War Attacks - Dragoons

     This is one of my favorite attacks for TH-7/8, it's expensive but in war you are trying to get stars, and the war loot from winning will make up for the cost and then some.  For this attack to be successful, it is recommended that your Dragons are at least level 2 and your Balloons are at least level 4.  It also helps to have your Healing, Rage, and Poison spells as high level as possible, the higher the better.  This is an easy attack to learn and it is extremely effective on most TH-6/7/8 bases.

Army Composition

Balloons     ~ 6-10
Dragons      ~ As many as you can take so long as you have 6 or more Balloons.
Clan Castle ~ As many Balloons as you can hold.

The balloons are the key to victory with this strategy.  Too few balloons or poor balloon deployment will result in a 1-2 star attack.  The balloons are the ones that will be taking out the air defenses, so without enough of them your dragons will not survive long enough to wipe out the base, and they may not even reach the town hall.  I prefer to take around 8 Balloons and 8 Dragons plus 5 Balloons in my clan castle.

Strategy

The best approach with the Dragoon attack is to send in all your dragons from the same side in a line.  To do this correctly, first check to make sure the opponent hasn't placed any buildings in the corners as you will have to augment the strategy to deal with those. If they have buildings in the corners replace a balloon with 5 archers, and drop 1 archer in each corner to deal with the corner buildings.
     Once any corner buildings are dealt with, the main attack can begin.  Don't worry about the Clan Castle in most cases, the dragons will be able to handle the defensive troops in most cases.  If the CC is easy to pull, go for it and after a full pull, drop your poison and let it take care of the CC troops before deploying any of your own troops.
     To begin the actual attack, start by dropping 1 dragon at each corner edge of one of the sides of the base.  The best side to choose will depend on a few things; you will want to avoid being caught in any air sweepers if at all possible, you will also want to choose the side that gets you access to the most air defenses with the least amount of storages and CC in the way, finally you will want to choose the side that will give your dragons the best chance of staying focused on the middle and not heading out to the edges and circling the base.  Deploying a dragon on each corner of the side you choose to come from simply helps keep the dragons funneled and heading towards the middle (and presumably the TH) of the base.
     Once your dragons have penetrated into the base and are starting to take fire from the air defenses, it's time to drop your balloons.  This is a key step; you have to deploy the balloons in 3 groups, 2 groups of 4 of your balloons and 1 group from the CC balloons.  Deploy each group as close as you can get them to each of the air defenses, since the dragons will have the defenses distracted, the balloons should be able to swoop in and take out the defenses without coming under heavy fire.  Plan beforehand what the best path will be for the balloons to reach the air defenses as quickly as possible.  This can be done by plotting out their path from the first defense you send them to, to the next closest and so on until they reach the air defenses.  You want to choose the path that causes them to attack as few other defenses as possible before attacking the air defenses.
     If you are unsure where to place your balloon groups, you can send them in behind your dragons.  This isn't as effective usually, but it will work better than dropping your balloons in completely the wrong place.  With any luck, your balloons will take out the air defenses before they do too much damage to the dragons and you will have an easy 3-star victory.


Spell Usage and Composition

     The recommended spells for this attack are heal and rage, preferably 2 rage and 1 heal, but experiment and see what works best for you.  Use the poison as specified earlier.  If you have any TH-9 clan mates that have haste spells, have them donate that to your clan castle as well and use it to speed up your balloons to get into the base faster.
     The rage spells are best used after the dragons have made it past the first line of buildings, deploying them so that the edge just catches the dragons with the center of the spell dropped ahead of them to allow them to use it as long as possible.  The heal should be dropped near the middle of the base in such a way as to catch as many dragons and balloons in it as possible.  Place the rage spells so that the balloons coming behind will be able to make use of them as well.  Use the haste spell in a similar fashion as the rage spells, and be sure to deploy them so that they are just barely overlapping at the edges, in order to cover as much ground as possible.  Spell placement will make or break this attack, and as a tip:  I seem to always make a sort of triangle with my rages and heal, with the two rages being the base and the heal being the top.  You can place the haste spell directly over top of the heal if you wish, but this will also make your troops move out of the heal faster.  With the rages and haste you should be able to cover a considerable portion of the base.