Ants! For Queen and Colony
Ants! For Queen and Colony Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setting Up the Game
- Choose a colony colour and place your Queen (Tyr-Ant) on the black space of one of the 6 anthills on the board. Space the players' anthills as far apart as possible.
- Place 4 food tokens on each of the 6 vegetation spaces around the centre of the board (vegetation spaces are spaces like any other).
- Place 3 food tokens on each of the 4 brown spaces of your anthill. These spaces count as a single space.
- Shuffle the two decks of cards separately. Deal each player 3 Park Space cards face down. Players may look at their own cards.
- Each player rolls a blue worker die to determine the first player; the highest result goes first. Play proceeds clockwise.
The Park
At any time there may be only one ant per space, except when a soldier is attacking the space in question.
Park Life events take place on the numbered spaces of the board.
Any space containing a food token is a food space. Most food comes from food drops, but there are also living bugs, which must be killed by a soldier before they can be collected by workers like normal food.
When you place a living bug in the park, place the matching bug head on top of the food pile. To kill the bug, you must attack it with a soldier and roll greater than or equal to the value on the head. If you win, remove the head and place your soldier on the pile. If you lose, i.e. the die roll is lower than the number shown on the bug head, nothing happens and your soldier can do nothing more.
The Fountain
The fountain is the blue space in the centre of the park. It provides one free unit of food for each worker touching it that is connected to the anthill by a supply chain. But beware: the fountain sometimes overflows!
The Queen (Tyr-Ant)
Your Queen is the heart of your colony. If she dies, your whole colony disappears with her!
Your Queen cannot leave her chamber at the heart of your anthill. Instead, she can eat the food tokens stored in your anthill (on the large brown space) to produce new ants. This costs:
- 1 food token for a worker
- 2 food tokens for a soldier
Your Queen cannot eat more than 6 food tokens per turn! Each newly created ant gets a free move to leave the anthill. New soldiers cannot attack on the turn they are created.
The Workers (Peas-ants)
Your workers are the backbone of your colony. Their job is to go outside and collect the food the colony absolutely needs to stay alive.
Only workers can create a supply chain, by occupying 2 (or more) adjacent spaces. Food and other ants (workers or soldiers) can then move along the supply chain for free.
Workers can move only one space, onto an empty space, and roll only the blue worker die when defending.
The Soldiers (Serge-ants)
Your soldiers are your colony's defence. Only soldiers can attack, and only a soldier can claim ownership of a food pile by standing on it.
While a soldier stands on a food pile, only workers from the same anthill as the soldier can collect that food, until the soldier moves or is killed by an enemy soldier.
Soldiers can move 2 spaces onto empty spaces each turn, and roll the red soldier die to attack and to defend.
Turn Sequence
Each player's turn must follow this order:
- Park Life event
- Collect food
- Move ants already in play (and make attacks with soldiers)
- Create new ants (no attacks possible!)
1) Park Life Event
At the start of each player's turn, reveal the top Park Life card. The player whose turn it is must choose and reveal one of their 3 Park Space cards, which determines where the event takes place. Note that some events take place at a specific location, such as the Fountain overflowing.
Follow the instructions on the Park Life card on the space determined by the Park Space card chosen by the active player. The active player then draws a new Park Space card so as to have a hand of 3 cards.
Any food drop or living bug that lands on a space occupied by an ant kills that ant, which is crushed by the pile of food tokens arriving on the board.
Note for 2 and 3 players: after playing the usual Park Life card, play a second Park Life card and determine the location of this event with the top card of the Park Space deck, not with a card from the active player's hand.
2) Collect Food
When you have a supply chain connecting your anthill to a food pile, each worker adjacent to the food pile may take 1 food token from the pile.
Note: soldiers can never be part of a supply chain; only workers can. Likewise, soldiers can never collect food; only workers can.
Food collected in this way is carried directly along your supply chain and placed on the brown spaces of your anthill.
Each worker may collect one, and only one, food token each turn. Workers in contact with several food piles must choose which pile to take their food token from.
3) Moving and Attacking with Ants Already in Play
After collecting your food for the turn, you may move some or all of your ants in the park (on the board). Workers move 1 space and soldiers 2 spaces. Moving along the supply chain costs no movement until you leave it.
Only during the movement phase may your soldiers attack living bugs and enemy ants! To attack a space, the soldier must have enough movement to move onto that space. If an attack against a living bug fails, the soldier must return to the last empty space it passed through and can do nothing more this turn.
During this phase you may also move some or all of your workers (and so change the position of your supply chain). Each worker can move only once, but if you use your supply chain wisely, moving your workers one by one, you can completely restructure the placement of all your workers to adapt to the conditions of the game.
Illustration 1 caption: The yellow workers start the turn by collecting the last 4 food tokens from the space. We now need to move our ants.
Illustration 2 caption: All ants can move only once. The yellow player therefore moves their workers along the supply chain for free to bring them to the other side.
Illustration 3 caption: At the end of this movement phase, the yellow player has secured 4 new food tokens that can be collected in the collection phase of their next turn.
4) Create New Ants
Each turn your Queen may eat up to 6 food tokens from your anthill to create new ants. Each new ant must immediately move out of the anthill. Leaving the anthill using the supply chain costs no movement until the ant leaves the chain.
New workers cannot collect any food, and new soldiers cannot attack anyone (neither ant nor bug), until the start of the player's next turn. Newly created soldiers move only one space. They may move and guard an unoccupied food pile. These soldiers gain their movement of 2 spaces from the turn after they enter play, and for the rest of the game.
Attack and Defence
Your soldiers can be used to attack living bugs or enemy ants. To attack, your soldiers must be able to reach the space you want to attack by moving. When a soldier wins a fight, it must move onto the space originally occupied by the bug or the enemy ant. After winning a fight, the soldier may make a new attack against any space adjacent to its position. It can do nothing else, even if it had not used all of its movement to make its first attack.
When attacking a living bug, your soldier must roll greater than or equal to the value on the bug's head to kill it and guard the food pile. Losing a fight against a bug does not kill your soldier but ends its movement until the next turn.
When attacking an enemy ant, your soldier moves onto the defender's space. Any ant that is attacked must defend its space, but the defender may choose to bring in all or some of their ants directly adjacent to the attacked ant to improve the defence. Soldiers defend first, but always one on one.
After a fight, all surviving ants return to their original spaces.
Combat Rules
Only a soldier can make an attack. The attacker never rolls more than 1 red soldier die to attack.
Defending with Soldiers
Each soldier defending a space must face the attacker in single combat (one on one) before the workers have to defend.
The highest roll wins. In case of a tie, reroll until there is a winner. If the defending soldier is killed, the fight continues with the next defending soldier or with the group of workers.
Defending with Workers
You may defend with up to 3 workers at the same time. Roll a blue worker die for each defending worker (maximum 3).
The sum of the workers' dice is the workers' defence value. The highest total wins. In case of a tie, reroll until there is a winner.
Damage in Fights with Workers
When workers defend as a group, they have a better chance of beating and so stopping the attacker, but also a greater risk of taking more damage.
If the attacker's die roll is higher than the workers' total strength, all the defenders are killed and the soldier takes the space.
If the attacker's die roll is lower than the workers' total strength, the attacker is killed, but any worker whose individual strength is lower than the attack roll also dies in the fight.
Note: when the attacker's strength equals the workers' total strength, it is a tie and no ant is killed. Roll the dice again.
Regicide – The Death of a Queen
Only a soldier can enter a rival anthill to attack and try to kill an enemy Queen. Only ants directly adjacent to the anthill (the 3 light green spaces) can be called into the royal chamber to defend the Queen, fighting the soldier first.
Your Queen uses a red soldier die to defend. If the attacking soldier rolls higher than the Queen, she is killed. All the ants of that colony die too, and the food remaining in the anthill is transferred directly to the victorious soldier's anthill. Reroll the dice in case of a tie.
Losing an attack against a Queen costs your soldier its life.
Victory Condition – Darwin's Rule
Be the last one standing!
Examples
Example 1: A worker supply chain is made by connecting spaces together with your workers.
Example 2: Soldiers are not part of your supply chain, so the chain is broken.
Example 3: The workers in the supply chain that connects your anthill to food spaces collect food tokens at the start of your turn.
Example 4: Each worker can take only one food token per turn, so you must choose which pile to take the food from.
Example 5: Soldiers can stand on a food pile so that only workers of their colony can take food from that pile.
Example 6: A worker can move only one space onto new territory, but a soldier can move 2 spaces.
Example 7: Each worker can move along the supply chain and then one space onto new territory.
Example 8: Connecting a supply chain to a food pile lets you collect from it on the next turn.
Example 9: Each worker connected to a food pile can take only one food token per turn, so the more workers you add around the pile, the better the harvest.
Example 10: Workers cannot stand on a food pile and cannot collect food from a living bug.
Example 11: With 4 workers connected to this food pile, this player will be able to collect 4 food tokens next turn.
Example 12: Protect your food and your workers with a soldier. That way your placement can stay intact until the next turn.
Example 13: The black player ends their turn, and their placement will let them collect 7 food tokens at the start of their next turn. The black player also has a soldier in a good central position to defend their supply chain.
Example 14: But… the blue player makes 4 new workers to increase their contact with the food piles, and also makes a soldier that moves along the chain and comes to guard the middle food pile, preventing the black workers from taking food from that pile.