Antshouse

Designers: Olle Johansson and Martin Ackerfors
Number of players: 2-4
Playing time: ?? mins
Number of stashes: 1/player (don't need to be stackable)
Extras: Chess board
Credits: David Hagman for invaluable suggestions

Summary
Ants running the gauntlet over a pavement while mean kids tries to
splat them.

Objective
Get your ant across the pavement and back with more building material
for the anthill while trying to stop your opponents by bombarding the
other ants with an assortment of weaponry.

Preparation
Place the chess board between the players and a stash of icehouse
pieces in front of each player, on a stash pad if they prefer. If you
are only two players you should start on oppposing sides. Each player
chooses one of their Medium pieces and places it on any square on the
first row of the chess board, this is there playing piece. They also
place one Large piece in front of them, this is the direction piece
that will be used to show which direction the ant is going to move.

Play
In each round all players secretly decides where they want their ant
to go by turning their direction piece in the direction they want the
ant to move. Next all players can place one of the pieces on their
stash pad anywhere on the chess board that is not already occupied by
any other piece, except other players playing pieces, if they want to
do an attack with their kid.

Once all players have decided what to do for their turn their
direction pieces are revealed. All players then move their ants
according to the direction the piece is pointing to.

Now all attacks are resolved to see what happens. If several weapons
would conflict with each other, smaller pieces are executed before
larger ones, and if two pieces of the same size conflict the players
should play Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide which is executed first.

When all movement and weapon use has been resolved, a new round
begins.

Movement
The ant starts on any square of the chess board in the row closest to
that player.

An ant can only go to an adjacent square, and since ants are always on
the move, they have to move and cannot stay on the same square. They
can move in any direction they want, and can move diagonally.

If two or more ants move into the same square, the players need to
play Rock-Paper-Scissors. The winner can move the opponents ant one
square in any direction they want.

Weapons
The mean little kids have three types of weapons, each represented by
a different size of pyramid. Pine Cones can only be used five times,
while the other two attacks can be used until they have been
successful four times each. The different weapons are:

   Pine Cone (small pyramid with one pip) - Pine cones don't harm ants
   they land on, but ants cannot move into a square with a pine cone
   in it. 

   Water (medium pyramid with two pips) - If the water hits a square
   with an ant on it the player who used the weapon gets to choose 
   which adjacent square the ant is moved to. All ants that are next
   to a square hit by water is moved one square away in the same
   direction, away from the water. 

   Magnifying Glass (large pyramid with three pips) - If the
   magnifying glass is used on a square with an ant on it the ant dies
   and the player needs to start over with a new ant from their side
   of the board.

When a weapon is used, a pyramid representing the weapon is taken from
the players stash pad and placed on the board. If the attack is
successful the piece is removed from the board and discarded (placed
aside from the stash pad) except for Small pieces in which case it
remains on the board until the game ends. If the attack is
unsuccessful, the piece is placed back on the stash pad.

If a player doesn't have the right type of pyramid in their stash pad,
they cannot use that weapon.

Winning the game
The first player who can get their ant to the opposing side of the
board and back again without dying wins.

Additional comments
For a shorter, but less strategic game, you win if you get your piece
to the other side of the board.
It's also possible to start in each corner of the board and move to
the opposing corner.
To make it easier to see which direction the direction piece is
pointing to it can be placed on a piece of paper with the 8 different
directions marked out.
To avoid confusion between Water attacks and the playing piece of the
same player the playing piece can be placed on its side.