StarCraft 2 Campaign Walkthrough

The Great Train Robbery

Achievements

Your base is located at about the center of the map. Periodically, trains will come onto the scene via one of a small handful of tracks, starting from the west and making their way east. You need to attack the as hard as you can to destroy it before it reaches the eastern border and leaves your map.

Bonus Objective  |  Locate diamondbacks (6)

You start the mission with a factory capable of building diamondback units, which should be the main unit you focus on building. Diamondbacks are vehicles of fairly average speed, but what makes them unique is their ability to shoot while moving—a feature that'll be especially useful in chasing down trains. In fact, there are six abandoned diamondback units that you can find in the area, three of which are marked on your map for you. Use your marines to find them and they'll be added to your army for free. Do this immediately.

Before long, you'll get a warning that the first train is about to pass through the map. Gather all of your attack units and run toward the train. As soon as you spot the train, attack-command your units to start unloading. If you've got the handful of marines you start with along with the three easy-to-find diamondbacks, you should be able to destroy the first train before it gets away.

Bonus Objective  |  Collect defiler bone samples (3)

With the train destroyed, go back to building up your army. You can also use this down time to collect the rest of the abandoned diamondbacks, as well as the defiler bone samples that'll net you zerg research. One of the defiler bone samples is found just north of your base, between two of the abandoned diamondbacks that first appeared on your map. Directly south of your base, behind a tall wall of rubble, is a second defiler bone sample.

The third defiler bone sample is further south of the base, on the eastern side of a ravine that divides the southern part of the map from the southwestern. The three diamondbacks that are not marked on your map are found in locations similar to the first three. Look for spots on elevated plateaus with dirt ramps leading up to them. You'll also find resource caches surrounding the diamondbacks so they're worth seeking.

The second train that comes won't be as simple to kill as the first as it comes with a military escort that you need to fight off. When you see the next train coming, send your units toward its location, but don't venture too deep into enemy territory. The source points of the trains are somewhat heavily guarded, and there's no real reason to venture into the enemy strongholds. Just park your units outside the gate and tell them to hold position until the train and its escorts near you. Destroy the escorts first and then wreck the train.

After you've destroyed a few trains, you'll get a warning that the next train is super souped-up. It's faster than normal, but as long as you've got a growing army of diamondbacks you shouldn't have a problem destroying it. The only real curveball in this mission is the host of marauders the Dominion crew sends out to scour the landscape. The marauders will never go to your base, so you can always avoid them by staying in the center of the map. However, avoiding them could be costly later if they're patrolling near one of the trains you need to destroy. If you choose to take on the marauders head-on, be prepared for some casualties. Marauders are weak to marines, so if it'll help if you have a good number of them in your crew.

Otherwise, there's not much else to the mission. After destroying each train, return your diamondbacks to base and let your SCVs repair them. We didn't mention it before, but you'll want to set up some minor defense at your base to fend off the few Dominion attacks. A bunker at each entrance to your base and a small patrol of marines and medics should suffice. When you've destroyed eight trains, the mission ends.

After the mission, when you return to the Hyperion bridge, talk to Matt Horner to earn the "Dead Man's Hand" Achievement.