Gates of Hell is the first Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty
mission on the planet of Char. Once you start this mission, you cannot go back. You also get no more research
or credits so be sure you have finished all the other missions before starting this one.
Gates of Hell is sort of a hybrid mission. It is not quite a dungeon crawl mission, although you do get to
rescue a lot of units to add to your army. It is not a regular "macro up and go in" mission either, due to your
limited starting resources and lack of building room.
Fortunately, it is an easy mission when you use the strategies outlined below. We will start with a video guide
showing just how easy this mission is on brutal mode and a second video demonstrating how to complete the
achievements.
Starcraft 2 Gates of Hell Brutal Video Walkthrough
Here is a video walkthrough that you can follow along with that shows you how to beat Gates of Hell on Brutal
mode with very little time invested:
Steps & Key Strategy Points for Gates of Hell
Rescue the first 5 Drop Pods. Rescuing the first 5 Drop Pods is easy, saves you a lot of resources, and is
vital to your success.
Before attacking the main base, you want to send out a small party of units to the northeast of your base
out the east exit. There is about 1000-1500 resources worth of pellets in this area.
Build up a large Marine/Marauder/Medic army. There are a ton of minerals but not much gas on this
map, and using this combo is a good way to make sure you do not spend all your Vespene gas.
Build up an appropriate defense. I think 3 Bunkers on each entrance all filled with Marines is about what
you will need. You should use the two rescued tanks to bolster your defenses as well as call in the Mercenary
tanks, giving you 3 Siege Tanks guarding each entrance to your base.
Leave your 6 tanks and ~30 Marines on defense, max out your army with infantry, and then go in on the Nydus
Canals.
Important: Despite the in-game speech that suggests that you have to hurry up to General
Warfield, I do not think Warfield actually ever gets overrun. You can take your time and build up a large army and
perform all the rescues before going in.
Gates of Hell Dominion Roundup and Big Bang Cannon Achievements
The three achievements for completing Gates of Hell are as follows:
Gates of Hell - Unlocked by completing this mission on Normal mode.
The Big Bang Cannon - Unlocked by destroying all 6 Spore Cannons on "Normal" difficulty or
higher. The Spore Cannons are not really hidden on this map - they are spread out but you should pass all of
them on your way to completing this mission. There are two out of the west exit to your base, one slightly
north and one to the south before you get to the main Zerg base. You should spot both of these when you go out
to rescue drop pods.Two are to the northeast of your base - one at the top center of the map, and oen just a
little more to the west and a bit south. Again, you should not have to fight through Zerg buildings to get to
these Spore Cannons. The final two are to the Southeast of your base, one that you cannot miss just outside the
infested Zerg base you have to cross to get to Warfield and the final one is sitting in the mineral patch that
you could potentailly expand to the southeast of your main base.
Dominion Roundup - Unlocked by rescuing all 10 Drop Pods on Hard difficulty or higher. You
can cheese this very easily by dropping a MULE on the drop pods. This rescues the units. Even though the pods
will then die to the Zerg, it counts for the achievement. To do it the real way, split your units up into
three groups (defense, drop pod 1 team and drop pod 2 team) so you can defend your base and rescue two drop
pods at once. Here is a video showing both approaches:
