Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle came out in 2016 from USAopoly, now called The Op, and it is still the best-known Harry Potter hobby board game: a cooperative deck-building game. Two to four players each take a hero, build a deck of spells, items and allies, and fight the villains together. Everyone wins or loses as a team.
How the campaign works
Seven Games in seven sealed boxes
Win a Game to open the next box. Lose, and you play the same Game again.
- 1First stepsOne villain at a time
- 2New foesSame rules, more villains
- 3Hero powersTwo villains at once
- 4House diceRolls that help everyone
- 5VoldemortThree villains at once
- 6ProficiencyA school subject each
- 7HorcruxesThe final battle
Every box adds villains, Dark Arts events and Hogwarts cards to the ones you already have, so the decks keep growing, while each Game uses only its own Locations. Nothing you buy carries over: every Game starts again with your hero's ten starting cards. Players who know deckbuilding games may open boxes 1 to 3 together and start at Game 3, as the rulebook suggests.
The heroes
Every starting deck has ten cards: seven Alohomora! spells plus three cards of the hero's own. From Game 3 each Hero card also has a special ability, and the expert cards in Game 7 make it stronger.
Starts with his Firebolt, Hedwig and the Invisibility Cloak. His ability rewards removing control tokens.
Starts with the Cleansweep 11, Pigwidgeon and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
Starts with the Time-Turner among her cards. Her ability rewards playing many spells in one turn.
Starts with the Remembrall, which pays out Influence when it is discarded, and a Mandrake.
Joins with The Monster Box of Monsters as a fifth hero to choose from.
Joins with The Charms and Potions and brings a fifth player board.
A turn in four steps
1 Dark Arts
Reveal as many Dark Arts events as the Location shows.
2 Villains
Every active villain uses its ability.
3 Your cards
Attack defeats villains, Influence buys new cards.
4 Clean up
Discard everything and draw five new cards.
The villains win when they control every Location. You win when the last villain falls. Stunning, house dice, Horcruxes, the solo variant and the questions every group asks are on the rules page.
Expansions
The Monster Box of Monsters
2017. Creatures, encounters, Detention! cards and Luna. Clearly harder than the base game.
The Charms and Potions
2020. Charms, potion brewing, Ginny and a fifth player. A little easier.
Both need the base game, and there is no third expansion.
Where to buy
The base game is easy to find in English. The expansions and card sleeves are on the buying page.
- 2 to 4 players
- 30 to 60 min
- Ages 11+
- Co-op
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk
- Amazon.de (German edition)
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