Starcraft

Terran Mission Strategies

Mission 10 - The Hammer Falls
Crazed with the power of his victory Acturus Mengsk is preparing to launch his final attack, Jim Raynor disgruntled by Arcturus' abandonment of Kerrigan deciding enough is enough prepares to leave. Put out by the apparent defection of Raynor, Arcturus activates the planets primary defence, the ion cannon, before Raynor can leave with his troops you're going to have to take out the ion cannon.

The ion cannon is at the extreme end of the map and you have to make your way through two entire armies that are tooled up to the max and ticked off. Below is your starting force, not bad is it? Now look at the map and get a good look at the size of the enemy you are up against, this is going to be fun.

You need to be very careful that you don't provoke and attack from the Sons of Korhal before you are ready to repel it, so keep everything in you base for a short while at least. Build you total of SCVs up to around 12, not forgetting to build supply stations to keep them going. Build about four supply stations with the three you already have here:

Once you have your SCVs and supply stations up and running you are going to have to build a refinery, once built keep about four of your SCVs mining the gas and leave the rest to mine crystals. Now to get anywhere you are going to need a barracks, engineering bay and academy. Build these and keep them to the forefront of your camp, like this:

Build the barracks first as this gives you the ability to build bunkers at the entrances of your camp, then the engineering bay as you are going to need missile turrets to detect them rascally ghosts. Try to have the right hand side of your base looking like this:

Upgrade your weapons and armour at the engineering bay and the academy, then be ready to meet the first small attack whilst keeping a small force on the left of your base to pick off any Korhal incursions from that direction, there should be one small one at this stage. Once you have the right hand side of your base set up you are going to need to strengthen the left. To do this you will need to move your two tanks up and build several bunkers and missile turrets. Like this:

Now you are going to have to build a factory and workshop because siege tanks are necessary very early on. Be careful on the left flank as the enemy will send Ghosts down to nuke your defences, which won't kill any men but it will destroy your bunkers and missile turret so be ready to rebuild at a moment's notice.

Now you need to prepare your first sally forth so build and armoury and start to produce about ten Goliaths, you are probably going to need some more supply stations so build them close to your others but don't block anything in. Upgrade your vehicle armour and weapons at the armoury, remember try to keep your spare troops in your base so that you don't antagonise the Sons of Korhal. In the free space between your two entrances keep three or four tanks ready as a flying defence group, these should be free to move to either of the entrances that are under attack. A fairly large attack group made up of tanks and Goliaths will be making its way to you soon so keep an eye out. They will attack either of your entrances but they are more likely to move to the left one.

After beating of the attack you may find that your defences look something like this:

Now rebuild your defences to something very close to this:

Pretty soon you are going to need some more supply depots so keep on building them in readiness for the force you are amassing. Now move your Goliaths up past the right entrance to your base, keeping an SCV with them, you may encounter some forces up here, but nothing you can't take care of. Now build a couple of missile turrets and a bunker and group your Goliaths like this:

Leave your forces in place for a while as two Battlecruisers will attack, along with a host of Ghosts and several Wraiths, hold your forces until you are sure that there are no more attacks coming (after the fourth Battlecruiser you should be alright). I took quite heavy losses here, losing six Goliaths and several missile turrets, just remember to keep repairing that which can be repaired and rebuilding any lost turrets.

Now you are going to make the next push toward valuable minerals and vespene gas but not before strengthening your defences once more. The left-hand side of your base is going to take a hammering so you need it to look like this:

This may seem a little excessive but remember that any troops that survive can be used for the push up the left-hand side. Where your far right defensive line is you are going to have to build a starport with communications tower and a science facility with covert ops and on your headquarters build a nuclear missile silo. Troops needed for the push are six Goliaths, six siege tanks, eight marines one science vessel, two SCVs and two drop ships, stage them all here, next to your starport.

Whilst doing this you need to keep upgrading your weapons and armour at both the engineering bay and the armoury. Pretty soon Ghosts are going to become very important so it's a good idea to move through all of their upgrades, ditto for the Wraith.

Now ferry your troops over to the next available minerals, these are located slightly up from your right hand entrance you can see them clearly on the map. Move the Goliaths and the Science Vessel first, the reason for this is that the Goliaths are effective against both ground and air targets whilst the Science Vessel can spot cloaked targets. Build a command centre, a refinery, two bunkers and several missile turrets as below:

Now is the time for the first push up along the left flank, to do this build a nuclear missile, now build a decent force upon the ridge in front of your right entrance. For a good force you are going to need about eight tanks and 12 soldiers. Whilst these are building bring up one of your Ghosts, cloaked and prepare to use your nuke. Once you have your force amassed upon the ridge as below then move slowly up the map using the ranks from other missions.

Now that the red base is no longer a threat you are going to have to deal with the risk from the white camp. On your second command centre build another nuclear missile silo and build another nuke. Air superiority is the key to this game, so build yourself another science facility with a physics laboratory so that you can begin to build Battlecruisers. There are more resources available to the north of your second camp they are shown clearly on the map, these are relatively unguarded but any attempts to harvest them will draw attacks from the air. You are going to need a fairly powerful force to protect your SCVs whilst they set up your base I suggest about 12 marines, four siege tanks, four Goliaths and a Science vessel. Once you have a command centre built you are going to have to defend the right of your base, build two bunkers and three missile turrets on the entrance shown below, this has the advantage of not only defending your own base but limiting the movement of the enemy out of their base. The two siege tanks give you all the range you need to damage the enemy quite considerably before they get to your base.

Now is the time to use those two Ghosts you have had in reserve with their lovely little nukes, move the Ghosts up the main entrance to the red base, keep to the left of the bridge to avoid detection by the missile turrets. Now target this factory with both nukes, sit back and enjoy.

The desolation wrought by two nukes should be pretty impressive, so impressive it's probably time to build another two. Start building Battlecruisers as soon as possible and upgrade them with the Yamoto gun and Colossus reactor. Keep building supply stations and don't forget to keep upgrading your vehicle weapons and armour, now would be a good time to start upgrading ship weapons and armour as well. You are going to need about five Battlecruisers so keep mining and get building.

The entrance to the white base is wide open now so there is no need to worry about your Ghosts being spotted. Once the nukes are built move your cloaked Ghosts into the base once more and launch your missiles here on this command centre:

Now build yourself another couple of nukes and get ready to be nasty once more. Gather about six tanks from ones you have lying around, the ones protecting your second base would be ideal, pick up your spare Goliaths and move onto the main entrance to the white base with a science vessel spotter, organise them like below:

Move them slowly up through the base, the back rank moving forward while the front rank protects them and vice versa. Keep the Goliaths handy for taking care of troops that get too close and air attack. The base should fall quite easily, if you do it right you will not a single unit, now the fun begins, the only place that is left is the platform with the ion cannon. There are no troops here but there are an awful lot of missile turrets, hence the Battle cruisers, a blast from a Yamoto gun will take out a missile turret in one hit, so move your Battlecruisers up the map along with a Dropship containing your two Ghosts. By moving your Battlecruisers slowly along the map you can take out the missile turrets along the left of the map, drop you Ghosts here and move them to the Ion cannon:

Drop both nukes on the Ion cannon, this isn't necessary but it's always good to end with a bang.