The Headquarters is the most strategically important property on any map, as in addition to providing income and repairs, supplies and 
4 of defense for land units, it functions as one of the opposing players' victory conditions, where its capture will count as a defeat for the owning player. If multiple HQs are present on a map, the capture of any one of them will count as a defeat for that player.
Many maps in Advance Wars By Web are fundamentally different from maps in the vanilla games in that the HQ is often placed forward of the primary bases rather than behind them. This is done mainly for gameplay reasons - it draws fighting to these areas and opens attack opportunities for sieging the HQ long enough to force a capture, usually as an alternative to a momentum-based win condition which itself is faster than a rout. Defense of the HQ must always be considered on these maps, especially against Sami who can instantly capture HQs using her SCOP Victory March.
Some maps may go a step farther and place the HQ so far forward that they could be considered a 'contested' property, usually on larger maps where reinforcing a siege would otherwise be very time-consuming and expensive. HQs here can be open to 'cheese' strategies of immediately rushing the first built Infantry over to capture it - usually this is safeguarded against by placing an immobile pre-deployed unit on top, such as a Lander, so some investment is still required to unlock it first.
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of maps that do still adopt the traditional method of placing HQs in safe places behind the means of production. On these maps, HQ capture is not feasible, but games can still be ended in reasonable times simply by seizing territory and funding over repeated pushes. In this regard, the HQ is effectively no different from a city.
In games with more than 2 players where the game does not end right away, capturing the HQ will automatically transfer ownership of that player's properties to the capturing player, with the HQ itself turning into a city. This can provide an enormous funding boost, greatly improving their chances against any remaining players. If HQ capture is inevitable, though, a defender can resign to deny the attacker their properties - a common occurrence in diplomacy-based games.
The HQ designs are based off the following:
- Orange Star - Empire State Building, New York, United States
- Blue Moon - St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia
- Green Earth - Generic castle tower
- Yellow Comet - Himeji Castle, Himeji, Japan
- Black Hole - Unknown
- Red Fire - Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), London, United Kingdom
- Grey Sky - Unknown
- Brown Desert - Pyramids, Egypt
- Amber Blaze - Temple of Heaven, Beijing, China
- Jade Sun - Parthenon, Athens, Greece
- Cobalt Ice - Black Crystal
- Pink Cosmos - Unknown
- Teal Galaxy - Jedi Temple, Coruscant
- Purple Lightning - Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
- Acid Rain - Temple of Kukulcán, Chichen Itza, Mexico
- White Nova - Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)
Though it visually resembles a Black Crystal, the Cobalt Ice Headquarters does not restore or resupply units like the cart games.
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