How to beat Terran by another Terran if he FE with following factory?

Question

Few days ago in TvT I've seen a good implementation of the terran FE strategy. It was something like this:

• 9 Supply;
• 11 Rax (pump marines);
• 13 Rax (pump marines);
• 14(15) gas;
• 15 OC;
• once have enough gas build 1-2 TechLabs;
• once have money build CC;
• once have enough gas build Factory, pump tanks, research siege mode.

I consider this as a pretty good opening that is hard to be beaten by other Terran strategy: - you will have enough marines to defend against avarage push (Definitely, you need to scout and for case if opponent does MegaRax you need to delay CC and build 1-2 more Rax till you don't have tanks); - you will have own tanks a little bit later then your opponent, but taking into account distance, you will have marines to hold push, and you will have own tanks pretty soon to deny push; - you will be also defended against Banshee rush: having enough marines and two CC (each with OC) you can be relatively easy defend yourself.

Last time in TvT I play the following strategy and it seems workable for me (at least against opponent of my strength).

Question: What is a weakness of that strategy? How could I beat that myself if play against other Terran when detect that he is going to FE?

Answer 1

Weakness/Winning Counter: Short Answer Helions (w/BlueFlame) and Banshees.

A counter build like this was featured the other day on Day9 dailies (#258). He has an excellent video up interviewing the guy who perfected this TvT counter build. The build is fairly technical but doesn't require exceptional APM with its weakness possibly being Thors.

Summary: Helions roar in devastate the marines, and Banshees cleanup the Tanks as Helions retreat. This build only requires 2Port 2Fact for a long time, reducing the need for other production buildings. It seems a key to this build you should maintain air superiority.

Basic build goes something like this (Taken from iEchoic's post):

• 10 supply
• 12 rax
• 13 ref
• 15 OC
• 15 make one marine, then queue another (only make 2 marines)
• 16 supply
• 17 ref
• (supply counts discontinued from here keep making scvs nonstop)
• factory
• factory
• tech lab on rax
• swap first factory onto rax
• make 1 hellion & get preigniter
• make 1 hellion on second factory
  • clear xelnagas with hellion
• starport
• starport
• supply drop (see faq)
• medivac
  • poke up ramp with a hellion, try to scout composition
  • build order discontinued here, starport production is dependent on opponent's composition

iEchoic's excellent forum post. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=189624