Knowingly to most, Forge builds upgraded Supply Pads straight away. Although they cost more to build, you’re saving time, supplies not having to upgrade them, and more importantly not needing a Reactor to do so. He’s really the only leader who can do this efficiently, as to get full population of Hornets this fast, you need a big supply count early game.

This guide is so far the quickest way to getting 15 hornets out, without using ‘hooks’ taking roughly 6:30 minutes.

The Double Pump:

So first of all, your build order should look something like this.

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Reactor (Upgrade it) > Air Pad > Air Pad

Do your usual supply gathering, which is an absolute must with this as your going to need every last bit of crate available out there to afford to build hornets simultaneously. When you come to upgrade your reactor, you may have to wait up to 30 seconds for you to have enough supplies, less if you’ve been collecting a lot. Don’t worry about this wait, it pays off when you have 2 Air Pads building. Next step is to just que your Hornets up, and with practice you can max out at around 6:30.

Wingman ‘Fornets’:

There are 2 routes to go for Wingman, the first is to do the above, and when you’ve got about 12 or so Hornets, swap your second Air Pad for a Reactor, which will bring you up to Tech 3, while your other pad builds your last few Hornets. When your Reactors done just hit ‘Wingman’, and it should be near enough researched by the time you reach your opponent’s base.

The second way goes a little something like this:

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Reactor > Reactor > Air Pad

Upgrade your second reactor to get to tech 3, and once you’ve hit ‘Wingman’ swap your single Reactor for another Air Pad so you can double pump. Essentially its just the first way, but back to front so you have Hornets with ‘Wingman’ building from the start.

There are a few things to watch out for. You’ll be moderately undefended for the first few minutes. If you’re scouted out, be prepared for a hard counter (destroying their scouts with a few rams can help prevent this). Locking down is an option, but if a scouts seen an air pad, it doesn’t take Einstein to work out what to expect. Once you’ve finished building your Hornets it’s a good idea to swap an Air Pad for a Vehicle depot, just incase your attack fails and you need to put out some different units.

We tried this on a few 2vs2 rounds with double “Horge”. First game, they weren’t expecting it and ended up resigning within 8 minutes. Second game though, they went Gauss. Now we’ve done a few Gauss rushes ourselves, I’m a big player of Anders so got the T-shirt; but until patch TU3 arrives, our Gauss hates were only strengthened. Air should be able to take out vehicles, provided they’re not wolverines, but a good 20+ gauss-hogs taking down 25+ hornets with Wingman? Seriously…

Until TU3 arrives in a few weeks, we’ll live in the shadow of the Gauss swarm. But provided you’re not the unlucky fly from which the hog-swatter splatters, Hornets provide a decent early attack force; and when lazy players fail to scout and assume as a Forge player you’ll be going Scorpions, it’s a nasty sting for them seeing Hornets  arrive at their doorstep.

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The Basic ‘tank rush’ with Forge…

The build order you go for depends entirely on how early you want your first tank out and how strong you want your economy. There’s a ‘catch 22′ with this, if you want to get tanks out as soon as possible, you’ll lose out on a fast ticking supply count but hit the enemy sooner. If you don’t mind getting tanks out later, your opponent may be a bit more prepared for you, but your more developed so you can survive further in the game on the front foot.

The timing of the start of production of your first Scorpion is determined by how many supply pads you build up to it. For example:

Early build:

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Reactor > Reactor > Vehicle Depot = 1st Scorpion building at 2:30

Later build:

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Reactor > Reactor > Vehicle Depot = 1st Scorpion building at 3:30

It’s your decision if you choose to sacrifice 1 minute of early gametime for a bigger economy. Ultimately though, this is the easiest way to get Scorpions out fast. Remember if your going for an early build, you need to be collecting supplies thoroughly to supplement what you lose from fewer supply pads. (read this guide ‘gather the goods’ for a guide to good crate gathering.)

The ‘Double Pump’:

This method involves having 2 Vehicle Depots and simultaneously building Scorpions. Although with just 1 base you won’t be able to build them back to back all the time, it works out that you can build around 1.5 Scorpions together, so generally you get 50% more tanks than you would at the same time as the other methods. This build plot is the same as the Forge Hornet rush, just with Vehicle Depots:

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Reactor (Wait and Upgrade to tech 2) > Vehicle Depot > Vehicle Depot

As i said, don’t expect a constant stream of tanks, you simply won’t be able to afford it unless your team mate slingshots you some money. When you have enough tanks, you can recycle your 2nd Vehicle Depot for a Reactor to bring you to tech 3, and research ‘Canister Shell’

The Canister Scorpion build:

There’s 2 ways of doing this, one is pretty complicated, one isn’t.

1. The upgrade route: This is the simple way, you go for the same build schedule as the second option listed above, so you have your 4 supply pads up first. This will give you enough supplies to upgrade one of your reactors giving you tech 3. When you get this, start researching Cannister Shell. You only need tech 2 to build Scorpions so you can recycle the single reactor and replace it with whatever you want; Field Armoury, Barracks – you pick.
2. The ‘Hook’ route: If there’s a ‘hook’ on your map (Garrison-able Reactor) you can aim to use this to get to tech 3. You’ll need a build order along these lines:

Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Supply Pad > Barracks (que 3-4 flame throwers. You also have time to build Spartans) > Supply Pad > Reactor > Reactor > (Recycle Barracks) > Vehicle Depot

As soon as your flame throwers are out, send them to the Garrison-able Reactor and order one of them to get straight in there so they hold it. Some Garrison-able reactors such as the ones on Crevice are barely defended, so you can get away with just building 1 Marine to put in there. If you want Spartans in your tanks, keep the Barracks.

You can research Canister shell straight away if you like, then recycle one of the reactors and build a second Vehicle Depot, so you’ll have Canister Shell tanks rolling out in no time!

You can use the ‘hook route’ in various other ways too, and the theory can be applied to build standard tanks without Canister shell so you only need the 1 reactor on your base, giving you a spare slot to use as you wish

The ‘Hook route’ is a good tactic as rather than recycle one of your reactors, you can stay at tech 3 permanently, and easily go up to tech 4 for if your rush fails and you want to start working to Grizzlies.

So there we have it, the basic way is easy pie! It gets a bit more complicated and reliant on timing when hooks and Canister shell is involved; but start with the basics and develop your preferred method. Always remember about the ‘Catch 22′ i talked about, how your build order with supply pads will alternately effect either your early economy, and the build time of your first Scorpion.

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