"This undead creature poses little threat by itself. But it never fights alone, since the Witch can summon an endless horde of Skeletons against your enemy!"-
Level 1
Summary
Skeletons are sub-troops the Witch summons to help her fight.
They are similar to Barbarians in attack damage, but have lower health and move faster.
Skeletons have no preferred target when attacking; they will simply attack the closest building. However, once they become aware of enemy Clan Castletroops, Heroes, or Skeleton Trap skeletons (either by being attacked themselves or by being near another friendly troop under attack), they will leave their previously targeted building and instead engage the enemy troops. Once all of the nearby enemy troops are defeated, the Skeletons will proceed to attack the nearest structure.
They can be a good tank for single damage defense buildings in large numbers, but are vulnerable to splash damage.
Skeletons are considered to take up 1 housing space for the purpose of determining its interactions with the Spring Trap, Tornado Trap and Clone Spell.
Skeletons are unable to trigger Traps, nor can they cause the Clan Castle to activate and deploy its troops (if any). However, they can be harmed by Traps if another troop triggers them. Skeletons are able to trigger Hidden Teslas.
Offensive Strategy
Try to avoid splash damaging defenses to keep your Skeletons alive.
Skeletons can act as a "bone shield" to Witches, protecting them from other defenses.
Defensive Strategy
Witches in your Clan Castle will summon hordes of Skeletons to confront the enemy.
Single-target defenses like Cannons can be overwhelmed by Skeletons (especially if the single-target defense cannot one-shot the Skeleton), which means splash-damaging defenses like the Mortar and the Wizard Tower are your defense's best chance of eliminating hordes of these subtroops. Have Mortars and Wizard Towers as high-leveled as possible; they can be able to one-shot Skeletons and this leaves the Witch vulnerable to the defenses. Inferno Towers set to multi-target are also good at eliminating a few Skeletons at a time.
Trivia
Like the Lava Pup, the Skeleton's stats or appearance do not change when the Witch is upgraded.
You can have a maximum of 559 Skeletons fighting for you on the battlefield at any one time. Of these, 364 Skeletons come from 26 maximum-level Witches (23 from fully upgraded Army Camps and 3 from a level 8 Clan Castle) that spawn 14 Skeletons each, and the other 195 come from 13 max-level Skeleton Spells (11 from your spell storage and the other 2 donated into the same Clan Castle), that spawn 15 Skeletons each.
If you consider the time period when the temporary Skeleton Barrel troop was available, this number is increased to 1,210 Skeletons, from 56 Skeleton Barrels in a Town Hall 12 army (spawning 14 Skeletons each, for a total of 784), three then-maxed Clan Castle Witches (12 each, for a total of 36), and 13 maxed Skeleton Spells (which at the time spawned 30 each, for a total of 390).
When you have a Witch in your Clan Castle, and it creates Skeletons during a defense, the Skeletons that were made do not go back into the Clan Castle.
As one of the three subtroops (the others being the Golemite and the Lava Pup), it cannot be trained, placed or donated directly via the Clan Castle (although the parent Troops can).
The Skeleton is currently the only subtroop that is summoned (rather than spawned upon death) by its parent troop, and the only subtroop that is not a smaller version of its parent troop.
The Skeleton appears to be identical to the Skeletons that are spawned via the Skeleton Trap when set to ground mode.
Unlike the Skeleton Trap's Skeletons, they do not have a skull next to their health bar, but instead have the player’s respective clan‘s badge, like all other Clan Castle reinforcements.
The Skeleton is one of the three permanent troops you cannot level up, the other ones being the Lava Pups and Bats.
