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I know someone did it with the hive mind emulator against air zerg. I went totaly the other way.
(Playing on Hard, btw)
The mission was really freakin' intense!
I killed the air, figuring that if everything is on the ground, I can just make more tanks. Also, I hate broodlords way too much. I took the psi disruptor.
Now my mistake was getting the perdition turret. I've been playing since day 1 of the beta so I wanted to try something other than the PF, but in this mission, I kept kicking myself for not having a big ass PF blocking the way with 4 scvs repairing it full time.
I ended up making a wall of turrets and they worked pretty well (to my surprise) but I don't have anything to soak up all the bullsh*t that's flying in every direction once you hit 80%, Kerrigan just walks in, says Whats up! and I loose my all my bunkers. Even worse, I took the fancy turret bunkers because they looked cooler but I realise now that Tougher bunkers are probably much better.
The wall of supply depots failed horribly too.
So how can I score the achievement without restarting the campaing?
Make a wall of barracks?
Also, are Thors feasible in this mission? I maxed out my supply in tanks and infantry.
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if u wanna do aces high, its easier to kill the nydus and do air with hive mind.
AFAIK it is ridiculously hard to NOT use the nova when kerrigan comes alongside crapload of ultra lings.
all in is one of those levels that you need to prep a build for it ahead of time. ie PF for nydus and splash viking for air. if u didnt prepare well, just start over.
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I did it on brutal last night fighting works with psi disruptors.
I just built tanks, tanks and more tanks. Game up on trying to kill worms with banshees after awhile. Built 3-4 psi disrubtors on either side. Reniforced with my anti-kerrigan marine ball whenever requried. Built 2-3 science vessels per choke to auto repair tanks. Eventually I threw up a psi disruptor on the ledge overhangs as well incase I lost some and planetary fortresses at the top too, just to soak up abit of damage. They didn't do anything.
Ultimatly I only used the nova once around 50% because I had slacked on macro and my tank production wasn't high enough. Otherwise I won the mission with a solid 20 seconds to spare before the artifact got overrun by kerrigan and her endless waves of ultras.
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vs. Nydus
At each of the 2 chokes:
2-3 PF
2-3 Thors (for stun on Kerrigan)
10+ tanks
5-10 SCVs for repairs
~12 Banshees for aggressively hunting Nydus
2-4 SVs for repair
Never used the nova once, though that was only on Hard.
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Ive tried bunkering, PF, battlecruisers... but it was all very intense. the easiest way to beat it was this.
From the thread here.
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I made the same tech choices you did and that mission ended up being very tough. I beat it for the achievement by walling off with 4 turrets in front of a wall of bunkers. This was supported by 4 -6 tanks on the cliffs at each side, (2 on each cliff per side) and then 3 tanks behind the row of bunkers. I was constantly making tanks to replenish any that would fall. If you have extra tanks put them within range of the edge of your bunkers but close enough in your base so they can attack nydus worms that pop up in the middle.
The key to victory for me was making a banshee wraith nydus killing group. I had about 4 or 5 banshees and 3 or 4 wraiths to kill overseers. You have to really be ontop of taking out nydus worms with the air squad. I would manually move them to the first and then queue the others to be attacked. If you get the message they are under attack you need to take out the detection. I kept making banshees off of one starport the entire time to replenish losses.
When Kerrigan came, I would yamato with the merc battlecruisers once and move them back. I tried to put vikings in the front so she would use the 1 hit kill on them but it did not always work. In the bunkers I kept a couple mauraders with slow on each side and the rest filled with marines. Leave 3 or 4 scvs per side for repairs. Around 85% I started making a ton of bunkers on the platform to prepare for the nydus that pop up top. Move your extra tanks up there at this point.
Its not perfect but I hope this helps.
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Imo it's not that hard... I did it with 0 uses of the Artifact. Turret bunkers are fine. Psi Disruptors are great since you took out air.
Salvage the 2 bunkers you have. Create 3 new bunkers at each side, just slightly behind the ramp to the artifact. Spread a few Psi Disruptors so that they cover the frontlines. Placing some on the Artifact hill should be nice too.
Make marines and tanks, occasionally a few medics, but keep their numbers low.
Get Infantry and Vehicle attack upgrades asap.
Spread out your tanks, about 6 per flank should be fine for hard. More doesn't hurt either.
Make more Banshees, a total of 10-12. Babysit them. When a nydus wave is incoming, try to be right there when they spawn, you might even be able to take them out before any Hydras spawn. Of course you have cloak too, but watch out for Overseers. Better pull back a bit, kill another Nydus and come right back then lose 2-3 Banshees.
Accumulate a large number of Marines. When Kerrigan comes, attack her with the marines. Stim. No need for medics, she 1 hits them anyways. Try to save a few from that storm thing she casts. But you mostly suicide those marines on her. Can't really tell you how many marines you need, but 30-40 should do. Rebuild them.
Keep reinforcing the artifact hill with bunkers when you have the time/resources for it, just in case it gets close at the end.
Killing Nyduses is your top priority after Kerrigan. Your Disruptors/Bunkers/Tanks/SCVs should barely take any damage if you are quick.
If possible, you should have the special upgrades for tanks, banshees, marines. Everything else is more or less optional. Thors with upgrade can stun Kerrigan, so if you want to do that, try it.
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Actualy, I didnt have any problems with worms in my base, the tanks just catch them.
Its the ones that spawn outside, they barf up a ridiculous amount of units.
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I actually managed it on Hard first try without ever activating the artifact. Shouldn't be hard to do it with just 1.
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I had all my tech upgrades on Thors and Vikings, so I took the air route. The mutas are no problem with that, and the brood lords I just mind controlled, which is awesome, because when you hover them in the right places you barely have to worry about any ground anymore, and they keep Kerrigan busy too, so you can stun her with the Thor barrage.
And since I also had the upgrades on specters, I got a few of those, but probably could have done without. But with the lot of saving and loading going on on brutal, you can do preemptive nukes in the right areas and the Psionic Lash is ok against Kerrigan too. Still, more Thors would have been better I think.
Edit: Now that I think of it, I could have tried to stun Kerrigan with the specters too. A lot less risky than trying to get a Thor in range without being lifted off.
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I found the perdition turret to be fantastic... I played on brutal with air.
You rarely have to repair it as it seems AI is already hitting bunkers. The little bastards just pop right up and start torching zerglings. Good times! They also cost no gas (and thus no gas to repair!). Don't PFs require gas?
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PF require 150 gas but it is alot more durable and has an attack that will draw enemy fire. essentially you are paying for a fully loaded bunker with an additional 1k hp.
it is well worth the money.
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In the absence of PF's to wall (and, hell, even when I had PFs) I just used like 6-9 barracks at each choke, with either perdition turrets to plug gaps or supply depots.
PFs cost gas to repair and at least on Brutal I was broke on gas for literally the entire mission. I can see how on Normal/Hard PFs would be better because I ended up at 200/200 with like 4k gas stockpiled by the end.
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It took me a few tries, but after I made a couple of adjustments I was able to take get this pretty easily without using the artifact at all. IMO, the key is a couple of things you can easily do very early in the game.
1. Build two armories and max out the air tech tree ASAP by researching upgrades in tandem.
2. Build two extra barracks with reactors.
So here's how it goes:
Defense: Each choke gets 3 bunkers, 3-5 tanks, and a dozen or so Perdition turrets. That's enough to pretty much shred anything but Kerrigan. Drop in some Psi Disruptors when you can.
Worms: Build about 16 Bahshees and (this is critical) set up 2 control groups. When worms spawn both groups fly out, kill, and fly back to the chokes. Two groups = half the flying time, so the worms die sooner and you have time to decloak and recover energy in time for the next wave of Worms. Plus their firepower makes holding the chokes kid's play.
Overlords: Park BCs on the artifact hill. Don't worry about the chokes; bunkered marines will keep them clear. Marine ball goes in the middle, behind the artifact hill. Build a few turrets in the back of your base. After most of the overlords are dead micro a few marines to clean up the stragglers.
Kerrigan: The key here is to make sure she wastes her storm. If she drops a storm on your choke its pretty much game over; by the time the smoke clears your defenses are gone and its very hard to rebuild them. In any event, the key is to have a ball of 30 or so marines hot-keyed and ready to go. Park them in front of your defenses on the side she's heading for, then when she gets close stim rush. They run right through the storm, which is now sitting uselessly on empty terrain. The marines die, but its easy to rebuild them before she comes back.
This doesn't work on her last attack (88% or so?) because her escorts shred the marines before they can do any real damage. I pretty much kitchen-sinked this final attack; I put my marines just in front of my fixed defenses and bring in all my air plus some Thors. The stim-rush causes her to expend her storm, after which you can kill her with only moderate casualties.
After that it was cake: rebuild lost units, kill worms, and wait for the artifact to power up.
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I don't like walling with PFs because while they will never die, they also eat gas to repair.
Just wall with OCs/Bunkers and mass tanks, as well as having 10~ banshees for killing nydus worms and support fire on Kerrigan if you want.
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First time I completed the mission on brutal was with nydus worms and no air and I used the artifact twice, looking at the vast difference between difficulties that should be enough to only use it once on hard.
Bunkers plus Tanks for the defense, than a group of Battlecruisers against the Nydus. When Kerrigan comes, these Battlecruisers better keep their distance for not dying, but can deal vast amounts of damage with Yamato Cannon, helping to hold the line. Bunkers+Rax for wall should be sufficient, I did it with Bunkers only but that was kinda risky.
Also I completely forgot about those anti-zerg-buildings so that same tactic should work very fine for hard and aces high.
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On September 28 2010 14:23 Dfgj wrote:
I don't like walling with PFs because while they will never die, they also eat gas to repair.
Just wall with OCs/Bunkers and mass tanks, as well as having 10~ banshees for killing nydus worms and support fire on Kerrigan if you want.
PF's aren't necessary at all. I imagine they're just way easier to keep alive. Upgraded bunkers put out way more damage and requires less in the way of repair costs.
My strat:
Bunker up the two chokes leading to the artifact, it's best to just destroy the badly placed one on the left and remake it a little bit further back. Fill your bunker walls (5-6 per side) with marines and keep 3 or so SCVs on either side for auto repairs. Tech reactor 1 starport and 1 factory for constant banshee/tank production, split your tanks on either side and control group all your banshees together. Double armory for fast air attack/armor upgrades and one engi bay (because you'll only need infantry attack upgrades).
From there on out just keep up production. Bunkers rarely fall and even then I was able to keep most of my marines after it went down. A small bio ball in the center of the base was helpful for emergencies like knocking out oddly placed nydus worms, but I don't think it's at all necessary. All-In was one of the two missions (the other being Maw) where full barracks unit spamming doesn't do much good, it's way better if your bunkers are full of mercs. I felt like I was in complete control of the mission even though I didn't max out my army until like 70%. The only time I HAD to use the artifact was for the overlord drop, you can beat all-in on hard without using it at all.
I haven't tried all-in vs air yet on brutal, I should get to that within the next few days. Am I going to run into trouble if I just swap banshee production for vikings and use more or less the same strat? I would guess the ground assault is much easier to manage.
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The most important part of this level is to destroy the nydus worms as fast as possible.
When I played through on hard I used just a couple of banshees to run around the map attacking nydus, and then massed BC's for kerrigan. When I did it again on brutal I skipped the BCs and massed banshees.
As soon as nydus worms pop up, cloak the banshees and attack queue the nydus worms. (Make sure you move the banshees back to your base after the last worm.)
There is not much detection on this map, so you might lose the occasional banshee but I didn't have much trouble with it on brutal or hard.
Besides this go with 3 bunkers at each choke and make as many tanks as you can. Build turrets and more importantly 3 or so psi disruptor at each choke.
Finally make sure you build a few bunkers and psi disrupters on the high ground. This is just to slow the zerg down at the very end. Then use your one artifact blast between 85 and 95%. After 95 you should be able to let the swarm overrun you and just hold off long enough to get to 100%.
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EPT
