Town Hall 18 Sneak Peek #1: The Greedy Raven and a Whole Lot of Power

I stayed up way too late last night scrolling through the first Sneak Peek for Town Hall 18, and honestly… I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything. As a regular player who just finished maxing most of my Town Hall 17 defenses, I thought I had a little breathing room. Nope. Supercell basically said, “Here’s a bird that robs your opponents blind, and oh yeah, your earthquake spell now smacks ground troops too.” Let me tell you, the coffee hasn’t hit hard enough for this one.

First things first: meet the Greedy Raven. And I gotta say, when I first saw that feathered menace, my brain immediately went “Goblin with wings.” That’s exactly what it is. This bird has one job—steal value from enemy loot buildings and do it fast. It’s a long-range flying attacker that stays close to its assigned Hero, and it prioritizes resource buildings near that Hero. The kicker? It deals 5× damage to those resource buildings. Five times! So if you’ve ever watched a Hero push stall because a couple of gold storages or elixir collectors are tucked behind a wall, this raven is basically your new best friend.

The unlock details are still a little fuzzy in the preview, but the tactical impact is already crystal clear. Imagine dropping your Queen or Warden on a side where resource buildings are clustered near key defenses. Normally those buildings just soak up hits and slow your push down. The Greedy Raven changes that math completely. It zips around, shreds those storages and collectors, and opens up space for your Hero to reach the important stuff. It’s one of those mechanics that sounds simple but could completely shift how I plan my opening funnel. I’m already thinking about which bases I’m going to attack differently.

Now, Town Hall 18 is not holding back on the raw power front either. The defense upgrades alone are enough to make any attacker sweat a little. We’re getting Giga Bomb level 4, Seeking Air Mine level 8, Mortar level 18, Inferno Tower level 12, Hidden Tesla level 17, Firespitter level 3, and Spell Tower level 4. That’s a lot of levels to grind through. As someone who hates seeing my Hog Riders get melted by a maxed Inferno, seeing Inferno Tower go to level 12… yeah, that hurts a little.

On the troop side, the list is just as long. Witch and Super Witch go to level 8, Hog Rider and Super Hog Rider jump to level 15, Lava Hound and Ice Hound hit level 8, Electro Titan reaches level 5, Baby Dragon and Inferno Dragon go to level 12, and Archer plus Super Archer climb to level 14. That’s a whole lot of lab time. My Hog Rider army already feels pretty strong at level 14, so level 15 is going to be a priority. And Electro Titan at level 5? That thing is already a walking earthquake, so more damage on top of that is wild. You know what I mean? Some of these upgrades feel less like a nice bonus and more like a straight-up power spike.

But the thing that really made me stop scrolling was the Earthquake Spell change. For years, Earthquake has been the setup spell—blow open walls, soften a core, maybe pair it with a Log Launcher. Now? Earthquake Spell levels 6 through 8 are coming, and the new effect is simple but huge: Earthquake now damages ground troops, not just buildings and walls. And yes, this applies to Earthquake Boots too. Let that sink in for a second…

Earthquake is no longer just a wall breaker. It now adds real combat value during an attack. You could drop an Earthquake on a clump of defending ground troops and actually chunk their health. If you time it right, you can weaken a defending Clan Castle unit or soften a group of skeletons before your main army even arrives. I’m already imagining the chaos in Clan War attacks where someone pairs Earthquake with a kill squad and just deletes a section of the base. It’s a completely different timing game now.

And if that wasn’t enough, Pet House goes to level 12, and maxed players get 75 additional Wall pieces at level 19. More walls, stronger pets, deeper base customization. For those of us who have been holding off on buying walls because we had nothing left to spend loot on, this is a welcome change—and also a little terrifying, because now every base is going to have an extra layer of stubborn level 19 walls blocking the path.

So yeah, Town Hall 18 is shaping up to be a major power jump. The Greedy Raven adds a whole new angle to hero-based attacks, while Earthquake getting troop damage changes how spells are used in live fights. If you’re a max or near-max player like me, this update gives you plenty to plan for. More depth, more strategy, and more ways to break bases—or to rebuild them so they don’t get wrecked in the first place.

There’s more coming, and I haven’t even seen Sneak Peek #2 yet. I’ll be over here, staring at my lab queue and trying to figure out which upgrade to start first… probably the Hog Rider. Or the Earthquake. Or maybe just the Pet House. Ugh. Decisions.

Expert commentary is drawn from Data.ai (App Annie), and it helps frame why Town Hall 18’s sweeping power additions—like the Greedy Raven’s resource-building priority damage and the Earthquake Spell’s new ground-troop impact—can meaningfully reshape player behavior, from upgrade ordering to attack planning, as major systemic changes often ripple into engagement patterns, meta experimentation, and longer-term progression pacing across large mobile strategy titles.