Drawing of the Web

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	Battle of Talematros

Previous	Fury of the Swarm
Next	To Slay the Beast
Drawing of the Web
Conflict	Brood War
Date	September-October, 2500
Place	Shakuras
Result	Talematros destroyed Matriarch Raszagal taken prisoner
Campaign	The Queen of Blades
Combatants
Zerg Swarm
Zerg Swarm
Talematros Defenders
Talematros Defenders
Commanders
Sarah Kerrigan The Cerebrate Samir Duran
Sarah Kerrigan The Cerebrate Samir Duran
Matriarch Raszagal
Matriarch Raszagal
Objectives	Bring Duran to each zerg beacon (5) Duran must survive
Heroes	Infested Duran

Drawing of the Web is the seventh zerg mission of Episode VI of StarCraft: Brood War.

History

Background

Sarah Kerrigan was making plans to assault Char and kill the second Overmind under the control of the UED Expeditionary Fleet. As part of this, she took her swarm and returned to Shakuras, seeking the dark templar matriarch, Raszagal. The protoss pylons in the area were generating an electromagnetic field, preventing the zerg flyers from maneuvering.

With this complication to the attack, Kerrigan's adviser Samir Duran proposed a distraction to claim Raszagal during the confusion. The outpost of Talematros was built on a large mesa and virtually impregnable by ground attacks. However, the city was fueled by a number of pylon clusters on its outskirts. Duran proposed a simultaneous detonation of these clusters to create a power surge that would overlord the power grids and create a massive explosion. Kerrigan approved of the plan and ordered the Cerebrate to provide escort for Duran during the mission.

Duran successfully planted explosives at each beacon and detonated them on Kerrigan's command. The power surge utterly destroyed Talematros, and in the chaos Kerrigan abducted Raszagal. With Raszagal as her prisoner, Kerrigan was able to blackmail Zeratul and his warband into helping her assault the Overmind.

Walkthrough

The player is unable to build a spire or any associated air units in this mission, and they cannot research the ventral sacs upgrade for their overlords. The overlords should be upgraded for vision and speed, however. The protoss employ virtually every unit the race has access to; zealots, dragoons, dark templar, high templar, reavers, archons, scouts, and carriers. Dark archons can also be found as defenders, but usually will not accompany attacks. The brown protoss protect the beacons and attack with dark templar and other ground units, sometimes airdropping from the ramp near the starting position. The blue protoss maintain a massive stronghold (Talematros) on the central plateau, completely inaccessible to the player and attack with air forces backed by arbiters. Overlords must be brought with every attacking force to spot the prolific dark templar around the map, and kept at every choke point for the same reason.

The player has control of Infested Duran, who is an invaluable hero in this mission. Not only is Duran a decent attacking unit on his own, particularly against zealots and dark templar, but he has access to lockdown and consume. The player should make frequent use of these abilities; lockdown will disable dragoons, reavers, scouts, carriers, and arbiters, and consume will let Duran replenish his energy to use it consecutively. Numerous zerglings should be kept around for Duran to consume if needed.

There are two expansions near the starting base, the north expansion has a large mineral field but no vespene, while the south-west expansion has a geyser and few minerals. Claim both and use static defenses to push the creep out to the ramps up to these bases, allowing an easier defense of both expansions alongside the main base. Without air units, the player's options for offense are limited to zerglings, hydralisks, lurkers, ultralisks, and the queen and defiler as support casters. Defilers can be useful to protect the player's hydralisks from enemy fleets, but otherwise reavers and dark templar ignore dark swarm and it may hinder the player more than help, so defilers should be kept at home.

With their army upgraded fully, the player can move out and begin attacking the beacons. The first two beacons are guarded by zealots, dragoons and dark templar while the third to the northeast corner is guarded by reavers. The blue protoss will also send scouts and ground units, including high templar and dark archons, via shuttles to reinforce the beacons if attacked. The large number of powerful units means the player can expect heavy losses, so several hatcheries will be needed to reinforce their troops throughout the mission. After taking the first beacon the player can expand to a resource node west of it if they need more resources. The player will have to fight through a brown protoss outpost at the southwest corner to access the last two beacons. The former protected by high templar and archons and the latter guarded by scouts, corsairs and carriers. When each beacon is secured Duran can move to them to set the charges; once the charges are set the player does not need to hold the area and can retreat. When Duran has been brought to all five beacons, in any order, the entire blue base is obliterated and the mission ends.

Starcraft Brood War - Zerg Mission 7 Drawing of the Web

A true "zerg" strat was advanced by gamer Stu on his YouTube channel, wherein he quickly takes Duran into and out of each beacon location, using basic troops alternately as consumables for Duran's lockdown or cloak abilities and as cannon fodder to distract Photon Cannons in places such as the brown Protoss central base. The total time was logged as under five minutes. For a very meticulous strategy, once the brown base is overrun, no new Dark Templar will be produced. An effective method of taking the ground is to feed the Dark Archon at the base a Queen-Parasited Overlord. This will expend its Mind Control and, as noted above, provide the player with a detector in brown's base, but one or two other Dark Archons may come form the north. At the time of the attack, additional Parasited Overlords placed in the central west side of the map will provide advance warning and make a good counter for other Mind Control casts. A low-risk strategy is to cast Dark Swarm on the bridge leading to the base, then go in with Hydralisks, things that the Dark Archons will mostly ignore, while having a number of Queens at the ready to cast Spawn Broodling on Dark Templar, Zealots, and Dragoons (in that order of priority). Tasking Overlords to follow several of the Hydralisks will ensure that everything is visible, and the Overlords will be safe with the Photon Cannons targeting Hydralisks under the Dark Swarm. Once their central base is overrun, the brown Protoss will not stage further major attacks.

Having dealt with brown, the player can set up their own base in the southwest and replenish a great deal of minerals and gas. The first mission objective should then be the southernmost (and easiest) beacon. The same Defiler that helped to overrun the brown base can cast another Dark Swarm to aid in taking the beacon. Once the beacon is secured, a Hatchery on the mesa can become the foundation for a formidable wall of Spore Colonies mixed with Sunken Colonies. Packing the Spore Colonies densely, and in several layers to catch maneuvering Interceptors, but placing Sunken Colonies wherever the mesa might be within reach of wandering Dragoons from Telematros, will ensure that protoss air attacks cannot break the line and thus provide a secure barrier for your backline and the harvesting base just established to the southwest. The nearby unguarded expansion can then be taken, building additional Spore Colonies on the low ground with more Sunken Colonies further back to ensure that blue's Shuttles cannot drop ground units to do significant damage. Stationing Overlords above the final expansion will ensure that Spore Colonies on the low ground have advance warning of any air attacks from the cliffs above. If Dragoons attack the front line of Spore Colonies on the low ground, which is unlikely, Queens casting Spawn Broodling make a good counter as well as a hint of a way to destroy Telematros entirely.

With the last expansion secure, the player can then proceed to take the other beacons.

A particularly devious strategy is to build an additional line of defense to the east of Telematros around the central eastern beacon. Setting the game speed to its slowest is advantageous here, as it permits the degree of micro needed to make this "cheese" strategy effective. The defense walls will effectively nullify any attacks that Telematros tries to send out. Two dozen Queens can then be created, casting Parasite on all Kakarus as noted above, but also making forays into Telematros itself. Archons, Reavers, Scouts, and Carriers are all that stands between the player and near total destruction of the city, even without the victory condition. With careful micromanagement, the Archons, Scouts, and Carriers can be lured into the player's defense lines on the surrounding mesas (again, the player uses Queens as bait). When parts of the city are unguarded, the player's Queens use Spawn Broodling on High Templar, Zealots and Dragoons on the central mesa. Staging attacks on one side can draw more of these conventional forces to the area, allowing the player to develop a mass Broodling swarm. Working from side to side can distract critical units and buy time for the Broodlings to tear down production centers. Targets should then be the Telematros Fleet Beacon (destroying it prevents additional Carriers from being built), Robotics Support Bay (to prevent additional Reavers from spawning), and the Templar Archives (although blue may still make some Templar after losing the Templar Archives, if perhaps they are queued in the Gateways). While it may be difficult to get Carriers to come close enough to any Spore Colonies that they will be destroyed, Duran can be positioned to use Lockdown when the carriers are within range of his own basic attack, which is deadly once a Defiler's Plague has hollowed out their base health. Once the carriers are gone and if no Reavers are still active in the middle of the city, the player can then station Queens above each of the Gateways and cast Spawn Broodling on new ground units as blue produces them to try and stop the swarm. The more blue produces, the larger an army the player can control inside Telematros to take out the city. Obviously, the Gateways, Cybernetics Core, and their nearby Pylons as well as the central Nexus should be destroyed last, but they can be left at very low health and shields to ensure that the last few Broodlings can make a lap and finish the job before they expire.

With Telematros completely gone, Duran can walk from beacon to beacon and finish the mission.

Notes

• Though the mission does not allow the player's overlords to be able to carry other units, this ability can still be acquired via cheats. In an older game version, loading Infested Duran into an overlord revealed a slight developer oversight—he did not have a wireframe image for being inside a transport. This was fixed in patch 1.05.
• Despite the level clearly being established to be a no-fly-zone over the blue Telematros base, it's still possible to fly Overlords and Queens over it.
• This is the only time throughout all the campaigns that the player gets to use Duran as a hero infested ghost unit.
• Due to the Infested Duran hero unit, this is the one time throughout all the campaigns that the player has a unit that utilizes upgrades from two different races. Infested Duran having Terran weapon damage, and Zerg armor. His weapon damage can't be upgraded.