It Begins!

Hey there robot family, the time has come!

For the game to arrive in your eager hands? Well, no, sadly, but that’s coming soon! Our most recent prototype looks great! In the meantime though, we’ve started a Pre-Release Tournament for backers with the Tabletop Simulator full demo, and it’s been a doozy.

The Rules

For this tournament, we matched up players in a single-elimination bracket where they all had limitless potential to build their own teams and fight in a best-of-3 match. The winner gets their own custom promo with their copy of the game illustrated by Emily Hancock, who has previously done promotional illustrations for us.

The Bracket

14 backers signed up, and off we went! A majority of players were from our Discord community and have been very enthusiastic!

Round 1 Report (Amazing Data!!)

Our head numbers guy Jesse has put together some very impressive analytics for this tournament. On that page, you can see all of the teams put together by the players, how well they’re doing, which robots appeared the most, and so on. Delicious, delicious data.

JJ vs. Mepstein

In the first game of round 1, our own recurring intern JJ (who works on other projects besides AEGIS) entered the fray to face down Copper Frog Games‘ Mepstein, who we often partner with for production assistance. A Zephyr Brawl! Mepstein chose to use Storybook Ainer, which had art used to promote his game Pigment at PAX Unplugged. Fitting! JJ meanwhile used the default Ainer demo team, because who needs fancy tricks when you have tactics? JJ ran away with a 2-0 victory here, waiting for Epstein to encroach before wailing on him with powerful close-range attacks.

Brifox vs. FunSize85

Two lovely recurring faces in the A.E.G.I.S. Discord community face off! Long-time fan and VIP backer Brifox charged in with Kal, who he helped create! Kal’s ability forces opponents to reroll their dice if her robots are next to walls, leading to some powerful stalling and defensive tactics. That didn’t help in round 1 though, as FunSize’s combine-centric team swiftly cleaned house with ELL-4000’s indiscriminately destructive bombs! Dodge that! In game 2, Brifox fought back and stalled FunSize out, winning a battle of attrition, and in the final round Brifox stole the match when FunSize threw himself in too aggressively!

SleepyPaladin vs. Phillip

The push meta is here! SleepyPaladin fought a decisive round against cool guy Phillip using a team centered around pushing robots off the board! A powerful strategy against those who don’t expect it, this team utilizes precise positioning and lining up attacks, aided by Sleepy’s commander of choice, Vatis! Vatis’s Shifty Business ability can tweak any robot’s position 2 spaces, a devilish ability as subtle as it is powerful!

RobotScott vs. Emily

This round was a bye for Scott, putting him into the second round automatically. In this tournament, VIP Backer Scott is using the Commander that he designed, Nolan! The wise cyborg gives you an energy rebate every time you Combine, allowing you to do more on your turn while also capitalizing on Combine abilities!

Gojirazard vs. Nepycros

A showdown for the ages! Both players here chose to optimize their teams for maximum combining potential, with both players having around a dozen combine options! On turn 1, Gojirazard combined all of his robots together to make the devastating ranged pair of the Aroz-6000 and Ssm-3000! Together they fired lasers and rockets all the way across the map. To match, Nepycros combined to the Gan-2000, a floating shield that draws all fire towards it. Goji gets some lucky rocket shots on Gan and deals damage to several of Nepycros’s robots as he approached. Nepycros quickly takes it up another notch and combines all his robots into the Level 4 Ender-ida and begins darting in and out of range. Once Ender-ida got into range, it effectively disarmed and damaged both of Goji’s robots, only for Goji’s SSm-3000 to slam Nepyros’ titan out of bounds.

In game 2, the furious mayhem continued! Nepycros combines three robots into Salv-5000, a swift, multifaceted robot that can dodge behind walls and appear again to deal massive damage.  Goji counters by putting his A, E and S robots together to make the all-range attacker Ender-5000! That wasn’t enough though, and Goji threw a G into the mix and brought out the Level 4 Ssm-8000! Nepycros followed and ascended his EGS to an EGIS, the Esha-9000! Now the battle was between a physical damaging juggernaut, the Ssm, and an AOE powerhouse, the Esha. Both players had their 5th robot waiting in the wings, just out of range, yet read to support. The shots go back and forth, and then Goji moves in like a freight train and literally piledrives Nepycros’ Esha into the ground, stomping on it for good measure and damaging everyone around him. After that, it was downhill for Nepycros as his minimal remaining firepower couldn’t hold off Gojirazard’s penchant for piledriving. After some dazzling showings of force, the match when 2-0 for Goji.

Meradin vs. MarioFanatic

This round was hard-fought between a close-range combiner team based around Jurlon, played by Meradin the VIP who aided in his design, and a long-range Stell, team, played by MarioFanatic, firing lasers every which-way. Game 1 was won by MarioFanatic, despite losing some of his ranged robots early on. Mario had Go-100 on guard dog duty, pushing several enemies out of bounds if they got close to his crucial lasers. game 2 swung in the other direction, with Mario combining too early and coming to lack the firepower need to take out Meradin’s forces. In game 3, Mario found his footing and took the match by making a pair of the Ssm-3000 and Aroz-3000, twin barraging  level 2’s. Mario sent in his remaining level 1 robot as a targeting beacon, allowing SSm-3000 to rain rockets onto it and decimating all of the enemies around him.

Cybermage vs Texaport

Long-time fan Texaport and awesome guy/new-player Cybermage had a showdown that was quite a rumble. Cybermage chose the default Stell team, with its ranged lasers, while VIP Texaport fielded his own creation, Mika the Red with a close-range aggro team. In the first round, Cybermage struggled to find his footing in his very first AEGIS game, but in round 2 he came back by creating the Aroz-6000 on turn one, choosing to bombard Texaport’s melee team with heavy fire from afar, sealing the deal in a very close game. In the final round, it came down to who could hit each other first as both players fired explosive, yet inaccurate attacks back and forth until ultimately Texaport walked away with the victory.

Reginald vs. The Boulder

This round was a bye for Reggie, a very experienced player and VIP backer, but he was offered to play an exhibition round against our own Boulder. So we cranked him, and Boulder played an exact copy of Reggie’s team. Reginald (and Boulder’s) team is centered around Vatis, highlighted above, who was co-created by Reggie himself.  Unlike SleepyPaladin’s push-centric team, Reginald’s build around Vatis is more of an offensive strategy, using slow-yet-immensely powerful robots in combination with Vatis’s free movement “Shifty Business” ability. He can also capitalize on robots with ‘Overload’ – the ability that lets the robot barrage the opponent if they themselves haven’t moved on their own.

Reggie and Boulder’s game came down to who can shoot each other first and most effectively, moving damage-dealing robots in and out of range.

On to Round 2!!

The next four games will take place this week, with the round ending Sunday, or when all players have played their games. Tune in to our Stream tonight, where Texaport and Reginald will fight out their first round!!