GoHo Strategy

Strone in Norcal Crew is ShadowWarrior in Quantom Flop. A lot of the people in the clan already knew. Just want to get it out of the way.

I am writing this as a strategy on GoHo. First of all I am not an expert on GoHo. Master GoHo’er on the internet claim they can take down any TH9 bases with GoHo. (I do believe it since I have been trying Precision Hogging a couple of times with various level of success). I am still at a stage where I am picking bases mostly and hitting mid-low TH9s for the most part.

 

GoHo strategy developed over the last 1-2 years when giant bomb damage to hogs has been increased. I never had chance to try it on my main account (Strone). It is one of the reason I created ShadowWarrior to try it out (and other new things like Lavaloon).

 
Basics of GoHo is to use a kill squad (Golems, heros, wiz, witches) to kill enemy queen and CC before sending in hogs. Real simple.

Operating a Kill Squad is a very good skill to master. It will help you succeed in other strategy as well (e.g. GoLaLoon).

Army Composition

I go with 2 Golems (1 in CC), 10 wiz, 4 wallbreakers, 2 archers, 28 hogs. I have seen people use 3 Golems in kill squad to get deeper. I think as your heroes get stronger, you can use more golems to keep them alive and deal more damage. They will cover more ground: cover giant bomb spot, attract kill teslas and xbows. If your heroes are weak, just concentrate on kill the queen and CC and leave the rest to your hogs.

 

I usually only need 6 wiz for kill squad, the 4 left are used for cleanup (I do not normally need that many). If you are up against tough bases, you can change to 30-31 hogs.

 

For spells, I have been trying 4 heals, or 3 heal 1 jump. For weak kill squad, your hogs will cover more ground and the extra heal will help a lot.  For strong kill squad, you can reach queen that is deeper in the core. The jump is then necessary to attract/kill queen and other defenses. In the war before last I have only 1 hero (king upgrading). I went for weaker bases and used 4 heals. For this war I have both heros and a moderately strong kill squad. I went for stronger bases with deep queens and used 1 jump.

Base Selection

For starters, look for bases with few double giant bomb spots. For example, no.16 in this war is a good candidate. No.15 in this war is not a good candidate, so mass hogging need to be changed to precision hogging (I will translate an article to cover that subject). Also, look at previous attacks on the same base, it gives you CRUCIAL information: where giant bombs are. In many cases you can deduce where they are by looking at where teslas are. There are just so many empty spaces in the base.

The more outside enemy queen is, the easier it is to GoHo. Basically it gives you more option for less kill squad and more hogs. But to fully utilize your Golems, you would want to engage you enemy defenses. Just like in other attacks, if your golems live toward the end of the war and wacking walls, it is not a sign of an efficient attack. The golems should be tanking for your other troops and die before your other troops.

Step 1: Kill Squad

Send in the kill squad. I usually draw CC. I have seen expert don't draw and succeed, but draw CC is just my preference. Usually if you do not draw you need to spend a spell. I like to spend a couple troops instead. So this will also be part of base selection that I currently employ. Today I normally will not attack a base if I do not know the content of the CC and its CC cannot be drawn.

Today, CC usually contains dragon+, or hound. For dragon+ I just throw a poison on them. It will reduce dragon to half health and kill everything else.

If there is a replay and you can draw ground skeleton traps cheaply, draw it too.

Choose a side close to queen and hopefully covers a lot of empty spaces (possible giant bomb spots). Choose attacking angle/side.

Drop 2 golems with APPROPRIATE space. By appropriate, I mean not too wide and not too close together. You certainly want them apart to tank more space for you wiz. But after you wallbreak or jump, you do not want them too far away and ignore you.

The other thing is if queen is toward the outside, you want to wait till it is closer to you. Sometimes a queen shooting at you behind walls is very hard to get to. Take a look at my attack in the war previous to this. I waited till the queen is outside of a wall before I drop golems.

Drop wiz. Remember, No.1 priority for wiz is to clean outside. So your heroes will not stray off.

Drop queen in the middle, facing queen and approaching CC.

Wait a couple seconds before the outer buildings are almost gone. Wall break.

When you see a clear path to the enemy queen. Drop the King.

Do not wait too long to enable King abilities. I usually activate it when it is down to 60-70% health, or when it is under heavy fire.

Step 2: Hogs

I find this part to be relatively simple. Some people plan very carefully about the path of hogs. I just go with the flow. Drop hogs in 1-2 armies and drop heal where needed.

If you have a weak kill squad, there maybe still a lot of defenses in the center. The path of hogs are more unpredictable.

If you have a strong kill squad, you usually have taken a quadrant already. You just deploy your hogs on one side and it will go a L shaped path across other 3 quadrant.

There is actually a fine point on deciding whether to choose clockwise or counter-clockwise. You would want to have fewer empty spaces at the end. I find it easier to deal with bombs in the beginning than towards the end.

I usually keep 2-3 hogs in hand but that is just me. Hogs after all defenses destroyed are like wiz, they are great at cleanup and can jump walls.