Registration for Strategic is now CLOSED.
The Warlord Draft will occur on Saturday, the 6th of January, after which teams will have one week of preparation time.
The first round matches will be posted the evening of Friday, January 12th.
2024 Online Strategic is a massive team-based multiplayer strategy game, in which players take on the role of Warlords battling for control of the Accordlands. Faction Overlords will move their Warlords through the Accordlands to conquer territory, challenge nefarious neutral Lords, and do battle with other factions’ Warlords. All battles will be decided by actual games of Warlord in the Ancients format.
The rules for 2024 Online strategic were adopted from the rules from 2022 Online Strategic, but have gone through many changes to bring the game closer to lore and to simplify experience. For more information on 2022 Online Strategic, click here.
The rules for Online Strategic were originally an adaptation from those printed in War Journal Vol 1 Issue 4 — scans of which can be found here. While we didn’t attempt to transplant every concept, the original document and the epic tales of live Strategic sessions it fostered were the inspiration for this event.
The 2024 Online Strategic Rules & Outline is a technical document: it is rather large and in some places very detailed. Those who are particularly passionate or curious about the exact workings of the game should dive in, but a high level understanding is all that’s needed to participate.
Players are represented by Overlord and Warlord tokens on a Map of the Accordlands.
Overlords issue movement orders to their Warlords causing them to battle.
Warlords who survive the round help to conquer territories on the map.
Points are awarded for slaying enemy Warlords and Overlords, for defeating neutral Challenge Lords, and for holding conquered territory.
The faction with the most points after seven turns wins.
Obviously there is more to it, but those are the broad strokes. Each turn of Online Strategic lasts 72 hours and consists of the following phases:
Deployment — All Warlords are deployed at the beginning of the game. On each subsequent turn, one slain player may be redeployed with a new Warlord. Each faction will have some number of one time redeployments as well, depending on player numbers.
Movement — Overlords submit movement paths through any number of allied territories and up to one neutral territory for each of their Warlords, before they come to a stop in the next territory reached. Movements are revealed and resolved simultaneously.
Combat Check — Potential combats are checked: Warlords of different factions in the same territories do battle. Warlords can reinforce into allied territories. No more than four Warlords to a battle—if there are more, admins will divide the battle according to a prescribed formula.
Combat Resolution — Players participate in assigned map battles online over Untap.in and Discord. Pit Fights between players without battles on the map are also fought during this time.
Post Combat — Warlord death, conquering territories, and round scoring takes place. The map is updated for the cycle to repeat.
White borders indicate passable territorial boundaries
Blue borders indicate impassible water boundaries
The names of neutral territories are written in white. As territories are conquered, they will be colored for the owning faction.
Large faction symbols indicate Capitals. These house faction Overlords. Luthlarius, Narawat, Calix, Toris Kelt, Mourn, and Cynophontis Lands are Capitals.
Small faction symbols indicate Outposts. These house lieutenant Warlords. Isadran, New Goldenaxe, Tyraniel, Misearis, Markappal and Baraxton are Outposts.