Get Christmas Sorted…In February!

They wouldn't? We would. WE HAVE!

Since BarRoom Brawl exploded onto the scene, proper Board Game Advent Calendars are now our new winter tradition! We're returning with great new games that are enormous fun (including Worms & more!) plus some absolutely brilliant family bundles via Kickstarter to deliver by November 2025.

CLICK HERE to get on the 'notify' list and don't miss it!

A New Winter Tradition

So, an awesome new kind of board game unleashed into the world: just how did we get here? Pull up a chair and let us tell you the tale...

It started as a brilliant idea. We all love sitting down to play new games with our friends and family at Christmas. And what do we do in the run-up to that special day? We open doors on an advent calendar of course, typically filled with pleasant but entirely forgettable tiny bits of chocolate.

So...hang on a moment...what if we could fit that new board game INTO your advent calendar? One you could play, enjoy, keep, and replay over and over with friends and family!

Eureka!

*MIC DROP* *WILD APPLAUSE*

2023 - It All Began In A Tavern

*PICKS MIC UP AGAIN*

Ahem. Looking around in 2023, we were extremely excited to discover that we were breaking new ground. There were escape room advent calendars, there were calendars stuffed with dice/trinkets and so on, but we simply couldn't find a proper board game with great miniatures, split into 24 intriguing parts. It was time to lead the way and get to work! (*Cue the A-Team theme music*)

It began with BarRoom Brawl - a game of fantasy fisticuffs that would hit every much-loved tavern trope. Elves and dwarfs are getting pulled into a punch-up over some delicious pub grub, with the barkeep watching on and his goblin bouncer trying to break up the mayhem. And after all, as D&D players know, every really great adventure begins in a tavern...

As well as the 'cast' of the game, plus all the tokens and dice you'd need, we added a generous assortment of Terrain Crate scenery to really bring the board to life and create the atmosphere conjured up by the great box art!

This was our first-ever game of its kind, so we founded this new winter-tabletop-tradition by producing a limited number of calendars hand-cast in resin and all packed by hand right here at Mantic HQ.

Our crew was small, determined, and well-fuelled by tea and biscuits. It took us a while, but we were soon ready to unleash our inspired madness into the world. And they were quickly snapped up!

Crucially, we had lovely feedback from reviewers, customers, and friends around the tabletop industry for creating a concept that was new, great fun, and most importantly was making people happy. So next year, obviously, we now had to do even better...

2024 - Advent Calendars IN SPAAACE

How could we follow up on the great launch of a fantasy advent calendar game? By creating one for sci-fi fans of course!

Deep Space Pest Control introduced a brand new game based on fighting waves of space-rats with a Teraton mercenary, hired to help protect a planetary outpost and doing his duty so his colonist mates could escape. All good dramatic stuff!

And this time the calendar came with a couple of new ideas. It could be played either together or solo - creating more ways to enjoy the game once you'd collected the pieces from behind the 24 'airlocks'. We took the opportunity to bring back some great minis from the Warpath Universe that were now hard-to-get, making them fun to use in either this game - or alongside the included sci-fi plastic terrain in other Mantic game systems like Deadzone. And finally, we went for a far larger play mat - now folded and included within the box for a bigger, more dramatic arena.

We also took the opportunity to tweak BarRoom Brawl, shifting all those resin minis into single-piece plastics (just like the sci-fi calendar): an easier experience for anyone that's not a natural model-maker! We also adjusted the minis to make them less overtly Christmas-themed, so they now run double-duty in your other fantasy tabletop games as brave heroes - and you don't have 11 months of fellow gamers asking 'why is your Paladin wearing a Santa hat?'.

As a bonus, those with the very first edition now also have something different and collectible, a special piece of Mantic (and tabletop) history!

2025 - Worms & The Walking Dead Join The Party

And here we stand, in the early days of 2025. It's been another fun winter of advent calendar games, so how do we go bigger and better? Because after all - when something's this much fun to open and play, we all want to do it again this year!

It's time to welcome some of our friends on board, in this case from Team17 and Skybound!

1) Worms

Worms: The Board Game was hugely popular when it launched to retail in the second half of 2024, and even as big fans ourselves we'd underestimated just HOW MUCH LOVE there is out there for the Worms series. Our first print run of the retail edition was gone in no time at all! It will be coming back into stock in the near future, but we heard the message loud and clear - Worms on tabletop is all-round, amazingly good fun.

So, bringing that turn-based comic mayhem into advent-calendar-form was an irresistible challenge! Matt and the studio have been working to distil all that fun and chaos into a perfect shorter-form game - so now everyone can enjoy letting some exploding sheep and holy hand grenades loose on each other after a festive dinner. *Chef's kiss* Perfection!

The calendar will also include some super-characterful Worm miniatures that didn't make it into the regular retail box - but that you absolutely could swap in to mix up and customise your standard teams! Watch out for this one in the upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

2) The Walking Dead

Following the return of All Out War, we're very excited to also be doing a The Walking Dead calendar this holiday season! With the design phase almost complete, we're currently tweaking it to perfection, while working through the final release details with our good friends at Skybound - watch this space, and we can't wait to talk more about this one soon very soon.

Wait, rewind back to Worms - tell us about the Kickstarter campaign!

Coming to Kickstarter - Pledge in February, Delivery by November!

With new brands joining the range and new games to set up with our factory partners, we now also want to reach beyond our own amazing community and bring this joyous idea to the world - and there's no better way to do this than with crowdfunding. We'll open the campaign in February, and have worked the timelines for a delivery by November 2025. We've done fast turnarounds before (with Dungeon Saga Origins), and because timing is so important we'll be producing the Kickstarter version only in English - so we know we can be sure to get this to everyone well ahead of when they need to start opening doors.

Now, we know that Christmas 2025 is a comically long way off, so we're going to make sure your early decision is a really good one!

As more people notice what we're doing, we're hearing feedback that kids, partners and friends have seen these special calendars coming together, loved playing the games, and understandably want in on the action. So we'll have some amazing-value bundle deals available in the campaign that give you a mix of fun games and a great saving, with singles coming in the winter at retail.

Being us, we also have another surprise to reveal for the campaign - and because it's a Mantic Kickstarter you already know that it'll be something fun and great value...how intriguing.

CLICK HERE to join the notify list, and let's get your Christmas sorted hilariously early this year!