The Basics

The Bomber is a ranged,  Splash damaging unit. It is unlocked at Builder Barracks level 5. The Bomber in concept is pretty simple, they are Wall Breakers without a suicide mission so the throw the bombs instead of holding them until they bow up. Like the Wall Breaker they do much more damage to walls than any building (15X more) but unlike the Wall Breaker the Bomber will bomb structures outside of the Walls. They have no "preferred target" meaning the will attack the closest building but they also consider walls as a building therefore if the wall is the closest object (even if it already has a giant hole directly in front of it) then they will continue to attack the walls. Guard Post troops will pull the Bomber off of any building that they are on and the Bomber will attack the Guard Post troops until they are dead or out of range. Once the Guard Post troops are either dead or out of range the Bomber will continue where they stand, attacking the closest building.

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COST

The Bomber has a pretty large price tag to get into Star Laboratory. Level 2 is 150,000 and they max out at 340,000 elixir on level 16. Their upgrade cost pattern is very inconsistent. They jump up 50K for lvl 3 and 4 then bump down to either 20K or 30K per level until level 9 where they go from 360K in lvl 8 to a whopping 800K in lvl 9. They are not a cheap troop to upgrade but their unique attack AI makes them extremely valuable at any cost.

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THE BIG BOMB ABILITY

The Bombers special ability gets unlocked at LvL2 and allows them to throw a much stronger bomb at whatever the 1st object it comes into contact with. Try not to waste this ability on a wall! Drop the Bomber troops 1 at a time so that the 1st Bomber can crack open the first wall and the following Bombers can use their "Ability Bombs" on a potential defense in the 2nd layer of buildings. Utilizing the Bomber's Special Ability will be the difference between the coveted 3 star or the dreaded 1 star.

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THE SCOUT

The decision to use the Bomber or not can be a fairly simple one because the Bomber will never be used all by itself and the group of troops that it will be used with are quite versatile. Bombers are used in combination with the Boxer Giants (used as tanks) and either the Sneaky Archers or the Raged Barbarians or a mixture of all 3 called the GiaBarch. Many advanced players try to tackle the base about the same way. They are looking for bases that have the majority of the ranged defenses on one side of the base. This is the side that they will attack from. The concept behind it is that they try to take down all of the ranged defenses while their troops are healthy and numerous. As they begin to loose troops the part of the army that’s bringing up the rear of the attack would also be the attackers ranged troops (Sneaky Archers and/ or the Bombers) so in concept if the Boxer Giants go down and / or the Raged Barbarians go down the troops that remain will out range the defenses and have their way with the remainder of the base. If the defending base is divided up evenly and there are ranged defenses all areas of the base it will be a little harder to finish the base off because once the tanks get eliminated the ranged defenses will have their way with the low Hit Point troops like the Sneaky Archers and the Bombers. Much to my surprise there have been many, many instances where I've seen the attacking army plan to break through the outer walls and tackle the Archer Towers, Multi Mortar and assortment of Cannons only to loose their entire army doing so… except for the Bombers. Then the Bombers methodically work their way through the back side of the base, throwing their bombs at the walls and defenses from a safe distance and picking up the 3. This was from a good scout and identifying that the last 1/3rd of the base (from the direction that they chose to attack from) only had air targeting defenses and the Crusher, all of which Bombers can take out from a safe distance. Who would have known that the Bomber would be the last troop standing and be so effective finishing off so many bases. They key it to attack the base from the side that has the most ranged defenses and to use your tanking troops in front of the Bombers, meanwhile using your Bombers to blast through the walls in order to funnel your tanking troops into the core of the base.. You can call it the Bomber buddy system because both troops rely on the other for its best chance for success.

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EASE OF USE

The Bomber may be a very popular troop to use but anyone who has tried to simply add them to the back end of the attack without doing their homework has learned that they are not as easy as you may think. They have low hit points and if exposed to the defenses at all become wiped from the base in an instant. I believe we such a high success rate because the base building in the Builder Base has leaned towards single compartment bases that consist of a large number of the defenses simply sitting in the core of the base surrounding the Builder Hall. This design when seen over and over again allows attackers to identify the patterns of defenses, easily remembering the best way to come in and take out the majority of the base with the Boxer Giants and Raged Barbarians. Those troops will usually push their way to the Crushers before the Crushers thump the, out of existence but no worries because the Bombers can now step up and take out the Crushers long before that are in the Crusher's range. Repetition is the key to success with the Bomber and because there is no "Bomber" attack we are talking about repetition using the Boxer Giants and Raged Barbarians to tank for the Sneaky Archers and the Bombers. Why not use the Bombers with troops like the Night Witch? Pretty simple answer, the Night Witch does best when they stay away from the defenses all together ad let the Bats that they spawn do most of their work for them. Attacking players don't really want to give the Night Witches easy access to the core of the base with the actual Witch, they want them to make their way around the outside of the base and keep on spawning away. Also using the Camp space for a couple of Bombers over a pair of Night Witches just seems to be hard to justify. Keep it simple and use the Bombers as part of the Raged Barbarian attack, the Boxer Giant attack or any combination of Boxer Giant, Raged Barbarian and Sneaky Archer attacks.

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DEFENSE

Defending against a well rounded Gibarch attack (which may be the most common troops configuration that utilizes the Bomber in it) may be one of the hardest ground based attacks to defend against. The high Hit Point Boxer Giant and explosive attacking power of the Raged Barbarians in combination with a smart deployment of Sneaky Archers and Bombers have a proven track record against almost every base I've built and I'm pretty sure with most of yours as well. There are however a few outlining principles that if followed during your base build will help keep you out of trouble with 90% of the attack on your builder base. 1st is to spread the wealth… be sure to place all of your Cannons and Archer Towers and evenly throughout your base as possible. Beware of base designs that pull all of the defenses away from the outer walls into the core of the base. Advanced players will simply come into the base opposite side of the Crushers and level everything up to the Crusher which then allows the Sneaky Archers and Bombers to come in after and take out the last part of the base from a distance. I've seen one tactic work very well against the Bombers especially. Leave 2 sections of walls out of your base design. Once the base is 100% built (except for those 2 sections of walls and the small Mines) Now add the last 2 sections of walls parallel to the outer walls with a gap between the 2 sections of walls that you re adding. Visualize this. Your outer wall is running across the top side of the base which is where you suspect they will be attacking from most of the time. The outer walls are 5 sections of wall wide running from the left to right of the screen. There is a layer of non-defensive buildings (trash building as they are called) on the outside of the top side of the outer walls, so walls from left to right, layer of buildings then you want to add the last 2 sections of walls parallel with the outer-top walls. Place one section of Wall, lining up the left corner even with the left corner of the existing wall (so now the left side looks like outer walls then layer of trash buildings and then single section of Walls) and then do the same on the right side. Line up the single wall with the right side of your existing walls (so the right looks like Existing outer walls then a layer of trash buildings and then the single section of wall)

This seemed a little confusing so I've added some visuals under this section to help out. Now, the Idea behind these last 2 sections of walls is that all of your troops will avoid them except for the Bombers who will have to destroy the entire single sections before moving past it. Utilize 2 of your small Mines on each section of the individual walls and with a little luck the Boxer Giants will not trigger them but the Bomber will when they are compelled to do what they instinctively do and blow up the walls, Use a strategy like this or make up your own similar one. Keep in mind the traps are vital in every raid and being smart with the traps and setting them up in areas that encourage the right troops to contact their respective trap. Separate the traps from the defenses to avoid the Boxer Giants from triggering them **Mines and Mega Mines hardly scratch Giants but will end hordes of the smaller troops and Spring and Push Traps don't thin out hording troops well enough yet if you can spring 3/4 Bower Giants off the map you have a big advantage!

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FINAL THOUGHTS

I would have never guessed that the Bomber would play such a big role in the Raged Barbarian Attacks and the GiaBarch attacks. At this moment I would guess that 80% of the 3 star attacks on any of my accounts are being 3 starred by 1-2 Bombers at the end of a crafty raid where the attacker managed to carve out all of my ranged defenses and even if my defenses take out the brunt of the army those last 1-2 pesky Bomber blast their way to a 3. Hats off to the Devs on this one. They have managed to program a little niche into the Bombers that I never expected. My advice to the new players would be to max out the Boxer Giants, Raged Barbarians and Bombers. Use these 3 troops to attack with (unlike what I've done/ I've maxed troops like the Baby Dragon that has some exceptionally high "weight" associated with them and this has forced me to deal with some exceptionally strong opponents. The combination of Boxer Giant, Raged Barbarian and Bomber is a light weight.. in terms of war/base weight… troop combo that’s is exceedingly effective) and you will find yourself fighting against either even or lesser players most of the time no matter how well you upgrade your defenses. Be smart with your traps, it's worth adding pit falls for the small troops like the Bomber because they do end up being a high impact troop if you don't incorporate specific areas of the base designed solely for them. Finally, don't get discouraged when you are not 3 starring right away using the Bombers behind your GiaBarch or whatever tanks and Bombers. This will come with time and practice. Once you get the Bomber attacks down you will have a light war/base weight attack that’s got a proven track record all the way from the early Builder Hall levels to the highest available levels.