Anachronism

I got some questions about this during the Tier 2 smackdown on Thursday, so I figured I'd explain what I was talking about...

Anachronism is a card game that was sponsored by the History Channel. It came in "warrior packs", each pack having a historical (or mythical) warrior, and a weapon, armor, item, and inspiration that go with that warrior. As a "for instance", the Benrig Medb warrior pack comes with Benrig Medb, her spear "Slea Badhmadh", the goddess Anu, Brat Derg (a useful armor), and Donn Cuailnge (The brown bull of Cooley). The cards are intended to be mixed and matched with cards from other warrior packs (thus the anachronism part). So you might end up with Benrig Medb wielding Muramasa (the sword of Sanada Nobushige), worshipping Tyr, etc.

The game itself is played in a 4x4 "arena" mat, and the warriors are moved around like miniatures on the grid. Each round, one of your four support cards (the armor, weapon, inspiration, and special card you chose) is flipped up, with the number at the top of the card determining initiative. The fifth, and final, round's initiative is determined by each warrior's experience, as you only have four support cards. The goal of the game is to kill the other guy, dealing damage by attacking with weapons, peforming basic attacks, or using card effects from your warrior and/or support cards. Each warrior has a varying amount of life (as low as 5, and as high as 10), which determines how much damage they can take. They each also have speed, which determines how many actions they can take on their turn; experience, which breaks ties and can be used for certain card abilities; and basic attack damage, which determines how much damage their non-weapon attacks do.

There are quite a few rules to it, but it's definitely a fun game. It can be a little hard to find, however... Triking Games (the guys that made the card game) were far better at making the card game than they were at running their business, and as a result, they went out of business a couple of years ago. Still, if you can find a few warrior packs, this is definitely one of the best (and cheapest) card games out there.

Also, if you happen to be in Colorado Springs, we hold Anachronism tournaments every 1st and 3rd Saturday at Compleat Games and Hobbies, starting around 5pm.

If you just want to look at the cards, I'd suggest using the Encyclopaedia Anachronistica at www.dystemporalia.org. The cards have some neat info on the historical figures listed above (usually a few sentences per card). For instance, using the example in the original post, Benrig Medb's card talks about how, in Connaught, the ruler of a household (and thus, if it's the royal household, overall ruler of Connaught) was determined by whoever's holdings were the most valuable, so Queen Medb conspired to steal the Brown Bull of Cooley so that she might be richer than her husband, King Ailil, and thus become ruler of Connaught. You can actually learn quite a bit about various periods of history by reading the cards of the various cultures. I won't say that there aren't a few typos, misspellings, or biased comments in there, but for the most part, it tries to stick to the facts (or to the "accepted mythology" in cases like Heracles).

Hey guys, if your looking for cards I've added them to the Gaiscioch Store. Anachronism at the Gaiscioch Store It's all the ones I could find available at amazon. Hope it helps.

Thanks :) Hopefully there are a few people interested in throwing down. If you need any pointers or anything, just ask me :)