A March Month of Marching Ahead with March of the Ants
Enter the world of an ant colony living peacefully in the meadow until the centipedes arrive in March of the Ants.
With my usual level of pun quality, the calendar turned to March and there was a game that simply had to make it to the table… March of the Ants! I wanted to dig in some more last year but got so distracted and busy. Indeed, rather than dive in with the expansions, I decided that it seemed good to use the base game and remember the basics. Ants away!
Game Overview
Game Name: March of the Ants
Publication Year: 2015
Designer: Tim Eisner and Ryan Swisher
Artist: Tim Eisner, Ryan Swisher, and Peter Wocken
Publisher: Weird City Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
The rulebook always throws me for a loop… Who put a cup on this?! Ha ha! The goal is to drive an ant colony to success in a small meadow. But it isn’t simply about food production and expansion. Terrible centipedes lurk out there and battle the ants on a continuous basis. Attack!
First Play
March 4, 2020
Complexity
3
Latest Play
March 27, 2022
Expansions
2
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
25
Play Time
40 Minutes
High Score
26
Game Area
34" x 24"
Low Score
4
At Water’s Edge
All was nice and calm in the meadow when spring began. I wasn’t quite sure if I remembered exactly how to play, yet these ants looked pretty crafty. This would be fine!
Playing with only the base game reminded me of the main limitation. Namely, the incentive to explore is minimal.
It’s often best to focus on controlling a few inner hexes and keeping the ants together. Such nice ants, too! I went with the purple variety this time. Springtime? Sure. Ha ha!
Water’s Edge looked like a pretty nice spot. This would grant food and larvae for growth and sustainability.
Managing Actions
The base game plays relatively quickly on its own since each action has a cost. Food typically isn’t abundant, so exploring, marching, and foraging can be expensive.
I also tend to avoid doing anything with the evolution cards, aside from saving them for battles. This is why I was already looking forward to adding in the expansions!
Yet there’s a very solid foundation here. If it wasn’t, the expansions wouldn’t do much of anything. All good!
The meadow was still very quiet, so I carefully guided the colony on some short exploration runs… So carefully…
A Giant Problem
Centipede alert! These giant enemies certainly looked quite formidable out on the map. I thought spending extra on these wooden critters would be foolish. Not at all.
Since I had most of the ants centralized, they were able to attack and defeat this enemy. It wasn’t without trouble, though. About half the colony was destroyed. Ouch!
That’s the other tricky element of battle. The rewards are excellent, yet there are almost always casualties.
How to balance it out? I had a rough strategy in place and simply had to do well at a single thing: Survival!
Centipedes Everywhere
The strategy comes into play from the number of enemies. A single centipede might seem minimal, yet each season often ushers in at least a few unwanted guests.
Not only do the centipedes earn points simply for being around, but they can attack at any time. I had to attack when able, while still conserving ants for the future.
For it’s easy to have a plan in mind, only to unexpectedly see the demise of every ant. An instantaneous loss there!
So I kept some ants in safe areas and maintained a small but fierce troop to attack. It was very difficult, though.
The Overrun Meadow
The positive takeaway? My ant colony survived to the end. However, the victory points were pretty clear. The horde of centipedes would rule this meadow.
Note, though, how few hexes I ended up exploring. In fact, the centipedes did half of the exploring! It simply didn’t make sense to split the ants so much.
I wasn’t ready to give up just yet, though. Despite wanting to add in the expansion, the centipedes couldn’t win!
There was a good chance I could figure this out and give the ants back their beloved meadow. I had to!
The Irony of Life Imitating Art
In what might be the world’s greatest coincidence, when I took a quick break in between plays to grab a snack, I found none other than a tiny ant roaming around on my kitchen floor! Adorable, I thought. Later on, there were about half a dozen more zooming around and I thought there was a problem. Ants indoors are never a good sign.
Good news, though! After spotting a couple more the day after, there have been no signs of them. They were definitely just the typical house ants and not the dangerous carpenter ants. Hurray for that! I had a door open during some unusually nice weather and I imagine they waltzed in as a scouting party. Nothing to see in this house. Off you go!
But yes, indeed: I had ants marching across my floor in March while playing March of the Ants. Coincidence? No… One actually managed to get on my game table. Although I didn’t see it, I believe a real ant might have been in the meadow!
Turning the Tide
A-ha! After a very quick rematch, I managed to pull ahead of the centipedes by a single point. Victory for the ants!
It was another play of barely exploring and simply trying to keep some ants alive. Although certainly strategic, I feel sad ignoring the giant stack of meadow hexes.
Keep an eye out for how the configuration changes with the first expansion. There is an incentive to explore a lot with more actions, so it takes on a very different look.
Success! Maybe it wasn’t a resounding victory, but the centipedes were kept out of the meadow this time. Yes!
Session Overview
Play Number: 15 and 16
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Hard Difficulty Level
Outcome: 9-15 and 11-10 (1 Win and 1 Loss)
A-ha! I forgot that I was playing the base game at the highest difficulty level, too. So I guess even after a year, I still remember how to keep ants alive! And out of my house… Even with a few centipedes lurking nearby, this colony would survive and go on. I would, too, only with the addition of the first expansion. Expect to go on many more marches with these ants during March!
%
20 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
8
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
9
Originality
Design & Theme
9
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
9
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
6
+ Pros (Positives)
- Each ant is important and managing when to hang back safely or go to battle offers interesting choices.
- There are many different hexes that can potentially come into play with different rewards and tunnel patterns.
- Play time flies by over the course of 4 rounds and involves minimal downtime to go through the steps.
- The solo opponent is easy to manage with a card-based system that makes each turn unpredictable.
- Upgraded wooden components might seem unnecessary, yet the ants and centipedes add to the atmosphere.
- Aside from some unlucky situations, scores are often very close since the difficulty level can be adjusted.
– Cons (Negatives)
- With only the base game, there is no incentive to explore nor evolve so that simple survival becomes the focus.
- Cards are typically saved and played for their ferocity values, only making them truly useful in battle.
- The rules are written well in general, although there are some sections that take some time to fully understand.
- Some variability exists with the base game, but the sequence to victory can seem rather limited and scripted.
Victory Conditions
Defeat the Broodmother
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Win at least 1 expansion game at the easy difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the easy difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the hard difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the normal difficulty level.
Continue the Conversation
What do you think of March of the Ants? Have you managed to defeat the centipedes time and time again? I like the core concepts with the base game, although I expect to explore the expansions soon enough. The additions provide new and interesting strategies, while the meadow takes on a different appearance. I look forward to more marching in March!
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