Vanguard Exiles Review (Early Access Launch)

Magic the Gathering’s designer is back with Vanguard Exiles, a clever take on auto-battlers, but needs time during early access to improve on the formula.

Vanguard Exiles isn’t just another auto-battler—it’s a tense, mind game-heavy war of strategy and deception. Every move is a gamble and every skirmish can turn in an instant.

Designed by the legendary Richard Garfield, and developed by industry veterans The Tea Division, the game mixes multiple genres. Think auto-battler mechanics, with the calculated risk of a poker match, and the cutthroat area control of a strategy board game, all wrapped in a gritty dieselpunk-fantasy setting.

When its at its best, the game delivers some of the most thrilling, unpredictable battles I’ve played in the genre. But the rigid economy, squad imbalances, and some frustrating mechanics keeps it from fully capitalizing on its best ideas.

Vanguard Exiles plunges you into a post-World War I dieselpunk fantasy setting, where magic and technology collide in explosive ways.

After the cataclysmic “Day of Ash”, fractured factions are thrown into a desperate war for survival. As a General, it’s your job to lead your squad to victory by sending your vanguard to battle. You’ll navigate a constantly shifting battlefield, one skirmish at a time, in a high-stakes challenge to reclaim a shattered world.

At its core, the game is a unique spin on the auto-battler formula. Unlike games where units fight automatically in a single lane (TFT, Auto Chess), this one focuses on zone control.

Each round (or skirmish) you’ll deploy units to zones, claim them if there’s no enemy unit, or fight for control of the zone.

Claiming a zone will earn you Victory Points – usually abbreviated as VP. Whoever has the most points once anyone has crossed the 80 VP threshold wins.

But that’s easier said than done. You will be secretly deploying your units, and so does your opponent. That means you never know exactly where your opponent is placing their units until the auto battle begins.

It creates intense moments of mind games, and you’ll have to pay close attention to the state of the map. But it can also feel frustrating, especially when mixed with some random mechanics — I’ll come back to it later.

 

 

The map is randomly generated every game. Different zones have a specific number of victory points, and sometimes special effects. Corridors will appear between zones, and can create interesting choke points. A lot of strategy can emerge from just looking at the board setup.

As the game progresses, the map changes enough that you can’t use the same deployment strategy you’ve used on previously. Some zones will become inaccessible, sometimes splitting the map in two, and more zones and corridors will be available.

Zones can also appear with special effects tied to them. Some have gold, which rewards you with +1 gold at the end of the skirmish. Others can have a minefield with 50% chance of dealing damage to all units at the end of a turn.

It’s fun and really tests your ability to outthink and outmaneuver your opponent to get to the better zones fast.

 

 

 

As the action is spread across multiple zones, you’d expect the auto-battler aspect to feel disjointed. But thanks to The Director system, the camera seamlessly transitions between battles. It keeps the action fluid and the fights tense and gripping. It would be easy to dismiss, but it’s actually amazing in action, making the battles entertaining and easy to watch.

Where Vanguard Exiles really shines is its final round resolution. Instead of ending the game the moment a player reaches 80 Victory Points, the battle continues through that final round. That allows for amazing dramatic comebacks. It’s a brilliant decision that leads to some incredibly tense endgame scenarios.

It reminds me of playing Terraforming Mars, Andromeda’s Edge on tabletop. A last-minute power move can really steal the victory from your opponent, and that’s juicy!

 

Like the board games mentioned, I think the game could have some bonus scoring mechanics tied to personal objectives. Right now, victory is purely about controlling zones, but introducing secondary objectives could be really cool to see.

Having bonus points for unspent gold, or having to deploy only 2 units per zone maximum for a whole skirmish could open up more strategic paths and alternative playstyles. Heck there could even be public objectives for each skirmish that would reward a few extra points. Most similar board games use these objectives to have some light catchup mechanics that this game otherwise severely lacks.

If you’ve ever played Teamfight Tactics, or other traditional auto-battlers, you know these games are often about the strategic depth of economy management more than anything else.

The beauty of TFT’s income system for example, is the variety. Will you push for a 3-star basic unit early? Will you spend the gold on XP to level up and unlock rare late-game powerhouses? Or will you strike a balance between the two? Each path offers unique challenges and rewards, and knowing when to pivot is often the difference between victory and defeat. Deciding where to spend your gold adds layers of tension and decision-making to these games.

 

 

In Vanguard Exiles, the income system is way simpler—and, unfortunately, a bit one-dimensional. After each skirmish, you’re given one gold automatically and go straight to the shop. There you can select one of three options to buy. One free option that is one of the three (unlimited) units you have in your squad. The two other a random selection from your action and limited unit pool that you’ll have to pay for. The twist?

Gold is pretty tight, with the only way to earn more being a few +1 gold zones. Some options on the store may also offer you +1 gold for buying them too (usually free options). The issue is that quite often, I’ve had no luck in my shop offering and couldn’t do anything about it. If you’re sitting on 7 gold with no good options, the frustration is real.

 

 

In its current state, income management lacks the satisfying complexity of its competitors, and while the gold system is functional, it feels like a missed opportunity to add more layers to the strategy.

What’s missing here is that crucial level of choice and strategy with your gold. Unlike TFT, where you can manipulate your economy to build towards specific goals, Vanguard Exiles doesn’t give you that flexibility. The shop feels limiting! The lack of a way to refresh the available options makes you feel stuck with whatever the game gives you. I would love to be able to unlock additional buying options with gold. Or refresh my shop for a cost—it would go a long way towards adding some much-needed depth.

There’s also no XP system to unlock higher-rarity units on the shop. While rare units do pop up occasionally, their appearance seem random, with no way to influence that drop rate. I feel the game could really benefit from a system where you can earn ranks (it’s a military setting after all). Like in TFT or Autochess, it would then increase the likelihood of seeing rarer units. It would alleviate those moments where you have more than enough gold but can’t get the one unit you need.

 

 

And speaking of rarity, there’s barely any here. Units only come in two rarities: normal or rare. And unlike traditional auto-battlers, you can’t stack copies of a unit to create a stronger version of it. No matter how many times you draw the same unit, it stays the same power level. It removes the fun of improving your units over time, and it leaves you with a more static experience.

The game often feels like a digital version of a board game in some ways. Richard Garfield is a veteran tabletop designer after all!

The game often feels like a digital version of a board game in some ways. Richard Garfield is a veteran tabletop designer after all!

While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does come with some of the typical baggage. The game’s economy, for example, is very restrictive. You only earn a ridiculously small amount of gold after each skirmish. That makes sense in a physical board game where tracking resources can be a hassle. But in a video game, there’s no reason for the same limitations to apply. There is one thing I can think of why that is a good idea still. It can keep the gold spread between loser and winner as tight as possible. Then again I wish we’d have some more room to play with.

A more fluid, dynamic economy would open up a lot of strategic opportunities, and give the game a modern feel. Right now, it feels like the game is holding itself back in some ways. It feels constrained by design decisions that work in tabletop settings. What’s funny to me is that the more digital-driven mechanics in the game, go the other extreme. There is a massive amount of randomness on a few crucial systems, making the game feel like two worlds clashing. Physical against digital.

It makes sense that the game feels like it does though. I’d wager Richard Garfield has spent most of his time prototyping the game in paper format. Most mechanics seem set in stone for the Early Access release, so we’ll see how the game evolves.

 

 

In Vanguard Exiles, deploying units into various zones is just one part of the strategy. Your squad is composed of randomly assigned units from two factions, alongside a random set of special actions. These can either enhance your deployed units or affect the zones themselves with special effects. These actions can be as powerful as they are unpredictable. Some even lean towards being overpowered to the point of feeling broken.

Take the Purify Station zone action. It’s a neat action that lets you play it on previously claimed zones. It adds the “Toxic 1” trait, causing all units to take one damage at the end of each turn. It’s effective, but not too flashy. And then there’s Ruin. This zone action destroys a zone and turns it into an unclaimable, 0 Victory Points area. A single Ruin can completely derail a good deployment, and it costs only 1 gold. Its impact feels wildly disproportionate to its price.

Sure, choosing Ruin means you can’t buy a new unit for the next skirmish. But the time your enemy spends scrambling around the ruined zone can change everything! I’ve experienced the thrill of being 23 Victory Points behind, only to snatch victory in a single skirmish. It feels like holding a Blue Shell in Mario Kart when you’re hopelessly behind—it feels super satisfying. But imagine holding the Blue Shell while being ahead… that is broken!

 

 

Add to that issue that you can have multiples of the same actions in your squad. With infinite squad re-rolls, I got three Ruin actions in my squad and super solid units to play with. When it’s that easy to break the game’s balance, something feels off. And you can stack these advantages without any risk! This randomness, while exciting, can lead to a few too many “feel-bad” moments in the long run.

Randomized pathing is one of game’s most puzzling design decision.

Once your units claim a zone, they don’t march towards a zone you’ve selected —they just go… somewhere. This decision is entirely out of your hands! Your forces can split up and head to a zone you don’t care about. Worse, they can fail to concentrate their strength in a contested zone, costing you the fight and valuable victory points.

It’s a level of unpredictability that can feel like a battle against the game itself. This is standard design practice for most auto-battlers, but I’m not a fan of how it works for this game.

And if history is any indication, randomness can be a death sentence for strategy games. Take Artifact, Richard Garfield’s ill-fated collaboration with Valve. Despite its innovative ideas, it had one mechanic that most people hated. Units would randomly chose their attack direction at the start of each turn. Sometimes they’d go straight for the tower which is the win condition. But other times, they’d veer off to hit a random adjacent enemy, throwing your entire plan off.

 

 

The key difference? In Artifact, that randomness is what’s known as “input randomness”  (even though there is some output randomness too as, I’m showing on the previous picture).

It’s something that happens before the player’s turn, giving them a chance to react and adapt. Vanguard Exiles, on the other hand, takes it to an even more extreme level! It offers no way to influence unit pathing at all. You just have to sit back and hope for the best…

The brilliant skirmish analysis tool — The Resolver — will at least tell you whether your were lucky or not. But that doesn’t change the fact that you had zero agency in the moment. Sure, sometimes randomness works in your favor, leading to an unexpected victory. But when it doesn’t, it can feel like you didn’t lost because of a mistake. You lost because the game decided you should.

A huge game like Hearthstone received backlash for some of its more RNG-heavy mechanics. They ended up having to tone it down to keep competitive balance in check. This game may need to do the same at some point.

Strategy games thrive on giving players control over their fate, and right now, Vanguard Exiles feels like it’s stuck between being a traditional autobattler and a strategy game, without fully committing to either.

The good news? This isn’t necessarily set in stone. Richard Garfield has already expressed that he wants the game to evolve through player feedback during Early Access. And if there’s one thing veteran designers understand, it’s that games should grow alongside their audience. In a recent podcast, he talked about his philosophy of putting a game in players hands as early as possible. He believes that players will help shape the design’s direction. That flexibility is promising, and it gives Vanguard Exiles a real chance to refine its identity. But right now, the game doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be. With the right tweaks though, it can evolve into something truly special.

Randomized pathing unfortunately wasn’t enough… There is also a randomized initiative and targeting system, that adds to an already quite unpredictable game.

You can lose battles because initiative was unfavorable to you. Worse, sometimes units will target a full health enemy, when there was an available unit that would have died. I’ve had many a good fight ruined by this mechanic alone. And let’s not even speak about ranged units. They LOVE to attack units in other zones instead of first attacking enemies in their zone. And of course they die in the process.

On top of all that, there is also a dodge value for most unit. Dodge is usually set around 10% chance. But I’ve seen as high as 25% for some specialized units. That can spell disaster or save you from a certain death, and again it’s entirely out of your hands.

 

 

It feels like the game wants to be an exciting game to spectate and experience, but for a more strategy-focused player, these could well be deal-breakers. I really expect a divide in the community playing the game, some will be happy with how entertaining it is to watch and play, while other might wish for more predictable outcomes.

The game has three factions, with more on the way. Each offering distinct playstyles, keywords, and mechanics. This variety creates exciting opportunities to experiment with combos, unit abilities, and map placement to pull off powerful chain reactions. The factions also shine visually, with a ton of personality and style. I challenge you to not love Berserker Bears or Griggs! The designs are wonderful.

The big issue is that the game buries this depth and visual information behind a frustrating incomplete UI.

One of Vanguard Exiles’ biggest missteps is how little information it gives you upfront. You can’t fully inspect the units and actions of a squad before the game actually starts, and you see that card in your hand or in the shop…

A PDF is available on the official website with a few pages showing all the units, their stats and keywords. I’m sure it’s temporary, but right now the game information is really lacking.

 

 

There’s a simple fix really! Let us see each unit and action cards info on the squad screen. If you’re unfamiliar with each unit and action, early matches become more about trial and error than strategy. It’s not really fun guessing whether your random faction combo is even viable.

Also some squads can be generated with twice as many rare units as others, but there’s no clear explanation why.

The last squad I generated had 6 rare units as well as 3 Ruins. Absolute destruction for the AI bot I’m playing against, who can’t keep up at all halfway to extreme difficulty!

It’s probably going to be fixed by the time the Early Access version gets out, or fast when it’s out. But as of right now this is incredibly frustrating. The UI and UX will need improvement, but overall most of the UI is clear and easy to use!

Richard Garfield’s recent tabletop designs, like Solforge Fusion and Keyforge, use algorithms to generate completely unique decks.

Vanguard Exiles follows suit with its squad system. This feature does keep things fresh and unpredictable and makes sure that players can’t optimize fully their squad themselves. There is no way to craft THE perfect broken squad. But it’s also something that can rub some players the wrong way. Some will love the chaotic, prebuilt nature of these squads, while others may hate the lack of control.

But even in the games mentioned above, we’ve seen unbalanced units that were quite stronger than others. I’ve heard of people paying thousands for a chance to find the perfect randomized deck.

 

 

Players will always optimize however they can, and a meta will still exist whether the designer likes it or not. As the game progresses, it’ll be fascinating to see if this system finds its sweet spot between balance and unpredictability.

 

Verdict

After 20 hours of playing the game, I’m not ready to put it down anytime soon! If like me you’re a fan of area control games it’s absolutely worth checking out. Auto-battler veterans might however find the lack of familiar mechanics a bit of a hurdle.

Right now it’s a fun but somewhat frustrating strategy game that rewards careful play—but punishes mistakes a little too harshly. And that’s before even taking into account the randomness.

It’s definitely worth giving the demo a shot though! Take some time to learn its intricacies, and see if its unique blend of mechanics clicks for you. With Early Access launching on March 11th, it’ll be exciting to see how the game evolves with community feedback.

If the developers fine-tune the shop and economy, the faction balance, the user interface, and revisit some of the systems in place, I can definitely see the game shine.

Vanguard Exiles is innovative, comes with a great setting, and interesting faction variety. The zone-based battles, mind game-heavy deployments, and tense final rounds make every match feel different. But unpredictable mechanics, a rigid economy, and a lack of transparency during squad selection, holds it back from being truly great for now.