Wilderness Warbands

This is a dangerous activity that takes place in the Wilderness or another PvP area. If you die, you will lose your items and will not be able to reclaim them from Death or your gravestone if you have opted into PvP.

This article has a strategy guide. All information on mechanics, setups, and tactics is on the subpage.

This activity may have associated player-run services, such as Friends Chat channels. Visit the official PVP, Minigames and D&Ds forum for more information.

Wilderness Warbands
Release date	25 March 2013 (Update)
Area	Wilderness
Members	Yes
Frequency	Every 7 hours
Reset	Hard
Skills	Combat, Farming, Construction, Herblore, Mining, Smithing
Currency	None
Infobox • Talk page

A warband of Armadylean bandits

Wilderness Warbands is a dangerous members-only Distraction and Diversion, composed of heavily defended storage camps guarded by the followers of the different Gods, though they fight more for glory and not for the gods themselves. These camps are founded to gain an advantage for the followers of a particular God once their God returns. They will set up camp in the Wilderness every seven hours, one time at each of the three locations. Quercus, an ancient seer ent, will send out adventurers to fight in the camps to balance the followers of the different Gods in Guthix's name. Quercus can be found just outside the Varrock Grand Exchange agility shortcut. Warbands events are synchronised on each world.

The activity was released on 25 March 2013 and was first mentioned in Jagex's special Behind the Scenes post.

Wilderness Warbands give large amounts of experience in Farming, Construction, Herblore, Mining, or Smithing. While no combat is necessary and no items are needed to loot, it is still recommended to have a high combat level before attempting a warband as any player can attack a player whose inventory contains any warband supplies.

Attempting to loot a warband tent will warn the player that they will be opted into PvP should they continue. Players are advised to not bring any items that they do not wish to lose.

Looting a warband camp (or attempting to for ironmen players) is an elite Wilderness achievement.

This repeatable content has a hard reset.

The next period's content will become available immediately, regardless of whether a player has logged out.

Timing

The next Warband begins in:

-:--:--

(Doesn't seem right? Click here.)

As a new camp is set up every 7 hours, the time at which these camps takes place is repeated every week. Below are the times (UTC/Game Time) a camp is set up given the day of the week:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
02:00 UTC	06:00 UTC	03:00 UTC	00:00 UTC	04:00 UTC	01:00 UTC	05:00 UTC
09:00 UTC	13:00 UTC	10:00 UTC	07:00 UTC	11:00 UTC	08:00 UTC	12:00 UTC
16:00 UTC	20:00 UTC	17:00 UTC	14:00 UTC	18:00 UTC	15:00 UTC	19:00 UTC
23:00 UTC	N/A	N/A	21:00 UTC	N/A	22:00 UTC	N/A

Locations

Location	Wilderness level	Travel	Map	Image
South of the Dark Warriors' Fortress (Call out is 'DWF')	10	Run from Edgeville Run from Wilderness lodestone Wicked hood to Chaos altar Chaos altar tablet
South of the Red Dragon Isle (Call out is 'RDI')	31	Canoe to the wilderness pond, then walk east. Games necklace to the Corporeal Beast. Go outside the dungeon and walk east. Wilderness sword 1 teleport to Wilderness herb patch, then run east-southeast.
East of the Lava Maze (Call out is 'ELM')	41	Canoe to the wilderness pond. Wilderness sword 1 teleport to Wilderness herb patch. Lava titan teleport, then walk east. Use the Wilderness obelisks to teleport south of the Lava Maze and run northeast. Games necklace to the Corporeal Beast. Go outside the dungeon and walk north-west.

Quick guide

1. A warband has appeared when this message appears in the chatbox: A warbands camp has been sighted...
2. Bank all items and equipment. (highly recommended; this is a dangerous activity, participating players will be skulled, and PKers will often attempt to kill other players)
3. Travel to the location where the active warband is. See above for travel tips and locations.
4. Clear the camp (Option 1 - Recommended)
   1. Without getting spotted, click on the summoning beam and "Disrupt beam". This will award Prayer experience dependent on level.
   2. Without getting spotted, click on the summoning beam again to "Summon reinforcements". If successful, an opposing faction will teleport in and fight the warband camp, and the player will be awarded Summoning experience dependent on level.
   3. Wait for the opposing faction to kill all the guards or help in the fight if armour and weapons are equipped. The reinforcements will not be hostile towards the player.
5. Clear the camp (Option 2)
   1. Kill the general that is leading the warband camp. It is recommended to kill the other fighters before, as the general can use a powerful attack that will hit for very high damage.
6. Collect up to 25 resources from whichever tents desired. Only 3 skill tents will be available at each warband camp.
7. Run back to the wilderness wall and speak with Quercus, the giant Ent located north of the Grand Exchange tunnel shortcut, northwest of the Grand Exchange. There is a green achievement icon on the minimap at his location.
8. Right-click Quercus and select Rewards and choose either XP or GP.

Gameplay

Interrupting the magical beam before summoning reinforcements.

Players will be notified via a server-wide notice when a Wilderness camp appears. To find a camp after missing the notice, talk to Quercus in Edgeville, near the Grand Exchange shortcut. Quercus will also tell when the next camp will appear, if there is not one currently occurring. A wilderness sword 4 may be used to teleport directly to a Warband camp once per day.

Arriving at the camp

Players must then head to the camp and avoid any attention by the sentries posted around the camp. Most of the camp's followers always face towards the centre of the camp and are incapable of noticing the player: Pay attention to the pair of followers sparring with each other, as one of them can spot the player if they come too close to the camp's outer edge.

Interrupting the beam

Players can then interrupt the god's magic beam in the middle of the camp by finding a spot outside the camp, but close enough to the beam in a direct line of sight. The draining/siphoning is similar to the Runespan and a progress bar will show when the interruption is complete. Do not beam the camp from the side where the two soldiers are fighting or they will notice you. The side they are fighting changes at every event. With just one player interrupting the beam, it takes about 1 minute and 40 seconds to complete this phase. The more players interrupting the beam, the quicker the progress bar advances.

Summoning reinforcements

After successful interruption, players can then use the magic beam in the middle of the camp to summon reinforcement NPCs. Stay in a spot outside the camp, but close enough to the beam in a direct line of sight. The draining/siphoning is similar to the Runespan and a progress bar will show when the summoning is complete. This progress bar advances as a faster pace than the one for interrupting the magic beam. With just one player summoning reinforcements, this phase takes roughly 50 seconds. More players summoning reinforcements will speed up this phase.

Succeeding in the sabotage will teleport in warband NPCs of another faction (apart from the warlord themselves) who will begin to attack the enemy. This also grants five additional minutes to kill the warband and loot the tents before the camp collapses. Failing to stealthily sabotage the beam results in the whole camp turning hostile without any reinforcements to distract them from attacking players, and only five minutes to clear the camp and loot the tents. Sometimes, high level players may want to intentionally fail to sabotage the beam so they can save time by not having to interrupt the beam/summon reinforcements and also dissuade possible enemy clans from coming to that camp, as an enemy clan would not have enough time to come to that camp before it collapses.

Clearing the camp

In order for the whole camp to be lootable, all of its original inhabitants must be cleared out. Players can intervene in the fight if they choose to, or let the NPC reinforcements clear the camp. Players should be careful when fighting the warbands, as they use abilities, and the general can execute powerful ultimate abilities, including a variant of Meteor Strike. Those abilities are preceded by a warning from the general when he says "Someone will pay", so it is possible to run behind one of the tents to hide from that attack (and also give any fellow players/allied NPCs some time to attack the general without taking any damage, as the general will stand still for several seconds before choosing a new target). Stunning the general after he said this warning will cancel the special attack but the stun must not miss for it to work. Destroy or Asphyxiate are guaranteed stuns.

The warlords have extremely high defence if the minions are not cleared beforehand, so it is highly recommended to kill the minions before focusing on the warlord.

If all of the reinforcement NPC's are killed and none of players had participated in the fight, the surviving enemies will teleport away (including the warlord), leaving the camp vacant, which players can still loot.

Looting

Saradominists have arrived to kill the Bandosians.

Participating in looting will result in being skulled and holding the looting supplies in the inventory will prevent teleporting. Players can be attacked while they have loot in their inventory without any combat level restrictions. Players can be attacked while looting.

The warband camp has five tents, but only three out of the five tents will be filled with supplies, corresponding to a random mix of three of the five skills: Farming, Construction, Herblore, Mining, and Smithing. The two small tents are guarded by one of the weaker followers (who's generally the one standing outside the tent), while the larger tent is guarded by the warlord themselves. Simply killing the NPC linked to that tent will allow it to be looted, although all three guarding NPCs are cleared anyway to check the contents of each camp.

A maximum of 25 supplies per player, per camp, can be directly looted from tents, before going to Quercus to turn them in. There are only 1,000 pieces of loot in the camp, meaning that up to 40 players can take maximum loot.

Up to three camps can be looted and up to 75 supplies can be obtained every day, resetting at midnight UTC. The 3 camps looted must be on different worlds. Even if the player is killed and loses supplies, that attempt will still count as one of the three. However you can return to the same camp to try again without penalty. This generally means that you can loot a maximum of 75 items per day, but only if you manage to get the maximum of 25 from every camp. However, hopping worlds or relogging counts as another try for looting if the player has already made a previous attempt during the event.

Supplies can also be looted from other players by killing them and taking the dropped supplies. The 25 supply limit per camp does not apply to supplies picked up from player drops, but does apply to the daily 75 supply maximum. Once the daily limit has been reached, attempting to pick up more supplies from the ground by player killing will result in the message "You have already looted all you can for today." The same limits apply for supplies dropped due to being killed; that is, picking up the same 25 supplies due to being killed, after obtaining 75 for the day will be result in the message.

While looting supplies from the tents, players may randomly receive a wand of treachery. Looting a Wand of treachery will not count towards the 25 supply limit. If a wand of treachery has been looted, the game will announce to everybody in the vicinity that a wand has been found, and the player who has looted it will glow for 20 seconds, as well as have their Prayer points reduced to zero. Only one wand can be found per camp, though no looter is guaranteed to get it. If the player holding the wand is killed, the wand will be dropped for others to acquire. The next subsequent player to acquire the wand will not glow or have their Prayer points reduced to zero.

Logging out or disconnecting while inside the Wilderness will immediately remove all warbands supplies. Additionally, looting, then hopping to loot once more counts as another instance of Warbands against the daily three.

Once supplies are looted, players are tele-blocked and must walk/run back to Quercus to exchange them for rewards.

Leaving the Wilderness

The most common method of leaving the Wilderness is to simply run south from the Warband camps. As teleportation cannot be used, running to level 20 Wilderness and attempting to teleport out (or level 30 Wilderness with Amulet of Glory or Wilderness Sword) will not work. Additionally, the Wilderness Obelisks cannot be used. However, if running due south is not feasible, perhaps due to attacking players, there are alternate routes for leaving the Wilderness.

Remember that the only method to leave the Wilderness while in combat is through the Wilderness wall.

• Temporary safe zones: These are safe zones in the Wilderness and can be used to escape attackers, but are not practical for leaving the Wilderness as the only non-teleportation method out is to re-enter the Wilderness. However, Warband supplies are converted to the untradable variant within these zones. Thus, they can be used to hop to another world with an inactive Warbands camp or to logout without losing Warband supplies.
  • Corporeal Beast Lair: found in level 33 Wilderness, east of the Lava Maze camp, and west of the Red Dragon Isle camp. Players cannot enter here while in combat with other players.
  • Death Plateau Beacon: found in level 13 Wilderness, west of the Dark Warriors Fortress camp. Prior to initial use, the ladder must first be repaired with 2 planks and 4 nails. This only has to be completed once. Players can only start the process of climbing the ladder when out of combat, but as the ladder is still in the Wilderness, and the climbing animation takes some time, players can still be attacked when climbing the ladder. Getting attacked after already climbing the ladder will not interrupt the process.
  • The Pit, from the Wilderness Agility Course: The Talent Scout will teleport players out of the Wilderness when holding Warband supplies. However, this requires completing several laps of the course, using a D&D Token (daily) or requires wearing an Agility skillcape. This is not recommended, as it requires 99 Agility and bringing a skillcape to be reliable, cannot be used in combat, and is next to a permanent exit from the Wilderness, at Ghorrock.

• Alternate Wilderness exits: These allow the player to leave the Wilderness and return to Quercus without re-entering the Wilderness. These routes are only recommended when escaping attackers or when no more looting is desired, as they take more time than simply running south from the camps, so it is unlikely that multiple camps can be looted if using one of these routes.
  • Daemonheim: The Wilderness entrance to Daemonheim is found in level 12 Wilderness on the easternmost side, so it is fairly close when running due south from the Red Dragon Isle camp. Supplies can be returned to Quercus without returning to the Wilderness by taking the boat to Taverley or Al Kharid, and running to Edgeville from Taverley, or taking the canoe from Lumbridge.
  • Dragonkin Laboratory: found in level 45 Wilderness, on the eastern coast of the Wilderness, northeast of the Red Dragon Isle camp. Players can only pass the guard, if they are out of combat. This area also contains a bank. You can choose to teleport to the Fremennik boat for Shadow Reef in Daemonheim, which then you can take the boat to Taverley or Al Kharid.
  • Ghorrock: The Wilderness entrance to Ghorrock is found in the Ice Plateau in level 50 Wilderness, in the far northwest corner, after The Temple at Senntisten, and with a heat globe on the pedestal. Players can only start the process of squeezing past the ice block when out of combat, but, as the ice block is still in the Wilderness, and the animation takes some time, players can still be attacked when squeezing past the ice block. Getting attacked after the animation has started will not interrupt the process. There are several ways to return to Quercus from Ghorrock without returning to the Wilderness:
    • After The Tale of the Muspah, exit Ghorrock to the west and take the log canoe to the Rellekka Hunter area, enter the cave to Keldagrim, travel with the Dwarven Boatman, and take the Mine cart to the Grand Exchange.
  • Chaos Tunnels: Any of the numerous rifts leading to the Chaos Tunnels can be used. Chaos Tunnels transporters are not blocked by holding Warband supplies. However, as all of the Chaos Tunnels entrances are in low-level Wilderness, it's generally easier to simply run south rather than navigate the Chaos Tunnels.

Enemies

Various enemies may be encountered while looting camps. Two of each type of follower is in a camp, and each camp has one general. Attacking them will cause the player to automatically switch to multi-combat (if in single-combat).

Note: All followers are level 120.

(Players can be attacked by other players of all levels while participating in this activity.)

Combat	Weakness	Armadylean	Bandosian	Saradominist	Zamorakian
Magic	Arrows	Shaman	Wild mage	Thaumaturge	Occultist
Melee	Fire spells	Myrmidon	Reaver	Enforcer	Blackguard
Ranged	Slash	Skirmisher	Hunter	Scout	Bandit
Magic/Melee	Nothing	Archon	Warlord	Sergeant	Demon lord

Rewards

A ravaged warband camp...

Note: Supplies are automatically destroyed if the player lobbies or tries to hop worlds while within the Wilderness.

Warbands grant experience in a number of skills during participation and additional rewards such as coins or experience are earned by trading in loot from the camp. Possible rewards include:

• Prayer experience is given for converting the beam.
• Summoning experience is given for summoning reinforcements.
• Slayer experience is given for participating in killing the camp leader.
• Farming, Construction, Herblore, Mining and/or Smithing supplies which can be redeemed for generous amounts of experience.
• A Wand of treachery can be acquired once per camp but is not a guaranteed drop. It is worth 176,321.

When handing in supplies to Quercus, the experience earned is determined by the formula:

${\text{xp}}(s,x)={\frac {s}{2}}\left(x^{2}-2x+100\right)$

where s is the number of supplies handed in and where x is the skill's level.

The Prayer and Summoning experience for the beam is the same as Master jack of trades aura, which means:

$2\left(x^{2}-2x+100\right)$

where x is the level of Prayer/Summoning.

Slayer experience from killing the camp leader is half of the Master jack of trades aura. This gives a formula of:

$\left(x^{2}-2x+100\right)$

The supplies can also be handed in to Quercus for 4,000 coins each, totaling up to 300,000 coins per day if the maximum of 75 supplies are collected.

This dynamic calculator requires JavaScript. This page takes user input via JavaScript and may use changing prices from the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

Templates used
Wilderness Warbands calc

template = Template:Wilderness Warbands calc
form = ppf
result = ppr
param = 1|Number of supplies|1|int|1-inf
param = 2|Skill level|1|int|1-120

Wilderness Warbands Calculator
Calculator failed to load.
Result
49.5 experience

Strategy

Main article: Wilderness Warbands/Strategies

Since PKers know the Quercus location you will be heading to hand in the warband supplies, you can be targeted by anyone and inability to teleport when you have supplies in your inventory, there is a slightly different approach than the general tips for survival in the wilderness. Below are some tips to increase survival rate while participating in Wilderness Warbands.

1. Since you can only carry up to 25 supplies if you don't summon a beast of burden, you should bring 3 food items
2. Summoning a beast of burden allows you to carry more food and potions
3. Carry prayer potion to restore prayer points in case you pick up wand of treachery, since it will instantly drain all your prayer points to 0
4. There is a lot of running involved especially if you wish to do 3 runs in a single timeslot and if the locations are not at DWF. Having spa in Oo'glog or Anachronia base camp gives you access to salt-water spring treatment which grants unlimited run energy for 9 to 24 minutes. Alternatively, you may use inexpensive items that restore run energy without occupying inventory spots (e.g. explorer ring 3)
5. Most players do not wear any armour while participating. Wearing cheap, tank armour makes you a less-attractive target to be pk'ed
6. Activate bonfire boost to have higher maximum life points cap
7. Carrying wilderness sword grants you instant teleport to just south of ELM (and a short run eastward to RDI). A slightly slower method is taking canoe to the wilderness pond which is also a very short run north to ELM.
8. Avoid running through Wilderness Crater. Some PKers intercept players there as it's a natural funnel. It is roughly the same running distance inside the crater as running on the outside. Moreover, you take damage from the aggressive lesser demons residing in the Wilderness Crater if you take the inside-crater path.
9. Join friends chat groups who organise and reports safe worlds and tents to loot from.

Gallery

• 

  Concept art of the Saradominist sergeant.

• 

  Concept art of the Armadylean myrmidon.

• 

  Concept art of a Saradominist bandit.

• 

  Concept art of a Bandosian bandit.

• 

  Concept art of an Armadylian bandit.

• 

  Concept art of two Armadylian bandits.

• 

  Concept art of several bandits.

• 
• 

Achievements

• Camping is in Tents ( 25) – Non-ironman:
  Loot supplies from a Wilderness Warbands camp.
  
  Ironman:
  Check a warband camp for supplies.

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included—see here for how to help out!

• ninja 13 March 2023 (Update):
  • You can now only interact with warbands and related content if you have PvP toggled on.

• patch 13 January 2020 (Update):
  • When the Wilderness Sword 4 is equipped the Right-click teleport option to the Warband Camp will now appear (previously you had to unequip it first).

• patch 19 February 2018 (Update):
  • Players are no longer able to teleport to Zanaris through fairy rings when carrying Warband supplies.

• ninja 16 May 2016 (Update):
  • Added an extra confirmation when attempting to hand in Warbands supplies for cash, rather than XP.

• patch 21 September 2015 (Update):
  • Swapping to a free-to-play world with Wilderness Warbands supplies will now remove the items from the player.

• patch 7 September 2015 (Update):
  • Supplies are now converted into a non-tradeable version when exiting the wilderness.
  • Players may attack others outside of the normal wilderness level restrictions when carrying supplies. Carriers may still counter-attack.
  • Chat options on Quercus now allow players to toggle whether they receive coins or supplies when killing a victim holding Warband supplies.
  • Players can now be attacked whilst looting a Warbands tent.

• patch 8 June 2015 (Update):
  • The Wilderness Warbands herblore supplies object is no longer too small in the inventory.

• patch 27 April 2015 (Update):
  • The Mage of Zamorak in the Wilderness will no longer allow players to be teleported while carrying warband supplies.

• patch 18 August 2014 (Update):
  • Some misleading text when you kill somebody with warbands items in your inventory has been reworded.

• patch 13 August 2013 (Update):
  • A bug where the daily reset for Wilderness Warbands didn't trigger has been fixed.

• patch 8 October 2013 (Update):
  • Players will once again receive game messages in their chat boxes regarding the times at which Wilderness Warbands and Sinkholes are spawning in their world.

• patch 24 June 2013 (Update):
  • Wilderness Warbands will now spawn on a set 7 hour rotation to keep all worlds synchronised, instead of 7 hours after a world has rebooted. Players also now only have 20 minutes to initially interact with a warband (interacting with one will extend its life by up to 10 minutes).

• update 25 March 2013 (Update):
  • Added to game.

Trivia

• Assuming players hand in 25 Skill supplies from each warband, it would take a player participation in 148 warbands (a minimum of 50 days) to go from level 1 to level 99 in a skill. It would take a player participation in 1685 warbands (a minimum of 562 days) to go from level 1 to 200 million experience in a skill. For both of the calculations, it's been assumed that players go to all 3 camps every day, which spawn every 7 hours, and manage loot and escape with 25 supplies for every camp.
• When reinforcements come in to fight a warband, they start off by attacking a follower who is weak to their combat style. For example, a Saradominist thaumaturge (magic user) will first attack a Bandosian reaver (melee user).
  • Each follower is weak to a specific attack style that another follower uses. The mages are weak to arrows, which are used by the rangers; the rangers are weak to slash weapons, which the warriors use; and the warriors are weak to fire spells, which the mages use.
  • When a general uses his magic attack on a player, all players within range will be hit. If his attention is on a rival warband follower, his magic attack will only hit two of them.
  • Prior to a hidden update, warband followers did not use abilities when fighting each other, only when fighting players. This has since been fixed, and they now use abilities against each other.
• Warbands are one of few Distraction and Diversions that cannot be reset using a D&D token.
• Warbands were "tweaked" on 11 June 2013. The tweaks were:
  • Synchronised worlds, as before players could hop from world to world to gain massive amounts of experience (and possibly profit) per warband. Each one now occurs every 7 hours.
  • There are only 1000 lootable supplies per camp. This is equal to 40 players with full loot, since 25 is the maximum amount of supplies per person per camp.
  • Quercus will now exchange the supplies for experience on their respective skill, or turn them into 4000 coins per supply.
• Whenever a player entering the camp has been spotted by a Warband NPC, an exclamation mark can be seen over their heads. This is most likely a reference to the Metal Gear Solid game series.
• Strangely, while melee users for each faction of warbands have different weapons, range and magic users all use the same bow and staff respectively.
• If dropped supplies are left unclaimed after a player dies, it is possible to recover them. Picking up supplies from a dead player does not result in becoming skulled (though obviously attacking a player will), and players who die without a skull may be able to recover a small number of supplies. However, any supplies picked up from the ground will still count against the 75 daily supply cap.
• Several teleportation methods can still be used when holding Warband supplies:
  • Spirit trees
  • Portal Chamber portals
  • Wilderness teleport lever found in Ardougne or Edgeville: note that the lever cannot be used to exit the Wilderness, so this is a one-way trip to level 50 Wilderness
  • Any Canoe on the River Lum
• Fairy rings were originally usable while holding warband supplies, this feature was removed with the introduction of the Portable fairy ring.
• There is currently a bug where any supply tent in a camp may appear as decayed during an active event and thus unable to be looted even if it is active. Lobbying and rejoining the world this happens on will fix it however.