Vanguard: Seeking Sanctuary - Part 1: Despair

 Some months ago, I came across a link for this solo skirmish game called Vanguard: Seeking Sanctuary. It consists of a simple set of rules that don't require any paper recording beyond what your characters are and their special actions/conditions. Of the 29 pages, 16 pages contain rules, the rest are scenarios for the game's campaign and a map. I downloaded it to my phone, so when I needed something to pass the time, I'd just pull up the file and read. Did that all summer! 

The premise is that monsters have suddenly begun spawning from portals/crawling out of the depths of the ground and, due to an army already spread thin for whatever reasons you wish to invent, your team of six mercenaries has been hired to discover the cause and, hopefully, stop the rising tide of terrors. Basically, each scenario is a task for your team to accomplish before being over-run by the constant stream of incoming monsters.

This is my first play of the game, starting at the first scenario, titled "Despair".

Morlok's Court, an area on the outskirts of the town where the mercenary team had just assembled and struck their deal with the regional authority, is thrown into chaos as a sudden trembling announces the imminent arrival of the hideous horde from the ground! The heroic band must save and evacuate as many civilians as they can.

Setup: the mercenary band is walking down the street on their way out of town when the ground starts to rumble. Time to gather up civilians! There are ten civilians (paper figures) randomly placed on the table, two are hidden behind the two small buildings (bottom right) and one is behind the townhouses (top left). 

From left: Turok - barbarian fighter from the north, Ivor - fearless leader, Emeralda - priestess of protection, Katya - knight errant, Elan - elven ranger, Fenrir - dwarven fusileer

Turn 1

As the mercenaries spread out to gather up civilians, the first of the monsters arrive. Three grunts and a boss. As per the scenario, roll a d6 at the end of each round and add +1 for every civilian in contact with a mercenary. A successful roll of 7+ results in the arrival of a carriage/wagon that rescued civilians need to be taken to for evacuation. No luck this turn.

Turn 2

Elan takes aim and makes the first kill.

The boss doesn't have to go far for its first victim.

This grunt, however, has a hard time pinning this one down!

Two elites and two more grunts arrive. No ride out of here yet!

Turn 3

Elan manages to knock down the boss.

Fenrir bags a grunt as it comes up a side road.

Emeralda casts an armour buff to help Katya, who attacks an elite. Unfortunately, her blow is deflected.

This grunt still having troubles with its prey!

Seeing the danger that woman was in (back in Turn 2), Emeralda cast a protection spell on her, hoping someone might be able to reach her in time. With the protection of the spell, the woman is spared a grizzly death, for now.

Thanks to the armour buff, Katya avoids being knocked down. The boss gets up, immediately attacking Ivor, but is too disoriented to land any blows. I forgot to document what spawned this round.

Turn 4

The carriage has arrived! Four civilians are loaded up. They really should go, but Emeralda thinks she has the time to get to one more civilian.

Elan takes down another grunt!

Fenrir shoots a grunt, but it keeps on coming!

Ivor and Katya keep their charges at bay while Emeralda rushes past them. Ivor actually kills the boss, but I must have missed taking a picture of that.

Those women are proving quite difficult for the grunts! Too bad they're so far away, there's just too many monsters and no chance they'll be rescued by the mercenaries. In the spawn phase, a couple more elites and a couple more grunts showed up.

Katya knocks down the elite she's fighting. Ivor moves to contend with another elite that spawned just after the boss got killed. He can't knock it down, but at least keeps it off of Emeralda as she grabs another civilian.

Fenrir takes a long shot and knocks down an elite.

Elan moves to cover Emeralda and hopefully help out Ivor and Katya. Turns to take down another grunt.

Ivor keeps the elite at bay. Turok's shadow on the right as he comes to help. Where has he been?

Katya's elite gets up and takes a swipe, catching nothing but a shield.

Our unlucky grunt finally sees a success!

Turn 5

I started to neglect the picture taking, but the previous turn spawn phase saw another boss and more grunts. As Emeralda passes through the battle line with civilian in tow, the mercenaries gather rounds and start their retreat toward the carriage, being massed by the monsters as they went. Elan is knocked down, but is luckily able to fend off any blows that come while he's on the ground.

The end is near. Either their defence breaks or the mercenaries will get to the carriage!

Fenrir is alone on the other side of the carriage as more monsters close. His heavy armour keeps him safe from this boss and elite and a ranged grunt. I had originally decided to have no ranged units for the monsters, using Tyranid hormagaunts and genestealers as grunts and elites. The boss is some kind of spider mage thing from Heroscape. I started running out of hormagaunts, so I started bringing out termagants (ones with guns), so some ranged units.

Turn 6

Thanks to Katya's knight ability, the defence holds and everyone is able to get on the carriage, along with five civilians. In order to live to fight another day, they have to leave the town behind and let fate play out its hand. 

As the heroes and their charges head into the great forest of the Svartvalt, they are joined by others who have managed to flee the town. What awaits this group as they traverse the road through the great trees of the forest? Can the monstrous horde be stopped? The sounds of destruction fade and night is coming on. The forest's darkness only invites one feeling at the end of this day... despair.