Anachrony · Board game rules
Can you time travel to the first era solely for victory points?
Quick answer
No — moving your Focus marker alone gives no points; you must also return a Warp tile (spend its asset) to advance the Time Travel marker and score VPs.
Details
When you activate a Power Plant, you may move your Focus marker to a past Timeline tile (Step 1) and optionally return one of your own Warp tiles there by spending its asset (Step 2) [p.16 — Power Plant buildings: Time Travel and Focus]. The Time Travel marker — which is worth Victory Points at game end — only advances if both steps are executed in the same activation [p.16-17 — Power Plant buildings: Time Travel and Focus].
This is explicitly reinforced in the Frequently Overlooked Rules: "You only advance on the Time Travel track if you return a Warp tile by paying the respective asset" [p.19 — Frequently Overlooked Rules]. So simply shifting your Focus back to the first Era's Timeline tile, without a Warp tile of yours present there to redeem, does not earn you any Time Travel VPs.
Watch out: If you removed a Warp tile through other means (e.g., a building's retrieve ability or when placing an Anomaly) rather than through this Power Plant procedure, the Time Travel marker does not move, even though the tile is gone [p.17 — Power Plant buildings: Time Travel and Focus].