Attack Strategy

Below, you will find specific strategies for each of our Town Hall levels that can assist in attacks.  The vast majority of this information was pulled from ClashGuideHQ and some other information pulled from various sources or personal experience.  Again, this is not a guarantee of a three star or the only options, just some methods that have worked extremely well for many folks.

Town Hall 4

• Power: Giants, Wall Breakers, Balloons

By Town Hall 4, you can push for the 1250 trophy achievement (though it does take a lot of time). You can do this by sniping buildings and Town Halls that are exposed due to farming layouts between active wars, slowly clawing your way to the 1250 trophy achievement. This tip can help you pick up a third builder pretty quickly which can be invaluable as you grow and upgrade.

Farming should largely be done with Barbarians, Goblins, or a mix of both. You can add a few Balloons for a power army – they are very helpful at clearing some of the campaign missions. Use Giants or Barbarians to snipe any Air Defense towers then allow the Balloons to clear the undefended base.  We have a number of bases in this current war with extremely exposed Air Defenses.  The base level balloons get crushed by air defenses and archer towers as well as clan castle troops such as WIZ/ARCHER.

If you have 80 troop capacity, one strategy could be:

• 15 Barbs, 15 archers, 4 giants, 5 wallbreakers, 4 balloons in army camp
• LVL 5 Wizards, LVL 5 Giants or Hog Riders in War Castle
• Draw out Clan Castle Troops and eliminate with a circle of Barbs/Archers
• Drop Giant near air defense and drop 2 wallbreakers about an inch from Giant to break wall
• Send in remaining Archers and Barbs with another Giant until Air Defense is taken down
• Repeat for Archer Towers
• Drop Balloons to clean up

Town Hall 5

• Power: Wizards, Giants, Wall Breakers, Balloons

By Town Hall 5, you will want to have a few Wall Breakers as part of your army in case you need to break through tough walls for trophy farming and power armies. You can still farm resources easily with mass Barbarians. I prefer this approach at this level due to the low training time required between runs. Wizards can be added to the power army at the expense largely of Balloons. Wizards scale extremely well with upgrades, so if you plan on using them regularly, do not forget to upgrade them!

Town Hall 6

• Power: Giants, Healers, Wall Breakers, Wizards

At Town Hall 6, you get access to the healer. The Healer drastically alters the “Power” army dynamic, as you can mass up Healers and Giants and take out most bases. Drop your Giants and Wall Breakers to break down the closest Air Defense tower, then use Healers to keep the Giants alive while they take out most of the base. 

Eventually, the second Air Defense tower will take out your Healer, at which point you can either drop another one or drop your Wizards to clean up the rest of the enemy’s base.

You can also use the Giant and Healer army for Trophy farming, but you can also still use Barbarians and Archers to take out exposed Town Hall farming-style bases to earn trophies. You can also mix in a few Giants into your resource farming army at the cost of a few Barbarians.

Farming still involves mass Barbarians. Players may not agree with me but there are videos out there that show just how effective mass Barbarian can be at this level. At Town Hall 6, a well-placed healing spell can allow a full Barbarian army to take out most TH5 and TH6 bases.

Town Hall 7

• Power: Dragons or Hog Riders

Once you reach Town Hall 7, your army compositions will change significantly. For farming resources, you can use Barbarians, Archers, and a handful of Wall Breakers. This composition is popular known as “Barcher”. I like to go with around 8 Wall Breakers, 90-100 Barbarians, and 78-88 Archers. This works to get Dark Elixir. If you just want Gold and Elixir, you can drop the Wall Breakers and just use Barcher.

For trophies, you can continue to snipe buildings and Town Halls with Barbarians and Archers, but eventually you may need to switch to a Giant and Healer composition if you want to push higher in the trophy count.

Once you get access to Dragons or Hog Riders, you now have one of the best “power” armies in the game. Mass Dragons + Lightning Spells can allow you to clear practically any base. You use the Lightning Spells to destroy an Air Defense tower, leaving little to stop the Dragons from clearing the base.

Hog Riders pair well with Healing Spells, as a few Healing Spells can cover most of an enemy’s base, allowing Hog Riders to take out enemy defenses with impunity.

TH7 Clan War Suggested Army Tactics

TH7 Clan War Army Composition

The best army composition at Town Hall 7 for War Battles is to use 10 Dragons. If you want to take on mid-range TH8 players, it is useful to have a Dragon in the Clan Castle and to upgrade your Dragons to level 2. Note: Technically a 25+ Hog Rider army will outperform 10 Dragons, but that is an enormous waste of Dark Elixir. It is much easier to get excess Elixir to pump into Dragons as opposed to getting the 900+ DE required to build a 25+ Hog Rider army.

Since Dragons require a level 9 Barracks, it is in your best interest to level up all of your Barracks to level 9 shortly after hitting Town Hall 7. Just upgrade each Barracks one at a time until all are level 9 so that you do not suffer from low production at any point.

The spells and strategies you use depends on whether or not you are attacking a Town Hall 7 player. Town Hall 7 players are much easier to take down with a 10 Dragon army, as players get a third Air Defense upon hitting TH8. Town Hall 8 players can still be 3-star cleared, but not every TH8 player can be cleared. Evaluating bases, good unit placement, upgrading Dragons, and spell choices will determine your ability to 100% clear TH8 players reliably.

Against Town Hall 7 Players

Taking down TH7 players with 10 Dragons is pretty straightforward. Players may or may not need spells; you will only need spells if you have level 1 Dragons and the enemy player has maxed out Air Defense towers. If the enemy player has maxed out their Air Defense towers, all you have to do is build 3x LIghtning Spells. Use the three LIghtning Spells on one of the Air Defense towers, destroying it (Lightning Spells do need to be level 3 or higher for this purpose).

With only one Air Defense left, you can place your 10 Dragons practically anywhere on the map and get an easy 100% clear. Place them in the same area of the map, but spread them out a little bit in order to reduce the effects of splash damage.

Against Town Hall 8 Players

Town Hall 8 players can be cleared with 3 Stars by TH7 players using Dragons, but certain conditions need to be met for this to be reliable. FIrst off, it helps significantly if the TH7 player has level 2 Dragons. A Dragon in the Clan Castle is very useful as well, but not necessary. The preferred combination of spells is two Rage Spells and one Healing Spell.

In addition to leveling up Dragons, it helps significantly if the TH8 player does not have maxed out Air Defense towers or has poorly positioned Air Defense towers. Level-wise, if the average level of Air Defense tower is less than 4 (Air Defense towers turn black at level 4, so level 4+ are easy to spot), that is a good sign. If all 3 towers are level 4 or higher, that is a bad sign.

If the towers are either on the edge of the base or clustered together, level of the enemy tower may be irrelevant. Clustered towers are susceptible to a Rage Spell + Healing Spell combination, where a few Dragons can rip down multiple towers while being healed.

Placement of Dragons is very important when attacking TH8 players (as opposed to TH7 where it is significantly easier). First, choose the side of the base you want to attack. It is best to start your attack within range of the most Air Defense towers or near the highest-level tower. Initially, drop two Dragons, about two structures apart on the perimeter of the base where you want to attack. These Dragons likely will not actually participate in the main attack, and instead will travel along the perimeter of the base, picking off external structures. This is intended, as you do not want the bulk of the Dragons to travel along the outside of the base but instead head towards the center. The Barbarian King can aid in this function as well.

As soon as the two initial Dragons take out a few perimeter buildings, drop your remaining 8 Dragons. They should now head towards the center of the base with all the perimeter structures destroyed. Drop a Rage Spell somewhat deep into the center of the enemy’s base; this will speed up the Dragon’s clearing into the enemy’s base and should result in the destruction of at least one Air Defense tower. As the Dragons core towards the Town Hall or a cluster of high health buildings (storages), drop your second Rage Spell. Drop the Healing Spell as needed on low-health Dragons – this will vary on a battle-by-battle basis. Check the video guide for more details on healing spell placement.

With enough practice, you will find the 10 Dragon army can reliably 100% clear many TH8 bases. Many enemy players neglect leveling up their Air Defense towers while having high level walls and other towers. These bases are great for Dragon-based attacks; you will get a large resource reward and your clan will be happy you cleared a tough opponent with 3 stars.

TH7 Clan War Suggested Army Tactics

Clash of Clans Clan War Attack Strategy Guide – Best Attack

• Recommended Army Composition: 10x Dragon
• Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible
• Spells: 2x Rage Spell + 1x Healing Spell, 3x Rage Spell, or 3x Lightning Spells
• Clan Castle Units: 1x Dragon (if possible); otherwise Archers or Wizards.

When to Use & Expected Success: Use against enemy TH8 players. It may be hard to 3-star a fully maxed TH8 with an intelligent base design, but this strategy will be able to 3-star low-mid TH8 players or even high level TH8s with exposed Air Defense towers. Can also often 2-star low TH9s with poor air defense choices. Once in awhile can 3-star rushed TH9 players with under-leveled and over-exposed Air Defense towers.

Town Hall 8

• Power: Dragons, Golems, Hog Riders, Wizards

The major change at Town Hall 8 is the fact that you can produce more units at a higher level. You get access to the Golem, which can be used as part of a ground-based army to take out high-level players bases, particularly used with Wizard back up (due to high Wizard damage).

The new resource farming army involves using Giants to take damage and take out a few structures, while Wall Breakers bust down any walls guarding valued resource points. Archers can be used to clear out most of the trash buildings and a few defensive structures. When storage units are exposed, Goblins can be used to rush in and take them down. A healing spell plus a rage spell can be used to take down a remaining wall or two if that is standing in the way of your Goblins and a stocked Dark Elixir storage.

Dragons and Hog Riders still work well in taking out tough bases. Hog Riders + Healing Spells are stronger than a full Dragon army, but Hog Riders cost Dark Elixir. If you can upgrade your Dragons to level 3, a full Dragon army will come close to rivaling an unupgraded Hog Rider army. However, 25+ 3 star Hog Riders with a few healing spells has no equal at this level range and can even take out TH9 players.

The most efficient way to go about attacking in Clan Wars at TH8 in my opinion is to use a full army of Dragons. If you can get another Dragon in the Clan Castle, even better. The higher the level of your Dragons, the more effective your attack will be. It can be done with level 1 Dragons, but level 3 Dragons will increase your attacking options.

I prefer the 2x Rage Spell + 1x Healing Spell approach. However, some players prefer 3x Rage Spells. Both are effective. As an alternative strategy, 3x Lightning Spells can be used to destroy an Air Defense tower. The Lightning Spell strategy only works better when there is just a single high-level Air Defense tower in the center of the base while the rest of the Air Defense towers are much lower level or easy to reach with an attack.

What About Cost?

While this army might seem very expensive (10x Dragons run 300k to 360k elixir depending on level while typical targets only pay out 200k-290k elixir), understand that at Town Hall 8, elixir is by far your most abundant resource. You need much more Gold and Dark Elixir than you need Elixir; Clan Wars make the perfect outlet for this excess elixir.

TH8 Dragon Clan War Attack Strategy

Using Dragons does actually require a bit of strategy. If you place your Dragons poorly, the attack will not work at all. You have three things you need to think about when placing your Dragons:

• Destroying enemy Air Defense towers;
• Making sure your Dragons focus on the center of the base, rather than chasing non-defensive buildings along the perimeter of the base;
• Destroying enemy Clan Castle units.

Air Defense Towers

Destroying the enemy’s Air Defense towers is your top priority when using Dragons. These towers (along with Clan Castle units) are the only defense your opponent has against Dragons. Once the Air Defense towers are down, your Dragons will have free reign against the enemy’s base. Try to position the side you attack the enemy based on which Air Defense towers will be easiest to reach. If there is an Air Defense tower or two towards the center of the base, save your spells for when your Dragons get close to the tower. This will ensure the Dragons quickly take out the tower(s) before taking too much damage.

Making Sure Dragons Attack What Count

The worst thing that can happen with your Dragon attack is for the Dragons to get pulled to perimeter structures. If your Dragons just follow the perimeter of the enemy’s base while attacking Barracks, Army Camps, and resource collectors, you are in a lot of trouble. The best way to prevent this from happening is to first use a few units to clear some of these perimeter structures before dropping the bulk of your Dragons.

Typically, the Barbarian King and a single Dragon will work for this purpose. If you decide you want to attack the enemy from the northeast side, you could drop a Dragon at the east corner of the base and the Barbarian King towards the north corner of the base. These units will then clear 20%-30% of perimeter structures before dying. This ensures that when you drop your remaining Dragons, they are not lured out to the perimeter and instead focus on central structures.

Clan Castle Units

With most base layouts, you can trigger the Clan Castle by dropping a single Dragon. However, with a full Dragon army, it is not very easy to lure Clan Castle units far away.

Fortunately, there is a way we can actually leverage Clan Castle units to our advantage. Rather than trying to lure them out, once Clan Castle units pop, we can drop most of our Dragons (at least 5) and allow the Dragons to chase the Clan Castle units deep into the enemy’s base. Normally engaging Clan Castle units in the center of the base is a disaster, but Dragons deal splash damage. As the Dragons take out Clan Castle units, they will be taking out enemy structures at the same time.

Ideally, you will drop your Healing Spell on your Dragons as soon as they start to engage the Clan Castle troops. This will help negate the effects of high-strength Clan Castle units like Wizards. Additionally, your Dragons are likely not to move around much during this time, making sure they get the full benefit of the healing spell. You may need to drop a Rage Spell on top of the Healing Spell to deal with Wizards, especially if your Dragons are also in range of an Air Defense tower.

Wizards sometimes present a major problem to players using Dragons. If your Dragons clump up, a few Wizards can take out all of your Dragons in a few seconds. The key is to never drop your Dragons on the same tile. If you drop 9 Dragons, put about 1 tile of space in between each Dragon. Dragons are flying units, so they can all be attacking the same structure while not occupying the same tile space. This significantly reduces the strength of Wizards against Dragons, as it ensures the Wizard’s attack only hits 1 Dragon at a time.

Finishing the Attack

Once you have picked the appropriate place to attack, cleared out some perimeter structures, and dealt with Clan Castle units, there is not much left to do but sit back and watch your Dragons clear the map. Be sure to drop any remaining Dragons in such a way that they head towards either the enemy’s Town Hall (if things are not looking good for a 3 star clear) or so that the Dragons head towards any remaining Air Defense towers (if you have a chance to 3 star).

Use your remaining Rage Spell(s) on Dragons that are attacking a cluster of high-health structures, like the Town Hall or storage structures. While a cluster of Gold and Elixir storage structures might not seem threatening, the high HP count of these structures can hang up Dragons for a long time. If the Dragons are under fire from enemy towers while clearing out storage buildings, it can be useful to drop a Rage Spell to take out these high health structures so the Dragons can move on to the towers.

Alternative Option #1. Dragon/Archer – A Cheaper 3 Star Attack

• Recommended Army Composition: 7-8x Dragon, 40-60 Archers
• Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible
• Spells: 3x Lightning Spells
• Clan Castle Units: Archers
• When to Use and Success Rates: Good choice for your second attack if your Clan is active. Use on a maxed-out TH7 player to get an easy 3 stars.

If you need to 3-star a maxed out TH7 player, you do not need to spend all those resources on a full Dragon army. You can save about 100,000 elixir by using cheaper spells (Lightning Spells) and just 7 Dragons instead of 10. Instead of full Dragons, a Dragon and Archer hybrid army will suffice for a high-end Town Hall 7 opponent. If you have level 2+ Dragons, you only need 7 Dragons; if you have level 1 Dragons, you should make 8 Dragons total. As you get comfortable using the build, you may be able to drop the Dragon count even lower.

The strategy is very simple: use all 3 Lightning Spells on the most central enemy Air Defense tower. This will destroy it outright. Lure out Clan Castle units and then kill them with your Archers. From here, use your Archers and Barbarian King to pick off perimeter structures. Once you have cleared out some of the perimeter structures, drop your Dragons in such a way that they will head towards the final enemy Air Defense sooner than later.

Alternative Option #2. Barcher – A Cheap 2 Star Attack

• Recommended Army Composition: 80x Barbarian, 100x Archer, 10x Wall Breaker
• Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible
• Spells: 2x Rage Spell + 1x Healing Spell
• Clan Castle Units: 1x Dragon (if possible); otherwise Archers or Wizards are fine.
• When to Use and Expected Success: Useful for getting 2-stars against high TH7s in a war where your clan is either far ahead or far behind. Can 3-star lower TH7s and TH6s (no Wall Breakers required against TH6). If your clan is very inactive and you have no chance of winning, it can be a good way to get a small reward and work towards Clan War achievements.

This is hardly a go-to strategy, but useful in certain situations. A simple Barbarian, Archer, and Wall Breaker army is typically strong enough to 3-star weak TH7s and 2-star higher TH7s (or even low TH8s).

Lure out Clan Castle units as a priority and kill them in a safe spot. Then, use your Archers and a few Barbarians to take out perimeter structures. Drop your Barbarian King as a distraction, using a Rage Spell. Use a few waves of Wall Breakers to break deep into the enemy’s base (dropping 6 of 10 will be fine), then flood in with Barbarians and Archers. Use the healing spell near your Barbarian King and Barbarian clusters to help them stay alive while you take down AoE towers. Use another Rage Spell once you get deep into the base and drop your remaining Wall Breakers.

Slowly drop wave after wave of Archers; do not drop too many at once as you do not want Mortars to wipe them all out in a big clump. Once the last Mortar is down, you can flood in with your Archers.

The goal is to core towards the Town Hall and take it out, netting you 2 stars. This strategy will work against any TH7 and even some TH8s, particularly if you get good at using it. The resource cost is low, so you will actually net a resource gain even if you lose the war.

Why would you want to use this? If your clan is very active, then odds are you will just need to 2 or 3-star a similarly-leveled opponent (using the Dragon strategy) and then are best off getting 3 stars against a low-level opponent. This strategy is perfect for that second attack. Alternatively, if you are losing a war by many stars and have no chance of winning, this is a good way to get a little resource reward and work towards the Clan War achievements without needing to spend a ton of resources on Dragons.

Alternative Option #3. Hog Riders – An Expensive 3 Star Attack

• Recommended Army Composition: 34x Hog Rider, 30x Archer
• Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible
• Spells: 3x Healing Spell
• Clan Castle Units: 5x Hog Rider (if possible); alternatively Archers
• When to Use / Expected Success: Preferably never; but can 3-star any Town Hall 8 player and some TH9s.

The most effective army composition at Town Hall 8 for pure power is an attack force that consists largely of Hog Riders. Hog Riders move quickly, jump over walls, target defenses, and deal a lot of damage. As a result, it does not take a large Hog Rider army much time at all to clear all the defensive structures of a TH8 player, at which point clearing the rest of the base becomes trivial.

There is a strategy to using Hog Riders. If you simply place all 34 Hog Riders at once and do little else, you likely will not have a lot of success. Instead, you will want to first lure out Clan Castle units. Even if the enemy’s Clan Castle is placed centrally, there should be a spot where a Hog Rider can hop over the wall and trigger the Clan Castle units.

Once the Clan Castle units are triggered, you should be able to then lure and clear them with your Archers. I would recommend using 30 Archers in order to ensure that you can finish off whatever is inside the Clan Castle.

Next up, find the place you want to attack. The biggest threat to the Hog Rider is not any tower in particular but rather Giant Bombs. Look for gaps where Giant Bombs might be. Try to avoid those and instead attack near an area where it is unlikely that you will trigger any Giant Bombs, at least for some time. You should drop 15-20 Hog Riders as your first attack. Once some of your Hog Riders start dropping into orange health, drop your first healing spell. Try to place the Healing Spell with your Hog’s pathing in mind in order to increase its uptime. Drop the second Healing Spell as soon as your Hog Riders start getting low on health again.

After your first set of Hogs gets wiped or thins out, you can drop the rest of your Hog Riders, attacking from another part of the enemy’s base near where the remaining towers are located. By splitting your Hog Riders into two attacks, you limit the potential to get your troops wiped by a double-stacked Giant Bomb. Use your final healing spell as necessary on whichever pack of Hog Riders needs it the most.

If you have a Clan Castle full of Hog Riders, you can drop that as well as soon as it is needed. Just 5 Hog Riders can handle 2 Cannons or 2 Archer Towers, so having this small third pack is useful should your first two packs of Hog Riders get caught in enemy traps.

Once all the enemy defensive towers are down, drop your Barbarian King to help clean up the remaining structures. Your Hogs should do most of the damage, but Hog Riders do occasionally get taken out by traps. The Barbarian King has no chance of dying to bombs, so it is good to save the Barbarian King for the very end.

This strategy results in an easy 3-star against even fully-maxed TH8 players. It also can 3-star some TH9 players if controlled properly and if your Hog Riders are upgraded beyond level 1.

The Downside of Hog Riders

Despite the effectiveness of Hog Riders and their relative ease of use, I would strongly recommend not using these troops exclusively. While they work well, their cost is astronomical. An army of 34 level 1 Hog Riders costs 1,340 Dark Elixir (if they were level 3, it would cost 1,768 dark elixir).

At Town Hall 8, the typical war reward for an enemy you could 3-star with Hog Riders would be 275-400 Dark Elixir. Given that Dark Elixir is by far the tightest resource at TH8 and is the resource really want to focus on saving, it makes no sense to spend 1,500 Dark Elixir on Hog Riders to win 300 in a Clan War battle.

The only situation in which I would recommend using Hog Riders in a war battle would be if there was almost no time left in the Clan War, your clan was down 2 stars, you had one attack left, and there was a maxed enemy TH8 that had all 3 stars available. Other than a scenario where you could single-handedly win your clan a war, I cannot imagine using Hog Riders in a Clan War fight at Town Hall 8.

Additionally, a single well placed spring trap can eliminate an ENTIRE Hog Rider army.  If you are sending in a total Hog Army, divide and conquer.  Send in waves of 4-5 hogs at a time to avoid disaster.

What About GoWiPe?

At Town Hall 8, mass Hog Riders actually is more reliable than Golems, Wizards, and P.E.K.K.As – the composition commonly known as GoWiPe. Also, TH8 players rarely have high level P.E.K.K.As and Golems. If you have enough Dark Elixir to go beyond level 1 Golems at TH8, you really need to upgrade to TH9 so you can spend that Dark Elixir on the Archer Queen.  In addition, the placement of wallbreakers is critical to prevent the PEKKAs from simply circling the outside of the base taking out collectors and camps.