Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - The Monster Box of Monsters (USAopoly)

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle was one of the it games of 2016. It took deck-building, mixed it with a campaign style format, and used a HUGELY popular theme to make for a fun and exciting experience. I remember playing through it with friends and we loved almost everything about it. The biggest problems we found with the game were minor inaccuracies with cards appearing before they should, only having one playable female character, and a somewhat swingy experience due to villain order and glut of cards you filled your deck with. When, I heard about an expansion coming out, I was eager to try it.

The first things you notice about the expansion are the name and presentation. Called The Monster Box of Monsters, this is a clear reference to the Monster Book of Monsters used by Hagrid when he taught Care of Magical Creatures. As for the appearance, it is a miniature box decorated like a piece of luggage, which artfully ties in with the larger base game box, also decorated like a luggage trunk. As one can guess, this expansion is mainly about introducing monsters or creatures into the game. You will see familiar faces and foes like Fluffy, Norbert, and the mysterious Boggart. These get shuffled in with Villains from the base game and provide an exciting twist on a game you have already conquered. However, there's more to this box than monsters...

The expansion has introduced a fifth playable character in the form of Luna Lovegood! How can you not love the ever-positive and quirky Luna? Adding her to the box makes this game more female friendly, because it means one less woman has to play as Ron (Sorry, Rupert!) when playing this game. I personally still think it's a shame that Ginny hasn't been made into a playable character, but maybe we'll get a second expansion next year? While it would have been nice to expand the game to five players and open this game up to larger player counts, I understand that game balance would have been thrown off doing so.

The biggest difference one will notice in this box is game play. There are a couple of new "devices" added that make for a more challenging experience. First, there is an introduction of Encounter cards, which must be cleared now in addition to defeating Villains and Creatures. One such Encounter you will have to clear is Cornish Pixies. (Yes, Seamus, Cornish Pixies!) Another new "device" added to the game is Detention cards. When you gain these cards, you will clog your deck up with useless cards that provide no benefit and harm you if you discard them. To help counter these new challenges, a new benefit has been introduced called Banishing. Banishing allows you to thin cards from your deck and create a smaller more powerful deck. This is a useful mechanic that ever deck-building game needs, so I am glad to see it added.

Overall, I was pleased with this expansion. It wasn't perfect and took some getting used to with the increased difficulty, but it also added a lot of new and interesting bits and pieces to the game, while maintaining the heart and familiar feel of the game. The biggest disappointment fans of the game will face is that you should have completed the base game before incorporating any of the new material from expansions. That complaint is minor, though, as most people have already finished the game, or if not, now have extra motivation to do so. I highly recommend picking up this expansion and discovering the secrets of the four little boxes contained within. You won't regret it!

This game was provided to me by USAopoly in exchange for an honest review.

Potion Explosion (CMON)

I think it's safe to say that many of my readers are big fans of Harry Potter, probably not as big of fans as my wife, but who is? When I heard and read about the game Potion Explosion, I thought, "This kind of sounds like Harry Potter. My wife will love this!" In Potion Explosion, you and your fellow opponents are students in Albedus Humblescore's potion's class. With only four ingredients (Unicorn Tears, Dragon Smoke, Ogre Mucus, and Fairy Dandruff), you are competing to complete the most potions and score the most points. Potion Explosion is a game for 2-4 players, ages 14+. It takes about 45 minutes to play and retails for $50.

Setup
1. Before you play the first time, assemble the Dispenser following the instructions.
2. Fill the Dispenser randomly with all the ingredients (marbles) mentioned above.
3. Give each player a Desk Board.
4. Give the Starting Player Token to the person who most recently prepared a drink.
5. Take all the Potion Tiles and remove two types either at random or by choice.
6. From the remaining Potion Tiles, each player takes two random starter tiles (marked with a gold star) and places them on their Desk Board.
7. Shuffle the remaining Potion Tiles to form five stacks.
8. Put the Skill Tokens in a stack depending on number of players, which will trigger the end of the game after everyone has the same number of turns.

Game Play
1. You must choose and take one marble from the dispenser. If this triggers an explosion (two of the same color marbles collide), you take all the connected colors of that explosion.
2. You may also ask for a little help from the professor and take one marble from the dispenser. You don't get to claim any marbles from a triggered explosion, and the little help token is worth -2 points.
3. You may also drink one of your completed potions, which gives you a special ability, such as stealing ingredients from an opponent or activate a potion you have already used once.
4. Take all the ingredients, which you gained from the previous three steps, and place them in your incomplete potion tiles, matching the color (unless you drank a potion that let you ignore color). If you complete a potion, it gets flipped over and put in your completed area. Any marbles you cannot match, are put in your ingredient pool (max of three).
5. Refill the dispenser with any leftover marbles or marbles from completed potions.
6. Draw back up to two potion tiles.
7. Claim a skill token if you completed three potions of the same kind or five unique potions.
8. When the game ends, add up your points from potions and skill tokens. Subtract any help tokens. High score wins.

Review
Potion Explosion is a very fun game with a great feel to it. The game is very simple to learn, as it really comes down to picking a marble that produces the most chain explosions, while also matching the potions you need to complete. The theme is very tongue-in-cheek with their reference to Harry Potter, but people who aren't fans of the famous wizard will not feel in the dark when playing the game. The age rating on this game is 14+, and I think a lot of that has to do with the marbles being a choking hazard, but children as young as 8, maybe even younger can pick up this simple game. I personally consider this a great game to play with the family, young children, and non-gamers, as it provides a unique and dynamic experience that will suit these audiences well.

The components in this game are a mixed bag, which I have come to expect from games that bear the company logo Horrible Games (I'm looking at you Steam Park.). The cardboard didn't punch out as cleanly as it could have and the paint on some of the marbles was chipping right out of the box. Does this take away from game play? No, but it is disappointing from an aesthetics viewpoint. The big positive of the components is the ingredient dispenser. It is a clever use of cardboard that is not only fun in its delivery of ingredients, but it also serves as a randomizer, with the player never knowing exactly where the marbles will fall.

After the components, my biggest complaint about this game is that it only plays four people. The groups I play with are generally bigger than four, so I feel like I will never get a chance to share this game with them unless some are out of town, which is a shame, because it is really fun and seems like it should have accommodated more people without needing to buy two games. Apart from my complaints, I really enjoyed the game, and my wife did as well, so that makes this an easy recommendation for me. There is supposedly an expansion coming out later this year, so if you are a fan of this game, like me, be on the look out for it!

This game was provided to me for free by CMON in exchange for an honest review.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle (USAopoly)

The Harry Potter series is the greatest epic of my generation. Not only is story, well-researched and compelling, it also is responsible for so many other series (Twilight and The Hunger Games) being published. Due to the great success of this series, both in the books and the movies, other media channels have licensed Rowling's work to try and generate some level of the same success. The board game industry has given us Potter version of Uno, Clue, and Trivial Pursuit. All three of the games are fine and what you'd expect from those types of game, but the serious gamer has always wanted more. Well, wait no more! USAopoly recently released Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a cooperative deck-building game for 2-4 witches and wizards, ages 11+. It retails for $50.

The game itself is divided into boxes labeled Game 1, Game 2, etc. Each game adds more cards and other surprise elements to the game, which I won't spoil. Since each game builds on the other one, I will only tell you how to set up and play Game 1.

Setup
1. Place the game board in the center of the table.
2. Sort the Villain Control tokens, Attack tokens, and  Influence tokens into three piles.
3. Have each player pick a hero (Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville). Give each player a Player Board, and Health Tracker (placed on the number 10), a Turn Order card, their appropriate Hero Card, and their Starting Hero Deck consisting of ten cards.
4. Create a stack of Location Cards, placing them face up on their spot on the board.
5. Shuffle the Dark Arts Cards and place them face-down on their spot on the board.
6. Shuffle the Villain Cards. Place them face-down on their spot on the board, and then reveal one.
7. Shuffle the Hogwarts Cards. Place them face-down on their spot on the board and then reveal six.
8. Have each player shuffle their Starting Deck and deal the top five cards to themselves.

Game Play - On a player's turn they will perform the following actions until all the Villains are defeated (victory) or all the Locations have been taken over (defeat).
1. Reveal and resolve the Dark Arts Card.
2. Resolve the ability of the active Villain.
3. Play the cards from your hand in the order of your choosing. These cards will gain you both Attack and Influence. Some also have special effects.
4. After playing all your cards, assign the Attack tokens to a Villain, and use the Influence tokens to buy new Hogwarts Cards.
5. Maintenance at the end of each turn requires you checking to see if a Location Card has been captured and/or a Villain defeated. (Note: The solution for both of these is to reveal the next card if so.) You also refill any empty spots in the Hogwarts Cards area and draw back up to five cards from your personal deck.

As stated earlier, the game ends when you have defeated all the Villains, or they have gained control of all the Locations. It is a cooperative game, so you all win or lose together. If you win, you can open the box for Game 2 and combine the new cards with Game 1. If you lost, try again until you defeat Game 1.

Review
Since this game is actually seven games into one, I will try to remain as spoiler-free as possible. The first thing I would like to discuss is the components and what you get in the box. The components in the box are very nice with sturdy game boards, thick cardboard, and loads of cards. The nicest components are the Villain Control tokens, which are of a nice solid metal. As for the graphics/artwork, the theme is just oozing from this game. The game box is a luggage chest, much like Harry used. The back of the game board is the Marauder's Map. The turn-order card is the Hogwarts Express and the back of that card is your ticket!

The game play is very much like your traditional deck-builder in that you start with ten cards and draw five per turn. However, that is where the similarities stop. Unlike other deck-builders, this one is not competitive, but cooperative. There is also a life-track that you must keep an eye on and not let drop to zero. You won't die, but you'll be stunned and lose cards and more control of the locations. You are also trying to defeat villains, not trying to just gain a lot of cards worth points. You will want good cards in your deck, but you'll also want to perhaps tailor your deck a little, like giving Hermione more spells and Ron more allies.

As for the negatives, there aren't many, but there seems to be a few discrepancies in terms of order of events. Hermione for examples starts with Crookshanks in her starting deck, but she didn't actually have that cat until the third book. Also, you defeat Professor Quirrell in the first game, but you have to keep defeating him every game. Since he died in the first book, he should be removed from the game. There are a few other little minor things, like in Game Two, they used young Tom Riddle from the sixth movie and not the second movie. All of these are minor complaints, that as a Potter fan you will either overlook or let drive you mad.

$50 seems like a steep-price for many families for a game. To that I offer two pieces of advice - 1. You will most likely find this game on sale. 2. This game has seven games inside of it, so even if you are amazing at the game and beat each one on the first try, that still averages out to $7 a game, which is hard to beat! Overall, I found the game very enjoyable. It is not without its flaws, but it is still a fun game, with solid components, and great theme. Best of all, my wife enjoys it, so that is an instant win in my book.

This game was provided to me by USAopoly in exchange for an honest review.

How Harry Cast His Spell (Tyndale House Publishers)

It has been over eight years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book was released and only four years since Part 2 of the movie with the same name was released. Pottermania had been dwindling to some degree, despite Rowling's efforts to keep fans engaged through her frequently updated website Pottermore. A recent release of a fully illustrated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the upcoming play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has whipped Potter-heads back into a frenzy, and it is for that reason that I am reviewing an older book called How Harry Cast His Spell.

How Harry Cast His Spell is the third edition of a book which was previously titled "Looking for God in Harry Potter." Personally, I preferred the original title, but to each their own. The author is John (no relation to Hermione) Granger. Granger is a professor with a degree in classical languages and literature. He is now considered a "Harry Potter expert." In his novel, Granger discusses a variety of topics including magic; good and evil; love and death. However, there are several deep literary concepts he covers which are extremely fascinating - 1. literary alchemy, 2. symbolism and name meaning, and 3. doppelgangers.

Alchemy is a truly fascinating subject that for the most part involved people trying to transform lead into gold. In the literary form of alchemy, it is the character (Harry Potter) who transforms from lead into gold, both in every book and as a character as a whole. Granger makes other alchemical connections with Hermione being mercury and Ron being sulfur, the two agents need to transform lead. I could go on and on about this, but buy the book! The Christian symbolism is abundant in the Harry Potter series, but it is subtle like in Lord of the Rings and not completely beat you over the head like the Chronicles of Narnia. Harry is a Christ-figure but he is not supposed to be Jesus Christ, because despite all of his good qualities, he is with sins and flaws. The doppelganger theory is one that is best illustrated in the case of Jekyll and Hyde, but is seen throughout the Harry Potter series, primarily in Harry and Voldemort, but also in certain wizards and their animagi or patronus forms. Peter Pettigrew as a rat is particularly on the nose.

In addition to these themes Granger talks about, there are also individual chapters devoted to the spiritual keys of each of the first six Harry Potter books and three chapters dedicated to Deathly Hallows. The reason for three with the last book is because there is much more to talk about, including Harry's struggle with faith and Harry's own Passion narrative and how it symbolizes Christ's Passion. At the end of the book is an FAQ, which includes brief rebuttals to some Christians who paint Harry Potter as occult. Reading through this 300 page book, I found myself going back through the stories in my head and seeing all the symbols and theme I missed when originally reading it. My wife, HUGE Harry Potter fan that she is, even pointed out some stuff that the author missed or could have included. That's not a knock against this book, in 300 pages, the author did a fine job covering as much as he could without bogging the reader down, Though, I could have kept reading if the book had been twice as long as it was truly fascinating. If you are a Harry Potter fan, who wants to understand the Christian meaning of Harry Potter, read this book. If you know someone who is anti-Harry because they think it's demonic, buy them this book. Granger does a masterful job of not only showing you why you and your children should read Harry Potter, but why you and your children need to read it!

This book was provided to me for free by Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for an honest review. If you found this review helpful, please click here and hit Yes!