I got this idea off the Battle.net forums and decided to try it out.
Basically I will attempt to beat the Wings of Liberty Campaign on Brutal difficulty without getting any upgrades or use any of the Zerg / Protoss technology. I will also attempt to do this on all 29 possible missions. For the choices I will go back in archives and do them.
As proof I will try to get videos up as fast as I can but as my upload speed is slower than a turtle's it will take a lot of time after I beat missions before the videos are up.
Also I will do these at the lowest setting possible so the recording won't lag as much.
Now for some of the things I need to iron out:
Should I go for all bonus objectives as well? This complicate things since if I do not go for the bonus objectives, on some levels I can easily 'cheese' through.
And should I do all missions as they are made to do or though some sort of shortcut (Like the 4 minute Echoes of the Future mission)?
I'll keep this updated.
Completed Missions so far Order - Mission Name - In Game Completion Time (Youtube links will be posts when they finish uploading) Youtube links have been hidden in spoiler tags
10 - Haven's Fall - 1:23:09 --Will not be uploaded until much later when I redo the mission to shorten the time-- 11 - Welcome to the Jungle - 20:19 + Show Spoiler +
While you're at it, you should only use units you unlocked by doing prequesites to the specific missions. See http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Campaign For example, don't use Banshees in Welcome to the Jungle. Only use them in Supernova and Maw of the Void. =)
That way it's truly a minimalistic playthrough!
Imho you should do all bonus objectives. Taking shortcuts is fine, I guess, as long as you do all objectives.
I'd say choose a subtheme to complement "Brutal NUR": speed or minimalist/completionist.
If you go for speed, try to clear the missions as fast as possible, using units from other mission branches (this means you'll have to plan out which units to get first, etc...). Don't do optional objectives if you can avoid it.
If you go for mismalist/completionist, then do as jackb said.
I'd prefer to see the speed-oriented one, since minimalist runs can become boring :S
a valid strategy! I honestly don't think it'll be awfully difficult, with one or two minor exceptions, you're pretty much kicking yourself in the balls as far as medic marine goes, as you won't have stim, reactor meds, shields or stabilizers. those make all the difference on brutal. I think I could do without anything else, but don't take my stim oh god.
I might do it like jackb said but I'll try for the fastest time given those conditions.
I'm currently at Outbreak / Smash and Grab / Devil's Playground
Am I allowed to use reapers from Devil's Playground in Outbreak?
And we may never know if All In is possible. But I shall attempt it.
On August 23 2010 12:41 Thereisnosaurus wrote: a valid strategy! I honestly don't think it'll be awfully difficult, with one or two minor exceptions, you're pretty much kicking yourself in the balls as far as medic marine goes, as you won't have stim, reactor meds, shields or stabilizers. those make all the difference on brutal. I think I could do without anything else, but don't take my stim oh god.
Yea no stim, no reactored medics, no shields, no healing +. You have no idea how annoying this is.
Good luck but I doubt you'll be able to beat All In without upgrades. I'll be watching your progress though as this does seem like an interesting challenge.
I'm all for beating the missions however you can -- all that matters is that you didn't take those upgrades. Cheesy strategies, units from way up the mission line, whatever it takes. The criteria is no upgrades, so that's the only thing you ought to stick to.
Welcome to the Jungle will be hard as fuck for you. GL anyway. I passed most of my missions with mnm on brutal, I can't imagine some of them without medics and stim :<. I guess you'll be going mech heavy in the later missions since mnm without stim and medic upgrades is pretty useless.
I could see doing this with just marine/medic/tank upgrades, but without them some levels are going to be rough. The last level should be near impossible without any upgrades or research I would think.
i thought of this NUR challenge before as well but after playing brutal, i was like...this is kinda hard... and then i thought how much harder it would be to do it without any upgrades >.< and then i gave up on the idea.
I can only assume he's going to do nydus for All In. But that means no Planetary Fortress, no stimmed marines, no bunker turrets or capacity upgrades, no psi disrupter, no tech reactor for tanks, no gas upgrade for tanks, no mercs, no thors with stunlock. So yea, I really just don't know. But GL
It hurts trying to imagine playing brutal All In without siege tank upgrades, mules, gas boost, +15% attack speed, tech reactors, double SCV repair, building damage control, planetary fortresses, most of the mercs or even any bunker upgrades. You do get to use the artifact as often as possible, though, and that's worth a lot.
And should I do all missions as they are made to do or though some sort of shortcut (Like the 4 minute Echoes of the Future mission)?
You can just about skip the Zeratul line. Upgrades can't go into those missions and you won't be taking anything out of them, so it's the same as normally playing the levels on Brutal. IMO you should be willing to compromise secondary objectives if it gets too hard.
I really like this idea very much. I did such things only in Final Fantasys. But i really think this will be very very challanging and maybe even impossible. But don´t give up maybe you find some ways
Are you going to use mercs, besides the war pigs? I would imagine they should also be off limits.
I personally did the campaign with no ups until I went to Char, just because I couldn't decide what to spend money on, the only mission I see trouble with is the All-in, but it's still probably doable.
I've done it all the way to supernova/engine of destruction atm without upgrades/research/mercs. not really that hard, got to reload a couple of times due to me being stupid. I do imagine though that all-in might get tricky without either tank splash, psi-disruptor or planetary fortress. Think it should be doable though, it will probably be all about good artifact uses. One can watch it (the sound is kind of unbearable though, put my mic on the computer fan = bad idea) on my livestream channels on demand section. http://www.livestream.com/zinbiel?t=916677 WARNING: I did watch some of the campaign story-parts etc so one should probably fast forward some parts.
I think that if you at least had siege mode, this would be possible. But without that... oh man. Waiting for every Artifact nova recharge will feel like centuries.
On August 23 2010 15:07 SnowJob wrote: It hurts trying to imagine playing brutal All In without siege tank upgrades, mules, gas boost, +15% attack speed, tech reactors, double SCV repair, building damage control, planetary fortresses, most of the mercs or even any bunker upgrades. You do get to use the artifact as often as possible, though, and that's worth a lot.
And should I do all missions as they are made to do or though some sort of shortcut (Like the 4 minute Echoes of the Future mission)?
You can just about skip the Zeratul line. Upgrades can't go into those missions and you won't be taking anything out of them, so it's the same as normally playing the levels on Brutal. IMO you should be willing to compromise secondary objectives if it gets too hard.
What do you mean he won't have access to all of the mercs?
EDIT: Nvm I read that some consider hiring mecs to be cheating, imo it isn't and he will need that edge for All In.
On August 23 2010 19:41 chrisSquire wrote: can't be done but good luck in your quest. the most difficulty will come with the last protoss mission and ALLIN
how do upgrades, mercs and research effect the Protoss mission? (its no different)
All In however... is going to be really hard with either ground or air version, probably be easier with air version since you can atleast reactor marine/vikings...
I will try to do of without merc but if it comes to it I might use them. As for siege tanks siege mode is not an upgrade. They come with the siege tanks.
Ok bad news, my HDD that was holding my recorded data broke. The only important recordings were probapoly only Smash and Grab and Evacuation which I will redo it at a later date (they are relatively easy to do even without upgrades)
Apart from last mission, I don't see very big issues with that actually. I often used the units that were newly introduced in each mission and hence didn't have any upgrades yet. Missions like Shatter the Sky or Maw of the Void also were quite easy with Battlecruisers without upgrades. The Rebellion Missions often play like ordinary TvT, just go mass Tank/Viking I think especially any kind of Mech or Air play is quite easy without upgrades. Bio might be a bit harder, I heard many people heavily relied on playing bio ball and that's certainly hard without stimpak and medic upgrade.
All you need for Shatter the Sky are mass cloaked banshees. With about 15 cloaked banshees you can rush them into the reactor fast enough that they can take it down and you can still escape with a fair number. You can completely skip Leviathan this way also. I did the whole mission in about 18 minutes by just rushing banshees to each reactor.
On August 23 2010 19:41 chrisSquire wrote: can't be done but good luck in your quest. the most difficulty will come with the last protoss mission and ALLIN
The last protoss mission is really easy, and it isnt affected at all by terran upgrades so I dont know what you are talking about.
perhaps hes talking about the secret mission which did have a zerg/protoss hybird.
i m not sure marine/medic upgrades carry into this mission. if it did, then it means doing it on NUR will only leave you with 45 hp marines and slow medic healing. which could make it ridiculously hard.
I was thinking about doing this myself, seems like it would be ridiculous tho... I think if you go nydus worms for all in its possible tho... i dont see you being able to deal with the air without Mind control or viking splash tho... GOOD LUCK
Brutal all-in vs ground is definitely doable without any research and upgrades (you'll need to replace some tanks or bunkers from friendly damage, but you still won't lose many. vs air w/ no upgrades/research (mind control tower, splash/range vikings, turret upgrades, etc) might be impossible, or at the very least very hard.
Brutal all-in v air should be possible with only viking splash. I doubt without that one unless you can pull off something like, clearing out one of the zerg bases within the first 20% and expoing there for mass production...
Would definately be interested in seeing you go back to your alternate save afterwards and attempting on air, even if you go for nydus on the first try.
So technically you'd be posting up 30 missions, not 29
All-in would be possible I think....when I did it all I used were banshees/siege tanks/BC's with walls on both sides (no planetary fortress). I also picked stupid upgrades so the only one that really came in handy was the siege tank +40 damage one (didn't even have reduced tank splash lol). So I basically did the mission with the only handy upgrades being siege damage and psi-disruptors...I think its doable without those 2 things.
Uhh, Piercing the Shroud? That's a dungeon crawler mission, what would you possibly use upgrades for aside from maybe stimpack on the handful of marines they give you?
Doing brutal NUR myself too, with minimalistic tech (don't use any side-mission unlocked units - as suggested by jackb)
Did everything up until Char without too too much trouble, hardest missions being Welcome to the Jungle and Engine of Destruction.
However now I'm on Gates of Hell and it's kicking my ass O.O The best defense i can put out is tanks, bunkers, MMM and turrets, however the lack of upgrades on these critical units/buildings seems to finally add up. The banelings are especially troublesome, and seige tank splash owns my base whenever speedlings break through. I can't seem to save any of the drop-pods without suffering so much base/army losses that the gain isn't worth it. I'm sure there's some critical mass of tanks/turrets such that nothing gets through, but I don't know if i can mass that quickly.
Well it's exactly the challenge i was looking for, and i suspect All-in will be fun
All-in brutal air with no upgrades will probably be deadly. I can't imagine doing that one without turret or viking splash, or +damage seige support or stimmed marines for that matter. I suspect thors will be your best friend for both kerrigan stun and muta splash.
On August 27 2010 03:21 Liquidsmoke wrote: Doing brutal NUR myself too, with minimalistic tech (don't use any side-mission unlocked units - as suggested by jackb)
Did everything up until Char without too too much trouble, hardest missions being Welcome to the Jungle and Engine of Destruction.
However now I'm on Gates of Hell and it's kicking my ass O.O The best defense i can put out is tanks, bunkers, MMM and turrets, however the lack of upgrades on these critical units/buildings seems to finally add up. The banelings are especially troublesome, and seige tank splash owns my base whenever speedlings break through. I can't seem to save any of the drop-pods without suffering so much base/army losses that the gain isn't worth it. I'm sure there's some critical mass of tanks/turrets such that nothing gets through, but I don't know if i can mass that quickly.
Well it's exactly the challenge i was looking for, and i suspect All-in will be fun
For drop pods, you have to have 1 viking already waiting at the drop location before the drop happens. Only do this for the banshee / viking drops, and the ones nearby. The ground drops that are far away, just ignore. Then, just fly all the stuff back to base without fighting the guardians.
Allready did this all the way up to char its not that hard and a easy way to cheat and get all the upgrade achv at the same time by saving when you have a shit load of money then reloading after you get the ach : P. Only 3 missions i did with upgrades are the last 3 on char also did not use any zerg or toss tech till then for the main reason that i never tryed to get it in any mission. Much easyer to just do the main obj and move on.
On August 27 2010 01:33 monad wrote: Uhh, Piercing the Shroud? That's a dungeon crawler mission, what would you possibly use upgrades for aside from maybe stimpack on the handful of marines they give you?
Marine Stim, Marauder Slow and HP, and Medic Heal rate. All critical.
Wow you guys are ahead of me. Well school just started and I got a load of stuff to do, so the NUR would be a bit slow. That and compressing + uploading takes forever.
Btw my other friend got mission 7,8,9 up, I've told him to do 4,5,6 as well.
And I'm having trouble with Welcome to the Jungle. Worst case scenario, you'll see me save/load to beat it (I didn't want to use the load/save feature cause I want a continuous video and I don't want to edit it (it feels cheated if I do).
I too am trying this as well. So far no purchases made and no research chosen. I also didn't get all the achievements on Brutal but went back to get the achievement on a lower difficulty. Hardest missions for me were in order done: 1. The Great Train Robbery - The trains came too fast and it was difficult to wade through all the Bunkers built and the Kill Squad. 2. Engine of Desturction - Couldn't for the life of me destroy the final base as I ran out of Wraiths. Finally just played all other missions and had this and Supernova left. Kinda cheesed it a bit by blocking Tychus and building up my forces. Destroyed 2nd base myself and expanded then released tychus and helped him with 3rd and 4th base. I had to use MM and Tanks plus wraiths. For 5th base, I sieged up tanks and hotkeyed Wraiths to take out only Air units while tanks took out ground. Was so happy to complete this mission. 3. Supernova - This mission seemed impossible legitimately as the Fire kept creeping so fast that I couldn't keep up. I ended up cheesing this mission by only building a Wraith and Medivac then at around 600 min and 300 gas loaded up as many scvs into medivac and flew my wraith, 4 banshees and Medivac to top area while buildings lifted off to bottom. Wraith was for anti-air and SCVs were for repairs. Destroyed 1 cannon and snuck my airforce to top right losing 1 banshee, had to reload when i lost the medivac full of SCVs. There is a place at top right that I built a Engineering Bay and 2 Turrets to take out the scout by baiting it then cleared the cannons with banshee + repairing of banshees. Then chilled top right to get the artifact.
Now I'm just stuck at Maw of the Void, I feel that I can't get enough resources to keep my Battlecruisers alive and am getting owned by all the forces they send my way. Not sure how anyone else is able to do this mission without Autorefineries or Science Vessels or tech reactors. I can't keep my BCs alive and still have resources to build a defense. Any help for this mission will let me continue on without resorting to research options.
Maw of the Void: Enemies always fly a predictable horizontal path through roughly the middle of the map. You can position your battlecruisers to intercept them before they get to your base. At the very start of the mission, you want your air to hang out by the left ledge where the shuttles will try to drop. Once you expand, group your battlecruisers south of the new base to intercept the shuttles. You may have to occasionally pull a bit north if a stray void ray finds your refinery.
Yamato any void rays that come for you. You don't need to send your entire army into the energy fields, just enough to kill the stations. At some point you can just suicide your entire army into yamato'ing the objective if you get tired of the mission.
For train robbery and engine of destruction, massing the respective new units does work. You just need to pick up the 6 free diamondbacks on robbery and let Tychus kill most of the base structures once you've eliminated the forces to stall for time to build new wraiths.
for maw of the void, u have to abuse load and save. if enemy warp prism got pass your BC fleet and drops in your base, its almost impossible to hold it off without upgraded tanks n bunkers. so you have to load a previous saved game and intercept the prism en route. immediately after that, counter attack the rip field generators. and then head back for repair. rinse and repeat.
On August 27 2010 11:23 keV. wrote: I wonder why welcome to the jungle is hard. Once I figured out to only use medic marine, it became like one of the easiest missions ever.
It's hard for NUR because you don't get stim, you don't get +10 hp, you don't just improved healing for the medic. Though I finally did figured out how to beat it in 20:19 in game time without upgrades.
On August 27 2010 11:23 keV. wrote: I wonder why welcome to the jungle is hard. Once I figured out to only use medic marine, it became like one of the easiest missions ever.
It's hard for NUR because you don't get stim, you don't get +10 hp, you don't just improved healing for the medic. Though I finally did figured out how to beat it in 20:19 in game time without upgrades.
also u dont get medic heal speed. which means storm and collossi rips apart infantry balls.
i beat the mission using gols, marauders, turrets and 2 tanks. i grabbed the 7 gas on the left side and only fought enemies i had to. which turned this into a defence mission than an offence one.
On August 27 2010 16:03 Karliath wrote: This is not meant to be an offensive post. I am genuinely curious whether people have the time to do things like this?
For me, I finished campaign on brutal, did all the single player achievements, did all the combat achievement, currently sitting at 3130 achievement points and the only things remaining are the beat ai/quick match x times as y race.
On August 27 2010 16:03 Karliath wrote: This is not meant to be an offensive post. I am genuinely curious whether people have the time to do things like this?
i m doing this because it really put strategy to the test. welcome to the jungle is a great example. on brutal, you can just cheese it with MMM ball. but without upgraded marine n medics, this suddenly become hell hard until you find the right strategy for it.
On August 28 2010 02:47 Alventenie wrote: Im surprised haven's fall took you so long, and why you didn't go with safe haven as it is a bit easier without upgrades.
I disagree. Haven's fall is easy to beat with mass vikings, but I had to use mass m&m on safe haven with their upgrades to beat it(although i was doing the achievements too). Haven's fall really shouldnt take that long though... you should be able to do it in half the time.
On August 28 2010 02:47 Alventenie wrote: Im surprised haven's fall took you so long, and why you didn't go with safe haven as it is a bit easier without upgrades.
Yea I might redo it. The reason it took so long is because I got lazy and waited for all the colonies to get infested before taking them out so they don't bug me later then proceed to take out the three main bases. If I focus more on just killing the three main zerf bases I can probably finish it in less than 30 minuts.
I just did safe haven on brutal with just vikings and saved 3 camps. Its really not that hard =/, you just build 1-2 bunkers with marines and have a few mara's + 2 medics at base and then fly around the map with vikings clearing out nexi. I did it in like 20 minutes.
haven's fall with mass vikings is easy, I don't think I even used a MM ball on my brutal run. I think I did use science vessals though, which is the one unit i'd miss most with doing a NUR
The only levels I found noticeably more difficult on NUR were Engine of Destruction and All In. The rest of the levels were still pretty easy and you can still roll over everything with bioballs.
For Engine I used ~12 marines, 2-3 tanks, and half a dozen wraiths to pick off tanks and BCs. The MM are expendable but you can't lose ANY tanks or it's over. I'm not sure if I could do it without bringing along the tanks for the second base on because he just wanders into huge groups of MM and hels and even 12 wraiths or banshees kill so slowly and your MM will get owned due to the enemy's upgrade advantage/mass. And then make sure to have like 6 scvs wandering just behind to duck in and heal when most of the enemies are dead.
I still haven't done all in nydus without upgrades. =/ I got destroyed by it like 10 times trying different strats, but I'm sure its doable with the right BO and setup. Farthest I got was like 50% going tank banshee and filling bunks with firebats but mass ling blobs just get in there and the tanks rip your base up. Without upgrades bunkers are weaksauce, tanks don't kill giant piles fast enough, and my banshees are slowly whittled down darting here and there trying to help until eventually I can't do anything about all the worms and I just get flooded everywhere.
Hmmm i think with this NUR-rule all-in might actually be easier going for the air version. You wont be able to snipe all the nydus worms but neither will your tanks be able to deal with the massive amounts of units (or your units with the massive amount of friendly fire ). But the air version doesnt really require you to have any upgrades. they make it easier of course but using vikings and thors (the beauty of these is that they are excellent against the mutas while beeing able to deal with kerrigan thanks to stun) along with a marine ball that you dump all the minerals in should be able to get you through that mission ... at least in theory.
On August 28 2010 05:15 marshmallow wrote: The only levels I found noticeably more difficult on NUR were Engine of Destruction and All In. The rest of the levels were still pretty easy and you can still roll over everything with bioballs.
Did you do the Loki on your NUR? I'm trying this while still getting all bonus and research objectives and it's a pretty good challenge. Just finished EoD while killing Loki and man, it was a close call a couple times (Odin sub 200 hp). Supernova was cool as well.
Medic would be only one that causes a problem, because outside of the missions where you unlock the units, i never use any of them except for the medic =P. I could see once you get the medivac it being ok, but without medic you'll run into trouble on some of the earlier missions.
how did u get pass gates of hell? i m stuck there. before i can mass a 100 army, some massive 3 way attack of roach+baneling/ultra ling/muta guard always hits my main base at the same time and wipes me out.
the ling ultra just rapes me hard. tank splash kills me faster than it kill the ultra lings
how the hell r u gonna get pass the evacuation level without firebats or medics? even the outlaw level get pretty hard without medics.
also i think NUR and SC2 Units Only should be 2 separate and exclusive challenges. that means if ur doing SC2 Units Only, you should be able to get upgraded tanks.
i would also consider ghosts to be SC2 units since they are different from SC1 and are usable in SC2 melee matches.
On August 28 2010 10:04 killa_robot wrote: Wanna know what would really be a test.
Only using the SC2 units.
So:
No medic No Firebat No Goliath No Vulture No Wraiths
I think those are the only ones you unlock in the missions.
Try that (the no medic is the really brutal one)
Medics aside this really doesn't add much to the challenge. NUR + no medics will lengthen the first half of the game (till medivacs) but then will pose less of an issue.
i already had tanks when i did welcome to the jungle. vikings would not help since protoss scouts, stalkers, charged rays are all very strong against vikings. also the strength of viking is their mobility which can not be utilized very much in this map.
the enemy always outnumber you in total resource value of their units. you really need cost effective ways of fighting them.
You can do Welcome to the Jungle with almost no units at all. Nothing but turrets, just mass them all over the left side of the map. You can put a few bunkers with marines at each one for good measure.
On August 28 2010 10:46 dybydx wrote: @marshmallow,
how did u get pass gates of hell? i m stuck there. before i can mass a 100 army, some massive 3 way attack of roach+baneling/ultra ling/muta guard always hits my main base at the same time and wipes me out.
the ling ultra just rapes me hard. tank splash kills me faster than it kill the ultra lings
If you're having that much trouble with your tanks then unsiege them. I only unsiege them when the second wave of like 6 guardians hit. I make 6 vikings for the final push but it'd probably be smarter to make them before that guardian wave, but I never died before getting 100 food.
I keep my bio army in the middle of my base (make sure the middle is open so your blob can go from right/left without having to navigate tiny chokes between buildings) + I have extra bunkers up front to absorb damage. They die a lot to big attacks so I rebuild em a lot + have an scv at each one. I just pump MM + upgrades and then make 6 vikings as the base gets mined out.
I rescue the first drop pod, the tanks, the goliaths, and the thors. The thors probably aren't worth it, but I like them for the final push because they're great meatshields (especially for banelings). You'll want to save before leaving your base each time since the AI seems to like to attack around the point where you're heading out.
For the final push I lifted all my buildings and floated them with my army + scvs. You'll get attacked from behind a lot so make sure you keep good formation.
On August 28 2010 16:51 dybydx wrote: i already had tanks when i did welcome to the jungle. vikings would not help since protoss scouts, stalkers, charged rays are all very strong against vikings. also the strength of viking is their mobility which can not be utilized very much in this map.
the enemy always outnumber you in total resource value of their units. you really need cost effective ways of fighting them.
When i did Welcome to the jungle on brutal (i had upgrades, so i went mm, but just stating what numbers i saw against) i never saw more air than ground, normally a decent mix. With tank you kill their stalkers and your vikings should be able to handle the 2-3 voids and 2-3 scouts they send to you. If not, you can always use turret support to help them. You can take the middle expo out with your starting units by just pumping out a few more marines while getting econ up, throw up turrets in the middle and you should have enough of a force to stop their first attack, after that you should have plenty of defense up for their next attacks and once you have 10-12 vikings i can't see their air power being much of a threat if you aren't trying to suicide into them.
Has anyone actually beaten NUR All-In yet? There's a lot of theorycrafting in this thread with people saying it should be possible, but has anyone actually done it?
Most of the campaign was fairly simple in NUR since bio ball still works (just have to wait for a slightly larger critical mass and don't expect medics to actually keep units alive during battle) or tank or BC mass. But I'm kind of stuck on All-In Nydus. When I try to hold both entrances, bunkers get shredded by tank splash while CC walls seem to be too expensive without MULEs while trying to support mass unit production. But turtling all my tanks next to the mercenary building generally just ends up with me splashing the artifact to death... And no stim really hurts for taking down Kerrigan. I've tried stunning with Thors, but that eats into my tank/marine count and oftentimes even with stun, Kerrigan just ends up absorbing all my tank fire while the next wave of zerglings runs right up to the tanks.
Maybe I'll give the air version a try...
As a side note, for the missions that other people have mentioned: Welcome to the Jungle: Exactly the same as I usually do it - deny the sealing attempts until I've massed up 2 bio balls and then take all the geysers in one swoop while defending both approaches with the bio balls. It just takes a bit longer to reach critical mass. Let the marauders tank the colossi/storm if necessary, though tbh there really aren't that many colossi/HT if you finish it fast enough. Train Robbery: Mass rine/diamondback still works perfectly well (maybe a few medics for out-of-battle healing). I grab all the free diamondbacks, take a fast expansion, and just mass reactor rines and diamondbacks. Even managed to easily take down both marauder squads. The Dig: Fast expansion with mass tanks on the right cliff with a good sim city on the left side and bunkered rines and turrets throughout. Piercing the Shroud: Pretty much the same as usual - let Raynor go in first every time to tank damage and then bring in the support. Slow medics makes the mission boring since you have to wait a bit longer to fully heal Raynor after each battle. Ended up sacrificing the rines and medics at the end of the mission (at the eggs) while making a beeline for the transport with Raynor. Supernova: Still same strategy as normal - rush the first protoss base up north ASAP to get some breathing room and extra resources, then mass banshee/viking. Ended up adding a few tanks at the very end because I was failing at storm dodging. Maw of the Void: Again, not much different from usual. Mass 3/3 BCs (no tech reactors makes the mission take longer) and mass repair after each generator. Gateway to Hell: Here's where I really noticed a difference - no tech reactors and no stim was really annoying since I'm used to roflstomping everything with 2 control groups of classic M&M. Lack of stim allows the lings to actually get close to your units, and lack of medic upgrades means lings actually kill your units. I ended up sticking with one bio ball to roam the map while pumping tanks to defend my main (plopped them in the area between the e-bay and the minerals). Then just take your entire army with those several dozen tanks once you're ready to move out in classic late-game BW TvZ-esque fashion, and abandon your base.
On August 29 2010 07:42 Dullahan wrote: Has anyone actually beaten NUR All-In yet? There's a lot of theorycrafting in this thread with people saying it should be possible, but has anyone actually done it?
Please tell me how exactly to do Engine of Destruction on Brutal with wraith, tanks, marines, marauders, medics, goliath, maybe even some vultures. I have no upgrades, no lab upgrades, no mercs. In best I had like 12 wraith for the last base, full health Odin, 0 resources, base under fire.
Then 3-4 flying detectors on last base de-cloak my wraith and they easily destoyed. And then Odin with few Yamato's and other forces. WTH to do ?
On August 30 2010 15:19 seolinker wrote: Please tell me how exactly to do Engine of Destruction on Brutal with wraith, tanks, marines, marauders, medics, goliath, maybe even some vultures. I have no upgrades, no lab upgrades, no mercs. In best I had like 12 wraith for the last base, full health Odin, 0 resources, base under fire.
Then 3-4 flying detectors on last base de-cloak my wraith and they easily destoyed. And then Odin with few Yamato's and other forces. WTH to do ?
I did it like this: 2 starport wraiths, 2-3 tanks + bunker for defense, eventually adding a couple more tanks as bases go down. The 2 medics you get from the start follow the Odin around after the 1st base goes down (leave him alone for that) to heal the repairing SCV's. The SCV's will go down alot but just keep sending more, I always had a team of 3-4 going.
Second base all they have for detection is 1 raven. I sniped the tank, the dropship and the raven asap, then only helped when there were alot of units. Let the Odin deal with the mass vultures that show up. Between waves, send your wraiths to help with the defense.
Third base you can snipe off 2 siege tanks because there's no detection in most of the base. I tried getting the BC but it fled to the turrets, just take him down as soon as he goes for the Odin.
Fourth base you can take out almost everything with your wraiths because only the lower right part has a turret. Focus on the siege tanks and banshees mostly, and make sure Odin is high on hp before he goes for the part with the turret. You can take out the Loki if you feel like it, just spread wraiths a bit.
Last base I sent all my defense (tanks and whatever was in my bunker) and like 12 SCV's and just attackmoved them in with the Odin. Only controlled my wraiths here, the BCs I think are set to focus the Odin at this point so just mass repair and snipe whatever is the most dangerous with your wraiths. I did lose most of them in the end but by then the Odin was through and threw down the nuke hammer.
All in all, the second base is definitely the hardest and this is where you should save your game alot I guess.
i found 2 tanks + 2 bunkers of marines more than enuf to hold base defense. be sure to land ur rax by bunker to soak some damage.
some additional tips u may find useful... 1. always watch closely as odin begins his assault in a base. snipe tanks ASAP. 2. do not send scv in during beginning of an assault. they die instantly. 3. sometimes u may need to snipe raven/turrets. don't just right click. be careful, the raven will use heat seeking missile. 4. there is no need to expo in this mission. 5. you can "cheat" in this mission by sending alot of scv to surround the odin and HOLD POSITION. this will buy you more time by preventing him from going to the next base.
I have tried to block it, but they atack with battle cruisers after I destroy bases 3 and 4.... I still have no idea how to do it. It's all fail or pure luck to make it NUR on Brutal. Hardest mission in this game. You actually need to outplay upgraded well defensed AI of your race lol. Next to impossible.
Yep, but they still kicks me in the ass, thanks though. I have like 25 wraith now and still bad luck, I walled him off with bunkers and siege tanks on first base.
My main issue that I thought when you do that "blocking" of odin they will atack only from first base!!!!! Shit, I was so wrong....And this wraith much worse than cheap marine on the ground attack!!!! Yeah, it something like 7-8 but with much less speed and cost like 150/150/3 .... omg, will try MMM now.
Waiting for the OP and his video of this mission on brutal NUR.
P.S. Basically I left on Brutal - In utter darkness, last one (all in) and this. I did on hard in utter darkness something like 2200, speed faster and I know tactic, should have np with it. All in - well, still didn't played even on novice, but on Char I do have ALL upgrades you can imagine, played 3 missions already on brutal sounds like novice lol)))
And this fucking shit left, oh no....and I haven't gosts, no grades, no BC's, no banshees and all that schemes simply do not work on me....AI very aggressive.
On August 30 2010 22:37 seolinker wrote: Mastermyth, are you for real that you did that NUR ?
dybydx, thanks lol, banshee yeah, that's what I need here
Yeah, Brutal NUR and took down the Loki too. I think it's easier with banshees but I hadn't done Supernova yet at that point. I don't understand how wraiths can't work for you though.
The thing you need to realise is that beside siege tanks and BCs, the main threat to the Odin is just single random air units. Not because they hurt him but because they draw his fire, that awfully slow anti air attack. This keeps him from taking care of the masses on the ground, and you can't repair him until those die. Wraiths are excellent for dealing with both siege tanks and the random air units. Banshee/viking are as well.
Found a save file - for those wondering, here's the easy way to beat NUR Engine of Destruction.
4 supply depots starting from as high up as possible on the inside edge of the wall. 4 scvs + 2 medics + 3 siege tanks held them off long enough to mass up a wraith fleet, but you could go w/e army comp you want with all that time. You can even expo at the second base if you really feel like it (which you probably will need to if you want to stick to pure wraiths like I did), though it's probably easier to go tank-viking which is probably enough to roll the entire map off 1 base.
OMG Engine of Descruction, I finally beat it after about 15 reloads and it was a VERY CLOSE CALL. Of course I'll be editing all the reloads in the video so it'll look like I'm pro and did it in one try
On August 31 2010 09:03 Zades wrote: OMG Engine of Descruction, I finally beat it after about 15 reloads and it was a VERY CLOSE CALL. Of course I'll be editing all the reloads in the video so it'll look like I'm pro and did it in one try
lol ;p I'm amazed you've managed to make it so far, gl with the rest.
Props for doing Haven't fall. It is arguably the hardest mission in the campaign (without overbearing upgrades). It took me 20+ saves to go through it with tank marine medic viking.
Well, how do you deal with situation in Engine of Destruction when your wraith are out of energy ? Do you fight as well ? What you do with Odin then, leave him alone ? He can't make it himself on base 3 it seems.
Did you used any tanks ? I mean they do 60+ damage, have you used them for base destroying ?
On August 31 2010 14:20 MangoTango wrote: Haha, your Supernova strategy is so cheesy. Hilarious.
No other way. I tried it legitly, moving from base to base, but due to the lack of upgrades, getting enough units to break through the 3rd base before the fire hits is way to hard or simply impossible. Actually I did make it to the 3rd Protoss base a few times, I just got demolished by carrier/scout/storms. So yea...
On August 31 2010 13:57 seolinker wrote: Well, how do you deal with situation in Engine of Destruction when your wraith are out of energy ? Do you fight as well ? What you do with Odin then, leave him alone ? He can't make it himself on base 3 it seems.
Did you used any tanks ? I mean they do 60+ damage, have you used them for base destroying ?
The only units I had following Odin was 2 medics, some scvs, and wraiths. If I got the time I'll move individual wraiths back to the base to get repaired. If Odin seems fit enough to live I'll move all wraiths back for repairs. The wraith's kill priority should be: ravens, bcs, siege tanks, any other air unit, then ground units. I use 2 tanks at right side of base for defense. Generally after I cleared the air and tanks I'll just let the wraiths sit there and micro the scvs to prevent them from dieing. The problem I encountered is that I messed up the micro for the 4th base and ended up with 3 wraiths remaining. This isn't enough to fight back the final harass on your base apparently. After Odin started resting before the final base, I waited for a ghost to finish and move all units to the 4th base (cc included). The original intention of the ghost was to nuke the bcs, but it didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Anyways with 2 cloaked wraiths left, ~5 or so scvs, a tank, some marines, a ghost, and a handful of minerals, I managed to keep Odin alive long enough to end the mission.
On August 31 2010 14:02 seolinker wrote: Waiting for EoD video, still can't find it on first post, so tempting...eh
The video for this should be up by tomorrow night (PST time).
I did it right before I posting it, I did it with wall of, key to sit no more than 10-12 minutes, not like 25-30, cause you will not make it, they will get fucking strong! Yeah, you need to kill on 2nd base - raven, BC, tank, 2 medivacs, 3rd - 2 tanks, BC, 3 medivacs, maybe even tank after turret AND factories!!!! Yes and if possible barracks. 4th - 2 tanks, BC, lot of banshees, try not kill vikings with wraith, cause they will be low energy. You MUST kill starports with them and also try barrack with maradeurs.
I need to add, that yes like 1 time in a minute send 1-2 SCV to heal. Most important since you walled off, they will keep sending attacks from 3rd base too, and when you will be on base 3 - from base 4 (banshee, viking, marines) and you will not have rest in it sense!!! you will be constantly attacked!!! I have taken my CC before base 5 and flyed to upper right corner of screen (they will find you if it will be simply center) cause attach after base 4 already was on my main base, but what save me time... ? - wall of base in their 1st base.
Then I had full Odin, 2 tanks (1 more like dead though), about 18 wraith. First was BC (they still send me Yamato ( ) and Raven. Then I drive with tanks, Odin killed the bunkers, I - 3 banshees, he some vikings...then second Yamato or no... no! Killed second BC, few more Ravens (they ver hard to kill, even BC more easier!!!!!)... few more banshees and vikings, and I left with like 3 or so.... and just 2 more banshes killed and they died of vikings...3rd BC...Odin had like 700hp or so...and thankfully nevermind and start his nuke...their guard was already after my CC. Still consider this hardest mission in the game, it was all pure luck, NOT walling off didn't worked for me well. Still waiting for video
By the way I did Maw of The void almost same way like SuperNova, no way in hell I would beat that protosses on brutal with so much lack of resources. On hard I was able to get like 24 BC, on Brutal, more like 16. Rest destroyed. So I simply destroyed, 1st generator (at start), then build base, then second, probably third...or even no, not on direct line to artifact, that one in bottom it seems. And simply make up to 20 crusers on all money and swim in bottom of the map (buildings and strong fleet will not let you on top), there are few carries with photon, then next generator at bottom and...then simply Yamato the hell out of artifact box 15 crusers were half dead left.
on Maw of the Void, its possible to approach the 2nd and 3rd rip fields from such angles that allow you to bypass most of the enemy defenses.
i usually fly in, snipe the rip field generator, return for repair and then come back to clean up the protoss buildings (i assume this reduce amount of enemy units produced, but i have no idea).
I'm considering giving this a go, but with "no new units"; no building the new unit that you get given on each mission. You get to use the units you get given at the beginning, otherwise certain missions (like liberation day and the moebius one with medivacs) are literally not possible to complete in certain circumstances.
As someone said previously, a whole bunch of missions are rendered not particularly hard at all by the challenge without the additional condition, because all people did in the first place was mass the new unit, anyway. Not suggesting that its a cakewalk for you, this doesn't alter the difficulty of the real challenge (All In), but it just adds a bit more spice to levels like The Great Train Robbery.
I can't think of many other Final Fantasy-esque uber challenges for the campaign. No tech labs? No add ons?
I wonder if its possible JUST using marines? I bet it is, excluding missions that need air units.
I wonder if its possible JUST using marines? I bet it is, excluding missions that need air units.
Drop pod upgrade.
Just marines, in addition to no upgrades, I mean. The hardest of hardcores.
It did occur to me that lifting barracks could overcome this problem too, though.
I will try this... so it's JUST marines bunkers and missile turrets, with no upgrades or techs? totally do-able on normal at least, the challenge will be the no stim and no medics when doing it on brutal...
still sounds like an awesome challenge, a lot more fun then speed-runs.
I think doing a marine only brutal run would actually work if you were allowed to get techs/upgrades, specifically the drop pod upgrade.
Another intrigueing idea is only being allowed to use mercenaries, never building anything but SCVs from your actual base.
the merc only one would include a lot of bunker hopping warpigs and hammer securities guys forward, as well as a swarm of SCVs on auto-repair I think...
After I get back from PAX I will start posting replays of both the marine only no upgrades brutal run, where I'll probably cave and get some upgrades at some point (I'll mark how far I get without them though) and the merc only run (allowed to have upgrades, but SCVs are the only non-merc unit allowed to be made) by upgrades I mean either the zerg/toss techs or the armoury upgrades
If both of these prove to be too much I'll cave in steps until I'm doing marine+mercs+upgrades run
On September 01 2010 05:52 Shiladie wrote: After I get back from PAX I will start posting replays of both the marine only no upgrades brutal run, where I'll probably cave and get some upgrades at some point (I'll mark how far I get without them though) and the merc only run (allowed to have upgrades, but SCVs are the only non-merc unit allowed to be made) by upgrades I mean either the zerg/toss techs or the armoury upgrades
That I would say is impossible. With the storms and colossus on Welcome to the Jungle you are already dead. Furthermore, marines without upgrades cannot beat All In.
BTW Engine of Destruction video will be delayed. My friend forgot to upload it.
On September 01 2010 05:52 Shiladie wrote: After I get back from PAX I will start posting replays of both the marine only no upgrades brutal run, where I'll probably cave and get some upgrades at some point (I'll mark how far I get without them though) and the merc only run (allowed to have upgrades, but SCVs are the only non-merc unit allowed to be made) by upgrades I mean either the zerg/toss techs or the armoury upgrades
That I would say is impossible. With the storms and colossus on Welcome to the Jungle you are already dead. Furthermore, marines without upgrades cannot beat All In.
BTW Engine of Destruction video will be delayed. My friend forgot to upload it.
If you are only making marines, you can spread them out enough to be able to make it. And for All-in I'll need to do nydus, as there's no way to kill the leviathan/broodlords, which will mean mass bunkers on each enterence. People forget that marines with their weapon upgrades are probably the top dps/cost units in the game apart from cracklings. throw that in bunkers everywhere and I think this may be do-able... (I may be on crack though...)
theorycrafting for all-in, you'll need to bunker up some of the actual nydus spawn locations, I think if there's a building in the way they don't spawn, but I'm not 100% sure... either way it'll probably be a save every 30 seconds to a minute...
utilizing the units you're given at the start of each mission I think will be key as well in this run...
On September 01 2010 06:54 Mobius wrote: i beat it without any research things, and only a couple of credit things on brutal.. didnt seem that hard..
i got mule, faster repair, faster medic heal, marine/marauder/siege tanks and pretty sure thats it oh and siege tank/marauder mercenaries.
That's a lot of upgrades actually. Since the main upgrades are the tanks/marine/medic since they are used the most in campaign. Doing it without any upgrades or mercs is quite hard.
Finally finished my own Gates of Hell (No-upgrades, No-mercs, No-side-mission-units)
Ended up doing it a lot like how marshmallow describes.
Went mainly marines/tanks, having only 1 barracks w/tech and 1 factory(built, not retrieved). Saved/Loaded a lot, waited each time to see which side the next major attack would be, loading then repositioning tanks accordingly. Only ended up getting 2 drop-pods - the tanks and the thors. Ended up getting the thors only because there seemed to be a window of no attacks on my base, plus the ultras were easy to kill when i brought about 5 non-seiged tanks with me. Getting the thors bumped me up past 100 army and triggered the final objective, so i lifted my CC and brought it with my army with all the SCVs (and enough minerals/gas for repairs) for the final push. At this point i had 14 tanks, 32 MMM, and the 2 thors. The first base i left my tanks unseiged and it was easy, then for the final stretch i hopped up bit by bit seiging/unseiging.
surprised u got to char without upgrades...i couldnt dream of doing it without them. Im rooting for ya, even though All in is gona destroy you.... Nydus or air?
Only marine+no upgrades is just going to be flat out impossible on brutal, probably on hard even. Even if you got upgrades(so stim, marine hp, and building stuff) I'd wager you get absolutely stomped on The Dig(earliest mission I can think of that I'm absolutely certain you need more than just marines, there's no way just 2 tanks will save you). Great Train Robbery could be rough, gotta save those initial DB's for those 2 sped up trains and hope you can macro hard for all the marines you're going to lose to bunkers+escorts. Once you start thinking about later missions though? 0% chance. Maw of the Void with 45 hp marines in the rip field? Engine of Destruction vs the siege tanks in the later bases? Supernova vs the final base? All of the Char missions are probably impossible(except Belly of the Beast).
In truth, even some 'easy' missions like Cutthroat(the siege tanks at the end) become impossible without medics to keep some of your army alive and make a macro advantage possible. The bioball strat is so good because you can cheaply mass a huge army that stays alive well through medics(even without upgrade they will at least get your surviving army green for the next fight, saving you thousands of minerals in some missions).
On September 03 2010 06:29 GreatFall wrote: I will give you infinite props if you could beat the 'ALL IN' level w/o any upgrades.
We are all waiting for this. I really hope he gets there, because that would be incredible.
It sure would be incredible ESPECIALLY if he goes for the ALL-IN mission vs. Air. I can honestly say that I don't even think it's possible to do that mission without upgrades. I busted my ass to beat that level and I just couldn't do it until I replayed through the campaign and got the Mind Control Towers. It almost broke me =X
The editing job on both Gates of Hell and Shatter the Sky are bad. You can see where I cut the save/reload. Oh well. I'll go do Belly of the Beast later and then continue with either All In (air) or All In (ground).
Wall in with CCs, build extras inside your base so you can just re-plant your wall, should you lose any of them...that might help a little, if you weren't already doing it...
Mass marine/medic might work...ofc 250mm cannon on kerrigan continually if you can afford it...mass siege tanks where you can place them, but they kinda suck vs kerrigan, so use your MM on her...I guess alot of this isn't really original. (actually, you might be able to play on normal speed to give yourself 25% more APM, if that's also a limiting factor, don't know for sure if you can change it though)
How far are you getting on All In, b/c some of these techniques might not even be relevent...props for getting to the final mission w/o any upgrades!
You can't change speed of game in brutal. I did NUR on brutal but only before char, there I wanted all of them
That 250mm canon very hard to use, it's really slow and unreliable and you need to predict where she will be and even more hard to catch here before she start destroy everything... MM works better, but on 80% it's not that helpfull either she is very hard there and on 96%. My best was 93% with air and psi-disrupter
I am probably gonna stream a couple of tries for Brutal all-in nydus mode NUR this afternoon, after I've eaten lunch if anyone is interested in watching me die
Edit: It was harder than expected. Despite saving and replaying from different places during the mission I didn't get closer than this during the 2-3 hours I played -.-
yeah, the artifact got destroyed at 99,9 % and even though it went up to 100% I still lost :S No need for flame towers, however, any 1 of less splash for tanks, stim, psi disruptor or planetary fortress would pretty much trivialize the map.
My problem right now is I can't seem to kill kerrigan. I can't find a good balance in building my cc wall, getting tanks, banshees, and thors before kerrigan comes. If I invest into early thors I lose 2 tnks per thor and the zerg will just overrun me. I also cannot get enough mm force to deal with kerrigan.
On September 05 2010 09:03 Zades wrote: My problem right now is I can't seem to kill kerrigan. I can't find a good balance in building my cc wall, getting tanks, banshees, and thors before kerrigan comes. If I invest into early thors I lose 2 tnks per thor and the zerg will just overrun me. I also cannot get enough mm force to deal with kerrigan.
for me it is all about marine numbers against Kerrigan, havent't even tried getting thors. Also I use the artifact every time she comes close. One has to micro the marines quite alot to minimize the damage taken from the storm-like thing. Next to last and ofc the last time she is a royal pain in the ass though. I also don't make any CC walls. In fact I just place marines 1 by 1 in front of the tanks to slow down the opponent, since my tanks kill all my units if I place them in front :S Still kerrigan is the worst part for me too, first time I got to 75 I was at like 200/200 and went down to 100/200 when she came, and then I died to the subsequent wave.
Yea getting marine/tanks works out fine vs Kerrigan, now the nydus are pumping out so much units they are destorying my cc wall. I need to get a better balance between banshee/tanks/marines.
I've personally found 9-10 Banshees to work best for Nydus sniping on Brutal. Any less tends to take too long to snipe out worms and takes too much attrition; more seems to be unnecessary extra firepower that saps your resources elsewhere. Granted I haven't done it without upgrades yet, but that doesn't strike me as something that should make a ton of difference for worm sniping, as long as you're careful about managing your energy for cloak.
If you want to get crazy you could also try cutting marines and just killing Kerrigan with your tank line supported by your worm sniping Banshees. This is what I did before I learned about Marines working well on her (and still tend to out of laziness). I'm sure I take a lot more damage to the tank line on her side than necessary that way, but it would give you one less thing to worry about building. When doing that I tend to save the nova until after beating back Kerrigan, to give myself some extra time to rebuild that line. I could definitely seen no upgrades causing this to fail horribly, but hey, you wanted crazy ideas.
Kill off the merc compound and plant all your Siege Tanks under the artifiact. CC walls aren't really needed, just line bunkers in front of your tanks and load your marines into them. If you really must CC wall something, just wall off the artifact, but not the main tank chokes since those will die way too fast without the reduced friendly splash upgrade.
When Kerrigan comes, use the artifact to clear out the trash and unload all your Bunkers. Engage her with your marines when the first line of tanks are in range to fire. Try and avoid losing too many marines to her storm.
Get the 2 Ghosts last to hit 200/200. The idea here is to build 6 Ghost Academies and chain build nukes. Nukes take ~20s to land and 60s to build. Thus 3 Academies for each Ghost lets you chain nukes constantly if necessary. What you want to do is when you see a big push come, nuke both chokes constantly. In all likelihood, the speedlings and ultras will slowly encroach closer and closer to your tank line, but the Nukes should land just in time to prevent them from getting up in your face. Nukes are great here because once you are maxed supply, it lets you put your money into something that can still do damage to the enemy. If you find that you have more than enough marines to handle Kerrigan, then you can opt to make more Ghosts and Academies for even more Nukes. I would imagine that if you could get enough to have Nukes landing on each choke every ~10 seconds nothing would ever make it through.
As far as upgrade priorities, Infantry Weapons and Vehicle Weapons are obvious priorities.
On September 05 2010 14:19 Sevenofnines wrote: When Kerrigan comes, use the artifact to clear out the trash and unload all your Bunkers. Engage her with your marines when the first line of tanks are in range to fire. Try and avoid losing too many marines to her storm.
When the tanks are in range of her, she is pretty much in range of the tanks. That includes her insta-kill and storms. Letting her get that close is a very bad idea. She also prioritizes tanks/battlecruisers/etc over marines.
On September 05 2010 14:19 Sevenofnines wrote: My crazy idea:
Get the 2 Ghosts last to hit 200/200. The idea here is to build 6 Ghost Academies and chain build nukes. Nukes take ~20s to land and 60s to build. Thus 3 Academies for each Ghost lets you chain nukes constantly if necessary. What you want to do is when you see a big push come, nuke both chokes constantly. In all likelihood, the speedlings and ultras will slowly encroach closer and closer to your tank line, but the Nukes should land just in time to prevent them from getting up in your face. Nukes are great here because once you are maxed supply, it lets you put your money into something that can still do damage to the enemy. If you find that you have more than enough marines to handle Kerrigan, then you can opt to make more Ghosts and Academies for even more Nukes. I would imagine that if you could get enough to have Nukes landing on each choke every ~10 seconds nothing would ever make it through.
As far as upgrade priorities, Infantry Weapons and Vehicle Weapons are obvious priorities.
The nukes are an interesting idea. It would be kinda like having mini-artifacts every 20 seconds.
When Kerrigan comes, maybe use the real artifact to clear away the zerg and use 2 nukes on kerrigan?
Also you can try to use small marine forces to lure her into wasting her Razor Storms while she's still some distance away, then letting your tank line do the rest.
After one gazillion of reloads during the last 10% I finally got it down. Doesn't feel right though, I wanted to do it without loads during the map, but I can't really see myself managing that. If anyone wants to see my strategy or whatever, I recorded it with really crappy quality on my livestream channel It took about 3,5 hours total with alot of fails -.-.
On September 06 2010 00:29 Zinbiel wrote: After one gazillion of reloads during the last 10% I finally got it down. Doesn't feel right though, I wanted to do it without loads during the map, but I can't really see myself managing that. If anyone wants to see my strategy or whatever, I recorded it with really crappy quality on my livestream channel It took about 3,5 hours total with alot of fails -.-.
on to all-in air, amirite? btw, will you use vikings or ghosts for vs air or just marine/medic?
On September 06 2010 17:22 seolinker wrote: can you put it on youtube ? I can see it on livestream, but will it be in past ? I mean it's "live" stream lol
You can see it on my channel, it gets saved there. For the all-in air my general idea is mass marine medic, maybe some ghosts for the "from behind" attacks.
Edit: Sorry Zades for hijacking your thread, if you want me to I'll make a blog or something about my tries instead. I just came here to discuss some strategies for this and then felt my part didn't warrant a new thread.
On September 05 2010 08:25 Zinbiel wrote: yeah, the artifact got destroyed at 99,9 % and even though it went up to 100% I still lost :S No need for flame towers, however, any 1 of less splash for tanks, stim, psi disruptor or planetary fortress would pretty much trivialize the map.
I have less splash for tanks, stim, and pfs vs nydus. I'd like to know how they trivialize the map because I'm having problems with this mission.
On September 05 2010 08:25 Zinbiel wrote: yeah, the artifact got destroyed at 99,9 % and even though it went up to 100% I still lost :S No need for flame towers, however, any 1 of less splash for tanks, stim, psi disruptor or planetary fortress would pretty much trivialize the map.
I have less splash for tanks, stim, and pfs vs nydus. I'd like to know how they trivialize the map because I'm having problems with this mission.
Well basically your goal is to have 2 techlab facs pumping tanks (rally one to each opening) and 4 rax with reactor pumping marines (2 for each opening). You also want 2 planetary fortresses at each opening. ATTACK UPGRADES ARE SUPER-IMPORTANT. You'd want to start vehicle weapons and infantry weapons right away and keep making them until we got 3-0. Don't bother with armor, when you reach critical mass tank you are only gonna take damage from kerrigan anyway and she kills shit too fast anyway. Also get 7 banshees for nydus sniping.
The general idea is to constantly snipe nyduses with minimal banshee losses (prioritize the ones that is far away from your base since the artifact kills closer ones) and let the tanks/pf take care of the ground. When kerrigan comes, move your marines to the side from which she comes (with stim to get there in time if needed), use the artifact to clear everything and move like 5 marines in to her in an angle where you don't want to attack her, so they get the storm (does not apply first time she comes, then just move in marines stim and kill) and then stim and kill her with marines. Rinse and repeat.
On to your question Stim makes kerrigan die so quickly and makes marine movement easier (without stim you might at times be forced to engage her without all your marines at the same place). Tanks less splash makes it alot easier to tank the waves with bunkers so you never lose the tanks to normal waves. PF are super strong at tanking the waves making bunkers totally redundant, especially with 3-4 scv:s repairing.
this might work for land: have people tried a cloaked ghost wall and snipe the overseers with AA. mayb have to rotate the ghost, since no cloak upgrades. does kerrigan have detect?
On August 23 2010 12:53 ReCharge wrote: ^ +1 Even if you are Fantasy, Nada, Morrow or whoever progamer, I don't think even they can do it without upgrades.
lol i doubt that... im pretty sure they can pull it off.... fantasy would go vulture/banshee crazy (banshess are his valk replacement he can fly around sniping nydus's with them)
On September 17 2010 07:10 HelloSon wrote: i'm curious how many hours Zades has spent trying to do All-In.
Meh I try it a few times a day. I think 2-3 hours a day. Add that all up and see. Anyways I think I got a build order down that can beat this if I execute it right. We'll see soon. How soon I dunno. This is harder than I thought it was...
On August 23 2010 12:53 ReCharge wrote: ^ +1 Even if you are Fantasy, Nada, Morrow or whoever progamer, I don't think even they can do it without upgrades.
lol i doubt that... im pretty sure they can pull it off.... fantasy would go vulture/banshee crazy (banshess are his valk replacement he can fly around sniping nydus's with them)
Well since I have done it and I'm pretty bad, I guess they would have no trouble once they get the strategy down.
On September 17 2010 07:10 HelloSon wrote: i'm curious how many hours Zades has spent trying to do All-In.
Meh I try it a few times a day. I think 2-3 hours a day. Add that all up and see. Anyways I think I got a build order down that can beat this if I execute it right. We'll see soon. How soon I dunno. This is harder than I thought it was...
If you do it, make sure you tape it with FRAPS and send it to Blizzard. Feels like you should be rewarded with a "Feats of Strength" achievement
On August 23 2010 14:27 professorjoak wrote: Prediction: OP completes 28 missions without too much difficulty then gets roflstomped trying to do All In.
Mass tanks in All-In works well, but the strategy i've seen and used requires the flame turret. I wonder if there's something that can replace the flame turrets and still stay with the NUR. Here's part 1 of the video of the strat:
On September 17 2010 07:10 HelloSon wrote: i'm curious how many hours Zades has spent trying to do All-In.
Meh I try it a few times a day. I think 2-3 hours a day. Add that all up and see. Anyways I think I got a build order down that can beat this if I execute it right. We'll see soon. How soon I dunno. This is harder than I thought it was...
Props to you for your dedication. I'll be blown away if you manage to do it
On September 18 2010 05:13 Dionyseus wrote: Mass tanks in All-In works well, but the strategy i've seen and used requires the flame turret. I wonder if there's something that can replace the flame turrets and still stay with the NUR. Here's part 1 of the video of the strat:
The first time I did All-In I just walled everything with barracks and supply depots. The turrets add DPS to your defenses, but you can do hard walls on both chokes without them if you have to.
On September 18 2010 05:13 Dionyseus wrote: Mass tanks in All-In works well, but the strategy i've seen and used requires the flame turret. I wonder if there's something that can replace the flame turrets and still stay with the NUR. Here's part 1 of the video of the strat:
The first time I did All-In I just walled everything with barracks and supply depots. The turrets add DPS to your defenses, but you can do hard walls on both chokes without them if you have to.
The problem I encountered when I tried to wall-in was that without the tank less splash upgrade I decimate my own wall in absolutely no time. Was easier to just use single marines to slow down the waves.
I can't say for sure, but I don't think all-in air is possible. At the very least, I'm certain that all-in nydus and all-in air require two completely different strategies to beat. Broodlords with +3 are a pain in the ass and you need a lot of firepower (vikings most likely) to take them down, which means there's no chance to mass tanks AND marines at the same time. You need a reactor rax constantly pumping marines to deal with kerrigan, because she has some sort of immortal-like shield that limits the damage she can take per hit. There is simply not enough money to do all of this. If you go light on the vikings, the broodlords WILL get shots in on the tanks, which is made worse by tanks splashing themselves on the broodlings. The only way it might be possible is pure 3/3 mm + 3/3 vikings, but you would have to macro like god to pull it off, and dodge kerrigan's storms perfectly.
With all that being said, all in nydus isn't terribly difficult once you know what to do. The first 75-80% is pretty easy, but I did have to load saves twice in the final 20% due to losing banshees stupidly and not being able to kill the nydus worms.
Two annoying things I discovered after beating it:
1) There is no achievement for beating the campaign with no upgrades/research.
2) Once you beat the campaign, you can't go back to the hyperion, so I can't take screenshots of the lab proving that I didn't use any upgrades. This was my first playthrough, as I just bought the game a week ago, and I had no way of knowing this. All I have to show for it is this screenshot.
I already did the all in nydus brutal NUR, but I didnt for all in air, so if someone has a save and can provide a link, I will be thankfull for that =) I cant load my own saves as I had a computer clean.
On September 21 2010 05:10 city42 wrote: The only way it might be possible is pure 3/3 mm + 3/3 vikings, but you would have to macro like god to pull it off, and dodge kerrigan's storms perfectly.
Since that composition wouldn't have to worry about tanks splashing a wallin, though, might it be possible to have the marines behind a wall, with some marauders mixed in to help against roaches and ultras?
Also, Kerrigan CAN be EMPed, so if you position a Ghost to do that, you won't need to worry about razor swarms (and incidentally, her "hardened carapace" caps incoming damage at 5).
On September 21 2010 05:10 city42 wrote: The only way it might be possible is pure 3/3 mm + 3/3 vikings, but you would have to macro like god to pull it off, and dodge kerrigan's storms perfectly.
Since that composition wouldn't have to worry about tanks splashing a wallin, though, might it be possible to have the marines behind a wall, with some marauders mixed in to help against roaches and ultras?
Also, Kerrigan CAN be EMPed, so if you position a Ghost to do that, you won't need to worry about razor swarms (and incidentally, her "hardened carapace" caps incoming damage at 5).
You'd have to wall in front of the artifact ramps, since most of the waves rally to the artifact itself. This means that the left wall would be massive and difficult to maintain. It might be possible, but I'm done with the campaign for now so someone else will have to test it.
Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
On September 21 2010 10:11 Zades wrote: Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
Would you consider uploading a video of your best attempt thus far? Maybe we could figure out some strategies that could help you out when we see the video.
On September 21 2010 10:11 Zades wrote: Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
If you're stuck, I can make a little write-up of the winning strategy.
On September 21 2010 05:10 city42 wrote: The only way it might be possible is pure 3/3 mm + 3/3 vikings, but you would have to macro like god to pull it off, and dodge kerrigan's storms perfectly.
Since that composition wouldn't have to worry about tanks splashing a wallin, though, might it be possible to have the marines behind a wall, with some marauders mixed in to help against roaches and ultras?
Also, Kerrigan CAN be EMPed, so if you position a Ghost to do that, you won't need to worry about razor swarms (and incidentally, her "hardened carapace" caps incoming damage at 5).
On September 21 2010 10:11 Zades wrote: Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
Would you consider uploading a video of your best attempt thus far? Maybe we could figure out some strategies that could help you out when we see the video.
I didn't record it. I felt that if I record it I'll ran out of disk space before I get anywhere near finishing All In. And I was right on that point. My original plan was to find a viable option and after beating it, do it again with recording.
What I did was barrack wall with marine behind then tanks behind that.
On September 21 2010 10:11 Zades wrote: Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
If you're stuck, I can make a little write-up of the winning strategy.
On September 21 2010 05:10 city42 wrote: The only way it might be possible is pure 3/3 mm + 3/3 vikings, but you would have to macro like god to pull it off, and dodge kerrigan's storms perfectly.
Since that composition wouldn't have to worry about tanks splashing a wallin, though, might it be possible to have the marines behind a wall, with some marauders mixed in to help against roaches and ultras?
Also, Kerrigan CAN be EMPed, so if you position a Ghost to do that, you won't need to worry about razor swarms (and incidentally, her "hardened carapace" caps incoming damage at 5).
Pretty sure EMP doesn't exist in the campaign
Yea, I'm very curious how how you managed to EMP with only snipe/cloak/nuke as ghost abilities.
On September 21 2010 10:11 Zades wrote: Mass ghosts is the only viable option that I see against All In Air. I got pissed off at nydus, can't get into the 90% range -_- this is lame. I might take a break.
If you're stuck, I can make a little write-up of the winning strategy.
That would be very helpful ^^
Aside from scvs, you only need 3 units to do it:
1) Tanks to melt anything that comes near you 2) Marines to deal with kerrigan 3) Banshees to deal with nydus worms
Walls are too difficult to maintain because of splash, so don't bother. What you want to do is set up a huge group of tanks right below the artifact, near where the merc building is.
When you start out, send all your scvs to mine except 2, and use those 2 to build more factories. Unsiege the tanks you start with, and move them and all the infantry back. Get a tech lab on the first factory and on the other 2 when they finish, and begin to pump tanks nonstop. Make sure to upgrade vehicle attack at the armory, and ignore vehicle armor because you're dead anyway if the zerg units start getting in range to hit tanks. You will inevitably lose a tank here and there (often because nydus worms spawn right on the tank line), but you should be able to build the numbers up to at least 24. Destroy the merc building at the start to make more room, and just fill the entire area with mass tanks.
Now, the tanks will easily handle the normal waves and even nydus waves for a short while, but we need to incorporate the other units. Once you're stabilized at the start, get a reactor on your barracks and keep a max queue of marines going. You need to constantly pump marines to have sufficient numbers to deal with kerrigan each time. When she's halfway to the artifact, use the nova and charge at her with the marines. Don't bother with medics because she 1 hit kills marines nayway. Most important of all, do NOT use these marines to fight the waves. Keep them next to your CC until they're needed.
As for banshees, begin to build them at a casual pace when you have the money. You start out with 3, and the BCs are good at taking out the first few nydus worms, so there's no rush. Work your way up to about 12-14 banshees (overkill for the worms but some will die and you won't have time to build more near the end). Just send them out to kill worms whenever they spawn, using cloak if needed.
It will be smooth sailing for the first 75%, but things become chaotic after kerrigan #4. As soon as you get the alert for #4, send 6 scvs up to the artifact but don't build anything yet (she targets them). After disposing of her, create a makeshift 3 barracks wall on both ramps. When the 6 rax get done, pump marines lik crazy from them. The worms spawn uncontrollably near the end, and the idea is to put as much meat as possible between the zerg and the artifact. Don't build any tanks or banshees, they'll all die anyway. As soon as you get the nova up, use it.
When kerrigan #5 spawns, take all your banshees and scvs and charge her. This will buy a few precious seconds before she goes to work on what's left of your forces. No matter what you do, it's going to be close. The mission is just designed that way...a ridiculous number of worms spawn near the end that would decimate any army in seconds. With that said, it won't be a situation where one second decides the outcome. My artifact had barely been hit when I won, and nothing was targeting it at the time, so it would have held out for a good 20 seconds more. Just don't expect a clean victory with a mountain of tanks still remaining at the end, because that's not feasible with no upgrades/research.
One last EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do the mission this way, you will lose all the depots at the bottom left. You'll need to preemptively build some early on, because getting supply blocked for any decent stretch of time will be the end.
Sorry if this was a bit all over the place, I'm writing it right before going to bed. Hope it helps!
I personally think no upgrades vs. Air All-in is impossible. Hell I (sadly) couldn't even do it with upgrades! I redid the campaign and did nydius instead!
I dealt with the end by unsieging my tanks immediately after my final use of the artifact (at 93%) and moving them to the cliff where the artifact lies to resiege them. I then had a group of marines to deal with Kerrigan the moment my tanks killed the stuff around her. Not sure how well this works without upgrades but I think it'll hold out. The tanks may splash themselves/artifact when attacking the nyduses without the reduced splash armory upgrade but you still should have enough to deal with the end.
Wow i finally did the NUR nydus version, with tanks on the low ground, marines waiting on the highground for kerrigan, and 6 banshees to take out nydus worms i was able to do it on my first try (saving and loading after each kerrigan of course lol)
Ok Im also trying to complete the game with no upgrades whatsoever. I did not do a run through of the game before trying this with no upgrades, so Im blindsighted on what comes at me in ever level. I havent had much of a problem in beating any level as long as you stick to and use the new unit that is offered on that level.
Well now Im on Brutal in All-In and I Cant even get past 50% Artifact charging. Im starting to thing this is impossible, not do-able. Why?
-No stim -no friendly anti-splash seige tank -No mind control-tower
Iv tried multiple times and just getting ass whopped.
So is this even possible to beat the way I am doing it? I basically given up at this point unless someone has some proof that it can be done. I kinda wishing I has taken the other path then I would not have to deal with air and gorund defence.
I forgot to mention I took the path were I have to defend agianst air. Thanks.
On October 10 2010 05:06 Starcraft Killa wrote: Ok Im also trying to complete the game with no upgrades whatsoever. I did not do a run through of the game before trying this with no upgrades, so Im blindsighted on what comes at me in ever level. I havent had much of a problem in beating any level as long as you stick to and use the new unit that is offered on that level.
Well now Im on Brutal in All-In and I Cant even get past 50% Artifact charging. Im starting to thing this is impossible, not do-able. Why?
-No stim -no friendly anti-splash seige tank -No mind control-tower
Iv tried multiple times and just getting ass whopped.
So is this even possible to beat the way I am doing it? I basically given up at this point unless someone has some proof that it can be done. I kinda wishing I has taken the other path then I would not have to deal with air and gorund defence.
I forgot to mention I took the path were I have to defend agianst air. Thanks.
Someone has done it before, but he did not specify what method he used. So, it definitely isn't impossible but it is extremely hard.
On October 10 2010 05:06 Starcraft Killa wrote: Ok Im also trying to complete the game with no upgrades whatsoever. I did not do a run through of the game before trying this with no upgrades, so Im blindsighted on what comes at me in ever level. I havent had much of a problem in beating any level as long as you stick to and use the new unit that is offered on that level.
Well now Im on Brutal in All-In and I Cant even get past 50% Artifact charging. Im starting to thing this is impossible, not do-able. Why?
-No stim -no friendly anti-splash seige tank -No mind control-tower
Iv tried multiple times and just getting ass whopped.
So is this even possible to beat the way I am doing it? I basically given up at this point unless someone has some proof that it can be done. I kinda wishing I has taken the other path then I would not have to deal with air and gorund defence.
I forgot to mention I took the path were I have to defend agianst air. Thanks.
If you want to do nydus instead of air, why not do it? Just load the Gates of Hell victory save and you can choose to take out the mutalisk nests instead of the worms. All-in air is extremely difficult, while all-in nydus is trivial even without upgrades.
I loaded the Gates of Hell victory and all that comes up is the video cinema and then goes right back to the battlefield menu screen. The choice between air and nydus, does not appear. Are you sure?
On October 11 2010 07:07 Starcraft Killa wrote: I loaded the Gates of Hell victory and all that comes up is the video cinema and then goes right back to the battlefield menu screen. The choice between air and nydus, does not appear. Are you sure?
Right, it takes you straight to the battlefield menu, so all you have to do is go to the next mission (Belly of the Beast) and you are presented with the choice.
Hi, I'm new here and don't feel like reading through the whole thread to figure out if this has been done by the tc, but i've done it myself, all missions, no upgrades, no mercenaries, only tech you unlock along the route (i.e. marines & medics every mission; marauders, tanks, medivacs, banshees, battlecruisers on only the artifact and char missions; firebats, hellions, vikings on the colonist missions, etc), all bonus objectives. the only possible exception to this is all-in (nydus) as i can't remember if it was just no upgrades and research or i also had the no mercs or route tech resctriction (war pigs is the only thing i possibly used as i didn't buy any mercs and there's no logical reason to use any other tech). as i replayed the whole campaign a second time with the additional no merc and no outside tech restrictions when i beat all in air.
anyway... i have no ability to upload vids myself, so based on how there isn't any videos for the all in missions (which are honestly the only missions that are particularly challenging), i figure i can at least try to offer my strategies.
for nydus: i did this a while ago, so i'm not quite sure how many barracks i had, and i had at least two factories, possibly four. salvage your bunkers, and rally half your factories to each of your chokes and keep pumping tanks til you have 16 at each (this will take a while as you will likely lose a couple as you're doing this). don't build any additional air units, except to replace losses (which will likely be a reload anyway). keep your air units above the merc compound (one of your tanks' blindspots where nydus can appear) and rally your barracks to the artifact (you'll want about 30 supply worth of units for kerrigan, in my experience marauders are worth about 2 marines against her as they take two hits to kill plus will get her to attack any medics first, so a mix is preferable til she starts aoeing (her third attack), then go mass marine). constantly build scvs and try to have at least two at each choke repairing tanks at all times (usually i tried to have 3-5). if you have excess minerals maybe dump them into turrets in anticipation of the overlord drop, but this isn't a huge issue. snipe nydus when you can with banshees and/or yamato (reload if you ever lose a bc, as they're invaluable in reaching nydus protected by spore crawlers and take too long to rebuild to replace), but around 70% you probably won't be able to keep up, so don't worry about it after that point. getting into more speciffics. you get a free artifact usage early that can be used when either your left or right choke is attacked. move your antiair over the choke you won't be using the artifact as you won't have adequate army to defend both without losing units. otherwise the artifact should only (and ever with one exception at the end) be used to kill off kerrigan's escort. every time she appears, use it, then engage her with your ground forces. it can be useful to engage her from the high ground near the artifact (and very possible to possition your tanks so a few hit her in addition to your marines). with proper micro and 30 supply worth of units you should win this engagement without losing any mech every time (2-4 tanks losses is okay, anything else is unacceptable) even with her ridiculous aoe attack. near the end, 80% mark, move everything to the artifact including floating buildings. build supply depots anywhere there isn't a tank to block the zerg. use the artifact one more time around 93% (this'll take a little experimentation as to the exact percentage it's most useful). when kerrigan attacks her final time, land every building in front of her to block her path, walling off ramps if you can. this is extremely difficult and when i beat it, i'd lost everything and the artifact was at half health, but i did do it.
for air: this is even harder based on the red health the artifact was in when i beat it, but fairly similar with key changes to your starport production. 2 fact, 2 rax (one tech lab, one reactor), 2 port. get ten tanks at each choke, and work your way towards putting 8 missile turrets in front of each tank wall (4 should be up at all times, the other 4 take less priority). there's a nice spot you can completely wall off on the east choke (the west choke is a gigantic pain). again keep scvs at these chokes as well as putting them around the artifact likewise building turrets (once you get your production buildings up, you'll want at least 7 turrets northwest of the artifact (keep rebuilding these and add to them as the mission goes along). rally your barracks to the western choke behind the tanks and a little south to avoid taking splash damage from tanks when spore pods land (seriously how are they that different than nydus? sigh). move the barracks units in against kerrigan everytime she shows while removing her escort with the artifact. meanwhile pump bcs rallying all but one of them to the artifact. put that other bc at the back of your base where they "come in behind you." you need at least ten bcs by the time the leviathan shows up (and yamato on all of them so it gets oneshotted). yamato every broodlord you see (you should produce bc's fast enough this is a non-issue) until kerrigan's 3rd appearance (it might be 4th, but whatever, the one before the leviathan shows up). at this point conserve yamato by killing broodlords with regular attacks, then yamato the leviathan. this next bit sucks, as there's a handful of broodlords you won't have yamato to deal with, try to hold out as best you can with the bcs' attacks, moving in just as your turrets and tanks engage to try to minimize your losses. once defeating kerrigan again, move everything to the artifact (again, including buildings), and the mission plays out similar to nydus with the landing buildings in front of kerrigan and all that with the slight change of having your scvs building turrets instead of supply depots.
hope that helps, this is extremely micro intensive (especially the building landing at the end) i didn't exactly take notes doing this and am trying to recite from memory so i may be a little off. i saved extremely frequently, and don't know what tc's feelings were on that front, but this is definitely possible, so if someone wants to make a video, have at it.
On December 25 2010 07:40 Selkie wrote: Feb, since you didn't read the entire thing, let me make it clear: He's using marines, only marines, and nothing but marines.
Since YOU didn't read the entire thing, let me make it clear: you're in the wrong thread. The OP in this thread was merely trying to beat the game without upgrades/research/mercs.
You should play through using only units from that line. IE for the Artifact missions you can only use; Marines, medic, Marauder, Goliath, banshee, Siege tanks, Medevac, Battlecruiser. Rebellion missions; Marines, medic, Diamondbacks, vultures, Wraith and thor. Colonist missions; Marines, medic, Firebats, hellions and vikings. Final missions; Choose 1 unit from each category and you can only use those units (example) Marine, Medic, Goliath, Viking, Thor. of course you can use units provided at the beginning or that spawn in the mission.
thanks, city42. selkie and buughost clearly need some manners. yeah, my original post is probably tl;dr but it is organized for people who may care. at this point i think all but all in are posted in the original post anyway, so i was just saying it was possible.
i saw the marines only one, think he intends marines + starting units only, which is potentially possible but certain missions would take forever (particularly maw of the void), constantly repairing the units necessary to win. a truly marine only run wouldn't be impossible due to the levels that require dropships (moebius factor and maw of the void (not to mention that marines would die way too quickly and potentially not be able to reach the vault on maw of the void)).
@aspect, i did do what you suggested. with an exception for the final missions. for the final missions i used the artifact units only as you must unlock those to get to the final missions (and between the two versions of all-in, they are seriously the only units you absolutely need, in fact i think blizzard specifically had you unlock the seige tank, banshee, and battlecruiser in those missions for this reason).
EPT
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