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The Crucible Guide

Reward: +10 Kerrigan Levels

Bonus: +1 Kerrigan Level

New Unit: Swarm Host

A defense oriented unit spawned from the Hatchery, it spawns Locusts which go forward and attack.

This map focuses on teaching you base defense and is a defend the hill style map.

Introduction to Swarm Hosts

In this little mini part of the mission you will be need to root the Swarm Hosts then watch them defend you. I had the Spawn Baneling upgrade, which made this part hilariously easy, but otherwise you’ll just want to root the Swarm Hosts and then watch them kill the incoming enemies.

Swarm Hosts look pretty cool on paper, but it isn’t until you upgrade them that they become really useful. They’re only good in large numbers, because they essentially spawn a few rather weak units to charge forward and defend your base, and they’re rather weak themselves. After they’re upgraded, they can become rather powerful units, but you can’t upgrade them during this mission.

Defense of the Queen

Alright, prepare to dig in. There are two ways you can play this. You can care about the bonus mission and go and slay the Tyrannozor or you could just build up an insane defense for your base and worry about the Tyrannozor later (if at all). It’s up to you.

What I did was work on making the base rather strong, you have to sit and defend it for a rather long time (25 minutes), so it’s best not to waste all of that time and get defeated later on. You’ll want a ton of drones and to cap all of the gas, and take the expansion rather early on. Then start putting Zerglings and Roaches in the two ramps, then layering on Spine Crawlers and Swarm Hosts around the ramps to help support the Zerglings / Roaches.

Spore Launchers are also needed around the bottom half of your base. You’ll get random flyer attacks and it’s best to take them out, so establish a perimeter of Spore Launchers around your base and your expansion. Once all of that’s setup, start producing units.

The Tyrannozor is rather difficult to deal with, because he’s not only rather strong and you don’t have a hero unit, but you have to get units through the unending battle at the bottom. Few strategies, you can get Roaches, burrow and walk them to him, then jump up and hope that they can take him down. You can mass Mutalisks and swarm him, but he has a very strong anti-air attack. You can just create a 100 supply army, attack him, and let them just tank all of the fights. It’s up to you; you are in command of how you kill the Tyrannozor.

Don’t forget the bottom ramp. A whole lot doesn’t really come at it, but having some Mutalisks and maybe some Roaches on the outside of the rocks can help a good bit.

Around 17:30 remaining you’ll get the ability to spawn locusts, they basically can clear most of the enemies out. Spam it to get the “Epic Meal Time” achievement. At about 5:00 remaining you’ll start getting zerged by, well, the Zerg. If your defenses haven’t been doing so well, just gather all of your forces around the Chrysalis. Otherwise, just wait for the timer to finish off and make sure not to let any flyers through for “Can’t Touch this Chrysalis.”

Speaking of “Can’t Touch this Chrysalis,” follow my instructions earlier and be sure to keep air units from getting through and you should do absolutely fine.

Achievements

• Epic Meal Time: Kill 75 units with the Locust ability. Just keep using it when it's available and enemies are attacking.
• Can't Touch This Chrysalis: Don't let Kerrigan take any damage while she's in Chrysalis form. See the above guide.
• The Crucible: Finish the mission.

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