Starcraft 2 Terran – Introduction

The Terrans were the first race that the original Starcraft recommended you to start with, because they had the most familiar units and structures to play with. For example, it was a lot easier to understand how a marine “works” than a Protoss zealot. Following the same trend, Blizzard launched the Starcraft 2 pre-sell campaign with the Terrans as a center piece.

The Story

After the unsuccessful attempt to annihilate the Zerg infestation, Terran forces retreated back to their shells, licking their wounds. Arcturus Mengsk was left alone to rebuild the Terran Dominion, which he eventually does in Starcraft 2 from what we know so far.

Another important Terran character, Jim Raynor suffers a facelift (and attitude lift) in Starcraft 2. Embittered by the way he was played by Arcturus Mengsk, Raynor becomes a mercenary, handling a crew of tough marines, working for the highest bidder. It seems that at least two members of Raynor’s mercenary squad will be central to the Starcraft 2 Terran storyline: Tychus Findlay, ex murderer, ex marine and the guy you see hatching out of the lab in the official Starcraft 2 trailer and Matt Horner, Raynor’s second in command. Horner will act as Raynor’s personal advisor and protégé and from what was revealed, he will also be in charge with keeping Jimmy’s temper in the safe zone.

Units

A lot of new Terran units have been uncovered by Blizzard over the past few months and some of them are truly unique. The reaper for example, is a hardened marine that isn’t disciplined enough to be a marine. So what do the Terrans do with these guys? They hand him two huge laser pistols, wrap him up in a jetpack and let him loose on the battlefield. The thor is one of the most impressive units in Starcraft 2 so far. It seems that thors were brought on to replace the original Starcraft’s two legged mechs, with the small difference that thors are around twice the size. Heavily armored and packed with weapons, these babies will probably be walking fortresses that can produce havoc in any situation. Their only disadvantage is that they move and turn very slowly, allowing a fast unit, such as a zealot or a zergling to circle around it and destroy it without the thor being able to retaliate. In Starcraft, air superiority pretty much belonged to the Protoss and their Carriers. The Terrans decided it’s time to take back the skies and designed a new unit called the Predator. These units are strictly air-to-air, but they can pack a hard punch. Predators are also the subject of one of the coolest ideas in Starcraft 2 so far: they can turn into “Interceptors” virtually shooting down all incoming enemy fire. It’s not yet clear if Blizzard implemented this already or if they decided to drop it, but it would surely be an interesting addition to the Terrans.

Gameplay

In Starcraft and Broodwar, the Terrans were the most balanced race and there are no hints to the fact that this will change in Starcraft 2. From what we can tell, the Terrans take a bit of inspiration from both of the other factions: marines and reapers are cheap and can be mass produced like the zerglings, but they’re easily killed by focused fire. Just like the Protoss, Starcraft 2 Terrans have high armor units like the Thor or the Siege Tank that can take on a lot of smaller opponents and act as a shield for the others.