Overview
Ants is a strategic board game where players control ant colonies locked in an eternal struggle for dominance over a garden. Players expand their anthill, explore terrain, mark paths with pheromones, gather food and leaves, battle rival insects, lay eggs, hatch larvae into specialized ants, and evolve their colony to unlock unique abilities and secure supremacy over enemy nests.
Components
- Game board representing the garden
- Player boards (anthills)
- Ant miniatures/tokens in player colors
- Terrain tiles
- Pheromone tokens
- Food and leaf tokens
- Egg and larvae tokens
- Insect enemy tokens
- Evolution cards
- Action cards
- Dice
- Score track
Setup
- Place the central board. Each player takes a player board (anthill) and starting components.
- Place initial terrain tiles and resource tokens.
- Each player receives starting ants, eggs, and resources per setup rules.
- Determine starting player.
Turn Structure
Players take turns performing actions to manage their colony. On your turn, you select actions using hand management mechanics, choosing from available action cards to deploy ants, explore, gather, fight, or develop.
Actions
- Explore: Send ants out from the anthill to discover new terrain tiles, revealing resources and dangers.
- Gather: Collect food and leaves from the terrain. Food feeds the colony; leaves are used for construction.
- Lay Eggs: Spend resources to lay eggs in the anthill, which later hatch into larvae.
- Hatch: Develop larvae into specialized ants (workers, soldiers, queens) with different abilities.
- Mark Pheromones: Place pheromone tokens on paths to improve movement efficiency and territorial control.
- Battle: Attack rival insects or opposing player ants in contested territory using combat mechanics.
- Evolve: Play evolution cards to unlock permanent colony abilities and advantages.
Scoring / Victory Conditions
Players earn points through:
- Territory control (areas dominated by pheromones)
- Resources gathered
- Insects defeated
- Colony development (evolutions unlocked)
- Completing objectives
The player with the most points at game end wins.
Special Rules & Edge Cases
- Specialized ant types have unique abilities (soldiers fight better, workers gather more efficiently).
- Pheromone trails benefit all your ants on those paths.
- Rival insects appear as environmental challenges that all players must contend with.
- Evolution cards provide asymmetric powers that differentiate colonies.
- The garden terrain is modular, providing different setups each game.
Player Reference
| Action |
Purpose |
Cost |
| Explore |
Reveal terrain |
Ant deployment |
| Gather |
Collect food/leaves |
Worker ants |
| Lay Eggs |
Produce new ants |
Food |
| Hatch |
Specialize larvae |
Resources |
| Mark Pheromones |
Control territory |
Actions |
| Battle |
Fight enemies |
Soldier ants |
| Evolve |
Upgrade colony |
Various |