Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is Perfect for Family Game Night
The Harry Potter books were a big part of my childhood, and I remember fondly attending several of the midnight book releases at the local Hastings or Barnes & Noble. When The Goblet of Fire came out, I was at summer camp, and many dozens of kids were actually getting the book shipped to them while still at camp. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard about this Harry Potter thing, but it’s a big deal.
And I’m happy to report that it has become a big deal for our 8-year-old son as well. This wonderful, magical creation has successfully been passed down to the next generation, so I suppose my job as a dad here is done. It’s truly been a joy to see how much he loves this story, and it’s been a good reminder of just how much it meant to me too.
In our house we started introducing the books to him using the amazing illustrated editions crafted by Jim Kay. But, sadly and begrudgingly, we had to move past them, because they aren’t all finished yet, and our son couldn’t wait any longer to read more. And the pattern that we came up with for our family is to watch each movie after reading each book.
But those aren’t the only 2 pieces of our family’s personal Harry Potter party. We are completely surrounded by Harry Potter using just about every medium you can think of. Our son also loves the LEGO Harry Potter video games, and he returns to them after each book, and always very diligently quits when he catches up with what we’ve read so far. And the final thing we always do together as a family after we read each book is play the next year of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle.
I think it’s so cool that we have 3 different tasks to do after each book - watch the movie, play the video game, and play the board game. And as much as I love the movies, I think playing the next year of Hogwarts Battle might be my favorite activity of the bunch. It’s not only our game of the month, it’s been our game of the whole last year. It’s a fantastically designed cooperative deck-building game. We’ve never played anything like it together, and it’s always a blast to work together as a family to fight Voldemort.
The genius of the game is the increasing difficulty of each year - or level - of the game. Just like the books, the game is split into 7 years. And the enemies that you have to fight, as well as the allies that you can recruit to your side, are representative of their respective books. The trick is that each year you add more enemies without removing any of the old ones, so your skills must improve, and good cooperation and strategy is paramount as time goes on. And for that reason, you could also stay on earlier years for an easier experience.
The idea of the game is that each player is a hero - Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville - and you have to use your items, allies, and spell cards to fight off a string of enemies from the books. You start with a small deck of starter cards, and throughout the game you can purchase more from the store to grow your deck. This is where a good deal of strategy comes into play, because you want your deck to grow with good synergy and not be full of too many useless cards you don’t ever want to draw.
And the game itself grows larger after each year you beat as well - with more enemies, dark arts cards, and shop cards added to the game before the next time you play. Sometimes new mechanics will even be introduced - like the Hogwarts dice that represent each house, or the bonus proficiency you learn when your O.W.L. results come in in year 6.
You win the game if you defeat all the villains for that year, and you lose if the villains take control of all of the locations. And while you’re attacking the villains, you also have to watch your own health as well as the number of dark marks on the locations. Some cards heal, some cards attack, some give you resources to make purchase, some remove dark marks - and together you have to try to keep a good balance of all these things at the same time.
There is a lot of fun cooperation in this game, and a lot of good strategic conversations. A lot of the decision making comes from which cards to purchase from the shop, and which villains to go after together first. You also often have to make decisions about which heroes to heal or share resources with. There’s a slight learning curve, and you’ll need a willing volunteer to read the rule book closely before your first time, but figuring out how to win together is why it’s so fun.
We actually got really stuck on year 2 or 3, losing 4 times in a row, and we even went running to the internet to try and figure out if there was something we were doing wrong. We were just positive there should be a way to recycle the shop cards if there was nothing we wanted to buy in it. We even found some people who agreed with us, and came up with our own house rule to pay resources to recycle the shop. And then, hilariously, we haven’t lost since - with no need for the house rule at all. I suppose we just got better!
Our 8-year-old always plays as Harry, and it’s adorable how he is insistent that he never discards his invisibility cloak. His cloak makes it so that villains do less damage to him, but it also permanently takes up one space in his hand. But it seems like a good strategy that’s working for us, and it’s just awesome that he has his own strategy and way he wants to play. I also love having our consistent heroes we stick with, and I love having an activity like this that can be a long term goal for us - that’s designed to keep coming back to together.
The official recommended age is 11+, but our 8-year-old learned the game quickly and is a vital and equal part of the team. He legitimately comes up with combinations and plans we didn’t think of. The only important thing to note here is that the game can easily last longer than an hour. For that reason, age isn’t the true limiting factor - it’s patience and attention span. Luckily for us, however, Harry Potter is more than enough to keep our son’s attention for quite some time. But be very wary about playing close to bedtime!
And, I have to say, the attention to detail in this game is truly stunning. The box itself is made to look like Harry’s trunk, and when you first open it you’re greeted to a beautiful illustration of the contents of his trunk - complete with the Marauder’s Map and his Omnioculars. Truly, whoever came up with that presentation is a genius. The cards are wonderful, the dice are gorgeous, the little metal dark mark pieces are impressive - it’s all just fantastic.
And there are also 2 expansion packs available now to grow the game even further, and even an amazing spin off if you’re looking for a competitive Harry Potter experience. Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: Defence Against the Dark Arts is a 2-player competitive game that uses the same mechanics and even the same components as Hogwarts Battle. I’m a chess player at heart so head to head strategic match-ups like this are a lot of fun for me. And if you’re familiar with Hogwarts Battle already, learning how to duel each other instead of fighting Voldemort will take mere minutes to learn.
We’re only a handful of days away from finishing the last Harry Potter book in our house, which will closely be followed by watching the last 2 movies, finishing LEGO Harry Potter, and then kicking off our final confrontation with Voldemort in Hogwarts Battle. After we find and destroy all of the horcruxes together, I’m quite certain we’ll return to year 7 in this game many more times in the future. I look forward to the day our 4-year-old is old enough to join in as Neville and complete our family team. This is one of the most fun cooperative games we have, and honestly one of our favorite board games to play together as a family, and that’s saying a lot.
Do you have any Harry Potter fans in the family? Do you like playing cooperative games? Have you tried Hogwarts Battle yet? Let us know in the comments!
