January 2024 Preview

Hello, and welcome to the all new Board Game of the Month Club. Not much has changed except we trimmed a bit of the fat. This post is sort of a look to the new year, but also the first of our monthly previews. But before we start we have a little business to take care of.

Remaining 2023 packages

We will be handling all overdue 2023 packages separately from the clean start that is 2024. So these will still be coming and you'll still get messages about them. We should have enough to get one moving in the next week or so, just waiting for everyone to return from holiday leave to make some more games and determine where we are. More on that separately.

How to make this preview better

This preview isn't even written yet, but I can tell you how it will be better next time.

1) I'd like to see it out a week before the month starts. This was just impossible with the first one happening between the holidays and all of the year end work, but it's a goal going forward.

2) I'd like to have all of the content ready for you to make this as awesome as it should be. That means full flavor and descriptive text, full product images, PNPs for all included games, etc. We have some of that, and should have all of the rest within a few days, but it's important that we send what we can instead of holding off for the last piece of something. That's our whole model for 2024, but expect more complete updates as we improve the process.

3) The preview will also include a link to choose your wallet game right there instead of a separate post. But we need some proper counts on what's in stock for anyone that wants to swap, and I'll need to wait for the staff to get that moving. So it'll be separate and hopefully for the last time.

PNP changes for 2024

We are phasing out the big open Dropbox and shifting to individual links. This means that you'll need to be more aware of the posts here, as they will include the links and those links will expire at the end of the month. So if you are into print and play, this is a little warning to make sure you grab things while you can. There are a multitude of reasons for this, mostly in the backend, but I think this will make for a more active PNP side of the club. More on this as we go.

Onto the preview!

QUICK NOTE ON THE BELOW: All patrons at $18+ will receive the below items. If you are a level below that, you will not receive these.

Championland: Wrestling (featured Wallet Game)

Every year the grand arenas of Championland overflow with hopeful athletes and excited crowds. Pin your opponent three times to become a true Champion!

Championland is a series of standalone 18-card games which uses a single rules system for all entries, then adds individual rules for each specific game to capture the experience of that sport.

Every Championland game includes two 9-card decks numbered 1-9. Each player takes a deck, shuffles it, and fans it out in their hand. On a turn, they’ll play only a single card and the card played MUST come from the furthest edge of their hand on either side. Players cannot reorder their hand, so they must make the best of the choices they have available!

In Championland: Wrestling, players take turns placing cards and guessing at their opponent’s cards to score knockdowns. On a player’s turn, they’ll play a card from their hand face-up. The opponent plays a card face-down. Now the active player must guess whether the face-down card is higher than, lower than, or equal to the face-up card. Get it right and they’ll earn a knockdown; get it wrong and their opponent takes control, playing a new card face-down and comparing it to the previously revealed card.

Each round continues until one player wins by either getting two knockdowns in a row OR getting a guess of “equal” correct. The first player to win three rounds takes the match.

Designer: Julio E. Nazario
Artist: Filip Popovic
Player Count: 2

PNP Link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/e0kp0y6jw2xxz1lr88p5y/h?rlkey=y5wygqrv67lyzhi8lhhxpnajt&dl=0 (Note: This link expires on January 31, 2023)

If you do not want to receive Championland: Wrestling, we will be sending out a link to notify us and choose your swapped game. It's usually a group of 5 or 6 greatest hits as well as a few older games in stock. Keep an eye out for that.

Grandma Theseus (9 card game)

Something has been a little bit off about Grandma lately. You’ve got the strangest feeling your Grandma might have been bitten by a Werewolf, but you’ll need to work hard to convince her to see the doctor.

In Grandma Theseus one player is Red Riding Hood who is choosing and revealing cards, looking for evidence of the Werewolf, and the other player is the Werewolf swapping cards secretly and trying to take over Grandma.

Red Riding Hood wins if they manage to discover Grandma's transformation, or if the Werewolf has not completely transformed Grandma by the end of the game.

The Werewolf wins if they manage to fully transform Grandma into a wolf without being detected, or if Red Riding Hood's relationship with her Grandma breaks down.

Designer:  Luke Wolyncewicz
Artist: Marty Cobb
Player Count: 2

PNP Link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ssgzn1ifiakim5lyciv2m/h?rlkey=e9rgfriprmu31wgm93fl89nnp&dl=0 (Note: This link expires on January 31, 2023)

And that's it for January. It's our lightest package for 2024 with just two items, and it's a rare package without any solo. Sorry solo gamers! More for you next month

But looking at the schedule, it's looking like most months will have 3-4 items, and pushing towards 4 the majority of the time. We're just doing lots of catchup here, so this month is the lightest on content for the 1st half of the year.

With that in mind, we plan to show off something cool that is coming down the line very shortly, and share a PNP of it as well. It's called Polyheduel and it's a 2P polyhedral dice drafting and battling game. It's just 8 cards and we've been having a lot of fun with it. Here's a sneak peek at one of the cards.