EPTAlso 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.
for background see day 1 here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=139386
Day 2 I only did like 2 missions so huge blog incoming now.
Current Progress:
Missions Complete: 20
Achievements: 53%
Starting to fall behind on some of the achievements as I decided I'd just come back to a few of the more annoying ones.
Mission 9: Haven's Fall
I picked this one for two reasons: I dont like the doctor, and the way Selendis said "James RayyNORR" is pretty damn funny.
![[image loading]](http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/7543/ss1ae.jpg)
raep?
Seriously this was supposed to be hard? I did it with JUST vikings. I only made vikings a good 10-15 vikings can clear out any settlement being infested by themselves without losing any with minimal micro. The top and right bases fell easily the third one took a while longer to take out but seriously? This was supposed to be hard?
Mission 10: Safe Haven
Okay this one was significantly harder, just massing vikings while amusing doesn't quite work on this one. Now stick with me here I still had a strikeforce of vikings to deal with the fleets the purifier sends after the settlements. But in order to take out the bases I had a couple of vikings to deal with the warp prisms but once the cannons were unpowered I used marine medic, the only tough part was the bottom base and having to dodge storms. For the achievements on this one get ready to play it over and over and over again until you get it right. I sent like 4-5 vikings in on the purifier to get it to blow it's vortex early then ran in with my strike force + bio ball to blow it up.
Not as easy but still not super hard.
Mission 11: Welcome to the Jungle
One of the most hyped hard missions, again found it easy. Mass bio ball owns all apparently. Focus early on towards just stopping them from sealing any altars and clearing out static defenses that will get in your way later. Clear out the protoss base in the middle as it makes a great staging ground. Once your bio ball is big enough to split in half send one out to prevent them from sealing altars and the other to start capturing gas. Since theres no time limit on this one no reason to rush it. Rather easy once I said fuck it goliaths suck and didnt even try to use them.
Mission 12: CutThroat
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Build a second factory get about 4 more vultures and raid the top base clear out all the scvs and leave 2 parked next to it constantly damgaging it and killing any scvs it builds. Eventually the CC will die and you'll gain 400 minerals. Same strategy build a few more vultures after you clear out the scvs in each base park vultures next to it so it can't rebuild scvs. Gather salvage on the way around the map. Is this thing still set on brutal? Yeah I guess it is
The second part of this mission was much harder than the first, but still get a few air units for spotting up the cliff, then tank/diamondback to clear out defensive tank emplacements. Still pretty easy be careful of the nuke.
I shouldnt even have to tell you how to get 25 kills with spider mines with that many marines walking around the map... Figure it out.
Mission 13: The Dig
See how I waited a while to do this one? That's because this happened the first time I tried it
![[image loading]](http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/8653/ss2rn.jpg)
But but but, my achievements...
Basically I came to the conclusion I can't keep target firing the colossus so I tried to power it down and that failed. So I waited until I got vikings then I got tank + bunkers with marines and mass scvs repairing with meidcs backing up the scvs and a bunch of marines lined up behind the bunkers. So basically tank/marine medic then I got a starport with a reactor and started massing vikings.
This served two purposes I was able to fly up around the left side of the map and get vision on the smaller temples to get the researches. Then I found out a funny way to kill 50 buildings. Theres a cliff above the top protoss base if you park one carefully placed viking up on that cliff theres 3 cannons being powered by 2 pylons and an assimilator. If you kill the pylons and the assimilator the protoss will rebuild them over and over and over again. So I got 50 building kills that way laughing all the way home then once the colossus were coming out I had about a full tab of vikings and was killing them with the vikings.
The only units I was killing with the laser were immortals and templars the rest were able to get taken out by the marine/tank rather easily. This one was tougher but easyish with vikings.
Mission 14:Breakout
Dota anyone? Seriously it's freaking dota, I chose Tosh cuz he's cool he has dreads and his jamaican accent is awesome. Plus Nova got her game cancelled so she sucks boo on her.
This was fucking easy, consume marauders, mindblast big groups of marines whenever possible so your own forces push forward and distract fire for you to take out turrets. Getting the diamondbacks out isnt as helpful as the tanks so you can technically skip them but it didnt take much effort to get them out so I did it anyway. Just be careful with tosh and use your nukes at the end to take out the battlecruiser then sneak around the cliffs on the sides to nuke the starports so it can't keep tmaking ravens and then it's over. Tough at first but once I got the hang of it was kinda easy.
Mission 15: Whispers of Doom
This one was fun, use void prison carefully, only tough part is having to react quickly when an ultralisk pops up on you. The first two hatcheries are easy to find, the third one is much tougher, the high ground the templar yells at you to put your stalkers on you can blink over to the left and then down and theres a hatchery there constantly spawning roaches void prism the detector and take it out.
The spine crawler part was pretty toughish too but it was really only getting it right. Blink past them and hold position so they can't get by and it's not too bad. Besides that be careful to not get hit past your shields so you have maximum stalker count throughout.
At the end only blink when you hit rocks in order to keep most of your stalkers alive for hte achievement. Fun as hell but again kinda easyish.
Mission 16: A sinister Turn
Okay I freely admit I kind of cheated on this one, get the dark shrine and the templar archives, clearing out the right base will ease the pressure on your base too. Then use the gas whenever possible on templars, get a good mix of mostly stalkers with 1-2 immortals and archons yes archons. Leave at least 1 templar unmorphed though to feedback Maar everytime he comes at you.
How did I cheat? I fought him outside his base near the bottom left and when he blinks in a random location he got stuck under the ramp. And apparently if you don't attack him he stays there. I laughed so hard then I cleared my way through into his base, but once you free the first preserver he teleports back to stop you so that you can't backdoor him. Took him out once more then freed the preservers. Killing all the protoss forces and under 20 minutes on brutal are mutually exclusive achievements don't drive yourself crazy trying.
Mission 17: Echoes of the Future
That is many colossus yes? Seriously tech to colossus ASAP and start making them, free the closest warpgate location and theres a tendril there too. I was able to with careful micro clear out that entire area with just zeratul and an observer while I was teching and macroing. Warpin a bunch of stalkers and mvoe out with zeratul and the colossus, use zertaul to gib zerglings and creep tumours as often as possible for the 50 kills achievement. Besides that keep the stalkers behind until air units come in and blast them down, let the colossus kille verything else, don't forget the obelisk on the middle left + another warpgate for the research. Hard the first time I tried it then it was pretty easy.
I went counter clockwise around the map so that killing bases gave me expansion opportunities. But once you get enough colossus it really isn't that necessary.
Mission 18: In Utter Darkness
I failed the first time just due to poor planning, I didn't cover my ramps with cannons and zerglings started making a mess in my base so when I went to clear them out the archives got taken out. So the next time when I had about 3000 minerals I made a metric asston of cannons covering the two ramps up into my base plus a few more back around the sides for the drop pods.
Colossus and phoenixes, colossus own everything on the ground, anythign super dangerous like the melee hybrids got lifted off where the void rays and carriers + phoenixes can still damage them but the idea is that they're not doing damage while everything else dies then when they land the colossus power them down.
Second try I got to here and forgot to take more screenshots, well I tried but they're all black screens.
![[image loading]](http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6323/ss3fp.jpg)
3-3-3 upgraded toss units are a beautiful thing at 200/200
Once the archive was safe I pulled back to the middle area between the two ramps and just hung out there rebuilding some cannons periodically that get taken out by mass zerglings barely made it to 3250 for the achievement but I got there. Once all my colossus were down I let them kill my base and flew down to the bottom right where theres cliffs I could hide out of range of most stuff except air and let my huge airforce get me the last several kills. This was pretty tough you gotta be careful about your positioning or it will mess you up.
And with that I got a pretty Zeratul Icon mmm
Mission 19: Engine of Destruction
I... hate... Tychus. That is all
After I figured out that Tychus is a bleeding moron and with the help of all the massive amounts of research from the prophecy missions I jumped back into the main storyline with the ability to instant build supply depots and make 2 scvs at once and Science Vessels.
How many times have I said this phrase? Marine and medics are good. I made a ton of marines and medics supporting a small army of scvs positioned carefully always just barley behidn Odin so the scvs don't get focus fired. The Brutal computer will focus your scvs every time, I had a small army of science vessels following him as well these helped to keep my wraiths healed as well.
Kept flying in to take out tanks or other things before odin did with the wraiths and pulling back to the vessels to heal. Killing Loki was toughish until I used the marines to help then he went down pretty easy. THe researches are in pretty obvious locations the only tough part was making sure your scv count was high enough to keep Odin from going below 30% for the achievement but witht he ability to double build scvs from 2-3 orbital commands that wasn't really too hard.
Mission 20: Media Day
I was a complete bastard on the surprise attack do it a few times at the start just so you can get practiced on taking out as many of the army in the middle as possible while taking the least amount of damage. Then I proceeded to kill every command center and scv on the map then getting the Odin out alive put a few hits ont he CC until it's about 75% with the odin's huge damage then barrage it and it will kill the CC and hte scvs repairing it. I had to do this a seperate time to get the barracks, factory starport during surprise attack achievement. Keeping the Odin alive is very important to getting the speed achievement on this.
With all the CCs down the two expansions are easy to take quickly set up some tanks and anti air around them in front of both expansions and your main is relatively safe. On the left expo you will need LOTS of anti air as it's right next to the air base. And all the air will go after that one. I took out the left base with a nice mass of thor/goliath while the odin cleared out the right by itself then started working ont he top tank base while the thor/goliath mass secured the tower.
+ Show Spoiler +
Don't forget the bottom right for the secret mission ^^
With the Odin alive this is much easier not easymode but wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier than Odin being dead which I tried the first time and DAMN that sucked.
Mission 21: Piercing the Shroud
Okay I havent finished this one, I didnt get the last research I was too busy running the fuck away to pick it up and I tried several times to get the brutalisk but decided I"d do it later.
This one is pretty tough but the only advice I have to offer is UNIT PRESERVATION theres no time limit on this and once you're running the fuck away from the hybrid you can just flat out run keeping units alive doesn't matter as much. Get the zerg and protoss to fight eachother as much as possible while running. I barley made it out with just raynor but by then I was pretty tired. This one was pretty damn hard I got to the brutalisk with all my marines alive and the + 3 marauders figuring the marauders could probably take a hit so I could micro them but you have to get them out before the second attack hits them. So it's pretty tough to get the not losing a unit achievement.
Two very fun days but very tiring as well, 20 down, 6 and a half to go (have to finish 20)
and I still haven't done Nova's mission either getting close to the end and enjoying it a lot so far mostly due to the fact that I can choose what units I want to get and which upgrades/researches. Lets me customize my build. I'll post a list of my upgrades/researches on the next maybe last installment.
