GoVaHo (Golems, Valkyries and Hogs) strategy
Hi!
First post of this type that I have done, so comments appreciated!
I see people attempting this attack in war. Despite the current most powerful army composition at the time of writing being air based (the way that balloons work now is just awesome, especially on a TH9 base), GoVaHo can wreck almost any TH9. I see it being done badly quite a lot of the time, so I thought (in the interest of science) I'd write down my objectives for each stage of a GoVaHo attack.
A small disclaimer. I have fairly recently upgraded to a TH10 village so I have an extra spell and extra troops, however, I have not gotten round to upgrading my dark elixir troops as of yet. The points and principles of each stage though are exactly the same.
First of all, the lure. If the CC is easy to lure without too much expense, do it. I often send in a couple of hogs to lure a CC, take an archer to attract the troops over to one side of the base, drop a poison and take it out. How you do that is up to you. If you can lure to the side you're attacking from, you can drop a Golem to tank, and the archer queen to take out the CC quickly. If you can't lure that way take a few archers or barbarians to keep the cc distracted and drop wizard for the kill.
Second, the kill squad. This comprises of your Golems, wizards, heroes, and valkyries. The only spell you want on the kill squad is a jump to get as deep a push into the base as possible. The primary objective of the kill squad is to take out the CC (if you have not been able to lure), and the archer queen. Those two things are imperative. If you do not take out the enemy AQ with your kill squad you will almost certainly be walking away with a two, or even a one-star attack. The secondary objective is the Barbarian King, and to trigger as many skeleton traps as possible so they do not hurt the hogs.
Drop your golems (I take one in my cc and one in my regular troops). Use the wizards to make a WIDE funnel for the valkyries. The primary purpose of the wizards is to take out all buildings that could distract your valkyries and send them around the base clearing out the trash. Make the funnel even wider than you think you need. Break open the first layer of walls with wallbreakers, and cover the path into the core with a jump spell. When you're ready, drop the Valkyries. Hold back a few wizards if you can to aid with clear up.
With the enemy AQ down and the CC out of the picture, your golems, heroes, and valkyries should get a reasonable push into the base and carve out around a quarter of it. Think of it like a pie. You just took a nice slice out of it, and what's remaining is a nice path for your hogs.
You can either now spam your hogs at one side of the remainder of your pie or drop 3/4 on each defence up one side. The hogs should come together at the top of the base and start working their way down the other side. Place heals over splash defences such as wizard towers. Watch out for skeleton traps too. If you have an extra poison (I often take one with my spells, and one in the cc), use that when you spot the skeletons targeting your hogs.
By now, the base should be pretty much wrecked. With all defences down, the hogs will take care of anything that's following them, and then turn their attention to clean up. If you have a few wizards held back, drop these around the base to clear up any last remaining buildings.
Job done, three stars achieved, happy clan mates.
For reference, this is (roughly) the GoVaHo army composition that I like to take
1 Golem (+1 in the CC)
8 Valkyries
16 Hogs
9 Wizards
4 Wallbreakers
3 Heal
1 Jump
1 Poison (+1 in the CC).
Fill the remainder up with archers to get corner sheds and help a bit with cleanup. Play around a bit with it - maybe swapping out a heal so you can rage the valks in the core to get a deeper push and maybe an extra wizard tower etc. Sometimes you can achieve the kill squad objective without wallbreakers - just drop a jump spell over the outer walls. There's little tweaks that can be made depending on the base you're attacking.
Hope that helps someone! Clash on.
R.
