Alternate perspective flip mission. Reckoning Kerrigan, Mengsk, Heart of swarm. Dominion defense strategy

Campaign Discussion
#1

This is a perspective flip a sort of What if?

You are a Dominion commander, Kerrigan is coming for Mengsk, that much you know, You don’t know the existence of the artifact, or Kerrigan’s abilities, But you heard rumors of what she is capable off from survivors.

How would you defend Augustgrad, from Kerrigan, and later Raynor?

What units would you used, what tactics or strategy, assume that you get everything from the Heart of swarm final mission units and resources of the Dominion, and you have overall command, except Mengsk being the douchebag, is hoarding the artifact , which you know nothing about, you also know nothing about the prophecy, to you Kerrigan is a monster that is a threat to humanity, and You don’t even know about Amon’s existence, or that Zeratul needs her alive, and depending on how badly or well you do in defending Augustgrad, killing Kerrigan , third parties may or may not intervene in this alternate final mission?

So what strategy would you use both in this alternate final mission perspective flip, ?

What strategy would you use if your opponent has access to Kerrigan in multiplayer skirmish? if you played as a terran faction.

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#2

I get all the ghosts available to me together and hope. The Zerg aren’t being beaten back by conventional means, the only possibility is to take out the leader. Kerrigan leads from the front so if I can present a strong enough line of defense she will come to smash it personally, that’s when I have all my psionics jump her, and hopefully their combined power will be able to subdue her. It’s a long shot but she isn’t being taken down by conventional means.

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#3

I meant ingame strategy.

what units would you use? siege tanks, thors, odin, etc…

Lets say to give you a fighting chance that if you managed to hold the line long enough, a little bird may let slip that Mengsk has a secret weapon, and is withholding it selfishly? which again if you try to kill Kerrigan, third parties may or may not attack you, lets put it in game mechanics.

#4

Depends on Kerrigan’s layout.

You would need different things against Leviathan, Marines would be great if she has no chain reaction…

#5

Forget about Kerrigan; you need to kill Raynor. Once he is dead she won’t be able to take the news well. You will have the chance to snipe her, then. A squad of Elite Ghost will take her out with a number of snipe.

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#6

won’t killing Raynor be a bad idea, in the game, she was at the least holding back from going full swarm against civillians,

In terms of game mechanics, would a bunch of ghost really be a good counter against her heart of swarm hero unit form? I seem to watch on youtube, that the best counter in wings of liberty are a number of marines, after using the artifact, however in this scenario, Mengsk is hoarding the artifact, how would you deal with Kerrigan + her zerg army, since in wings of liberty players usually just use the artifact and gang up on her afterwards.

For Clarity sake, this starts at the beginning of the mission, you the commander have total control of all dominion units at the map except the odin which i’m sure appears much later, while, Kerrigan just have a few units of drones and a few zerg, and will try to establish a base, just like the start of the Reckoning mission, and presumably like the campaign Raynor will arrive sometime later to flank you.

What do you do, since delaying Kerrigan’s final form is difficult, and she is still building up her base, assaulting her too early may just cause her to just randomly attack any dominion units and buildings around the map.

#7

Before I answer; mind telling me the premise again? Is this about lore perspective or gameplay mechanics?

Anyway, the Marine was good because they’re cheap and individually weak. When you kill a marine, another hundred keep shooting. Since Kerrigan pretty much one shot everything, three~five Marines will take longer to ‘one-shot’ than a single Siege Tank.

#9

this premise is based on game mechanics, since in this scenario, unlike wings of liberty, you don’t have the artifact, to cheat a win, while Kerrigan is even stronger than her wings of liberty final boss appearance, she is op, keeps resurrecting, can solo a army, can blow herself up like a nuke taking out the majority of your army if you fight her.

The only strategy I can think off if the player is playing as the dominion, is to abandon undefendable base locations, use the excess bases as either decoys or barricades, avoid fighting Kerrigan, focus on stopping her from building up a army, by killing all her drones, and reinforcements, since I noticed that unlike all in, Its Kerrigan trying to establish a base and a beachfront, unlike the player in all in.

I just wanted to know if you can think of a way to deal with a stronger version of Kerrigan hero unit plus a army without a artifact, the only thing I can think off is to destroy all her mules and bases while avoiding her , since based on the map the dominion forces will be scattered with many buildings that simply can’t be defended even if Kerrigan attacks without a army.

#10

If it’s purely gameplay mechanics, then just stall. Keep harassing her mineral line and attack the base whenever she leaves it. You might even want to let her expand. Every time she moves back and forth protecting two bases is the time she is not attacking you. You might be able to force her to invest heavily on static defend and split some of her army to each base. Once Raynor arrive attack him with all you got fast! Remember, you win (Kerrigan fails) once Raynor’s base is destroyed.

#11

I just get Lil’Arrin to play.

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#12

Bad idea. She’d flip and kill everything, and everyone.

#13

Bring back Starcraft 1 Science Vessels, to have EMP to hold back her energy-based psionic powers a bit.

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#14

She’ll definitely flip, but before that she will be confused and in a bit of denial. She will want to confirm that he is really dead and that all she can do now is revenge. In that moment, she will be vulnerable. If we burst her down, she might not be able to tunneling away to safety.

#15

Well, the warhound existed at this point so I’d probably make a backbone of those. Couple of tanks to snipe baneling rolls, double down on the planetary walls around the outer entrances to the city.

If Kerri tries to get personally aggressive, gather the ghosts; she is a valid snipe target. Just don’t let her get too close to them.

And of course, banshee harass. Banshees everywhere. I have AoE missile turrets so the more mutas I force her to make, the better.

As for the Odin, probably park that near the Stukov entrance. Put up a sensor tower and watch if Raynor, well, does anything. Any move out he makes, crush with the Odin and then fall back behind my tank/turret. Also, nuke Raynor periodically. Force Kerrigan to protect him from that. Between that and the banshees, she’ll have a really rough time pulling together a real offense.

Of course all this assumes I don’t have the option of just f2-a-move for humanity and crush her hive cluster right off the bat.

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#16

She’s already trying to kill everything and everyone. She can’t kill any faster.

#17

Of course crushing the hive cluster is the main point, since its Kerrigan trying to build up her forces to get to Mengsk, and you the player trying to stalemate her by stopping her from building up a army, establishing a beachfront to a big enough threat that can overwhelm you,

Naturally You the player have a ‘home advantage’ of prepared units, and literally a blank check of resources, since not even Mengsk is that idiotic to deny you the resources to become his meat shield, while he’s doing whatever his master plan is.

I assume based on lore, that Zeratul is keeping a eye on Kerrigan, so is Duran and Amon, so if you manage to put Kerrigan in danger of being killed, who knows what will happen, or if outside parties will get involve.

I mean if Kerrigan dies, in theory everyone is screwed by Amon, however Kerrigan may not want to stop until she kills Mengsk, and you the player happens to be playing Dominion, so due to butterfly effect, the player should be able to stalemate or even endanger Kerrigan enough that the battle changes.

What would Nova do, in this timeline, the dominion are actually for once under a competent leader and actually holding the queen of blades off , would she betray Mengsk and offer his head to Kerrigan? steal the artifact? Do nothing like the original timeline.

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#18

Nova was still a puppet at that time.

She’s pretty far from the woman she becomes in NCO.

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#19

For about five seconds. When she thought Raynor has been executed before, no proof or investigation was needed. She despaired for a very, very brief period, so the broken tusk Zergling, and then decided everything needed to die.

During the Korhal invasion? No, she’s purposely slowing herself down and avoiding civilian areas to permit Valerian and Horner to evac people.

That would go right out the window if Raynor died.

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#20

Yeah, but it’s probably the best chance you’re going to get. I mean let us be real here; what is the chance of you taking her out, otherwise?

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#21

You’re nice and all to think so much on how to kill Kerrigan, but you do realize once that happen, the Zerg in the city could not hold anything back, and the Leviathans and other units floating in orbit like idiots may finally decide to join the fray and destroy everything.
The human side of Kerrigan hold back the terror of the Swarm, so I’m not sure a strategist would necessarily think killing her is a good priority to have. Especially since the author of this topic said we’re supposed to ignore a lot of things, including that after Planetfall (that may not have happened yet when starting this strategy meeting), Kerrigan gave orders against what I’m saying (though Zagara could disobey anyway).