Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is our all time favorite game! It is the game that has been played in our house more than any other game. It's also the game that almost all our friends and family have bought after playing it with us. Seriously, you need this game in your life!
If at the end of reading this post you choose to purchase any of the games discussed, we truly would appreciate you purchasing through our links. It is a simple way for us to make a little bit of money without any extra cost to you. Thanks!
How We Discovered the Game
We are pretty extreme Harry Potter fans. We are currently listening to Harry Potter 6. We pretty much are always listening to the Harry Potter books. When we finish all seven we just start over again!
For those of you who watch our stories on Instagram you probably see that when we post about playing games, 95% of the time we are playing a Harry Potter game. There is so much to say about this game that we felt a blog post was in order!
In the past we used to not buy games unless we’d first played them so that we knew they were worth owning. In 2018 I went to the game store planning to buy a specific game for Collin’s birthday. I had it in my hand but as I was walking through the store I spotted a Harry Potter game. I asked the game store owner about it and he went crazy telling me about this amazing game. I decided to take a gamble and buy it. We have played it more than any other game and pretty much everyone we’ve taught it to has gone out and bought it. So you know it’s good!
Why We Love It
We are some of the most competitive people you will ever meet. This makes playing games against each other a little tricky sometimes. Funny enough, our very first fight was over a game of cards... but that's a story for another time.
Let's just say our lives changed the day we found cooperative games. Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is a cooperative game which means you play together to beat the game rather than against each other to beat each other. Cooperative games have low key saved our marriage haha.
HPHB is also a deck building game. If you've never played a deck building game before, don't fret. They are easy to learn. This is a good game for you to learn the deck building concept because it has 7 levels to the game which get progressively more difficult.
You can play this game a million times and it will never be the same. Because of all the levels, expansions and variations, it keeps you on your toes.
You won't always win. Okay wait, why would we put this in the "why we love it" section? Because that makes the game so much more fun! We love a good challenge and to know that we might not win makes it exciting!
Although we love playing it with four people, it is also an amazing two player game which can be super hard to find.
This is a family friendly game and is recommended for anyone eleven and older.
We have introduced this game to so many of our friends and family members and the majority have gone out and bought it themselves after playing with us. So, are you ready to learn about the best game ever?!
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is set up for 7 games within the one game. The 7 games are based off of the 7 books. Everything that happens in each “game” corresponds to specific events from that book. It’s seriously brilliant! You play as one of four heroes: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville. As you advance through games 1-7 you will reveal progressively more challenging adventures and unlock new secrets on your journey to save Hogwarts from Lord Voldemort.
On your turn you will resolve dark arts cards, play spells, items & allies, earn influence (money), and attack villains. The goal is to defeat all the villains and Voldemort before they defeat your “locations”. Each character has special abilities which increase as you play the higher game levels. It’s important to learn what each character is good at as it helps you defeat the villains quicker. We didn't realize this at first and it took us a hot minute to figure it out as we were teaching ourselves... but we will give you a heads up!
- Hermione: specializes in spells. As you get into the harder "games" it will be very important for Hermione to have a lot of spells in her deck and she is rewarded for playing them.
- Ron: attacks. Whether it's a spell, item, or ally... if you are playing as Ron, you want to buy cards that will give you attacks.
- Neville: healing. Neville is all about healing himself and others. If you are playing as Neville you will want to purchase cards with healing abilities.
- Harry: ultimately he's the supporting character. He can help in a variety of ways and doesn't have one specific thing he needs to focus on.
This is a deck building game. If you have never played a deck building game before don’t worry, you’ll catch on quick. The game can be a little confusing the first time you play so feel free to send us a DM or email and ask any questions you have.
Okay so here’s where it gets fun… There are two expansions to this game! Yep, we love them! So let me tell you about the first.
In this expansion a 5th hero is added, Luna! This does not mean it becomes a 5 player game though. It is still only a 4 player game. (We have however played with all 5 heroes even though it says you can't and it worked just fine).
It also adds 4 boxes to the game meaning 4 more levels. Now, not only are you trying to defeat villains, you have to defeat creatures as well. Some of these creatures have to be defeated by using your influence (money) rather than attacks. They can be very difficult to defeat!
With this expansion you now can be put in detention which totally sucks! It is similar to the base game where each “box” gets harder and harder.
This expansion is so dang cool! It's the newest one. I gave it to Collin for Christmas and we have been working our way through it. Ginny is now added as a hero and the game becomes a 5 player game rather than 4 player. Woot woot!
There are 4 packs adding 4 new levels to the game. There is a game board extension and you have to mix potions and resolve them on your turn. It also adds charm boards for each individual hero adding powers you can use on your turn. Sweet right?
Additional Details
The expansions are not stand alone games. You have to own Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle in order to use either expansion.
Have you followed along so far? The base game has 7 levels. The first expansion has 4 levels and the second expansion has another 4 levels. CRAZY FUN!
Be aware, this game is LONG! The harder the level you play, the longer it is. I’m talking hours when you play the harder levels. Especially when you play the hardest levels and then add in expansions. BUT IT IS SO WORTH IT! Remember though, you might play for hours and still lose.
Okay okay I’m almost done… but there is one more Harry Potter game to share with you.
We call this one Harry Potter Duel. You go head to head in a duel to defeat your opponent. This is a two player specific game but is still a deck building game.
You choose your house which determines the base deck you get. You can choose the same house if you’d like. The game then plays pretty similar to Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle except instead of attacking villains, you attack your opponent.
You play the best of 5 duels, first one to win 3 is the ultimate winner. The rounds go pretty quick overall but all together the game probably takes anywhere from 30-45 minutes to play. If you love Harry Potter and you like the deck building cooperative aspect of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, this is a great two player game that is super similar.
Wrapping Up
If you purchase one game this entire year, we whole heartedly say to buy Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. No matter how many times you play, the game will always be different. It keeps things interesting and exciting. Then adding in all the expansions... whoa it's the best!
Interested in more game recommendations? Check out the different game pages we've put together for you.
Board Games for all group sizes
You can also check out our Amazon Shop where we've put a handful of our very favorite games from our website.