Clash of Clans TH8 War Base Design Guide

Clash of Clans TH8 War Base Design Guide by jimbo831

Now that I am about to upgrade to TH9, I wanted to share everything I learned about designing a TH8 base to best defend in war. At TH8, dragon attacks are by far the most I have seen against me. Because of this, most design choices should be made to thwart these attacks. Many people design moat style bases like the Tootsie Roll and others that funnel dragons around the outside. In my personal opinion, these are only effective at making bad attackers worse. A good attacker can exploit these kinds of bases by creating a proper funnel and getting a load of dragons and balloons into the core under rage. I believe it is better to build a solid, straightforward base instead a gimmicky base. With that being said, here are the design considerations I follow to make a base strong against dragons:

1. Well-spaced air defenses. Mine are just spaced out just far enough that they don’t overlap each other and in a triangle pattern for maximum coverage. That way dragons can never be funneled to more than one at a time.
2. Protect air defense with two storages in front of but also within range of each. This will stall dragons so the air defense hits them longer.
3. Centralize your archer towers. 4 of mine are in the second ring of defenses and the 5th is in my core. This means all 5 of them can target anything getting near the core. Against dragons, cannons and mortars are useless. Protect your archer towers behind other defenses instead of cannons and mortars.
4. Some people like to put teslas in the core. I think that is a good strategy. Due to the way my base design worked and me wanting to have 4 possible double giant bomb spots (anti-hog), mine are not. Instead, I tried to space them out and have one near each AD to help kill drags approaching it. Either way, like archer towers, you want your teslas protected deeper inside your base.
5. Protect your most vulnerable ADs (where loons could easily path to them) with red air bombs. Think about what AD you would try to snipe with loons and load up bombs there. Also try to protect ADs with WTs. WTs can destroy packs of balloons coming in for a snipe, especially if those balloons also get hit by a red bomb. Place your black air bombs in your core to kill dragons that make it near the TH.

Now that you have built a base that is strong against dragons, you want to take steps to protect against the other threats at TH8: hogs and GoWiPe. The best way to protect against hog raids is having a difficult to lure and kill CC and smart trap placements. Level 4 hogs (and even level 3 to some extent) will steamroll TH8 defenses. The biggest threats to a hog raid are an incomplete CC kill, giant bombs, and spring traps. Take these steps to protect against hogs:

1. Make sure your CC is as centralized as possible. Ideally, the entire lure circle should be contained within your walls. This will require your attacker to use hogs or balloons to lure your CC and make it harder fully lure. Include troops in your CC that will be tougher to pull and kill and will destroy hogs if not killed properly. I recommend using some archers to make the lure last longer and wizards to do massive damage to packs of hogs. There are many combinations of clan castle troops, but try to have at least 13 total troops. Don’t leave any free buildings outside of defense range where attackers can easily pull the CC to the corner. As an attacker, I love those corner builder huts — they make killing the CC so much simpler. If all buildings are within the range of some defenses, attackers will have to use more troops pulling the CC.
2. Include at least two possible double giant bomb spots within your base (my base has four). This is a 2×4 space that is empty (except for traps obviously) that could potentially contain a double giant bomb. This will keep your attacker guessing as to exactly where your double giant bombs may be. Keep in mind thatbombs with corners touching are very unlikely to be triggered simultaneously. This is also the case with bombs stacked lengthwise between defenses. You want two bombs stacked width-wise between defenses. I also prefer to slightly stagger the defenses so hogs are more likely to run through the middle of both bombs. These spaces should be placed further in than the first layer of defenses so they can not be easily pre-triggered by scout hogs or eliminated by altering pathing. Consider hog pathing AI and ensure they are in places hogs will travel over, ie between two defenses that are the closest to each other.
3. Place spring traps in smart locations between defenses where hogs will path. I personally like to overload my spring traps on one side of the base to quickly disrupt a hog raid if the attacker guesses wrong. If you spread them out a lot, they may become less effective as hogs spread out throughout the base. Most importantly, they need to be placed between defenses. Try not to make them obvious by leaving many 1 space gaps between your defenses so springs could potentially be anywhere. This will make it harder for attackers to avoid them.

Protecting against GoWiPe is ultimately much simpler. The biggest threat to GoWiPe is a large number of wall compartments. By having many wall compartments in your base, you can slow the attack down, allowing point defenses to pick off golems and PEKKAs while splash damage takes out wizards. I recommend a minimum of 8 different wall compartments (I have 13). Against bases with only a couple, it is easy to open most of them with wall breakers. Against bases with many, wall breakers will only open a couple, leaving troops to have to slowly bust through the rest. To make these compartments effective, make sure you are upgrading your walls. Even with many compartments, GoWiPe will roll through a base with gold walls, but skulls will bring the attack to a halt.

• This base with 6 compartments is weaker against GoWiPe.
• This base with 11 compartments is stronger against GoWiPe.

Thanks for taking the time to read my manifesto on TH8 base design! I can’t wait to hear the thoughts, input, and feedback of the rest of the community.