While watching the streams and VODs that have come out during the course of the beta, I have taken notice of the Reaper as a unit with a lot of potential. With Reapers I saw a fast unit capable of doing great damage and getting out of danger without being killed. I recently gained access to the beta and tested out this unit extensively, playing 1v1 in the gold league. I used the unit on every map to see what kind of potential this unit actually had. I was able to find out exactly what it excells at and what it fails at. Below is a list of my impressions on this unit.

Reapers are a Terran unit. They are a lightweight infantry unit with good damage but very low hp and armor for the cost. The reaper unit is unique because it is a very low tier level unit that can jump to higher or lower level terrain. This allows them to move very quickly across the map and enter bases in other ways then the front, which is usually a guarded choke point designed to be easily defended.

The very first thing I noticed about this unit is that the map that it is played on greatly affects its ability to perform. Unlike more standard units like marauders or marines that are useful on every map, reapers can be extremely effective on some maps and ineffective on others. On maps like Metalopolis, Reapers are very effective due to the position of the starter mineral fields and the natural expansion. On this map you can hop back and forth between the two sets of mineral fields if the player has chosen to expand quickly, avoiding or splitting his defenses. There are also several areas that you can jump up since large parts of the raised base section border on lowlands. Reapers are extremely destructive on this map with good micro. Other maps like Steppes of War or Scrapyard the ability to move up cliffs is largely ineffective, and Reapers can be killed before doing much damage. You may still be able to get some mileage out of them, but it will be mostly due to the opponent not watching or guarding his base properly.

Reapers can be a very effective unit, however they require a lot of micromanagement to be effective. When rushing with reapers or using them to assault gatherers or expansions, they require constant attention or they will die quickly. Most units in Starcraft 2 require some degree of micro, but Reapers are so fragile that they cannot be left in a hostile area for any amount of time.. Because they require constant attention, using them will take attention away from macro. When I first started using reapers to rush I noticed that after the rush I almost always had 1k plus minerals and not enough units in the field. The reapers require so much attention it can be hard to continue to manage your base and continue to build units. This is primarily an issue with rushing, as the start of the game requires the most attention at your base. It can be very hard to establish an effective rush and manage your base at the same time. As I used reapers more and more it became easier to manage both my base and the reapers but I still feel that in some cases paying attention to your base is more useful then dedicating the time to reapers to have an effective rush.

Reapers do several things very well and that will be addressed later in the article. The problem is that reapers only do those things well. When I spoke with SCM’s Lumi we both agreed that this unit has almost no potential as a conventional army unit at the moment. They are simply to fragile and cost to much to be used in head to head combat. This means that Reapers will probably be a low capacity unit with a very specific goal and purpose.

Rushing with reapers is almost always worth the money on the right map. The purpose ofthe rush is to harass the other player’s economy. Reapers are very efficient at killing workers and at damaging buildings. Five or six Reapers can decimate another players gatherers in a very short amount of time. With proper micro and kiting, a good rush can damage another player’s economy to the point where they cannot keep up with you in resources and unit production.

A quick reaper rush can catch people early expanding or teching, and decimate a base very quickly. In one match, a Zerg player was rushing to Mutalisks and had a very small army to defend his base. My Repears were able to destroy most of his base by the time he got 4 Mutalisks up. The Mutalisks killed my Reapers, but so much damage had been done that he was not able to recover, and I won the match. This has occurred many times: the rush kills enough workers or destroys a crucial building and my opponent is not able to recover before I can finish him off with marines and marauders. In the worst cases, the reapers die without doing much damage, however I feel that I usually get good value from them by scouting the base and killing some gatherers. Terran is very a defensive race so the loss of the reapers on a rush usually will not lead to the the opponent cracking through your defenses.

Reaper rushes versus Zerg can be very effective if you target the right unit. Most Zerg players keep their Queens by the hatchery. Six or seven reapers can kill a Queen very quickly. If you have an Orbital Command you can even get around them trying to burrow their Queen to keep it alive. Killing a Queen and several drones that early on can change the course of the game.

As discussed earlier reapers are not a unit that is designed to be a massed army unit. They still serve a purpose in the mid to late game. Reapers with the Nitro upgrade are by far the best scouts for Terran. They move very quickly and the ability to jump up or down cliffs means they can usually reach their destination like a flying unit, in a straight line. In the late game building 5 or 6 reapers to scout for expansions is a great strategy.

Hand in hand with their ability to scout is the Reapers’ great ability to destroy expansions quickly. Reapers are an excellent unit to keep opponents contained and prevent them from expanding. In the mid to late game creating about eight reapers is a very minimal investment. Those eight reapers can decimate an expansion in under a minute. I found myself winning rounds because I was able to keep track of my opponent expanding and destroying those expansions before they could be used. Even on the larger four player maps a group of Reapers, if well microed, can prevent most players from expanding simply because they move so fast, kill so fast, and in the situation where you may be contained to your base, Reapers can usually still get out unseen. In some of the games I played I allowed myself to be contained and let the opponent keep me contained by placing his army near the entrance or ramp from my base. I would use Reapers to prevent them from expanding since their army was usually at my base, and they could not respond quickly enough to prevent their expansions from being killed. If they did respond quick enough, Reapers are such a quick unit you simply outrun their army. In many games I would hit an expansion with Reapers, and when their army came to defend the expansion I would run and hit their main base with that same group of Reapers. They move so quickly through some maps I was able to destroy large amounts of an opponents base before their army could move back from the expansion to defend their main base. It is very hard for an opponent to keep up with the constant fight and flee that Reapers are capable of.

All in all I find that the Reaper unit is a very unique unit. With a combination of speed, damage and the ability to move up and down cliffs they fill a very unique role for the Terran army. At the moment they serve a limited role, and I do not see that role getting expanded with future patches or changes to the game. Reapers as a unit seem well balanced and fit in with the Terran style of play. They allow a player to be defensive but still maintain inexpensive units in the field to contain their opponent.