Anime Vanguards Beginner Guide: Summons, Odds and Modes

This Anime Vanguards beginner guide covers your first sessions in the tower defense game: how a stage works, which mode to play first, what a summon costs and the odds behind it, and what the 2nd Anniversary update changed. Vanguards, as the game is now titled on Roblox, was 16th on the Top Playing Now chart on October 12, 2026. Every number below comes from Roblox's data, ObbyDesk's chart tracker or the official Vanguards Wiki, checked that day.

Key Takeaways

• Start: a pre-equipped team of six units; Story Mode is the first mode.
• The loop: place and upgrade units with Yen, survive the waves, keep your 3 stocks.
• Summons: 50 Gems per Special Banner summon (40 with VIP); odds and pity are published on the official wiki.
• Level 10: Secret and Vanguard units are locked until then. Shinies are too, unless you own the Shiny Hunter pass.
• Codes: none on the developer's Roblox pages; the wiki's anniversary codes expire October 23, 2026.

Overview: what Anime Vanguards is

Vanguards is a Strategy game on Roblox (sub-genre Tower Defense) made by the Kitawari group, which had 5,021,782 members on October 12, 2026. Many players and its own Discord and wiki still call it Anime Vanguards, the name on most of its thumbnails. The game page sums it up: "Summon units to fight these enemies and save these worlds and embark on a thrilling journey to become the strongest!"

The place was created on January 28, 2024, and the official Vanguards Wiki says the game was released on September 8th, 2024. On October 12, 2026 it had 2,065,597,961 visits and 2,004,216 favorites, with up to 24 players per server, and its Roblox page was last updated at 08:33 UTC that day. ObbyDesk's tracker read it 16th on Roblox's Top Playing Now chart with 79,932 players at 13:48 UTC. See where it sits next to the biggest games in our most played Roblox games right now.

Image: Vanguards on Roblox (Kitawari thumbnail)

The official wiki, which says it is run by a web team and "officially supported by the developers of Vanguards", explains the basics. Enemies walk a track toward your base, and you place Units, the game's towers, beside it. "The player can place & upgrade Units, with limits inherent to the Unit, using Yen, the income of Vanguards." You have 3 stocks per stage, and "Once all 3 are, the match will be instantly lost." Most stages are 15 waves, and the final wave usually brings a Boss.

Step by step: your first sessions

1. Use the team you start with. "The player will begin with a pre-equipped team of six units," per the official wiki.
2. Play Story Mode. The wiki calls it "the first mode introduced to new players upon joining", and its stages pay Gems, Gold and XP food. The first world is Planet Namak, and its first stage, Prodigal Prince, pays 100 Gold, 80 Gems and 3 to 6 Green Beans per clear, plus 80 Gems on your first Normal clear and 160 on your first Nightmare clear.
3. Summon with your Gems. Banners are in the Summon area of the lobby. "A single Special Banner summon costs 50 Gems", or 40 with the VIP pass.
4. Level up the units you keep. Units level up with XP food, by fusing other units and by clearing stages, per the wiki.
5. Claim your daily rewards. Daily Rewards give Gems, Trait Rerolls or event currency, and the wiki says "The rewards get better with each day", with the streak kept even if you miss a day.

Image: Vanguards on Roblox (Kitawari thumbnail)

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Summon odds and pity, explained

The Special Banner is the default one, and "The units rotate every hour." The wiki says "The unit in the middle has a 50% chance of being obtained", while the units on the left and right have 20% each. These are the rarity chances per summon listed on the official wiki's Summon page:

Level 10 matters. The wiki says Secret and Vanguard units and Shinies "are only available when the player has reached Level 10", though the Shiny Hunter pass lifts that limit for Shinies. Shinies only come on Mythic and higher units, with a few exceptions, at a 1.5% chance, or 3% with the Shiny Hunter pass.

Pity. "Pity guarantees that a unit of a certain rarity will be obtained on the next summon" after a set number of pulls. On the Special and Selection banners, the wiki lists a Legendary after 50 summons (2,500 Gems) and a Mythic after 400 summons (20,000 Gems). The count restarts once you get that rarity.

Luck potions. Super Lucky (99 Robux, or crafted) and Ultra Lucky (199 Robux) raise your chance of Legendary, Mythic or Exclusive units for one hour. The wiki is clear that they do not raise the chance of Secret, Vanguard or Shiny units, and "potions DO NOT reduce the Pity."

Image: Vanguards on Roblox (Kitawari thumbnail)

Analysis: making units stronger

The wiki lists seven rarities: Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic, Exclusive, Secret and Vanguard. It calls Mythic "The core Rarity of the game" and says Rare units "are barely enough for the first stages". That is why your early Gems go into summons, not cosmetics.

• Evolution. Specific Mythic, Exclusive, Secret and Vanguard units can evolve with items, and some need an Evolution Quest. The wiki recommends getting good stats first, because "upon evolution, every stat goes up by one tier."
• Traits. Trait Rerolls are spent at the Mandra NPC in the Upgrades area of the lobby, and a unit holds one trait at a time.
• Ascension is gone. The wiki's Ascensions page says "As of Update 15.0" the feature "has been removed entirely", and an NPC named Friran now handles Masteries and the Memoria Maker. Older guides that tell you to ascend units are out of date.

Modes after Story. The wiki's Gamemodes page lists Legend Stages ("The enhanced counterpart to Story Mode"), Challenges, Limited Modes, Boss Event, Raids, Dungeons, Worldlines, Rifts, Odyssey and more. Evolution items are crafted or dropped from Legend Stages, per the wiki's Evolutions page, and its FAQ points to Challenges for essence stones.

2nd Anniversary. Kitawari's event listing on Roblox, titled "2nd Anniversary" with the subtitle "Arise.", ran from 23:00 UTC on October 9 to 23:00 UTC on October 12, 2026. Its text reads: "Happy two years everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second anniversary update, we hope that you will enjoy it!" The wiki's home page still showed 14.5 P4 as the latest update when we checked, so it did not yet describe everything the anniversary added.

Codes. The game description and the Kitawari group listed no codes on October 12, 2026. The official wiki's codes page, last edited October 8, listed seven anniversary codes, all set to expire on October 23, 2026, and says codes usually need "minimum: typically Level 30". We only publish codes from developer channels we can read, so there is no codes table.

Anime Vanguards codes

Last checked Oct 12, 2026, from the game description and the Kitawari group on Roblox.

Oct122026

No active codes: the developer listed none when we checked on Oct 12, 2026.

"New" means we first saw the code on the developer's channel in the last 7 days. We copy codes from the developer and do not test them in game. No code gives free Robux. Codes for every game we track.

Store and safety. Roblox labels the game Minimal with "Violence (Occasional/Mild)". On October 12, 2026 it sold 5 game passes, from Extra Unit Storage (149 Robux) and VIP (299) to Shiny Hunter (1,299), and listed 663 developer products for sale. That is a much bigger store than the games in our Roblox games with few in-game purchases list, so parents may want to use Roblox's Parental Controls, which let a parent "set a monthly spending limit on how much money your child can spend on Roblox". The game's badges and passes are on the Anime Vanguards hub.

Image: Vanguards on Roblox (Kitawari thumbnail)

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What players are saying

Not everyone loved the anniversary update. One player wrote in r/AnimeVanguards: "The new units and evolutions are cool, but the quests are tied to unnecessary game modes that no one will play once the evolution quest is finished." (Oct 12, 2026). New players hit walls in Story Mode too. Another wrote: "Me and my friend started playing the game and I'm trying to get shining castle stage 2 done so I can evolve kazzy." (r/AnimeVanguards, Jun 15, 2025).

Our take

Based on the official wiki and Roblox's data, Anime Vanguards is easy to start and slow to master. Spend your first Gems on the Special Banner, but know the odds: a Mythic or Exclusive is a 0.5% pull, so plan your Gems around the 400-summon pity (20,000 Gems) instead of counting on luck. Play Story Mode until Level 10 before chasing Secret units, since they cannot drop earlier. Skip the Robux luck potions as a beginner; they do not touch pity or the rarest units.

How we checked this

We read the game's data, description, group, age label, event listing, badges and store through a public mirror of Roblox's official APIs on October 12, 2026, and used ObbyDesk's reading of Roblox's Top Playing Now chart from 13:48 UTC that day. Mechanics, odds and in-game prices come from the official Vanguards Wiki, which is run by a separate web team with the developers' support. Reddit posts were read through Reddit's public RSS feed. We did not play the game. All 44 sources are in our source file. Last reviewed October 12, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do you start with? A pre-equipped team of six units, per the official wiki.

Which mode first? Story Mode, starting with Planet Namak.

How much is one summon? 50 Gems on the Special Banner, or 40 with VIP.

When do Secret units unlock? At Level 10, per the official wiki.

Are there codes? None on the developer's Roblox pages as of October 12, 2026.

Related Reading

• The Strongest Battlegrounds Guide: Controls and Characters: another anime-inspired game on the chart, explained from its own pages.
• Jujutsu Shenanigans Update: Sky Assassin and Halloween Date: an anime fighting game's latest update.
• Bee Swarm Simulator Beginner Guide: Bees, Gates and Honey: a slower collecting game for a calmer first session.

References

• Vanguards on Roblox (game page)
• Roblox games API, universe 5578556129
• 2nd Anniversary event listing on Roblox
• Kitawari group on Roblox
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Vanguards
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Summon
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Story
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Ascensions
• Roblox Support: Content Maturity Labels
• Roblox Support: Parental Controls Overview