Vanguard Exiles

Richard's unique take on the Autobattler is not quite like anything else I've played, but the through-line in the exploration of algorithmic decks from Keyforge and Solforge Fusion is clear and it's great fun to get in on the ground floor and see the game grow and develop.

Needs better art/graphics.

Très bon jeu ! Un mélange de deck building et de conquête de territoire assez prenant ! On voudrait même qu'une partie dure un peu plus longtemps ! En tout cas ça promet, hâte de voir comment le jeu va s'améliorer sur le long terme.

Great fun game. Lots of improvements sinse it first released the Demo. Devs are active and working on it. Look forward to seeing where this game goes.

EDIT: I have played the game less and less and I feel like it is due to having had back luck for a streak. I usually run the statistics and I lost that one time too often to a 2%er. Oh well. All I can say it feels exceedingly bad to lose with the superior strategy (measured by a positive outcome being more likely/most likely). I have no real idea how to "fix" this, I am just starting to feel like the game maybe after all isn't for me. ___ Original Review, slightly shortened (because of patches to the game): Very good "rogue"-ish strategy autobattler game so far! Feels like an automated board game, there are so many angles which influence your decisionmaking, it is very fun if you like to strategize more than actually playing. As an Magic the Gathering player, I prefer the drafting/deckbuilding experience over the playing the deck. If that seems weird to you, this game might not scratch your itch. So far I have only played VS the AI to learn the mechanics, interactions and such and I have had a blast learning how it works and what to predict. The "run 100 simulations" button afterwards is a blessing! You can find out if you just lost because of a very unlucky streak of things, or if you had the solid strategy and would have won 70% (or whatever) of the 100 fights with your and the opponents setup locked in and the "rolls" of the battles, initiative and dodge for example are generated 100 times by AI and presented to you as a graphic. So awesome! I also love the randomness of the squads you can recruit very much, feels like playing a sealed draft of sorts.

Richard Garfield designs abstract basketball. Love it. Very much a game of runs and building momentum. First to 100 wins. Lots of making the best of your choices and adjusting to what the opp throws at you and what you can afford off the bench. I'd play this as a board game if it were possible though I admit it would be near impossible to play as a board game due to all the initiatives, abilities and buffs/debuffs. A very apt use of the concept/platform.

The game has real potential. Each run feels fun to play, and I'm excited to try out more squad types.