In my previous article, I discussed one troop combination that makes raiding bases for trophies and stars particularly easy. However, if all you're raiding for is resources, Giants and Wall Breakers are going to cut deeply into your profit margins. In this article, I'll summarize a simple strategy for Clash of Clans raiding that you can do around Town Hall 6 through Town Hall 8, and how to use it to exploit idle bases for massive profits.
The goal of this strategy is NOT trophies and stars!
This strategy is commonly referred to as "BARCH" by Clash of Clans regulars. The "B" is for Barbarians, and the "ARCH" is for Archers. Since Barbarians and Archers are both cheap troops that are fast to train, you can target more enemy bases more often, and the profit margins are higher.
The goal of this strategy is to gain resources. You will probably not be earning a ton of trophies this way - you may even lose some, depending on the fights you pick.
If you're trying to win battles during Clan Wars, remember that resources are meaningless and stars are everything! The strategy I will describe here is terrible for Clan Wars. I covered a really good strategy for Clan Wars in my previous article.
Another common variant of this strategy is to throw Minions into the mix. This alternative strategy is called "BAM" for Barbarians, Archers, and Minions. Minions require Dark Elixir and the Dark Barracks. Chances are you're not going to be able to get Minions regularly until about Town Hall 8 when you get the Dark Elixir Drill.
What troops to train for BARCH
The BARCH strategy for Clash of Clans is not particularly complex, and it can be done at almost any level. It really starts to shine when you're late in the Town Hall 6 timeframe. By this point, you should have 3 star Barbarians and Archers, at least.
To train for BARCH, just train:
- 2/3rds of your Army Camp capacity as Archers
- 1/3rd of your Army Camp capacity as Barbarians
So if you've got around 150 Army Camp capacity, train 100 Archers and 50 Barbarians. That's it. You don't need anything else. No Wall Breakers, no Wizards, no Giants, nada. You don't need any spells, either.
Pro Tip You can play a bit with the ratio here, you may want more or less Barbarians, but generally speaking you want the bulk of your forces to be Archers.
Variant As you start to max out town hall 7, especially once your camps are upgraded and your troops are upgraded, you might be able to take "tougher" bases. Sometimes you can hit a base with some low-level walls that still has a lot of resources. I will sometimes take 3-4 wall breakers along for just such an occasion. The lost camp space is made up for by the increased wall-penetrating power.
Finding BARCH raid targets
Now we've got to pick a target. The best targets for BARCH are folks with full collectors outside of their walls. This is a surprisingly common base setup.
You will want to take a look at how many resources are available and where they are stored. Unlike the Giants strategy I detailed last time, this troop training only really costs about 15,000 elixir for level 3 Barbarians and Archers. That's about a tenth of the cost of the Giants/Wall Breakers/Spells strategy! Thus, you can afford to hit bases that aren't nearly as fruitful.
I also mentioned checking where those resources are stored. You will want to find bases where the collectors outside of the base's walls are full, and the storage bins are pretty empty by comparison. That way, you can get the bulk of the resources without having to breach any walls.
Pro Tip Generally I have the best luck with this strategy early in the morning, when people haven't checked in with their bases and stockpiled the resources from their collectors overnight. Now, it's always early in the morning somewhere so in the middle of the day in the US, you might go searching for Chinese player bases, for example.
Deploying troops for a BARCH raid
Once you've got your Barbarians and Archers trained up, and you've found your target, now it's time to raid. This is also pretty simple!
Just drop a few Barbarians near each collector, and the follow that up with about twice as many Archers. Rinse and repeat until all the collectors have groups attacking them. Then just sit back and watch the carnage!
Pro Tip I find it easiest to pick Barbarians, then tap and hold for a second, and then swipe across the screen to deploy a rough "line" of Barbarians. Then do the same for the Archers, but double back so that you end up doubling up on Archers.
Other tips for maximum efficiency!
Sometimes you don't need to use all your troops to take the collectors down. Depending on where the defenses are, you might find that your Archers can take out the collectors without getting hit. It can be a significant cost and time savings if you can conserve Barbarians in these cases.
Overtrain! While you're searching for a target, keep your Barracks pumping out Archers and Barbarians. As you use troops, your base will continue training. This will shorten your downtime while you prep for the next attack. Note that once you start to search for a target, your troop totals stop updating. Thus, if you have 200 camp space, you might consider starting to search for a target when you're 2/3rds full (140 troops) so that while you're searching you'll be starting to train troops for your next raid.
This strategy doesn't always net you trophies. I find that often if I can take down the vast majority of a base's collectors and whatever else is left outside the walls, I end up with a star. Bear in mind, though, that trophies aren't really as important as resources in this game, so I wouldn't be overly concerned if you end up on a losing streak, as long as you're banking major Gold and Elixir.
Conclusion
In Clash of Clans, the BARCH strategy is an easy to deploy strategy that will net you massive amounts of Gold and Elixir with minimal effort and resources invested. It opens up way more bases that you'd normally skip over because they wouldn't normally be profitable, and the low investment means you keep more of your winnings even when you make a major raid. It's not the most sophisticated strategy, and it's useless in Clan Wars, but it's a strategy for your raiding toolbox nonetheless.