Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne/Orc strategies

Basics
Hey all, playing with orcs seems like a basic strat in itself however as many people who begin simply focus on your classic grunts+tauren for melee / windriders for anti air. while windriders are a very versitile unit that really make the orc worth playing, the usefulness of raiders is time and time again overlooked.

Raiders are a unit that was created for fast effective strikes and immobilising air units with their net ability. Versing an army straight out with raiders and hero/s will get you killed though, so we must find a way to balance out the damage done against them, this is where spirit walkers come into play. Spirit walkers start out on their tier 1 with a spell called 'spirit link'. This spell will connect 4 units together, these 4 units will share the damage that is given to all of them, so if you have 4 raiders joined together and 1 of these raiders gets attacked for 12 damage, the damage will equate to 3 on each of the 4 spirit linked units. this spirit link strat is also useful with any unit, i have seen 8 spirit linked peons joined together doing a surround on a level 4 hero, while range attacked from afar.

so your army should go: -hero = blademaster -grunt X 3 -upgrade to tier 2 -grunt X 1 while upgrading -Hero = voodoo            -this hero becomes your healer -Raiders X 2              -these become your anti air with the nets -spirit walkers X 2       -spirit linking whenever you are attacking anything -Raiders X 2 -spirit walkers X 2       -at this point, spirit link your grunts and attack something stupid to free up food -Raiders X 2 -spirit walkers X 2 -upgrade to tier 3

tips +do not upgrade from raiders to tauren when you hit tier 3, the raiders net is a very vital piece of this army +don't upgrade your spirit walkers skills to adept or expert, its a waste of resources +use spare resources to upgrade attacking and defending strength +get pillage

have a good time with the strat, its very reliable against any race or opponent

Against Nightelf
The matchup Orc versus Nightelf is always highly expected as being imbalanced for, or if you think so, against Orc. The arguments for this are strategys like mass Druids of the Talon(Dots, Moon strategy), the low costs of all units(135 Gold for one Talon) and the low supply-cost of all units(i.e. 2 Food for 1 Talon). But let's take a look at the chances of Orc.

Lets look at the different strategys that the nightelfs or orcs may play

Firelord Towerrush Build Order: 4 peons mine
 * 1) 5.Rax
 * 2) 6.burrow->wood->burrow
 * 3) 7.mine
 * 4) 8.wood
 * 5) 9.Altar
 * 6) 10./11.wood

the first grunt send to the tavern then harrassing with fl&Grunt 10/11 peon after firelord

after 10/11 peons tech

1/4 tech:burrow grunt 1/2 tech:shop 3/4 tech:warmill grunt 4/4 tech:sh; berserk upgrade; grunt

then a tr with 3 peons

Mass Ranged Mass Ranged means, the Nightelf(NE) player doesn't have any blockers(melee units) to support his army. The advantage of this strategy is that one single ranged unit isn't that strong, but when all units focus together on one orc unit (i.e. grunt), the unit will go down immediately. The disadvantage (and so that, what orc players have to use to win) is, that the Nightelf army isn't very strong until the army reaches a sertain supply value(usually 50). What you as an orc have to is to take pressure on the Nightelf base as much as possible. Try to figure out when the Nightelf reaches tier 2 and try to kick his buildings when they are being build. Then build some raiders and demolishers to be able to make more pressure on the nightelf base. The optimal hero choose vs this strategy is Farseer or Blademaster as a first hero and always Tauren Chieftain(TC) as second hero. Before you're going for the final fight try always to have an healscroll and if it's possible, a protection scroll.

Things to watch out for: -Don't forget to scout for Nightelf expansions. They are often build with this strategy. -The strategy is often supported by summoning heroes, such as beastmaster or firelord. Support your army with some shamen or spiritwalkers to dispell the summons.