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

The price on this and the fact it was a deck building game (ie too complex for me & a 9 year old) made me hesitant to get this. However, I'm constantly on the lookout for fun games to play with my daughter, and sometimes its a challenge to find a game that plays well with 2 people that we still want to play after a couple of weeks. Plus, it's a cooperative game, which is a nice change. We both love this game, and are only on level 3 (where experienced deck building game players would start). The game gets progressively harder, so always challenging, and greatly depends on the order of the cards drawn (ie luck), but there is some strategy involved as well. The first few games we played we ended up playing slightly wrong as the instructions, while simple & easy to follow, are long and add/build/change throughout the game. Game play was around 1 hour for each level, but I can see that as we progress through the levels game time could easily go to 2 hours or more. The last game, after one and 1/2 hours of play, my daughter was giddy and said "that was fun! Lets go to the next level!!! So it's a hit for both of us. The cards will always be in a different order every time which will produce different results so it's always going to be a different game and we can play this for quite some time before we are tired of it and, for a change, we can always switch characters as well, as the different characters have different abilities. I was afraid you'd have to pick a character & only have that one to play, but you can change them out when you do a new game. So, just for the # of hours spent on this game makes the money worth the higher cost. If you like the show, and like games, I would highly recommend this for 2 to 4 players.

This board game was the first I bought in such a long time! It came in excellent condition. I love to play cooperative, and it's great to help each other out to beat the bad guys. Our second game was pretty tough and short,as we was just learning to play, we neglected to really work together as a team. Overall the board play took a bit to get use to, but the play was pretty straight forward. I really think after the first game, it really gets more challenging, but As far as the artwork, I am sure that everybody will have an opinion, either you will like it or you won't. What I really like about this game is that it can be challenging but not too complicated.

If you are a deck building expert you may find the game play is not as good as the best deck building games but it is a very good deck building game. If you are new to deck building games this is a terrific introduction with a seven step system that has a really easy entry point for books 1 and 2. If you are a Harry Potter fan and even a casual gamer this is a must have. In terms of implementing the theme of the series it is incredible. The cooperative nature allows for a group of varying skill levels to enjoy the evening. We play as a family with a non-gamer wife and gamer boys 8 and 10. We have played it around 15 times though now we only play it as game 7 with all the bells and whistles. I took it to my local wargaming club and they enjoyed it. Which is amazing as they hate cooperatives! The games do often turn into runaway defeats or victories but I believe that is the nature of the designer choices which heavily favor random as opposed to scripted adventures. There are many house rules you can pick and choose from Boardgamegeek to adjust the difficulty of the game or minimize the chances of a runaway. The game system is solid and so many of the best parts of the book show up it was addictive and bedtime was banished for a couple of weeks. I really love that you add a little each game. Very much a christmas morning feeling opening games 3 through 7. We paid about 40 bucks. One of the best gaming values in my 35 years of gaming. If you have any interest in designing a game for your favorite subject there are great lessons to be learned here. I can't believe this was produced by a relatively unknown company, they punched way above their weight.

I love love LOVE this game. It's a classic deck-building game, meaning that you start out with, essentially, "money" in your hand, and use that to purchase more powerful cards to add to your deck as the game progresses. You then use these cards to heal you and your teammates, attack enemies, and purchase even more powerful cards. If you're familiar with deck building games like Dominion and Star Realms, you'll likely be able to pick this up pretty quickly. The great thing is that it's fully cooperative, so it's you and the other players working together to defeat the game instead of fighting each other, so it's not difficult to lead new players through it. I just wouldn't recommend this for your grade-schooler. It says "Harry Potter," but It's pretty involved and get steadily more complicated and difficult as the game progresses, though you could probably add some house rules and adjust some things to make it better for younger kids. You'll play seven rounds in total, starting with year 1 and ending with year 7 (assuming you miraculously win each round on the first go). It's not difficult to stop between rounds, and you'll probably have to, unless you're willing to play until the wee hours of the morning... and honestly, it's so fun, you might. I know we have! If I had to guess, I'd wager it took us about 9 hours to play all the way through, including re-playing years until we beat each one (which I think added three or four rounds to the seven). Each player takes on the role of either Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville, and while you can definitely play however you want no matter who you are, each character has special powers that can really be the difference between winning and losing if you play to their strengths. Year one starts simply, and each year adds a few more villains to defeat, new spells you can learn, new allies and items to gain. By year 7, you're also fighting to destroy the horcruxes in addition to defeating a veritable hoard of villains. You'll find that you start to develop some strategies as you learn the ins and outs of the game, and by the end, you'll almost HAVE to do so, or otherwise be obliterated. And sometimes you'll be obliterated no matter what you do. The only thing I don't like about the game really has nothing to do with the game itself... I just hate all these cardboard tokens you have to use. You'll find that the location markers are these cool little metal pieces, but the attack, health, and influence tokens are cardboard.... so it true Harry Potter nerd fashion, I'm replacing all the pieces with cooler metal and glass ones ones. ;)

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.

So far we've only played 2 of the 7 games included (each game includes extra cards, mostly to be mixed with the cards of the previous game), but this has already been great fun. I feel like setup (especially first-time) is a little tedious and the cards come in an insane number of small bags (this is to help you sort them for the first game at least, so, don't do what I did and just shuffle them all together or you'll have to sort them out by hand). There are probably 10 different subsets of cards (they are all labeled, just takes a bit of getting used to). Once you get rolling, the gameplay is fairly quick. You'll probably want to play more than one round, though, so you can take advantage of being already set up. Being a co-op game it's great for kids, everybody gets to be on the same side and the "forces of darkness" are symbolized by a few villain character-cards and some nasty spell cards. So far the game seems very true to the movies (no spoilers). My daughter is very into the lore and pointed out that, even though there are 7 games (supposedly following the 7 books) some characters who don't make it through the first book will still be in play in game 2. She also noticed that some of the photos for the game 2 cards are taken from later movies. This didn't harm the gameplay at all, and didn't upset her much, just required a tad more suspension of disbelief. The bad guys damage the heroes and take over locations (cards with nice screengrabs from the movies) through spells that they cast each turn (also cards with movie-quality pictures). The heroes (the 2-4 players) play Harry, Hermione, Ron, or Neville. Players track health using cardboard tokens on a track, and the villains track their control of the locations using small but fairly hefty metal tokens. Players build abilities by purchasing spell and item cards with cardboard "influence" tokens. Almost all the characters from the movies are in the game, all as photos of the original actors, so, everyone can be righteously on guard when, say, Lucius Malfoy's card turns up, or happy when Trevor or Crookshanks dispatches a foe. Another big part of the fun is imagining yourself casting spells. There are lots of fun ones (although, for some reason, the game is chock full of comparatively unexciting Alohomora (unlocking) spells). If you or your kids aren't into the books or movies, then the game will seem less fun. Also, the villains use the same "dark mark" skull symbols as shown in the movie and a certain dude-who-must-not-be-named is pictured in full bad-guy makeup, so if your kids are young enough to be scared by that, you might want to wait on getting this game. (For that matter, the metal tokens are easy to swallow and the game is all about magic spells (some of which wound characters, though there are no graphics of this), so there are plenty of reasons to keep young kids at a safe distance.) The look and feel of all the cards is great. I wish the tokens were all metal, stone, or a nice plastic, and I wish the few which are metal were of a more interesting shape, but those are very minor gripes. All-in-all, its a great game for game night with your Harry Potter fans.

The solid mechanics of this game make it engaging, complex, and almost as much fun to lose as to win. If you enjoy the books or movies it has a bit of extra fun, but no knowlege of the Potter series is required to become an effective player. I have played with kids as young as seven, but they are too young to really get deep strategy; to survive later levels, play after the young ones are sent to bed. The game now appears on my “buy it again” list as a repeat purchase candidate because after playing it together I have purchased three more copies as gifts for friends. The game itself is well designed and offers increasing difficulty even for veteran players. It is broken up into seven “games” that align with the books, and it is intended that you successfully complete the earlier games/levels before moving on to the next. Since it is entirely possible you may need more than one attempt to get through a game, I want to issue a warning that a gaming session intended to end at 9 PM will quickly turn into parents realizing the roar of victory needs to be muted because it’s 1:30 AM. The cards have a mix of original artwork - including some inspired by characters or locations as rendered in the films - and photos of objects and actors as they appeared for movie fans. One of the more frustrating aspects to me is that some of the most frequently used and shuffled cards are an uncommonly sized square for which I cannot find protective sleeves! The flow of the game generally goes like this: the bad guys are attempting to take over Hogwarts and if they succeed the good guys - you - are cooked. Each player chooses a main character and receives a basic set of abilities, spells, items, and a helpful ally. Players use these cards to gain power for attacks, restore health for themselves or other players, or influence to gain new spells, items, and allies. Of course, the game has to give the bad guys a chance, and it’s a better chance than you as players have of winning. Each player turn one or more dark arts events takes place that weakens characters, limits play options for the turn, or deals damage to the characters. Whatever villain(s) is/are in play then have an opportunity to deal damage, weaken the characters, or otherwise increase the threat level. You may have noticed the “villain(s)” comment. As the game levels get higher or as the threat level increases - like when there are three locations at which you are expected to battle dark forces and they’ve managed to take over two already - each player turn may require up to three dark arts events and your group may simultaneously be facing four villains, one of which is Voldemort himself! Expect to play some levels multiple times. Play is easy to learn and individual turns can go quickly, but strategic coordination of turns (eg: “I’m going to leave Molly in case Neville can get six influence on his turn and I’m leaving the spells for Hermione, but I’m snagging Mad Eye to maximize my polyjuice potion next turn...”) can take a while to weigh out the options and can make all the difference. I cannot recommend this game more, and have yet to find a person who doesn’t play it and want a copy before the night is over. Do yourself a favor and pick up your own set.

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.

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.

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

Eu gostei do jogo como um todo . as peças o tabuleiro tudo .