Clash-of-clans – Using balloons in attack

Yes, you are assuming right. Here is how it works:

Clan troops can be requested once you join a clan. Those troops will then move from the donor's camps to the requestor's clan castle. The maximum number of troops that can be received by the requestor is limited to the requestor's clan castle capacity.

Those troops can be used in attacks, or if kept in the castle, will defend the requestor's base whenever enemy troops enter the clan castle's range.

Once a clan castle troop is out, it will usually go to attack the earliest troop that was put down by the attacker until it is down and only then go to the next troop(s).

To get rid of them, the two most common strategies usually start with placing 1 barbarian within reach of a clan castle and out of reach of defenses to test if there are troops inside (no, you can never know for sure whether a clan castle has troops or not unless you scout first, which is possible in revenge raids or clan wars) and place more barbarians one at a time until all castle troops are out.

What follows is then:

• Place more barbarians one at a time at the edge of the base to drag out the castle troops and bunch them up, then surround them with barbarians and archers.

• Bunch them up by placing barbarians one at a time and zap them out with a lightning spell (those can be unlocked at town hall 5 after building a spell factory).

Usually though, the best defensive units are those that hit both ground and aerial units. This is because you might be faced with balloons for example, that Barbarians and Giants cannot hurt at all.

So the best units are the likes of Archers, Wizards and Dragons which are elixir troops and for later Dark Elixir troops, Minions, Witches, Lava Hounds.

After the type of attack, the type of damage helps too, and splash damage is usually better. One particularity of Witches is that they additionally generate more troops (Skeletons, that however hit only ground troops) that can greatly stall an attacker.

Treat balloons like any melee troops with a splash attack, except they fly. So, lure them into a corner and then hit them with spread out archers, minions, or wizards (most common units that can hit air).

• Archers are cheap but will take them down slowly, which gives them a chance to fly over a group and take them out on death.
• Minions I believe will not die from the bombs dropped upon death, so you can take out an entire castle full of balloons with a couple if you can spare the time.
• Wizards will take them all down at once if they're clumped together and minimize how much damage they do on death.