An Introduction to Hog Strategy
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| HogRidaaaaah!! |
I will start by saying I am not a pro at Hog Strategies by any means. Having said that, I have found a few key points that I normally work with when studying bases for Hog raids. As long as I stick with these key points, a 3 star is most generally the result. I will try to break this down to help you become comfortable with venturing into this powerful strategy.
Why Would I Choose Hogs?
Clan wars is constantly evolving becoming more competitive with new strategies and tactics both offensively and defensively. The days of powerful 3 star Dragon raids are dwindling as many players are upgrading air defenses before other powerful defenses. Level 3 dragons are still a very viable tactic with bases that have level 5 air defense or lower. More often than not many low to mid range TH8 bases are already carrying level 6 air defense. Even with bad base designs it is extremely difficult to guarantee a 3 star. There are other solid 3 star strategies for TH8, but for the sake of this tutorial, I will stick with the Hog Strategy. Below is a basic starting point with the troop load out I use. You may need to adjust troop counts to adapt to specific base designs. Let's get started!
Troop Loadout
- 26 Hogs
- 8 Wizards
- 3 Barbarians
- 15 Archers
- 9 Wallbreakers
- 3 Heal Spells
- 1 Dragon, 1 Wizard, 1 Barbarian in CC
Key Points For Planning Your Attack
Locate The Giant Bombs
Giant Bombs are number one reason why many people are afraid to use hogs. There are two effective raid killers with giant bombs in anti-hog base designs. The first is the dreaded double giant bomb. Level 3 double giant bombs unleash 450 points of damage. This will make bacon really fast with level 4 hogs with 415 hit points. If you plan on raiding a base that appears to have double giant bombs, be extremely careful how you deploy your hogs in order keep from losing them all from triggering it. The second is the giant bomb/wiz tower combo. This combo of splash damage can red line a group of hogs in a hurry, so be prepared to quickly drop a heal spell to keep your momentum.
Locate Barb King
The last thing you need while your hogs are doing work on defenses is having the Barb King running around hacking your hogs to pieces. When I plan my attack, I try to make sure that the Barb King is on the opposite side of my attack so the Hogs will quickly turn on the Barb King after defenses are obliterated.
Determine How to Draw out Clan Castle Troops
In order to be successful at hog raids, you must draw out the CC. I generally try to use two giants if the base design will allow it. Giants have higher hit points than hogs. You may need 3-4 hogs to stay alive long enough to pull out cc troops. Side note here... Do not use wallbreakers to draw out clan castle troops! I cringe every time I see someone unleash 8-10 wallbreakers to their death. Another viable option is balloons. balloons usually survive long enough to pull CC troops plus drop a cannon if the base design allows it.
Beginning Your Raid
Destroying Defensive Troops
Assuming our new poison spell is ineffective at destroying all defensive troops, my favorite CC combo is 1 dragon, 1 wizard, 1 barbarian. In conjunction with a handful of archers, this is an extremely effective way of obliterating anything the defensive clan castle may hold. As you can see in the above picture, I dropped my cc against the main group of defensive troops and a few archers on top of the exposed witch.
Unleashing Your Hogs
Rather than using the widely used double hog packs, I prefer to use two waves of hog lines. First line is only a handful of hogs to set off any immediate spring traps or bombs. Once the first line make it to the defenses I unleash the rest of the hogs behind them as a powerful second wave. One of the major reasons I prefer to keep hogs spread is to keep them from huddling over spring traps. Reason number two is you can predict their target path more effectively for proper heal spell placements and timing.
Heal Spells
Placing heal spells can sometimes be confusing when first learning to use hogs. A common misconception is to use a heal spell at every wizard tower. The primary focus should be on where giant bombs are located. Most generally a wizard tower is close, but not always. Also if you notice a herd of hogs beginning to red line moving towards other heavy splash, you may need to drop a heal spell to keep the momentum. Heal spells have a short delay, so you need to react quickly once you see a giant bomb triggered. Heal spells last for quite some time, so you can drop spells in anticipation of the next most likely targeted area.
Cleanup
Once the last heal spell is dropped, that is when I begin
cleaning up extra buildings. My plan of attack is to work towards the
Town Hall for the sure 2 star on the side that no defenses are
left. It is important to be tactical on wizard and wallbreaker
deployment at this point. you will want to herd the clean up crew
towards the interior of the base if you can. Make sure to use
wallbreakers in places where buildings are still standing inside the
walls. If the path to the TH appears to be much farther than surrounding
buildings, you may need to wait on deploying wallbreakers until a
better position presents itself. The photo on the right shows how being surgical with your wall breakers can pay off. Although you can't see it here, the Town Hall is just to the left of the gold storage.
When To Rage The King
Believe it or not, timing the rage can mean the difference between 1-2 stars and a 3 star. In the above photo I raged the king to prevent the defensive king from slashing my handful of wizards running shortly behind him. Wizards are the power house of clean up. Using a meat shield as the decoy to take fire is the most important law of Clash to learn. Another time to know when rage is necessary is when wizards have moved or will move into a still standing defense before the king will. This will cause him to rush forward through buildings allowing him to be targeted by the defense instead of the wizards.
One last note on the Hog strategy. I would not recommend using them in clan wars until level 3-4. Level 1-2 are very vulnerable to giant bombs. Good Luck and Happy Raiding!! :)
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