Generals!

In our latest update, "Command Flags" hit the battlefield in Vanguard Exiles, offering each Faction the capacity to exert influence over Unit movement as they traverse the map!

This influence comes through utilising Zone Actions, which feature Attract and Repel mechanics. The former gives directional preference to an affected Unit’s movement, while the latter causes a Unit to ignore movement choices towards that Zone (instead of making a random movement choice).

Here’s a breakdown of each Zone Action for their respective Factions and what they do:

• Elven: Beguiling Sigil – Attracts all opponent Units (Enemy Squad)

• Human: Eldritch Beacon – Attracts all allied Units (Your Squad)

• Dwarven: Captivating Obelisk – Attracts ALL Units

• Undead (Attract): Desecrated Ground – Attracts ALL Undead and repels ALL non-Undead Units

• Undead (Repel): Hallowed Ground – Repels ALL Undead and attracts ALL non-Undead Units

To give players an illustration of how they work, we've provided an example below:

• The Zombie starts in Zone A which also contains a Hallowed Ground

• Hallowed Ground repels Undead but lures Non-Undead, but since it's already been deployed in the Zone (and being that the Zone is unclaimed) it doesn't move and claims Zone A

• Once claimed, it now looks for the nearest unclaimed Zone and has an option of 4 possible Zones (being Zones B,C,D,E - all of which are all 1 Zone away)

• Zone E also has a Hallowed Ground, so being that it repels Undead, it is removed as option

• Zone B has a Desecrated Ground which lures Undead, which means C and D are eliminated as an option as the Zombie is drawn to the Desecrated Ground

• Once claiming Zone B, it now looks for the nearest unclaimed Zones of which there are 3, Zone C, D and E

• Where Zones E & D are 2 Zones away, and Zone C is 1 Zone away, it chooses to move to capture C

• Once C is claimed and the Zombie looks for the next unclaimed Zone, the options are Zone E and Zone D (both 2 Zones away)

• As Zone E has a Hallowed Ground which repels Undead, it will prefer to move to Zone D (via Zone A) to claim it

• Once Zone D is claimed, the Zombie has only one viable Zone left to claim, and now "reluctantly" goes to claim Zone E, being the last option available

This is just one example of what to expect, but in the near future we’ll be releasing a follow-up "deep dive" article that explores these new Zone Actions and their nuances in greater detail.

Additionally, the Demo version has been updated with all the latest fixes and improvements from the Early Access version, including a refined difficulty progression and greater variety in the Daily Challenges.

Mandatory shout-out to our community for their continued support, and as always, after the sign-off below, you can find the detailed changelog of the latest update to keep you up-to-date on recent bug fixes, additions and tweaks.

Until next time, keep smiling and keep on skirmishing!

Cheers,
Tinbeard

Changelog:

New:

• Command Flags

Improvements:

• Tweaked layout of Keyword information (Font sizes and spacing)

• Fixed some redundant data in characters

• Daily challenges tweaked to remain challenging, but not totally 1 sided

• Options Menu Tooltips

• Improved/added shadows to some zone objects

• Adjusted Shadow cascades to improve zoomed/battle range shadows

• Demo specific: Refined Difficulty progression and added more variety to the Daily Challenges.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed issue with UI ordering on Dailies screen

• Worked around issue of VFX Graph material changes crashing Unity

• Fixes for raycast detection issues against world and cards

• Stopped Redeploy for spectators showing up in some circumstances

• Changed player iterator to shallow copy traversal to fix a rare crash

• Fixed modifier icons turning white after tooltips

• Stop Unit visual logic updating at end of game (fix for rare end of game issue causing bad data at start of next skirmish)

Generals!

The Steam Spring Sale 2026 has kicked off and The Tea Division is here to bring you the value!

During the duration of the Steam Spring Sale, Vanguard Exiles will be discounted by 25%!

Now to add a little context to the significance of this sale, in the last few months, we’ve not only  released a host of new Units and a new Zone Modifier to the game, but we’ve also done an overhaul of our single player experience within the last week! 

With so many new features having been released (and more coming in the near future) this sale represents some stellar value! For those yet to own the game, now is the time to take on the mantle of General and join the fray! 

The Steam Spring Sale ends March 26, so don’t miss this opportunity to take advantage of this offer and join the skirmish at the discounted price!

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