Brood War: Zerg Unit Guide (2 parts)
Written by DarkShade

Note: This guide doesn't not give specific strategies, but rather hints for effective unit usage.
Part 1: Intro, overlords, drones, zerglings, hydras, mutas, guardians, scourges, and queens.
Part 2: Ultras, defilers, lurkers, devourers, and conclusion.

PART 1

Introduction
The Zerg is the weakest of the races, but they're advantage over the others is the sheer numbers they can produce in a short period of time.  You may of heard the saying, quality over quantity, well Zerg is an example of the opposite.  They don't have much quality in their units, but they sure have a whole lot of quantity.  They're units may be cheap, but you can build an unstoppable horde of units in no time! They're inexpensive and quick build armies are the major advantage over protoss and terras.   In conclusion, a Zerg's key to success should be a massive armies and quick expansions.

Overlords
These are the food for the zerg. They're slow and poorly armored. The advantage of these farms over the pylon or the supply depot, is that you can move them around.  Use them in for early scouting, which is crucial for the zerg.  They are detectors that allows you to spot cloaked or burried units.  Supply depots and Pylons doesn't have these abilities.  You don't need any upgrades or pay extra for the detection ability either. Anyway, a few overlords should accompany any large force to protect against cloaked units.  You can also upgrade the overlord for unit  transport, increased site range (Also increases the cloak detection rage), and faster movement.  These upgrades are crucial for island maps and cloaked units! However, the faster movement is far better than increased site range for cloak detection.  The increased range should be upgraded only if you use them for recon and intelligence. Never put overlords close to each other, usually when a good opponent sees them in a group they will kill them all and that can greatly affect you because they are the food for the zerg.  Just spread them out across the map to avoid this problem.

Dones
A nice advantage over the other worker units is that they can burrow in case of an emergency.  When you base are being attacked, you should burrow them to avoid losing workers. Drones are used in 2 ways, gathering minerals and gas, and they are your source to build buildings. If you have too much drones, use the left over to build sunken colonies or spore colonies. It's okay to make a lot of them because you need them to build buildings! But don't keep building worker units and not build any offense/defense units!

Zerglings
Also known as lings, these little puppies are very low cost.  For a price of 1 you get 2 of these melee fighters. They are efficient support fighters in any situation.   When produced in masses they can be a formidable force, it only takes a matter of seconds to build a big army of them.  Since they are the cheapest units in the game, they are commonly used for rushing. However, they are susceptible to a few zealots or marines in a bunker, so be alert! Later in the game you can upgrade them and make them stronger, which makes them really beneficial when resources are low. A great use of zerglings is to burrow them on expansion spots, so you can see if your opponent(s) is expanding on that spot. Or burrow them at hot spots or entrance points, just along a known enemy path. This is useful because it  gives you recon on what the enemy is planning to do. If you have a lots of zerglings burried in these enemy paths, you can make a surprise attack on them.  The works well aginst seige tanks and reavers.  For the tanks and reavers are ranged attacker, and having the zerglings close to them negates their attacks.  Other wise the zerglings will be dead before they can get close to their targets.

Hyralisks
A good zerg player would definitely put these units to sucessful use. What's good about them is that they are rather cheap for a ranged attacker. Large groups of these are especilaly effective, they can defend from air too. With their relatively cheap cost, 75minereals 50gas, makes them one of the zerg's most valuable units in the game! They are great all round units with strong ground and air attacks, and should be used for support in any offensive attack. Large groups of hydras can decimate oncoming units with ease and witout much damage. And the same for zerglings, making them burrow under choke points, or enemy paths, is a good surprise attack! Remember to upgrade the hydras because they are the backbone of your force! Use them with zerglings for either defense or offense. Put zerglings in front of hydras so that the lings draws enemy fire, making the hydras shoot their spit without being touched. A huge force can smother almost any defense, however be careful for tanks, reavers, and spells like psi storm or plague!

Mutalisks
They are excellent aerial fighters. They are a huge asset to the zerg's aerial arsenal because they have the capability to morph into 2 different types of fighters, Guardians or Devourers. Without mutas, you can't get to the other 2 units, the other 2 will be discussed later. Anyways, the ability to produce mutalisks quickly than the other races is an advantage for zerg. You can estabilish air superiority early in the game and you can even use them as a rush! But now, with the brood war expansion, you must be cautious when rushing the 2 other races because they have a counter for the mutas, corsair and valkrie. Both of which is pretty effective against mutas, so be wary! In the old days, you can keep mass produce mutas, now it's not as wise to always produce a lot of them. You should instead morph some of the mutas into devourers for better air support against the corsairs and valks. Mutas also do splash damage with is useful to wipe out whole teams of wroker units in seconds. When attacking an enemy's base, try to accompany them with a mix of hyrdras and zerglings, cause mutas are vulnerable to dragoons, psi storms, stimmed-marines, or hydras. Because of the mutas great speed they are commonly used for hit and run situations, this is a way to test an enemy's line of defense.

Guardians
Morphed from Mutas, they are a rather effective offense unit. The good thing about them is their great attack range. They spit balls of acid that can destroy almost any ground units and defense. With that power, it causes the enemy to prodce air units to defend from them. So always support the Guardians with either mutas or hydras because Guardians have no air-to-air ability. As always with any kind of force, bring an overlord in case for cloaked wraiths, or protoss ship w/arbiters. Guardians can be used for defense too.   They are also capable in stopping advancing ground force with ease. Here's a technique you can use when you're attacking a base, send a group of mutas just outside the base, or behind the enemy's defenses, or a weak spot with no protection. Morph half of the mutas into guardians and send them to attack. While attacking, the mutas are held back incase the guardians need support. Again you must be cautious because of the dangers of psi storm when attacking protoss. Try to spread the guardians and mutas when attacking. If attacking terran, bring in devourers because terrans might have a few BCs lying deep inside the base. BCs can really make your guardians cry for mercy.

Scourges
Suicide creatures primarily used for back up against aerial units. They are effective against air, but shouldn't be mass produced because they can't deal any ground damage to units or buildings. Only build them if you need them for air back up, because they can't crash into the ground. They are also vespene gas hungry, anothe reason why you go heavily on them. They pack a powerful punch against most air units. Their quickness can reach their targets in no time. Since they are upgraded in the brood war with more hitpoints they'll be even more effective against larger enemy flyers, like BCs. Lastly, they are like zerglings, get 2 scourges out of 1 egg.  Usually a group of 6-8 scourges is enough for support.

Queens
Although, they are not a fighter, but they are very good intelligence agent. Extremely useful for spying and recon. Probably one of the most effective way for spying on your enemy. Since knowledge of your enemy is crucial, queens is a must build. They are a minor zerg mage, and are only used in some occasions, mainly for spying. They are also a good hit and run it because of their speed. An example, parasite your enemy's unit and run away quick, this is good cause it's harder for the enemy know if your queen parasited your unit or not, a good hit and run tactic. Parasite is the most useful spell. Cast it on workers units, to see if they are running low on minerals and in need of expanding. Cast it on a unit that's part of a large force, so that you can see where the army is making a move. The broodling spell is an okay spell, mainly used to kill spell casters, templars/defilers, they also create 2 new units for you.  A few casts of this wpell could just be enouigh to hold back a large enemy force.  Ensnare, however, is the weakest spell, it's main purpose is to slow down your enemy's force so that you have time to send in reinforcements to take out the enemy force.  The Infest command center spell is another weak spell. In order to work, your enemy has to be Terran. But if do infest a command cetner, you can unleash the most deadly unit in the game. Just like scourges, these infested terrans are like self destructing bomb, similar to the warcraft II demolition squad and sappers. It deal about 400 hitpoints to all units and structures. Whenever you seen a command center alone, always try to infest it and fly it to saftey because blowing things up is cool. :)

This concludes Part 1 of the Brood War: Zerg Unit Guide (Sorry there aren't any hints on the new units, but part 2 will have them :)

Click here to go to Part 2 - Not ready! Coming soon!