Hog Riders are 5 housing space troops that attack

defenses 1st on every raid. Once all of the Defenses are

destroyed they will attack other structures and troops but

NOT before all of the defenses are destroyed. This means

that they are defenseless if other troops like Clan Castle

troops or those pesky Skeleton Trap Skeletons lock onto

them and attack. On paper Hog Riders do not look like that

big of a deal. They have average Hit Points, maxing out at a mere

640 and their DPS for a maxed Hog peaks out at 135 So why are the Hog Riders one of the Elite troops in Clash of Clans? Lets start out with the hopping War Hogs they ride on.. they can jump over Walls! So instead of having

to chop through a wall that has thousands of Hit Points

they just jump  right over them. To answer the most

common question  of them all "how many walls can a

Hog Rider jump over?" the answer is simply all of them!

Yes, all of them, any thickness, just keep in mind that

they are going to head to the closest defense so they will

not just Jump over walls for no reason, they have to get

pulled over the walls be a close-by defensive structure.

This ability makes the Hog Rider on of the most deadly 3

star specialist troops in the game.

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       HOG RIDERS ON OFFENSE When you are planning to use Hog Riders as your main troop on your raid there are several steps that you should take and a few precautionary measures that need to be considered. 1st thing is that Hogs DO NOT DEFEND themselves. If you begin your attack before their Clan Castle Troops and/or Heroes are destroyed your chances of a successful attack are not very good. We take care of these troop issues with what we call your "Kill Squad" these are troops that will go in ahead of the Hogs and trigger the opposing CC troops, confront their Heroes and if all goes well push their way into the base far enough to set off at least 1 set of their Double Giant Bombs or commonly knowns as DBB. A common kill squad consists of a  few heavy troops like Golems or Giants and several high powered attackers like Wizards, Witches or even your own Heroes, mainly the Archer Queen. I won't get into the Kill Squad too much but simply stated, you need to scout the base, find the probable locations of any of the Giant Bombs, especially areas where there are room for two right next to each other that’s located in between two defenses (common DBB location) and send you kill squad into the base towards that area. Then the Kill Squad should simultaneously confront both the Clan Castle Troops and the Heroes on the way to your probable DBB zone.. Sound complicated? It actually is a very complex series of events.. Send in the Kill squad, trigger the Clan Castle troops and kill them, continue towards the probable BB area in their base and eliminate their Heroes on the way. Once you reach and hopefully trigger the explosion of their Double Giant Bombs, you are ready to start dropping your Hog Riders into the fight.

        Keep in mind that this is one of MANY ways that advanced players use the Hog Riders.. But a really good one. If things went well for the Kill Squad and you were able to destroy all 3 key targets (CC Troops, Heroes and one DBB set up) then you are well on your way to a successful 3 star Hog Rider attack. Now you spawn the Hog Riders (either in 2-3 large groups of 6-10 troops or 2-3 hog riders per defensive structure.. These are called Mass hog OR Surgical Hog attacks) and watch their pathing through the base. You need to lead the Hog Rides with your Heal Spells (this is a must BTW) allowing the Hogs to spend as much time inside the Heal Spells as possible. This will take tons of practice.. Timing and understanding where the Hog Riders want to go next are the key points to 3 starring using hogs. I would suggest that anyone that is serious about using Hog Riders as their main attack to go and do what I did and watch as many attacks as possible on You Tube. We have a famous player named Jake from the OneHive clan that has TONS of material on the Hog Rider attacks. Follow the link and see for yourself.. He's pretty awesome.

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       HOG RIDERS ON DEFENSE: (DEFENDING VS HOG RIDERS) PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GIANT BOMB DOES NOT DO X1.5 DAMAGE ON HOGS ANYMORE BUT THE GIANT BOMB TECHNIQUE IS STILL YOUR BEST OPTION! You should have one goal in mind when trying to defend against the Hog Riders.. That’s your DBB placement. You want to lure the Hogs over the Double Giant Bombs all at the same time because if the attacking player has a Heal Spell over your BB location (and they will) and your BB are set up in a manner that allows the Hogs to trigger them one at a time, they will survive the encounter, 3 star your base and have you scratching your head. The best way to encourage this is to set up your DBB in a very specific way. I will give you one example in detail and leave the rest up to your trial and error. In this example I will use the best case scenario for killing the Hog Riders. 1st place a Wizard Tower on your map. Then place one Giant Bomb on the east side of the Wizard tower lined up with the Wizard Towers pedestal. Next place the 2nd Giant bomb directly above the 1st which should be aligned with the Wizard standing on top of the pedestal. Next place your Bomb Tower on the east side of the Giant Bombs. There should be no space between the Wizard Tower, the Giant Bombs and the Bomb Tower.. They should all touch one another. Next step is where most players go wrong. They try to surround the Giant Bombs with defenses to ensure they trigger the BB. This will only split the Hogs up. Place either Storages, Barracks or Collectors directly above and below the Wizard Tower, BB and Bomb Tower so when you are looking from north to south you have a row of non defensive structures (Storages, Collectors etc.) then your row of defenses with the DBB in the center of them, then another row of non defensive structures directly to the south of your defenses. This will force the Hog Riders to go from one defense, directly over the DBB's on their way to the 2nd defensive structure. If all goes well this set up will HELP end many Hog raids for you! Now that Hog Rider take X1 damage from Giant Bombs setting up your DBB trap in between your Wizard Tower and Bomb Tower is VERY important. You NEED the added damage from these two defenses (which both do splash damage and hurt ALL the troops in the area) in combination with the DBB blast to wipe out the Hog Riders!

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Upgrading your Hog Riders should be a no-brainer. Maxed Hog Riders can beat what ever Town Hall level they are maxed out in. For example in TH8 you can upgrade your Hog Riders to level 4.. Level 4 Hogs can 3 star any TH8 no matter what the base looks like with the proper planning. Its not until TH10 and the Multi Inferno Towers that the Hog Riders are no longer a massive threat. Although upgrading you Hog Riders are extremely helpful careful deployment is really the key to the Hog Rider. Damage Inc.'s Nirvana aka NirvDamage use lvl 1 Hogs as a clean up troop well into TH8. She simply waited for a defense to target troops on the interior of the base and deployed her lvl 1 "piggie" behind them and watched 3-4 Hog Riders clear out up to 10 defenses while never taking one shot from the defenses themselves. No one really knows how she did it!

       We hear a lot about the Hybrid armies in Clash of Clans. In my opinion the Hog Rider along with the Balloon are the key troops in any Hybrid configuration. They are what we call CLEAN UP troops. By adding 8-12 Hog Riders at the end of just about any attack you will turn your basic attack into a Hybrid attack. For example you take the widely used GOWIPE attack that consists of Golem/ P.E.K.K.A./ Wizards and you use less Wizards, maybe one P.E.K.K.A. instead of two and then use a small group of Hog Riders at the end of the attack and you just increase the chances of bringing the 2 star Gowipe attack up to a 3 star Gowipe Hybrid attack.

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       Hog Riders and the META- As the game of Clash of Clans evolves the troop combos and defensive postures change as well. What works in TH9 may not work in TH10 and what worked pre-update (any update) may not work post update. One thing in for sure SuperCell take pride in ALL of their troops and wants any and all premiere troops to have an effective roll from the Town Hall they first become available in all the way to the latest max TH... As of June 2017 this will ring true once again as the Hog Riders get a HUGE Buff making them a viable troop for TH10 and 11... at last! This is great news for the Hoggers out there and horrible news for anyone and everyone else attempting to defend against them.