Starcraft

    Protoss Mission Strategies

    Mission 9 - Shadow Hunters
    The Zerg Cerebrates must be destroyed and only Zeratul's Dark Templar powers are capable of doing this, so you must build your forces and destroy utterly the Zerg and then use Zeratul to wipe out the Cerebrates. Move your force tot he left and warp in a Nexus and an Assimilator. Before you can warp in any more Probes you are going to need more pylons so build them along the top wall, once you have an Assimilator and ten Probes harvesting then you are ready for the first step.

    Move Zeratul up the map until you encounter four sunken enemies:

    Zeratul can kill them with no risk to himself, don't travel too far up as there will be Overlords there and they will detect his presence. Move Zeratul back to your base. Build a Gateway, a Forge and along the wall where your Probes are harvesting you will need three Photon Cannons. Build Photon Cannons around and inside your base to uncover burrowed Zerg, the sooner you do this the less damage they will do with their Defilers. Now build a Cyberbetics Core and begin upgrading. Build your pylons I twos to in case one gets taken out, that way at least your buildings are powered. Build five more Probes so that you have ten harvesting the minerals and five harvesting the vespene gas.

    Build a little outpost as below and staff it with Zealots and Zeratul, this way you can intercept the Zerg hordes before they get close enough to begin destroying your buildings. Build this area up so that you have Pylons and Photon Cannons stretching across the gap. Warp in a second Nexus to the right of your first one, over toward the other minerals and Geyser, you can warp in another Assimilator and ten more Probes so that you can gather the resources. Using Zeratul make occasional sallies toward the Zerg Hive Clusters, be sure to avoid Overlords and Spore Colonies, if you are careful you will be able to inflict lots of damage at no cost to yourself.

    Warp in defences at your new Nexus, three Photon Cannon should be enough for now. Warp in five Dragoons and place them between you two Nexus' and bring your number of Zealots up to ten. Now start to build the advanced structures. These should be warped in to here:

    The next items to be warped in should be a Shuttle and an Observer and you can begin upgrading at the Forge and the Templar archives. Warp in another five Dragoons and place three Dragoons, two Templar and Zeratul on top of the plateau just above your first Nexus, place them as far to the right as possible. Using the Observer scout out where the burrowed Zerg are and balst them with Psychic Storms. Now using Zeratul and the Dragoons begin to clear the plateau of Zerg, once that plateau is clear move to the one directly opposite on the right. Keep building Dragoons and Zealots, you will be under constant attack so you're going to have to keep at least 15 of both Zealots and Dragoons handy to stand a chance of repelling the Zerg.

    Now warp in a Nexus and gateway at both sites and line the edge of the ravine with Photon Cannons, as below:

    You can now begin to upgrade at every available upgrade structure and warp in six Dragoons at each of your new Gateways. Take your new Dragoons and move to the top looking down upon the Zerg Hive Cluster, see how much you can shoot. Once you have destroyed everything you can reach and you have repelled a couple of attacks it is time to build your attacking force. Warp in five Scouts and use them to hunt down the Overlords. Bring in two Carriers and increase your number of Dragoons to about 20, Zealots are important as well so bring their number up to about 15. Templar are always useful and so you will need about four, also warp in eight more Templar to merge into Archon. For that added power it is an idea to bring in four Reavers, these will destroy most defences but will need protection, so keep the Carriers with them.

    Move your Zealots and 12 Dragoons along with the Reavers and Carriers up and to the right, here you will find a small Zerg Cluster and you can kill them and make use of the resources available. Then take your force to the left and do the same. Now you will be in the position to replace lost troops, your next move is to secure your new Nexus to the right and bring all your Probes to harvest the minerals there. Now leave 12 Dragoons at the Nexus and move the rest of your troops up the left of the map. The Cerebrate is pictured below and is well defended, so keep Zeratul back until you have destroyed the defences around it. The Reavers are best for this with the Carriers and Scouts as air support. Bring up your Zealots and let them loose in the Zerg Hive Cluster, nothing can cause damage like a group of Zealots.

    Once the first Cerebrate is dead it is but a simple matter to move your troops to the right after a suitable period of shield recharging and destroy the other Hive Cluster. Once again be careful that only Zeratul destroys the Cerebrate, once this one is dead the battle is yours.