CoC BH8 - Mitch Attack Strategy

My all-time favorite Night Witch attack strategy, and the one I really cut my teeth on at BH6, would have to be Mitch.  The Mitch strat uses a mix of Beta Minions and Night Witches - at BH8, I typically run with 3/3, although I’ve been known to mix it up and go with 4/2 or 2/4 if I happen upon a particularly unique base (which is not very often).

As I say frequently: the Night Witch’s strength is in her Bats.  A large swarm of Bats can take down most defenses in nothing flat.  I’ve run Night Witch attacks that ended in less than a minute.  This is why you want to drop the Night Witches at the same spot or very close to each other.  However, there’s a big danger there…one MegaMine and your attack ends before it begins.  This is because the Night Witch is a weak troop - probably the weakest in the game.  Although you’ll see the occasional Night Witch spam, that really only works well against low defenses and poorly designed bases.  

The Night Witch, as a troop, really needs a tank to distract enemy defenses - her HP at level 16 is a whopping 389. The MultiMortar is quite simply the biggest threat to any Night Witch attack - one salvo of a max level MultiMortar will often end Night Witch based attacks; two will definitely end them (200DP per salvo).  A single blast from a level 8 DC will take out one Night Witch - each shot hits for 98 points and there are 4 in a salvo.  A single blast from the Roaster delivers 300DP.  And the new MegaTesla - which hits TWO troops within close proximity of each other courtesy of Chain Lightning - is lethal to the Night Witch from level 1 (440DP per shot).

In the GiWitch strategy, we use Boxer Giants to tank.  Mitch, though, only has the Battle Machine and you really want him to be able to do some damage as well as tank, so this strategy offers multiple tanks.  First and foremost - you deploy the Night Witches far enough away from the enemy base to give the Bats time to clear any Mines/MegaMines set to air and take down a few defenses.  They’ll also distract air targeting defenses.  That’s when you send in your Beta Minions - working  a little behind the Bats, the Beta Minions have much more firepower and will knock out key defenses.  This reduces the effect of the big guns on the Night Witches AND on both Bats and Beta Minions.  As the Night Witches get closer to the base, you’ll deploy the Battle Machine to tank.

In a perfect attack scenario, the Bats and/or Beta Minions will get the MultiMortar down.  It’s range is what makes it so deadly; properly designed, many bases position the MultiMortar in such a way that it will reach the outer edge of the base and can do significant damage to ground troops trying to break through the outer layer and walls.  If it survives, though, you have to get the Battle Machine in there to distract it or the Night Witches will go down quickly.  Of course, the ideal here is to have the MultiMortar lock on to the Battle Machine and not have all your Night Witches running right next to the Battle Machine.  Remember: the MultiMortar is a splash defense and will hit the Battle Machine and anything around it.  The same thought process goes for other splash defenses and even the MegaTesla (lightning can chain to a Night Witch very easily).

There are two common methods of deploying this attack….

Corner Deployment
This is probably the most common deployment strategy.  The Night Witches are dropped in the corner furthest from the base, providing maximum time and distance for Bats to hit the base and do their thing (clear air Mines/MegaMines, take down junk buildings, maybe hit a key defense or two).  Choosing the corner is really one of personal preference - my preference is to go after the MultiMortar for the reasons I mentioned above.  If I can’t get to the MultiMortar easily, I’ll often go for one of the other key defenses, especially Air Bombs.

Straight Line Deployment 
Sometimes, the base is laid out in such a way as an attack from one side (rather than the corner) makes sense.  You won’t get quite the clustering of Bats you achieve with a corner attack, but you get enough that they still work well.  The dependency here is what you want to clear early.  This deployment works well against some box bases and when key defenses are along an edge of the enemy base.  It’s not that much different than the corner deployment, but you do need to put in a little more time breaking down the base defenses and your Battle Machine goes in earlier. 

Now…the big caveat here…don’t forget to look for ground mines!

Way back when, players were taking 4 camps of Night Witches, dropping them in a corner, then waiting for the win.  And it worked too - WAY too well.  So…defenders started placing a MegaMine in the upper right hand corner of the base, with their base in the lower left corner, resulting in a quick demise to the attack.  This matured a bit as players became better at directing enemy deployment - getting your opponent to drop his/her troops where you want them to go so you can shore it up against certain attacks.  Now we sometimes see minefields!  These tactics have only become more likely with the prevalence of Raged Barbarian attacks.

You can tank by dropping your Battle Machine at the corner first, letting him walk ahead a bit to clear anything on the ground, or your can drop your Night Witches a bit more slowly - say…one every couple of seconds.  To combat this latter strategy, a lot of players moved the MegaMine down about half way between the corner of the game grid and the base.  Send just one Night Witch down, though, and it’s a minor sacrifice.  Having six Army Camps at BH8 goes a LONG way here.

This attack can be used against any base design, depending upon the level of its defenses.  I like using Mitch in the 3500-4500 trophy range; others use it all the way into the 5000s and you’ll see that level of play in some of the threeplays I share in my videos.  I prefer to use this attack strategy against diamond base designs with the MultiMortar at the top corner of the base, although I use it on other bases sometimes if they look like they will be susceptible to the insanity of the Bats.  

The new troop levels for BH8 provide additional firepower to the strategy.  The Beta Minions get more juice and an extra Long Shot; the Night Witch gets more HP/DP and improved Bat Swarm.  The extra Army Camp really pops for this attack strategy too.

As always, I recommend taking 30 or so seconds to really evaluate the layout of the base before you deploy.  Try to suss out where the MegaMines might lie, where the Hidden Teslas are hiding, how your troops might path, and what key defenses are where.  This will go a long way in getting you a higher percentage win.

The best defenses against Night Witch are base designs that keep key defenses away from the edge, separate defenses in such a way as to create overlapping firing zones, and placing Cannons/Double Cannons/Giant Cannons in a way they can defend common points of ingress effectively.  Of course, centralizing key defenses like the MultiMortar are particularly problematic for Night Witch attacks.  (This is a strength of the strong hub designs I preach in my base design videos/articles.)  Additionally, placing your base somewhere other than the lowermost corner of the game grid will often slow the attacker; southern teasers in the uppermost corner can be an issue for this attack strategy.

Here’s the companion video for this article with some Mitch replays.  As always, we’ll do a First Look and a revisit to show variety.