Always Check your Six

A terran opponent today moved his base at the start of the game.  I'd expected that to gimp his economy something fierce, but that's when I learned about the High Yield Mineral Deposits.  The High Yield Mineral Deposits are yellowish looking crystals on the map instead of blue.  Normally, when a worker brings you minerals from a deposit, your mineral count goes up by 5.  On a high yield deposit, your count goes up by 7.  It doesn't take too long to payoff if you liftoff your CC at the start of the game and plop it down at a high yield deposit.

My 6 scoutlings searched every home base to no avail, then a pile of terran stuff ripped through my base.  If my lings had just run through the middle of the map instead of going around the non-start mineral location, they would have arrived in time to wreak havoc on a base with no defending units at it yet.

This novel and unexpected tactic teaches me that I should always check the high yield deposits, and try to exploit them better now that I know what they do.

In other news, vs Terran opponents I have had some success with Banelings.  Banelings basically turn into suicide bombers that do about 90% of a terran marine's HP in exploding damage.  They make a lot of difference between being torn to shreds by stimmed marines, medivacs, and marauders (the MMM combo) and blowing them all up handily.  I think the right ratio of exploding bits to zerglings is about 1:3.