In Clash of Clans, Clan Wars are perhaps the most demanding aspect of the game for players, as players are tasked with (hopefully) fully-clearing similarly-leveled enemy bases (and sometimes even higher-level bases). However, players only get a large reward if their clan wins, so it is important everyone in your clan has an understanding of how to make effective attack in Clan Wars.

In this guide, I will be focusing on Clan War attack strategies for Town Hall 8 players. In particular, I will be discussing four strategies: my go-to Clan War attack at Town Hall 8, which maximizes strength while controlling spending; a modified version of my favorite attack, used against maxed TH7 players in order to save resources; a very cheap attack, which can be used in specific situations outlined below; and a very expensive attack, which I will advise against using but will discuss as players routinely ask about it.

Clash of Clans Clan War Attack Strategy Guide – Best Attack

Recommended Army Composition: 10x Dragon

Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible

Spells: 2x Rage Spell + 1x Healing Spell, 3x Rage Spell, or 3x Lightning Spell

Clan Castle Units: 1x Dragon (if possible); otherwise Archers or Wizards.

When to Use & Expected Success: Use against enemy TH8 players. It may be hard to 3-star a fully maxed TH8 with an intelligent base design, but this strategy will be able to 3-star low-mid TH8 players or even high level TH8s with exposed Air Defense towers. Can also often 2-star low TH9s with poor air defense choices. Once in awhile can 3-star rushed TH9 players with under-leveled and over-exposed Air Defense towers.

The most efficient way to go about attacking in Clan Wars at TH8 in my opinion is to use a full army of Dragons. If you can get another Dragon in the Clan Castle, even better. The higher the level of your Dragons, the more effective your attack will be. It can be done with level 1 Dragons, but level 3 Dragons will increase your attacking options.

I prefer the 2x Rage Spell + 1x Healing Spell approach. However, some players prefer 3x Rage Spells. Both are effective. As an alternative strategy, 3x Lightning Spells can be used to destroy an Air Defense tower. The Lightning Spell strategy only works better when there is just a single high-level Air Defense tower in the center of the base while the rest of the Air Defense towers are much lower level or easy to reach with an attack.

Alternative Option #1. Dragon/Archer – A Cheaper 3 Star Attack

Recommended Army Composition: 7-8x Dragon, 40-60 Archers

Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible

Spells: 3x Lightning Spells

Clan Castle Units: Archers

When to Use and Success Rates: Good choice for your second attack if your Clan is active. Use on a maxed-out TH7 player to get an easy 3 stars.

If you need to 3-star a maxed out TH7 player, you do not need to spend all those resources on a full Dragon army. You can save about 100,000 elixir by using cheaper spells (Lightning Spells) and just 7 Dragons instead of 10. Instead of full Dragons, a Dragon and Archer hybrid army will suffice for a high-end Town Hall 7 opponent. If you have level 2+ Dragons, you only need 7 Dragons; if you have level 1 Dragons, you should make 8 Dragons total. As you get comfortable using the build, you may be able to drop the Dragon count even lower.

The strategy is very simple: use all 3 Lightning Spells on the most central enemy Air Defense tower. This will destroy it outright. Lure out Clan Castle units and then kill them with your Archers. From here, use your Archers and Barbarian King to pick off perimeter structures. Once you have cleared out some of the perimeter structures, drop your Dragons in such a way that they will head towards the final enemy Air Defense sooner than later.

Alternative Option #3. Hog Riders – An Expensive 3 Star Attack

Recommended Army Composition: 34x Hog Rider, 30x Archer

Heroes: Barbarian King, as high as level as possible

Spells: 3x Healing Spell

Clan Castle Units: 5x Hog Rider (if possible); alternatively Archers

When to Use / Expected Success: Preferably never; but can 3-star any Town Hall 8 player and some TH9s.

The most effective army composition at Town Hall 8 for pure power is an attack force that consists largely of Hog Riders. Hog Riders move quickly, jump over walls, target defenses, and deal a lot of damage. As a result, it does not take a large Hog Rider army much time at all to clear all the defensive structures of a TH8 player, at which point clearing the rest of the base becomes trivial.

There is a strategy to using Hog Riders. If you simply place all 34 Hog Riders at once and do little else, you likely will not have a lot of success. Instead, you will want to first lure out Clan Castle units. Even if the enemy’s Clan Castle is placed centrally, there should be a spot where a Hog Rider can hop over the wall and trigger the Clan Castle units.

Once the Clan Castle units are triggered, you should be able to then lure and clear them with your Archers. I would recommend using 30 Archers in order to ensure that you can finish off whatever is inside the Clan Castle.

Next up, find the place you want to attack. The biggest threat to the Hog Rider is not any tower in particular but rather Giant Bombs. Look for gaps where Giant Bombs might be. Try to avoid those and instead attack near an area where it is unlikely that you will trigger any Giant Bombs, at least for some time. You should drop 15-20 Hog Riders as your first attack. Once some of your Hog Riders start dropping into orange health, drop your first healing spell. Try to place the Healing Spell with your Hog’s pathing in mind in order to increase its uptime. Drop the second Healing Spell as soon as your Hog Riders start getting low on health again.

After your first set of Hogs gets wiped or thins out, you can drop the rest of your Hog Riders, attacking from another part of the enemy’s base near where the remaining towers are located. By splitting your Hog Riders into two attacks, you limit the potential to get your troops wiped by a double-stacked Giant Bomb. Use your final healing spell as necessary on whichever pack of Hog Riders needs it the most.

If you have a Clan Castle full of Hog Riders, you can drop that as well as soon as it is needed. Just 5 Hog Riders can handle 2 Cannons or 2 Archer Towers, so having this small third pack is useful should your first two packs of Hog Riders get caught in enemy traps.

Once all the enemy defensive towers are down, drop your Barbarian King to help clean up the remaining structures. Your Hogs should do most of the damage, but Hog Riders do occasionally get taken out by traps. The Barbarian King has no chance of dying to bombs, so it is good to save the Barbarian King for the very end.

This strategy results in an easy 3-star against even fully-maxed TH8 players. It also can 3-star some TH9 players if controlled properly and if your Hog Riders are upgraded beyond level 1.

Why I Recommend Avoiding Hog Riders

Despite the effectiveness of Hog Riders and their relative ease of use, I would strongly recommend not using these troops. While they work well, their cost is astronomical. An army of 34 level 1 Hog Riders costs 1,340 Dark Elixir (if they were level 3, it would cost 1,768 dark elixir).

At Town Hall 8, the typical war reward for an enemy you could 3-star with Hog Riders would be 275-400 Dark Elixir. Given that Dark Elixir is by far the tightest resource at TH8 and is the resource really want to focus on saving, it makes no sense to spend 1,500 Dark Elixir on Hog Riders to win 300 in a Clan War battle.

The only situation in which I would recommend using Hog Riders in a war battle would be if there was almost no time left in the Clan War, your clan was down 2 stars, you had one attack left, and there was a maxed enemy TH8 that had all 3 stars available. Other than a scenario where you could single-handedly win your clan a war, I cannot imagine using Hog Riders in a Clan War fight at Town Hall 8.

What About GoWiPe?

At Town Hall 8, mass Hog Riders actually is more reliable than Golems, Wizards, and P.E.K.K.As – the composition commonly known as GoWiPe. Also, TH8 players rarely have high level P.E.K.K.As and Golems. If you have enough Dark Elixir to go beyond level 1 Golems at TH8, you really need to upgrade to TH9 so you can spend that Dark Elixir on the Archer Queen.