Dark Barracks



"The Dark Barracks will open doors for creatures born out of Dark Elixir. Upgrade the barracks to unlock more troops with unique battle skills."


 * Summary
 * Dark Barracks allow you to train Dark Elixir Troops using Dark Elixir. These troops will be stationed in Army Camps.
 * Dark Barracks are unable to function while being upgraded, considerably increasing the time it takes to train your armies; this should be taken into consideration when deciding to upgrade a Dark Barracks. Any Troops that are queued up inside will start training when the upgrade has been finished.
 * Once you have queued Troops in your Dark Barracks, you can instantly complete their training with Gems; the amount required is directly proportional to the amount of time remaining to finish training normally.
 * There is also an option to boost Troop production for 2 hours. The boost option costs 10 Gems and will increase the training speed of the boosted Dark Barracks by a factor of 4.
 * Note: The boost timer will continue to count down even if you aren't making troops, so don't boost your Dark Barracks until you are ready to use it.
 * When you click to boost the Dark Barracks a clock appears for a few seconds.
 * Similar to the normal Barracks, Troops may be removed from the Dark Barracks training queue at no penalty; 100% of the Dark Elixir cost will be refunded to you.
 * You may queue more Troops than your Army Camps can hold. This is useful for two reasons:
 * You may queue Troops prior to engaging in combat (either single-player or multiplayer). Your Dark Barracks will begin creating Troops proportional to the amount of time you spent from when you start searching for opponent to completing an attack, significantly reducing your downtime between battles.
 * You may queue Troops to 'hide' Dark Elixir while you are offline, as long as your Army Camps are full. Currently up to at least 5,030 Dark Elixir can be hidden in this fashion (seven level 2 Witches and one level 5 Hog Rider in each of the two level 6 Dark Barracks). When you return you simply un-queue all of your Dark Barracks to reclaim your hidden Dark Elixir.
 * A Dark Barracks will maintain its queue if destroyed by enemy Troops, and will even continue to produce new units if your Army Camps have sufficient space.
 * The Dark Barracks is the only Barracks in which you are allowed to create Dark Elixir Troops.


 * Upgrade Differences
 * Like the normal Barracks, the Dark Barracks goes through major visual changes at each level. Each upgrade appears to have a hint on the side of what the unlocked troop is. (A hammer for the Hog Rider, an axe for the Valkyrie, etc.)
 * When initially constructed, the Dark Barracks look much like a normal Barracks, but has an axe and hammer on the top and a stone doorway that leads underground. It also has a spell casting bowl filled with Dark Elixir, possibly referring to the Dark Elixir spat out by Minions.
 * At level 2, spikes hang down from the doorway, and the front pillars turn to stone. The Dark Barracks gets put on a stone base, and the bowl gets replaced with a rack holding a hammer and a blue-bladed sword, representing the ability to train Hog Riders.
 * At level 3, the front pillars turn to black crystal, and it gets a two-tiered stone base. The rack turns into a wooden target with an axe stuck in it, referencing the Valkyrie.
 * At level 4, the bottom of the front pillars get the same red material as the roof. A Golem's arm jutting out from a rock replaces the wooden throwing target.
 * At level 5, the top gain skulls representing the skull of the Witch's staff, and the second tier of the base turns a golden/copper color. The Golem hand from level 4 is replaced with a trio of sticks with torn blue cloth hung between them.
 * At level 6, the Dark Barracks gains a lava flow on the left side, and the skeletons heads on top are replaced by a single Lava Hound skull with a small pair of wings set around it. The base of the building turns red, and lava can be seen around part of the base.


 * Trivia
 * Dark Barracks were introduced in the "Dark Elixir Troops" release on 12 March 2013.
 * There are stairs within the Dark Barracks that appear to go underground. Could there be a secret Hog facility? Or a blacksmith's shop? Or even a cave?
 * If your Dark Barracks is upgraded while training Dark Troops, the Troops cannot be finished until after the upgrade! The Dark Elixir you spent to queue them will be unavailable as well, as the Troops cannot be un-queued until that time, either.
 * Newly trained Troops can jump over Walls to get to their assigned Army Camp, unlike normal barracks.
 * If you have any Troops queued up inside a Dark Barracks while is it being upgraded, they will not count toward the "Troop capacity after training" calculation until the upgrade finishes.
 * If a Troop upgrade finishes in your Laboratory while you have that particular Troop type queued in your Dark Barracks, the units within that queue will be produced at the newly upgraded level, even though they were queued at the previous level's cost. This holds true even if you un-queue the Troops without producing them; you will be credited the newly upgraded Troop cost in Dark Elixir. Many players take advantage of this by filling their Dark Barracks queues with Troops that are about to be upgraded, un-queuing them after the upgrade finishes and pocketing some free Dark Elixir.
 * The Dark Barracks functions identically to the normal Barracks, except for the fact that it uses Dark Elixir instead of Elixir.
 * Instead of a pair of crossed swords like the normal Barracks, the Dark Barracks has on its roof a crossed warhammer and battleaxe (used by the Hog Rider and Valkyrie, respectively). This is also similar to the Builder's Huts' hammer and saw.
 * At level 4, the Dark Barracks has a Golem hand on the side, signifying that it is sculpted outside, but it emerges from the structure just like all other troops.
 * Although the level 6 Dark Barracks has a lava theme, it is unlocked at Town Hall level 9 rather than level 10. This makes the Dark Barracks have two levels on each of Town Hall levels 7, 8 and 9 like the Dark Elixir Storage, which also uses Elixir to upgrade and deals with Dark Elixir.
 * Unlike the regular Barracks, the Dark Barracks doesn't have any Tiers.
 * There is a glitch in the 2014 Winter Update that when you upgrade the Dark Barracks to level 6, the info screen shows that you can unlock Minions, Witches, Hog Riders and Lava Hounds, but only Lava Hounds are correct. It has since been fixed following the 7 January 2015 maintenance.
 * The level 1 Dark Barracks had a stone base during the 2014 Winter Update alongside a rack containing a hammer and its cauldron, but has since been reverted.
 * The level 6 Dark Barracks is the only 9-day upgrade in the game.



For additional statistics and information, see the Unit Calculators page.