Bradders’ Guide to Town Hall 12 (Th12) Base Building

Introduction – Th12 Base Building Guide by Coach Bradders

The purpose of this base building guide is to give the builder, all the tools needed to create a TH12 base design. A design that will never ever be tripled in any style war (mixed th/th12 only/No Dip/Clan war leagues or ESL speed wars).

Accordingly, I will cover everything throughout this base building guide. From the overall general base design to mandatory trap placements for th12.

Overview

In order to create that unbreakable base there are a few things we need to think about before we start. The best attackers break bases down by looking at what they can get with how much troop space. We think of this as value for troop space or just “value”. How much value can I get if I send this kill squad in through 4 o’clock on a base?  It is also our job as base builders to reduce value wherever possible. So, key structures like the queen/EA/TH/IT’s should all be quite well spread out. All through your design in order to not give too much away to a kill squad or queen walk/charge.

Once we’ve reduced value in our builds. The next thing to then think about is enemy troop movements through our builds. We call this pathing. Where will the enemy troops path to next, after knocking down a defence. If the “pathing” is difficult then troop splits will occur or troops will end up doubling back on themselves. Thus making it very difficult to secure that triple.

Mandatory placements

Yes, that’s right. So, like my th10 base building guide, there are some mandatory features of your th12 base design. Follow these to create a base that will withstand, not only one war, but the test of time. Build well enough and you might not have to again until supercell brings out a new troop.

The last base building guide I wrote was for town hall 10s. It was way back when Inferno Towers still stopped healing. A lot of the mandatory placement of traps also didn’t change in 2 years. So, I took some of the following screenshots from my th10 base building guide to use in this th12 guide.

Traps

Traps are probably the most important thing to place within any build. And so a good attacker will look at most fresh bases and break down the value areas to prepare a hit. It is, in fact, trap placement that often is the only deciding factor in a triple becoming a failed attempt.

Spring Traps

There are a few ways to place springs, but they are always between 2 defences to stop hogs. If they’re between 2 defences outside the wall they can also be useful against witches.

The green ticks will therefore work well. The red crosses will work, but only when troop movement is in one direction (so less useful).

Small Bombs

Place small bombs always 2 tiles away from the wall. This is so that they stop raged and unraged wall breakers (any other distance from the wall and they are not as effective as they could be).

You should also place them between buildings (not behind) as wall breakers run around buildings not through them.

Giant Bombs

Use these singularly and away from your queen. Also never ever place them right next to an inferno tower (in particular when set to multi). Most attackers will also plan to heal through multi inferno towers. So, placing a giant bomb at the foot of a multi inferno tower will negate its explosive power. They should also be between 2 defences. Moreover, if they’re outside the base they can help to eliminate flank troops. Placing them between 2 defences will help against hogs.

Air Bombs

Where possible avoid placing these next to air defences so that hounds don’t spring them. Also avoid placing them next to inferno towers where possible as these areas are likely to be healed again. They usually work well placed next to wiz towers or next to xbows.

Seeking Air Mines

In an ideal world, seeking air mines always hit hounds/healers/siege machines. With that in mind they should never be placed near or within the core of a base.

They tend to work well placed next to air defences though this is not always the case. It is dependent on where the ad placement is.

Tornado Trap

The tornado trap where possible should be placed 2 tiles (2 tile gap) away from defence but in the path that troops will definitely take. This is so that when troops get caught in the tornado trap they will remain under fire from defences without being able to hit defences in return.

Tesla’s

Tesla’s should always be used to either make a funnel more difficult (more expensive), or be a surprise area of intense dps that requires spells to overcome (tesla farm). Or be used in a “troll” fashion to also cause a time fail. In some cases it can be the difference between success and failure. Teslas should never be directly touching another defensive structure, including other teslas. This is so that loons can’t drop them with their splash damage.

It’s one of the saddest moments watching your team-mate’s hit fail because of a troll tesla in the corner. This base was then tripled the hit after this. The fresh attack shown here was a 99 time fail due to this troll tesla. Annoying, but they sometimes work.

Defensive buildings

Let’s now take a look at buildings the fresh hitter can see…

Clan Castle

As stated before in previous guides, your clan castle should never be an easy lure. If it is then you can bet your house that the fresh hitter will exploit that so that the cc doesn’t have to be dealt with mid raid. So, make the attacker use 15-20 troop space or more if they want to lure your cc. Choosing what defensive troops to have will be discussed later.

Cannons

Place these near air defences, but it is not a requirement though. Nor do they have to be within the base.

Archer Towers

These, like the cannons before, are usually placed peripherally to the core of the base. They give good air cover, but also are one of the main defences that stop an easy single wiz funnel.

Wizard Towers

Also, where possible don’t place these next to an air defence. You don’t want these to target hounds, ever, if you can help it. 

Bomb Towers

These should be used to protect the queen and your EA specifically from skeletons. You should try to avoid placing giant bombs next to these too, as they also already are a giant bomb.

The reason we use bomb towers to protect the queen instead of wiz towers, is that bomb towers are ground targeting only.

Mortars

Mortars are still literally useless unless defending against goblins. Just use them to make funneling more difficult but don’t give them away for free.

X-bows

Current meta requires that all xbows are on air and ground. Using air is king for attacking at the moment and that should also be reflected in your builds.

Air Defences (ADs)

Never arrange air defences in a square shape, C-shape or L-shape, as generally this makes for easier la-lo pathing. You should avoid stacking them next to each other so that they can’t be zap’d with a lightning spell. You should also make sure they are covered by some form of splash damage (sometimes this does have to be a wizard tower). This is specifically to stop the very powerful drag-bat attack strategy.

Air Sweepers

Never have air sweepers facing the same way, because it will just bring on a drag or e-drag hit from behind the sweepers. Sweepers that face the same way give attacks a lot more options.

It is a good idea to have one covering your queen to stop blimp electrone value.

Inferno Towers

Spread your inferno towers out so that multiple cannot be dropped with a kill squad. I see some bases defending ok with single IT’s. All 3 must be set to multi, they do well stopping incoming kill squads, as well as backend troops. They should be in awkward pathing compartments, like channels or island compartments to make troops avoid targeting them.

Barbarian king

Place your king near the town hall. This is to defend against small kill squads that are designed to take out just the town hall.

Archer Queen

She’s an absolute beast, protect her. Her range ring shouldn’t extend outside the boundary of the outer wall. If it does, you should be sure no troop will lure her.

Town Hall

Your town hall should be within 2 wall layers. Either that, or deep enough so that small kill squads like heroes on their own cannot grab your town hall. It must be set off from the core though, we’re not building a ring here.

Eagle Artillery

Your EA should be placed such that it is not easy for a kill squad to grab it. So again, it should be within 2 wall layers. Moats can be used to make it difficult to path troops to the EA, but do not place the EA in a huge deadzone island. It must be difficult to drop.

Trash

Trash is probably one of the most important things to place when it comes to base-building. And yet nobody gives it the attention it deserves. You should use your trash to make funneling difficult, you should also use trash to hang miners up within the base. You should have higher hit point trash closer to your exterior wall than lower hit point trash. Protect mortars with camps and builders huts as any other trash building will result in an easy bowler bounce, which usually makes an easy funnel for the attacker. Think about your trash, don’t stack trash together along a flank as it’ll make the e-drag funnel easy to achieve. 

See above screenshot, 2 tile gap between the elixir pump + elixir storage and the archer tower + army camp means that the edrag funnel cannot be realised so easily. See how the mortar below cannot be bowler bounce from the elixir storage and that the hut in front of it has lower hit points than the mortars so a bowler here cannot create the funnel.

Trash in general should either be 0 tiles from the wall to make funneling harder, 1 tile from the wall (only if this is to create a 2 tile gap between the storage and the closest defence), or 2 tiles from the wall to conceal the placement of a hidden tesla or make the attack think there may be hidden tesla there.

Optional placements

As in my previous base building guide I had an optional placements section for traps and buildings, there is a lot more freedom when building a th12 compared to th10. You have enough walls and defences to make crazy looking islands or channels, compartment sizes are not restricted either, though they should never be huge.

Air traps

This is the kind of set up I usually opt for with air traps, air bombs are usually on the suspected lalo path. Use Sam’s for incoming hounds or blimps. Or behind the th where a queen charge is potentially a way to attack the base, a sam can drop a healer nice and early ending that queen charge prematurely. Notice how I keep all of these away from my queen.

Key objective buildings

Key objective like the EA, the queen and the TH should be spread out so that an attack can’t grab them all in the same phase of his or her attack, see below:

You can then incorporate other key objective in like inferno towers and spread out:

Remember, though, that defenceless cores make for easier lalo and hog pathing.

Clan Castle Troops

There are a variation of defensive clan castle troops that you may wish to run after you’ve completed your builds, currently running 2x ice gols and a baby dragon (ice ice baby) seems to work very well against ground attacks but does open the base up to being hit by air which right now is the current meta, so it is worth thinking about setting traps (skeleton traps) to air if you intend to run ground stopping CC troops.

If you expect to get hit by dragons, it may be worth including a witch in your defensive CC composition or even 2 witches if you’re certain the clan you’re going to face will try to drag hit your base.

Currently hounds are a bit out of favour in defensive CC troop compositions, this may change when the Ice golem freeze time gets reduced, hounds do work well against kill squad based attacks, they slow them up and distract the incoming queen.

Double normal dragons is a safe favourite at th12, especially if you think the attack is going to be a lalo variation although that is a lot less common now due to most new meta bases running 3x multi inferno IT’s.

My Builds

As explained in other and this th12 base building guides. You need to find your thing. It will come to you.

When starting a build I usually get the idea for a feature in the build, one that I may have seen work well somewhere else like a dead zone that troops avoided costing time or something similar to this. I will then create the desired feature and fit the current meta base around that feature. I cannot say much more than that without physically showing you a build… and well, they’re for me and mine so won’t be displaying a catalogue of bases for you here.

I finish off my builds by getting it critiqued by at least 3 of my most trusted builders (Homer, Van, and Tom) and then get it friendly challenged by players with talent and by multiple attacks starting with the ones it looks weak to. For th12s it can sometimes be difficult to find friendly challenges, there are th12 only friendly challenge clans purposely created for practising, you can find these on the base building server.

Though I am not willing to display a catalogue of my builds, I am going to go through a live build , which I edited moments before writing this th12 base building guide as there was a feature I didn’t like after critique and fc, so I will go through all of the steps and thought processes.

Live Fresh Build

Here I will show a build from start to finish, the way I do it. Obviously I’m not going to give away my best work but this section should give you a good starting point of the steps I follow when building a base.

I will however, start by saying that this base idea or feature was inspired partly by a town hall 10 build that I faced recently in a war against War Whales that defended 7 times against us in an NDL match. So I’ve tried to extrapolate the base idea up to work at town hall 12 too. The feature that worked well was have xbow islands as well as inferno tower islands.

Let’s see if we can make it work…

The queen alter at this point is just a place holder to help with compartment sizing. So, that big compartment at 6 o’clock is far too big so I’ve edited in the above screenshot to be more orthodox.

I have now moved the queen slightly offset and placed the cc centrally, the EA I don’t want to be in a straight line path from entry to the town hall through the queen.

Placing Town hall and defences

At this point I step back and take a look at the progress, are there any obvious weaknesses?

Placing trash

Base without traps

Placing Traps

Final Build

And there it is the final build. Until I changed it. Under review, the two inferno towers at 9 o’clock is too close together. So, I had to do something in order to fix that, can’t have a 1 spell space freeze being enough to negate 2x inferno towers…

I held back on releasing this document to the public as I planned to use this base in a league match for week 3 of EWL’s th12 only 15v15 division to prove its worth…

Conclusion

A lot of this may seem very vague, but this isn’t the intention. I’d like it to be seen as inspiration for those undefeatable bases that end up being called “that wanky internet base” when the meta changes again next year.

Catch my live build streams on https://twitch.tv/ogbradders for more tips and tricks.

There’s no way I’ve managed to cover everything here so when the questions start rolling in I will update this th12 base building guide accordingly.

At the end of the day, use your creativity to come up with the best th12 builds that you can, you might find the next new thing that ends up in a base building guide like this, good luck!

Thanks for reading this far, I hope it helps!

Coach Bradders wrote this Th12 Base Building Guide.

Other Clash School articles you may like:

Coaching

◊ Performance coaching in E-sports ◊

Gaming

◊  How to become a Pro Gamer  ◊  What are eSports  ◊

General

◊ Clash School is LIVE! ◊

Guides

◊ Siege Barracks ◊ Th9 Queen Charge Lavaloon ◊ Th10 Base Building ◊

Products

◊ Custom Esports Jerseys ◊