[iEchoic]

A lot of people have had problems beating leader rushes which is causing a lot of frustration, and because of the lack of skill it takes to leader rush and inability of most people on here to counter it, 80% of the front page does a variant of a leader rush. I'm going to give some general tips to soothe the whining and hopefully make some of the covenant rushers to switch so we have some more variety on the ladder. This is a UNSC guide. All strategies are dedicated to stopping the rush using less resources than the opponent must, allowing you to get to tech 2 and create superior units.

These are all for singles. Note that all strategies should be supplmented by towers. Not only because they are very cost-effective, but because they are a distraction that buys you time.

Starting strategies
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1) Prophet + honor guard rush
- The prophet and honor guards have one major weakness - neither of them work very well against moving targets. One easy way to destroy prophets and honor guards is to make marines and kite (for those of you who don't know what kiting is, it's where you manage your units to constantly keep moving away/in circles around the enemy so they can't hit you due to your superior range). Also, the prophet has a hard time beaming things that are moving. Your best bet is to mass marines and flamers and constantly run away from their army, running when they're chasing you and advancing when they're running from you using the marines' grenades on the prophet whenever available. Also, use your kiting units to bait the enemy into your towers if they have moved to the other side of the base to avoid them.

2) Chieftain + brute/peon rush
- Flamers are your best bet here. You cannot kite these units for the most part. Flamers will tear apart both brutes and peons and the chieftain. Probably the easiest rush to beat if you're prepared.

3) Arbiter solo or arbiter + peon rush
- This one is a bit different. The arbiter will completely demolish any units you create early in the game without a second thought, and if the enemy has researched his first tech upgrade, they will heal the arbiter too. Disruption bomb is a game-changer against the arbiter, because the arbiter without Rage is a very useless unit. You can either pump flamers and keep 450 in the bank to throw down your disruption bomb, or you can tower up (the arbiter is weak against buildings) and turtle to two reactors and pump hawks/tanks. Do not send infantry to fight the arbiter without disruption bomb.

4) Leader + delayed vehicles
- Your answer to this should always be to create spartans to jack the vehicles.

After your first reactor is up
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The opponent, assuming he's a good player, will realize that you're pumping anti-infantry flamers and most likely start building wraiths or banshees. This is where spartans come in. Spartans are a great counter to early-game vehicles, especially when you have 2-3 of them.

After your second reactor is up
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This is when you go on the offensive. Scorpions + flamers will destroy any tech-one covenant army. Assuming you used your resources more efficiently than your opponent, you will beat him to tech two and should have a clear advantage at this point.

Notes on towering
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An early tower should be incorporated into your build order, and a second one should be incorporated that should be put up no later than 2-3 minutes into the game. Towers are the most cost-effective killing machines in the game (assuming you have to fight at your base, obviously). While you're playing defense and the enemy is attacking your base, you should be throwing down towers on corners your enemy is out of line of sight from. If the enemy sees it and starts rushing the building tower before it is complete, quickly cancel it and gain back most of your resources. This will waste your opponent's time and stall to allow you to continue teching and creating units.

Hope this helps.

[insane_4213]

Good stuff, maybe some people will stop whining now, only thing though this does not have is it does not help a cov player at preventing rushes, +rep BTW.

[SitkaWolf02]

Preventing rushes is a good thing to know, since most of the time people lose by a rush. +Rep

[EazyGoan20]

what are the towers you keep talking about. Turrets?

[iEchoic]

Originally Posted by EazyGoan20

what are the towers you keep talking about. Turrets?

Yeah, I played a lot of Age of Empires so I just think of them as towers.

[xDarkbyte]

another tip is to lock your base while your training units. 1 flamer vs the leader every time it trains is not very useful compared to 10 at once

[Jaysok]

Irvine, perhaps the whiners will now shut up? :)

Some good stuff here. I already figured out the majority of this for myself, but this is a good read to those who are struggling :D
+rep

[pporter14]

ye nice one this helps lodes maby i can fight back lol

[Chaosl337]

Thanks! I knew how to beat most of the rushes but the brute one, I never made flamers often and found them mostly useless, will try out later.

[WVUMaNiAcS]

what order of buildings is best? Supply first, rax, supply, reactor? or just ignore the reactor for a couple minutes?

also collecting crates is a good boost on eco

[Benabus]

I'm not trying to be a ****** but ur method is 500x times harder than what I use to stop ANY leader rush... and it is far more cost effective and offers a great counter attack. No infantry, no defenses, only Anders.

[greatwhite07]

Originally Posted by Benabus

I'm not trying to be a ****** but ur method is 500x times harder than what I use to stop ANY leader rush... and it is far more cost effective and offers a great counter attack. No infantry, no defenses, only Anders.

if ure on about 4x supply double reactor airfield it sucks.

if ure on about 3x supply dbl reactor, airfield, it sucks too.

prophet + grunts both upggraded > whatever u do bcus wuthout defenses ive never seen unsc beat prophet rush and im top 20 on 1vs1 and 2v2...

[greatwhite07]

and @ orignal post.

youre forgetting prophet can kill towers in 2-3 seconds of beam, yeh it taskes about 300 res and a tower takes 250, but u still have a prophet attacking at the end of that.

jackals eat flamethrowers so bad its unreal, and thts if u dnt micro them.

ure strats might work against noobs but at the top they wudnt.

not to say prophet rush cant be beaten, cus it can :)

[xDarkbyte]

Originally Posted by greatwhite07

and @ orignal post.

youre forgetting prophet can kill towers in 2-3 seconds of beam, yeh it taskes about 300 res and a tower takes 250, but u still have a prophet attacking at the end of that.

jackals eat flamethrowers so bad its unreal, and thts if u dnt micro them.

ure strats might work against noobs but at the top they wudnt.

not to say prophet rush cant be beaten, cus it can :)

the arbiter rapes the prophet rush. 1 attack with rage does maybe 1/5 of his health

[Konkins]

I hate to rush but most teams you have to. I would rather an all out war that takes 45 min to finish but eh, I like to win too.