Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Lightning Review
Designer: Forrest-Pruzan Creative, Kami Mandell, Andrew Wolf
Artist: Joe Van Wetering
Publisher: The Op
Year Published: 2016
No. of Players: 2-4
Ages: 11+
Playing Time: 30-60 minutes
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a family friendly cooperative deck-building game that is a great entry-level game for getting new players into the hobby in an overall package that should hook most aspiring players. The look and feel of the Harry Potter universe is strong in this one and since this game is cooperative, it really takes the pressure off new players who have not experience some of the mechanics of modern board games. One thing that makes this game so accessible is that the game is broken up into all seven years of Hogwarts schooling and each year adds new mechanics and/or abilities to the game. So, what this means is that the game starts off very simple and the complexity ramps up through repeated plays. It’s a great way to get both younger and new players to progress in their gaming experience without having to introduce them to a brand new game that they have to learn from scratch.
Art is mostly photos from the films and some may be turned off by this, but I quite like it. My only complaint is that the cards are a bit low in quality and wear shows fairly quickly.
Find more info on BoardGameGeek.com (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/199042/harry-potter-hogwarts-battle)
Stefan Yates
Stefan Yates is a professional in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Kansas State University. Finding ways to work gaming into work, he serves on the university’s Alternate Reality Game Committee and is a co-Faculty Advisor for the Board Game Club. He is also a PhD student whose field of research is Gamification in Student Programming. He enjoys playing (and mostly losing) almost any type of game and likes to work in multiple game sessions per week whenever possible. An avid solo gamer with an additional interest in tabletop miniatures games, the stay-at-home orders of the pandemic were not particularly concerning as there was always painting to do and terrain to build. Stefan is also a book and movie collector and a huge football fan (go CHIEFS!)