Board Gaming - Hive

Hive

^{small, soft, cleanable game bag. Excellent for taking with you to different places}

I finally got to play this game again during the most recent gaming evening after one of the new attendees approached and enquired about it with me. They were actually a past player of the game as well,
and looking to play with someone that had already played it, rather than learning the game, which was a nice change. I my set has only been used to teach others to play in the past. It does include the Mosquito expansion piece, which I'd never actually used before, and it had been a decade since I'd played, so remembering the rules was a quick 1 minute reminder and then into the game.

It's a 2 player strategy game again, where the object of the game is to completely surround the opponents queen bee tile. It doesn't need to be just with your pieces, it just needs to be surrounded. It's also a nice little game that can be taken anywhere with a flatish surface, and the bakelite tiles are hard and easy to clean, so no risk of breaking or damaging them in places like a bar or cafe. The game also comes in a nice travel bag, so it's easy to actually take to these places too.

To start the game, one player places one of their tiles into the play area. The other player then places one adjacent to it. After those 2 placements, all new placements must be only adjacent to your own colour tile. The only other rule with placing is that you have to place your queen as one of the first 4 placements, and you can't move a tile until after the queen is placed.

^{an image part way into one of our games. I'm white, and not in a great position already}

Once your queen is placed, you can start moving tiles, following very few rules. The tile needs to be free to move, having 2 or more neighbouring edges open, and moving it wouldn't split the hive. It doesn't matter if the final placement would rejoin the 2 pieces, it can't create a split during it's movement.

The other rules are creature specific rules:
Spider moves 3 places
Cockroach leaps in a straight line over 1+ other tiles into the first space it finds
Beetle climbs up on top of other tiles
Ant moves as far as it wants around the edge of the hive
Queen moves 1 space
Mosquito pretends to be one of the creatures it's touching at the start of it's turn (unless it's already acting as a beetle)

And that's pretty much everything needed to play the game. The rest is reading the situation and reacting effectively. Do I place another tile, or move that one somewhere else? Am I at risk of having too many of my tiles pinned down and not being able to surround their queen without their own help?

It's a nice fun and quick strategy game, useful to fill in 5-10 minutes, or play a series of games over 15-20 minutes. The almost complete lack of setup time really helps with the just sit and play of a fill in game.

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