The Protoss Zealot Rush - An Unstoppable Stream of Destruction

The Protoss Zealot Rush is an excellent although slightly nerfed game finisher. As someone who played Terran in Beta Zealots were my most hated enemy units. They're big, strong and difficult to take down with the Terran equivalent - Marines.

So it gives me great pleasure to carry out the Protoss Zealot Rush on unsuspecting Terrans and Zergs,

The tactics, as with any rush strategy are simply. Spam your opponent with Zealots and crush their resistance.

Start off as with any game by building some worker units, probes in this case. Once you have 8/11 build a pylon, preferably at your ramp or even somewhere close to your enemy's base.

Stick a couple more probes on to build and send one out to scout. There's nothing worse than sending your rushed units to attack and there's nothing there to smash. You waste a LOT of time doing that.

While scouting start building your Gateways.

Once they're built, you guessed it, start pumping out Zealots. You can start your attack with 3 of them, 4 is preferable, but you can judge by what your probe has spotted.

Now something super important in any game of Starcraft 2 is that you don't want to be queueing up units unnecessarily. If you can queue more than 1, you have enough resources for another Gateway. You probably won't need more Gateways, but the higher you get in the leagues the more efficient your opponents will become so make it a habit now.

You'll also need to create at least 1 more pylon.

The wonderful thing about Zealots is that they are very tough. Marines don't stand a chance, but there is a downside to Zealots. They are a melee unit. If those cursed marines can attack from a distance it can become a real pain. This is why attacking with 3 if your enemy is getting their barracks up and running is essential. You don't want to be facing a pack of marines.

Apart from ensuring that you won't face much firepower, when you get to your enemy's base wipe out all of the worker units. Ignore the buildings for now.

In my experience you'll gain victory just from smashing all worker units to bits as it completely demoralizes your opponent and he or she will quit in anger. Possible berating you for using a rush tactic, which is funny. The amount of times I've been labelled a noob for playing a strategy like this is huge, but who's the noob who's surrendering huh?

So, there it is, The Protoss Zealot Rush, an extremely easy tactic and one that will stand you in good stead at the beginning of your Starcraft 2 career, and even later on just for fun.