Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Cooperative Deck Building Card Game | O...

This game is so much fun! It is similar to Dominion. But everyone works together to defeat villans. It is just as good for a two player game as it is four. This game is perfect for people who love Harry Potter and all of the small details!

*Important notice for people purchasing the early first runs of this game. There was a printing error which lead to 4 copies of a card called Confundus being put into the box (2 in box 5 and 2 in box 6 I think). The two Confundus! cards in box 5 were supposed to be two copies of Stupefy! which are missing from some peoples game, including my own. You can contact USAopoly customer service to get replacement cards: usaopoly.com/game-care-customer-service-inquiry This is a highly entertaining game that was well worth the purchase and should be enjoyed for some time to come. I've played with just two and multiple games in groups of four and it's entertaining with both. As a quick summary - I enjoy deck builders and this is a solid addition to our collection. If you like deck builders, particularly co-operative ones like Legendary Encounters: ALIENS, and enjoy Harry Potter this seems like an inevitable purchase. It also works as an easy way to introduce people to deck building mechanics which should work nicely for families, just be wary of small spoilers for children that haven't read through the books yet. For a more detailed breakdown of my thoughts so far: -The game evolves as you play through the chapters/games. The game has a built in tutorial for the first few games where it introduces you to the general mechanics of deck builders and the basics of this particular game. As you progress through each chapter you essentially continue to add more villains, more purchasable cards and more Dark Arts Events. If you're familiar with deck builders or are a savvy bunch you could easily start on game 4 or 5. The cards are all marked for which game they belong to so that if, at any point, you want to reset the game back you can easily do so. Game 7 represents the ultimate full form of the game with the full complement of villains, Dark Arts Events cards and the couple other unique features introduced throughout the entire series including game 7. -The game will get longer as you progress through chapters. You continue to add in villains with each chapter meaning the number of villains that you need to defeat is also increased. People have suggested on Board Game Geek that it plateaus out at about 1.5-1.75 hours with the very first game maybe being half an hour. -It both does and does not follow the events of the books and movies. As you progress through chapters it will introduce villains and Dark Arts Events from the Harry Potter series. However the game doesn't really try to tell a story and most of the villains don't come up in order. As a result it doesn't really give away major pieces of the plot. Regardless if you have a child that is reading through the books currently the best suggestion would be to only play through the games that they have read up to (game 1 matching roughly to book 1) mainly so they can relate to the villains and Events that occur. If you want to play beyond that point you can also look through the cards and maybe just remove those cards that you think might give too much away. -The game tends to be a bit harder with 4 people than with 2. Some of the Events and villains affect all characters simultaneously which makes the game slightly harder for a full group. I think overall it balances well for two players still since you also have less hero powers to make use of. It may not be the most difficult co-operative game out there, but make no mistake, the game can kick your butt pretty well depending on the villain order. You need to carefully balance damage output, heals and removing villain influence. -There is no player elimination. I don't like player elimination, especially for semi-long games. This game handles that aspect nicely, there are still health pools to track for the characters but when you hit zero you aren't eliminated. Instead you discard some cards for that turn and it helps the villains, but you are not eliminated. You bounce back to full health for the next turn. If everyone keeps getting stunned every other turn, however, you will lose. So you still need to be careful -Production quality is quite good. The pieces are all well done. The theme flows through all the cards and pieces. Overall the game mechanics, theme and cards just simply work. Very nice box and board. It feels like the designers are true fan of the series -Several groups of friends already want to play this game just from seeing a picture posted online. It has that excitement factor just looking at the game, which I think is a huge plus. -Setup and game play is quick. You can set up a game in under 10 minutes and get going. Turns tend to be straightforward and are quick to resolve. The game is easy to teach. The rules are easy to understand and everything is basically explained on the cards themselves. This helps immensely with teaching the game and being able to just play rather than making sure you have all the rules just right before each turn. This is a fantastic gateway game since you can modify the difficulty level while still introducing some major designer game concepts (like deck building) to a group. The co-operative nature of the game means you can actually help other players without ruining the game. So should you buy it? If you already own a ton of designer board games (Think like 20+ especially deck builders or maybe cooperative games). You may not get a ton out of this particular game unless you want/need the Harry Potter theme or if the game mechanics are drastically different from anything you already own. I think this game does what it does well, but nothing is especially groundbreaking. For these people that already own a lot of games I'd suggest waiting to see online plays or for reviews to come out from your favorite reviewers before purchasing. Rahdo has a nice run through of this game and Dice Tower has also covered it just to name a couple For those that have more limited designer game collections. Are you looking to try out (or think you might like) cooperative board games? Are you looking for a good introduction to deck building games? Do you love the Harry Potter universe or have family members that do? If you answer yes to all of these it's an obvious purchase. If you answer yes to even one it's also probably a great purchase. I bought it because I love cooperative games and there are limited cooperative deckbuilders. For me and my relatively small collection of games it ranks right up there along with my other cooperatives like Pandemic and Ghost Stories in terms of fun. It probably doesn't have the huge replay value of a game like Pandemic, but it also doesn't need to. I'm exceedingly happy with my purchase and the significant other is too, and that's all I really care about.

This game is a wonderful deck-building co-op game! Pros: - There are 4 character cards and enough proficiency cards that will randomize the game and add a level of difficulty. - Due to the shuffling of villain/dark arts cards, it's a different battle each game you play - The game builds on itself - great for beginner players to start on lower levels and work up to 7. For those that understand deck-building, it was fun to go from 4-7. - Great balance between Villain effects and the reward for defeating a Villain. - Decent replay value - I've played 30 times and it's still fun as long as you randomize your starter character/proficiency cards. Cons: - The rule book doesn't cover some common questions: Q: If you have a Weasley Hero card and another person is playing as Ron, does his starter deck count as having a 'Weasley'? Q: If you play a card from you 5-card hand and it goes into the 'discard pile', and you get to pick a card from your discard, can you pick what you have played that turn? Q: Does the Death Eater affect you as he initially comes out and/or does he affect you if he's the first Villain and two others come out? Q: Are you allowed to discard a card in your hand in order to avoid the effects of horcruxes/Villains (eg: You have an Ally and the horcrux says that if you "play an Ally...") - You're hamstringed on 3 critical components of the game: 1. ***If the 6 starting (and subsequent) cards that come out for purchase don't contain 'remove from location', are too expensive (6/7/8 coins), or don't have 'dice-rolls', you can be off to a rough start. ***EDIT - the game developer released an optional rule starting that: "Once per game, a player may forego acquiring any cards for his or her turn. If he or she does, take ALL SIX available HOGWARTS cards, and place them on the bottom of the deck, replacing them with six new cards". This rule applies collectively to all players. So any one player can do this action ONCE per game. if a player chooses this option, no one else can repeat it until the next game"*** 2. If the 3 Villains that come out initially work off of each other (can't gain heart, lose 2 heart, and if you add to location, lose 2 heart) you can be off to a horrid start. 3. Dice rolls - if you don't like relying on dice rolls, you'll need to in the later 'levels'. If any of these happen to you, there's a great chance you'll lose. In the games' defense, losing a co-op game is part of the fun/challenge. Additionally, if any of these happen, the 1-hour game could turn into 3-hours. I know it looks like a laundry list of complaints, but very fun game and I'm looking forward to the expansion in August 2017.

I had been looking at this game for a while, but I wasn't sure if it would be very fun or have high replay value. I had doubts if a game that was so steeped in branding could be worthwhile. We own a LOT of board games, and enjoy a large variety (Catan, Clank, Ticket to Ride, Kingsburg, Above and Below, Galaxy Trucker, Killer Bunnies, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Terra Mystica, Dominion, etc), so we have a pretty high standard for what is fun. I read lots of reviews, watched a play-through, and still couldn't decide. I ended up getting it for Mother's Day (#SayNoToFlowers), and it has been SO fun!! I played through the whole thing (plus the expansion) with my husband, and we love it!!! This is a pretty straight-forward deck-builder, but with the added geekiness of Harry Potter!! It has seven boxes inside containing cards and other pieces for at least seven separate games, and *accurately follows the seven Harry Potter books, while using photos from the movies (*exceptions include a villain card of Malfoy in the first box that shows Malfoy much older than in the first movie- there are a few cards like that). The game adds elements that make sense which each new box, the characters you use improve, and it's gets harder to beat the game. I love cooperative play and deck building and HARRY POTTER so this game is a no-brainer favorite for me! The added bonus is that my husband likes it just as much (he said it's better than Marvel Legendary) so we will be playing it often!! (Unlike Clue...*sniff*) We both have favorite characters to be (him: Neville; me: Ron) Some of the levels took multiple times to beat. It's a great two or three player game (we haven't played with four people). The other great thing is that my nine year old can play with me (only through the books she has read, because there are some spoilers) and it was easy for her to learn. Now that we have opened every box, there are some suggested ways to mix up the game, as well as ways to make it harder, if you want, so there is infinite value in replay! Oh, and the game includes a system to sort the cards as well as space to keep them all organized in the box! GREAT game!!!

TLDR Solid Potter game that follows the movie and is a surprisingly fun deck building game experience. While replayable, it loses the mystery after first playthrough and strategy melds into doing the same thing over and over after you know what works. BACKGROUND My wife and I love board and card games. Playing with friends is always better, but we are always on the lookout for cooperative 2+ player games. She loves the Harry Potter franchise... I'm ok with it. We've played several deck building games in the past, including Ascension, Resident Evil, Dominion, and others I don't remember. We decided to get a new coop deck building game and had our eyes on this, Legendary Encounters Alien deck building game, or upper deck legendary marvel deck building game. This one obviously won out. THE GOOD This game plays out across 7 Games. The first 2 are more introductory, 3-5 start indroducing more elements, and 6-7 are pretty challenging. The instructions say to skip 1 & 2 if you've played these types of games before, but I wouldn't recommend it if you want the full effect of the game. The 7 games align with the 7 films which is fun to see what villans you fight and what cards are added. As you open each game box, additional cards and game elements are added and the rules sometimes change. It was fun to open the nexf game box and find new cards and pieces as we knew nothing of the game prior to palying. I'll try to leave out exactly what is added as I found this to be an exciting part of the playthrough. Generally, the game plays in 2 phases: villans do stuff by drawing dark arts and applying actions from active villain cards, then you do stuff by playing the cards in your hand such as attack, heal, and buy more cards. There are 6 cards in the offering that get replenished if you buy one. One of the aspects I like about the game is that you don't "die". If your health drops to 0, you are "stunned". While not good, essentially you have to discard half your hand... but you can still play the remaining cards. After the turn ends, you go back to full life. This keeps everyone in the game and active which is a great way to do it. Overall, we really enjoyed the game and beat all 7 games in less than a week in only 5 play sessions. THE BAD It's over! As mentioned we beat all 7 scenarios in 5 play sessions over 6 days. Sure we can replay with different characters and cards and whatnot, but the initial mystery and thrill of "what comes next" is gone. Also, it was a little too easy for deck building veterans. We only lost game 5 because we weren't applying one of the rules correctly (to our dis-favor). We lost game 6 once, but we beat all other games first try including the climatic 7th. While fun, a little dissapointed in the challenge. The game changes, but after you develop a strategy with your team and know which villans need to be taken care of asap and which you can keep around for a while, it is pretty much the same game 7 times. The last 3 especially we played the same way each time. Two things I didn't like about the deck building in particular is the 1) You cannot get rid of cards from your deck...it just constantly grows, and 2) there is no means to cycle the offering. Especially the last few games with SO many cards in the stack, it would be nice to have the option to get rid of the cards there and flip 6 new ones. Often times the cards in the offering were all very pricy and we found it hard to gather the money needed to get them...or, they were all cards we didn't want, but had to buy to get them to cycle. This became annoying because of point 1 and they were stuck with us for the game. Although you do start every game with just the 10 starter cards and have to rebuild each game. Overall experience was very enjoyable and it is a solid game. My biggest thumbs down is for replayability.

Huge Harry Potter fan so seeing this pop up peaked my interest. I watched some videos and learned about the world of co op board games. Honestly my whole life board games to me were monopoly or trouble. So this has introduced me to a new aspect I never knew about. Everything is beautiful made and the game is fairly well put together. It has a progressive learning curve so you’re not thrust into a ton of rules from the get go. It’s kind of a learn as you go. The only complaint I have is I really wish this wasn’t the movie art and could have been the book art but alas it is what it is. If it was this would have been six stars for me. I really like how it’s set up into seven games and the way it all works you can kinda pick up wherever. Unless you’re going long haul you probably won’t do all seven in one go. So there’s a lot of playtime here. Overall highly recommend. Little update to the review: After quite a few times playing. We have realized a few things. First off the game is not perfect. If your starting villains have a effects that happen to trigger each other you have to stop and reshuffle. Second if your starting buy cards are all either expensive or not useful for starting game you have to reshuffle and start over. Third is you first few darkarts events cause you to lose the first location before beating any villains. Again reshuffle. It is absolutely impossible to win the game if your initial setup is triggering and your losing health and gaining locations tokens fast. That’s about the only “problem” we’ve come to find. It’s a matter of recognizing quickly that “yea we’re screwed” before trying to progress. Trust me you’ll just waste 40 mins of the inevitable. But if you get a good setup to start, then the game is great. It’ll have a bunch of ups and downs and stressful moments. You still will lose but at least you had a shot. One thing my wife and I have also learned is that Harry is easily the worst of the four. If you’re not playing 4 players don’t use him. The others effects are much better. Also while this makes the game take much longer we have found that if you use hermione to buy up a bunch of location token removals and give her the added effect to remove locations you can pretty much win every game. This strategy worked great in game 7. Again though this is the slower route but has a higher success. Overall after playing this a bunch of times now through each game, it has its flaws. It’s not a perfect strategy game as the randomness of the event cards easily upends that. But it’s alot of fun. You’ll probably lose half the games you play but it makes the ones you win that much better.

I hesitated to buy this game because I've been disappointed in Harry Potter games in the past. They seemed to rely on the HP theme and didn't put enough effort into actual game play. I'm happy to say that USAopoly and Forrest-Pruzan Creative have knocked it out of the park! Or "castle," if you want to go there. This is a cooperative deck building game that has 7 Games that build on each other. Kind of a neat concept. (I'm not talking about expansions you have to purchase - everything is included in the box.) You and the other players play as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Nevile. The object is to defeat the villians (Draco, Quirrel, Lucius, etc.) before the villians take over all your locations. That's the object of the first 2 Games, at least. Because, just like the novels, this game builds on itself 7 times. Game 1 is complete in and of itself, but adding the material of another Game box will change it in certain ways. One of the Game boxes add dice...to a deck building game that starts with no dice. I can't wait to get there! The board, cards, and tokens are all very good quality. Nothing is flimsy or wanting. The Dark Mark tokens are stellar. Molded in metal, they have a heavy weight and definitely add to the "wow!" factor with this game. After you play each Game box, the cards can be separated out again, or left together by type. (Game 1 has 2 villians, Game 2 adds 3 more, etc.) The game developers thought ahead and even gave us organizer cards if you want to keep everything all mixed together (all the villians together, all the Dark Art Events together, etc.) once you've cracked the box and moved up the Game ladder. Because of the Game 1-7 add-on feature, this is an excellent intro to Eurogames. It starts off really simple but ramps up after you get used to the mechanics. One of the great perks is that if you have kids just now reading the books, you can play this game with them up to and including the Game box for the corresponding book. That way it's completely relevant to them and nothing is given away for the later books. Harry Potter is very special to me for personal reasons that go back to 1997. I was an original fan. My hat is off to the developers for creating a solid, enjoyable game for diehard fans!

Fun, card game. I pkayed with a friend and bought my own. Cooperative, card games are so fun. I love the multiple decks but only on 1 now.