Attack Guidelines

Judging by the war replays of our first war after the rules took effect, it look like a lot of you don't have a lot of experience with war attacks. Consider this a knowledge dump where I let you know what strategies are most effective and how to execute them.

First of all, for virtually any war attack you have to deal with clan castle troops. This is very important, and is single-handedly responsible for a lot of our failed raids. It's especially important if most of your army goes after defenses (balloons, giants, etc.) or consists of melee troops such as barbarians, because those troops are especially weak against clan castle troops. The only guaranteed way to take out clan castle troops is to use a squad of archers. Lightning spells and/or balloon drops work on archers and wizards but not stronger troops like dragons, so archers are the only method I recommend relying on in war.

How to deal with clan castle troops:

1. The first thing you want to do is force the clan castle troops to deploy from the castle. This requires you to get a unit within the clan castle's range and keep it their long enough for all the troops to deploy. If you can place a singe archer in this range but out of range of defenses, go for it, but if not a single giant is usually the best unit to use since it will walk right up next to the wall and stay alive long enough due to its massive health.
2. The next thing you want to do is draw the clan castle troops far away from defenses. If the enemy has builders huts (or other buildings) in the corners, place a single archer next to a builders hut and the clan castle troops will walk all the way out to the corner. If not, you may have to place a couple of troops (1 at a time) to lure the clan castle troops far enough out.
3. Finally, surround the enemy troops with well spread out archers. Making sure the archers are spread out is crucial when dealing with splash damage troops such as wizards or dragons: If all the archers are in one spot, a single wizard or dragon shot can kill ALL of them. 15 or 20 archers can easily defeat a dragon, you just need to make sure that the archers are spread in a ring around the enemy so only one or two are killed by each shot.

Town hall 1-5 strategy:

Up until town hall 6, there aren't too many useful strategies to use. Basically the only troops that are useful in war at this level are barbarians, archers, and giants. Don't use level 1 or 2 balloons or wizards, they are too weak and don't do much damage. And never, ever use goblins in war. Additionally, you have to deal with clan castle troops which are probably much higher level than your troops. Your first priority in any attack is to take care of those clan castle troops! Luckily, you can bring your own high-level clan castle troops if you want. For instance, level 5 balloons (which myself and doc can train) would be pretty overpowered against low level base if used correctly. If your clan castle can hold 15 troops, you could also request a healer and use a Giant-Healer strategy. Or if you want to use troops you're familiar with, you can just request high-level giants. Don't be afraid to request specific troops for war attacks, I for one will be willing to train troops specifically for your request if you let me know what you want, and I think other high-level players would do likewise.

Now, as to the attack strategy, there are only a couple options available. Your basic attack should be giants (after you have taken out the clan castle troops) with some archers or barbarians (I preffer archers) to clean up after they have taken out the defenses. Exactly how this strategy goes depends on the base you are attacking, but the idea is to first take out the defenses with giants and then deploy the cleanup troops. If this is the strategy you want to go with, request high-level giants to help in that first wave of your attack. Level 4 giants do almost twice as much damage as level 2 giants and over twice as much as level 1 giants.

Another attack that could be quite powerful at low levels is sending in high level balloons from your clan castle. After taking out the clan castle troops, use giants to take out the air defense (an exposed air defense makes this attack easier), and then deploy you clan castle balloons. They should clean up the defenses easily with no air defenses or high-level anti-air towers. After that, just send in a few archers to clean up and you're good.

If you have spells, make sure to use them wisely. A single lightning spell will do no good on a tower (since no tower can be destroyed by one lightning spell), so if you only have a level 1 spell factory, consider using the lightning spell to help take out the clan castle troops after you deploy them. If you have a level 2 spell factory, use 2 lightning spells to take out a mortar as they are the biggest problem for low-level attacks. Alternatively, use 2 healing spells on your giants to keep them alive, but I recommend 2 lightning spells for most cases. Do not use healing spells on archers when facing an enemy mortar, because your archers will be killed in one hit (if the mortar is the same level as the archers or higher).

Finally, another attack you might be able to pull off would be giant-healer. But I'm going to save my description of that for the TH6 section because that attack isn't really usable until TH6.

Town hall 6 strategy:

At town hall 6, more attack options start to open up with the addition of healers and the fact that balloons are starting to get a bit more powerful. Also, at town hall 6 you have a level 2 spell factory, which allows you to get healing spells or to take out a mortar or wizard tower with lightning. There are two attack strategies which are powerful enough to wreck most TH6 and below bases at TH6. If you have unlocked either of these (healers or level 3 balloons), be sure to use them because they are a huge improvement over TH1-5 attacks. These attacks are NOT recommended against TH7+ bases - leave them to people of higher level.

Giant-Healer is a very powerful attack at TH6. Your opponents only have one air defense, and frequently it is exposed, so if you execute it correctly you should be getting 3-star attacks no problem. Here's how you do it:

1. Deal with clan castle troops! (I mention this a lot because it's crucial to every attack. Don't forget it!)
2. Deploy your giants to attack the air defense. You're going to want as many giants as you can get. Something like 20 giants (100 capacity worth) would be ideal, but make sure you have enough capacity left for your healers and cleanup troops. Clan castle giants are probably best for this attack, especially since you can get higher-level giants.
3. Use heal spells if necessary to keep your giants alive while they destroy the air defense. Destroying that air defense before you deploy your healers is absolutely crucial.
4. Deploy 2 healers (1 is usually not enough to keep you giants alive) AFTER the air defense is destroyed.
5. Watch your giants and healers wipe out all the defenses in the village.
6. Once most of the defenses are down (or at least the splash defenses), deploy your cleanup troops to take out the rest of the structures. It's important to have some cleanup troops since giants don't do enough damage to destroy all the structures in 3 minutes. I'd suggest using archers and bringing at least 20 (in addition to the archers you need to take out clan castle troops). Spread them out around the outside of the base so they go through several structures at once.

Level 3 Balloon raids can also be fairly effective at TH6, possibly even allowing you to take out TH7 bases (although don't try that unless you have enough practice). This only works if you have level 3 balloons! Balloons get MUCH better at each level, and are probably the first thing I'd suggest upgrading at each town hall level because of that. Here's how I suggest doing it:

1. Deal with clan castle troops!
2. Use two lighting spells on a wizard tower to take it out. Wizard towers are deadly to groups of balloons.
3. Deploy your balloons, which should make up the bulk of your force, spread out around the village. If you can arrange them to attack the air defense and wizard towers early on in the attack, that will help you out, but make sure they are spread out to protect them against air traps and wizard tower splash.
4. Once the defenses are down, deploy cleanup troops similarly to a giant or giant-healer attack. Anytime your main force only goes after defenses, you're going to need cleanup troops. Make sure to spread them out.

Town Hall 7 strategy:

Town hall 7 is the peak of attacking power (relative to defenses). Any town hall 7 should be able to easily 3 star any other town hall 7, leading to war scores that look like this (That was a war of almost all town hall 7's. Literally every TH7 base was 3-starred, only the TH8 top base of the opposing clan wasn't.). The main reason for this peak is mass dragon raids. Dragon raids are quite frankly overpowered at town hall 7. Here's how you do it:

Dragon raiding can 3-star any TH7 base if executed properly. It may even be possible for a TH7 to 3-star a weak TH8 base with this strategy:

1. This is actually one case where you can sometimes get away with not dealing with the clan castle troops, since dragons do it themselves. It still might be a good idea to take out those clan castle troops, however, because they might take down one or two dragons.
2. Destroy one of the air defenses with 3 lightning spells. That leaves the enemy base with only one air defense against a mob of dragons!
3. Deploy your dragon in a line on the side of the base that still has the air defense. Deploying them in a line ensures they will wipe through the village correctly, if they are all deployed in one spot, they tend to spread out and go after the outer structures before attacking the center.
4. Watch your dragons utterly obliterate the enemy base. No need for cleanup troops, the dragons will do that themselves. Although you may want to watch out for corner builders huts and deploy a single barbarian on each if they are there, since dragons fly slowly and it takes them a while to fly from corner to corner.

Level 4 balloon attacks are also reasonably powerful at TH7. I would not recommend them against a TH8, but with good execution I think any TH7 base should be wreckable with level 4 balloons. They are carried out similarly to at TH6 level 3 balloon attacks, except with 3 lightning spells you can take out an air defense instead of a wizard tower. Do not attack a TH7 or higher base with level 3 balloons, however, as level 3 balloons are not yet powerful enough.

Giant-healer is somewhat useable at TH7, but only if you find a base that's especially weak against it. You have to find a base with at least one exposed or semi-exposed (behind one layer of wall and targetable from the outside by giants) air defense. I don't recommend using giant-healer at TH7 because it's significantly weaker than level 4 balloons and astronomically weaker than dragons. However, if you do find a base that is weak enough, here's how it's done:

1. Deal with the clan castle troops!
2. Destroy one air defense (the one deeper inside the base) with 3 lightning spells.
3. Deploy your giants so that the first defense they go after is the second air defense. If neither air defense is exposed enough to do that, don't use giant-healer.
4. Once the air defense goes down (and not before!) deploy 2 healers. Make sure to deploy them as far from archer and wizard towers as possible.
5. You may need to deploy your cleanup troops a bit before they giants get through the last of the defenses. Pay attention to what the defenses are targeted to - if they are targeting giants, they won't switch their target to attack cleanup troops unless the giant they are targeting dies or goes out of range (With the exception of mortars, which fire for the biggest group of enemies rather than firing at a single enemy). You can use this to your advantage by deploying cleanup troops behind the giant before all the defenses go down, especially if you cleanup troops are ranged units like archers or wizards.

Town Hall 8 strategy:

Dragons are still a fairly powerful attack at TH8, using the exact same procedure as at TH7 (or possibly using rage/heal spells instead of lightning spells).

Loonion is a new attack at TH8 that takes advantage of the level 5 balloon and the use of minions as air cleanup troops:

1. You're going to want something like 4/5 of your army space (after archers to deal with the clan castle) to be level 5 balloons, with the rest being minions.
2. Deal with the clan castle troops!
3. I recommend using 3 lightning spells to take out an air defense (whichever one is deepest inside the village).
4. Deploy your balloons spread around at least one full side of the enemy base. Deploy them near the remaining air defenses so the air defenses will go down quickly.
5. Deploy your minions directly behind the balloons. The balloons tank for them because they are both air units and the minions support the balloons with extra damage. This is slightly different than balloons + cleanup troops because they can be deployed at the same time.

 [to be continued]