Thanks for stopping by with an in-depth comment! The solo mode in the base game felt a bit repetitive to me after a short time. I highly recommend taking a look at the expansion, March of the Ants: Minions of the Meadow.

As for your question regarding losing ants in battle, this is the part of the rulebook that applies:

The loser loses ants equal to the Army Strength of the winner. The winner loses ants equal to half the Army Strength of the loser (rounded down).

Lone Survivor – If all of the winner’s ants would be lost, their last ant is not lost.

You only lose ants from the hex where the battle takes place. Even if this would be more, perhaps because the solo opponent has a very high army strength, you only lose the ants in that hex.

What about when you fight centipedes? These battles are usually more difficult and important, because centipedes that make it into the Great Tunnel will start to quickly amass victory points. Yet these battles usually cost a lot of ants, so it can be challenging to know exactly when to initiate a battle.

Feel free to ask other questions, though! I found this solo mode to be straightforward but not too easy to win. Or maybe you’ve just mastered gameplay? Ha! I actually won a few times in a row very handily, thinking I had solved it. Not so! Sometimes it just takes a few more plays to realize that you were getting lucky with the cards. Good luck!

So, I started to think: maybe is it something I do wrong? And I started to look for it.

I read a few of gameplay descriptions. I noticed ppl differ in some thing, there is some small rule in the general part of the rulebook that says that when the players need to loose some ants after winning the battle “they must still lose a number of ants equal to half the enemy strength, keeping at least 1 ant” . OK so do I need to loose all but one, or do I keep the last one in the hex? (I won the battle so I shouldn’t teoretically loose all of my ants in that hex, do I?)

Sill I didn’t know how to understand it, so I decided to loose all of them, and I won again!

Now, I am thinking – maybe I need to loose all those needed ants not only from that hex but in general? From all other hexes until I receive the needed number?

No worries, JW! I’ve been playing with the marching rules as stated, so maybe I’ve just been extra lucky.

Also, I do sometimes end up with a centipede in the meadow after I passed. However, since a new one specifically enters the highest hex without a centipede, I simply leave my ants out of that hex.

There are times when this does end up creating a contested hex, but it seems to be rare.

Then again, I might not be playing as intended. That’s where the expansion should add some more elements and make things more interesting. I’m looking forward to learning the rules this upcoming week!

Good luck the next time you play!

I’ve been lucky in the way you’ve described, but I could not use it as a strategy as I’d never have enough ants then. An/or food.

And you never have centipedes turn up in their final action – then fighting some of your ants?

Anyway, like I said, I’ll try again.

Thanks for the tips, JW! Let me go through these and double-check:

• Marching: All of the material I have seems to indicate that only 1 food is needed to move up to 5 steps, or more with thorax evolutions.
• Fighting: I always lose half the ants, rounded down, except when using some head evolutions that reduce casualties.
• Passing: The final sequence of a turn is my final action, the centipede’s action, my pass action, and the centipede’s final action.

Aside from the possible issue with marching, it sounds like everything is correct. Where is the reference that it costs 1 food per step? Just curious, as my rulebook and player boards all seem to point to the action itself costing 1 food and not each individual step.

Thanks! I’m not too upset if I “solved” the base game since I’ve been looking forward to trying out the expansion. That should be a lot of fun, and likely a lot more challenging!

– when marching, you move max. five larvae/ants one step (per food payed), or less of them more than one steps (5 steps total)
– after winning a fight, you lose half the ants you fought with
– after passing, the centipedes take their extra turn (a lot of times an extra centipede will turn up)

and then this works? Now I have to try it ☺