"The Battle Blimp bypasses ground-based obstacles and delivers your Clan Castletroops directly into the heart of the enemy village, all while dropping bombs along the way. However, its thin hide makes it easier to shoot down. Immune to spell effects."
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Summary
The Battle Blimp is the second Siege Machine that you unlock, available when the Workshop is upgraded to level 2. On the way to the Town Hall, the Battle Blimp will drop bombs, doing similar damage to a singular Lightning Spell per bomb.
The Battle Blimp prioritizes the Town Hall over all other targets, and will fly over all other types of enemy buildings and troops to reach its location, regardless of whether or not the Town Hall is still standing. When the Battle Blimp successfully reaches the Town Hall (or its remains), it automatically breaks apart to reveal the Clan Castle troops inside. Like other Siege Machines, the Clan Castle troops can be ejected manually by pressing the green arrow symbol.
Battle Blimps can still be used if there are no Clan Castle troops, however, when it is destroyed, nothing will spawn from it.
Unlike other Siege Machines, it will have no purpose other than to severely damage, if not destroy defenses for the main army, or to activate the Town Hall weapon for them to destroy.
Though a Battle Blimp cannot be healed by a Healer or Healing Spell, it can be affected by the Grand Warden's Eternal Tome. It is affected by Life Gem if he has it equipped but not the Rage Gem.
Strategies
Offensive Strategies
The Battle Blimp is helpful in supporting an air attack. There are several ways it can be used to reinforce an air attack:
You can place a Lava Hound inside the Battle Blimp, so that it can provide itself as an additional tank once the Battle Blimp is destroyed or reaches the core of the base. In the case that the Town Hall is off-center, you can still manually destroy the machine to release the Lava Hound in the core.
You can place a Dragon (or two if you have the space in your Clan Castle) which can ravage the Town Hall when the Blimp reaches it. However, you should still beware of nearby Air Defenses, Inferno Towers and the Giga Tesla or Giga Inferno (which are automatically part of Town Halls level 12 or higher).
Aside from the above, popular strategies involving the Battle Blimp are:
Invisible Super Wizards - Also known as "Blizzard" or "InvisiWiz", it is a strategy where you keep Super Wizards under constant Invisibility Spells while also boosting their damage with Rage Spells. This is a particularly damaging strategy, often capable of destroying entire compartments; the disadvantage of making buildings invisible is rectified by the Super Wizards' chain lightning chaining back onto said invisible buildings. Though this strategy is incredibly effective, it is weak against traps (which can be partially rectified by adding low-housing troops like Barbarians before the Super Wizards) and you must get the Invisibility Spell placement exactly right to cover the Super Wizards (or they'll quickly be destroyed). Make sure to drop the Battle Blimp in such a way so that you can effectively destroy the core and also allow the Super Wizards to get away from the Town Hall's Giga Bomb, Freeze Bomb or Poison Bomb relatively unscathed.
Super Archers - The same as Blizzard or InvisiWiz, but utilizes Super Archers instead of Super Wizards and keeping them covered with constant Invisibility Spells and/or Clone Spells. Rage Spells can also be used to increase their damage output and have the Super Archers deal heavy damage to the Town Hall and nearby buildings, as their ability allows them to fire through Walls which can reach multiple targets at once. A drawback to this strategy is Spell Towers (with the Poison Spell), Giant Bombs, other traps or Clan Castle troops in the area will hinder their progress and kill them before they can destroy their target(s). As this may be the case, it is best to use Super Wizards along with Super Archers to maximize damage and increase your chances of destroying the Town Hall.
Electrone - A strategy where you rage and clone Electro Dragons and Balloons once they reach the center. Make sure to clone the Balloons, not the Electro Dragons, as Balloons have enough DPS for the main offense, while Electro Dragons chain outer defenses, essentially acting as a mobile Earthquake Spell. If the defender has the core laden with Air Bombs and Seeking Air Mines, this attack will be severely weakened if not rendered useless, although it is unlikely for an extreme concentration of air traps to be present.
Clone Balloons - The same as Electrone without the Electro Dragon. It is easier to use but less effective and much more vulnerable to air traps, but very useful to take down clumped defenses if used correctly.
Town Hall sniping - by using a Battle Blimp filled with either Sneaky Goblins or Yetis and Rage Spells, these troops will often be able to do enough damage on their own to take out a Town Hall. This is particularly useful against Town Hall levels 13 and 14, which may leave devastating after-effects upon the Town Hall's explosion. Using the latter can also do massive damage to the surrounding defenses, if it fails to reach the town hall.
Ice Golems - You can use Ice Golems in a Blimp to freeze the Town Hall and nearby defenses to allow more Troops to easily get to the core of the base, while the Ice Golems also do some damage.
Oftentimes using a Battle Blimp as described above requires support to allow the blimp to reach the Town Hall or its desired location. Depending on the situation, one may need to use Freeze Spells on any obstructive Air Sweepers, tank aerial defenses with a Lava Hound, or otherwise clear said defenses with a ground phase such as a Queen Walk.
If you have it, you can use the Lavaloon Puppet to summon Lavaloons to aid it in battle and protect it from Seeking Air Mines, therefore increasing its survivability.
Aside from reinforcing an air attack, it can be sent after a main part of the attack, if the Town Hall is still standing. You can place powerful troops inside, such as Valkyries or P.E.K.K.As to finish off the Town Hall, if you intend to use the Battle Blimp in this manner. As it is likely you will have destroyed most of the defenses in your path by then, the Blimp should easily be able to reach the Town Hall.
A key component of the Battle Blimp's capabilities is its high death damage, which is capable of destroying certain defenses entirely (and nonetheless doing severe damage to other buildings). It can be useful to intentionally break the Blimp over a compartment with key defenses to ensure they are heavily damaged by it (and also allow the troops inside to immediately attack them). For example, you can use the Battle Blimp to destroy the Eagle Artillery before it is activated, by dropping the Clan Castle troops early. It can be more effective when a Clone Spell and/or a Rage Spell is used when the troops are deployed.
Defensive Strategies
Place Air Defenses in a way to cover likely paths of the Battle Blimp to the Town Hall. However, since these may also be easily distracted by Lava Hounds or Ice Hounds, you should also consider placement of your other anti-air defenses, such as Archer Towers and X-Bows.
A single-target Inferno Tower can easily single out and destroy a Battle Blimp if you can path an air attack in such a way that the Battle Blimp quickly separates from the rest of the troops.
Multiple Seeking Air Mines are useful to stop the Battle Blimp from reaching your Town Hall, particularly if a ground attack was used as a first phase to destroy defenses. However, this is much less useful if an air attack was used.
Having an Air Sweeper or a well-placed Tornado Trap in an area can stall the Battle Blimp long enough for other defenses to finish it off before it can reach the Town Hall.
Often the blimp will be well-covered en route to reaching its target, especially if the Clan Castle troops inside are required for some critical objective (e.g. Sneaky Goblins/Yetis for a Town Hall snipe, or Super Wizards for the Blizzard strategy). If defeating the Blimp is not feasible, traps like Giant Bombs, regular Bombs placed in groups, or Spring Traps can be used to destroy these reinforcements before they can do any significant damage.
Upgrade Differences
The Battle Blimp undergoes significant visual changes at levels 2 and 4.
Initially, the Battle Blimp is a large, red airship reinforced with a spiked metal plate on the front and back. It has a wooden propeller on the back and wooden boxes on the side (which probably hold Clan Castle troops inside).
At level 2, wooden boards are attached to the sides of the blimp's side wooden boxes. The metal plate at the front gains two side metal reinforcements.
At level 3, each wooden board is replaced by a metal plate. A stub appears on the center just above the metal plate on its nose.
At level 4, the metal spikes on the front turn golden, and the metal plate at the front of the blimp is now sharp-sided, which resembles a crown. The previously metal plates on the sides of the Battle Blimp turn golden as well.
Statistics
Statistic Modifiers
Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly
Battle Blimp training times have been reduced to a flat 20 minutes for all levels.
Battle Blimp training costs have been reduced to 100,000 Gold across all levels.
Battle Blimp deployment on the UI will now default to what was previously used.
Donating a Battle Blimp will now give 30XP instead of 1XP and counts as donating 30 units.
Fixed battle ending too early if only empty undeployed Battle Blimp is remaining.
December 10, 2018
Update
Fixed a bug where a donated Battle Blimp gives 30 housing space to Clan Games tasks.
June 18, 2019
Update
Increased Battle Blimp's HP.
Fixed a bug where deploying Battle Blimp or other Siege Machines to start a battle now cause defending Grand Warden to retreat into statue form, just as he does when any other unit is deployed.
December 9, 2019
Update
Added death damage of 1000/1200/1400 at levels 1/2/3.
June 22, 2020
Update
Added the level 4 Battle Blimp.
October 12, 2020
Update
Fixed the projectile attack animation angle of the Battle Blimp. Previously it was aimed at the ground but exploded in the air above the target.
January 20, 2021
Balance Changes
Adjusted the Grand Warden's priority when Battle Blimps to reduce the chance of him following them in a deadly run towards the Town Hall.