The Vanguard factionfaction. An in-game group or nation players can align with or fight against, with its own goals and reputation system. is the on-ramp to Stormgate. It is the human-survivor lineup — infantry, ranged units, mechs, walls, and towers — built by a Frost Giant Studios team largely drawn from ex-Blizzard RTSRTS. Real-Time Strategy — a strategy game where everyone plays at the same time, continuously, instead of taking turns. veterans, and its macro loop is the closest thing in the game to a StarCraft Terran or a Command & Conquer GDI rhythm. That familiarity is the trap: Vanguard is not a reskin of Terran, and the moment you treat its multi-build economy like an SCV line, you mismanage the single most important decision in the faction. This primer covers the unit roster, the hero loadouts that matter in Co-op and 3v3 Team Mayhem, and the opening five minutes of each ladder matchup.

What it covers: The Vanguard roster, hero loadouts for Co-op and 3v3 Team Mayhem, and per-matchup openers. Why it matters: Vanguard looks like Terran — but treating its multi-build economy like an SCV line is the faction’s core mistake. Who should pick this: New Stormgate players choosing the human faction first.

The Vanguard economy in one paragraph

Vanguard workers — the Servo (sometimes labeled B.O.B. in client text) — harvest Luminite and Therium from mining nodes, and they also construct every Vanguard building. The faction’s defining mechanic is multi-build: multiple Servos can stack onto the same structure, with each extra worker cutting the remaining build time. That turns every construction commitment into an income-tradeoff. The Servos you pull off the mineral line to wall a ramp are Servos not mining, so Vanguard’s macro is a worker-allocation puzzle, not an APM puzzle. Lose workers and you lose tempo the way you do in any worker-based RTS; the difference is that Vanguard can also lose tempo by spending workers on builds it did not need to rush.

Unit roster: what each box does

The roster below reflects Early Access unit availability as of the current patch cycle. Frost Giant iterates balance continuously, so stat lines, costs, and even whether a given unit is in the build menu should be treated as moving targets — confirm against the in-game client or official patch notes.

Tier 1 — opening units

  • Servo — worker. Harvests Luminite and Therium, constructs all buildings, repairs mechanical units. Multi-build stackable. The only unit you cannot afford to lose in bulk.
  • Rifleman — core ranged infantry. The backbone of every early Vanguard army and the unit you mass to hold a ramp or a natural expansion. Trades efficiently into light Infernal imps and Celestial harassment.
  • Grenadier — area-of-effect infantry. The early answer to clumped light units and the tool that punishes an opponent who groups up to push. Lower single-target output than the Rifleman, higher value against density.
  • Medic — healing support infantry. Keeps a Rifleman ball alive through attrition, which is what makes a defensive Vanguard line sustainable rather than a one-and-done wall.

Tier 2 — the mid-game fork

  • Lancer — dedicated anti-armor/anti-mech option. The unit you build when the opponent commits to heavier frames and your Riflemen stop trading efficiently.
  • Watchdog / Sentry Post — base defense. The Sentry Post is the structure that defines Vanguard’s fortified identity; it can convert between modes, and pairing it with walls is how you hold a natural expansion against early aggression. Mode conversion is a micro decision, not a passive buff.
  • Steel-Crusher — early mech. The first vehicle-tier unit and the bridge between infantry and the high-tier mech ball. Punishes opponents who skipped anti-armor.

Tier 3 — the payoff

  • Atlas — heavy mech. The unit the fortified Vanguard line is built to reach. Trades efficiently into most mid-game compositions when supported by repair Servos and a Medic/Rifleman screen.
  • Warhawk — fire-support mech. The tool that lets a turtling Vanguard start projecting force outward once the wall is secure.
  • Apex units / superweapon tier — the late-game payoff for surviving the early and mid-game. Exact top-tier availability and cost should be confirmed in-client.

Hero loadouts (Co-op and 3v3 Team Mayhem)

Heroes are persistent, ability-carrying units featured in Co-op and the 3v3 Team Mayhem mode — they are not part of the 1v1 ladder, which is hero-free. Loadout choice in Co-op matters because each hero changes which abilities you bring and which tech you can rush.

HeroRoleSignature abilitiesBest paired with
AmaraInfantry commanderInfantry-enhancing and survival toolsMassed Rifleman + Medic
VictoryMech specialistMech production and repair orientedAtlas / Warhawk tech rush
DerifFortification / defenseTower, wall, and area-denial orientedTurtled 3-base into Tier 3
AuroraMobility / harassmentFast raid and forward-projection orientedAggressive expand timings

Hero names and ability lists above are drawn from Early Access content; Frost Giant has rotated and added heroes across patches, so confirm the current roster in-client. The loadout principle is stable regardless: pick the hero that matches the tech path you intend to commit to, because Vanguard’s linear tech tree means your hero and your build order reinforce each other rather than compensating for each other.

Build-order principles

Two rules govern every Vanguard opening. First, multi-build your first key structures — pulling two Servos onto a production building or a Barracks-equivalent cuts the time enough to matter in the first three minutes, when every second of delayed unit production is a second the opponent is ahead on army count. Second, never wall before you scout. Vanguard’s temptation is to seal the ramp immediately; the correct play is to send a Servo or an early Rifleman to read the opponent’s opening, then wall only as hard as the opener demands. A walled base against an opponent who took a fast expansion is a base that has spent income on defense it did not need.

Timings below are expressed in approximate in-game seconds from match start and assume standard 1v1 ladder settings. Frost Giant has tuned build and training times across multiple patches; treat the second-counts as ballpark, not exact.

Opening build: Vanguard vs Infernal

The matchup is turtle versus aggressor. Infernal wants Shroud pressure and forward summons to deny your expansion; Vanguard wants to survive the early pressure, wall the natural, and reach the mech tier where ranged units and towers hold a fortified line.

  1. 0:00 — Start Servo production from the Command Center. Send the starting Servos to the nearest Luminite node. Queue continuous Servo production to ~12 workers.
  2. 0:20 — Pull one Servo to scout toward the Infernal base. You need to read whether the opener is a Shroud push or an Imp all-in.
  3. ~0:40 — Begin first production structure (Barracks-equivalent) with two Servos multi-build. Do not cut Servo production.
  4. ~1:00 — Start a second mining node drop (Therium) once you have the worker count to support it.
  5. ~1:30 — First Rifleman out. Send it to the ramp, not to scout; you already have the scout Servo reading the Infernal.
  6. ~2:00 — If the Infernal is pushing Shroud forward, commit two Servos to walling the natural ramp and build a Sentry Post in the wall. If the Infernal is teching, skip the full wall and take the natural expansion instead.
  7. ~3:00 — Add a Medic to the Rifleman ball. The Medic is what turns a defensive line from “hold one push” into “hold repeated pushes.”
  8. ~4:00 — Begin Tier 2 tech. The whole Vanguard game plan vs Infernal is to reach Tier 3 mechs behind a wall the Infernal cannot grind through.
  9. ~5:00 — Take the natural expansion if you have not already. By the five-minute mark you should have a walled natural, a Rifleman/Medic line, and Tier 2 underway. If Infernal still has map control at five minutes, you are behind — your build order lost to their tempo.

Opening build: Vanguard vs Celestial

This is the war of geometries. Celestial spreads the Cascade Field grid and harasses with mobility; Vanguard consolidates into defensible clusters. The Celestial game plan is to sever your expansions at the edges before your walls go up.

  1. 0:00 — Standard Servo opener. Continuous worker production to ~12.
  2. 0:20 — Scout Servo toward the Celestial Arcship. Your read target is different here: you are not checking for an all-in, you are checking which tech path the Celestial is committing to.
  3. ~0:40 — First production structure, two-Servo multi-build.
  4. ~1:00 — Drop a Therium mining node.
  5. ~1:30 — First Rifleman. Against Celestial, keep early units near your expansion edges, not parked at the ramp — Celestial harassment comes from angles, not from the front door.
  6. ~2:00 — Take the natural expansion earlier than you would vs Infernal. Against a mobility faction, delaying the expansion to wall it first gives the Celestial time to project the grid around you. Get the base down, then wall.
  7. ~2:30 — Add a Sentry Post at the natural. Pair it with a partial wall — you do not need a full seal against Celestial the way you do against an Infernal all-in.
  8. ~3:30 — Begin Tier 2 tech. Your goal is ranged tools that punish hit-and-run: anything that deals with fast harassment without having to chase it.
  9. ~4:30 — Re-scout the Celestial tech path. The single highest-value action in this matchup is identifying the Celestial’s mid-game fork before it comes online, because a Vanguard line built against the wrong composition is a wasted wall.
  10. ~5:00 — You should have a natural expansion, a Sentry Post, a Rifleman/Medic screen, and a confirmed read on the Celestial tech path. From here the matchup is decided by whether your composition matches their fork.

Opening build: Vanguard mirror

The mirror is the matchup where multi-build discipline wins games. Both sides have the same tools, so the deciding factors are worker allocation and scouting, not faction asymmetry.

  1. 0:00 — Standard Servo opener, continuous production.
  2. 0:20 — Scout Servo to read the opponent’s first structure timing and worker count.
  3. ~0:40 — First production structure, two-Servo multi-build. In the mirror, the player who gets the first Rifleman out first controls the early map.
  4. ~1:00 — Therium node.
  5. ~1:30 — First Rifleman. Use it to contest the mid-map and deny the opponent’s scout, not to sit at your ramp.
  6. ~2:00 — Decide based on the scout read: if the opponent is walling, take your natural aggressively; if the opponent is taking the natural aggressively, wall and punish the undefended expansion with a Rifleman push.
  7. ~3:00 — Add Medic and a second production structure. The mirror rewards a wider Rifleman/Medic ball over a faster tech rush, because whoever wins the mid-map fight wins the expansion war.
  8. ~4:00 — Begin Tier 2.
  9. ~5:00 — Two bases, a Rifleman/Medic ball that controls mid-map, and Tier 2 underway. The mirror from here is a macro-and-positioning grind; whoever misallocates Servos to a build they did not need loses the tempo race.

Tier list: Vanguard units by matchup value

Criteria: how reliably a unit earns its cost across the three matchups, accounting for the matchup it is weakest in. Tier S is the unit you build in every game; tier D is situational or a tech-trap in the current patch.

TierUnitWhy
SRiflemanBackbone of every composition; trades in all three matchups
SMedicSustains the Rifleman line; the difference between holding and folding
SServoThe economy; multi-build makes it the highest-leverage unit in the faction
ASentry PostHolds expansions; mode conversion adds reactive value
AGrenadierPunishes clumped light units; strong vs Infernal imp density
AAtlasThe Tier 3 payoff that justifies the turtle game plan
BLancerNecessary vs mech-heavy Celestial and Infernal Tier 3; dead weight vs light openings
BSteel-CrusherBridge to Tier 3; value depends on opponent anti-armor investment
BWatchdogDefensive tool; situational depending on wall layout
CWarhawkStrong when it lands; gated behind tech and cost
DApex tierGame-ending when reached; rarely reached in 1v1 before the game is decided

Common build-order mistakes

  • Walling before scouting. A wall against a fast-expand opponent is wasted income. Scout, then wall to the threat level you actually see.
  • Single-Servo builds in the first two minutes. Multi-build is the faction’s core mechanic; leaving your first Barracks-equivalent on one Servo when you could spare a second is a tempo donation.
  • Skipping the Medic. A Rifleman ball without a Medic is a one-push defense. The Medic is what makes Vanguard’s fortified identity sustainable.
  • Tech-rushing in the mirror. The mirror is won by the player who controls mid-map with a wider infantry ball, not by the player who reaches Tier 3 first. Tech rushing in the mirror loses to a Rifleman/Medic timing.
  • Ignoring the Celestial tech-path read. In the Vanguard vs Celestial matchup, building the wrong composition into the wrong fork is the most common loss condition. Re-scout at ~4:30 every game.

A note on patch volatility

Stormgate is in Early Access and Frost Giant ships balance changes on a rolling cadence. Unit names, costs, training times, hero rosters, and even which units occupy which tier slot have moved between patches. Treat every specific number in this primer as “current as of the most recent patch, verify in-client.” The build-order principles — multi-build your first structure, scout before you wall, take the natural earlier vs mobility and later vs aggression, read the Celestial tech fork — are the stable layer underneath the shifting stats.

Sources & further reading

Next read