Mortar

Lore & Background

In the villages of the Clash world, the Mortar is spoken of with the same reverence that a farmer might show a particularly stubborn old ox. It does not move. It does not negotiate. It simply sits in the middle of the compound, its great barrel angled skyward, and waits. When the first grunt's boots crunch on the dirt path, the Mortar speaks, and the ground simply… disappears in a puff of dust and shrapnel. Village elders often tell newcomers that a well-placed Mortar is worth more than a hundred spearmen. The logic is simple: the Mortar does not care how many troops you send. A lone Barbarian and a squad of twenty Giants will both be greeted with the same indifferent, concussive thud. That indifference is what makes it so feared. It removes the attacker's greatest advantage — numbers — and replaces it with a single, unavoidable question: how many shells will it take to walk through this village? Over the years, the Mortar's design has remained stubbornly, beautifully the same. A thick iron tube, a wooden-and-stone firing platform, a small wheel for aiming. No frills, no ornamentation. Just the quiet, mechanical certainty that the next shell is already loaded and the next crater is already waiting.

In Their Own Story

The dust had barely settled from the last raid when Kael noticed the new addition. A Mortar. Five levels, judging by the extra rivets along the barrel and the reinforced stone base. It sat dead-center in the compound, between the two Inferno Towers, its shadow stretching long across the courtyard in the late afternoon sun. He crouched behind a wall and watched the training dummy march forward. One. Two. Three steps into the open. The Mortar's wheel clicked. The barrel dipped. A deep, resonant *thoom* rolled across the valley, and the ground where the dummy had been simply ceased to exist, replaced by a neat, circular crater trailing smoke. Kael grinned. "Right then," he muttered, straightening up and shouldering his axe. "Let's see how you like it from the other side."

Reader's Guide

The Mortar is a ground-only splash defense that fires a single arcing shell every few seconds, dealing area damage to all ground troops within its blast radius. It is unlocked at Town Hall 4 and can be upgraded through five levels. Because it cannot target air units, it must always be paired with air defenses such as Arrows, Cannon, or Inferno Towers. Placement is everything. The classic and most effective strategy is to nest the Mortar in the very center of your base, surrounded by walls and other defenses. This forces ground troops to funnel through its kill-zone before they can reach your Town Hall or storages. Pairing it with E-Bombs, Bombs, and Inferno Towers creates a layered ground-defense corridor that can hold back even large mixed armies. A key strategic note: because the Mortar only hits ground, a smart attacker will send Balloons or Dragons over it. Always ensure your air defenses have overlapping coverage with the Mortar's footprint so that no single troop type can exploit a gap. In multi-base layouts, a second Mortar on the opposite side of the core extends your ground-kill zone and prevents attackers from flanking around a single splash area. Finally, remember that the Mortar's splash radius is generous but not infinite. Tight, clustered ground troops (Barbarians, Goblins, Hog Riders in groups) will take full damage, while spread-out tanks or a lone Giant will only take partial hits. Design your base to keep enemies bunched up inside the Mortar's radius as long as possible.

Did You Know?

• The Mortar is completely useless against air troops — Balloons, Dragons, and anything flying pass over it as if it were not there, making air-defense pairing essential.
• Its splash damage means a single shell can hit multiple troops at once, making it disproportionately effective against tightly clustered armies like Barbarian hordes or Hog Rider packs.
• The Mortar has been a staple of the game since its early Town Hall 4 era, and its core visual design — the thick iron tube on a stone platform — has remained essentially unchanged through numerous updates.
• In base-building communities, the Mortar's central placement is so standard that it has its own shorthand: 'mortar in the middle' is often the first rule taught to new builders.