Anachrony: Fractures of Time - Discussion
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Transcript
Viewer discretion is advised. Everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked and today I'm doing a no run-through review for Anachrony the Fractures of Time expansion. Now, this is going to be a discussion or a review specifically over what the Fractures of Time module brings. Uh I will slightly talk about the solo, um but I haven't actually played I'm just going to talk about what this actually brings into into the game. Um if you guys would like to hear my thoughts on the solo version, let me know uh and then I can do a review over that. But, I got to say this expansion is awesome. I really really liked the Fractures of Time expansion. Um it just brought so much more depth and and uh and efficiency to this game. Um so, basically it it feels like it shortens the game, but it doesn't.
Because the one of the first major changes you're going to notice whenever you're setting it up is the fact that you actually start with like an era zero tile. And that starts at the beginning of of the the era timeline. And basically all this does is a warp. Uh you do a warp phase, meaning that you start you can potentially start the game with a little extra stuff. So, it gives you the option from era one to go back in time and kind of move up a little bit uh quicker on the time travel track as well as also giving you the ability to go back and build a a super project. Now, I wasn't quite sure about what I thought of this because it feel it initially felt like oh, it shortened the game because with this you have three era tiles then the impact and then two more after that. So, you actually have five total um five total eras instead of uh instead of the normal seven.
So, uh you technically have six I guess with era zero, but yeah, you really just have five eras total instead of the seven and it's initially like well, that seems like a lot, but what this game brought what this expansion brought makes up for those minus two eras. Uh so, this is actually a little nice because if you're like if you're looking at the projects and you're looking at what you kind of want to do, then it's like all right, well, my starting person didn't really quite give me everything. So, I will do a little bit of warp. I kind of want to go time travel and so I can do that. I'll get a a power plant built uh first thing instead of kind of waiting. So, this is this is interesting, but this is something that you always have to play with. Then the game brings in the a new a new player uh the path of unity which uh one of their sections was the fact that you have to have to build uh up to two like up to all all your buildings have to be up to level two at least um before they can do their impact thing and then they get a two point for each operator. Which brings me to operators. Well, first, the path of unity I mean, it's it's okay.
Like all the paths are are kind of in in terms of like what they what they start with is really kind of the same. Uh it's their leaders that are interesting and the the path of unity his leader, at least one of them, is uh it's it's okay. Like I I I did find it helpful um but in comparison to some of the other leaders, it's not like wow. It is just another another expansion um faction to actually thematically tie into the what the what the expansion brings. It doesn't support a fifth player. Every Anachrony is still a one to four player game. So, that that is something to take into consideration, but I wouldn't want to play this game with five anyway.
So, that brings me to the operators. The operators are a new a new worker that you can hire that basically are kind of like geniuses. They where they, you know, differ from geniuses is they basically get no bonuses. They can they can take the place of anyone else. However, like I said, if you go to the like the the water reservoir, you don't get an extra like an extra water if you went there. With geniuses, you do get that those types of bonuses. Operators, you don't, but they are a little bit more flexible. Uh but, here's my favorite part of this entire expansion module is the concept of blinking. And what it does is it brings you it gives you this track board.
And this board basically is a holder for a couple things. One, you have these flux cores. So, you have two different types of cores now. You have flux cores and you have power cores. Power cores are still needed to operate multiple mechs. But, flux cores you need to actually start blinking. And what blinking does is it allows you to move a mech suit an exo-suit to another location and do that do another action, which is huge. Like the fact that in regular Anachrony, once you placed a guy there, once you placed an exo-suit person there, that was it. That's why you needed seven eras because each turn you basically needed a a turn to offset like, "Okay, well, I'm going to do a lot this era. Second era, I'm not. I'm going to wake up a little bit depending on if you have any power buildings or anything like that."
Um or buildings to to utilize those workers. I'm going to wake them up, and then boom, third era, I'm going to send a bunch of people out, and and so on and so forth. It kind of has has that rhythm. It hurts a lot more in this with this expansion because you don't have that buffer of doing a lot, doing nothing, doing a lot, doing nothing. But because of you the fact that you can blink, you can go, "Oop, I'm going to go to the water person. I'm going to spend one of these flux cores." And whenever you spend a flux core, you put it on on the spot, and then depending on the type of worker that you blink, you you roll some dice, and then, "Oop, I'm going to move them over to this location." And then you take the worker out, he becomes tired, yada yada, and then you do that second action.
It is so efficient. It makes the game a little bit more complex because whenever who you're putting in the spot can actually matter a whole lot if you are wanting to do multiple things. It's like, "Okay, well, if you send a genius, well, the genius is going to be super efficient with with blinking versus maybe just a regular admin. And I really really like that level of thinking. It It was just It just It It made the game It made you feel more impactful on your turn. You were able to not be so bogged down with, "Okay, I need four four workers. I'm going to put all these workers in here. I need four max. I'm going to put all those workers in there, and they need to go specifically where they need to go. And oh my god, someone went where I needed to."
Sometimes that might not It It could still potentially happen. However, if you're going Let's say you're going last, and the two the two people, like if you're playing a three-player game, and the two people block the spot, and you're like, "Dang it." Well, you might be able to hold on cuz they might blink out of that spot. Which then, if you have a suit, you know, waiting back, you can be like, "Oh, I Okay, now I can go there." Or you can blink into that spot and still get the build or or recruit or do whatever. It just made this game feel so much It made it feel quicker. It made it feel more fluid and efficient. It was just an awesome mechanism. And the fact that what this what this game added and as well as that to carry out the blinking is the more you blink, the the higher you create um uh glitches. And what glitches do, they are they're pretty cool as well. I mean, they're bad, but they're they're cool.
So, you essentially, like I said, you place a flux core on on the spot, and then you roll two dice. And one die is is just a regular one through six. And if it's higher than the number of empty spaces you have um on this board, then you create a glitch. And then the red die indicates where that glitch goes. And glitches can be huge cuz sometimes it can go on a flux core spot, meaning that you have less empty spaces, meaning you're going to have more glitches. It can go on the building, meaning you can't use that building at all. It can go on end game objectives. That mean you can't score those end game objectives. It can go on anomalies or on paradox spots, meaning you need less paradoxes. And it can go on the time travel section, meaning that when you go back in time to fix a a paradox, you don't uh you don't advance that marker. Glitches can be huge, but there's also, this is why operators are are really really good, they allow you to remove glitches.
And you you just And I mean, this board right here basically means you have to have an operator. So, uh you can pay two water, send an operator, remove two glitches from anywhere. So, it's not like they're hard to remove, but they are detrimental if you leave them untouched. Plus, they're also minus two points at the end of the game if they're on the on if you just have any out. You also have ways of removing cleaning up cuz as if you blink a lot, you're going to fill the spot up. Uh you have ways of removing them from this track. So, you have more empty spaces. And then also you have a free action on here that uh you can place two flux cores on here to remove one to three free action tokens and workers from your from your own board, meaning that those spots are available again.
This is such an amazing module. And another reason why operators are really good is because if you blink with them, you don't roll these dice. You only roll them if they are if you blink with anyone else. So, operators are really really good to have around uh just because of the the the sheer um uh what's the word? Flexibility that they that they bring you. So, I very much very much enjoyed the blinking uh concept and it just it it may it gave this game like a breath of fresh air. So, there's that. The other thing that the game brings is the valley side board. And this is not as It's not as busy actually as like it it might it might look busy. I mean, the game looks busy. Um but you have basically have two sides.
One side is how you recruit operators, you know, yeehaw. Um and also how you buy technologies, which I'll explain technologies cuz they're really cool as well. Um and the other side is how you can you can get more power cores or you can get more uh flux flux cores. So, um so, there's those and they also have world council spots as well. So, really it's it's how you get more of of kind of the the mech stuff as well as uh more operators. But the technologies are really really neat as well because they're basically they're kind of like um super projects but they they aren't as as powerful. They're not going to be worth as many points at the end of the game but they also don't cost as much to actually get. So you can have as many technologies as you want. Um but some of them just give you and a like just a a one-time ability like flux scrubber. At the and you know during the cleaning phase you get to clean up one of your flux cores off of off of your board. And at the end of the game if you have an operator it's worth a point. Max of five.
Other ones that you can get are like the three that I got in the game we just played. This one was uh the What was that one? Oh, the compound warp which is really cool. Normally whenever you do the warp phase you can only send two. With this technology you can send three and place one on top of another one. So you still only have two sections in that spot but you get three resources. And then for each one of your paradox where your warp tokens left on the thing you get a point. I mean they're worth negative two at the end but they're essentially negative one. Uh the workforce augmentation whenever you recruit you get that that recruit bonus twice. And then the blink suppression bypass this one was really cool cuz normally when you blink into the valley which is the the the side board you cannot blink out of it. So if you place a worker in that spot he cannot blink out of it.
Whenever you blink and you have this technology you can spend a water as a free action to blink out of it. So these technologies are really good to have and they do not cost a lot to get either two I don't remember the names two yellow or any combination of two yellow or two green. And and then you just take I mean they they they cycle like like buildings. There's one on a secondary stack and then one on top. And you just build one. And some of them have an extra, you know, cost in the top right. So, another way to get victory points as well as have some some cool unique powers that make your like your faction yours. As well as the super projects, which are always amazing to have in some way. This expansion was so freaking cool. I mean, not to mention just kind of some of the other super projects that specifically come with this faction or the end game objectives like that correspond to to this faction or to this expansion. It was just extremely neat. The other thing that added, so like was another way to get end game victory points, is you have the secondary board on top of this board and it's another way for you to use breakthroughs. That's a free action. You can put a breakthrough on here and then slide it over. It gives you an extra spot. It gives you an extra empty spot, meaning you're going to have less likely to have glitches, but also gives you an extra spot to, once again, start blinking. But also with their worth end game victory points. So, if you if you completely move it all the way over by putting four different breakthroughs on
here, you can get a max of of seven points. So, just another way to get victory points. Uh I got nothing. I got nothing to complain about with with this expansion. It was so good. Like it feels like the game is shorter, but you're doing more on your turn, so it's not like a it's not like a slow drawn out game. You know, I mean, Anachrony was always, you know, a favorite of mine. I I highly love this game, but it is seven arrows felt like a lot. I mean, of course, there was the impact and the game can end if all of the, you know, the the three locations, the council locations, got used. But sometimes one location would still No one wanted to do that.
So the fact that after the impact you only have two more technically rounds before the game is over, felt really good. Like you might be thinking, oh well, he was going to have time to be able to do their their impact objective. Everyone. Like you're you're going to I mean unless you're just this isn't your cup of tea and you're just really bad at the game or something. Um Like the fact that you're able to blink and constantly move around, it's just you're able to still do your objective and and not have a hard time. Um With all the additional ways for you to gain victory points, the negatives aren't as impactful. Um With our recent game, I mean, I ended up having a negative of 10 points.
But with with the additional points that I got from being able to move up on the time travel spot, being able to utilize the workers even more, I was able to wake up people, you know, with water instead of forcing them awake. Um I was able to get technologies which gave me points. I was I mean one of the end game objectives was literally have the most technologies. So I actually ended up meeting all of these except for one. But go moving moving this track up to potentially get seven, it's just the negatives don't hurt as bad. Um that technology that made all of my um like a warp warp tokens one less, I only ended up having negative five instead of negative 10. So there there are ways for you to to play and you can be a little bit more risky. It doesn't hurt to get negative two points.
Um So it's just fantastic. Like it's so good. And then I play we played with the uh oh, what they call it? Basically, the uh crap. It is the ooh, right there. Variable Anomalies module. That is something I think that everyone should play with. Because in the original Anachrony, every anomaly was the same. And you got rid of it the same way, and they uh if you got one, you got to remove one of your warp tiles, and they all played the same. With the variable anomalies, they're actually interesting because when you get an anomaly uh from three paradox tiles, you it they work like a stack like everything else.
You you pick one of the two, and some of them will tell you, "Hey, you can only if you get this anomaly before the impact, then you can remove one of your tiles. If if the impact has happened and you take that anomaly, sucks to suck, you don't get to remove that that warp tile. But they're not all bad. They're not just locations that are like, "Oh, go here and uh and just get rid of it." Um they still are negative. Uh actually, they're variable in negative negative points. Um but some of them are just okay, like this one, it does nothing for you and it's negative four points. But this one is uh like if you so you get to remove a tile, it's negative two points, but every time you send out a mech with a uh with a genius in it, you lose a victory point. Uh this one makes you put an additional um like blank on one of your hex spots. So, they're all bad.
And I just I really like it gives more weight to the to the anomalies. More than just like, "Ah, that's not too bad. Negative two. Okay, whatever." Like getting the one that's blank and you're just like negative four points and I don't even get to remove a a warp tile? That sucks. Um but some of them are like, okay. Like this one, you after the impact, you can remove a warp tile, and then it's minus five points, but if you go you can send a worker here and get two water. All right. So, they're not all horrible. Some of them are really bad, but they're they they add a bit of variety to the game. And now anomalies are something that I mean, sometimes getting anomalies aren't horrible because you can't really remove warp tiles, especially in the ones that you you know, you're on, like warp tiles that you're on. Or sometimes you just don't want to spend the action to go back and get rid of one. So, get an anomaly instead, and then you can get rid of it.
But, everyone starts with with everyone has this as a building. So, this is the you have a way to remove anomalies in a different way. I mean, this is basically two of any of the three resources or one night neutronium or neutronium and a water, and then you get rid of it, and the worker still dies from getting rid of it. However, there's a variety there, so I really like the variable anomalies. Those are the two main things that came with the that came with the Fractures of Time. Um just it's just it's so good. It is so good. And technically, you can play with other expansions, like I mean, I guess you could in reality play with the Doomsday module and the I don't even remember what they were all called, Pioneers of the of the New Earth 2 and Guardians of the You can play with all those modules.
I probably wouldn't recommend it. The game is just going to it's going to be bloated, and you're not going to be able to do much. I would probably say one, maybe two modules. Um but what's more interesting is the the Chronobot, the the solo variant. And I've already mentioned and I've talked about it highly. You can talk about You can go to watch my solo discussion of Anachrony, and you can watch our top 10 solo games, but spoilers, Anachrony is my favorite solo game. It's my favorite game to play solo. Uh And that's over Gloomhaven. That's over anything. If I was talking about solo variants, Anachrony is is the best one. And what what bummed me out about the initial like so like Chronobot was that you couldn't play it with any of the other modules. Um it just it didn't have the rules for it. But now it does. This Fractures of Time specifically has rules in here to play with the different different modules, like like the It says here, "Using Chronobot with expansions and modules." Okay, Fractures of Time is right there. Then you have the Doomsday module, Pioneers of the New Earth, uh Guardians of the Council, Hypersync Future Actions. Oh, I don't know what those are. Oh, yeah, Quantum Loops. Um And it even says like here, "Combining expansions and modules." Uh it's just it it'll it'll It allows you to actually play the rest
of your game solo without having to just play the base game over and over. Now, like I said, I haven't tried those with it. If you would like to hear my thoughts on what the Chronobot is like with at least the new Chronobot that has a new rule set that it basically says um Where is it? Yeah, it is Oh, where was it? I I remember specifically reading it. Um is one of two Oh, uh dang it. Yeah, it basically it it it wanted to make it feel like a a an actual player. So, uh There this is a new solo opponent for Anachrony and provides a more human-like opponent and support for modules at the cost of some added complexity. In these rules, you will refer to the lone human player Okay. So, basically it's it feels a little bit more, I guess, like a human, uh which I already thought the initial uh Chronobot kind of felt that way. So, I I'm in I'm interested to see what it's like by itself. Um So, who knows? Maybe down the line I'll I'll do a uh a review over the Chronobot and then the Chronobot with the different modules. Um that sounds fun. That that sounds That sounds like it might be might be a fun time.
But, so I mean, that that is in this expansion. The fact that you can now play solo with all the different modules um and and then not be weird, uh unless it's just really bad, but I don't believe it will be because the Chronobot in the original game was just so damn good. So, yeah. The Fractures of Time is definitely an expansion worth having, I think. It's just it is so it's so good. It's so good. I I would probably say out of all the expansions, this this is the one to get. Um it just made the concept of blinking so cool and so thematic. All the expansions just never divert away from Anachrony's initial theme. So, cuz it was essentially like the Operators are are people in this valley that were kind of like it's like, "Oh, hey, we we found you." And they had been able to use like the neutronium and the and the and the minerals to create these technologies and to and and live in the world that that is is the new Earth. And so, they worked with us and they're like, "Great." And but they also didn't tell anyone about the side effects, which are which are glitches, which is why the Operators, when they blink, don't create glitches, don't even have the possibility of creating glitches because it's just they're not affected by it.
They know how it works. So, I really like the theme as well. So, I think if if I were to mention anything about this expansion, and this would be my my thing to say about any expansion, is normally if you completely ignore the expansion, you might not do so well, especially because of the game suggests, by the way, if you're playing with the Fractures of Time expansion, uh throw in the the two, you know, end-game objectives. You don't have to. They can come out randomly, um which I'll probably do anyway, but I played with these two, and that's six points, which I mean, the game's not a wickedly high-scoring game, uh which one is if you have the most flux flux cores on your board, that's three points, and then if you have the most technologies. So, it's it's like the the objectives obviously want you to go after uh technologies.
Technologies will help you. If you're blinking a lot, uh that will help you. So, if you're going to be using the expansion, you're probably going to do better than your opponents. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, um but it's definitely you're not going to have to work as hard, I guess, to win, which uh I I feel like with if with I mean, that's just the case with really any expansion. It's like, "Hey, by the way, here's all these Here's new stuff to do. If you don't do the new stuff, then you probably might not do as well cuz at least in this case, the Fractures of Time molded the base game to fit around it. It's just I mean, like I mentioned, shorter eras or uh a shorter length of game, um more movement and use of your your exosuits and your workers that way. And if you're not doing that well, and you're playing the game kind of how you're you you think it's supposed to be played with the you know, seven seven eras, you're probably going to be uh trying to catch up towards the end. So, that's that's really my own caution with with this expansion.
But, I mean why don't you want Why wouldn't you want to do that? So, blinking is [ __ ] cool. Like, boop boop like going into different spots, uh getting all these awesome technologies without having to bust your ass to get a super project. Um it's it's just the bee's knees. So, what are my thoughts on or what are my thoughts? What is my rank on scale of 1 to 10 for the Fractures of Time expansion? I rank the solo stuff separate. So, I so since I don't know how how that that works anyway, uh I it it I guess it doesn't it doesn't impact it. I'm going to give it a 10. I love this expansion. It is so good. I got I got no negatives on it. It only enhanced Anachrony, and that's what I think an expansion should do. It didn't fix anything for Anachrony, it enhanced it, gave you more stuff, gave you more cool things to do, uh gave you another module to play with.
And to top it all off, at least the Chronobot can be played with every other module. Um if this is if this is great, it's it's just going to I mean, I rank solo stuff separate anyway cuz I don't play games for their solo variant. It's just a Oh, hey, this is great solo as well. It only enhances the original game. So, the Fractures of Time expansion gets a a 10 out of 10 for me. It is a must-have. So, that's it, everyone. That's my thoughts on the Fractures of Time expansion for Anachrony. Let me know what you think of the expansion in the comments below. Let me know if you'd like to hear my thoughts on the Chronobot as well as the Chronobot with the the different modules uh in the comments as well. Other than that, like, comment, share, and subscribe, and have a wonderful whatever time of day this is for you.
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