LEGO Attacks

Notice: I wrote this in June, 2024, when Automation Age was the highest age and LEGO was the best end-game strategy. That may eventually change.

Another Notice: I'm not the best attacker in the game or anything. This is just how I do stuff. It works well for me, but there might be better ways.

LEGO doesn't stand for anything, and I'm honestly not sure why people tend to capitalize it. The idea is to use numerous smaller units, mostly mortar and ranged siege (arty), rather than fewer units with higher troop space requirements (like heavy tanks or attack helicopters).

This strategy requires heavy buffing. Mortars and arty aren't really all that powerful otherwise. But heavily buffed, they can very quickly chew up even strong enemy bases. Wait, I hear you say, isn't that true of many troop types? Yes. But the trick is that there are various buffs that apply to this combo that allow you to more heavily buff them compare to other troop types.

What to upgrade

You will want to focus on building/upgrading:
Of course, you'll want all the applicable things in the Library and University.
In the Museum, look for:
Any nation is okay, but German is best based strictly on battle bonuses. Make sure Teutonic Fury is up before any important battle.

Coalitions: this is CRITICAL. This is the secret sauce that makes this strategy go. Use Mongols in every war. Mongols has GREAT bonuses that apply ONLY to Mortars and Arty (that's why we focus on those troop types). You'll be burning a lot of National Trade Goods, but it just isn't optional. Aztecs is not quite as good, but still worth bringing. I like Americans as a third coalition, to keep my air power alive longer, but there's an argument for Cherokee too.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to do other upgrades too (defenses, etc.). And in some cases (like Library and University) you'll be required to do other things to unlock your priorities. That's okay, just do what you can, as you are able.

You don't need any Factory troops (although some people work a few in, see below). So upgrading Factories isn't very important

When requesting troops, it is best to get Mortars and Arty, because all your bonsues will apply. But unless you're in a serious, well-disciplined alliance, it is hard to be too picky about what people donate, and you can work with whatever you get.

Army Composition

Here's what I bring to an attack as a Automation Age base.
Vary this according to your age and troop capacity. I'll discuss options at the end.

How I do a war attack

This is fairly straightforward. The overview is:
Next we weill look at each of these steps in more detail

Evaluate your opponent

Look over your opponent's entire base. Be sure to check the corners. Find the Missile Silo, Factories, and Bunkers. Look for Forbidden Cities and event buildings. See where anti-tank guns are positioned. Notice open spaces that may contain traps. See if there are clusters of particular building types (defender-producing, anti-tank guns, etc.) Notice if the buildings/walls look fully upgraded, so you'll know which things might give you the most trouble during the battle.

Plan your attack

First, see how hard it will be to destroy the Missile Silo. You will need to destory it very early, because no matter how much you buff Mortars and Arty, the Missile Silo will kill them very quickly. It will almost always be well protected, and you'll have to use air power to take it out. Look for open areas that might have traps, anti-tank guns in the area, etc. Notice which direction your planes will be flying in from and decide where along that line is most strategic place to use your Satellite Scan. Often that'll be near the Silo, but sometimes it'll be nearer the edge.

Next, decide what to do about Quick Victory. You can:
  1. Get 50% destruction. This is a great option with this strategy, and very viable.
  2. Destroy the town center. Do this if you're a little short on upgrades, or the opponent seems especially strong and you think you'll have trouble getting 50%. On war bases, you will almost never find an unprotected town center, so you'll have to use air power to do this. Probably Paratroopers, but maybe Fighters if you really sell out on buffing them.
  3. Don't worry about Quick Victory and just go for 4 stars. Sometimes, especially against really strong opponents with Forbidden Cities, especially if you're attacking up in ages, there just isn't a good way to get Quick Victory. An intentional 4 stars is better than a busted attack.
Next, look for where to deploy. I like to deploy as follows:
  1. Generals, mercs, and any heavy troop tactics or heavy donated troops on the same side as the enemy Castle. This is to draw their Generals to your heaviest troops.
  2. 2 Arty and 10 Mortars on each side of the heavy troops, pretty far away. If I'm deploying the heavy stuff near the center of one side of the enemy base, I'll drop these two clusters near the corners on that same side.
  3. Hold off on my 6 Riflemen and my Coalition troops until later in the battle.
Be careful about deploying directly into anti-tank guns or a big cluster of defender-producing buildings. Sometimes that is still the best option, but know what you are getting into and be prepared for it.

Then, think about how the battle will progress, and what might go wrong. That way, if the battle goes badly, you'll recognize it sooner.

Think about what troop tactics you might need and use that fourth slot accordingly. Maybe there's an open spot that looks like a trap field - swap in a Spy to disarm them. Maybe there's a big cluster of resource buildings (farms, mills, markets, oil wells, etc.) - swap in pirates, armored cars, or motorcycle riders to take them out. Etc.

Deploy troops

First order of business is to destroy the enemy Missile Silo. Given that I use Transports/Paratroopers, and given that each Transport takes 3 valuable air troop space, keeping them alive is essential. I almost always use Satellite Scan then send in my two Fighter troop tactics, then my Recon, then my two Transports. Here's why I do it that way:
While my air power is flying (Transports are kinda slow), deploy my heavy stuff. This is why we figured out all the locations ahead of time. I only have a few seconds to pull this off, so there's just time for tapping, and none for thinking.

My Transports are probably dropping their Paratroopers by now. As soon as they land, drop a Protect on them and Assault Rally to the Missile Silo. This isn't always absolutely necessary, but if I wait to see then I'm burning valuable early battle time and risking them dying before I can react. So I do it anyway.

Glance at my heavy stuff. Ideally, the enemy Generals are approaching, and maybe Forest Defenders. Drop a Strength of the Gladiator on my troops, and maybe activate Sun Tzu's ability. If there are defender-producing buildings in the area that aren't protected by the enemy Drone circle, hit them with Blitzkrieg (the Brandenburg Gate ability).

Deploy my first set of Arty+Mortars to one side of the heavy stuff. Immediately hit them with an Assault Rally. If there's a good building to focus them on, then do that. Otherwise, just rally them in the general direction of whatever I want them to kill. The additive effects of all the buffs means Assault Rally makes them very, very powerful in this important early part of the battle. By the way, this is why I deploy this bunch of troops far away from the heavies - I don't want the Assault Rally to draw the heavies away from the enemy Generals.

Ditto for second group of Arty+Mortar on the other side.

Monitor the battle

Once the battle is going, I have a few priorities:
  1. keep my army alive
  2. make sure I get Quick Victory (if going for it, which I usually am)
  3. pick off any stray buildings that my army is leaving behind
During the initial wave of deployments, I don't usually have time to think or evaluate. I'm just hitting my pre-planned taps as fast as I can go. If things go weird during this phase, the battle probably goes very badly, because I won't have time to react. But usually it goes well. With that first phase done, I have time to think.

First, I glace at the heavy stuff again. If things are going poorly, I could hit the enemies with air power or deploy coalition troops, my Riflemen (who can at least distract enemies by absorbing a bullet), or donated troops. Alternatively, if all my heavy stuff is dead and the enemy Generals are already heading for my other troops, make whatever fallback plans I can to get as many stars as possible before my army is all dead.

If I'm going for QV via Town Center, deploy any remaining Fighters (usually there aren't any), my Recon, and both Transports to whatever side of the Town Center seems most strategic. When the Paratroopers land, hit them with my last Protect and my last Assault Rally.

Use Betrayal tactics on Heavy Tanks from either destorying enemy Factories, or from enemy Bunkers. (If an enemy Factory is near one of your deployment points, you may need to do this earlier.)

Deploy any remaining troops as needed. Keep deploying Recon+Transports as long as they're alive. Even though Recon cooldown is faster than Transport cooldown, I generally like to hold off on the Recon and deploy it together with the Transports, to maximize my Paratroopers. But sometimes it makes more sense to use the Recon to help my other troops instead.

General Tips

Avoid the Rally button during the middle of the battle. It is sometimes useful, but usually it makes your troops run into enemy defenses and die. And you'd usually prefer your troops to be spread out to take out the entire base.

I don't usually bring any Sabotages, because most enemies at my level have the Drone Tactic that makes them useless. But if that happens to not be the case (maybe one of your allies scouted the base and you can see the enemy Drone circle is favorable) you might switch out the Betrayals for Sabotages.

Alternatives

Some people like to bring a few other troop types. APCs seem popular and I've seen people advocating for a few Attack Helicopters. Any buff that affects "Barracks Troops" will affect Attack Helicopters as well as the infantry deployed by APCs, so they're both logical choices. Right now, at least, I prefer to have more Mortars and Arty instead, but you do you.

My 6 Riflemen are mostly for alliance troop donations, because it is nice to have a few 1-space units to top off requests. But they're also occasionally useful when a battle falls completely apart. Deploy a Rifleman against a building in a corner where it won't get immediately shot and draw enemy troops over there. Then deploy whatever you have left in the best spot to get more destruction. Sometimes you can sneak in an extra star that way.

The best players (as of this writing) seem to favor bringing 8 Fighters instead of Recons and Transports. They typically bring powerful air support via troop tactics (often things like Tupolevs). And while most of us get a few of those now and then via events or whatever, using them frequently probably means spending actual cash. I don't object to anyone doing that - play the game how you like - but I'm too cheap.

When I run out of Fighter troop tactics, I'll have to come up with a new plan. First I'll bring two Fighters of my own and burn through my much smaller supply of Recon troop tactics. After that, maybe I'll just do without the Recon. We'll see.

As of this writing, my Generals aren't maxed out, and I have a few miscellaneous upgrades left to do that will help my Mortars/Arty. Maybe once that's all done, I won't need to do QV via TC as often. If I can more reliably get QV via 50% from my ground troops, then 8 Fighters might be viable for me, even without elite troop tactics. I could use the Fighters to take out the Missile Silo, and then use any that survive to help keep my ground troops alive.

Museum and Council

I mentioned this earlier, but part of the beauty of the LEGO strategy is that there are buffs that aren't all that hard to acquire that will help basically everything you deploy, thereby making troops that are normally weak become very strong. Two good example of this are the Museum and the Council. Look for "Barracks Troops" buffs. They'll help Mortars, Arty, Paratroopers, etc. So for example, while that one "Barracks Troop Damage" on the Julius Caeser Status may not look like much, think of it as multiple lines, one for each troop type you deploy. And then you STILL get the other lines on that artifact. It's like a 7-line legendary.

Right now I'm running with the following legendaries:
The British Kettle Drum is the ultimate LEGO legendary artifact. But I've never seen it for free. One of these days I may decide to spring for it with real cash. But not yet.

Conclusion

It will probably take a few battles to get your timing down. But it really does work, and it is easier and more reliable than any other current high-end strategy that I've tried. And I'm still fairly new to this strategy, so there are probably a lot of tips I don't know yet. There are many people using a variation of this strategy, and you will probably be attacked by some. Watch replays, see what other people are doing, and steal their ideas.