GoLaLoon Attack Strategy

Hi folks! Is it a long time to see an attack strategy on Clash of Clans Land?

Today, I will bring to you a new 3 stars composition for both Town Hall 9 and early 10 called GoLaLoon/GoLava. After reading this guide, I am sure that you will see how easy it is to get a 3 star win at Town Hall 9!

GoLaLoon (GoLava) Attack Strategy

GoLaLoon (GoLava) Attack Strategy

GoLaLoon Army Composition

This is my example army composition. It’s interchangeable. More details are explained below!

3xArcher 8xWall Breaker 12xballoon 12xwizard 1xgolem 2xlava
king queen
3xhaste spell 1x poison spell 2xrage spell 1xjump spell
Clan Castle: golem

First, let’s talk about the army composition. In my attack I used 2 Lava Hounds, 2 Golems, 12 Balloons, 12 Wizards, 8 Wall Breakers, and a couple of clean up Archers and Goblins. As well as 2 Rage Spells, 1 Jump, 3 Haste, and a Poison Spell.

How to pick your own Army Composition

Now this is the only GoLaLoon army composition, there are many variants and it’s all dependent on the base you’ll be attacking. For example, some bases you only need to use 1 Golem instead of 2. The reason I used 2 Golems here is because I needed to completely shield my troops on two far sides. Not only that, against a max defense TH9 base, 2 Golems are usually always more effective. But if you’re up against a non-maxed TH9 base, then usually you only need to use 1 Golem.

I also used 12 Wizards, and that is actually a large amount for this attack strategy. Most people use around 8 Wizards. The main reason I used 12 is because this is an anti-3 star base. As you have the Town Hall placed outside, because the goal is to stop the attacker from 100%’ing you, not stop the attacker from getting your Town Hall. So basically, the Town Hall is just another non-defensive building, except it’s big and has lots of HP. A Town Hall level 9 has 4600 HP, while the level 6 Dark Elixir storage has the 2nd most with 3200, that’s why it’s placed next to the Archer Queen to soak damage and guard her. And that’s why you also should have lots of high HP storages around the Archer Queen to protect her, because she is the best defense against a 3 star attack. So that’s why I decided to play it safe, since I’m using 2 Golems, I should take advantage of that by using lots of Wizards against this anti-3 star base. However, most bases you’re going to find that you only need around 8 Wizards. Which also means that you can use more Balloons or another Lava Hound. My recommendation would be to use 2 Golems when dealing with a max defense TH9 base and around 8 Wizards. Or if your Heroes are under level 15, then you should definitely use 2 Golems for this strategy. Best time to only use 1 Golem is when you have really high level heroes or you’re up against a non-anti-3 star base or a base that has TH8 level defenses.

You only need about 2 or 3 Lava Hounds. I recommend 2 Lava Hounds when you’re investing a lot on your kill squad, and 3 or 4 on some occasions if you’re using 1 Golem. Don’t use more than 3 Lava Hounds if you’re up against a TH9 base with TH8 level defenses because it’s very likely that one or two of your Lava Hounds will not pop, and that becomes problematic when you invested so much of your camp space on your Lava Hounds, that you need them to pop and clean up the base.

Also, I used a Jump Spell, but Earthquake Spells are also very effective against bases with smaller compartments. I also recommend carrying at least 3 Haste Spells with this strategy, especially now that we’re given an extra donation spell slot. The Poison Spell is used for helping clean Clan Castle troops, of course.

Note:

  • You can use Haste Spell in stead of Poison Spell If your Heroes are above level 20. Otherwise, 1 Poison is always better.
  • Golem in Clan Castle is always better than Lava Hound.
  • Your Lava Hounds will need to be killed for Lava Pups. Those Lava Pups will work like the Minions. Without them, it will be quite hard to clean up the base in time.

Our example attacks is in the video below:

Let’s get 3 stars with GoLaLoon composition

Now let’s talk about the fundamentals of this attack strategy:

There are 3 parts to this attack

  1. Kill Squad = Which consists of your Barbarian King, Archer Queen, Golems, Wizards, and Wall Breakers. Many people undervalue the kill squad’s role. The kill squad is the most important part of this strategy because it dictates the outcome of the raid from the start. You must value your kill squad the most because it is what you will be using to defeat biggest threats to this strategy, which are the opposing Archer Queen, Clan Castle, and Air Defenses. So invest highly on your kill squad. You can read more about Kill Squad at here.
  2. Sweepers = The 2nd part of this strategy consists of your sweepers, which are your Lava Hounds and Balloons. Once you have killed the opposing Archer Queen and remove the Clan Castle threat and also destroyed an Air Defenses or two and a sufficient number of air attacking threats, you then summon your Lava Hounds and Balloons to finish the job.
  3. Cleaners = The last role is played by your cleaners, which are your clean up troops. Try to a save 2 or 3 Wizards or Balloons at the end to finish off any remaining structures. As well as always make sure to have some low tier clean up troops such as Archers, Goblins, or Minions. Not having any clean up troops is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make all the time as they often end up with a 99% but fail to 3 star because they didn’t bring any clean up troops or didn’t save a Wizard or two.

Some types of bases which are perfect targets for GoLaLoon:

  • Low Air Defense levels (level 4-level 6). Truly you can attack most TH9 bases with this strategy!
  • The enemy Archer Queen is next to either 2 Air Defenses or 1 Air Sweeper + 1 Air Defense.
  • The enemy Archer Queen is poorly placed towards the edge of the base.

Kill Squad Vs. Archer Queen + Clan Troops

Is to remove the opposing Archer Queen and the Clan Castle threat and take out at least 2 Air Defenses, but on some occasions taking out even 1 Air Defense is fine if you remove a  sufficient number of other air targeting defenses such as Archer Tower, Wizard Towers, Hidden Teslas, or X-Bows. Now why is the Archer Queen and Clan Castle the biggest threats you might ask? Well because the Archer Queen is the biggest threat to your Lava Hounds and Balloons. Why? Because not only is the Archer Queen the strongest point damage inflicting defense for a TH9, but also because Balloons and Lava Hounds will completely ignore her because she’s not a defensive building, so she’s basically going to drop your Balloons very quickly if you don’t remove her first. Similarly, if the Clan Castle has a Dragon, it will be just as devastating because your Balloons and Hounds will also ignore the Dragon as he quickly kills all your Balloons with his splash damage.

golaloon-attack-strategy-1

So looking at the Archer Queen’s position, we can attack this base from two good angles. From the southwest or the southeast to be able to get 2 Air Defenses as well. However, looking at the southwest, you can see that there’s a Town Hall there, so that is what makes it a less appealing direction to attack from because the Town Hall has an insane 4600 HP, so it’s going to take a while for your troops to take it down. Not only that, the Air Sweeper that’s pointing up is also very far away from this angle. So we will attack from the southeast.

Funneling

Now funneling is the most part of your deployment and I see people fail their attacks right from the start just because they failed to funnel in their kill squad. But it’s actually very easy to funnel your kill squad. All you need to do is create an “anchor.”

golaloon-attack-strategy-2

What is an anchor? An anchor is a building that pulls in your troops to funnel properly inside the base. And creating this anchor is very easy, as I’ll show you. Start by using your Golems to distract the defenses. Place Wizards behind the Golems, but leave the building in the middle untouched. This building is the anchor behind. In this example, our anchor is the Army Camp. We’re not going to destroy that Army Camp with Wizards. Instead, we’re going to leave it be, so that we can then send out our Heroes onto this Army Camp and then with the Walls open, our troops will all funnel towards the anchor building and smoothly funnel inside the base.

Invest a lot on your Kill Squad

Now remember, the kill squad is the most important part of your raid. So invest heavily on it. Use a Jump Spell or Earthquakes to open up walls to make it easier for your kill squad. I also highly recommend using a Rage Spell on your kill squad. The more Wizards you can rage, the better. A big mistake I see a lot is that people Rage their Golem instead of their Wizard. The Wizard and your Heroes are the best troops to rage. 2 Wizards are better to rage than 1 Archer Queen. So if you see that you have a Golem and 2 Wizards behind, but you also have another Golem on the other side with Archer Queen behind, you should be raging the 2 Wizards, not the Archer Queen.

Also, in this raid, my Jump Spell was completely useless because my Golem decided to travel around. And that will happen sometimes because you’re human, no one’s perfect, so you’ll sometimes make silly errors here and there, but as long as you understand the overall geist of this strategy and not many too many silly errors, you will still have a good shot at 3 starring. And that’s what I really like about this strategy, is that you don’t get punished heavily for making a small error.v

The LavaLoon Part

Now once you’ve killed the opposing Archer Queen and removed the Clan Castle threat and at least 1 Air Defense, you can then start sending in your Lava Hounds and Balloons. Proper deployment of Lava Hounds and Balloons is very important. This is always the most interesting part of the raid!

  • You should deploy your Balloons by tapping onto your screen, not sweeping because tapping is much more accurate. It only takes about 3 Balloons to one shot the average defensive structure, so you should tap and deploy 3 Balloons per defense behind your Lava Hounds and spread them widely. While if there’s a Cannon or Mortar in the way, you can instead deploy 1 or 2 Balloons onto it. While if it’s a single Hidden Tesla, you can also just deploy 2 Balloons onto it because of its low HP.
    golaloon-attack-strategy-3
  • Sometimes Wizard Towers can be just as threatening as an Air Defense. In fact, a Wizard Tower that can’t be distracted by a Lava Hound can be just as big of a threat as an Air Defense because it does splash damage can harm multiple Balloons at the same time. So what you should try to do is send your Lava Hounds towards the direction of the Wizard Towers to distract them and allow your Balloons to safely remove them.
    golaloon-attack-strategy-4
  • You should also always try to effectively spread out your Lava Hounds to cover as much ground and also distract as much defenses as possible. This is to not only safeguard your Balloons, but also to trigger any possible Red Air Bombs along that pathway. This is very important because Red Air Bombs are a huge threat to Balloons as they deal a massive amount of splash damage. For example, a level 4 red Air Bomb does 173 damage, which is about 32% damage onto a Balloon. Now imagine you have a group of 5 Balloons and a red Air Bomb hits them, that means that all your Balloons will lose 32% damage. And that’s equivalent to 865 HP in total damage, which is also equivalent to an Archer Tower attacking your Balloons for 12 seconds. While a red Air Bomb may do 32% to your Balloon, it only does about 2% to you Lava Hound because of the massive HP of your Lava Hound. So try to effectively spread your Lava Hounds to trigger possible red Air Bombs.
  • Use Haste Spells first to quickly have your Balloons go in. The reason you want to use Haste Spells first and not Rage Spell is because Haste Spell gives you only Speed, while Rage Spell gives you a boost in both Speed and Power. And since you only need about 3 Balloons to one shot most of the defenses, you don’t need to waste your Rage Spell early. While you will lose some Balloons early, so it’s better to use Rage when you have less Balloons alive so that you can use 2 Balloons to one shot a defense instead of 3 Balloons.

Cleanup

The final step is simple, use you clean up troops to finish the job. This is a pretty fast paced 3 star attack compared to other methods such as the Queen walk, and with the additional 30 seconds Supercell had recently given us, it makes it just so much easier to comfortably 3 star a base without having to worry too much about clean up troops. But it’s also safer than to be sorry, so don’t forget to carry some clean up troops.

Here are some conditions to have a 3 star win with this GoLaLoon attack strategies:

  •  Your Queen level is at least 15 and your King is at least level 10.
  • The higher level of troops you have, the more chance you can win the attack.
  • Always drop your Rage/Haste once the Air Defenses start hitting your Lava Hounds.

So i hope this guide helped a lot. This took a very long time to do, so I would really appreciate feedback from you guys! I’ll be making more of these great war strategy guides and hoping to do another one of these for TH10 and TH11 players next.

GoLaLoon is a quite hard attack strategy to do well at the first times because it requires using both air and ground ways. Practicing helps you improve your deploying troops skill and handling all situations in the battler better.

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100 COMMENTS

  3. Just wanted to provide an update. I’ve used this in our past 3 wars and I’ve always gotten at least 2 stars every time. It does take some good timing to deploy everything at once but once you get the hang of it this strat is really good in wars. Now when the second air sweeper gets added you’ll probably want to make it so your queen and king can take out a air defense PLUS an air sweeper to make things easier.

  4. Nice strategy,, currently in first war with lavahound and max loons,,, I like the dynamics of this attack I’ll be testing this attack aswell as other lava attacks I’ve read here on cocland

    Cheers ?

  7. Hey Guys im a maxed th9 and i think Goho or Golaloon are the 2 best attack strategies for 3 star th9 bases.

    Again – nice post. perfect description!

    Do you know – THE MAX ATTACK ?
    Its an overpowered GoLaLoon Attack with the EQ Spell. The Key is to use all your spells on the Killsquad (2 golems, Kind & Queen, 4-6 wiz).
    You take 4 EQs, 1 Poisen, 1 Heal, 1 Rage.
    The rest of your army are 3 hounds and the rest fill up with loons.
    Its really effective.
    Here you can watch it on yt:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQu1xMO4Png

    And there is a Variation for Hogs. Max Attack with Goho:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU2a2qN9Sk8

    Maybe you can bring a Post about that strategy. In My opinion its actually the strongest strategy for all th9. With those both Variations you can nearly bash all th9er bases to 3 star.

    Greetz Pi 🙂 and clash on man

  10. Im still working on finsihing Th8 but GoLaLoon sounds interesting. Recommendation: Maxed Purple Spell and Black Air Balloons, a Level Three+ Stone Monster, A Level Two+ Flying Lava Dog, and a Jumpy Jumpy spell Level 2+ As Well. If Arrow Shooters, should be Level Five and Goblins too. Haste makes Waste spell not recommended. Thanks again to read(if you did)

  15. Can you do a govaho guide? Ive seen some crazy attacks and i wonder if you could do a little guide about how to use valks in a proper way. That would be great! And nice work btw. I use golaloon most of the times. My army: 12 loons 3 lavas 2 golems(one in cc) 8 wizards 4 wallbreakers. 1 jump 2 poison 2 rage and 2 haste. Try it out!

  16. I’ve tried this several times in war and never got 3 stars. Heroes have been between 20- 25 on the attempts. Sometimes I just don’t have enough firepower to clear up all defences and most recently the enemy heroes distract my killsquad from destroying the air defences.

  23. Great article! Really helped a lot. Only managed 85% on my first try, 2-starred a max TH9 base for our war, I’m a bit disappointed because I forgot to cater for a large bunch of buildings at the top of the base which included a cannon and AT, so lost troops bit by bit to them.
    Thank you!

  25. Thanx Will for this gr8 strategy. Took some practice but results are awesome. We haven’t faced a strong clan thanks to .5 strategy but this strategy helps to 3 star any level TH9 especially for those who have low heroes. Only crucial thing is the time as the balloons are damn slow. This posted attack came to very last second. 🙂

  26. Usually I stick to mauling players with my goho with similar kill squad entry but I really want to learn golaloon for bases I cant goho. First attempt with a slightly smaller kill squad due to my proficiency with the kill squad rush I 3 starred a near maxed th9. Made some messy mistakes but nothing unfixable with some extra practice. Brilliant guide

    • Hello mate,
      You shouldn’t use EQ on the first compartment. You can easily break it with Wall Breakers.
      You should use Poison Spell to deal with the Lava Pups.
      You should deploy the first first Lava Right next to the bottom Archer Tower and drop just 1-2 Balloons for the Cannon. Also, you should use the Haste to deal with the Air Sweepers.

      Just keep practicing and you can master this strategy for sure!

  29. This is a great strategy i was using this for a long time, this and GoHo and i prety much 3 starred every TH9 base, now im TH 9.5 and im learnin Queen Walk with gowiwi and LavaLoons. Hope they wont nerf queen.

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