How to War at the Highest Level

The Bases:

Never, ever use a base you found online. Between our 20-35 guys and the guys from our feeder, we've seen them all. We probably have 3'd them all too. If we can just search "The General" on the forums and see where all your traps are, you need to change your base. If you can't invent your own base and really want to use a forum base, be sure to change up the traps and walls a bit. You'll still get 3'd but there will be a little uncertainty. Make sure every single person has a unique base. Don't be like our current opponent and have 5 identical bases. If we can 3 star one, it makes it easy for everyone else to copy the attack on the others. Never use any variation of the Baconmaker or General bases. Just don't. You'll be giving us 3 easy stars. Don't be symmetrical. Symmetrical bases look nice, but usually break the rules in this list, and are just easier to attack IMO. Focus on defending the 3. 1 and 2 star attacks are no big deal. The 3 stars are what will win or lose the war. At the TH9 level there are two main attacks we use: hogs or lava loon. When building your custom base, think about what we do in those attacks and how to defend against them. Here are some basic custom building tips that apply for both TH8 and TH9:

-Make your clan castle difficult to lure. It shouldn't take 2-3 hogs to lure your cc.

-Centralize your AQ - we usually try to kill her after or during the lure, so the deeper she is, the harder time we will have.

-Have 4+ double giant bomb spots, and make them difficult to trip. Also, don't have them in the same place on opposite sides of your base. Make us guess a little. Also, make sure the kill squad can't trip them on the way to killing your queen.

-Single giant bombs = easy hog 3 star. Don't do it.

-Double up your black air mines on the two Air Defenses you think will be standing the longest, usually the opposite side of your AQ. These do massive damage to lava hounds if they're doubled.

-Scatter red air bombs around the base, keeping them away from your Air Defenses so lava hounds don't trip them. You want them to clean up the pups after the hound has popped.

-Use high HP storages as extra "walls" around your Air Defenses. These will slow down the kill squad we send in to take down 1-2 Air Defenses. At the TH8 level these will slow down dragons.

-Never make it easy to take down 2 Air Defenses and your queen with 4 wizards, 1-2 golems, and heroes. Keep at least one partition between each Air Defense, preferably more. If we are using lava loon and we kill your queen and 2 air defs with our kill squad, it's over for you.

-Don't have all your wiz towers near your air defenses. They will focus on hounds if they're too close. It's much better to have them spread out so they take down groups of pups once the hounds pop.

-Make sure your ADs cover all defenses. Attackers shouldn't be able to pick off exposed defenses with a few balloons.





The Defensive Clan Castle:



I don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all CC approach. There are pluses and minuses to a lot of troops, and knowing your opponent's CC troops in advance gives you a pretty big advantage. You also want to adjust based on whether you think you'll be attacked with Laloon, Hogs, or Go/X/X. Here are some comps I like though:

30 archers: Hard to draw all of them and just a few can mess up a laloon or hog attack very quickly. Easily die to a well-placed lightning after they are drawn out though.

Healer + wiz/arch damage troops: I read about this the other day and it seems interesting. If you have centralized high-level heroes, the healer can keep them alive, seriously messing up laloon or hog attacks.

Some combination of witch, valkyrie, balloon, wizards, and arcs: the classic, many top clans use some combination like this. If the attacker doesn't lighting the witch, she can mess up a kill squad and end a laloon or hog attempt. Valks tank a lot of damage and deal out a ton too. Valkyries can kill a 2-2-3 or 2-1-2 CC kill squad (2 witch, 1-2 wiz, 2-3 barb). Balloon's do a ton of splash damage, come out of the CC last, and can kill stuff when they die and fall to the ground.

Lava hound: if they aren't expecting it, this can confuse an attacker. If they are expecting it, lava hound in the CC is just slows down an attack and is easy to counter.

Dragon: if they aren't expecting it, this can kill a laloon attack, but is also super easy to lure and isn't a problem to kill.

I don't think a CC troop combination will win or lose you the war. We don't have a default setup in EE either, we just donate what the person requests in their CC. I change mine up all the time. Also, lots of top clans watch opponents CC counts during prep day. If it suddenly goes from 0/30 to 30/30 or 25/30 you know to expect a dragon or lava hound and can adjust your attack accordingly.





The Attacks:

Don't use GoWiWi/Pe as your primary strategy. It can only get 2 stars on strong TH9s. I'll contradict myself here and say if you're still learning, it can be good to get the GoWiWi 2 star to show traps and follow up with a three star strategy to clean. This puts some stars on the board, takes off some pressure, and lets you avoid traps better. Max heroes and walls ASAP. Stop spending resources on defenses. If you're a TH8, learn Hogs, GoWiPe, and Dragons. Hogs and dragons especially should be able to 3 star any TH8. If you're TH9 learn HoloWiWi, GoHo, Pentalaloon, and Shattered Laloon. I'll include a glossary at the end so you know what these terms mean. These are strategies that can 3 star just about any TH9. I'm not going to give you a granular how-to because there are so many videos that can do a better job than I can. Check TheHulkFiles on youtube for good hog walkthroughs or any OneHive/ClashHeads/FluffyFluff/EE war attack videos for some good LaLoon. If you're a TH10, learn Shattered Laloon and 5-golem GoWiWiPe. This is out of my realm of expertise, but we have guys 3-starring maxed 10s with LaLoon and 5-golem. The basic idea for TH10 LaLoon is you take out 1-2 ADs and an inferno with your heroes and golems, then LaLoon the rest. I'll let the vids do the talking. Get a group-chat app. Game chat gets way too congested and you can't share pictures. Get an app called "Skitch." It lets you draw on pictures, so take a screenshot of your target and draw up your attack plan. Then go to GroupMe or whatever you use, and post it. Explain your strategy and ask for feedback. Then fix your strategy and ask for more feedback. Even the best attacker might gain new insight from proposing his or her strategy to the group Shattered kill squad is useful for killing a deep queen, tripping deep double giant bombs, or killing two air defenses. Otherwise you'd be better served swapping the extra golem for more loons or hogs. FUNNEL. This means clearing trash buildings before dropping your king, pekka, or dragons. You want them to go in to the base, not around.

Choosing Your Army (TH8):

If the Air Defense is high level and/or really deep in the base, or the base is open with large boxes, use GoWiPe. There are tons of youtube how-to videos for this. Use Dragons if the base designed to defend against GoWiPe. There are bunch of forum bases like this. With Dragons, bring loons in your CC with 2 rage 1 heal. Drop your king on one side and 1-2 dragons on the other side to kill buildings that could make your main army go around rather than in. Then just spread the dragons out (drop from the outside edge inwards) and rage/heal near ADs. Dragons are really OP at TH8; you should find yourself getting lots of 3 stars with the strategy. If the base is very tight with lot of small compartments and no double giant bomb spots, use hogs. Lure and kill the CC and try to kill the enemy king if possible too. Then use 3 heals and keep your hogs alive. Here's a great guide for hogging at TH8: Complete Hogging Guide for TH8s

Choosing Your Army (TH9):

Look at Xbows and Air Defense. Are Xbows pointing down? Are two ADs really close to each other? Can you kill the queen and 1-2 ADs with your kill squad? If you can only kill one AD, can you take down some wizard and archer towers? Do you have no idea where the double giant bombs are? If you answered yes to any of these questions, use some form of LaLoon. Look at the range of the CC and ADs. Are there defenses that the AD doesn't cover? Can you take them down with loons and lure at the same time? Is the base some form of anti-hog ring? Can you trip some DGBs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, use a form of HoLo. If queen or DGBs are deep, use shattered, otherwise go with cold-blooded. I'm not a fan of shattered if you're using HoLo, but I've seen it done well. If you haven't chosen an army by now, use GoHo. I find it works best on bases where the defenses are close together, you can't see many spring trap spots, and you can trip some giant bombs. If you don't want to plan much or the base has low level queen/ ADs, use penta loon. Here's a great how-to video. Moskri's Penta Laloon Strategy Vid.

Choosing Your Army (TH10):



If you can kill 1-2 AD's and an inferno, go with Shattered LaLoon. If the base doesn't have many compartments, use 5-golem. If the infernos are single-target, use hogs.

Misc Important Points:

You should look to 3-star every TH9. Once you have 15/15 heroes you should be able to 3-star any TH9 with at least one of the strategies I listed. Keep an eye on your opponent's clan castle numbers. If you see the CC in their base go from 0/30 to 20/30 for example you know there's probably a dragon inside. It can be really useful to know what to expect from their CC. For TH9, anything less than a three star is a fail. If you don't 3-star it, someone else will have to. Stay organized. Use Clash Caller(www.clashcaller.com) or a Google Docs spreadsheet to reserve bases and make notes on them. HAVE FUN! It can be easy to let the pressure get to you. This is just a game, and losing isn't the end of the world. Winning isn't that big of a deal either. I was in a clan that beat the #1 in the world, and you were the only people that cared. I got a half-hearted "Nice" out of my girlfriend. Bottom line, we have made a community in this weird little hobby of ours, so don't flame people if they fail a war attack and don't quit a clan if they lose once or twice. Give constructive feedback, learn, and enjoy the challenge!

Example Videos:

TH10 5-Golem vs. Max TH10 (This base design is very common):

TH10 Shattered LaLoon:

TH9 Shattered LaLoon:

TH9 CB GoHo: http://youtu.be/QcownzjgXY4

TH9 CB Needle HoLo: http://youtu.be/Bbg7tfEYWZg

TH9 Shattered GoHo: http://youtu.be/E7_3dT8EsIk

TH9 CB Swarm Holo: http://youtu.be/xidwB8l89Ck

Glossary: