With the success of the orcs in the Blizzard World Wide Invitation after defeating the humans, myMYM.com's Strategy Columnist Galvin "Gosubay" Bay has decided to follow up from his first column 2 weeks ago. This week, he will re-examine the Human vs Orc matchup from the orc's point of view and analyse the new strategies and tactics used by Lyn and Grubby to defeat Sky and Tod.

I was pretty surprised as to how quickly my first article became outdated, when Grubby and Lyn proved to everyone during Blizzard WWI that the MK gryphon strategy was not as unstoppable as it seemed. They had changed their previous approaches to this matchup and it has proven to work quite well.

Orc strengths

Heroes: The Blademaster and Shadow Hunter are two of the strongest heroes in the game. Their offensive and defensive capabilities synergise well with one another, creating a combination which instills great fear in the other races – Windwalk allows you to gain map awareness, steal useful items, and assassinate heroes, Critical Strike transforms the Blademaster into a killing machine especially at Level 3, Hex makes the Shadow Hunter good for picking off units and heroes in the early stages of tier 2 while Healing Wave allows the Blademaster to last much longer in battle.

The Tauren Chieftain is a decent alternative against casters and buildings but I suppose the Shadow Hunter is good against everything which is why I am going to focus more on the Shadow Hunter for the purpose of this article.

A stronger land army: Grunts, Raiders and Spirit Walkers are really strong especially in battles exceeding 60 food. Coupled with some Healing Scrolls, Spirit Link to even out the damage, and a Level 2 Healing Wave, humans will have quite a bit of trouble killing each unit. They become even more powerful with upgrades from the Warmill and a Kodo Beast or two with its Command Aura.
Hit-and-Run attacks: If conventional methods of warfare fail, the orc can easily switch to a "gay" style of playing.

The Endurance Aura from the Tauren Chieftain and the Speed Scrolls allows the entire army to move swiftly. Shockwave is also pretty useful in clearing buildings that are built close to one another. Melee units, which tend to dominate the ranks of the Horde, deal more damage to buildings then range units from the human (with the exception of Orc Burrows with their heavy armour). Lastly, orc can research pillage which makes the decision to siege a base much more rewarding.

Orc weaknesses

Early weakness: Orc can get tower-rushed at any point in the game. Because the Blademaster deals a lot of damage, players tend to attack him first to weaken him so that he will stay out of battle to heal up. It is quite hard to counter tower rushes if you are using a Blademaster instead of a Farseer.

Lack of a true anti-air: Unlike Undead Frost Wyrms which can be countered by Troll Headhunters or Windriders, Humans can counter both of these type of units pretty easily. Knights can be added into the army and Gryphons can take down Headhunters by themselves pretty easily too with Storm Hammers. Windriders can be countered with Dragonhawk Riders, Flying Machines or Riflemen. This leaves orcs with few options.

Difficulty of expanding: Unlike human expansions which can be power-built or elf expansions which can be built before clearing the goldmine, orcs have a slight disadvantage in expanding. Thus it is quite important to stay within close proximity of the expansion and to try not to lose it.

In every game, we have to find out two things

1. What is the human's first hero?
   
2. Does he expand or tech or rush?

Using the Mountain King as a starting hero will probably mean that the human is going for a fast expansion but it does not necessarily mean so. TH000 has used the MK + AM strategy together with casters with great success in the past.

On the other hand, the Archmage is able to expand, tech or tower rush and thus it is important to keep track of the whereabouts of the human troops with your Blademaster and be fully aware of his game plan. I will split this article into three sections later on covering the various possibilities of typical human strategies after I explain how the first few minutes of the game might be played.

Use a peon to scout and make sure you can see the type of hero as well as the direction he is heading towards