"This veteran battle-scholar seeks out groups of friendly troops to fight behind and boost with his Life Aura, and assumes the form of a tower on defense. Attacking, he can walk over walls or fly high, and can make nearby troops immune to damage once his Eternal Tome ability is unlocked!"
Level 1-9
Level 10-30
Defensive Mode
Summary
The Grand Warden is a single target unit unlocked at Town Hall level 11. He is the third hero in the game, being weak in physical strength but extremely powerful in support.
He is automatically summoned once the Grand Warden Altar is constructed, which costs 6,000,000 Elixir and is available at Town Hall 11.
He can be set to Air or Ground mode; he flies in Air Mode and walks on Ground Mode.
However, he can fly over walls regardless of the mode, but will attack a wall piece if many other troops are attacking it.
Like the other heroes, the Grand Warden only needs to be summoned once, but will have to spend some time regenerating his health if he is damaged during a battle. If you attack a village while its Grand Warden is still regenerating, the Altar will be empty and the Grand Warden will not defend.
The Grand Warden's regeneration time after a battle depends on how much damage he took during the battle: if he survives the battle unscathed, he will be ready to fight again immediately, but the more he is damaged, the more time he will need to regenerate. The more the Grand Warden is upgraded, the more time he will need in order to fully regenerate his health.
Hero regeneration after a Multiplayer Battle starts as soon as the player starts to search for a Multiplayer opponent. So, if the player spent some time searching for an opponent to attack before completing an attack, part of the regeneration will be completed by the time the player returns to his/her village. However, if the player cancels the attack by pressing "End Battle" before completing an attack, the regeneration will be reset. This effect is more noticeable in the highest leagues where a significant amount of time can be spent searching for such opponents.
The Grand Warden initiates a range of his passive Life Aura upon deployment, which grants units additional health. Any unit that leaves this range will not benefit from the ability until they re-enter it.
The level of this passive ability is increased once every level.
The Grand Warden's active ability, Eternal Tome, renders all friendly troops within his aura invincible to damage for a short time.
Eternal Tome is upgraded every five levels that the Warden increases. The ability's duration increases by 0.5 seconds per level.
The Eternal Tome ability negates damage, but not other harmful effects. For instance, the Spring Trap will still be able to bounce troops.
When defending an enemy attack, he will turn into a stone statue and act as any other defensive tower while using his Life Aura to provide a health boost to defending troops and Heroes.
The Grand Warden will attack the building being attacked by the highest number/troop space troop, and will continue to attack that building until it's destroyed.
Offensive Strategy
Use the Grand Warden in Air Mode if you are using an air attack so he does not take damage from ground defenses (as they are not distracted by other troops) and Ground Mode when using ground army as he will not be targeted by the Air Defenses.
Only set him to Air Mode if you are using an Air Attack, as without distraction troops, he can easily be killed or otherwise heavily damaged by a Seeking Air Mine.
Use the Eternal Tome ability near the core so your troops can get through the core, where the most damage usually is.
The Grand Warden goes where other troops go, so he does not need funneling.
He will follow the troop with the highest housing space or the largest mass of troops, so bunching up troops with the Grand Warden is crucial to getting the most out of his abilities.
However, do not bunch them up too tightly, as the Life Aura is big and the troops will take a lot of splash damage from other defenses if they are too bunched up.
His Life Aura is most effective on troops with moderate amounts of health, such as the Balloon or Miner. He will be able to grant a sizable health increase to these troops that is close to the maximum increase allowed by his ability (or if this increase is the maximum allowed, then the health increase is still significant on these troops). The Life Aura is significantly less effective on high-hitpoint troops such as the Golem, which gain only a comparatively small proportion of its health from the ability.
If the Grand Warden is positioned correctly, he can defeat an enemy Barbarian King without being attacked.
Defensive Strategy
He creates a buff to boost defensive troops, heroes, and skeletons. It is recommended to place his altar near structures that will receive the benefit such as the Clan Castle, or other Heroes.
When defending against an enemy Grand Warden, make sure you set your Inferno Towers to Multi Target, as he is often behind other troops so few defenses can hit him.
Upgrade Differences
The Grand Warden goes through minor visual changes at level 10.
Initially, he has purple facial hair similar to the Archer Queen, and his facial characteristics remind those of a Giant. He wears white and purple robes along with a short cape. His eyes are of different color, one is white with a little pupil and the other is a normal one with a blue iris. There is a gold trim on his collar at the neck and he wears a white crown-like decoration on his head. He also holds a thick book and a long wooden staff with a magical crystal held on top.
At level 10, his white antler crown becomes golden.
At all levels, the Grand Warden has a plain purple Clan Badge on his belt.
Trivia
The Grand Warden was initially revealed as the new hero for Town Hall 11 at ClashCon 2015. However, only a silhouette of him was shown.
In the sneak peeks showcasing him, his hitpoints at level 20 were 2,000; however it was changed to 1,500 in its release.
His beta ability color was orange, but was later changed to yellow when released.
He is the only troop in the game that can be changed as an air or ground unit.
He is also the only unit in the entire game that can behave as both a troop (attacking) and a building (defending). Thus, it's only possible to destroy his altar with a Lightning spell only if he is not guarding (and thus his altar will be empty.)
He is the only Home Village hero that doesn't summon a troop for the active ability.
He is the only hero being able to be killed in one hit by a trap(When in air mode via Seeking Air Mine).
He is only hero in the Home Village available to be purchased and upgraded with Elixir and one of the two in the whole game, the other one being the Battle Machine.
The Grand Warden's upgrades cost less than the initial cost of the Grand Warden, up to level 8.
He is the only hero that appears to be based on more than one unit, particularly the Healer and the Wizard, because of his use of magic and ability to heal friendly units.
Like the Barbarian King's sword, the Grand Warden's book and staff switches arms when he turns.
However, when the Grand Warden falls in battle, he drops his staff but holds on to his book.
Each successive upgrade of the Grand Warden adds anywhere between 2% to 2.3% health and anywhere between 3.4% to 5.1% damage, but every fifth level also adds a constant three minutes to his total regeneration time. As a consequence, the Grand Warden's regeneration rate changes as he levels up.
Regeneration rate for each level; click to enlarge
The Grand Warden's regeneration rate fluctuates, decreasing every fifth level and increasing at every other level. From an initial regeneration rate of 35.71 HP per minute at level 1, it increases up to 38 HP per minute at level 4 before dropping to 35.03 HP per minute at level 5, the lowest regeneration rate of any level; however the regeneration rate shows an slow upward trend as the levels increase, eventually reaching a maximum of 41.79 HP per minute at level 29 before dropping to 39.85 HP per minute at level 30.
The Grand Warden bears a great resemblance to the late television host, Li Yong.
Because of this, he is commonly called "(Li) Yong King" among Chinese players.
In January 2016, shortly after the Town Hall 11 Update, a show "Clash of Clans Players' Ceremony" was held in Beijing, China, with Li Yong as the main host due to this resemblance.
