Dealing with Clan Castle Troops

Dealing with clan castle troops effectively can make or break your attack.

How you deal with them will depend on the army you use. It also helps to know what troops are coming out, which you will know if you are redoing a base in war. This will help you plan how you are going to deal with the clan castle.

The first question is generally do you lure them out or not?

1. To Lure or Not to Lure

Hogs: the answer is pretty much always yes.

Dragons: Generally speaking, you don't need to worry about the clan castle. In certain cases it can ruin your day, but it happens infrequently enough that you probably shouldn't bother. Just throw down a rage spell when you see them coming.

GoWiWi: You don't really need to worry about it. They'll target your golems and skeletons while the skeletons and wizards take them out. Again, throw down a rage when you see them coming.

GoWiPe: Can be a bigger problem than with GoWiWi, but if you hold off releasing your PEKKAs, they should target your golems while your wizards kill them, so again, use the rage technique.

Balloonion: If your balloons are spread out when the cc is triggered, and your minions are close behind, they may not be too much of a problem, but it's often better to be safe than sorry.

LavaLoonion: Wizards or loads of archers in particular will take out your hounds too fast for them to be of much use, while your balloons and minions will be slow in taking them out if the air defense is too deep in the base, so it's generally better to lure, though you're probably better off with GoLavaLoonion, and the Golem + wizard kill squad usually solves this problem.

GoLavaLoonion: Taking out an air defense + the archer queen with a golem + heroes + a few wiz and other assorted troops before using your LavaLoonion army is a strong strategy to 3* TH9s. Depending on where the cc is, you can lure first with balloons or possibly even a giant, or you can let your golem trigger it. Your wizards and heroes will often take out most of the cc, and you can finish with minions or balloons before starting your main attack.

Giant/Wiz/Healer: We shouldn't be seeing much of this anymore, but you have to be very careful that the cc doesn't kill your giants before you take them out. So unless you're really quick and comfortable with raging through them, you might want to lure.

2. What to Lure With

If you can trigger the cc with a barbs, that's great. They're usually better than archers for this since they take longer to kill. The exception would be the rare cases an archer can stand outside the range of defense shooting something while triggering the cc.

Giants are often second best if you can trigger the cc without breaking through any walls. They have enough HP that 1 will often clear the entire cc, 2 at most.

Balloons work well, particularly if you can stay away from air defense, and ideally archer towers.

Hogs can be tricky; it may take 3 or 4 to lure a castle with a lot  of troops in it on a well designed base. You'll want to drop them in fairly quick succession rather than waiting until one dies.

3. Killing the CC

A. Lightning Spell(s)

First, you have to make sure you lure all the troops out of the castle, which is done by dropping a single troop close enough to trigger the clan castle, sometimes several times until you're sure all the troops are out.

Second, if the troop(s) you use to lure out the clan castle die, the clan castle troops stop moving, which can be useful. Try to get them to stop somewhere where you can drop the spell and also hit defense--preferably defense that is hard to get to, and preferably a wizard tower, mortar, and/or an air defense if you're using air troops. This can be done by luring the troops out, then dropping one or two more troops in another area of the base to get them moving the desired direction.

The biggest problem here is that while they work well if you can hit a group of archers or the witch, it takes good aim, particularly if they're moving, and also generally does not completely kill level 5 wizards (a level 6 lightning spell may be a different story), and won't help you against valks or a dragon. It also, of course, takes away a valuable spell spot, that would be, in most cases, be better filled with another type of spell.

B. Luring into a Corner

The basic strategy here starts by luring the clan castle troops out of the castle, and drawing them into a corner out of range of the defense. One option is to surround them with archers, or start with some barbs then surround with archers. Wizards can also work, particularly if you can get all the troops in a clump, distract with a barbarian, and drop one wizard on either side to blast them before they target the wizards. Balloons can also work if the troops are clumped together; you just have to launch the balloon so it passes directly over the troops. If they shoot it down while it is over their heads, it will deal damage on dying. A max balloon should kill level 5 wizards, but may not completely kill max wizards. Players with max clan castles often take 2 witches, 2 wizards, and 3 barbs in their own cc to deal with the enemy cc, which can be replicated by players with less spots by adding some of the troops to their army.

C. Rage

If you're not luring the clan castle, the best thing to do is generally to drop a rage spell when you see them coming. This will help you kill them before they do too much damage, and get your troops back to the task of tearing down defenses and getting to the Town Hall faster. This is particularly important with giant/wiz/healer, since giants can die quickly when targeted by the cc. The only time you may want to hold off using a rage in this sort of scenario is with GoLavaLoonion, assuming your kill squad triggered the cc. In this case, hero abilities and your wizards are hopefully enough to do the job, and balloons and minions can be used lure the rest to a corner and kill. In many cases, you may already be using a jump spell with the kill squad, so you're better off saving the extra rage for your balloons if you can.