Hive: Mosquito (ML)

What if a single mosquito could completely change the rules of the game? Hive: Mosquito is the very first official expansion for Hive, the one that opened the door to a whole family of extra tiles. This tiny box adds just one pair of pieces to your hive, but its impact on the game is huge. The Mosquito has no movement of its own: at the start of each move, it instead borrows the movement of any insect, friend or foe, that it happens to be touching at that moment. Place it next to a Grasshopper and it hops over the hive; place it next to a Spider and it crawls along the perimeter. The only exception: if it only touches another Mosquito, it stays frozen in place, unable to move, and if it climbs onto the hive as a Beetle, it keeps moving as a Beetle until it climbs back down.

This little shapeshifting bug transforms the experience of the most acclaimed abstract board game in its category. Hive is played without a board: each hexagonal tile locks directly into the others to form the hive, on a table, on a bus, or at the campsite. The Mosquito slips in as a quiet piece, able to copy a Grasshopper's jump or a Spider's crawl at just the right moment to catch your opponent off guard.

You will probably love Hive: Mosquito if you already know the basics of Hive and want to sharpen your games without adding more rules. This expansion appeals to players who enjoy reading their opponent's intentions, since the Mosquito forces you to constantly track which ability it might borrow on its next turn.

Fun fact: with the Mosquito in play, each player goes from 11 to 12 tiles to place, adding just enough options to refresh the already considerable strategic depth of the game. Released in 2007, Hive: Mosquito was the very first expansion of its kind, later joined by the Ladybug and the Pillbug, which today form the hive's full insect family. The base game and its expansions are even available digitally on Board Game Arena.

The Mosquito carries the signature of John Yianni, the original creator of Hive, who also designed and illustrated this expansion along with the Ladybug and Pillbug, as well as the compact Hive Pocket edition. The game is published by Gen42 Games.

This expansion requires the base game Hive to be played: its tiles are made for the standard (large) format and are not compatible with the smaller pieces of Hive Pocket.

BOX CONTENTS
1 white Mosquito tile
1 black Mosquito tile
1 illustrated multilingual rules booklet

Number of players: 2
Duration: 20 minutes
Age: 9+