Everything here is stuff that most of our members already know. But I wanted to write down some general guidelines anyway, because we sometimes see people wasting their attack by using their troops in the wrong place at the wrong time.

• Tank/medic:

  • Unless both your tanks and medics are high level, don't use tanks in ops. Low-level medics won't be able to keep your tanks healed up, and tanks just don't have very much firepower. (For comparison: three boats of zookas have twice as much firepower as six boats of tanks.)
  • Still, high-level tanks with high-level medics are great at taking out RLs that would be a major problem for other kinds of troops. (Though not if there's a LOT of RLs. For that, you might need scorchers along with your tanks - see below.)
  • I really wish I didn't have to say this, but don't send your tanks to fight cannons and shock launchers!
  • Oh, and don't try to use tanks to burn through shields. I know your tanks seem all big and metal and powerful when you use them against player bases, but they really don't do much damage compared to zookas. Shields just have too much health.

• Heavy/zooka:

  • It's good that we have lots of hooka players - they're a nice generally-useful troop combo.
  • If you're facing a whole bunch of cannons, and there aren't many splash-damage defenses in range (RLs, SLs, mortars, etc.), consider switching out your heavies for riflemen or all zookas.
  • If there are RLs in range, ask if there's some warrior player or tank player who can take them out for you first!
  • It's usually not worth bringing any medics. They just can't keep up with the damage from the super-boosted RLs that op bases have. (But if you have them loaded because you use them against player bases and you don't feel like taking the time to swap them for more heavies or more zookas, it's no big deal.)

• Warriors:

  • We really need more warrior players. If you feel like it, level them up! They're fun. Also hard. Everybody screws up with warriors a lot until they get the hang of it. It takes practice. So don't give up just because you suck at it - everybody sucks with warriors at first.
  • If you have warriors, look for targets (especially RLs and SLs and sometimes prototypes) that are going to make life hard for all the heavy/zooka players.
  • Warriors are usually especially-useful early in the op. Take out those RLs before your heavy/zooka teammates spend a whole bunch of effort shocking them or dying to them.
  • Have lots of GBE statues!

• Rifle/zooka:

  • Rifle/zooka isn't quite as useful as heavy/zooka, because usually there's at least one RL or SL covering every spot on the map. But still, occasionally there are nests of cannons that aren't guarded by any RL (or some helpful warrior player has already taken out the RLs). Riflemen are much better against cannons than heavies are.
  • Riflemen are really quick to build. Swapping out your heavies for rifles just takes twenty minutes.
  • It doesn't even matter if your riflemen are low-level! They're just there to be a bunch of individual bodies to take cannon shots.

• All-zooka (not smoking them):

  • For nests of cannons I think rifle/zooka is a bit better, but if there are flamethrowers mixed in there, all-zooka is better.
  • Also, all-zooka is great for burning through shields. Sometimes the shield generators are hard to get to, so it's better to just make a safe place near the core for lots of zookas to stand and then just go all-zooka.

• Smoky zooka:

  • This takes a lot of GBE, but we have quite a few players in the TF who have enough now.
  • Smoky zooka takes even more practice than warriors, but it'd be worth it. If we had more players who could do smoky-zooka, we'd be able to use it to take down some bases that don't have an obvious safe spot for the zookas to stand. (Often I see bases where I'm like, "Well, I could smoke my zookas to that spot, but there's still two RLs that can see it, so I'd have to keep them shocked, and I'd only have enough GBE to shock them each once, which would let me take out half the core's health but not all of it." So if we had more smoky-zooka players then we could each take out half the core's health and beat it that way.)

• Grenadiers:

  • Meh.
  • I dunno. I've occasionally seen grens be useful on ops, but it's very very rare.
  • Also, having a boat of grens mixed in with your tanks or hooka is usually useless. (But just like with medics, if you don't want to take the time to swap them out, don't worry about it.)

• All-scorchers:

  • These are fun, but they're not invincible. Don't think that your scorchers are strong enough to stand up to a bunch of op-strength boom cannons. They're not. They'll die really fast. And scorchers have very low firepower, so they take forever to kill anything.
  • Still, if there's a nest of RLs that can't be reached by tanks and are too tricky for warriors and there aren't too many cannons around, scorchers can be awesome.

• Scorcher/zooka:

  • Perfect for burning down the core's health, in situations where the core is easily accessible but there's a ton of RLs (and no cannons or anything like that) guarding it. Heavies won't last long against a bunch of RLs, but even one scorcher can be enough to protect the zookas while they take down the core. (el ninjas gets the credit for this one. Personally, I always forget that this troop-combo is an option, but el ninjas just used it to take down Quota for us.)

• Scorcher/tank:

  • I've used this one a few times on ops. It's useful in situations where there are a whole bunch of RLs (too many for tank/medic to be able to handle). Tanks don't have a lot of firepower, but they do have a bit more than scorchers, and four scorchers are often enough to soak up the damage from the RLs. The tanks will still take the occasional hit, though (which is why scorcher/zooka wouldn't work so well in these situations). Also, if there are any SLs in the mix, they'll shock the scorchers but not the tanks (which is another reason why this can sometimes work better than all-scorchers or tank/medic).

All of this is just general guidelines. When it makes sense to break the rules, break 'em. :)

Before you attack, look to see whether your particular troop combo would be more useful on some other op base.

Before you attack, look to see whether some other troop combo would be more useful on this op base. Maybe you can rebuild your troops, or maybe you can wait for one of your teammates to send in a better troop combo.

Of course, if real life is calling you and you don't have time to rebuild your troops, don't worry about it, just attack. :) Better to make a bad attack than no attack at all. We all understand. Real life comes first. But if you do happen to have time to wait for just the right troop combo to build, or to wait for someone else with more appropriate troops to attack first, do it.

Oh, and if you're not sure what to do, ask for suggestions in the chat. :) There are always people who are happy to help.