ISS Vanguard

Even if you could get shorter game sessions than Sleeping Gods, this monster in the box can become brutally long, especially when you get hooked. In fact, the weekend was spent for sorting out for couple of planets even to a satisfactory conclusion!

The ship phases between the planets took their own time, but with great interest, because there are many maintenance phases and every decision affects future playthroughs, such as new equipment obtained through research and the selection of characters specialized in certain fields for the next mission. For example, digging a tunnel would be easier if a character knew how to use a pickaxe. Skill checks can be messed up, but it doesn't seem too punishing, because you can prepare for them with e.g. section cards. Skill checks (by using dice rolls) is the major mechanic in this game and sometimes I get bored of that, but usually I forget that weakness easily because of game's theme and atmosphere.

Dear solo players, I warn you, this is table hog and you should manage at least 3 characters at the same time. If this is okay, it's good game for you too!

And nothing else, but let's move and back to rolling sixes... I mean vanguards!

This game has been hard for me to learn so far, embarrassingly lol. I keep trying to like and learn it since the art, story, genre is right up my alley. The dice checks and heavy reliability on luck seems to be turning me off so far. I plan on giving it another go this weekend and will update my rating if I change my view. Currently I'm at a 6. I did like the story and mood of the tutorial however I found myself having to consult the rulebook a lot and even had to follow along with a YouTuber playing the tutorial. So long story short, may have bit off more that I can chew with this one but I really like the concept so going to give it some more tries. If your not into heavy games or plan on playing with someone whose not a big gamer then beware..

I play it in my group nowadays quite often and it's such a nice story mode. We really enjoy this game. I would recommend it for sure if you don't mind to play a game for 3+h depends on your discussion time^^

There's a lot to like here, with fun story bits and ship management, but the mechanisms are too complicated for not enough payoff. It's simply too long - the game could have used much more streamlining in development. As is, it's probably best for solo gamers with time on their hands who can leave it set up somewhere. Note: our group gave up after the halfway point.

Good tutorial for the full game. First few plays take quite much time to get the rules right. After that the flow of the exploration phase and the ship management phase gets quicker. As usual with a card or dice game luck can hit quite hard or just be really good (wrong cards for situations on planets or dice just won't roll the expected results). Story is really interesting just want to read more