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This blog series may contain spoilers just because I"m talking about missions which will invariable contain plot points I will avoid the storyline as much as possible but if you don't wanna see it don't read it
Also note some of these missions you'll be able to choose which order you do them in, the numbering on them is the order in which I did them.
Also I declared I'm doing this hardcore no pre-playing on easier difficulties to learn the missions have to jump in straight to Brutal.
Okay so I decided I'm going to play the campaign through on Brutal mode, completionist style meaning I will go back and retry missions to get every single achievement possible. This has been pretty tough and I figured it might be somewhat interesting for you guys to hear about my ramblings about it. I dont have pictures from day 1 but I'll try and take periodic screenshots for Day 2.
Current Status:
Missions Completed: 8
Achievements: 16%
Silly stuf:
I have made Terra-tron NOT LIKE ME, but didn't get lost viking Gold so I have to go back and do that later.
News broadcasts watched: 3/10
Actual Campaign:
Mission 1: Liberation Day
The opening mission you get just marines ez pz right? WRONG On Brutal this is actually kind of tough need to make sure your low health marines are hotkeyed and always in back or you will get roflstomped. At the end I had just raynor left fighting the vikings with the peasants.
Then when I did it again to get all the halu boards I found out theres more marines guarding that one. Fun times so you really need to work on your micro in the center of the map when you get the extra marines get them out as fast as possible and consolidate them with the main force. Doing all the achievements took me a good 2-3 tries.
Was a "fun" start to the whole thing and made me wonder what I was getting myself into.
Mission 2: The Outlaws
This one made me tear my hair out I was completely freaking mad because I kept trying to end it quickly and apparently you just gotta mass up and macro for a while. Interesting note, this is the first time I learned that the Brutal Computer cheats. Out of 2 barracks one with a reactor one with no addon it was massing more marines and medics than I could from 3 barracks. Had to get up to 6 or 7 barracks in total 2 with addons for medics to beat this mission.
Fun side note they have a fucking siege tank in the right side of their base when you only have marines and medics vs a big bioball and hellions. So I lost several times due to the tank fire until I said "FUCK THIS" and just hugged the left side of the base took out the barracks then charged the tank.
Interesting note on the achievements, 10 minutes on brutal is pretty tough, and the rebel base where you rescue them I swear I missed one of the gas pallets like 3 times and was going nuts WHERE IS THE FUCKING THING because of the achievement to pick up all of the gas and mineral pallets. Don't forget about the one directly north of your base it has 3 mineral pallets so going for it early lets you get a lot of barracks up which is key for the 10 minute run. Dont make as many marines early and just keep pumping scvs and made literally 6-7 barracks.
Mission 3: Zero Hour
Okay so I beat this on Brutal on the first try but I got overrun with 30 seconds left so I said fuck this and lifted off. Apparently that still works because since Raynor isnt onthe map theres no "Keep Raynor alive" objective. Replaying it for the objectives rather tougher, picking up the stranded rebels is easy enough just do it early as the later the game goes the more powerful on the map the zerg is. Hold the Line is nearly not possible on Brutal I had to try this I DONT KNOW how many fucking times I basically had 3 bunkers at each entrance and a huge mass of marines and medics behind them with a small army of scvs to repair and literally 10+ turrets covering the air entrance.
Fun fact: On Brutal the zerg will land drop pods in your main so you'll need a bunker near your minerals in order to not lose a supply depot which will still count for killing your hold the line achievement.
And don't get me started on the kill 4 zerg hatcheries... I found that the top right is fucking impossible to attack don't try it. Go for the bottom left and top left, top left is the easiest to attack but only has 2 hatches, then you have to work your way up the ramp on the bottom left and kill 2 more. It's possible but you'll probably lose the mission in the process of doing this achievement. I know I did... twice.
Mission 4: The Evacuation (Theres another choice but I did this one cuz it had more research)
This one is fucking easy, I couldn't believe it was on Brutal, mass up marines medics and firebats with mostly marines and medics. Firebats FUCKING SUCK in this game it's a tragedy as their range is melee and they have virtually no splash range. But they're good at soaking shots on this mission. If you're interested in saving all the caravans just walk your force with the caravan each time then run it back. Theres little to no zerg forces while you're walking back so this is the ideal time to hunt down the zerg researches. Theres one on the very left middle and one on the right side of the road about halfway up on a side path.
Sacrifice Nothing... that's a bit harder especially after the fucking ultralisks come on the last escort. Basically I had to have a rpetty big force in FRONT of the bunkers or else they get taken out by the Ultras scvs cannot repair then fast enough. So position forces in front of the bunkers and you're still goign to need a small force moving with the caravan and helping to secure the bunkers when they get hit by the BIG attacks by the caravan moves by.
This one sucked for completionist style.. horribly.
Mission 5: Smash and Grab
What did you say mr mission briefing man? Four protoss researches? Oooh yummy me want. This one really isn't that tough, leave a small and I mean small force of firebats marines and medics on your ramp and move out with a force of maruaders medics and marines. If you're careful about your control and just keep sendnig more marauders to help (the mercs help here) you'll run over the protoss make sure you don't miss the relics they're kinda easy to miss if you're not careful.
If you want the achievement for not losing a unit to the statues use just your marauders and pull your medics back then MICRO MICRO MICRO. You'll get it might take a few tries though, overall zzzzz is this really Brutal?
Mission 6: Outbreak
Zombie movie anyone? Seriously shifting between day and night but conveniently night is twice as long... the aberrations SUCK focus fire those bitches they have high health and will 2 shot marines even being healed by medics. First try I did this is 7 nights not knowing what I was doing so tightening up and being mroe careful doing it in 5 days was pretty simple. My first try I killed 12 buildings at night... so again just took some more effort. When you shoot a building at night it will spawn an ass ton of units so make sure you have a healthy supply of hellions with you on night raids to splash them to death.
About halfway through I had to lift my base off to move it to the top right, so keep that in mind you'll have to clear out the top right or bottom right so you have somewhere to expand to or you'll completely run out of minerals and I NEEDED the extra minerals. Again another is this really Brutal missions.
Mission 7: The Devil's Playground
This one was pretty laughably easy, start at the main resource point and macro don't bother to save resources. Once you have a good supply of marauders medics marines and reapers (yes reapers) I had a good 10+ reapers plus the ones from Tosh's crew that come to help you then start saving up resources. I had about 15 scvs and in total around 55 food before I started getting more reapers at that point I started lifting off and moving around and let the zerg kill my main. Just keep your scvs and your army together and you won't take losses.
To kill the Brutalisk use reapers seriously, kill all the zergies in front then kite him out to the front next to the ramp and get him low health by jumping up and down the cliff with your reapers. And then for the achievement run all your reapers home and wait for the BEEP BEEP BEEP before they tell you lava surge is imminent. Kite the Brutalisk out under the ramp and sac 1 reaper to kill it with the lava, note that it will have to be low health because the lava does not insta kill it and as soon as your reaper dies it will try to run back up the ramp.
As for finding tosh's crew best way are those reapers I told you about, you'll need a lot of them because usually you'll find them near zerg bases just fly around check all the cliffs once you find a base usually some will charge in and help you fight them. If you're bored you can probably take out most of the bases with just your reapers which is what I did. Yet another "Is this really on Brutal? Mission."
Mission 8: The Great Train Robbery
You know how I've been saying the last few have been easy and I've been wondering if it was on Brutal? Yeah no questions asked this one made me pay for it. FUCKING OUCH, bent me over and had it's way with me... twice. At first I thought diamondbacks were bad so I was going pure bio then they sent the fast trains at me that you NEED diamondbacks to kill and I was just like "oh fuck me."
So you NEED Diamondbacks, the key is to play this a few times and find where all the old ones are on the map that you can get for free. Hunt them all down then at the start of the mission get them ALL, they're usually near resource pallets too so this is very helpful as well. Clear out the top left so you can expand there as well you NEED the minerals and the gas, don't forget the gas. In the end I got all 6 diamondbacks at the start, got 2/3 researches and a bunch of minerals. Made a 2nd factory and an armory and started massing diamondbacks.
Early on marauders are helpful but later once you have a metric ass ton of diamondbacks not so much. Once your diamondback count starts getting out of control stick with marine/medic to deal with anti air. Oh those ravens those fucking ravens, engage the trains after the 3rd or so one as close to the dominion base as you can because the raven will IMMEDIATELY send a hunter seeker missile at you that you will have to outrun and this wastes a lot of your time. Once it's down power down the escort and blast the train.
Remember the fast trains I was talking about? You need lots of diamondbacks for this but the good news? The train is faster than it's fucking escort (lol) so just keep moving with the train at the front of it and the escort cant shoot you but your diamondbacks which are hopefully 1-1 by now will power it down pretty quickly.
The Marauder kill teams are a pain in the arse make sure your marines go in first if you're going to fight one, and you only need to kill one for the achievement by the way not both. Just make sure your marines take one for the team then let the Diamondbacks tear them apart. This one made my ass hurt the first couple of tries until I figured it out then it seemed easier. And after that I needed a break. So that was my first day of the Brutal Campaign.
8 Missions down, 18 to go... *shudder*
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O_O
Only played the campaign on Hard and you make brutal sound so daunting. I think I'll stay with my hard completed campaign ^_^
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Completing the missions themselves on brutal isn't bad at all. But completing the all of the achievements is, by the sound of it.
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On July 29 2010 04:21 Saracen wrote:
Completing the missions themselves on brutal isn't bad at all. But completing the all of the achievements is, by the sound of it.
Yeah basically if I was going for just the missions it wouldnt be so tough but wheres the challenge in that? Brutal is a bit more fun for an actual gamer but you can slide by on a lot of them so I decided I was going to do the achievements on Brutal too.
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apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times.
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Bey, wait till you get to Welcome to the Jungle, absolutely rediculous on brutal
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On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times.
Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them.
As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell.
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On July 29 2010 07:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times. Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them. As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell.
O rly? 
![[image loading]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2551134/Images/Screenshot2010-07-29%2000_35_06.jpg)
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On July 29 2010 06:00 Dave[9] wrote:
Bey, wait till you get to Welcome to the Jungle, absolutely rediculous on brutal
This.
Good fucking God that missions was insane.
Oddly enough I had absolutely no trouble with the train mission my 3rd time through, just went mass Diamondbacks and completely raped face. Even killed the kill-squad and didn't miss a single train, all on Brutal.
As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell.
Yea, like the guy above me, I beat that mission fairly easily.
No, I didn't beat it,
I completely and utterly raped it on BRUTAL.
Got almost 3500 kills.
Mass Colossi/Immortal/Phoenix is easy mode. Was sitting at 200/200 without even taking the gold expansion for quite a while.
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I beat the train robbery one on brutal just massing diamondbacks and aa, I didn't think that one was hard at all. The day/night zombie one was the most difficult.
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On July 29 2010 12:47 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 06:00 Dave[9] wrote:
Bey, wait till you get to Welcome to the Jungle, absolutely rediculous on brutal This. Good fucking God that missions was insane. Oddly enough I had absolutely no trouble with the train mission my 3rd time through, just went mass Diamondbacks and completely raped face. Even killed the kill-squad and didn't miss a single train, all on Brutal. Show nested quote +
As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell.
Yea, like the guy above me, I beat that mission fairly easily. No, I didn't beat it, I completely and utterly raped it on BRUTAL.Got almost 3500 kills. Mass Colossi/Immortal/Phoenix is easy mode. Was sitting at 200/200 without even taking the gold expansion for quite a while.
Okay so I did welcome to the jungle, failed once came to the conclusion that Goliaths without any sorts of upgrades are terrible shit made a bio ball and won easily. Early on spend most of your time chasing down tal darim who are trying to seal a point then once you've got a ton of bio have 2 forces one for stopping them one for getting gas. Pretty easy mass marine/medic/marauder zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz seriously? I heard a lot of hype on how that one sucked and it was pretty damn easy.
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How do you get those completed campaign portraits? I finished all the missions on Hard, but it still won't let me. Maybe theres some secret missions? (I already got the one from "Media Blitz" where you have to kill the science facility.)
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On July 29 2010 18:09 GenesisX wrote:
How do you get those completed campaign portraits? I finished all the missions on Hard, but it still won't let me. Maybe theres some secret missions? (I already got the one from "Media Blitz" where you have to kill the science facility.)
Check the achievement in itself, you see a list of the missions and those you havent done. It's probably one of those that give you two choice, and you have to do both for the completion.
Oh and yea, I did Welcome to the Jungle with goliaths/marauders and it's pretty damn hard TT I really should have used marine medics it seems 
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On July 29 2010 07:37 -Sleet- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 07:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times. Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them. As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell. O rly?
This; anyone who's played protoss should know just to mass colossus. Figuring out the rest is just 1-2 additional tries. Colossus(ground) + void rays/carriers (air), you get them for free anyway, + pheonix/immortal(hybrid control)
Found train robbery quite hard, just need to micro well though with mnm/diamondbacks.
Found zombie one easy. Block off entrances with 3 depots and mass hellions, and pick 1 entrance and just go apeshit with mnm through it and kill everything whether its night or day.
Haven't tried welcome to the jungle yet, might have skipped it so far as well, I did all the nice-to-doctor ariel ones to see if i could get raynor to score.
Also, if you're having trouble with only-unit missions, I found careful micro throughout means a world of difference. Like save 3 more marines and you'll end up with an army with raynor in the first mission, and I'm sure the zeratul one i woulda had an army of stalkers if i wasn't rushing it.
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On July 29 2010 07:37 -Sleet- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 07:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times. Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them. As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell. O rly?
impressive, damn karrigan is so hawt
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Netherlands19135 Posts
I just finished brutal for the 2nd time, and it is just... really easy. The only mission I actually found challenging was the one where you have to defend for a couple of mins till you get extracted. Like mission 3 or 4 or somth.
Even the final mission is no problem at all.
Edit: if someone is struggling and wants some advice pm me XD.
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this was really helpful, now I need to do the missions on my own 
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I've been doing the same thing as you have. Taking the Brutal difficulty completionist route. However I've only been able to get through 4 missions so far because...
Completionist to me is not only completing all the achievements but completing the mission, all the objectives and achievements in the same playthrough of the mission.
Here are a few of my notes,
Liberation Day: Failed it the first time but succeeded second try. Like you I ended up fighting with Raynor and the peasants vs the Vikings, barely survived the mission.
The Outlaws: I had to play this mission quite a few times. I learnt the crate positions quite quickly so that was no problem but to get my time down to less than 10 minutes the strategy I took was to just build marines continuously from 3 barracks. Get an early barracks by picking up the mineral crates. Then just push and reinforce the push with additional marines. Sweep the base from left to right and just rush the siege tank. I ended up with a best time of 9:31.
Zero Hour: This was one of the hardest missions yet. I ended up playing this mission so many times I honestly didn't know if it was possible to complete all 3 achievements at the same time.
Defending on brutal is hard enough but to not lose any buildings AND kill 4 hatcheries was insane.
I ended up doing it by getting a perfect micro start, to quickly ramp up the economy. Saving the stranded marines worked out well by reinforcing my early starting forces and picking up mineral crates. I ended up blocking the northern bridge with bunkers and placing 4 SCV's to repair them and that kept hold.
The hard part was killing the hatcheries. I would wait for push from the zerg and then go and kill the north west hatchery with a massive marine ball. I had 4 barracks pumping marines and medics and by the time the NW base was destroyed I had a second massive marine ball. I took them both and assaulted the SW base. The two parts which were critical in the assault were to target the banelings, if I didn't do that well then I would lose 3/4 of my forces by the time I got up the hill. Once up there I had to contend with the ultralisk.
One critical trick which I found was that during the last few minutes of the mission respawning nydus wyrms appear in the SW base. So after I destroyed the base I left the marine ball there (because by this time I had another force built at base), and it just sat there killing these nydus wyrms over and over and over again. This meant that the SW bridge was never overwhelmed which is key because that side is the one most likely to lose a building.
The Evacuation: I found this to be frustrating, because of the whole lose no buildings thing. Again I used the bunker block tactic. Built 3 bunkers at each choke point and repaired them with 4 scv's each. I then had a roving marine ball with a few firebats in it defending the caravan. It would also help out at choke points sometimes. The hard part was to get to the point where I had enough forces to defend the caravan and build the bunkers and not lose them. I basically never stopped building marines and scv's.
I never saw the ultralisks you mentioned. Although I wouldn't be surprised that they never appeared because I would kill the nydus wyrms as soon as they appeared.
Strangest thing that happened was I got the achievement for completing 5 brutal missions after evacuation... except I haven't actually completed 5 missions and the mission archives only show that I have completed 4.
I am now trying to attempt outbreak. At the moment it appears that in order to complete all the objectives and achievements in the same playthrough I need to take a night time offensive approach during the first 3 cycles. I'm thinking mass marine ball with firebats. Stim pack constantly. Just move this marine ball around until you've killed both infestors and as many buildings as you can.
I highly recommend anyone trying for a real challenge to do what I am doing and attempt all achievements in the same playthrough of a misson.
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Netherlands19135 Posts
On July 29 2010 07:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times. Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them. As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell.
lol
![[image loading]](http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/9302/screenshot2010072917351.jpg)
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Into the Jungle gave me a really hard time, but I went Goliath Maurader, and not MMM.
Zero Hour was really hard too, I had to lift my CC, and fly away, and the mission ended with my CC having like 10 hp lol
The Train Mission was really hard, but I never considered letting the Train outrun its escort first. Some of those later escorts, with all the Merc units would just trash my forces.
I also had trouble with that Laser Drill mission. Most of the time I was fine, but when they launch the huge Warp Prism/Void Ray attacks every once in a while, I would die. Also the mission with that Mothership you have to kill was really hard for me at the end. I ended up just like, massing Vikings the whole mission, and had a small seige tank force mop up the rest of the crap.
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On July 30 2010 22:03 Nyovne wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 07:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:On July 29 2010 04:44 jalstar wrote:
apparently the best way to do train robbery is to get tanks first in another mission and then do it. i went pure diamondback with a few marines for aa on hard and couldn't beat that train with tank/raven support the first few times. Yeah, tanks make the train robbery very easy, especially with the +40 damage upgrade. That was probably the easiest brutal mission in the game with them. As for getting all the achievements playing on brutal, good luck with In Utter Darkness. You will not defend the archive for 25 minutes. No way in hell. lol
I got full objectives on brutal, somehow they never attacked it since i had a bunch of carriers on the highground luring them up the ramp until the end lol... By the time my last unit died, I had about 2650 kills. DT walls and sniping overseers with phoenixes does the job nicely, use voidray army to focus fire nydus in base and save all carriers in middle of base until the end.
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its weird, the ones your saying are solid ive found super easy, yet the ones you say are super easy i find tough lol!
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Mission 4: The Evacuation -> Sacrifice Nothing
Anyone have any tips here? I was at 200/200 supply, none of the bunkers were destroyed but the game still says 1 building was destroyed/salvaged. I don't get it! WHERE?!
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I defended the archive easily 25 minutes first try, but then kind of screwed up and finished the mission with 2502 kills.
Welcome to the jungle was one of those missions I had to restart, mainly because I tried to mine 2 gas at once and that triggers extra units. My 2nd try was so extremely close too, I had about 2 goliaths left, and the scv barely broguth the gas into my base, which was being attacked by a lot of protoss units.
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On July 31 2010 21:37 AveiMil wrote:
Mission 4: The Evacuation -> Sacrifice Nothing
Anyone have any tips here? I was at 200/200 supply, none of the bunkers were destroyed but the game still says 1 building was destroyed/salvaged. I don't get it! WHERE?!
The zerg drop pod things hit your main probably took out a supply depot or one of your turrets got taken out. It sucks you gotta make sure your entire base is covered.
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In The Great Train Robbery, I start making Diamondbacks non-stop from the beginning and I STILL don't have enough by the the time trains 4 or 5 come around. I don't know what else I can do. When the bunkers show up it seems a little ridiculous.
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On August 04 2010 05:12 JayDee_ wrote:
In The Great Train Robbery, I start making Diamondbacks non-stop from the beginning and I STILL don't have enough by the the time trains 4 or 5 come around. I don't know what else I can do. When the bunkers show up it seems a little ridiculous.
Do other missions until you get the siege tank. Then buy the roflcannon upgrade and pown the train.
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On August 04 2010 05:12 JayDee_ wrote:
In The Great Train Robbery, I start making Diamondbacks non-stop from the beginning and I STILL don't have enough by the the time trains 4 or 5 come around. I don't know what else I can do. When the bunkers show up it seems a little ridiculous.
Are you just making diamondbacks or adding in bio as well? Are you dodging the hunter seeker missiles? Taking several seeker missiles will drop your diamondback count quite a lot. Dodging the missile takes time but it's worth not losing the units. Unit preservation is key on that mission.
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Prolly already mentioned somewhere, but the Outbreak mission on Brutal is a lot easier if you simply walloff all three entrances with bunkers+engineeringbay+supplydepots and then mass reapers+hellions. The hellions suck at killing buildings but they're fun to have. A control group of reapers (24+?) chews through the hordes of infested+aberrations like a hot knife through butter and kills buildings really fast. If one of your walls is about to go down, just throw your reaper ball in there for the lulz. You can pretty much go wherever you want across the map at night with lots of reapers.
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EPT
