Headhunter

Headhunter has just one job: taking out enemy heroes. As her other job, she works at the village apothecary. She's lightweight enough to jump over walls and her poisoned weapons make her targets move and attack slower.

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Summary

• The Headhunter is a troop unlocked once the Dark Barracks is upgraded to level 9, which requires the player to be at Town Hall level 12.

• Headhunters prioritize Heroes above all other targets, and will bypass all other types of enemy buildings and troops while any enemy Heroes remain on the battlefield. This is true even if they are under attack by enemy Clan Castle troops or Skeleton Trap skeletons. Note that the defending Grand Warden is considered a defense and not as a Hero.
• Once all enemy Heroes are knocked out, Headhunters become like any other troop with no preferred target; they will attack the nearest building to them regardless of type, and will turn and attack enemy units if they become aware of any nearby.

• The Headhunter's attacks have a Poison Spell effect, which temporarily slows down troops and heroes that are attacked. The poison doesn't affect buildings and doesn't deal damage by itself.

• The Headhunter's abilities doesn't apply to a defending Grand Warden since he is considered as a building.

• Headhunters can bypass Walls to reach any targets behind them.

• The Headhunter shares the same movement speed with Goblin, Sneaky Goblin, Minion, and Miner.

Strategies

Offensive Strategy

• Since Headhunters can jump over Walls, you do not need to support her with a Jump Spell or Earthquake Spell. You can send them with the main army of a hybrid, as they can take out the enemy heroes instead of something else.

• Due to Headhunters being able to jump over Walls, they can be used to lure out an enemy Clan Castle provided that an enemy hero is nearby. This may require more than one Headhunter (or protection from a meat shield such as a Giant) due to their low hitpoints.

• If all enemy heroes are down, they will alternatively target enemy Clan Castle troops. This is useful on bases that already have their heroes down, either because they are regenerating or being upgraded.

• However, this is quite rare as the heroes are commonly well protected enough to either force the activation of a Clan Castle or require too much time to individually kill all of them.

• Sneaking in a Headhunter during a Queen Walk/Charge can gain massive value as long as it doesn't get targeted by defenses, saving Poison Spells or Freeze Spells used against heroes.

• You can also sneak one in during a Suicide Hero, where the planned objectives are near or include an enemy hero to save some health of the hero.

Defensive Strategy

• As defending Clan Castle troops, Headhunters are effective against attackers' heroes, including the Grand Warden, regardless of whether he is set to Ground or Air-mode. Even if no heroes are present, its ability to poison attacking troops make it a valuable unit on defense.

• Headhunters are amazing troops to defend against a Queen Charge. Their extremely high damage and slowing poison forces the Archer Queen's ability every time, even while under Poison Spells. If the attacker doesn't respond fast enough with spells such as Lightning Spell or Freeze Spell, Headhunters can easily take out the Archer Queen, even with the ability.

• Headhunters will jump over Walls and dive straight for the hero. Putting them closer to the core of your base will force the Headhunters to go away from most possible tanks and get targeted themselves.

Upgrade Differences

• At level 1, the Headhunter has a purple-and-black robe covering her whole body. Her face is covered in darkness, except for the eyes which are black with a yellow-orange sclera.

• At level 2, the part of the robe covering the face gains a silver trim. She also gains a poison symbol on her robe's back.

• At level 3, the trim turns to gold, as well as appearing on the start of her gloves. Her symbol on the back of her robe also turns gold.

History

• The Headhunter was added in the June 22 2020 update, with 3 levels.

• The October 12 2020 update fixed an issue of shrinking characters when targeted by the Headhunter.

• The April 12 2021 update fixed minor inaccuracy from Headhunter poison timer.

• The April 29 2021 update reduced Headhunter’s DPS from 108/120/132 to 105/115/125 for levels 1/2/3 respectively.

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Trivia

• You can have a maximum of 50 Headhunters at one time in a complete set of fully upgraded Army Camps. This number increases to 57 if you include the 7 that can fit into a level 9 or higher Clan Castle. On the battlefield, you can clone an additional 24 Headhunters with four fully upgraded Clone Spells (three from the regular spell inventory and one from a max-level Clan Castle).
• However, since Headhunters are ineffective against buildings, this is generally not an advisable practice. You won't need that many of them anyway.
• In the developer Livestream, the Headhunter was responsible for stalking for heroes, as stated by TV Royale, but the original suspects were the Bandit from Clash Royale and Tara from Brawl Stars.
• It may be assumed that Headhunters are the wizards responsible for brewing Dark Elixir Spells or at least the Poison Spells.
• In the trailer, her third card had the Clash of Clans Logo. In in-game artwork, she only appears to wield two cards, and in battle, she only appears to use sword cards (needs confirmation). In the level 9 Dark Barracks (the only other place where cards can be seen), three cards are present; two sword cards and one crown card.
• The Headhunter is one of the four troops to have upgrade differences at each level, the others are the Dragon, P.E.K.K.A, and Yeti.
• Headhunter's hood resembles Raven's from DC Comics.
• One of her cards has a hero crown on it, which is fitting seeing as she is the only unit that prefers to target heroes.
• She is one of the three troops that has three preferred target stages (unless there are no Clan Castle Troops, in which case she has 2), the others being the Lava Hound and the Ice Hound.
• The Headhunter is one of the three troops not to appear in Clash Royale. The others being the Dragon and the Yeti.