StarCraft: Brood War/Terran Mission 8: To Chain the Beast

There are 3 cerebrates here, each with different powerful abilities. The red cerebrate (northwest) makes the sunken colonies around your base invulnerable. While there's a ring of unbuildable terrain around your base to stop you from doing anything stupid, you won't get any ground attacks out until that's dealt with. The brown cerebrate (northeast) will send out the Torrasque periodically. The Torrasque is "a whole cargo-ship of whoop-ass," in your Marines' words, and will respawn every so often to rip apart your defenses. Make sure you have plenty of bunkers and siege tanks around your base, and expect to lose some a few times before you get the hang of it. The orange cerebrate is near the Overmind, and will mainly keep to itself. However, once you destroy the other two, it will start to send Infested Terrans. They can take out a bunker easily if they get close, but your siege tanks will get them first. Fortunately, the rest of their offense is fairly light. The occasional six-pack of hydralisks, a wave of zerglings, and sometimes a group of mutalisks to mix things up. Very rarely, a couple guardians will attack, so keep a few valkyries or wraiths handy to counter them.

The Red Cerebrate
Once your base is secured with bunkers and siege tanks, making sure to cover all the entrances, as you'll discover any weaknesses as soon as the Torrasque shows up, you can climb the tech tree towards Battlecruisers and Yamatos. Build at least 4 BCs and a group of Valkyries or Wraiths to cover them (Valkyries are better against massed air units, but wraiths will deal with pesky hydralisks on the ground.). Now fly towards the red cerebrate. If there's a spore colony in the way, two Yamatos will level it. However, you can avoid almost all the colonies by following the high ground to the northwest of your base; it will lead to an area just west of the cerebrate.

Order your BCs to all use their Yamatos on the cerebrate and then swarm it for the kill. Meanwhile, have your other air group draw fire and take out any mutalisks or hydralisks that threaten your BCs. You'll take some damage, but as soon as the cerebrate dies, all its units go dormant, and the sunken colonies are finally vulnerable.

Now may be a good time to expand to the east, where your starting bunkers were. The extra resources will be very useful, and if you can control the choke point to the east, you'll find it easier to catch Torrasques before they do too much damage.

The Brown Cerebrate
The brown cerebrate is well-defended from the air, with spore colonies lining the ridges, hydralisks scattered around the base, and devourers, whose acid spores make every attack all the more painful. Your BCs may not be the best option, though they'll do quite well at defeating the Torrasque, and you can use them to remove some of the Sunken colonies in your path. Build up Siege Tanks and Marine/Medic groups with Science Vessel support, and slowly grind your way up through the base. Once you're in range of the cerebrate, focus fire on it and it should fall quickly. Brown's troops will fall dormant and you won't have to worry about Torrasques anymore.

Alternatively, if you have a large group of Battlecruisers (6-8), you can fly to the north of the narrow pass, where you'll find only a few Spore Colonies and scourge. Once you clear them out, you can wait to recharge your Yamatos and repeat the same trick you pulled with the Red Cerebrate. However, you'll want the extra BCs because Brown has better air defenses, and you'll run out of Yamatos otherwise.

A third alternative, also using a large group of Battlecruisers, is to fly over the waste area between the main brown base and its southern outpost, then up the eastern edge of the map to get close to the cerebrate.

However, the cheapest and quickest solution is to land a shuttle-load of infantry on the ridge east of your eastern base and have them work their way east and north, killing Spore Colonies and Hydralisks as they go but followed by a few Wraiths to kill any interfering air units. Reinforce with at least one Siege Tank and SCV. When you reach the ridge's northern tip, build a Missile Turret and have your Siege Tank bombard the Brown cerebrate. This plan allows you to bypass the Red cerebrate instead of destroying it.

The Orange Cerebrate.
If you said "Battlecruisers" as the answer to how you'll attack this cerebrate, give yourself a round of applause. Since enemy attacks are light without the Torrasque, take your time and build a full group of 12. Fly to the northeast corner of the map, and slowly move west towards the cerebrate. There's a line of spore colonies in the way, but you should only need 6 yamatos to deal with them. Then, Yamato the cerebrate and it'll die quickly.

Another solution is to plant Siege Tanks on the eastern edge of the continent, using the island immediately south as a staging area. Gaining the low ground is not usually a good tactical move, but in this case it will protect your artillery until you can safely move a couple of Tanks up to the main level and bombard the cerebrate.

With all three cerebrates dead, no Zerg will oppose you. Walk your medics up to the beacons, and enjoy the cinematic!

Alternative Strategie
It is possible to win this with an all Battle Cruiser assault. This may cost a bit time and ressources, but in the end makes things easier.

The most important thing here is a good start. The enemies start attacking very early, and when you dont' have at least a few defences you get ripped apart. Because of that, save all your marines! The extension, which gets attacked at the beginning has three bunkers with 3 marines each. Empty the buildings, and get your marines on the cliff hugging your expansion from the south. The ramp for that is directly on the right. When up the ramp, just right click them into your base. Be aware that they don't go the long way through the Sunken Colonies. While your marines are marching let at least two SUVs build the bunkers. You have more than enough minerals so that they can start gathering a bit later. Spread the bunkers over the entrances (two at the north east and north west, one at the east, one at the north east), fill 'em with marines, and you're good for now. Of Course you have to continue buildig your defences; but with that force you have at least a good jump start. All that while bulding your base, of course. Especially the U238 for the Marines and the Siege Mode for your Tanks are key, so research both as soon as possible. Start parking Tanks by te bunkers as soon as possible.

It also makes sense to send an SUV to the extension as soon as possible and let it build a Command Center and a Refinery. The doubled income makes building your base (and your army) a lot easier. Speckle it with some turrets (but not to far north, or your SUVs are getting killed by the Sunken Colonies), let them gather, and forget about it. Flying attacks usually get warded of, and for ground attacks you can set a Tank or to on the cliff. But normally, the enemy units just proceed to your main base. It's also wise to early build the starport so you can make shuttles. Whith them you can fly units to your expansion for ground defense if needed. Also, when your main base gets cramped up, you need them to move your tanks with it, because they usually get stuck.

When your base is warded against the enemy attacks, start building Battle Cruisers: if you didn't build a Science Facility (you really should by now, or you're stuck at level one attack and armor!), add a Physics Lab and research both the Yamato and the energy boost for the BCs. During that churn out Battle Cruisers at your Starport having a Control Tower. At least now build a second Weapon Factory so you're able to upgrade faster. Battle Cruisers, which have been build, can be used for base defense, both the main and the expanse.

When you got a full pack of twelve BCs having level 3 attack and armor, save, just go to the north and Yamato the red cerebrate. After that fly directly to your expansion and wait untill your BCs have at least 75 percent energy. Proceed to the east edge of the map, using the lightly warded corridor between the brown main and it's expanse in the south. Kill the scourges, if you want. When at the edge, go straight up, ignore any attacks, and yamato the brown cerebrate. When at least 8 BCs survived, wait untill you're at 75 percent energy, and go just straight north to yamato the orange cerebrate. The key here is having so much Cruisers they cannot all being attacked at the same time, and having them at full armor so they last longer. Like I said: this strategie is a bit costly. But when you have all your BCs, the whole thing is over in less than five Minutes.

Now build your Medics, fly them to the Overmind via shuttle, and let them do their thing.