Win by capturing the enemy royal (King, or the Fey Crowned Lancer). If nobody does within 84 moves (42 each), the game goes to the tiebreaker: royal nearer the centre wins; if equal, more pieces on the board; if still equal, the army whose pieces sit closer to the centre in total.
The tiebreaker score reads A.BB.CC: A = 5 − royal's distance from centre, BB = pieces on board, CC = 99 − total distance of your pieces from centre. Higher wins, compared left to right.
Who moves first: Orc before Fey, Fey before Necro; a mirror match flips a coin.
One action per turn: move one piece, use a special power, or turn one piece. Turning costs your whole turn.
If you have no legal action at all (say, everything is frozen by Enchanters) you pass; the clock still runs.
Drag a piece onto a highlighted hex, or click the piece then click the hex.
Arrows show the lines a piece moves along: small = one hex, medium = two or three, large = any distance. Grab any arrow to turn the piece. The dots while turning show what it would reach from its new facing.
Hold T (or press Show threats) to see every hex the enemy could capture on next move; your pieces in danger get a red ring, pieces a Goblin Shield could shove an orange one. Purple hexes are where an enemy Enchanter could freeze next move (by stepping, turning, or being swapped in); your pieces there get a dotted purple ring.
Ctrl+Z takes back your last move and the AI's reply, as many times as you like; Ctrl+Y redoes.
Shown as the square root of the AI's search budget in positions examined. Bigger is stronger and slower; the scale is not calibrated to human ratings.
Every game is saved on the server (moves, timing, AI settings, result) so we can work out which AI strength plays like a human. Nothing identifies you except the optional name you type.
Pick Human as the opponent and type a room name; your friend types the same name. The first one in waits (their faction choices are used), the second one starts the game. A room holds two players. There's no undo against a human. Reloading the page puts you back in your seat.
Piece icons: some from game-icons.net (CC BY 3.0) by Delapouite, Lorc and Skoll; the rest drawn for HEXWAR.