Hive Colony (fan expansion for Hive)

It misses the point of Hive

3/5 good abstract game, but without the expansion it suffers from similar strategy & first player advantage. 1000+ plays.

5/5 Hive with the Pillbug, Mosquito, & Ladybug really blow the doors open on gameplay. This becomes a deeper game than chess with more possible moves. Definitely a modern classic. We have played this game all over the world and it is always well received and people stop and ask what is going on. The theme of animals is just so much more engaging. Building your board as you play vs playing a piece, vs moving a piece is that wonderful push and pull. Knowing when to defend or attack is key. The expansion pieces balance out the start player advantage because there are so many more ways to defend attacks now.

5/5 the fan creations for hive which you can PnP or order is incredible. The new killer queen bee is great. the rule of having to get 7 pieces instead of 6 to win makes it more thinky. players being able to take a double turn make it more strategic. the largest issue with hive was the direct start, but that is nullified by a common starting piece which opens up more places to go right away. The new pieces are always nice to have, but they don't add that many new rules & arent that different from the pieces that exist. you can choose which piece you want to place (which bug side up) and on your turn you can even simply flip a piece over and that will change the board state.

The addition of the new insects feels very natural-just like something Mr. Yianni would make. The Swarm variant I didn't like so much, the randomness doesn't add anything to the game. The Honeycomb option turned out better than I had thought: being able to move two pieces during a turn really makes it intense.

I liked the idea of this game so much I made actual 3D pieces, printed them out, painted, glued, sanded, and painted them. They turned out so well it's hard to tell the original pieces from these new double sided pieces.

Makes the base game a lot more interesting and tactical. Really happy that I found these expansions.