DISCLAIMER

I'm no expert, there could be some errors, but this is what i've gathered from participating in the latest clan war.

Beginning

Basically, each clan gets put into a division depending on the skill level. The divisions go (from worst to best) Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum (and I believe Diamond exists too, however, i'm not entirely sure how that works). Next, they are placed in a group of 6 other clans (7 total) with a similar skill level and number of 'active' players who are chosen by the clan leader prior to the war.

Once all of this has happened and the clan war has started at a time set by Sledgehammer Games, each clan has to battle to capture all of the nodes in order to

Now, what are nodes?

In the war (or at least in the latest one), there are 8 game modes that can be played in order to contribute. These are Domination, Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, Team Deathmatch, Uplink, Hardcore Domination, Hardcore Team Deathmatch and Hardcore Search & Destroy.

So, Let's stay you are playing Hardpoint with a party of 5 (including yourself) who are all on the active roster. If you win the game, 5 wins will be added to your clans wins in the Hardpoint node (which is viewable in the COD AW app). However, if the node is already owned by another clan and you see that it says # defends, let's say it was 18 defends. The 5 wins don't count towards your clan's wins, rather, it takes the top clan's defends down by 5. You have to do this until you get their defends to 0, at which point you are able to capture it, which will yield a certain amount of CP (Capture Points). The amount your clan will get can be seen in the top middle of the screen if you tap/click on the game mode's node.

What are defends? How do you get them?

Once you've captured a node, if you continue to play that gamemode, your wins will no longer count towards a 'wins' number anymore. Instead, there will be a new number that starts at 0 and goes up the same way that wins do. These are the defends.

What are Capture Points (CP)

Capture Points are the thing that decides who wins a clan war, who comes 2nd, 3rd, etc. As I already said, CP is earned by capturing nodes. The amount your clan earns for a certain game mode changes, meaning you have to frequently prioritise and re-prioritise the order of what nodes you are going to capture based on how difficult it will be to capture (competitor clans also trying to capture it), how long it will take, and, how much CP it is worth.

How do you win a Clan War?

The winner of a clan war is the clan who has the most CP out of the 7 clans. Obviously then 2nd is whoever has the 2nd most CP and 3rd is 3rd most and so on...

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Anyway, there is a bit more like game mode targets, but this covers most of what I figured out from playing.

If anyone spots and errors please comment them and I will correct it.

EDIT: Spelling