Basic Attack Strategies Guide

This Attacking Basics Guide will show you couples of basic attack strategies guide for each Town Hall level. If you have any questions or great ideas, feel free to do a comment! Let’s do this guide more and more better!
This guide is from FlyAutumn on Clash of Clans forum. I have decided to post it here with his permission cause I found it useful. Perfect guide for newbies!

Before upgrading your Town Hall and doing attack, you should read the guide Things should do after upgrading Town Hallfirst.

Town Hall 2 and 3

Army composition:

60% of barbarians and 40% of archers is the best army composition in these levels ’cause they are cheap army to produce, so you can have elixir for upgrades.

Attacking:

1. First Wave: Deploy a half of your barbarians next to the Mortar. You need to take it down first because it can do most damage in the war.
2. Second Wave: After destroying the mortar, you need to take the Archer Tower down by deploying the rest of the barbarians. Archers will do the final jobs.

General Overall Strategy:

1. Attack any exposed defenses.
2. Mortars cannot attack the enemies while they are stand next to them (in the red circle). So you can use barbarians to do this job, ’cause they has a short attack range. They go into the red circle, while archers don’t.
3. Use archers to destroy all other defenses inside the Walls.

Town Hall 4

There are two options of army composition for this level of Town Hall (80 housing places for example):

• 31 Barbarians, 20 Archers, 5 Giants and 2 Wall Breakers.
  
• 60% Barbarians and Archer is the rest.

I recommend using the second option if you are new TH4 and have not upgraded your camps yet.

Attacking:

Using Giants and Wall BreakersThe difference between attacking as a TH 4 versus a TH 2 or 3 is that you have more housing space. This means… giants and wall breakers! Now, you might be wondering: why shouldn’t I use giants and wall breakers as a TH 3? Well, you do UNLOCK them at TH 3, but that doesn’t mean you should use them. A good army usually has a good amount of barbarians and archers to form the second and third waves of attack, and if you use the giants then, you have to sacrifice the number of barbarians and archer that you use.

How to Deploy Giants and Wall Breakers (First Wave)I recommend using giants and wall breakers as part of your first wave. Giants specifically target defenses, and you should deploy them near a mortar if it is near the outside of the base. But wait! What if the mortar is enclosed by walls? Then what? Well, that’s where the wall breakers come in. The process:

• Deploy giants near mortar [black dot], or whatever defense you chose.
• Once the giants start attacking the walls, deploy one wall breaker. If the wall breaker doesn’t break through the wall or gets killed, deploy the other wall breaker. (This is why you have two).

WHY?
The giants serve as a “shield” for the wall breakers. Since the defenses will target the closest troop, your giants will take the fire (it’s okay, they have high hit points). 

Deploying Barbarians and Archers (Second and Third Waves)Now that the mortar and/or some other defenses have been (hopefully) taken care of, you can deploy your archers and barbarians.

• First, check to see if there are any buildings in the corners. If there are, deploy one barbarian to each of them.
• Deploy the rest of your barbarians in an arc around any buildings that aren’t enclosed by walls [blue arc and blue dots]. Follow up with archers if there are A LOT of buildings (over 50% of the base).
• If you HAVE taken out the mortar, deploy your archers in CLUSTERS near the other defenses [red dot]. Archers can shot over the walls, and cannons and archer towers can only target one troop at a time.
• If you HAVEN’T taken out the mortar, deploy your archer in a LINE in front of the defenses. Since mortars deal splash damage, which is damage to all the troops in one area, a line of archers with make it so it takes longer for your troops to be wiped out.

Clan Castle Troops: How To Deal With ThemSo how about them clan castle troops?
Sometimes when you’re attacking, you come across troops in the clan castle that defend your enemy’s village. The troops often come out and wreak havoc on your army – oh no! Here’s how to combat that:

Option 1:

1. Set one troop down (barbarians work well) by the clan castle. If there are troops in the clan castle, they will come out and attack your barbarian. (If there aren’t any, proceed with your normal attack plan.)
2. Next, lure the clan troops away from the base by deploying barbarians farther away from the base.
3. Once all the clan castle troops are out of the range of the defenses, surround them with barbarians.
   NOTE: if there are air troops, for example, balloons, you will need to deploy archers instead of barbarians.

Option 2:

1. If you are TH 5 or above, you have another choice.
2. The first step is the same: use a barbarian to figure out if there are troops inside the clan castle.
3. Then, drop a lightning spell (unlocked with level 1 spell factory) on the clan castle troops. This should take out most, if not all of them. If any troops remain, use barbarians to take care of them.

Town Hall 5

Assumes that you have 135 housing spaces:

• Option 1: 60% Barbarians and 40% Archers.
• Option 2: 40 Archers, 54 Barbarians, 7 Giants and 3 Wall Breakers.

If you are trying to get loot or trophies, I recommend using option one. If you are attacking in a clan war, or aren’t going for loot or trophies, I recommend using option two.

Attacking:

1. First Wave: Deploy your giants, then wall breakers as close to the mortar as you can get [black dot]. Since wall breakers will attack the nearest enclosed wall [shown by black arrows], make sure that you don’t deploy all of them at the same time.
2. Second Wave: Deploy your archers along the elixir collectors and army camps [blue arcs]. Back up your archer attack with about seven barbarians to each side.
3. Third Wave: Split your remaining barbarians between the clan castle and army barracks and the gold mines [red dots].

Additional strategies and notes:

1. Attacking enclosed defenses (i.e. mortars, archer towers, cannons, etc.)
2. If it is on the first layer of the base (by this I mean that it is on the outside, but enclosed by walls), use the giant / wall breaker deployment strategy outlined in the TH 4 section.
3. If it is on the second+ layer of the base, you have two options.
4. Use the giant and wall breaker strategy
5. Use a lightning spell first (this can damage a mortar to 1/2 or 3/4 of its hit points), then follow up with your giants and wall breakers.

Spells:
At TH 5, you unlock the lightning spell. My thoughts on it: I’m not really a huge fan, unless it involves zapping clan castle troops because It cost a bit of elixir, and it doesn’t really do enough damage to be “worth it” for me.
I do know that some people really like to use lightning spells, especially at lower levels. If you use them, I recommend saving them for clan wars. They help to give that little bit of extra damage you need to get more stars on an attack.

Town Hall 6

Assumes that you have 150 housing spaces:

• Option 1: 40% archers and 50% barbarians.
• Option 2: 1 Healer, 3 Wall Breakers, 40 Archers, 50 Barbarians and 8 Giants.Optional: 2 Healing Spells.

Healing Spell is optional but I strong recommend you to use it whenever you attack find a well-loot village. The second option is better in Clan Wars. I always use the option 1 in normal raiding because it costs not much elixir for training troops.

Attacking:

1. Deploy 1-3 barbarians to set off suspected traps and bombs. Deploy one barbarian for each builder if they are in the corners and deploy 10 archers by the exposed archer tower.
2. Deploy 2 Giants at the blue dot, which is the nearest to the mortar then deplay 1-2 Wall Breakers to destroy the walls. Once the wall has been downed, deploy two more Giants. You can use the Healing Spell now for your Giants.
3. Deploy 10 archers along each blue line. Deploy 10 archers near the Air Defense (black dot) then deploy your Healer once the Air Defense has been destroyed. Deploy 4 more Giants for the remaining red dot Mortar and use Wall Breakers for breaking the walls.
4. Deploy half of your barbarians along each green line.