EPTThere's a few threads that touch up on Brutal Campaign, but I just wanted to put together a quick and simple guide that can help people achieve Brutal in a timely fashion. This missions are listed in the order that I did them. I am sure there was some reason I chose this order (I needed x unit so I did this mission etc, but I don't remember off the top of my head. What I do remember is getting siege tanks relatively early.) Some of this will be incomplete, but I just finished it all and it's pretty fresh in my mind, so here goes:
Liberation Day:
This is pretty simple. People that are experiencing loss of units should take their units at lower health, and put them behind your units with full or green health.
Where the drop comes in that Raynor calls down, when you see the pods land, send in your units to kill the front line, you should have some left over.
When dealing with the turret on the ground shuttle, simply micro units.
When dealing with the vikings, let the civilians take the lead, and attack the vikings in the air as well before they land, there will be 3, 1 should be softened up before landing, you might only have Raynor left. Simply kill the other 2 with the assistance of the civilians. If only Raynor is left, kite back to more civilians, there should be a couple near the statue that they grenaded to help.
The Outlaws:
The most simple way to do this mission is to take your first few marines, and spam proxy barracks after killing the north group for the extra minerals. I ended up with four of my own plus the one you acquire for saving the civilians that are West of your starting point. By proxying the barracks after killing the first group, you will have a quicker and more effective ball.
After that's done and you move north, make sure to spread out your units for the hellions that you will deal with. Afterward, power through the bunker and head north.
Inside the main base, be sure to stay on the left of it, because there is a siege tank deployed on the right side of the base, you should be able to kill most of the production before you have to deal with it. When everything but the siege tank and factory is dead, send one marine, followed by another to bait the siege tank, than run up and kill it.
Zero Hour:
This mission is pretty simple by just turtling. Don't go and do the side objective, it can only make things messy. Where the choke points are for the main base I suggest build 2 more bunkers with marines in them each, as well as adding another turret to each side.
As far as building goes, I went double upgrade, and 4 raxx, with 2 reactor for marine pump, and 2 with tech lab for some medics. Have 1 of each rally to each side. When you hit critical mass and have no more room for extra marines, you want to send them up to your main to deal with the spore cannon drops.
During the mission you will find the spore cannon drops starting to happen in your base, salvage the bunkers that are in your main, and take a two groups of about 7 marines and 1 medic. Simply have them patrol inside your main from side to side and they can deal with everything that drops on your base. Normally you could just have them sit there, but the patrol option will automatically take care of any roaming issues on your main base.
The Evacuation:
Make sure you grab the extra minerals before you get to the main base. They can help you macro up in the beginning very well. Also, before you get there, you will encounter a fairly large force of zerglings on the south side. Well placed Firebats in front of medics will easily be able to handle this quite well.
Inside the base begin to do some small macro. Typically in this mission I went for triple raxx, with 2 reactor and 1 tech on them, in the beginning you can only afford one or two, it depends on how your style of the macro game is. You will have a third by mid game, and a fourth later, and you could probably get up to 6 by the time it's all said and done.
The first wave doesn't require many units, feel free to take advantage of the bottom bunker, and after that wave, salvage it. Up top, you may have to salvage it before you get to it because it will be destroyed. If you have stim, you can probably reach it first.
After that wave, you should have extra money from the two salvaged bunkers, start grabbing the 1/1 upgrade from one engi bay, and just make a huge bio ball with a handful of firebats, about 8 medics, and a ton of marines. It's easy picking from this point on.
Outbreak:
I found this mission particularly easy on Brutal. To play it safe make 2 bunkers per side, and later on the bottom entrance as well. Put 2 firebats and 2 medics in front of the bunkers, and have an scv on each side just hanging out in case auto repair is necessary. During the day, I didn't find any true change of difficulty in this mission, just go triple raxx off the one base, and you should be fine if you can mass units well enough.
The only real difficulty was in the main base on the south, but if you are efficient enough at killing buildings during the day you should be fine with a huge ball by the time you get to that point in the mission.
I sent out two different control groups of units, and finished this mission by day 4 or 5 finally hit.
The Devil's Playground:
So in this mission you simply want to have a small bioball, under 15 units I'd say, to deal with the pushes from the Brutal Computer. Keep in mind, you can't really bunker up at the mineral patches, unless you want to salvage them before the fire rises. There's no timer on screen, but I believe the screen starts shaking and rumbling at around 30 seconds. Play it safe, there's no reason not to, with a couple medics to go with the marines, you're at no real risk.
When you get reapers, send one out at a time to check for minerals, no reason for your entire reaper group to get stuck in a zerg base. With some decent exploration, you will find just about every pack of reapers, this combined with the starting patch, the patch in the middle, the patch north of that, and the patch south of your main base, should be pretty easy to obtain and defend the mineral mark.
Smash and Grab:
So here we are, back at the triple barracks (1 tech lab, 2 reactor). This one can be a little tricky. I found out you really only need 1 bunker with marines in it, with an scv near by. I suggest at least one turret behind it to deal with the air. Two if you have the spare cash.
To deal with psi-storm on your way through, have a few marauders to tank it. Overall, you'll win this mission with plenty of time before the zerg has a chance. Grab the engineering bay upgrades, and you should be on your way to victory pretty quickly with a sizable ball. Don't forget to have marauders tank storm though, of you can catch yourself balling up and losing many, many marines.
Welcome to the Jungle:
I won't lie, this mission is a pain in the ass. You need a strong MMM ball, with Marauders to tank colossi in it. Make sure your army is mobile.
Same as before wit the triple raxx with upgrades coming in. But make sure you are targeting Void Rays first with your marines. I think we all know what happens when they charge up on a marine ball, it's not pretty, don't let it happen.
In the beginning of this mission, I suggest taking the left side as soon as possible, but play it safe. I wouldn't go for the double grab until later, when you are balled up very well.
After sweeping the left side, mass up a bit. You will also need some defense in the beginning, a bunker with marines does the trick here as usual. As well, I would suggest building a turret or two to get the job done.
After defending a wave or two, try to grab the canisters on the right side of the map. Chances are one of them has been locked up. After this, it's time to push the middle and expand. Remember, closer Command Center, quicker time for the SCV to travel from the Taldarim Alter to delivering it.
Continue to ball up and push, and don't be afraid if the Protoss lock up a couple Alters, they need to lock a ton of them to beat you in this mission, and by the time it comes to grabbing canister 6 and 7, you are probably balled up enough that if they are close, you can get them both at the same time.
Another big tip is to travel with an extra SCV, just in case.
The Dig:
Siege Tanks, Bunkers, and Turrets is pretty much what this mission should be renamed. I didn't expand until about 20k of the door was already taken down, but you can safely expand with a couple of well placed siege tanks behind the ledge, and then make yourself a nice bunker wall at the expansion with more siege behind it. Trust me, you will have plenty of minerals to do so.
During the mission I suggest at your main you have 3 bunkers loaded with marines, and numerous siege tanks at each side, and a bunch at the expansion as well. Grab the attack upgrades when you can safely do so without costing yourself productivity for the tanks, and keep around 3 scvs at each area for repair (Don't send 3 at once, send 1 when money is okay, 2 when it's loosened up, and a 3rd when you really have let go.)
The siege tanks are nice and all, but the Laser cutter is the real damage dealer here. To get this mission done in a less-than-forever timely fashion, I suggest having the laser kill:
Colossi
Archons
Immortals
In that exact order. The tanks CAN deal with the Immortals if necessary, but the colossi can prove to be troublesome with their range at times, and plus the immortals ball up with the AI's other troops pretty well, so at worse case you are killing 2-10 birds with one stone (depending on how many sentry, zealots and stalkers there are). Having the laser kill the colossi will kill the AI's ability to see high ground and be a huge inconvenience towards your sim city.
This is a time consuming mission, but overall this is a very safe way to do it.
Whispers of Doom:
The best advice I can give is to take your time, and carefully micro stalkers and your friendly DT separately.
A few tips would include having Zeratul stun detectors and having the stalkers safely kill it between units flying by, as well as stunning Broodlords for quick, convenient and safe kills.
Also, during the baneling portion, have your stalkers kill the creep tumors to slow down the banelings. Aside from that, it's not very hard, just a time consuming mission where I would suggest frequently saving and playing it safe.
Breakout:
This mission just takes time and careful play. Coordinate your attacks with the AI's. There's no real big trick to this mission considering in campaign you can see a nice fine circle of where units can and cannot see you.
Don't be afraid to run back to a medic to health, or to consume half of a marauder for energy. It helps a lot.
By the end, you should be able to unlock both groups of prisoners without too much of a problem, and on top of that, you get 4 nuclear launches, which is honestly 4 more than you need. Make sure you haven't alerted the Ravens before using one (don't fire and have a raven come check it out right before you nuke, or you will die.)
You can practically waltz through this mission and grab the Cool Hand Tosh Achievement (nice reference Blizzard) without any problems at all. Just remember to mind blast those SCVs repairing and you will be done in a timely fashion.
Ghost of a Chance:
Just like Tosh's mission in breakout, you just need to play this mission carefully, and slowly to avoid dying. You can even manage to rack up all the achievements involved with this mission as well.
Dominate Siege Tanks, Goliaths, and the Ultralisk to make this mission very easy. Also, during the last part, be careful when you see and hear nuclear launch detected, it's a ghost that will surely be gunning for Nova, simply move her and you will be fine.
The Moebius Factor:
Another mission that the great MMM ball was meant to solve. What you really need here is simply a few marines in bunkers, 2 siege tanks, and a couple turrets to defend, aside from that on the offensive a solid MMM ball with medivacs for dropping off and picking up do just the trick. I highly suggest building at least a couple of medics though, because the amount of spore crawlers on this map are numerous and annoying beyond belief.
With decent macro and production, you should be able to easily get through this mission. Be warned though, gas is not as plentiful as you would assume, be careful to not overbuild medics and siege tanks, you need some of that gas to be able to produce your medivac drop unit.
Safe Haven / Haven's Fall:
Similar to the Tosh and Nova missions, these two play extremely similarly. So I am just going to sum them up together, I will split them later when I'm a little more refreshed with them, and I can point out the finer points of them.
These missions come down to two things:
- Having a decent and effective Marine Medic ball
- Using Vikings properly.
By utilizing those two aspects, these missions are both very easy.
One difference though, when you have to kill the Mothership in Safe Haven, jump INTO the Vortex, when you do, all her spawned units will move away from your group making it very easy. Keep the vikings at max range of 9, and you can actually kite the Mothership.
The Great Train Robbery:
All you need is one bunker to defend, because in this mission you'll be doing something fantastic.. something.. awesome.. something I like to call.. mass Diamondback.
the bunker should be in the back of your base to kite air units to it with marines inside of it.
In the beginning, I highly suggest getting all the extra Diamondbacks on the map you can easily access, and after a couple trains when you have 30 extra seconds or so, go clear the other expansions and get the Refinery up and running.
Now, diamondbacks cant hit air, so I suggest traveling with a pack of marines in the back with a medic or two to clean up any air units left over during base harassment or train rides.
Seriously though, if you double factory pump Diamondback.. this mission is a joke.
As far as the Marauder Kill group goes.. your Diamondbacks should be able to avoid it, but you can safely kill one group without suffering any critical number of losses, as far as the second one roaming the south or north, just avoid it. If you have to, let a train go through, there will be another that is safer to kill, and you need to let 2 pass to fail the mission.
Cutthroat:
The part after you get the contract is pretty simple, considering the ridiculous amount of units you inherit after taking the contract, and can just power with siege tanks to victory with any decent support group of units. Getting to the contract though, can be difficult if not properly approached.
Before you get the contract, I highly suggest having an army consisting of 2 barracks, and one siege tank in between entry points to your base. Aside from this, I recommend using the vulture mines for easy defense.
With a small group of marines and medics with the vultures you acquired earlier, you should move out to either the small expansion north of your base, or southeast of your base, and take them both out. This does two things:
- It slows down the mineral gain of Orlan, and yields you many minerals very fast.
- CC's contain 400 minerals.
Also, on the map, you will be informed at one point that "we should come back and check these later." Those big boxes are worth 150 a piece, and there are typically two. I found going from one area with them on one side of the map, to the other, by the time I got back, they had respawned. That's a lot of coin for simply patrol moving, and shouldn't be discounted as a strategy.
After killing the south east base, continue up from it and kill everything up to Mira Han's base. You should be golden by that point, and ready to move onto the second part. Like I said, siege tanks and a unit for vision do the trick here. I think he also tries to drop a Nuke as well? Just move away from it, as it is very apparent as to where it will be attempting to land on your forces. He only tried to drop one on me.
A Sinister Turn:
Engine of Destruction (incomplete, started writing this when I mistakenly took the name of another mission for this one):
For a mission where you first get the Wrath from Starcraft, you will be surely reluctant to build any. This map is trivialized by two units on brutal, the Banshee and the Viking. The mass Wraith tactic people talk of is a complete joke, and quite frankly awful when compared to the ridiculous viking/banshee ball that is infinitely more effective.
I would start this mission off by build a second starport with a reactor and a tech lab on your factory. To defend properly in the beginning, all it takes is a bunker and a siege tank. You won't need a turret here whatsoever because of the mobility of your vikings.
Base 1:
Send a few SCV's (you will be doing this often because in Brutal, they actually get targeted, to defend your base as I mentioned earlier, simply build
