Jeremy’s Gaming Gratons: First Impressions of ANTS

Board Game Gumbo is pleased to present another game night recap with Jeremy Dobler. This time, Jeremy gives us his impressions after a first play of ANTS (which we affectionately call “Ants of Wistar.“)

Got a test play of Ants in.

It’s excellent. I can’t wait to see how it plays at higher counts with people actually competing for resources, cards, and enemies to defeat.

It’s a fairly straight forward action selection game, where the strength of the action is determined by how many ants you send to perform it, but to keep that supply full, you’ll have to take incubation actions (the pass action) to generate more eggs, hatch those eggs into larva, and pupate the larva into adult ants who specialize in either foraging, exploring, or digging.

Alternatively you can play cards to enhance your hives abilities, discounting the standard actions, or giving you new bonus actions to perform during the incubation turns. Plus they score (or lose in some cases) some VP at the end of the game.

Some deadly foes also inhabit the map, but luckily they aren’t aggressive, and you can choose to take them on once you have some tags built up. Defeating them will give you their token to place on your ant hill board unlocking new powerful ongoing or instant abilities, and some even give VP.

All while achieving milestones that also score VP based on how many you can do, but allow you to place out stars on the milestone track, marching ever forward towards the end of the game.

If you’re familiar with Rats of Wistar, this game has the same design language and art style, in a different thematic package.

I’m also impressed with how involved in the BGG Forums the designers are, the couple of questions I had were already answered by the duo.

Just a little something to chew on — Jeremy

Jeremy is an omni-gamer from Lafayette, Louisiana, who games at home with his wife and young son, but also can be frequently hosting or visiting game nights with friends all over Acadiana. Jeremy loves games about nature, IP games involving turtles and batmen, and games appropriate to play with his young son, but expect lots of different games discussed here each time.