It's one of the defining things of StarCraft -- to be minding your own
business and beginning your colony of Zerg, Protoss, or Terran and just
as your first few buildings finish, in comes a horde of little
gremlins.  These gremlins herald the end of the game, and you
leave.  Voila, defeat in 2 and a half minutes!  But
fear not, your not-so muscle-bound workers can fight back against the
little terrors that rampage through your base!  There are a
few things you can do to minimize the damage, drive off the attack, and
capitalize afterwards when being rushed!  First of all...



Don't Panic.

DON'T PANIC.

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style="font-style: italic;">Damn it.  Keep your
cool!





I'm saying this twice because people immediately make bad decisions the
moment they get into a frenzy, myself included.  Keep a cool
head at all times when you're being rushed.  Do not stop
production, and do not double click accidentally!  Selecting
all of your workers can make your life hell to position, and you'll
lose all income if you go for an attack with the whole mass at once.



Stay clustered.



There is only so many of the enemy.  At most, you'll see 6-8
Zerglings or 1-2 zealots.  You want to collapse your miners
into a more congested area, by selecting half of them on a side and
telling them to mine with the other half, and get your first combat
unit or two right next to them and keep it alive!  This comes
into play when using the next tactic.



Use the AI against them.



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style="font-style: italic;">I move one half of the scvs to
the other half's mining area.....

Units in StarCraft II, if not told to otherwise, always prioritize
combat units before non-combat units.  So if you have workers
harmlessly mining, they'll be safe from harm as long as there are
combat units around and the enemy doesn't issue an attack command on
the worker itself.  They will, though!  Note that if
you issue an attack order with a worker, it is instantly considered a
combat unit and will be targeted by the auto-attacking AI.



Get your first combat
unit started!




When your Barracks or Gateway finishes, start a unit immediately and
set the rally point into your base!  The sooner it comes out,
the sooner this will all be over.  Do not stop making workers
during this, they're combat units too in this dire time!



Put it all together


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style="font-style: italic;">...issue an attack order with
the other half, and tell the moving group to move back to the minerals
behind the Zerg before attack.  The SCVs walk right by the
Zerglings and surround them.

So a pack of Zerglings run at your workers.  You grab half and
send them to mine with the others.  The Zerglings run into the
mineral field and into a cluster of 10-13 Probes.  You tell 2
or 3 to attack, then grab half and send them past the Zerglings to mine
the minerals behind them.  Then, you select them all and issue
an attack command.  If the Zerg player doesn't micro
correctly, he will get surrounded and have a very bad attacking angle
to focus on any single probe, and the probes alone will drive it off.



If he backs off for a second?  Keep repeating the above until
your first Zealot comes out!  Keep cranking out workers and
warriors until you are safe... for now.



The enemy is weak!



They sacrificed economy to get this attack in your face before you are
ready.  Now that the Zerglings are dealt with, you need to
take the fight to them.  The moment the coast is clear, scout
for them if you haven't already, and if they seem weak, go for the
throat!  Skip teching and get multiple Gateways, Barracks, or
a Queen/2nd Hatchery and send waves of low-tier units at them to
exploit their low tech, low economy rush.  Terran players can
immediately go for a double gas refinery into Banshees and catch the
Zerg before they can have anything to fight air besides a
Queen.  Once the initial threat is over, the game is
yours.  If your counterattack isn't working, don't take
losses, get out!  Don't throw the game away in a counter-rush
of your own.  Your opponent isn't about to just quit the
moment his rush fails.



Then again, I've seen it happen!


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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