USAOPOLY Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Cooperative Deck Building Card Game | Official Licensed Merchandise Board Great Gift for Fans Movie artwork For 132 months to 1188 months

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!

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!

*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.

Arrived in good time well-packaged (from overseas!) this is a very well-made and presented cooperative deck-building board game which really appeals to Wizarding World fans (Expelliarmus! Accio Triwizard cup!) but the play and strategy is equally appealing to everyone. You don't have to be a mad-keen Potter fan to enjoy this but obviously that's the central theme and attraction. It is very lore-friendly but lore-masters may be concerned about chronological and context concerns when you're shuffling enemies, events and items randomly. I was particularly interested in this as I want to get more games the whole family can play together or for social events, but without the antagonism and angst of a competitive game (Monopoly PTSD...) this one also has the added advantage of modular advancement where you start as new students and work your way through 7 stages to finally face Lord Voldemort in an epic battle. There are also two expansions which add more challenges, features, complexities and strategy. These are not needed at all but add more replayability once you have completed game 7 and can do so reliably. It's a heap of fun! The game leads you into the mechanics gently and even non-CCG or young players will be able to get into it fairly quickly thanks to friendly and well-written instructions, while old hands will appreciate deep strategic play requiring synergistic teamplay and (limited) interrupt actions. Unlike other games there is constant engagement and communication, you don't just 'turn off' during other players turns as you will be affected and need to make decisions/plans during theirs. Eliminating resource management (land/mana) is a fantastic design choice, meaning turns are fast, action-based and exciting as you play out or discard your entire hand each turn. Deck tuning comes though how you expand (and optionally contract) your library which directly affects your capabilities, growth, power level and synergy. Novices can play any card with postive effect, while strategists can construct elaborate 'optimal plays' with rich feature and synergy calculations. The game scales easily to all players at all levels. The game has a strong physicality to it lacking in computer games and you'll soon be flipping cards, amassing tokens and tossing dice like nobody's business while cackling HP lore (Explulsio! Avada Kedavra!). The random nature of deck building and card draw means it is quite possible to wipe out, but that only adds incentive to work together and try harder next time. The staged nature of opening new boxes with new enemies (and treasure!) is like mini Christmas. The whole family gathers around to enjoy the unboxing experience, it's great. Overall build is great with evocative illustrations and design but the tokens are merely paper on cardboard, and the deck card stock is average and will be damaged in rough or long use playing it. (My friends copy has 'marked' cards now simply from picking them up). As these are not replaceable without buying a whole new copy your best bet is to sleeve all of the Hogwarts cards (spells, items and allies) which is easy and inexpensive. The Dark Arts and Enemy cards are a custom size though. There is a sleeve set for them but it is very expensive (~USD$25!). I am thinking of trying to use a craft finishing spray to harden the surface, as they don't need to be shuffled that much or held in hand. Replayability is great, friendly to house rules and the game can be easily scaled up or down for player skill. I do recommend cutting down the game later on as adding ALL the cards can result in both very long games (have played game 7 for 5 hours+ at times) as well as diluting must-have cards in the library. Play vanilla or to suit yourself. The game can be fairly easily 'reset' to any stage once you're experienced but it can be very overwhelming at first working out which cards should be or not be included. The straight line advancement through boxes/'school years' is very simple and well explained. The Monster Box of Monsters expansion adds a new character and a dramatic shift in challenge and systems. We went from clearing game 6-7 reliably to getting slammed 5-6 straight losses. If you think HP:HB is far too easy and for weaklings, try this. You will get pwned. Charms and potions: Owned but not tried yet, have not cleared all games from Monster Box yet. Overall I cannot recommend this highly enough for social and family play, with a strong Harry Potter theme. This is the first tabletop board game we've bought in some 30 years and an excellent example of modern gaming. I look forwards to building a collection of other games like this.

Deckbuilding coopératif adapté de la licence Harry potter. Les règles ne transpirent pas l'innovation et la prise de risque, mais le jeu est joli, très plaisant pour les fan de la série tout en restant assez agréable pour les autres joueurs également. Les jetons cranes en metal sont très sympa. Malgré que l'on aime bien y jouer et qu'il nous plaise, quelques points négatif (de la part d'un joueur exigeant, donnée à prendre en compte en lisant les remarques) : - jeu est très redondant (chaque année, on cherche a se faire son deck pour coller des éclairs aux mechants) - pas de systeme d'héritage entre les années (on recommence à 0 à chaque fois) - longue mise en place et long rangement, et parties d'autant plus longues que les années avances (on se limite à juste ajouter plus de contenu aux cartes utilisables et méchants à combattre, en réutilisant les anciens) - trop d'aléatoire en début de partie en années avancées (on tombe sur du détraqueur sans avoir de sort pour retirer les cranes = game over) - un jeu paradoxalement plus facile à 2 qu'à 4 (les méchants ont proportionnellement moins le temps de jouer avant que l'on ne récupère et puisse jouer les cartes achetées potentiellement plus efficaces) - La regle de KO nulle (on vire toute la main nous).

Quality: Good component quality, nice box and artwork (9/10) Shipment: Fast shipment, came a week earlier than promised (9/10) Price: Moderately expensive as international shipping makes game tad expensive (5/10) Gameplay: Game is divided into 7 parts just like the books. Game becomes progressively harder and harder as you progress. Involves cooperative element and deck building in the gameplay. However, the game does not include any options to discard cards and running through the hogwards deck is difficult as you end up acquiring cards with limited to no utility. However, the gameplay is fun and certainly will be appreciated by Harry Porter fans. (7/10)

We bought this game for the first time 4 years ago and just bought it again as a present. It is an excellent board game for the whole family. Due to the many levels in the game, there is a lot of variation each time it’s played and adjustments that can be made to fit different levels of players. As you play collectively as a team against Voldemort and his villains, there are few reasons for tears or fights among the players. The box says +11 years, but with adult participation to steer the game, players can easily join from around 5-6 years old. Along with Settlers of Catan, this is the best board game we own. Buy it for all the HP & board game lovers out there! Recently bought the two expansions for the game which add many dimensions. Great for variety but almost too many rules and options to steer through. I would not recommend the expansions before you are very comfortable with the basic game and its seven levels.

A very good game if you like the Harry Potter theme