Labs are a property whose primary purpose is allow the construction of dedicated lab units which are designated before the game begins.
Lab units can only be built by a player if they currently own a lab - if they do not own one, the unit will be crossed out in the build menu and unable to be selected. Lab units are rarely used in most matches in AWBW, including Z Games which never specify any. Nevertheless, they can be used in recommended settings for a map in cases where labs are used to encourage combat between players, or for maps where it is beneficial to gate certain units behind the time taken to capture one (such as Stealths).
Labs do however have a secondary purpose which is arguably more common than their primary one - if on a given map no Headquarters are owned by any player, labs will be used as a substitute with regards to its effect on victory conditions. They are identical in this aspect to the HQ save for one major difference - players with labs must have ALL of their labs be captured in order to lose, as opposed to the Headquarters where only one (if many) needs to be captured. This can be done to increase safety for a player (and/or encourage them to cap a neutral lab early) or for fine-tuning FTA as labs do not provide any income unlike HQs.
Labs cannot heal or deploy any units. If the game does not have Fog of War or lab units enabled and the labs are not being used as HQs, labs are functionally pointless to capture and can be safely ignored during the capture phase. Nevertheless, Kindle and Lash can still utilise labs to great effect as they are granted attack boosts when standing on them.
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