(Image: Supercell via HGG)
Penned by Tommy Defonteny
Tommy is our expert Clash of Clans writer.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
When you reach Town Hall level 5 in Clash of Clans, a handful of troops are available to you. It is important to understand how to use these troops strategically to maximize star and resource gains from raids and when to pick them over the array of options that will become available to you as you progress. This guide will explore the most effective attack strategies for town hall level 5 in Clash of Clans, as well as the necessary troop compositions to assure consistent victories during your assaults.
Get to Know Your Town Hall Level 5 Troops
These are all of the troops you will have available to you once your Town Hall is upgraded to level 5.
- Barbarian (lvl 3)
- Archer (lvl 3)
- Giant (lvl 2)
- Goblin (lvl 3)
- Wall Breaker (lvl 2)
- Balloon (lvl 2)
- Wizard (lvl 2)
- Lightning Spell (lvl 4)
Best Clash of Clans Armies for TH5: Top 8 Attack Strategies
The strategies below are ranked in no particular order.
TH5 Attack Strategy #1: Giants-Wizards-Archers
Recommended Army:
- 8 Giants
- 8 Wizards
- 2 Wallbreakers
- 24 Barbarians
- 35 Archers
When gauging your attack while using the GiWiArch strategy, your first going to want to determine the quickest path for your Giants to reach the mortar.
Once this path is determined you’ll first want to deploy one or two barbarians (red circles) as fodder to set off any hidden traps. After you ensure the path is trap free, deploy Wall Breakers (blue circles) to clear a path for the Giants, which you would deploy all of them in the area of the yellow circle.
After the Giants begin making their way through the gaps in the walls, thanks to the Wall Breakers, you’ll next need to deploy wizards on both sides of the Giants. This will help create a funnel effect, allowing your Giants to charge into the heart of the base.
Lastly, you’ll want to deploy your Barbarians on the opposite side of the base furthest from the Wizards Tower. Your remaining troops can be deployed to help defeat defenses and destroy other buildings around the base.
TH5 Attack Strategy #2: Clan Healer
Recommended Army:
- 10 Giants
- 51 Archers
- 3 Wall Breakers
- 7 Wizards
For this strategy, you are going to need to have a Healer in your Clan Castle. When focusing on the attack, you’re going to want to deploy your Giants in a position to attack the Mortar, Wizard Tower, and Air Defense.
To best achieve this, you’re going to want to determine which of those three defensive structures is most easily accessible.
As seen in this image, the circle shows where you’ll want to focus your Giants. You’ll want to pick which specific defense to target first and create a funnel to aid in your Giants attack.
Before you deploy your Giants, use your Wall Breakers to draw troops from your enemy’s Clan Castle. After the troops are drawn out, use a Giant and 2 Wizards to attack the enemy troops.
Once the Clan Castle is clear, deploy your Giants near the defense you want to attack. Place wizards and archers to the sides of the giants to create the funnel. Deploy the Healer behind this offensive line and out of reach of the Air Defense.
TH5 Attack Strategy #3: BARCH
Recommended Army:
- 45 Barbarian
- 90 Archers
The BARCH strategy is not an early-game 3-star earning tactic. It’s better used as a farming strategy where you simply overwhelm enemy structures with a wave of lower-powered troops. For BARCH those troops are specifically Barbarians and Archers.
For best success, you’ll want your total amount of Barbarians to be about half of the Archers.
Placing your Archers and Barbarians in any of the circles against this layout would keep your troops away from defenses like the mortar and wizard tower while giving them ample access to resources structures and less powerful defenses.
TH5 Attack Strategy #4: Balloons
Recommended Army:
- 27 Balloons
- Lightning Spell
The Balloons strategy focuses on a single wave of heavy power to attempt to overwhelm your opponent. The main focus is to avoid deploying your Balloons in a single group so that way the Air Defenses can’t reach all of them at once.
Deploying your Balloons in a curved shape will prevent them from being overwhelmed by your opponent’s Air Defense
TH5 Attack Strategy #5: Goblin Raid
Recommended Army:
- 80 Goblins
- 6 Giants
- 3 Wall Breakers
- 19 Archers
- Lightning Spell
The Goblin Raid strategy is another approach that’s focused on farming resources rather than getting 3 stars. Early gaming farming tactics are key to success in the game as the more resources you have at your disposal earlier in the game, the quicker you can advance.
The first two steps to this strategy will be to take out the mortar to best protect your wave of Goblins. You’ll want to use your Lightning Spell on the mortar first, which in this layout, is in the blue circle. Then you’ll want to deploy your Giants near the mortar to finish it off. If you chose to include Wall Breakers in your army, this would be a good time to use them to help give your Giants better access to the mortar. The red circles show where you could place Giants to get them to the mortar the fastest way possible on a layout similar to the image.
After your Giants have destroyed the enemy mortar, it’s time to deploy your Goblins and support troops, in this case, your Archers.
Looking at the example layout, you’ll want to deploy your Goblins in the yellow areas, keeping them semi-spread out will prevent defenses from overwhelming your goblins, and will give them access to all resources spread across the base. The red areas are where you would want to deploy your Archers to help save time for your Goblins to raid resources.
Chances are, you won’t get three stars with this strategy. However, with proper Goblin and Archer placement, you will be able to walk away with all of your opponent’s treasures.
TH5 Attack Strategy #6: Archers and Balloons
Recommended Army:
- 15 Balloons
- 60 Archers
- Lightning Spell
When using this strategy, you’ll find it’s more on the simple side. You’re only managing two different types of troops and you’re ultimately looking to overwhelm your opponent’s defenses. The first offensive move you want to make is to deploy your Lightning Spell around the Air Defense.
The next step will be to deploy your Balloons in a curved shape around the mortar. Following this, your next step will be to deploy your Archers near the Air Defenses but it’s key to keep them out of reach of the mortar until it’s destroyed by your Balloons. The placement of the Archers would look something like the following:
TH5 Attack Strategy #7: Giants and Balloons
Recommended Army:
- 7 Giants
- 2 Wall Breakers
- 1 Archer
- 19 Balloons
- Lightning Spell
This layout will focus on the combination of the Giant’s ground attacks supported by Balloons in the air. Wall Breakers will be used to more efficiently get your Giants into the center of your opponent’s base and the final troop can be any troop that only takes up one housing space like a Barbarian or Goblin. It’s never useful to leave any space for troops in your army, so fill it up even if the troop won’t be a big part of the attack. At the end of the day, a troop causing damage is a good thing.
The first thing you’ll want to do, like most strategies, is deploy your Lightning Spell over the Air Defense. Then, with a combination of Wall Breakers and Giants, you’ll want to finish off the Air Defense. Next, you’ll want to use your Balloons.
Deploying your Balloons in a curve shape, as we’ve mentioned before, will allow your Balloons to avoid taking the significant damage they would from Air Defenses if they were clumped together. This formation will allow the Balloons to come at your enemy’s mortar from all angles. The quicker you can take out the mortar, the quicker your giants can move further into the base.
TH5 Attack Strategy #8: Giants and Wizards
Recommended Army:
- 11 Giants
- 2 Wall Breakers
- 19 Wizards
With our final strategy, we’re going to focus on another funnel-type approach to the attack. Our first step will be to deploy the Giants and Wall Breakers to initiate the attack against the mortar. This will look something like the following with the blue being Wall Breaker deployment, and the yellow for Giants:
Following the deployment of your Giants, you’re going to want to place Wizards on both sides of the group of Giants to provide support. Keep in mind you will want to save 5 Wizards to help aid at the end of the attack, so with 19 total wizards, 14 will be used in the initial attack, meaning you should place 7 Wizards on both sides of the Giants to help form the funnel.
The blue marks are where you would want to deploy your groups of Wizards, the yellow for Giants. After the first wave of Giants and Wizards make their way into the base and destroy the mortar, you’ll want to deploy your last 5 Wizards behind the front line to provide one last wave of support.
Join the High Ground
Now that you have a variety of the best attack strategies and armies for Town Hall level 5, take your newfound knowledge and go dominate with your troops. Don’t forget to check out our Clash of Clans hub for more content.
Happy Clashing!
