Greg. We may need a "attacking a anti hog base" 101 post
Not a lot of time just now, but a quick brain dump I'll try to clean up and make more digestible later.
The first big thing about using hogs is predicting their AI pathing:
- They attack defensive buildings (ones that shoot), ignoring all else including CC troops until all such buildings are destroyed.
- They seem to favor going to the next closest, but there is some randomness applied so you can't predict perfectly. Sometimes some will go to the closest and others may go to one further away. In the best example of this we had, I had a group of hogs with a cannon near and a tesla just behind it so you had to walk past the cannon to get to the tesla. While most of my hogs hit the cannon, one ran past it to attack the tesla, even though the cannon chose that lone hog to be the one to shoot at.
Then the considerations for things that oppose hogs well:
- Spring traps can be deadly since you normally use hogs in a group. While hogs can jump walls, if it takes moving just one square to the side to go through a gap straight to the next building they will, so they will use openings. They won't run a dog leg around a wall though, if it takes much sideways movement they will just jump it.
- Two big bombs going off together will kill similarly leveled hogs outright, or severely damage higher level hogs. Regular bombs are generally not much threat.
- Bases that have their wizard towers upgraded (all purple wiz tower is when you should start to show concern) and in particular, grouped close together, can be painful due to their splash.
- Bases that have a ring of defenses, then a ring of non-defensive buildings inside, then a core group of defense in the middle (mortar, AA) are pathing nightmares if done well. If an outer ring defensive building is always the next closest, odds are the hogs run around that outer circle while the mortars pound them, and probably hitting a lot of traps.
So those are the things you look at when evaluating how hogs might do against a base's layout. Now, any empty space in a base can contain a trap, so your preference is bases where defensive buildings are all enclosed by walls with no empty space between. But bases that have huge amounts of empty space may not actually be bad hog bases, they still have a limited number of springs and big bombs. Really where you want to worry is when there is empty space between a defensive building and the next defensive building that your hogs will likely move towards. And in particular if the defender took the effort to make the space just a single gap where the hogs will funnel through and could hit a spring.
Level 4 hogs used en masse (I'm talking around 30+ including any in the CC) should be able to level a fully maxed TH8 pretty easily unless his layout is very well done against hogs. TH9 can be beaten with Level 4 hogs, even ones fairly well upgraded but not fully... but you need a bit more luck perhaps.
(ETA for those with only 3 spells...) you probably want to stick with all heal spells... however if there is an area with a bunch of particularly deadly buildings, like several wizard towers together, you might want a rage to let the hogs wipe that area quickly when they arrive.
Watch the video that Clayton has previously posted. I agree with much of what he says. I think deploying in at least 2 groups is best, and I think smliteguy and I both tend to do at least 3 groups normally. So as a TH8, that means each group can get 1 heal if needed, though as often as not for me it's the first two groups get 1 heal each, and the third is used wherever it is most needed.
Recent discussions, smliteguy and I agreed that as the base you fight has better defenses, you probably need to use the heal spell earlier. In this last war I failed an attack because I deployed all 3 groups of hogs and by the time I went back to heal the first group they were pretty much dead from massive mortar and xbow attacks. Smliteguy attacked the same base and deployed a group in the same spot, but healed them first before deploying the next group, and it went much, much better. It was a moderately upgraded TH9 with 2 xbows, so a good example of tougher bases may need earlier heals, even waiting to deploy another group until you've managed the first group.
Planning the attack:
The big thing about planning the attack is trying to envision the path the hogs will take, and trying to avoid sending them over blank spaces. Often you'll find people trap gaps in their outer walls, but you can attack from the side so the hogs jump the wall and avoid those entirely.
Also consider that you want to take out xbows, wizard towers and mortars early. So you may have 4 good entry points, but 3 of them are closer to the mortars than the 4th so you might prefer to use those 3. Hogs can outrace mortars frequently, so they aren't quite as big of an issue as they are to other units, though mortars can still mess them up so should factor into your decision. Wizard towers of high level may be a bigger threat, but don't shoot as far, so you may not need to rush to them as quickly. Though if you can hit a wizard tower very early and use your heal then I find it's a good combination.
You want to look for groups of defensive buildings that are together with little or no space between them so it is safe from traps. Try to find an outer defensive building that when attacked initially, will lead your hogs into the "safe" area.
Some people will trap outside their walls at likely entry points. One way to beat that is send a lone hog to set things off before sending the rest. Note that just a tiny pause isn't enough... the first hog can actually run over a big bomb and be clear before it blows up. If you just use a small pause, your mass will arrive at the bomb as it goes off. Sometimes I do this and other times I don't bother.
Picking your entry point and taking all this other stuff into account is what you'll spend most of your decision making on. One thing you can use to your advantage is that hogs will run between buildings (collectors for example) even if side by side. So if someone rings his walls with collectors that are flush against each other, you know there isn't a trap at that spot unless it is actually outside of the collectors themselves. Camps make nice entry points because a hog can actually run over the camp itself since only the campfire can't be traveled over.
