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

Excellent game even for beginners to the deck-building Genre. One of my favorite things about this game, especially as a HP fan, is that it contains 7 separate decks for each of the books/years. This grants excellent replay-ability at various difficulties and lets you feel in some way like you are progressing through the books again yourself. It has excellent-quality materials for all of the pieces - so you know it wont wear out quickly. This has become one of my favorite games to play with my family and friends, and it's really accessible even for non-HP fans. A cool thing is that by being a deck-building game it also allows you to play your own style; one game I was building more offensively and trying to take out as many Villains as I could, and the next I ended up playing more of a support character, granting allies attacks and extra money and healing others - and I did it with the same character, which means roles aren't imposed if you want to be a non-combative Harry. The balance is quite good too, and there is a very satisfying jump in difficulty once you pass the "tutorial years" (book 1/2). I've only successfully finished year 3 so far after 1 day, so I'll update my review later once I complete all the decks :), but honestly a must buy if you are a HP fan, and a great game even if you don't know anything about the HP universe. Update (6/14/17): I FINALLY beat the game, and so I am back as I promised. This game has exceeded my expectations. One of the best things about it is that every 2ish books there is a change to the mechanics in some way that fundamentally changes how the game plays - more than just adding more enemies at a time or adding new cards. These game-play mechanics make it feel like you are playing a new game with the same great fundamentals you loved in the previous chapters. There are also ways to make the game more challenging, which adds more replay-ability. I would definitely recommend this game to ANYONE who loves card/board-games regardless how they feel about Harry Potter, but fans of the series will squeal like little girls at how amazing this experience is and how well they tie the feeling of the books into this card game. The only critique for this game is that I wish there were more playable characters (I want the WHOLE gambit; Gimmie Luna, Ginny, Sirius, Lupin, Snape, Dumbledore, McGonnagle, Draco, The Twins (Fred and George - maybe a dual deck of mischief)), and also I'd love some variety of enemies to play against (right now you simply add the last book's enemies to the next one so you'll be seeing familiar faces often). And the last critique (more serious this time) is that there isn't a way to remove cards from your deck. Often you get a lot of filler cards that help you to build your deck, but then just take up too much room when you get a whole hand of Alohomoras rather than what you need later in the game. I would love a mechanic to discard permanently cards somehow. Also, we made a house rule I'd suggest you implement where you can "buy" cards out of the acquire area rather than adding them to your deck (this frees up a slot to add a new house card you might want to buy). Amazing game, 5/5 Stars

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!

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.

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 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!

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.

This is a cooperative deck building game that ultimately follows along with the 7 Books to create 7 Games that build off of each other as you develop your game play ability. Just like the characters in the books/movies. Really a fantastic concept. You and/or the other players play as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Nevile. The object is to defeat the villains (Draco, A Basilisk, Dementors, etc.) before said villains take over all your locations. We really like that, 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. Each of the boxes change the locations you’re competing for along with adding in new abilities, items, spells, villains…. You get new abilities as you “mature” and can add an additional ability to your proficiencies after completing your O.W.L.s!! One of the game boxes also add dice...to a deck building game that starts off without dice. Pretty Cool! The board, cards, and tokens are all very good quality with everything is in full color and images taken from the movies. Nothing flimsy or wanting and your character grows up as your progress (just like in “real-life”). It’s nice that the game developers include organizer cards if you don’t want the game mixed together and want to divide it back out to the separate levels without having to stick them back into the separate boxes (all the villains together, all the Dark Art Events together, etc.) once you've opened the individual games box and moved up the “Game”. I’ve been trying to find a way to get my partner more into board games and because of the individual Game 1-7 add-on features, this is an excellent intro to Eurogames. It starts off simple but ramps up after you get used to the mechanics. Also, it helped that with her love of Harry Potter this games adherence to the canon really well!!

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 .