Head of Mousehold Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Components
• Game Setup (4 Players)
• Game Summary (Player Aid)
• Playing Head of Mousehold
  • 1. Choosing Your Mice
    • To Help You With Your Mice Selection
    • Squeakers
    • Slowest Mouse
  • 2. Reveal the Daily Event Card
  • 3. Placing Your Mice
    • Notes
  • 4. Claim the Cheese Tokens
• End of the Game
• Daily Events Index

Object of the Game

Amass the most points after five rounds of play.

Components

• 75 Mouse cards (five clans: Office, Kitchen, Toy Room, Garden and Bathroom)
• 5 Speed cards
• 5 Mousetrap cards
• 10 Daily Event cards
• 5 Player Aid cards
• 36 Cheese tokens
• 25 Mouse meeples (five colors, five of each)
• 1 First Player token (apply stickers before the first game)

Game Setup (4 Players)

The setup diagram numbers each step (1) to (7); the numbers are shown in parentheses below.

• In the center of the table, place the same number of Mousetrap cards as there are players (1). In a 2-player game, place three Mousetrap cards.
• Give to each player a set of 15 cards of the same mouse clan (2). The clan icon is located on the back of the cards and on the top right corner on the front of the Mouse cards. Leave aside all cards with a 2P icon when playing a 3 to 5 player game.
• Each player takes five Mouse meeples (one of each color) (3). Leave any remaining meeples in the box.
• Place the Cheese tokens (4) and the Speed cards (5), both face-down, on the table.
• Shuffle the Daily Event cards, take the first five cards and create a face-down deck in the center of the table (6). Put the other cards aside. Note: For an easy play variant, leave aside the Daily Event cards.
• Whoever tells the cheesiest jokes gets the First Player token (7). The token will be passed to the next player clockwise at the end of each round.

Game Summary (Player Aid)

1. Place a Cheese token face up on each of the Mousetrap cards.
2. Shuffle the Speed cards and lay them face-up on the table to form a column.
3. Choose your Mouse cards and display the Mouse meeples of the corresponding colors.
4. Reveal the Daily Event card and apply its effect for the round (skip if playing the easy play variant).
5. Place your chosen Mouse cards below the Mousetrap cards (one Mouse card at a time).
6. Flip up the face-down Mouse cards under each Mousetrap card and rearrange them based on their speed order.
7. For each Mousetrap card, discard Mouse cards that were caught and give the Cheese tokens to the winning player(s). The remaining Mouse cards are given back to the players.

Playing Head of Mousehold

At the beginning of each round, draw and place, face up, one Cheese token on each Mousetrap. These Cheese tokens will be the available points to collect for the round. The First player shuffles the Speed cards and lays them face-up on the table to form a column. The order of the Speed cards determines, for the rest of the round, the speed of each mouse color relative to the others, starting from the fastest (at the top) to the slowest (at the bottom).

1. Choosing Your Mice

All players choose three Mouse cards (or four when playing a 2-player game) and place their selected cards face down in front of them. The other Mouse cards are set aside.

Once everyone has chosen their Mouse cards, players place the Mouse meeples that match the color of their selected Mouse cards in front of them so that they are visible to the other players (leave the unused colored meeples aside). These meeples give partial information on the color of the cards the other players have selected.

Note: If a player chooses two or more Mouse cards of the same color, only one Mouse meeple of that color needs to be placed up front.

Remember: the Mouse meeples give partial information on the Mouse cards' colors chosen by the other players. By deduction, players can guess their opponent's card placement strategy.

To Help You With Your Mice Selection

In Head of Mousehold, players need to avoid getting their mice caught! The first Mouse card in line under a mousetrap will get discarded. Next mouse in line gets the cheese (unless a Squeaker is put into play!).

Squeakers

Players have one Squeaker mouse of each color in their hand. They are identified by an icon at the top left corner of the card.

When a Squeaker mouse is trapped, the next fastest mouse is also caught by the house cat who was alerted by the squeak! In this case, place the second Mouse card in the discard pile as well. The next mouse in line gets the cheese.

Note: The Squeaker's effect only applies when a Mouse is caught by a mousetrap. The house cat does not trigger the squeaker effect.

Slowest Mouse

Each round, the mice of the slowest color is careful enough to avoid being caught by mousetraps. However, the slowest mouse can be caught by the house cat (the squeaker effect).

As an example, if an orange Mouse card ends first below a mousetrap, the owner of that card claims the Cheese token if that mouse color is the slowest. If the orange mouse card is below a Squeaker mouse that was caught by a mousetrap, it then gets caught by the house cat and is discarded.

2. Reveal the Daily Event Card

(Skip for an easy play variant.)

Each round, the first player flips the top card from the Daily Event pile and reads it aloud. The effect of the card is applied for the duration of the round (see the detailed description of the Daily Events at the end of the rules).

3. Placing Your Mice

Starting with the first player, and then proceeding clockwise, each player places one Mouse card below a Mousetrap card. The first card placed below each Mousetrap is played face down; the second card is played face up. Subsequent played cards below each Mousetrap will continue alternating between face down and face up. (See example on page 6.)

Once all players have placed all their Mouse cards, all the cards that were placed face down in each column are carefully flipped face up, conserving the order in which they were played.

Notes

There is no limit to the number of cards that can be placed below a particular Mousetrap card.

If a player has less than 3 mice left in their clan at the start of the round, that player may choose which turns to pass (and not place a card).

In a four-player game, Philippe is the first player to put a card under Mousetrap #1. His card is placed face down. Alex then places her card (green) face up under Philippe's card. On his turn, Thomas decides to play his card face down under empty Mousetrap #2 and David adds his card face down under Alex's face up card.

Philippe places his second card face up under Thomas' card (Mousetrap #2), Alex places her next card under Mousetrap #4 face down. Thomas adds his card under the Mousetrap #4 face up and David finally plays his second card face down under trap #2.

Each player will have one other card to play on their turn under one of the four available Mousetrap cards.

4. Claim the Cheese Tokens

For each Mousetrap card, rearrange the Mouse cards according to the speed order set this turn. If two Mouse cards of the same color have been placed below the same Mousetrap card, consider the first one played ahead of the second one played.

The first mouse in line got there too soon and was caught by the mouse trap! The Mouse card is discarded next to the Daily Event cards. In addition, if the first mouse is a Squeaker, then the second mouse is caught by the house cat and is discarded as well!

The next mouse in line grabs the Cheese token. The owner of that Mouse card gets the token, which they place in front of them face down. The mouse that got the Cheese token returns proudly to its owner and can be played again on subsequent rounds.

All other mice get no Cheese token and are claimed back by the players. Those Mouse cards can be played again on subsequent rounds.

The First player token is given to the next player on the left. Place a new Cheese token on each Mousetrap card and start a new round.

Note: If a Cheese token has not been claimed by any player, leave the token on the trap (there will be two tokens on it next round).

The two green cards (Philippe's and Alex's) under Mousetrap #1 are first in line. Philippe's card was placed first and his mouse has been trapped! Since Philippe's card has a Squeaker icon, Alex's Mouse card is also trapped and discarded. David's blue Mouse card is next in line and he wins the Cheese token. David's winning card and the remaining cards under the Mousetrap #1 are given back to their owners.

Source note: the English caption names David as the owner of the blue winning card. The French caption on the same example names Thomas. Transcribed as printed in the English text; the owner shown in the example is David as printed.

End of the Game

At the end of the fifth round, players add up the value of their Cheese tokens. The player with the most points wins! If there is a tie, the player with the most mice left in their clan wins.

Daily Events Index

1. Total Black Out! Play all Mouse cards face down.
2. Mouse Held Hostage! Players pass one of their Mouse cards to the player on their left. That player will be in charge of sending it out for them this round. Hostage mice only win Cheese tokens for their own clan.
3. False Start! The fastest mouse color becomes the slowest. Move the top Speed card to the bottom.
4. Cheese Heist! Add an extra Cheese token to each Mousetrap card.
5. Blind Tasting! Redraw the Cheese tokens, but do not turn them face up.
6. Heroic Sprint! The slowest mouse color becomes the fastest. Move the bottom Speed card to the top.
7. Miraculous Sleeping Pills! Squeakers do not wake up the cat today.
8. Mice at the Front! Only the first mouse played to a trap is played face up, the rest are played face down.
9. Defective Trap! The fastest mouse under the Mousetrap(s) with the most mice takes the Cheese token.
10. Lineup Change! Before the mice placement phase, each player may change one of their Mouse cards without changing their colored Mice meeples.