I just finished this using the air mode (plan without knowing anything about the level was to just mass BCs and vikings). Took me 2 attempts, mainly because I wasn't expecting so many lings to be attacking so didn't do much of a walloff. Second time through was pretty much:
Tons of bunkers with plenty of SCVs for repairs. The slow-debuff turret thingy (which seems to be amazingly useful at your chokes), with tanks behind. That takes care of the lings and hydra/roach attacks.
Then I split goliaths between the two for a bit of mobile AA. Then pretty much my entire army after that was vikings. Got fucking loads, and had 3 seperate groups on seperate patrols. One patrolling around each choke (moving just in front of it to catch broodlords), and one patrolling around and behind the base to catch drops and air attacks from behind. Seemed to work pretty well. Also dropped a few goliaths in my mineral line which I'd use to take out any lings etc that got into the base (normally not many).
Pretty much the most valuable meta-upgrade for this level imo is the structural repair (where buildings dont burn, and automatically repair up to 50%). Really helps keep your wall up against the slow wear-down of the zergling attacks. Oh, and make sure you're good with upgrading attack/armor of your units (air especially) 3/3 vikings is really, really useful.
Also made a bunch of BCs, but found they got insta-killed by Kerrigan, and Vikings are much better at killing off the big air thing that comes.
Best way to deal with Kerrigan is let her hit into your wall and let tanks destroy her. Attacking her with a bunch of BCs leads to losing at least 2-3, whereas when she attacked my wall all I'd ever have to do was rebuild a single bunker.
After the first fail, the second attempt went really well and ended up getting the achievement for only using the nova thing once on hard.
here is how i beat it on brutal, i got 2 factory 2 starport and 2 baracks all with the techreactor uppgrade.
mass marines
mass siege tanks
mass bunker
a few of the zerg slow towers and some of the flamethrower turrets
set up alot of turrets around in your base for all the overlords
and always try to have 5-6 scvs om each side of your defense idle with auto repair on, i had the train 2 scvs at the same time uppgrade tho, not sure how this would work without it.
for offense i tried to have about 5-6 banshees too kill all the nydus worms around the map and also try too save the artifact blast thingy for whenever kerrigan comes
i did it with ~8 BC's to deal with nydus's, mass tanks, bunkers and then spam hellion/vulture/marines with excess minerals(you'll have heaps). getting a vessel or two with the bc's can help. the good thing about BC's vs banshees is they can just plow through the hydras, lessening the load on the wall with the nydus on it as you're heading there, sure they're slower, but heaps more reliable. DOnt engage kerrigan with your bc's until she's blown her mana(or maybe try emp, i didn't try it) so she doesn't 1 shot them and you're sweet
Completed it last night on hard difficulty against air. Bought both upgrades for vikings and the splash gun for battlecruiser (although I didn't use it). Side defenses were about 2-3 bunkers and 8 tanks, then had a border wall of turrets everywhere else. actually pretty easy when I could use the artifact on Kerrigan, then yamato her about 8 times. Not having to deal with nydus worms is so nice, I only had to deal with annoying broodlords attacking my turrets and the giant Leviathan air Zerg unit that comes later on. Use those merc units whenever you can, really worth it.
just beat the "nydus worm version" with marauder,tank & banshee.
i just bunkered up and used marauders in the bunkers with tanks behind them. while doing that i used cloaked banshees for killing nydusworms and had to use a energywave on the overlord level.
Concerning upgrades: i went 3 attack upgrades for infantry, air and vehicle. nothing else.
I went banshees to take out the nydus, mass bunker and marine/meds to defend and built up a large 24ish host of ghosts and used them with perma cloak and the snipe ability to mop up kerrigan and w/e else they were needed. (you can uber pwn kerigan with mass sniping it found it worked really well)
On July 29 2010 00:30 MasterKilljoy wrote: i just finished the game on brutal. but anyways does anybody have an idea on how to egt the One Shot, Fifty kills. achievement on Belly of the Beast level. im always coming up short on how many kills i get its always around 30 or so. any tips would be helpful. my bnet is almightyironman@gmail.com
I kept getting overrun whenever Kerrigan showed up and basically roflstomped one side of my wall. Even after I killed her, then my wall would be down and I would never have enough time to rebuild it before the next wave of Nydus troops came through.
Here's a nifty trick that might help you, though. Assuming you have planetary fortresses researched, use them as your wall. BUT...since you're going to be swimming in minerals, build some orbital commands/command centers while your wall is still intact and flat them to each of the sides. When (not if, WHEN) one side falls, land your orbital command and turn it into a planetary fortress. Bam, instant wall.
Make two factories to spam siege tanks from and put them behind your wall (and up on the high ground). Make sure to space them out so that Kerrigan can't instantly one shot ALL your tanks. Oh, and if you can remember, get the hero tanks. They are SUPER helpful. I also had a small 40-50 food MMMedic ball running around my base as well and would have htem help out whichever side was weaker (or whichever side Kerrigan was coming to). But the MMM ball is probably optional
As long as you can keep your wall up and your tanks behind them, you should be allright. Once I figured out that I could basically pre-make my wall, the game got a ton easier.
{edit: actually, you don't even have to have planetary fortress researched. You can probably just do this with orbital commands/command centers, as it's really more important that you have a wall than that your wall can shoot)
Kill the merc rax, and mass siege tanks near the cliff, ignore nydus worms. after getting enough siege tanks mass marine and medics. when kerrigan comes activate the crystal, send your MNM's out and snipe her before she can touch your tanks
in the final stage, place your MNM forces near the artifiact to snipe the nydus worms that spawn there
You can use thor cannons to keep Kerrigan stunned if you're having trouble with her. Also, make sure you take advantage of your time after using the artifact so you can kill the nydus worms with banshees. Everything else should be manageable with a repaired wall and siege tanks.
Found a bug that allowed me to get as many credits as I wanted, which helped a lot since I had everything fully upgraded.
Get 25 research points with zerg and protoss so that any extra is given as credits. Then replay any mission from credits and you should have some cash waiting in laboratory. Replay another mission and you should have more cash waiting. I discovered it when replaying most missions for the hard achievement, and it worked just as well when I just did a 2 minute run through on the first mission, I got another 250k credits each time.
For doing this on Hard and getting the achievement for using artifact once I used thors to stun her, plantetary fortresses and a few bunkers to block, lots of SCVs behind the PF, lots of siege tanks behind the SCVs, upgrade vehicle and air attack and use banshees to hunt nydus worms(remember cloak).
Make one clump of siege tanks at each of the chokes to your main base with 3 bunkers in front, don't spread them out on highgrounds or ledges. Macro away by spamming banshees and tanks and putting the excess minerals into marines. When Kerrigan comes, engage her with your spare marine blob. She kills them one at a time if they are in front of everything, almost completely ignoring your banshees/tanks. Then it's just a matter of sitting it out with a 200/200 tank army against a congo-lining zerg.
The only thing you really have to do in this mission besides macroing is flying your banshees around and not letting them die. Even then, once you reach 200/200 you can simply build 2 additional starports (with tech-reactors) and replenish instantly. Disappointingly easy even on brutal if you know where to position your tanks.
Wow, I went back to a previous save and bought the tank/banshee upgrades and it made the hard version of it sooooo easy. I didn't come close to losing.....gonna have to replay it to beat it on brutal with PFs I think though.
Ugh. I'm going to have to go back to the beginning of the campaign and start the meta-purchases over again. This is the only mission I'm failing and it's basically because I don't have any of the correct purchases to counter. I bought all the wrong mercs, upgrades, research, etc... Only thing I did right was getting the psi disruptors. lol. I've been getting to about 90% and my whole base suddenly explodes around me.
I wish that going on the destroying nydus mission meant there were less ground forces, but it seems like its the same amount of ground and extra air bonus.. So my upgrades are stacked towards air making my tanks kinda suck, and wasting sooo much money on vikings and turrets means I only have about 6 tanks at each choke most of the time.
Nydus version: 1) wall off with PFs (bunkers work just fine as well) 2) mass siege tanks behind your wall 3) upgrade tanks as soon as possible optional: make some banshees to kill nydus worms around the map this mission becomes significantly easier if you have both tank researches it becomes even easier if you have the "slow all zerg units" building from the zerg research
Air version: 1) I'd imagine similar to above 2) mass vikings if you have both viking researches it should be no problem
I just finished the nydus version on brutal at the second try. It was working perfectly but I didn't know that kerrigan can cast storm, so i lost 20 banshees to that and got overrun... the second try went completely smooth. Mass tanks just solve all your problems. A few bunkers in front are a nice addition. I went for fast weapon upgrades on everything (vehicle weapons are a must, since i also had mass marines in my bunkers and some banshees i upgraded both fast, too)
I haven't tried this yet but wouldn't spectres just absolutely destroy kerrigan? I mean they have a stun and a spell that does 200 damage to a single target (if you get the upgrade). Sounds like you'd only need a squad of about 10 of them to be able to completely take care of her.
EPT
