Reposting from my other reply: There is strafe actually, even two ways of doing it, using original DOS bindings: < and > or alt + left/right arrow. For me the easiest way to do it without strafe is just to move forward a bit, then go back and wait for dudes to come in from the right. Dealing with imps is really hard since their fireballs are sped up significantly. I tried a bit more and it seems it's possible to actually beat this level properly. You can get other weapons and powerups. It's just really hard with speed mode and nightmare difficulty.