How to play Hive, a classic, A pocket-sized game of insect strategics.
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Read the Rules
The aim of the game
The aim of Hive is to completely surround your opponent's queen bee, before they surround yours.
A queen is surrounded if it is fully encircled by tiles of any colour.
To set up
- Pick a colour and place its tiles in front of you.
- Choose a starting player, they play one of their pieces into the centre of the table to start the hive.
- The next player must place a piece touching this one, edge to edge.
To play the game
Players then take it in turns to either place a piece, or move a piece, according to its rules.
- New tiles must be placed touching an edge of one or more of your own tiles.
- Apart from your first tile, new tiles must not be placed touching an opponent’s tile.
- Once placed, a piece cannot be removed from the board, only moved.
- You MUST place your queen bee by your fourth turn.
- You cannot move tiles until your queen has been placed.
- When moving a piece, it CAN touch your opponent’s tiles.
- Movement must end touching the edge of a tile.
- A ‘Space’ is one movement of your tile along an edge, or, in some cases, onto a tile .
Each insect has unique movement:
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The cumbersome queen can only move one space per turn.
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The speedy spider moves three spaces per turn, no more, no less. This must be along a line of connected tiles that it has contact with. It cannot backtrack.
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The sneaky soldier ant can move any number of spaces around the hive, so long as it has contact with the edges.
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The gangly grasshopper can leap across the hive. Jumping in a straight line over any number of connected pieces (at least 1), to the other side.
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The Bulldozing beetle can move one space, but can move on-top of the hive if you wish. An insect underneath the beetle cannot be moved. If a beetle is on-top, the space counts as the beetle player’s colour - so when they place new tiles, they can touch it if they wish.
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The leaping ladybug moves three spaces - two on top of the hive and one jumping back down. Its first two moves MUST be on top and its final move MUST be back down. Like the beetle, the ladybug can drop into otherwise surrounded areas.
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The Mimicking Mosquito can take on the ability of any of you or your opponents tiles it touches.
When moving, remember these restrictions
- You cannot leave a piece stranded, or split the hive in two.
- Even if it re-links the hive, if a piece in transit separates the hive while it moves, it can’t be moved.
- You must move your bugs using a sliding movement. If a piece can’t physically slide into or out of its position, it can’t move to/from there. The grasshopper, ladybug and beetle are exceptions to this as they can move over tiles.
Game end
The game ends when a player’s Queen Bee is completely surrounded by pieces of any colour. The surrounding player loses!
If a single move surrounds both queens, it’s a draw!
That’s Hive,
Protect the queen at all costs!
Enjoy!