Anachronism (game)

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Anachronism
Anachronism is a card strategy game depicting battles between various historical warriors.
Players 2-4*
Age range 7 and up
Setup time 3 minutes
Playing time 5–10 minutes
Random chance Medium
Skills required Strategy, Dice rolling, Collecting

Anachronism is a tabletop game with aspects of both miniatures and collectible card genres. The creators of the game, TriKing Games and The History Channel, have dubbed it "The Greatest Game in History".

Contents

The game is a contest of arms between two warriors from numerous historical periods. Each game lasts a maximum of five rounds. The game is unusual for a card game in that it does not use shuffling as a randomization technique. Anachronism "decks" consist of five cards, and players do not draw cards or have a "hand" of cards. Despite the relatively small number of cards used in each game, card interactions and strategy can become surprisingly intricate, especially in the later rounds. Each player places their chosen warrior card on the playmat and their four support cards, face down, in slots corresponding to the first four rounds. The support cards may be any combination of inspiration, weapon, armor, or special cards. Each player flips their leftmost face-down support card at the beginning of each round. Initiative numbers on the support cards determine which player goes first in each round. The warrior cards may move and be turned (faced) as in a miniatures game. Support cards represent a variety of historical weapons, armor, items, deities, people, places or concepts such as the Norse sverd or Japanese book Go Rin No Sho. The game's name is derived from the ability to mix the various support cards such that the ancient Greek Leonidas wearing a kimono may fight a Japanese ninja who is wielding a gladius. Dice are used by both the attacker and defender to determine the outcome of battles.

Each warrior card has four stats: life, speed, experience, and damage:

  • Life indicates the warrior's starting life total. Current cards have values ranging from 5 to 10.
  • Speed shows how many actions the warrior can take each round. This is usually 3, but a few warriors have slightly more or less than this.
  • Experience has subtle but far-reaching effects as an all purpose tie-breaking stat. It is the most variable of the statistics with current extremes ranging from 1 to 10.
  • Damage shows how much damage the warrior deals with a basic attack. This is almost always 1. However, Aztec warriors usually have a base damage value of 0.

Every warrior and weapon card has an attack grid showing what bonus or penalty is applied to attacks rolls to each possible space. Blank spaces on an attack grid indicate that the warrior or weapon can not attack that square. Attack grids are relative to the orientation of your warrior, so skillful management of attack grids becomes very important to successful gameplay.

Every Inspiration and Warrior has an element reflecting the nature of the card. Elements also identify card interaction. A popular example is Maui-Tiki-Tiki, who gains +1 to all attack rolls against fire warriors. Clearly, he is a water warrior.

  • Fire "melts" Metal
  • Metal "cuts" Wood
  • Wood "penetrates" Earth
  • Earth "absorbs" Water
  • Water "puts out" Fire
  • Fire cards, like Mercury, represent speed.
  • Metal cards, like Horemheb the Restorer or Rokumonsenmon, represent strength.
  • Wood cards, like Leonidas, represent longevity.
  • Earth cards, like Zeus, represent experience.
  • Water cards, like the Oracle of Delphi, represent intelligence.
  • Wind cards, like Ninja, represent cunning.
  • Aether cards, like Seti I, represent religious or spiritual cards.

Anachronism's standard rules are for two players, but official support and rules have been given for multiplayer battles. Multiplayer Anachronism is usually played with four players, either in teams or as a free-for-all. The standard four by four battlemat is used and additional starting rows are squeezed into the normally unused border rows. This means that each corner has an overlap of two starting rows, making it possible for two warriors to start adjacent to each other. Free-for-all style multiplayer can also be played with only three participants.

Culture Shock is an alternative method of play that restricts players to only use cards within their warrior's culture. For example, the Japanese Warrior, Ninja could never use the French weapon, Rapiere. As a result, players can still choose to play any one card, but the combinations are limited. Hence, Culture Shock is generally perceived as the best method of play to enable newer players or players with fewer cards to be able to compete against more experienced players with a larger selection of cards.

The first release of the game was in three parts. The first part was a free demo consisting of the warriors Miyamoto Musashi, Beowulf, their support cards, and a playmat in the April 2005 issue of InQuest Gamer. The second was a starter set featuring the warriors Spartacus, Achilles, their support cards, dice, and a playmat. The final portion was 16 warrior packs. Each warrior pack consists of one warrior card and their four specific support cards.

Ancient Greeks

Feudal Japanese

Norse

Romans

Promotional cards based on the first set have been released. The promos include alternate versions of existing warriors and new inspirations.

The promotional cards of Set 1 are:

Set 2 was released in June of 2005. It consists of the Britons, Chinese, Egyptians and Mongols. The Promotional Pack associated with this set includes Robin Hood and Yue Fei. The starter set for the 2nd release pits Ramses II against Genghis Khan.

Britons

Chinese

Egyptians

Mongols

The 3rd Set was released on September the 15th, 2005. The 3rd set features the Scottish, Germanic, Native Americans and French cultures. The 2-player starter set for set 3 features Joan of Arc and William Wallace. The German folk hero Siegfried and Makataimeshekiakiak (Black Hawk), the Native American warrior, were the mail in promotional warrior packs for this set, available through a UPC mail-in similar to the Robin Hood/Yue Fei one done for Set 2.

The names listed are those which appear on the cards, common Anglicized names follow them in parentheses:

Scots

Germanic Tribes

French

Native Americans

(Note: The names of the Native American Warriors appear to be printed in Americanist phonetic notation. This list uses an h marked with a circumflex to represent an h with a caron.)

A second batch of promotional cards for tournament players was released for Set 3. This set of promos added additional new warriors and support cards to existing cultures rather than adding alternate versions of existing warriors. The Set 3 promotional cards are:

Set 4 was released in late November, 2005. It features warriors from the Māori Islands, Russia, Ireland, and Persia. The starter set features Irish King Brian Boru vs. the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. The mail-in promotional warriors for this set are the Māori Maui Tiki-tiki, and the Persian Darius the Great. The mail-in offer began on December 1st, 2005, and ended March 10th, 2006. Starting with this set, the number of UPCs required to be mailed in has been increased from 3 to 4 per warrior, but the shipping and handling cost of $1.99 US remained the same.

Māori

Persian

Russian

Irish

The Set 4 tournament promos added additional new warriors and support cards to existing cultures rather than adding alternate versions of existing warriors. With the addition of the first promotional Armor card, a player could theoretically make an all-promo deck. The Set 4 promotional cards are:

Set 5 was released during the last week of February, 2006. It features the Aztecs, the Spanish, the Saracens, and a revisiting of the Japanese. The starter set for Set 5 features Moctezuma II vs. Hernán Cortés. The promotional warriors for Set 5 are Sanada Nobushige and Tariq ibn Ziyad. They are obtainable via a mail-in offer like that of Sets 2, 3, and 4.

Aztec

Japanese

Saracen

Spanish

The Set 5 tournament promos continued in the pattern of Set 3 and 4, adding new warriors and support cards to existing cultures rather than adding alternate versions of existing warriors. The Set 5 promotional cards are:

Set 6 was released on August 24, 2006. It features Romanians, the Turks, a revisit of the Chinese, as well as Pirates. This last culture features warriors from existing cultures, but also with the "Pirate" designation. Set 6 was also the first set to feature the "rival" designation. Though becoming a rival does nothing in and of itself, certain cards key off your warrior having a rival. The starter set for Set 6 features Vlad Tepes Dracula vs. Beyazid I the Thunderbolt. The promotional warriors for Set 6 are Zhang Jiao and Blackbeard, and are obtainable via a mail-in offer like that of Sets 2 through 5.

Chinese

Pirates

Romanians

Turks

In the months leading up to October 2006, tournament promos began to be recycled. The first new post-convention promos came out with the October prize packs. The Set 6 promotional cards are:

Set 7's released announced the arrival of Frontier Americans, Tribes of Israel, Trojans, and a unexpected revisit of the Greeks. This set was released during the 2006 Thanksgiving holiday season, with its starter featuring Theseus vs. Priam. The UPC mail-in warriors were James Beckwourth and Barak.

American Frontiersmen

Greek

Tribes of Israel

Trojans

The first Set 7 promotional card, Isla Tortuga, showed up in February 2007. The Set 7 promos are as follows:

Due to the switch of warriors between Sets 7 and 8, TriKing announced the cultures found in both sets. Over half the tentative warriors are known; these have been confirmed by a TriKing employee on the Anachronism forums. TriKing announced the Set 8 cultures as African Kingdoms, Carthaginians, and revisits of the Britons and the Romans. This set is scheduled for release in early 2007.

Britons

Carthaginians

Romans

Tribes of Africa

Due to the switch of warriors between Sets 7 and 8, TriKing announced the cultures found in both sets (including the Italians). At the end of 2006, a TriKing employee announced that, because of forces beyond their control, the Italians had been moved to Set 9. This set will be released sometime in 2007.

Italians

Anachronism features a series of tournaments with high-profile prizes, such as a trip to one of various destinations in Europe. At the local level, Tournament Organizers and Mercenaries schedule and run tournaments of various sizes. The prizes for these events are often exclusive promotional cards. Each month, a new set of three promotional cards are sent to stores hosting sanctioned tournaments.

There is also a series of larger tournaments held over the late spring and summer. Starting in 2006, TriKing began sanctioning Regional Qualifier tournaments. Open qualifier tournaments for U.S. Nationals and the World Championship are held at Origins, in Columbus, Ohio. U.S. Nationals takes place the next month in Indianapolis, Indiana, at Gen Con, which also has another open qualifier for Worlds.

The annual World Championship is held at Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. In September 2005, Mattieu Brochu won a new MINI Cooper as the grand prize of the first Anachronism World Championship. One year later, in September 2006, Garritt Pruim won a Toshiba laptop computer as the grand prize of the second Anachronism World Championship.

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