamble. 1. You need Merc Havens. Quite a few if possible, near the center of your base. 2. Money to buy reapers 3. Some missile turrets + any other troops you want to defend (siege tanks, marines, medics) 4. Bunkers (optional). 5. A decent standing army. The mechanics are simple. Use your regular, standing army to relentlessly attack the enemy, have a minimal troop defense. Sooner or later, your going to get attacked, either by air units (which can be quickly dealt with by the turrets and your stand army's fliers, since they can travel very fast). But when a horde of zerglings/what ever else comes at you, stall them. Quickly go to the Merc Havens, and wait for the enemy to go for your production/miners. When they start attacking buildings, immediately train as many mercs as possible. Their weak armor should be offset by the fact they aren’t being attacked. By the time the surprised enemy notices, or by the time the attacked building is destroyed, the reapers should have done significant damage to the attackers. And thanks to the reapers jet pack, any siege unit should be quickly in range and destroyed. As an added bonus, the surviving reapers can be added to your standing army and used as an assault force. It may also be possible to use the mine in a offensive fashion here, but I don't know how it will turn out yet. Strengths: Takes less population Less Clutter Acts as an ambush Recyclable Weakness: Fails against tough units Impractical for all but the most aggressive players.
Cool idea but i did not understand why Reapers are built in a different building rather than the Barracks
It may have something to do with the mechanics on how the reapers a built. It was probably easier just to build them in a separate building...
I think merc haven will eventually be scraped seems like a pretty useless building other than just using it to get reapers
It is a good idea ambush wise, but probably would not stand up well against a significant attack force. As far as the Merc Haven goes, I rather like the idea. It adds another new mechanic to the Terran armada, even if the only thing it does is build Reapers. Although, I do think that the Reaper upgrades (i.e. the mine) should be researched in the same building to add consistency.
The main catch is that you won't need to wait when you need a Reaper, and not have them queued prior to their need, as they will be in merc haven ready and waiting for you to call, even if you don't ask them to. Kind of like the merc heroes from WC3 in the Tavern: you wouldn't be able to shop them until the time necessary for a whole hero be spawned, but as you bought them, they would come out instantaneously. This is both good and bad. Good because they won't take up your supply, as you don't have to make them in advance to have them available when you need. And Bad because you have to manually go to Merc Haven when they're ready to shop them, and that's not practical. Marines you can leave being made and worry about other stuff, but reapers you will have to come back whenever they're available. I think it's better this way than the other actually, if you ask me. This will enable you to plan counterattacks with them, as right after being hit by a failed assault, you can shop the Reapers in your Merc Haven and go kill their workers to slow down their replacement of units. Probably will help build defenses on your base, as the harassment will create a larger gap between the enemy's attacks, leaving time for adaptation.
I'd switch this one around and use the merc haven's unique ability to instanly mke reapers to keep a constsnattack on the backside of expansions.
Thats easy: you just gotta make a lot of Merc Havens, and you'll have more Reapers promptly available upon need. @ main topic post: Reapers would fit better as a counterattack unit, not as defense. Since they're good at raiding workers, exploding weaker buildings, and are quite expandable, I would use them this way instead.
There is no reason to stop using reavers when using this strategy. If you have a standing army building/waiting in your base, they would make a fine defense. The merc haven gets a reaver every thirty seconds, so you can take some reavers and go raid or whatever, and build your army in the mean time. But don't underestimate the reaver in a defensive capacity. Their quick movement means they can cover an entire base with ease, and also run to a new bunker if the bunker they occupy explodes. Plus the mines they throw could quickly wreck havoc on a dense assult (like those zergling swarms). Their main flaw stems from, as 10-Neon pointed out, their lack of staying power. Though this could be increased through the use of bunkers and medics (do medics in bunkers heal?), alone they don't last long. Waiting for the enemy to attack a building will increase their chance of survival, as will using the building as cover (if you rock at micro). However, this lack of stamina is slightly offset by the amount of firepower you can put in a field by having a smaller garrison, decreasing your need to defend a base in the first place. Second, the chance of special abilities (like storm) hurting you are decreased, because the ability would either be used to kill the few units at the base entrance, or not used because it would have the danger of hitting one's own units. The final factor to consider is the planetary fortress. A player who thought he could go straight for it with minimum casualties probably won't count on an ambush from the terrans, forcing the tough decision of allowing his units to die at the hands of reapers to kill the planetary fortress, or target the reapers, getting killed by the PF instead. To be honest, most terran players like to turtle. They don't need to use this idea; a strategic defense will certainly be more flexible than a planned idea. But, players like me would much rather be using those four siege tanks to hammer at a base, not defend one. And so this idea would come in handy. Big units are the main issue. If you’re not aggressive enough (or you just goof, we all do) and end up fighting some colossi...well... GG Sorry for the essay...
I still think the reapers should be used as counterattack. Once the enemy has wasted part of it's strengths on attacking you, he's more vulnerable, and Reapers can come through their shortcut (over cliffs and obstacles) to raid his economy/expansions/destroy his nexus or CC if possible with mines. That's what they're best at. Everything about them would work perfectly this way. I'm not saying they couldn't be used for defense, just that I think other units would work better for that. Reapers can remain on hold for immediate summoning inside the Merc Haven, so why not use that? Leave them inside, waiting the shortage in supply usage that will be created once the enemy attacks. That's the punch line for them to come in.
