March of the Ants: Evolved Edition – Predators & Prey Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Overview
• Setup
  • Cards, Tiles and Reward Tiles
  • Game Preparation
  • Solo / Cooperative Mode
• New Tiles and Specialised Harvest Sites
• New Reward Tiles
• Tactics
  • Order of Resolving Tactics
  • Tactic Rules
  • Leaving a Battle
  • Tactic Diagram
  • Tactic Example of Battle
• Nest Chambers
  • Game Preparation
  • Playing with Chambers
  • Egg Rules in Chambers
  • Chamber Layout
• Large Workers
  • Game Preparation
  • New Action
  • Large Worker Rules
  • Large Worker Abilities
  • Large Worker – Example of Scout and Gather
• Predators
  • Predator Setup
  • Alliance with a Predator
  • Predator Card Layout
  • Predators in the Worker Phase
  • Predators in the Soldier Phase
  • General Predator Rules
  • Predator – Example of Offering and Battle
• Additional Clarifications
  • Tactics and Cards
• Glossary
  • Tiles and Meadow
  • Large Workers
  • Predators
• New Symbols
  • Board and Nest Symbols
  • Predator Symbols
  • Reward Tile Symbols

Contents

• 6 off-meadow tiles (numbered 29–34)
• 14 Nest Chambers cards
• 6 reward tiles
• 9 flood markers
• 36 ant cards
• 5 Large Worker sheets
• 10 Large Workers (2 per player colour)
• 5 help cards
• 6 predator cards
• 6 predator tokens
• 1 predator sheet

Overview

The Predators & Prey expansion contains new ant cards, Great Tunnel reward tiles and off-meadow tiles. It also introduces three strategic modules (we recommend introducing them gradually): Nest Chambers, Large Workers and Predators.

The expansion greatly increases the complexity of the game and lengthens it somewhat. Players should know the base game well before deciding to use the contents of this expansion.

Setup

Cards, Tiles and Reward Tiles

These contents can be added to the matching components of the base game and used together with any of the expansion's modules. To tell them apart more easily, the expansion's cards and reward tiles are marked with the expansion symbol.

Game Preparation

Ant cards: Shuffle the ant cards from the base game and the expansion together into one shared deck. Use the advanced setup (each player receives additional cards based on turn order and keeps a total of 3).

Off-meadow tiles: Add them to the off-meadow tiles of the base game. In each game, choose 2 random off-meadow tiles from the expansion (3 in a game for 4 or more players) and shuffle them with the standard tiles.

Reward tiles: Add them to those of the base game. In each game, choose 2 random tiles from each level.

We additionally recommend that your first game use Nest Chambers, your second game use Nest Chambers and Large Workers, and your third game use Large Workers and Predators. Once you have become familiar with all of the expansion's contents, you may in later games freely mix and combine all of its elements and modules.

Solo / Cooperative Mode

Some of the contents of this expansion can be used in Rise of the Centipedes. Details (in English) are on the website www.weirdcitygames.com/rise-of-the-centipedes.

New Tiles and Specialised Harvest Sites

Some harvest sites on the off-meadow tiles of Predators & Prey are shaped like a green ant with the symbol of one of the body segments (head, thorax or abdomen). These are resources that are especially hard to gather. To inhabit such a site, a player must have at least 2 played evolution cards of the indicated segment.

• Sites that are not specialised are standard sites.
• A tile with a specialised harvest site is contested if ants of at least 2 players are on it and those ants are on the edges (even if there are empty harvest sites on it that cannot be inhabited because they are specialised).
• When a player has the required number of evolutions, their ants on the edges immediately occupy the empty specialised sites on that tile.

Tile callouts: Specialised harvest site. Only players with two abdomen evolutions can inhabit it. / The bonus gained by the player who inhabits a control site.

Queen's Niche (tile 33): the bonus printed on the tile reads "During Harvest, gain 1 food or 3 larvae" (the bonus for the player who inhabits the control site).

New Reward Tiles

Reward tiles from this expansion contain entirely new rewards.

PERMANENT BONUSES – When a player wins a battle in the Great Tunnel, if the 1st reward on the tile has a purple background, that player places the tile next to their nest sheet and gains the indicated bonus until the end of the game. Permanent bonuses correspond to those gained from head, thorax or abdomen evolutions, but they do not count as evolutions.

The 1st-place reward of this tile gives [crown icon: 2] and a permanent +1 combat strength. The back of the instructions describes all of the new reward symbols.

Tactics

Tactics are a new type of ant card. A tactic can be an event, an evolution or a colony objective. Tactics have no cost and cannot be played as the card-play action. Instead, a tactic is played for ferocity during a battle.

Each tactic provides its ferocity and an immediate tactical effect, which takes effect before the result of the battle is determined.

Their effects apply within the current battle, and then, depending on the card type:

• EVENT – After the battle ends, discard it to the discard pile.
• EVOLUTION / COLONY OBJECTIVE – During tidying up you must play it onto the matching segment or colony objective area. If you already have 2 colony objectives, you must replace 1 of them with a colony-objective tactic.

Order of Resolving Tactics

After every player has decided whether to play a card for ferocity, all cards are revealed simultaneously. Tactic cards are resolved in the order in which they were played (starting from the left of the defender), unless the tactic's description states otherwise.

Tactic Rules

• If a centipede reveals a tactic card, ignore its tactical effect.
• You may play a tactic card under effects that allow you to play a card without paying costs, but in that case ignore its tactical effect.
• For effects that depend on a card's cost, tactics have a cost of 0.

Leaving a Battle

During the result step, if a player has no units (ants or predators) left in that location, that player stops taking part in the battle. They cannot win or lose, and they ignore all further steps and effects of the battle. If a player is the only one remaining in the battle, they win and resolve the loot step as usual.

Example: Red, blue and black fight over a tile. Red has the Amazon Head. Blue plays Cruel Cannibals, forcing black to lose the last ant on that tile. Red and blue continue fighting. At the end of the battle, black does not lose 1 larva from the Amazon Head effect.

Tactic Diagram

The example card is the Camouflage Head (Cataglyphis spanglerii), an Evolution–Tactic card:

1. Ferocity – the value the card adds when played for ferocity.
2. No cost – it cannot be played with the card-play action.
3. Expansion symbol – every Predators & Prey card bears the expansion symbol.
4. Tactical effect – resolved when the card is revealed during a battle: Perform up to 2 steps with an ant onto a contested tile.
5. Evolution ability – a permanent evolution ability added to the ant's body at the end of the battle: At the start of the Soldier phase you may perform 1 step with an ant.

Tactic Example of Battle

1. STRENGTH – Red and blue fight on the Dry Path. Each has 2 ants and no head evolution, so they tie with 2 strength each.
2. FEROCITY – Red reveals the Camouflage Head for ferocity. Its tactical effect lets red perform 2 steps with an ant, so it moves 2 ants from the Stone Mound to the Dry Path. Thanks to the Camouflage Head's ferocity of 1 and the 2 ants it moved, red now has 5 strength. Blue reveals a card with ferocity 4 and so has 6 strength in total, making blue the winner.
3. FEROCITY – Red loses, but at the end of the battle plays the Camouflage Head onto the matching segment on its nest sheet.

Nest Chambers

Ants rebuild their underground networks and must choose which old tunnels to keep and which to convert so that they better serve the colony.

Contents: 14 Nest Chamber cards.

Game Preparation

At the start of the game, shuffle the Nest Chamber cards with the Old Tunnel side facing up. Deal 2 chambers to each player. After reviewing both sides of the cards they have received, each player places them next to their nest sheet – one card with its Old Tunnel side showing, and the other with its unique chamber face up.

The choice is made after the starting ant cards are dealt, and it is permanent – it cannot be changed during the game.

Playing with Chambers

When you would resolve a reaction, you may instead place an egg from your supply into one of your chambers, provided that the chamber has an empty space.

When, at the end of the worker phase, you resolve the reaction from the thorax evolution bonus, you may use 1 reaction to place an egg in a chamber.

Each chamber describes the situation in which you may activate it. To do so, all of the spaces of that chamber must be filled. When you activate a chamber, remove all eggs from it and return them to your supply.

Chambers activated in the worker phase may sometimes be activated several times within the same phase.

Egg Rules in Chambers

• Eggs in chambers are not larvae, and they cannot be moved to the meadow with a move action or used to pay for cards.
• Each player has 36 ant markers. This is a fixed limit: if all of them are used, you cannot place any more eggs into your chambers.
• You may take eggs from chambers to turn them into larvae, but you may not take larvae or ants from the game to become eggs in your chambers.

Chamber Layout

1. Name
2. Activation moment – when the ability may be used.
3. Ability – the chamber's effect.
4. Egg spaces – instead of resolving a reaction, you may place 1 egg on an empty space. When all of them are filled, you may activate the chamber.

Example (layout diagram): the chamber shown is named Old Tunnel; its activation moment is "Start of the Queen phase" and its ability is "Draw a card." It has three egg spaces below the ability.

Large Workers

As the ant meadow expands, the ants also develop. Larger and fiercer large workers appear, and they gain new abilities as your nest grows.

Contents: 2 large workers and 1 large worker sheet per player.

Game Preparation

After the standard game setup, take 2 large worker tokens and the large worker sheet in your player colour. Slide the new sheet to the left of your nest sheet. Replace 1 of your ants in the Great Tunnel with a large worker, and place the second one on the large worker sheet.

New Action

To place a new large worker, players use the new action – Breeding.

Breeding – Cost: 2 ants

• ACTION: Place a large worker on any tile that you inhabit.
• REACTION: Each neighbouring player may choose 1 reaction. This may be any of the standard reactions, or placing an egg in a nest chamber.

Large Worker Rules

A large worker is a regular ant for all rules purposes. It requires 1 step to move, provides 1 strength in battle, may inhabit harvest sites, counts as 1 ant during feeding, and may be used to pay for cards. Ants other than large workers are standard ants.

MOVING LARGE WORKERS – Before you move 1 of your large workers, you may swap it places with any other of your ants on the same tile (this does not use a step). Removing a large worker as a loss, or using it to pay a cost, is not a move.

LOSING LARGE WORKERS – When you lose a large worker (for example as a loss in battle or by paying with it as a cost), return it to your large worker sheet (you may place it again with the Breeding action).

Large Worker Abilities

Large workers begin the game without special abilities, but they gain them along with subsequent evolutions. Each large worker you have in the game gains the following abilities once you have at least 1 evolution of the given segment:

Head – Gather At the start of each battle, for each of your large workers in that battle's location, perform up to 2 steps with standard ants or larvae onto that location. During these steps you may not move other large workers, predators or centipedes.

Thorax – Scout After you explore an outer meadow tile (not adjacent to the Great Tunnel), if your large worker is on that tile and it has a free tunnel entrance, you may reveal an additional tile. Place it connected to the first one and move only the large worker onto it. Your other ants do not move. The Scout takes place before the reactions from exploration. It activates only during the explore action. Other effects that place tiles do not activate it (so a Scout does not activate another Scout).

Abdomen – Feed During feeding, all of your ants (including large workers) on tiles with your large workers are considered fed.

Large Worker – Example of Scout and Gather

1. EXPLORATION – Black explores from the Stone Mound. It places the explored tile (Dry Path) on the outer meadow and moves its large worker and 2 ants onto it.

2. SCOUT – Because black has a thorax evolution, it may perform a Scout with its large worker. It reveals the top tile from the stack (Pebbles) and places it connected to the Dry Path (which it has just explored). It must then move only its large worker onto the Pebbles, and it decides to inhabit a food harvest site with it.

3. REACTIONS – Neighbouring players of black resolve the standard exploration reaction.

4. GATHER – The Pebbles are contested thanks to the ants of black and blue. Black has a large worker and a head evolution, so at the start of the battle it performs a Gather. It uses 1 step to move 1 ant from the Dry Path onto that tile, and a second step to move a larva from its larval chamber to the same place. (It could also use 2 steps to move a single ant from a more distant location.)

5. STRENGTH – Black has 4 ants on the Pebbles (including the large worker), so it has 4 strength. Blue has 3 ants (3 strength). The battle proceeds by the usual rules (a large worker counts as a standard ant).

Predators

Predators are the terrifying inhabitants of the meadow, bringing danger as great as their rewards. Fearless ant colonies may form mutual ties with these huge beasts, but such an alliance has its price.

Contents: 6 predator cards, 6 predator tokens.

Predator Setup

At the start of the game, place the predator sheet next to the play area. Shuffle the predator cards, form them into a face-down deck, and place it together with the predator tokens above the sheet. Reveal predator cards in a number depending on the player count and place them below the predator sheet:

• 2–3 players: 2 cards
• 4–5 players: 3 cards

Place a predator token next to its card.

Alliance with a Predator

Players may use the Recruit action in the worker phase to form an alliance with a predator.

Recruit – Cost: Offering

• REQUIREMENTS: You fulfil the predator's Task and you are not in an alliance with any other predator.
• ACTION: Take the predator card and place it next to your nest sheet, and place its token on the edge of the tile you inhabit.
• REACTIONS: Each neighbouring player may choose 1 reaction. This may be any of the standard reactions or placing an egg in a nest chamber.

A recruited predator forms an alliance with your colony. You may move it, and it will fight on your behalf. However, you must give it an Offering at the start of every worker phase to keep the alliance in force.

Predator Card Layout

The example card is the Ladybug (Biedronka).

1. Name – has no effect on play.
2. Task – the condition for forming an alliance with the predator.
3. Task symbol – shows the goal of the task.
4. Offering – the cost of recruiting the predator and of keeping the alliance at the start of every worker phase.
5. Ferocity – the strength gained when your allied predator takes part in a battle (shown as the red value labelled Strength on the card).
6. Meadow effect – abilities of predators affect all players unless the ability says otherwise. Abilities that refer to "you" affect only the allied player.
7. Scoring – how this predator is scored.

Ladybug example: Task – "Have at least 3 food in your pantry" (task symbol: 3 food). Meadow effect – "Each food feeds 1 fewer ant. When you win a battle with the Ladybug, in addition to the usual loot, gain 1 food." Scoring – "Each dormancy: score for food in your pantry" with scores of 2, 4 and 5.

Predators in the Worker Phase

At the start of every worker phase you must give an Offering to each predator you are allied with. Then you must move it to a neighbouring location (which need not be connected by a tunnel). If you cannot pay the cost of the Offering, you lose the predator and you lose [crown icon: 1].

Predator movement and tile rules

You may use up to 3 steps to move an allied predator to a neighbouring location, unless it is overwhelmed. A predator is overwhelmed if any opponent on its tile has more ants than you.

Although predators may move into the Great Tunnel, they are lost if they are in it at the start of the soldier phase.

Predators do not inhabit harvest sites, nor do they inhabit tiles for a player.

Predators in the Soldier Phase

At the start of the soldier phase, every predator in the Great Tunnel is lost.

Predator fighting

If there are opposing ants, other predators or a centipede on a tile with a predator, the tile is contested. Predators support their allies in battle by giving them additional strength. Sometimes this is fixed in advance, and sometimes it depends on various factors.

Losses

When determining losses, a predator counts as 1 ant, but it cannot be lost in the usual way. Instead, after you have lost ants in a battle that you lost, you also lose your allied predator. If you won the battle, the predator leaves without harm.

In a battle against centipedes, a predator provides its additional strength in the same way as in a battle against ants.

Loot

In addition to the standard loot, the winner gains an additional [crown icon] and [food icon] for each predator defeated in that battle.

General Predator Rules

Scoring

Each predator gives its allied nest an opportunity for additional scoring. In the dormancy phase, if you are allied with a given predator, you may gain additional points if you meet the stated conditions.

Losing a predator

If you lose a predator, place its card beside the predator deck and return its token to the supply. Reveal a new predator card and place it face up below the predator sheet – it is available to all players. If the deck runs out, shuffle the discarded predator cards and form a new face-down deck.

Predator – Example of Offering and Battle

1. TASK – Red inhabits 2 card sites, so it fulfils the Trapdoor Spider's task (Task: inhabit 2 card sites).

2. OFFERING – Red discards a card to pay the Offering for the Trapdoor Spider. Thanks to this it recruits the spider: it takes the matching card and places the spider's token on the tile it inhabits.

3. PLACING THE PREDATOR – Red places the spider on the Stone Mound.

4. REACTION – Neighbouring players of red may perform any reaction. Blue chooses the exploration reaction and places a larva on the Stone Mound. Yellow gains 1 larva from the search reaction.

5. STRENGTH – The Stone Mound is contested. Red has 3 ants and a spider with 2 strength, so it has 5 strength in total. Blue has 3 ants and 1 head evolution, so it has 4 strength in total.

6. FEROCITY – Red and blue choose cards. Red reveals a card with ferocity 2, and blue reveals one with ferocity 4.

7. RESULT – Red has 7 strength in total and blue has 8, so blue wins.

8. LOSSES – Blue loses 2 ants (half of red's ants and the spider). Red loses 3 ants, and because it lost the battle, it also loses the spider. It discards the spider's card and returns its token to the supply. Then it reveals a new predator card, which any player may recruit in the next worker phase.

Additional Clarifications

Tactics and Cards

Arbiter's Head – It is possible to prevent a battle with a centipede and with a predator.

Unwanted colony objective – Some effects may cause you to gain a colony objective card when you already have the 2 you wanted. In that case you must unfortunately discard 1 of those objectives and play the one you received in its place.

Picking Bones – You gain the reward if there is no harvest site with 1 larva in the game.

Cunning Head – If you use it against a centipede, replace your card for ferocity with its first card (before you reveal it).

Truce – This card can be used to end a battle with a centipede.

Solo mode – Cards bearing the solo-mode symbol (a green icon) are to be removed only in solo mode.

Digger's Thorax – Tiles with a worm hole count as empty for the purposes of Cordyceps, even though, strictly speaking, you inhabit them.

Placing evolution tactics – You do not add them to your ant's body until tidying up, so the Camouflage Head does not give an extra bonus for the head evolution in the battle in which it was played.

Ruse – After it is revealed, it cancels another card played for ferocity. The cancelled card is discarded and provides neither its ferocity nor any tactical effect. If it is played against a centipede, it cancels the first of its cards, after which the next one is revealed.

Glossary

Tiles and Meadow

Uncolonised tile – A tile on whose harvest sites there are no ants.

Empty tile – A tile with no ants, predators or centipedes on it.

Crossroads – At the start of your explore action you must decide whether you are exploring from the Crossroads. If you are, take an unused off-meadow tile instead of the top tile of the tile stack.

Thaw – If a tile is flooded, ants on spaces other than control sites which do not have at least 2 thorax evolutions must retreat to the edges.

Large Workers

Large worker in the larval chamber – If an effect (for example Rasberry's head) causes a large worker to enter the larval chamber, it may be moved onto the meadow as if it were a larva.

Gather (steps for) – Ants and larvae moved by this effect must end their movement on a tile with a large worker. A large worker cannot move another large worker with Gather.

Predators

Ladybug – Each food feeds 1 fewer ant (this also applies to you).

Cordyceps – The strength of the Cordyceps equals the number of the current round. At the start of the losses step in every battle, each player who took part in it is assigned 1 additional loss. In no battle does the rule of the lone survivor apply.

Centipede Mother – Her strength equals the current size of the centipede. The Centipede Mother counts as an ordinary centipede for all rules purposes, and cards that target centipedes affect her. Exception: a Centipede Mother cannot be avoided by using the Treacherous Head or the Traitor's Abdomen.

Trapdoor Spider – Harvest sites with a card still count as card sites even though they produce 1 larva instead. Hostile ants on a tile with a Trapdoor Spider cannot be moved by steps or card effects.

Dragonfly – For the purposes of the task, harvest sites with a single or double larva count. You must be able to collect a larva in order to gain the reward. If you do not have enough available ant markers, you do not gain points.

New Symbols

Board and Nest Symbols

• Control site – a tan diamond.
• Flood marker – a blue round marker with a water symbol.
• Expansion symbol (Predators & Prey) – a small green icon. Every card and reward tile of the expansion carries it.
• Specialised harvest site (head) – a green ant shape with a head symbol on a harvest site; only players with the required evolutions may inhabit it.
• Egg space in a nest chamber – an egg-shaped space in a chamber.

Predator Symbols

• Task: to recruit a given predator, the indicated conditions must be met.
• Offering: the indicated resources must be paid when recruiting, and again at the start of every worker phase.
• Strength: the value that the predator adds to your strength in battle.

Reward Tile Symbols

Rewards with a purple background give their bonus for the whole game.

• +1 strength in battle.
• +1 thorax reaction at the end of the worker phase.
• Each food feeds 1 additional ant.
• Play an evolution from your hand without paying its costs.
• Reveal cards from the deck until you find a colony objective. Play it for free.
• Place a centipede on any tile.
• Perform 2 steps with an ant.