Getting through Cutter’s first 10 minutes

A common opinion about Captain Cutter is that the leader is underpowered. The arguement is that he falls behind the other leaders in the early game. In terms of other UNSC leaders, Anders can tech up on research faster and cheaper, Forge has instant heavy supply pads giving him more economy; where as Cutter’s just stuck with the basics and 2 more base slots.

I’m a pretty regular Cutter player now, I used to play a lot of Anders and Forge but the old guy has won me over. If I can get past the first 10 minutes of the game untouched then I feel confident about the mid and late game, and that’s where Cutter comes in to his own.

In this post, i’m going to write about how to best prepare Cutter in the early game…

My first Cutter base will always have a Barracks on it, and this is what’s most likely to keep you alive in the first 5-10 mins when rushes come in. If your facing an Anders player and anticipate a Hog rush, go for a tank build instead. Generally your going to get rushed one of three ways, all of them if your unlucky. The first thing to do is lock your base down. From there, here’s some ideas to what to do.

Beating a leader rush: 90% of the time a Covenant leader rush uses infantry, and 75% of the time they never put Jackals in the mix. Flamethrowers will save your life here. First off, if a leader shows up at your base don’t panic, if it’s really early on he’s not going to do much damage, if he uses his leader power he’s going to run out of resources fast, and he’s not going to have a great deal of units to use first off. With your base locked down, get together 6-10 flamers and wait for the right time. If you see him start to teleport units to his position, you have to move fast; unlock your base, set your flamers on the leader and drop a Destruction bomb right on him. This means he can’t teleport any more units to reinforce him, and you should try and trap him in with a number of flamers so he can’t move out of the D. bomb range. Cutter is gifted with the ‘Elephant’, this is another lifesaver when it comes to leaders, especially the ‘Brute Rush’.
Beating a tank rush (1): When people think of the strongest counter to vehicles, Cobras spring to mind; but they’re a unit which require Tech level 3 to even build. The chances are you’ll have tanks on your doorstep long before you can get a third tech level. The next best things are Hornets, which can be built at Tech level 2. Check out my tank rush with Forge post and copy the build plot of a Scorpion, but have an Air Pad instead of Vehicle Depot, upgrading your supply pads as you go.
Beating the tank rush (2): This ways a lot more risky, but generally pays off and tackles an earlier rush (and is a lot of fun). If your playing as Cutter your most probably have a Barracks. Get out 3 Spartans and move them well out of the way of your base. Most of the time players rush with just 3 or 4 tanks. These are easy targets to jack with Spartans, but you’ve got to be quick. Once the tanks arrive at your base, don’t move anything. Your Spartans shouldn’t be in sight. Leave the tanks to do a bit of damage, chances are once the other player has seen you have no defences, he’ll turn his attention to his base or other units while his tanks are doing the dirty. After 30 seconds or so move your Spartans in. This is where the 2nd advantage is to having them placed out of sight, it gives you time to Micromanage them properly to each tank, so they aren’t standing around infront of tanks getting shot. Select each Spartan individually and set them to jack a different tank each. If you have enough money, MAC blast the remaining tank so it’s out the way. As i said, this is risky but 8 times out of 10 it works, it’s just about timing.
Beating the Hog rush: An early Hog rush is well defendable with Scorpions, so go down this route as you would with any other leader. Cutter can actually get Scorpions out just as early as Anders or Forge, so it’s an easy build to go for. After the TU 3 coming out soon, RPGs will also become a good defense for Hogs, and its something you can prepare for with just a Barracks.

So all in all when it comes to Cutter, you just have to remember to build proper counters to what might be thrown at you in the early game. Flamers will kill anything that lives, Spartans will jack and Hornets will kill vehicles, Marines with RPGs will be good against any light armour (after TU3). There’s a lot of luck involved with granddad Cutter, and you find yourself sitting there praying that you don’t see a rush. But the mid-late game generously rewards you; my top 5 scoring games have been with him, and seeing 10,000 point scores isn’t rare.

You might not be able to research as fast or cheap as Anders, and you might not have as much money as Forge; but stay alive past 10 minutes and you’ll start to see why Cutter isn’t so underpowered.

I’ll be writing about Cutter’s middle game soon, stay tuned.

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