Offensive Troops | Boom Beach
Introduction
Landing Craft and Units
Boom Beach Unit Overview
Gunboat Actions
Armory Upgrade
Statue Upgrade
Introduction
Building out your troops and attack is key to expand your base island in Boom Beach. In this guide, we will go over the basic technical ways to boost the power of your troops. However, please note that this guide is written for beginners as a generic overview summary of Boom Beach troops. We will not discuss the tactics or unit drop strategies for this guide.
Landing Craft and Units
You can train and store your units through the Boom Beach landing craft. Upgrading the landing craft increases its troops capacity. The landing craft can hold one troops types at a time, so you can only get a mixture troops strategy at a later time when you have built more landing crafts.
When you change the unit type from the landing craft, the cost of the current troops will be refunded. You can still use a Landing Craft while the upgrade is ongoing, but you cannot load new troops in it.
The landing crafts can have different lights on it noting the status of the troops.
Green light: The Troops in your Landing Craft are ready.
Yellow light: New Troops are being trained.
Red light: The maximum Troop capacity is not yet reached on this Landing Craft.
Below is the levels of the landing craft and the troops capacity that they hold.
Level 1: 5
Level 2: 6
Level 3: 7
Level 4: 8
Level 5: 9
Level 6: 10
Level 7: 11
Level 8: 12
Level 9: 13
Level 10: 14
Level 11: 15
Level 12: 16
Level 13: 17
Level 14: 18
Level 15: 19
Level 16: 20
Level 17: 21
Level 18: 22
Level 19: 23
Level 20: 24
Boom Beach Unit Overview
Rifleman
Heavy
Zooka
Warrior
Tank
Medic
Rifleman
Unit Size: 1
Training Time: 1 Minute
Movement: Moderate
Attack Range: Medium
Unlock: HQ Level 1
The Rifleman is the first of the available troops in Boom Beach. They are the “zerg” units of Boom Beach, the best strategy is to deploy a large numbers of them. They can quickly destroy enemy defenses.
Rifleman units are the best against Cannons or defenses with slow rate of fire. However, they are weak against mortars which deal AoE area of effects damage which can deal higher DPS against lumped groups of riflemen.
Heavy
Unit Size: 4
Training Time: 6 Minutes
Movement: Moderate
Attack Range: Short
Unlock: HQ Level 2
The Heavy is the second of the available troops in Boom Beach. They have higher HP compared to other units and is used as a shield. However, they have little DPS in terms of damage output.
You generally want to deploy Heavy before your other lower HP units so that they draw enemy first first. However, they are weak against cannons or defenses that deal tons of damage.
Zooka
Unit Size: 2
Training Time: 4 Minutes
Movement: Slow
Attack Range: Long
Unlock: HQ Level 5
The zooka is equipped with a large rocket launcher which deals massive damage. However, she has low hitpoints and can tank very little damage. The best way to use them is to accompany with other tanky units such as Heavy. Make sure that you drop them with a good timing so that they have a buffer distance.
It should note that because they have really weak defenses, all defenses can easily kill them. In addition, a mine’s explosion can easily take out a group of Zooka units.
Warrior
Unit Size: 3
Training Time: 6 Minutes
Movement: Fast
Attack Range: Melee
Unlock: HQ Level 8
The Warrior moves very fast where they are possible to run through light defenses. In addition, they are great as long as they break through the initial enemy defenses as they heal themselves with every blow.
Tank
Unit Size: 8
Training Time: 36 Minutes
Movement: Slow
Attack Range: Long
Unlock: HQ Level 11
Tanks are well the tanks of Boom Beach. It moves slowly while taking and dealing lots of damage. The best way to use Tanks effectively is to use them in a group, however it may be smart to use Heavy or Rifleman as support when attacking Sniper Towers and Cannons.
Medic
Unit Size: 5
Training Time: 10 Minutes
Movement: Moderate
Attack Range: Short
Unlock: HQ Level 15
The Medic is the last of the available troops in Boom Beach. The Medic heals other troops by throwing Medkits towards them. You want to place Medic right behind units that may get attacked, however you want to make sure to leave enough spacing so that they are not targetted by enemy defenses.
Gunboat Actions
Your gunboat has a few actions that can help or break your Boom Beach invasion. Below is a list of them and how you can take advantage of these battle actions. You can upgrade the starting energy of Gunboats by upgrading the gunboats themselves. You can upgrade the damage of Gunboats via the Armory.
Artillery Shells
Barrage
Flares
Medkit
Shock Bomb
Smoke Screen
Artillery Shells
Cost first: 3 Battle Points
Cost each next: +2 Battle Points
Artillery deals splash damage to all unit types including your own troops. So you should always be sure not to fire them while your troops are next to the buildings. You could use the Artillery to trigger the mine and boom mines.
Always use the Artillery attacks against defenses that have placed two buildings together. This works the opposite way as well to make sure your defensive buildings are not placed too close to each other.
Barrage
Cost first: 10 Battle Points
Cost each next: +6 Battle Points
Similar to Artillery, barrage is a more of an AoE (Area of Effect) attack that deals damage to buildings in a wider radius. It’s good to trigger the mines and boom mines to avoid the losses of your units, however the Barrage attack does damage to your friendly units as well.
This attack is best used against defense buildings that are placed close together, so look out for those opportunities and avoid setting up weak defenses.
Flares
Cost first: 2 Battle Points
Cost each next: +1 Battle Point
Flares can be used to direct your troops to focus fire on specific buildings, or direct them into bindspot positions that do not get attacked. One great way is to look out for enemies that place their HQ right in the back with little to no defense.
Medkit
Cost first: 6 Battle Points
Cost each next: +3 Battle Points
The use of Medkit casts a heal over time area with your troops. The heals can be stacked and increase with more upgrades.
One viable strategy is to place via either on top while your troops are shooting and taking fire, or when they are en route to the next target.
Shock Bomb
Cost first: 7 Battle Points
Cost each next: +3 Battle Points
If your own troops are in the area of effect they will be shocked and stop attacking for the duration. The shock bomb upgrades increase the time duration. Simply place the shock bomb on the defensive buildings that you think will deal the most damage to your troops.
Smoke Screen
Cost first: 2 Battle Points
Cost each next: +1 Battle Point
Your own troops can not attack while there in the smoke. However, they remain unseen from the enemy defenses neither. By using the smoke and flare together, you could potentially move your troops straight to the HQ of the defender.
Armory Upgrade
Once built, use the armory to research for upgrades to make your troops stronger. The research of the troops cost you gold and will be the main item that gold is used for.
Sculptor Statue Upgrade
The Sculptors are additional ways to boost the power of your troops among other things. You will need to build the Sculptor to create the statues. You first have to loot the mystical crystals are stolen by the black guard and kept in their base buildings. Destroy enemy buildings to find them. The possibility to find these crystals is shown when you scout an enemy village. It is show as “Change to get ?”, below the resources.
Idol = 7 Life Shards, 1 hour
Guardian = 7 Life Crystals, 4 hours
Masterpiece = 7 Life Essence, 12 hours