by David Piner on Mar 12, 2013
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SELECT A MISSION -->
Umoji Missions
Lab Rat
Back in the Saddle
Rendevous
Kaldir Missions
Harvest of Screams
Shoot the Messenger
Enemy Within
Char Missions
Domination
Fire in the Sky
Old Soldiers
Zerus Missions
Waking the Ancient
The Crucible
Supreme
Skygeirr Missions
Infested
Hand of Darkness
Phantoms of the Void
Space Missions
With Friends Like These...
Conviction
Final Missions
Planetfall
Death From Above
The Reckoning
Wings of Liberty Guide
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Welcome to the start of the Heart of the Swarm Campaign. After these first three missions, you'll have a choice in which missions you'll undertake from there. Our guides will walk you through the missions on Normal difficulty and provide advice on completing the various achievements. So let's get started!
This is the start of your journey, it teaches you basic base building and combat. There is no risk of failure in this mission.
Your first step is to select the drone, then build a hatchery. Then you’ll need to set the drones to harvest some minerals. It’s really easy so far and shouldn’t be all that difficult. Then build an Overlord, in order to increase your supply. No risk, nothing, take your time. At this time you can also build more drones, if you want, to increase your income, but do note you’ll need to make a spawning pool right after, which takes 200 minerals, but the extra drones helps in a little bit when you’ll need to spawn zerglings and overlords and there is a combat sequence up ahead, so you’ll definitely want to have an upper hand during it, if nothing else for ease of finishing the mission.
After the zerglings are made, you’ll be asked to destroy the Eradicator and have a bonus of releasing zerglings from pens. The zerglings from pens makes creating zerglings a joke, realistically, you shouldn’t need to make anymore, but it’s good to get in the habit of constantly refreshing your army.
As you move forward, you’ll run into a room with gas turrets, just attack move and you should be fine. The eradicator was a joke for me, honestly.
Lab Rat Achievements
Mighty Mouse: Destroy 35 Sentry Bots, you should completle this achievement with ease. Rat Race: Complete the “Lab Rat” mission in less than 10 minutes, just work as fast as you can and skip unlocking the extra zerglings, keep making more at your base to save time. Lab Rat: Complete “Lab Rat” Mad Dash: Destroy 3 factiories within 10 minutes on Hard. Just keep making zerglings, non-stop, and have a strong economy ASAP to keep producing them.Next
Mission: BACK IN THE SADDLE
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SELECT A MISSION -->
A GHOST OF A CHANCE
SELECT A MISSION -->
Umoji Missions
Lab Rat
Back in the Saddle
Rendevous
Kaldir Missions
Harvest of Screams
Shoot the Messenger
Enemy Within
Char Missions
Domination
Fire in the Sky
Old Soldiers
Zerus Missions
Waking the Ancient
The Crucible
Supreme
Skygeirr Missions
Infested
Hand of Darkness
Phantoms of the Void
Space Missions
With Friends Like These...
Conviction
Final Missions
Planetfall
Death From Above
The Reckoning
Wings of Liberty Guide
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First up is teaching you now to use hero abilities, the first one being Kinetic Blast. Press Q and click the Marauder, at which point youll be jumped by a couple of units, just focus them down and you should be good to go. Continue moving forward and youll reach some Marines in trouble, use Kinetic Blast to take out a ghost and focus the units down. There is a recovery console up ahead, so any energy used wont matter, realistically.
Crushing Grip is the next skill youll learn to use. Its important to pay attention to how these abilities are used, since youll be using them a lot in upcoming missions. Continue on, there are a few ambushes but nothing you cant really handle. Youll reach a room where youll be locked in and a door will open with zerglings rushing at you.
In the next area, youll be tasked with moving to a set of doors while a timer runs. Ignore the time, use Kinetic Blast on the upcoming Firebat, and then be a little bit more suave with the choke point. Let the Firebat live so itll mow down the zerglings and use Crushing Grip to finish off the entire group near the end.
Youll move through another two sets of doors, rather easy stuff along the way. Use your abilities and it shouldnt be an issue. Youll come to a room where youll have to make a choice: gas the room or release the zerg. Personally, I released the zerg to deal with the mechanical units, but the choice is up to you. Remember, youre the master of your own dominion slaying rampage.
This part can be easy, if youre alert. You have two restoration terminals, so using your abilities shouldnt ever be an issue, and an assortment of defenders. Watch your mini map for incoming and use Kinitic Blast liberally. I like to use it on the Medivacs because it gets rid of the passengers. Youll eventually run into a Siege Tank but it was hilariously easy to beat down. The recovery terminals heal your allies, so its all good there.
Youll move forward and eventually have to fight Archangel. This is where the game gets hard if you want the achievement. You cant take any damage from the Archangel, so it all depends on how much patience you have. In the air itll draw a line on the ground and charge forward, bombing the area. On the ground itll put targets on the ground and youll need to dodge them. If youre alert and dont ever really get greedy, you should have the achievement no problem.
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Mission: LAB RAT | Next
Mission: RENDEZVOUS
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SELECT A MISSION -->
Umoji Missions
Lab Rat
Back in the Saddle
Rendevous
Kaldir Missions
Harvest of Screams
Shoot the Messenger
Enemy Within
Char Missions
Domination
Fire in the Sky
Old Soldiers
Zerus Missions
Waking the Ancient
The Crucible
Supreme
Skygeirr Missions
Infested
Hand of Darkness
Phantoms of the Void
Space Missions
With Friends Like These...
Conviction
Final Missions
Planetfall
Death From Above
The Reckoning
Wings of Liberty Guide
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This is when you finally get to manage your own base and attack. The key to victory on this map is a strong economy mixed with a constant stream of zerglings and Swarm Queens. Swarm Queens can walk on land or creep t the same speed, that's their sort of special ability.
The first thing you need is a spawning pool, not! Build more drones. Always build more drones. Get your income first, thats so critical in this game. Your base is pretty well defended with Spine Crawlers, so youre going to want to get setup for a long fight. Go ahead and build the spawning pool and start working on building a nice supply of zerglings and a Spawn Queen.
The goal here is to get the two achievements done ASAP, before the 15 minute timer runs out. To that end, get a strong economy up and build zerglings, move out and start working on the objectives. I sent a suicide force out to snag the two mineral patches on the right (and build a second hatchery), but again you are the captain of your dominion rampaging, so its all up to you on how you want to proceed.
I was able to do it with about five minutes left, simply making sure I had at least 20 to 21 drones up, using Kerrigan to push objectives, and just spamming zerglings. The Spawn Queens are a good choice to; you should build plenty of those. Theyre meatier and dont die to the
Anyway the mission progresses as follows, youll have 15 minutes and youll be alerted at various intervals of different caves that you can rescue units from. The best thing is to sort of get some momentum going, make a strong economy first then start expanding hatcheries. There are various minerals residing over the map, so those can help you get at least two extra hatcheries up. Once your economy is stable, start producing Zerglings and Swarm Queens. Swarm Queens are great for dealing with the new Hellbat unit while Zerglings can just swarm everything. Your base sort of defends itself, only leave a few defenders back and bring Kerrigan with you on all assaults.
The right most cave is the easiest, especially with Kerrigan. The next cave on the left is easy too, but the third cave has an entire base around it. The easiest approach is from the right side, you can focus down the cave guardians to unleash the brood and help gain momentum is taking the actual base.
As for getting fifteen buildings, you can focus on the main encampment to the northwest or there is a slightly easier camp on the east that you can assault. Either way, fifteen buildings can go down fast.
After the fifteen minutes are up, youll be presented with an entire swarm, press F2 then attack click the cannon. Afterward the mission then completes and you can either move on to the Charr Missions or the Kaldir Missions. I choose Kaldir because I want the extra unlocks before moving to Charr.
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Mission: BACK IN THE SADDLE