Hive on the go

Just in time for my vacation last weekend, I received a new shipment from Amazon.  Inside that box, was my new copy of Hive Carbon.  Hive is a tile placing game for two players, which plays much like a game of chess.  I have been looking to add a couple of two player games to my collection for a while, and Hive was the first one to hit the table.  I chose hive, because it looked easy to teach, but also had a degree of strategy involved.  The durable Bakelite (think dominoes, or rummy cube) tiles travel easily, and can be played on about any reasonably flat surface.

So, there I was, sitting in an airport food court, waiting for my delayed flight.  I pulled out Hive, and looked around the table for any sign of interest.  My dad is not a game player, so that was hopeless, and my mom was just starting a movie, so that just left my wife Ashli.  At this point, my chances of playing my new game were not looking good.  Although Ashli plays a lot of games with groups, for some reason we don't play much alone.  She is also not too fond of head to head thinking games, so I figured there would be little interest in chess with bugs.

To my surprise she agreed to give it a try, probably mostly out of pity for me, and my shameless game begging.  Also to my surprise, I think she liked it.  We ended up playing three games before it was time to get felt up by security.  Ashli ended up winning all three games, which doesn't hurt, to convince her to play again some time.

Hive Carbon is an alternate addition to the original game of Hive.  I chose Hive Carbon, because it comes with the Mosquito and the Ladybug expansions. Each of the expansions come with just two tiles, one for each player, at a cost of around ten or eleven dollars.  Personally I find a price tag of over five dollars a tile to be a bit hard to swallow.  I went with Hive Carbon, because the price difference was less that ten dollars, and made the expansions a little more affordable.  The original version of the game has each bug painted in a different color, while Carbon has all the bugs in black or white depending on the team.

Over all, I am quite happy with the purchase of Hive Carbon.  I expect Hive to be a regular travel companion, and hopefully this will lead to future opportunities to play with my wife.  I just recieved a copy of Campaign Manager, and can't wait to try something with a little more depth with Ashli.  You can bet that when I do, I'll let you know.