Dragon Attack 101

From the desk of guest contributer Antillies:

Hey all, how are you doing? Now, we are primarily a dragon attack clan and I think we are ready to start really adding some next level strategy to our war attacks. I think with some tweaking of our strategies, the TH7 and TH8s can add a lot more stars, freeing up the big dogs to get more up top.

I realize some of you may know all of this, but I’m hoping this will be helpful to many! So without further ado, here is the example base I’d like to work with.

How would you attack it? I think this is representative of a TH8 base that often gives us trouble (imagine those as level 6 ADs if you want, it makes no difference). What if I told you…. I think a TH7 could 3 star this! :D

Here’s what we are going to do. First, army composition. What I would do is take 10 barbs, 10 archers, 9 dragons. Then, some of Frosty’s sweet sweet level 5 hogs in the CC. I’d take 2 rage and 1 heal spells.

Next, drop 5 barbs and 5 archers at the two Xs.

Why? Because, as we know, dragons are silly creatures. They will attack the nearest building. But they are fat, and ranged, and the nearest building isn’t always easy to pick out, so we aren’t going to give them any chance. We break the circle at those Xs by taking out the collector and barracks/huts.

Now, drop a dragon at each of those army camps near the Xs. They will destroy the camps and then move toward each other. Now, drop your remaining dragons in a line between these two camps. Because of your previous efforts, all of them will move over the walls and start terrorizing the base.

Now, I think many of you would have done something similar to this. At this point, the attack is up to the CoC gods and we hope they hit the ADs. However, instead, now we go really next level.

After a few seconds, your line of dragons will have destroyed the front line of the base, and all the defenses Xed out here should be destroyed:

Now, right where that Dark Barracks use to be? Drop dem hogs!!! Where will they go? Right into the core! (as those ADs/mortars are now their closest target. You might want to check for bombs/springs with BK first!) As they go speeding towards your enemy’s demise, drop a rage and a heal in the core and watch those level 5s wipe out everything in the core. You can even drop a rage in between them so they (and the dragons) get there faster. Poof! All ADs down. Dragons dominate. The end.

This sort of strategy is applicable to many bases similar to this. Note that sometimes instead of hogs you can use balloons. Or maybe, if you are sure you can get your dragons to 2 of the ADs quickly, you triple lightning the 3rd? Or maybe 5 hogs in the CC isn't quite enough so you add 2-4 of your own. Lots of ways to go about it! Thanks for reading, and I hope someone found this a little helpful.

War Debriefing - September 14th, 2014

What a tough war.  We put up a respectable 82 stars.  This appears to be average for us, (81, 82, 84 and 85 stars on our last wars with 35).  They put up an even more impressive 88 stars.  What's even more crazy, they did it with an amazing ground and pound attack.  They put two stars on our #1 with an impressive giants and wizards attack and our #3 with a sweet GoWiPe (Golems, Wizards and Pekka) attack.  I missed the attack on #2 and regretfully replays are no longer available.  I could've swore they were available until Wednesday in the past.  Maybe it has something to do with the update.

So what does it all mean, Basil?  It means that we faced an amazing team that knew exactly what they needed to do to get the win.  2 of their first 3 attacks were against our top 3 and 5 of their first 8 attacks were against the top 5.  They amazing got turned out 11 stars against our top 5.  Typically our top 3 are never attacked during a war, let alone yield a star.  Their is no shame in our performance, we were just beat by an unbelievable team and we couldn't be the giant slayers 3x in a row.  

Onto our side, we rarely ever attack their top 3.  I think this is potentially our best room for improvement.  We only left 1 star on their bottom 20.  The past couple weeks I've been working on some more advanced attack techniques and trying to perfect the GoWiPe attack.  I think others around the top have also been trying to do this as well.  I think we need to push ourselves to go against their top players and earn stars on them.  In order to do that though, we need to allow the top 10 the freedom to attack their best and not need to perform any cleanup stars.  Antilles pointed out a reddit article from another clan's war notes, that I believe holds tons of merit for the bottom 20 people in the clan.  "Use first attack for three stars When possible, use your first attack for a reasonable 3-star attempt of a base at your Town Hall level. Your base rank, and the base rank of the opponent, is irrelevant. Three stars win wars and prevent redundant attacks, even if you are attacking down. A 2-star attempt on a base someone else will 3-star is a wasted attack. If it is an easy war, 3-star a base that has already been 3’d for practice. TH7/8 should NOT attack above their TH level until all bases of similar TH level are 3-starred. TH9 attack strategies are difficult. If you are a mid/late TH9, you should be able to pick an early/mid TH9 to 3-star. If you are an earlier TH9, your attack progression should be: (1) 3-star an easy TH9, (2) ask what highly-ranked TH9s cannot be 3-starred, and 2-star those, or (3) cleanup TH8 3-stars at end of war."

As Sparx pointed out earlier during the war, all dragon attacks have a ceiling, once your opponents reach TH9 levels and have 4 levels 5+s air defense the dragons will not get 3 stars and will struggle to even get 2 stars.  Against a TH10 opponent, they more than likely won't even get a star.  I think I saw an attack attempt of ours using all dragons against a TH10 that didn't yield a star.  

Just my random thoughts and observations from the war.

General Straw

MVP for War 9-6-14

Way to go DV JR on a stellar War!

Honorable mention goes to:  David Vance!

War notes from 9-6-14

Well done!

Another great war.  I am very pleased with how this war went.  There is always going to be a few issues with each war, but that is to be expected; nothing runs perfect (though we are close to it).

We had 18 attacks in the first hour alone.  I believe that to be the most for us in the first hour since I have been here.   All but 1 DIBS attack was used in the first hour as we have been requiring these last few wars, which is always good to see.  Of those DIBS attacks 5 resulted in the desired 3 star.  Unfortunately that is only have of the DIBS.  I hope in next weeks war we can improve on this and get 100% in before the first hour and 3 stars on each one.

We also came out strong again in this war. 56 stars in the first 4 hours is an impressive start to any war.  This is something that we have been doing as of late in the past few wars and is a great way to deflate the enemy morale.  Keep up the great work guys and gals.

Now on to a few of the set backs from this war.

I only saw a few things in replays that need to be addressed and a few other minor clan guidelines to be addressed.

1. Farming troops during war.

We have addressed this in the past just a few times and have seen the benefits of mentioning it in the last few wars.  Keeping in mind that each person has there own style of attacking and different level of troops, we need to use the best troops we have possible for the base type we are attacking to gain the desired 3 stars.  Now with that being said there is no hard and fast rule as to what troops you have to take or what troops are the best.  As a suggestions and I believe that most members and the council would agree; Dragons or Hogs are the simplest war armies you can build.  There are lots of variations within these 2 combinations and if you want to see then just watch the replays. Again I want to stress that this is not a hard and fast rule in the clan that you must bring Dragons or Hogs to war, but on the other hand if you are struggling to get 3 stars on your attacks this might be the option for you to at least consider.  I know that it is an expensive army to build, but we are not going to war to gain loot.  (we do that during the week)  We go to war to get as many stars as possible and to win the bragging rights as the best fighting clan out there.

2.  Attacking below your level.

This is a guideline that has been discussed and has been posted for all to see.  If you are attacking below your level  (I was ranked in the 19th spot in this war)  DO NOT attack more than 5 ranks (for me this would have been the 24th spot of the enemy) without asking the war generals or Frosty permission first.  Also as a side note to this guideline when attacking don't look only at the the rank you are placed and directly across the board but also by player level. (I have a lvl of 80)  If I want to attack 5 down from my war rank (19) I need also to consider the level of the player that I plan on attacking.  If that player is a lvl 50....I probably should find a better suited target.

3. Spells for different kinds of troops.

Dragons should have Rage spells, not Heal spells...here is why.

Let us assume you have lvl 4 heal and rage spells, and lvl 2 dragons, and the village you are attacking has lvl 5 Air Defense.

Heal spell facts:
total heal 1,200
heal per pulse 30
pulse frequency .3 sec
total number of pulses 40

Rage spell fatcs:
damage boost 160%
speed boost 26
pulse frequency .3 sec
total number of pulses 60

Lvl 2 Dragon facts:
damage per sec 160
total hit points 2100
damage per breath...(or attack) 240

Lvl 5 Air defense facts:
TH required lvl 7
Damage per shot 190
Damage per second 190
Damage type single target
Range 10 tiles

If you attack and use your heal potion you are healing that 1 dragon mainly that is being targeted by the AD....granted you are also healing all the damage being dealt to the dragons by archer towers and wizard towers and hidden telsas (all minor compared to the AD damage).  You are healing your dragon at 100 hit points per second while that AD is dealing out 190 damage per second, now add in the wizard, archer, or hidden tesla that is also dealing damage and you are way behind in the addition game.

Take the same attack but install a rage spell instead causing your dragons to become faster by 10 tiles and dealing 256 damage per second rather than 160.  You might not be healing your dragons but they are moving so quickly through the village you probably wont need to.

Now there is also a bit of debate hear as to what is the best option...3 rages or 2 rage and a heal (for those of us at TH 8 and down...TH 9 gets that extra help).  This is a debate you must work through and figure out what works best for your type of deployment.

Hogs should have heal spells, not rage...i am not going to get into why as I am already giving a lot of of information here.  Trust me it just works better and if you don't want to trust me ask member that use hogs alot, boazang, cz, oli, david vance, hak, Abdullah Mauddi....they will probably tell you the same.

3.  Attacks that need to happen first.

Beyond the DIBS attacks there are some attacks that just need to happen sooner than later.  If you are ranked in the bottom 15 (when we have 35 in the war) or 12 (if we have 30 in the war) ... especially the bottom 5.  You need to get your attacks in and done with.  We can't afford to wait until late Saturday night to see if you are going to clean up the stars that are missed at the bottom if there are any.  Also with the way we have been 3 starring the lower half of the enemy clan lately you might not have any good options to make a contribution to the over all start count.

Again I wanted to say again.  I am very pleased with the way things went in this war and hop that this sheds some light on your war attack strategies.

You all did great!

CLAN WARS - Rules/Explinations

Now that it seems like we have settled into a good grove with the wars, I thought I should post something "official" on here explaining our expectations for wars and what our clan's policy on them is...

1. We will start every war at 10:00pm Central Standard Time on Friday nights.
2. We will keep the clan at no more than 35 in a war for the foreseeable future.  If this changes, we will inform you of it.
3. If for some reason you cannot participate in the war, you must let us know!  How we will handle this is if you are going to be away and know you cannot participate, we will kick you out of the clan right before we start the war, and then we will immediately send you a clan invite letting you back in.  When you come back, you will still have the same status you had when you left.  So if you leave as an elder, you will come back as an elder.  I will try and keep track of donations if you are a member, but I cannot promise anything.
4. If we have an odd number of people for the start of the war (31, 32, 33, 34...) then the top 30 will go to war and the rest will not.  So if you are for sure that you want to make the war, I would keep your trophy level above whomever is in slot 31.
5. DO NOT INVITE ANYBODY INTO THE CLAN WITHOUT FROSTY'S PERMISSION.  We've built a good solid core of people up right now, so I don't want any strangers messing it up.  If you have a friend that wants to join that you think can help, talk to me about it and we may be wiling to add them in.  I just don't want somebody coming in off the street and ruining our chemistry.  With that being said as well, if there is a former clan member that would like to re-join, e-mail me at united.donators@gmail.com  TJcrulz did that last week and I did not hesitate to allow him back in.
6. When donating to war castles... only donate the following.... LVL 3 or 4 DRAGONS, LVL 6 ARCHERS, or LVL 5 or 6 WIZARDS.  We have plenty of people willing to donate these.  But make sure you say thanks every once in a while :-)

Also, after each war, please make sure you take the time to check out the war debriefings.  The Council members/war generals take a lot of time putting them together and they deserve to have their work read and appreciated.  Drop them a note in the comments once in a while telling them thanks.

Finally, make sure you review your attacks at the end of the wars.  Think to yourself what could I have done better there.  It will help you plan your next attack, that much better.

Frosty

War Donating

I meant to point this last week and I forgot... Then this week again, I forgot, so i figured it deserved its own post ....

I just wanted to thank oli for busting his hump to upgrade his dragons to level 4 for us. I know in a conversation we had, he said he never used them at all, but he would start upgrading them to benifit the clan. 

So thank you for being selfless and putting the clan first in this reguard. I know myself and others really appreciate it, and thoes dragons help. 

And a shout out as well to guys like medooley, sparx, straw, bjohnson and others who have always been so giving of their elixer and lvl 3 dragons as well. 

War Debriefing - 8-31-2014

WAY TO GO!!!!!!

Guys we came out swinging again and they didn't have an answer. Everybody did great and I am really thrilled!  I hope you all enjoy the bonuses. 

MVP this week... Abdullah Muaddi. Great job against some tough competition. 

Also, great job again VooDoo.  And shout out to babyturkey for the great 6 star effort as well. 

Not much to really say guys. You all did great. Gonna just sit back and relax and enjoy this one. And you should to, we all earned it. 

Scratch that... One thing... Use your attacks. Even if we have it won, you need to use both of them.  

Also, this war was the war we said good bye to Lihon. Last war he only used one attack, and this was he used none. Lihon was a long time member of this clan. Well his dad was anyway.  Thanks for all you did for the clan Lihon's dad. 

Again, great job this week everybody. We are going to go back to 35 for the war. Should be interesting.