Index

Part 1: Preliminary Th9 BB Knowledge

1. Dictionary
2. How to place traps and defences
3. How to defend vs common strats

• GoHo
• LaLo
• Suicide Heroes+LaLo/Mass Hog
• Stoned HoBo
• Bitch/Witch Slap
• Overpowering attacks: Grundinator, HPHB, HGHB, Mass Valks, GoWiPe, Vealer
• QW/QC
• Zapquake DragLaLo
• Rage Skelly+Sui LaLo/Muawsome

If you think you already know that, you can jump to:

Part 2: Advanced Tips & Tricks

1. BB Styles
2. Live BB
3. Pathing
4. Final checkup
5. Clan Castle
6. How to fix a base
7. Conclusion & links

Before I start, huge thanks to my friends Brandon, Gem, Starreh and Snow who respectively helped out with Part 1, Traps Placement, Pics and Choose the CC. Much appreciated!

∎ Part 1

Premise: as a Th9, you’ll always be 3 starred. Your job is to hold up as much as you can, in elite wars even getting one defence is a tough job.

That being said, as a BB you want the attacker to have an hard time on your base, which doesn’t mean that your base should definitely look hard, but it means that you have to try to use every trick you can think of to let the attacker fail. Also, while building keep in mind that you war in a clan, and not alone, so even if a Troll Tesla may save your base, you can’t actually run 20 Th9 all with a Troll Tesla, so your aim is to build bases that defend but that are also different between each other.

Let’s then get to part one: basic knowledge a base builder needs to have before starting building.

1 – Dictionary

Huge thanks to the Actives Team from the BB server that helped me out doing this.

Defences & Buildings

AD  – Air Defence
AT  – Archer Tower
WT  – Wizard Tower
TF  – Tesla Farm (usually referred to 3-4 teslas)

TT – Troll Tesla
AS  – Air Sweeper
BT  – Bomb Tower
BK  – Barbarian King
AQ  – Archer Queen
SAM  – Seeking Air Mine (black)
Air Bomb  – (red)

SB – Small Bomb
GB  – Giant Bomb
DGB  – Double Giant Bomb
Double Double or DGB+2SB –  referred to DGB+2 small bombs in between

Attack & Defence

Push  – first part of the attack, usually consisting in golems+troops
KS  – Kill Squad, referred to the push or a small push
CB  – Cold Blooded=1 golem
Shattered  – 2 golems
Stoned  – 3 golems
Defenceless Core  – central part of the base without defences, usually used to let golems walk around while other troops go in. Used to prevent attacks with double jump and a heavy tank (stoned attacks like hobo)
Point defs  – Point defences, referred to defences that deal single troop damage (such as cannon, AT, Tesla), single targeting defences
Splash defs  – Splash defences, referred to defences that deal damage to multiple troops at once (like WT)
Killzone  – Area with 3+ point defences
Wbs  – Wallbreakers
Qw  – Queen Walk
Qc  – Queen Charge, referred to a Qw that goes inside the base (usually involving 5 healers)
Qq  – Quad Quake, referred to 4 earthquake spells
Air/ground skelly  – referred to the skeleton trap

NFZ or No Fly Zone  – A base with all ad cannons and mortars on one side and the rest on the other side.

Trash Ring  – where you have a lot of trash, like elixir collectors and gold mines.

Moat  – line of external walls

Symm & Asymm – Symmetric & Asymmetric, usually referred to the BB style

2 – How to place traps and defences 

Let’s start with defences first. 

• Air Defence: ADs are your #1 help against air, so be careful where you place them. You don’t want all of them to be outside, as a qw/suicide hero Drag/DragLaLo can easily 3* your base. The usual setting is ADs in couples, if you’re doing that I highly recommend placing a non walkable AD among these two, so that they can’t easily suicide heroes and take both. If your ads are spread on the whole base, having a C shape, that gives easy pathing, so reconsider it.Try not to have directly targetable ADs.

There are some different variations of ADs settings, let’s actually analyze them. 

Keep in mind that, even if a set is weak to ZapQuake, that doesn’t necessarily mean the attacker will use it.

Note: all of this was tested after June 12 2018 update, where Zap received a buff 

Set 1: ADs in couples. This set is widely used, but it’s weak to 3 Zap, so someone may try Zap DragLaLo.

This was the testing. Even though I’m a Th10, I still have Th9 Zap. Thanks to Dolph that helped me testing it out

Set 2: ADs in couples but a bit spread out to avoid Zap.

Set 3: Another way to avoid Zap.

I tested it and well placed ZapQuake can take these two ADs out, but it’s risky so the attackers may not try it, although as I said it’s doable. This setup is just like set 2, but the walls are used the other way around. 

Pics by Dolph. Keep in mind the pics below are pre-update, but since Zap received a buff it’s the same even after update. 

Pic courtesy of Th9 Memorial War. As you can see, 2 Zaps+Quake took the two ADs out, however it’s kinda risky so 3 Zaps may be safer than 2+1 Quake.

Set 4: All ADs in the core. Even if they’re close, no one would try Drags because ADs are well protected. LaLo is hard too, because loons won’t directly go to ADs, but go through a lot of defences first. The downsides is that a push can easily take all of them out (eg GoBoLo), so you have to protect them. Also, since ADs are in the core one may take advantage of it by using healers away from them, because there’s nothing to kill them (unless you put SAMs), or rely on raged lava pups to kill AQ instead of wasting a Skelly. Generally clumped ADs are offset, not in the core.

Set 5: Same idea as Set 4, but ADs a bit more spread out and BT to tank for Skelly if they use them. Note that usually ADs aren’t used all in the core though, but rather offset. Also, this setup, as I said before, is weak to ZapQuake.

You can use one of the two sets below to completely avoid ZapQuake, or simply build a base so that, even if they do ZapQuake, it isn’t easy to triple.

• Bomb Tower: BT is used to protect the Archer Queen (AQ) from the Skeleton Spell. You want to place it remembering that AQ will follow the hound(s) while attacking them

• Wizard Tower: WTs needs to be away from ADs. In general, you want to separate your air targeting defences from the ground targeting ones. WTs are particularly effective against loons and hogs, so they shouldn’t be directly targetable. It’s also a good idea to pair WTs with traps such as Giant Bombs, Skeleton Trap, Air Bomb, but we’ll discuss that in the Trap Section. WTs farm is usually bad, since it opens up to a lot of attacks (mainly TDH and hogs with a push destroying WTs).
• XBow: Xbows are particularly good due to they huge range. You can place them on air and ground (generally) or on ground only (in specific cases, for example when you think the attacker will qw on side of the map, but you’re absolutely sure your base will defend air hits). Don’t put walkable xbows. A good idea is to use an XBow island, this will help since most of the troops, such as bowlers and wizards, won’t target the xbow, so they’ll go around. You may also use half islands, but remember a good attacker can jump over them completely. Also, keep in mind that XBows islands actually give out a lot of value once the attacker is in. That’s why recently I’m using more half/quarter islands than full islands, or not using islands at all.

• Air Sweeper: ASs are used to push away air troops, you should then place them almost in the core, as external ASs can be taken from the back, rendering them useless. Try also to place them away from where a push would enter from, if you’re using xbow islands, whatever the dimension, it’s a good idea to have them inside.
• Tesla: Teslas are one of the key defences at Th9, due to their high DPS and the fact that they’re hidden. There are three good ways to use teslas.
  • Tesla Farm: The attacker, when planning, usually considers every zone with  high DPS. However, a TF is such a zone, and can’t be predicted. If you’re using a TF, make sure it can’t be easily predicted, it’s also a good idea to put ground and air traps there. GBs should be put in other areas though, since a TF will usually require a heal, and you don’t want them to heal both the TF and a GB. Usually TF are near the anti air part and away from ADs, you want it to kill loons, not to be stuck on the hound.
  • External Tesla: They’re used to redirect troops such as golems or loons, making the attacker improvise his attack on the fly. If they’re separated 2×2 tiles from a defence, this can also be a good spot for a GB
  • Troll Tesla: This can screw up a fresh attack. If you’re using one (more than one is usually a waste, but you may also do that) make sure it isn’t predictable, and the area it’s in won’t be touched until the end of the attack. TT is usually in a corner, but you can use reverse psychology and place it in other parts, or use your builder huts and flags as if you have a troll tesla in every corner of the base. You may have it, you may have not, you surely know but the attacker doesn’t and may lose a few troops bringing loons to kill troll teslas that aren’t there.

Don’t put teslas touching each other, as a loon drop may kill both.

• Double Cannon: Should you use it? Its pros are its DPS, higher than a normal cannon, while its range and re-target time aren’t as good as the usual cannon. You should use it in ideal entry points, to fry golems as the attacker does the push. For this reason, don’t use this on the edges, where it’s easier to pick it off, but rather on the middle of your base sides.

Time to check out how traps should be placed too.

Note: since most ground attacks need to kill AQ with a push before dropping the main force (usually Hogs), try not to place ground traps near AQ as the push will get them too for free. This also applies for air attack, but it’s more flexible since they may come away from AQ and not get AQ at all (for example, they may use Skelly Spell on her during the LaLo).

Let’s then see the traps.

• Giant Bomb: GBs are a big help vs every ground attack. You should place at least two GBs outside your base, that’s to help defending bitch, but also kill hogs or force an early heal. Remember you have 4 GBs+BT, and each one of these shouldn’t be near the others, meaning you have to place them so that a heal can’t cover 2 GBs or GB+BT at the same time. 
• Spring Trap: Springs are usually used to kill hogs. Since any hog-based attack will have to kill the AQ, it’s a good idea to place springs away from the AQ, and also place some of them on the outside too.

In this example, you can see the spring between two WTs has a chance of activating of ⅓ (~33%), since the hogs can path in 3 tiles once one WT is destroyed. The one on the right, on the other hand, has a 100% chance of activating. Naturally, if you have 20 hogs going from one defence to another, each one of these springs will activate. Remember you want to put springs only between defences one tile far, or in some particular cases if you suspect a surgical hog drop.

In this pic, you can see I used the trash ring (in this case, elixir storages) to funnel hogs into the spring trap. Keep in mind, if you’re doing this, that the attacker usually wants his hog to go through the fastest route towards the defence he’s targeting. Remember that double spring traps aren’t usually used, except in some cases between teslas. Also keep in mind pathing while placing them (see pic below).

Seeing as hogs may split and not go all to the center tile, you can also consider using some walls (like Th8s do) to have all the hogs converge onto your spring trap.

This setup, however, gives away where you have springs, but a good attacker can predict your springs anyways, so no problem using it.

Remember that your base, however, is not a maze, so using a setup like this won’t work (pic below).

There’s a good 10-mins YouTube Guide for spring traps that is worth checking out, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/JSNbm3nZaE

Let’s see one more example related to pathing. In the first pic, you’ll see some defences+springs in between, in the second one there’s what the BB wanted to do, but in the last pic we can see that only one spring will work if the attacker drops hogs from the other way around. This happens because Hogs don’t go directly above a defence (like Loons do), but stay close to the exterior. Keep pathing in mind when building

• Skeleton Trap: The Skelly traps are particularly helpful, because they usually can’t be taken out mid-raid, if not using a poison or an attack that has some cleanup troops directly behind the others (such as TDH, with minions following the LaLo part). If you’re using ground skelly, since any hog attack will aim to take the AQ out first, place them away, especially in a high DPS area, such as a TF, or a splash area, such as near a WT. If you’re using air skelly, place them near heavy air targeting parts of your base, such as TF again or WT. If the hounds, when going to the ADs, will activate the skelly trap, then you’ve placed it in the wrong spot. Don’t place a skelly trap on a troll tesla.

• Seeking Air Mine: SAMs are a big help in killing hounds. Remember the attacker won’t drop the hounds directly on the ADs, but he’ll try to have them flying through all the air targeting part (with WTs, teslas, ATs and so on) first, so if you’re double stacking (=using two) SAMs on one AD, make sure it’s the first one hounds will target. You can also use external SAMs, usually in bases that are particularly vulnerable to bitch or QW, to kill healers, but that makes your base more susceptible to air. Usually SAMs are near the ADs, if however you have all ADs+AQ close enough, your base is susceptible to any attack involving the destruction of all Ads+Drags on the rest of the base: in this case, it’s a good idea to have SAMs away from ADs (unless you actually think the attacker will kill your ADs with a QW, if that’s the case, you may use them near clumped ADs but it’s not ideal). 
• Air Bomb: Remember what I said about how the attackers drop hounds? Air Bombs follows the same instructions as Air Skelly, you want them away from where hounds will go, and near splash or heavy DPS areas, so that they will target Loons but not Hounds.
• Small Bomb: SB are usually used in two situations. They can either used to kill WBs, and they’re put 2 tiles away from walls (not only 1, since raged WBs will be too fast if it’s that close), or they can be used paired with a GB to kill witches or deal more damage to hogs (see pics in part 2-Bitch section).

Sometimes, anyway, it’s better to put SBs only 1 tile away from walls, especially if you don’t have to counter raged WBs (usually used in a QW/QC). Look at the pic below. Suppose I drop a golem from the red dot, it will either go right or left following the white lines, and by doing so, it will trigger a Small Bomb. However, by placing it only one tile away the SB won’t trigger until the outside defence (in this case, the mortar) is destroyed. 

You could apply this idea to other buildings, even with a different size, for example huts or army camps, but keep in mind that sometimes the golem may not trigger it. In the pic below, if the golem goes right it will trigger the SB, but if it goes left it won’t. Obviously, if the golem isn’t dropped on the red dot, let’s say it’s dropped 1-2 tiles left, it will trigger the SB if it’s 2 tiles away from walls, so try to funnel it with the trash ring, the same way trash ring was used to funnel hogs into the external spring trap.

3 – How to defend vs common strats

• GoHo: There are many variants with hogs and golems, you can have CB, Shattered, or Stoned GoHo. You can also have Bowlers mixed in. The thing you want to keep in mind is that the attacker will come to kill the AQ, so you should have traps away from her, plus a hard pathing on the side that’s away from her. Pathing is basically the route troops (in this case hogs) will do, if they stay together obviously a heal can heal them all, so you want to separate them using deadzones, defenceless zones and random teslas.
• LaLo: Again, we can have many variants, including golem, bowlers, even a QW. You just have to place defences as explained before, so the air targeting defences (WTs, ATs, teslas) away from the ground targeting part+ADs (ADs, cannons, mortars). AQ should be covered with the BT, also ADs shouldn’t give an easy pathing. Moreover, WTs aren’t directly targetable and, if possible, ADs aren’t too, and all the traps are placed correctly.
• Suicide Heroes+LaLo/Mass Hog: the suicide heroes usually aim to take out AQ+CC+ground/air targeting stuff depending from the attack, while if the AQ can be taken with skelly, or the CC has troops with high HP and low damage (hound, golem) they can completely ignore it and target other stuff, like a TF, or two ADs (Suicide Heroes DragLaLo aka Mayk DragLaLo). You just have to put the AQ so that a push is necessary, and make the pathing really hard for the attacker. I’d recommend to check out my guide on How to Sui LaLo, linked at the end of this guide, as once you know how to use a strat, it’s easier to know how to defend against it too.
• Stoned HoBo: this attacks relies on a heavy push (3 golems, bowlers, a bunch of wiz, royals and all spells) to take out the majority of the base with a double jump, sprinkling hogs to the non destroyed defences. Remember the aim of the main push is to get 2 Xbows+AQ+BK+CC. To stop this attack, first you have to limit the value the attacker can get with a double jump (this will help against bitch too), and divide golems from the bowlers. This can happen if you use a defenceless compartment, usually a 9×9 defenceless core that isn’t jumpable not quakable, but keep in mind a core like this actually provides easy pathing for GoHo or LaLo. Another good idea is to use, as said, at least 2 outside GBs, external teslas (in a TF, near other defences, in couples, a 3 Tesla TF, whatever works for your base), some external springs too. Remember any big push will get through the core, so it’s a good idea not to put traps there.
• Bitch/Witch Slap: this attacks involves witches going on two sides of the base, while royals+bowlers go inside with a (double) jump and all the remaining spells. It’s usually defined as “an attack that requires almost no skill, but works”. To defend this attack, which right now is the #1 strategy for 9v9 thanks to Witch buff in the last update, you have to limit your double jump value, and that can be done using non jumpable compartments as well as small ones on the outside part. SAMs can also kill healers, while springs may kill witches.You can also kill witches with outside GB+2 Small Bombs+splash defence (WT or BT, usually the mortar is too slow but BT is used to protect AQ, so generally WT).

You can also use moats (lines of external walls), paired with splash defences and with nothing inside, usually 2+ tiles away from whatever is behind: since, as said, there’s nothing, skeletons will target the trash, while witches will be in range of the defences.Skeletons (white) will target the trash ring, while witches (red) will target the WT, being targeted back and killed. Moats are also good to cover entry points and let troops path around them, but remember a moat >14 tiles long can be WBed in its middle.

Note: after June 12 2018 update, GB+2SBs won’t instantly kill witches. I still believe that GB+2SBs+Splash defence is the greatest option v witches, because using things such as an external DGB just to kill witches makes the base really weak to Hogs (although, since Bitch rn is the #1 strategy used, you could still try that to defend the fresh hit).

General anti Bitch features

1– symm bases to avoid having a ‘weak side’ 

2– squared bases so that the troops may split (long bases could be hit with Bitch with 3 jumps and the troops won’t actually split)

3– anti double jump bases (I usually use a 9×9 core divided in 4, which you can see in the first base posted below)

4– trash ring to make funnel hard, I’d recommend army camps in front of ideal entry points

5– moats to split witches and skelly as explained above, or simply in front of ideal entry points

6– GBs+2 SBs near splash damage as well as SAMs to kill healers may work

7– sometimes I used troll tesla+SAM, it got at least a witch+a healer too when dropped too close to the SAM.

Here are two examples of bases I did quite some time ago (approximately October 2017) to defend Bitch.

I would also recommend checking this short guide (made by my friend SuperJJ1 aka firestorm#4999) on How to defend witches:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14-UFMv72gUuxXCg5cCB41YTowHrHtG7PZhIagfhZNoo/edit?usp=sharing

• Overpowering attacks: Grundinator, HPHB, HGHB, Mass Valks, Gowipe, Vealer/Falcon: These attacks relies on strength to overpower a base. To stop these, you should have a good number of compartments, I’d say >10 for sure but >13 is better, limit the number of compartments I can get if I break a wall (similar to limit the jump value), also, since they rely a lot on healers, you shouldn’t have all ADs clumped up and SAMs there too, since they can come from the other side and leave ADs for the end of the attack. Another good idea is to have the trash ring very spread out, but we’ll see that in details later. Also keep in mind that long bases with no funnel are a no-go, try to make them squared and with deadzones inside to split the troops.
• QW/QC: Queen Walks/Charges are one of the hardest attack to defend against, giving their versatility. I’d recommend avoiding having areas with good value and nothing to kill AQ and/or healers (like 2 or 3 wts really close). Try to use trash ring to let her walk, storages to slow her down and SAMs against healers. I usually place 1-2 SAMs on the outside (around 3 tiles away from the walls) to kill healers. If you want to play with the mind of the attacker, here’s a cool thing: pic below, credits to Brandon.

For some reasons, AQ can kill the AD from the green points, but can’t from the red ones. You can try to use an AD like that to bait a QW, but the AD can’t be walked from some points so it will kill healers and help you defend.

• Zapquake DragLaLo: This attack relies on zapquake to take out 2 ADs, Dragons on the rest of the base with LaLo to take out the remaining ADs.To use ZQ DragLaLo, usually you look for 2 easily ZQable ADs, easy funnel to get your drags in the base, and easy pathing to the remaining 2 ADs. To defend it, you can either use ADs so that ZQ can’t take two of them (see How to place ADs above), or make the base hard for this strat by using AS on the anti air part (WTs, XBows, ATs) with also some storages to tank. This strat is pretty popular against symm bases with a setup like this:
• Rage Skelly+Sui LaLo/Muawsome: this attack isn’t that common, but we’re seeing it more and more, especially in elite war scene. It uses rage+skelly to take out the core of a base, usually trying to get AQ and CC, anything else (ASs, ADs, other defences) is a bonus. Here are some pics, courtesy of my friend Evil#3491.

As you can see, he took out the core and then finished the base with Sui LaLo. Another way to use this is rage+skelly and then muawsome (hogs+healers behind). To prevent it, just apply what you already know about How to prevent skelly spell: small compartments near AQ, and a splash defence near her. In this case, you can use a BT but also a WT too, don’t use mortars as they’re too slow to do a good job.

∎ Part 2

Here we will analyze in details how to actually start building a base. Props to who read all the text above, and welcome to who jumped straight to this part 👋

1 – BB Styles

There are quite some different styles you can use at Th9, let’s analyse the most common ones.

1. Symm bases: easy and fast to make, widely used thanks to that. They don’t have an ‘easy side’ because, since it’s symm, they have two. Attackers often underestimate them, and I recommend using asymm traps with symm bases just to mess them up.
2. Asymm bases: hard to build, hard to attack. They aren’t underestimated because they don’t look easy at all.
3. Troll bases: they usually have moats, asymm and weird designs. same thing as asymm bases, usually harder to crack and may be hit with Bitch/Qw/Qw/Sui Lalo.
4. Squared bases: hard to hit with witches, usually symm bases.

Note: the fact that a base is ‘hard to crack’ doesn’t mean that it will always defend, it just means that the attacker will take more time planning a hit on it (and that’s usually the reason why they may get freshed).

2 – Live BB

From my experience, you can either start a base by building the AQ chamber, or start with a skeleton layout (meaning putting down walls with nothing in them, until you’ve created the skeleton of your base). The skeleton layout may help placing correctly down defences if you’re new at BB, but it’s far easier to start from AQ chamber. 

What are then the steps? Let’s see.

1. Start with an idea. You may also try to place down walls and buildings until you’re satisfied, but usually it’s good to think beforehand what style of bases you’re going to build. You can build a troll base, you can build a semi troll base, use ADs in couples, all external ADs and WTs in the core or vice versa, TF in a corner, AQ right in the core or offset or external, external CC, CC island, symm, non symm, rectangular, squared, trying to bait a certain attack and killing thatz xbow island, half island, double xbow island. These are just ideas, you may come up with many, many more and decide for yourself what is good and what isn’t.
2. AQ chamber. AQ chamber is basically AQ with all she has near. It’s usually a good idea to place the AQ so that suicide heroes can’t kill her, if however you want to bait that, or simply have such a difficult pathing hogs won’t easily 3*, I’d suggest to protect her with storages, CC, Teslas, BK or a combination of these. You can also keep the AQ in the middle of the base: this, along with some moats and outside defences, will have the attacker invest a lot to kill your AQ, so he has to use a heavy push. The downside is that it’s difficult to place traps away from AQ and the idea entry points, since the attacker may come from anywhere. I personally prefer offset AQ, I can put traps away from her but suicide heroes can’t get her. Here are some common AQ chambers:

If I can WB in a compartment, I tend to have it 3×7, unless rare cases (see pics below). I usually use 0-1-2 buildings per compartment (+Teslas if there are any).

Let’s see the cases I was talking about.

Case 1: Quarter island

Cases 2-3: Walls to avoid troops going in, since XBow isn’t the closest building. Of course, WBs can break the wall but troops will ideally still go around.

Now back with the Live BB.

1. Build the compartments around AQ chamber. Remember the attacker may not necessarily come from AQ side, so keep that in mind. I usually start placing defences in the compartments I’ve created, I either create a ground targeting zone or an anti air one.
2. That’s the core! Yeah, you reached the core of your base. Or maybe you already did, if the AQ is right in the core. If your AQ is really close to the outside, move her or place the CC near her. If, on the other side, she’s quite protected, it’s a good idea to have a non lurable CC right in the middle. Did you also consider putting an XBow in this first half of the map? Remember Stoned HoBo tries to get both, so it’s a good idea to have them separated. Can a jump cover the whole core? Can I directly jump into it getting a lot of value? If yes, here’s what I need to fix
3. Continue building around, placing defences and walls. That’s it: the wall skeleton is done.
4. Where’s my BK? Is BK near AQ? If yes, consider moving it really away, since it’s a big help in killing hogs, paired with teslas, WTs, skelly, and every defence with a good number of DPS in general. Unless, obviously, AQ is so exposed she needs BK near her too.
5. The base is completed. What’s left? Traps, and trash ring. Try to put traps away from AQ or, if the AQ is right in the middle, spread them out. What about teslas? I’ve some possible options, but I still need to put my GBs in good spots before building, for example, a TF. You also need to check if you actually have some killzones. Killzones are zones with 3-4 single targeting defences, and maybe a splash one too, this zones require at least one spell to go through. Usually they’re placed away from AQ.
6. Trash Ring. This is basically composed by all the stuff that deals no damage: storages, collectors, drills, mines, barracks… If your trash has to require a difficult funnel, the attacker’s troops may not go where he wanted. Remember to place it two tiles away from walls, and in general as spread out as you can: this won’t let the attacker guess where you have traps and teslas, plus troops will actually have to travel through more space, wasting time. Remember, if an archer can get some free trash is fine, but if it can get a high HP building (storages, TH) or even a defence, there’s something wrong. Here’s a tip: Army camps, from an attacker point of view, are used to funnel troops since they’re really big. As a base builder, you can take advantage of that fact: put the army camps in front of ideal entry points, because once destroyed the troops will go left or right but not behind.
   For this reason, army camps on the edges are useless because they provide such good funnel, better use them in the center of each side.In the first base, you see the army camps provide easy funnel. In the second one, however, the attacker can’t enter at all from where he wanted to. To sum up: trash ring as spread out as you can, big buildings (army camps, lab) in front of ideal entry points and not on the edges, no free high HP buildings (storages, TH) unless you have teslas behind or you want the attacker to think you have Teslas.
7. Done! Now, why not adding something in all the corners just to mess up with the attacker. Teslas are already placed, so it’s a good idea to use a hut, or some flags as if there was a troll Tesla there (which in fact may actually be there). You can also decide to use a Troll Tesla or more than one, if you do remember that the easiest way to take that out is by using a Loon, so if you place a SAM or even an Air Bomb, the attacker won’t be able to take it out with a single Loon. Don’t place Skelly nor ground traps (unless you’ve 2 Teslas really close and want to use a GB in between to kill some hogs if it’s unexpected). 

Let’s actually see how I build, based on the points stated above.

1. Idea: I want to build a base with an offset but not easily killable AQ. I want all ADs near her, and I want the attacker to come from ADs. I’m not worried about a Zapquake Draglalo since the Anti Air side is pretty strong and well covered.
2. AQ chamber: AQ+CC, since I still need to protect her. I’ll then place ADs and BT to cover AQ. Notice how BT is right between ADs and AQ, and how AQ is close only to 2 ADs.
3. Compartments near AQ: well, how do I stop the attacker from coming from other sides? Let’s try to do that.
4. Core: notice how I created a ground targeting zone near AQ (so basically ADs+BT+Cannons). I already have half of my core (AQ+CC), I need to stop the attacker from coming to the other side, and I need to complete the core. A good way to stop a push from one side is, as already explained, by using moats, deadzones (the one near left XBow), and placing army camps too.
5. Continue building: wait, what if an attacker comes from 8 o’clock? He can just WB in, or jump, and will still get the AQ. I need to lure the golems away. Let’s also finish the base.
6. BK checkup: BK is away from AQ, and he doesn’t need to be near her, let’s move on then 👌
7. Done! (Almost): I need to put my traps! Let’s not forget I need to lure that golem away as mentioned above, also I don’t want to have easily guessable traps. I’ll place the small bombs once the trash ring is done.
8. Trash Ring: let’s keep some points in mind. First, I succeeded in luring the golem dropped at 8 away: it will go to Mortar>Tesla>other Tesla. I still don’t want the attacker to come near the left XBow, so I’ll place an army camp there. Also, I want to place the trash ring as if I had a TF at 3 near the AT. All the trash ring is to be 2 tiles away from walls. How do I place storages? Well, in ideal entry points to slow the attacker. Not all clumped up though. Remember what I said about trash ring.
9. Done! Corners checkup: just troll the attacker here 😉

Small Q&A

Would you use this base?

Sure, I made it myself, so I think it’s good, although it may not be anymore some weeks after this guide.

Is it perfect? Can I use it?

Well, of course it’s not perfect. For example, I didn’t use GB+Small Bombs to kill witches, and I can still be 3* with Drags. Since I posted this base, you can use it but others may know it too!

Can you explain how this base works?

Yeah. I’ll use some pics again.

The push Area is where the attacker will probably come from.

Notice how I lured the golem away, the only one good entry points is the Push Area.

3 – Pathing

I’ll explain pathing using some bases as examples.

A – Base 1

Let’s look at pathing, using the same base that i just built.

You want troops splitting up so a spell can’t cover them all. See how the troops circle around BK? They won’t stay together.

B – Base 2

It’s really important to have a good pathing, let’s see what a bad pathing looks like. This base (courtesy of a clanmate, thanks!) tried to imitate what I explained above, but the pathing isn’t good: the troops will stay together, so a heal (for example) can heal them all.

Some tips about pathing:

• Try not to have all defences clumped up, since Loons+Haste/Rage will rip it.
• Use defenceless areas, deadzone and even moats to try to split troops. Let’s look again at the base I did. Notice how, if I send hogs at 1 on the AT, they will split after WT is killed because of the defenceless zone (BK comp). Also, they’ll split at the AS too: in fact, there are 4 possible routes for troops, and if you aren’t able to predict where they will go, your opponent won’t be able to do that either.
• If you do use moats, defenceless compartments, deadzones, don’t make them too wide, because an attacker may take advantage of it. For example, a huge defenceless core means easy pathing.

C – Base 3

Let’s look at another base (courtesy of Maximilian, ty chief).

This is the original base.

As you can see, at a first glance it doesn’t look that bad, however it’s vulnerable to 3 of the main used strats right now: Sui lalo, Bitch and Witch slap. Let’s look in details at it, saying why these strats work.

First strat: Sui lalo. You can see how ADs actually assume a C shape, which is ideal for Lalo. Notice how cc is easily lurable from the AD or Double cannon at 4-5. The only area that would cause problems is the one with the TF, but the attacker will see that Loons may path around the AQ comp, so will actually send Sui hero at 10 to take out 2 ATs+cannon, or at 11 to take out mortar+AT and get a bonus TF too. In both these cases, the main pack of loons, dropped with the Hounds, will stay into the core.

Second & third strat: Bitch and Witch slap. You can see how the double jump is pretty easy to do, and there’s nothing to kill the outside witches except the GB circled in red (and the SAM circled in red if I’m using healers).

As you can see, even if pathing doesn’t look easy, you must consider other things that the attacker may use for his own benefit, in this case the air pathing and the easy double jump.

D – Base 4

Let’s have a look at another one of my builds with the same idea of the live BB: small push from AQ side, ADs near AQ but not so easy to get, traps and crappy pathing away from her.

E – Base 5

Here I wanted the attacker to use Sui Hero or a CB KS to get AQ+CC (yellow area), and then mass hog the rest. As you can see, wherever he comes from, I’ll kill the hogs with the DGB. This concept was used multiple times in CWL Prem S4 and usually caught the attacker by surprise.

F – Base 6

This base was also used in CWL. The usual attack was a QC or shattered entry from 6, so I basically placed all my traps from 9 to 3. In this pic, you can see how I purposely created pathing around ADs using Teslas (which obviously can’t be detected on a fresh hit) so that Hounds would go to the ADs and get killed by the SAMs, while the Loons would path around the ADs. In the end, the attacker had no Hounds left and my ADs were hitting his Loons.

→ Deadzones & moats

While we are at it, let’s analyze deadzones and moats too. Moats are generally used to avoid an entry from an ideal entry point (in the base posted above, an ideal entry would be from 7:30, where I can just place a jump on AT/WT), while deadzones do the same thing if outside, but can also be used inside for pathing reasons. Remember, use deadzones and defenceless compartments but don’t use a defenceless core, as pathing is really easy around it.

Let’s look at this pic.

As you can see, if hogs come from the WT at 1:30, they’ll do WT-AT-AT or WT. This is where they split, and they split because of your deadzone. This is just an example, the idea is to separate hogs using a deadzone, then to pull them more and more apart until a single heal can’t cover both groups. Once you manage to do that, they either waste a heal or let hogs die. 

Let’s also look at outside deadzones.

In this pic, you can see that the ideal entry point would be right in front of AQ, but I placed Teslas to lure golems away, and there’s no way that you can jump over a deadzone if funnel isn’t done right, because the troops will just stay outside, and since Teslas are a surprise, funnel won’t be properly made.

You can also encourage a push from there by using army camps on the flanks. Also, remember to check if Teslas are one in range of the other, because otherwise the second Tesla won’t pop and you won’t get the pull you wanted.

Also remember that this is a bad example because AQ can still be reached from outside the walls, but you get the idea.

4 – Final checkup

Let’s actually see if what we built is good. Are the traps placed correctly, following the guide? Are the defences too? Can I double jump it? Can it defend the most common strats (described above)? If yes, it’s time to test it in FCs. You may use whatever CC you have, since you just have to test out some few things:

• Is the troll Tesla (if I have one) guessable?
• Is TF guessable?
• Are teslas in general guessable?
• Are GBs guessable?
• Was it 3* fresh?
• Were the spells all on point, or my pathing fucked the attacker up halfway?
• Is the DPS spread out, but with some killzones (3-4 single target defences together, forces a spell) too?
• Do I have huge defenceless zones/moats/deadzones?
• Is my base way too compact or way too wide?
• Are the storages spread out?
• Can a push get some/a lot of my traps?
• Before trying to defend the complicated strats (like QW), can it defend the easiest ones (like Bitch)?

Now, back to the drawing board. You need to fix what didn’t work right, no base is perfect. Clanmates may help, especially if they 3* it.

Test: After you fixed the points in the above list, I recommend testing starting with the most used strats first (so in this meta, Bitch first and then Sui Lalo and/or GoHo) and, if the base can defend, testing the others too. No point in making a base that can defend QW LaLo if they can just Bitch it.

Remember to pick the CC you would use in war.

5 – What’s the right CC & how to use it

Let’s briefly discuss the most common CCs combinations.

1. Hound or Golem. They can mess up an attack pretty badly. Hound is recommended when you want to defend your AQ from suicide heroes, you know the enemy BK won’t kill her so you place the hound to stop the enemy AQ. Golem is the same, but it also stops the BK. Hound can also be used when CC is in the core, just to mess up with air targeting troops and let them fail the huge push the attacker wanted, and it can stall a QW too.
2. Pekka Combo. Usually Pekka+Loon, this is particularly helpful in defending vs suicide heroes, and vs a QW because the attacker has to use AQ ability, or poison+rage, or distraction troops that he usually doesn’t have, else the AQ will die.
3. BBD Combo. By far, the most used CC, because of the high DPS of the Baby Dragon and his low space occupied. There are many variants to this.
   1. BBD+2 Valks+Wiz: heaviest DPS CC, you can use this to protect your AQ is it’s too exposed, or cover your base from almost any attacks.
   2. BBD+Witch+Valk/2 Wiz: all-round CC, you can’t go wrong with this. You use the valk if the base is weaker to ground, and wiz if it’s weaker to air.
   3. BBD+Witch+Goblins: relies on the different speed of troops, can mess up suicide hetoes or QW.
   4. BBD+Archers: if the CC is easily lurable, this is a good choice since it will take a lot of time to completely lure it. 
   5. 3 BBD: really funny, if the attacker relies on the easy AQ kill and won’t lure the CC, and you have a central CC, this can mess up the attacker pretty bad. Also useful to stop almost anything AQ does.

• I usually place my CC in the core, to avoid an easy lure and then attacks like Sui LaLo, but you can also consider having CC (slightly) offset, so that the enemy troops will go towards it, once CC troops start to exit from it, or if they lure it (with let’s say an archer), then the attacker will have to face a CC coming from a weird angle, sometimes resulting in a fail (for example, when the BBD decides to target the Healers during a QW). Offset CC, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that the attacker should be able to lure it with an archer alone, you may decide to have him invest more troops (so maybe 2 hogs instead of 1 arch).

6 – How to fix a base

When fixing a base, remember that the attacker chose to attack it without seeing the traps. The first step then is to change the traps, especially Teslas, to try to mess up with whatever attack he used. If this doesn’t work, you can remove all the outside defences + trash ring, and try to place them down again. If the attacker took advantage of a small mistake (a hole in the base, a missing wall, a jumpable compartment that you thought it wasn’t) just fix that. For anything else, you may want to work more on changing the wall layout, or set up the trash ring to avoid him entering from the point he entered from.

7 – Conclusion & links

This is really the end. Thanks for sticking with me for such a long time, I hope my guide helped, even if just a bit.

If you ever want to talk with me, I’m Marco #0264 on Discord. Don’t ask me to review your base though, but join the BB server to have all of our guys help.

If you want to help me fix the Th11 BB Guide or make a Th12 version, send a message and I’ll be right there! 🙂

Cya!

-Marco

Link to my Sui Lalo Guide

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t_9laF-thO3NHx4_D5UpWaJJc_kLdMTtrFlcFW7MKY0/edit?usp=drivesdk

Link to the BaseBuilding Server

discord.io/basebuilding

If it doesn’t work, try copy pasting it into the browser rather than entering it in the Discord App.

Link to my co-written Th10 BB Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vYxRryaUlac567UeaLXXuaZfdxf6HsUQtOLWt1cwm9Q/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Derpy’s Th10 BB Guide (more updated than the previous one)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GQ72rDzg8tEiC1DdbooXBN0g2FXoIog1jbycN_-wXxM

Link to my Th11 BB Guide

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12bgnhx3rtRqvSEZdboNCQ3W9_VxljXMDhXqkwsc5i5Q/edit?usp=drivesdk