Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - GameNight! Se5 Ep1 - How to Play and Playthrough

[@kittykatgaming8296]

You guys need to play all the other years so I can see them! I don’t have anyone to game with so I live vicariously through you guys!

[@woad23]

I wish that for every game I bring to the table I could have a pocket Dave spring out and give the rules explanation. Thanks for all you do, GameNight!

[@ProfessorB.]

Years later, in 2022, this is still one of our favorite family games. We played all 7 years but then went back to year 5 which is our favorite. It is challenging but not impossible and does not take too long to play. Games 6 and 7 suffer from both problems. Five is the best.

[@ohtricaerontops4781]

Would be fun to see you play all years!

[@StarfallShadow]

I was constantly impressed with Lincoln's HP knowledge, spouting off stuff that was relatively minor from the books.

[@christinevoncast2115]

Love Nikki's reaction shot at 40:14! Great editing :) You 4 are so much fun to watch. The GameNight Dream Team!

[@jamesreeves8671]

I'm new to the tabletop gaming scene. I have made many purchases off the back of your videos. Superb work guys! The production value of your videos are second to none. I always look forward to them. Great game by the way. Probably another purchase ;-)

[@anikation382]

Yeahy! Season 5! AWESOME! Woohot nice Intro, Nikki! (love the lights at the end and all the small details). *gamerulesexexpelliarmus* x-D hahahahaha, nice Dave!

[@anikation382]

ohhh it's **gamerulesexplainiarmus** EVEN BETTER! x-D HA!

[@TheBrall]

Thanks for posting! Some quick-reference info on being stunned (see pg 13 of the directions or my below summation). Once stunned: 1. Cannot lose or gain "Health" for the rest of that turn. 2. Discard any "Influence" or "Attack" tokens. 3. Discard half your hand rounded down. 4. Add one "Villain Control" token to Location. 5. If it is your turn, finish it out, play cards and take actions as normal. 6. Reset your "Health" to 10 at the end of the active Hero's turn.

[@docdelta]

Me and my friends played the Game 4 last weekend. Until Game 3 I had my doubts about the difficulty of the game, thinking if it would escalate before we lose the sense of challenge. But, boy, we were quite spanked by Game 4. TWICE!! Now my concerns are definitely washed away, and I'm sooo excited to go back to the table and beat it for good. This game is so cool!

[@GemmaLouise1712]

I got this game for Christmas and initially I was feeling kind of daunted by all the different elements. Your video has helped me to make sense of it all. Looking forward to playing it now. Thanks!

[@jacqueszachariethaddeuspon4151]

This will forever be one of my comfort videos

[@malixcorvin777]

Cards don't go into your discard pile until your turn is over. You play your cards to the table not into the discard pile. Moving them to the discard pile is one of the last things you do before drawing back up to 5. At the end of your turn you lose any unused coins or attack and then you move your cards to the discard pile. Then draw 5. It prevents you from playing a card and then retrieving immediately to use again. That would be OP.

[@davidarnott6085]

Malix, as I understand it, the cards you *play* don't go into your discard pile until your turn is over, but when Aaron (Neville) was forced to discard at 26:23 from a Dark Arts card, that's an actual discard... as in to the discard pile. But I've certainly been wrong before :)

[@malixcorvin777]

David Arnott not wrong at all Dave! I think I noticed one or two times early in the video when cards were played to the discard pile. But for most of the game you guys played it right. My comment was more of an explanation as to why you don't put them right into the discard pile. I hope you guys really enjoyed this one as it's one of our favorites here too.

[@Subangelis]

Yeah, Lincoln did that a lot.

[@MauriceLapierre]

Alway's fun to watch you play games, Lincoln make a perfect Hairy Potter! 😉

[@gameline146]

when i play ron i focus on allies. using his jelly beans and having several allies can make him to some SERIOUS damage quick. I focus secondly on draw cards to get more allies quicker.

[@TheMexicanSuperman1]

I really want to see them play Game 4-7 and the Box of Monsters Expansion.

[@challiecoppel9022]

at 38 min Aaron should have taken 2 damage from Draco when Lincoln placed the location marker.

[@kurunirek]

This looks nice, first deck builder i think i could like. I like your presentation of games. Both visual and verbal :P

[@lilysiagian]

This is fun, guys. Thanks

[@AlexGidra]

So nice to see you had so much fun playing the game.

[@Jootie_de_Kop]

In my wicked opinion, you missed the opportunity to give Dave a Beatles-wig and let him play Harry Potter. This would have been hilarious. But would have diverted too much attention from the gameplay. So you probably made the right choices after all. Cheers!

[@hewhogetsaway2395]

I love watching you all play games together... At the beginning 0.45... The joke was funny, but watching Aaron mouth Lincoln's lines was funnier :)

[@LucianoHilton]

They're back!! I missed you, guys! Don't be away for that long.

[@dkiprijanovski]

Loved it, and congratz on Season 5! :D As always, LOVED the video and the game itself. It's unavailable where I live, but will make efforts to get to it somehow :D I love the theme and the mechanics too so ... Thank you very much once again! Have a great successful season ... can't wait for more of those SDJ videos (I know they are coming :D ) Cheers!

[@Viriditas87]

YES! I love this game and now you are playing it, you just brightend my day so much.

[@Sweden86]

Its always Nice to see you all play. You all are fun in your inviduel ways... 😂. Your video helps me learn new games and if I will buy . Can you doo another video when you play higer level /years in this game?

[@dtealab]

Good fun guys. This game is far from perfect but its always a treat to play.

[@EscoWoo]

If you are looking to make the game harder, which I find way more fun, take out crabbe and goyle at book 3. And when you get stunned, you can’t do anything but heal others, and buy cards. Waaaaaay more fun. Due to the exploit of crabbe and goyle 😎🤙🏽

[@jamieh4148]

Dave should have bought the polyjuice potion since you already had the best ally in the game in Dumbledoor. Also to address the fact that you are supposed to reset to the 10 cards each game, we use a house rule that lets players keep 1 card from each # game, as if that is the one thing they learned at school that year. It builds your deck without making it too easy.

[@jonettang]

Great play through. There was a technical game glitch (it happens) at 1h10' where Nikki reset her hero to 10 before her turn ended. It is significant because one can't take anymore damage when stunned. And wouldn't have made a difference with the cards in hand that was already discarded and any accumulated influence or attacks have been cleared before the start of her turn.

[@bonsbuns2651]

Great video as always :)

[@snakenation7765]

I'm late, but I appreciate the video all the same!

[@n.talbert]

Finally got around to buying this game. Now let's see how long it can sit on the shelf of shame

[@adamnedoma4312]

Yea Season 5 You are awesome

[@zottleporcupine8722]

Love your videos! Will you be doing a play through for Harry Potter Talisman?? The game seems complicated and there aren’t any decent videos on how to play it ! Your videos always make games seem very straightforward 😀

[@LifeUntilLove]

This is a game I really like and I spent the whole time thinking of strategies and moves. Also, I don't know what they call them in the rules but we call the location markers 'Dark Marks'. That threw me when they were talking about it. Great fun!

[@edwindrood2816]

Fun game!

[@rachfenney12]

Can you play 4,5,6 and 7 as well

[@generalkaiser5030]

I wish i have people to play with

[@RecipeForFun]

Looks like a fun game.

[@andnowinla8402]

My Friends and I have been playing this game for a couple years now and when forced to reveal a card from your deck and we don't have a deck we don't shuffle our discard pile we just say we don't have a deck then at the end of turn when we discard our played hand we then shuffle the entire discard pile

[@daniellelassman6348]

I Love This Game i Wish I have this Game

[@paulbuehler8596]

I wasn't sure about this game, but now I am sold. The only puzzling thing is the health. If you just reset to 10 everytime you get stunned, then what is the real point. I get that you may lose influence and a couple cards, but that doesn't seem like a big deal. In later games, is there a bigger consequence for getting stunned?

[@mhollins]

You also add a token to the location when you are stunned.

[@hondito]

Yeah three characters getting stunned in a row can quickly lead to your downfall if it happens at the wrong time

[@malixcorvin777]

PW Bue this is definitely not a good thing. You get stunned you add a location marker to a location, lose all influence and attack tokens you have banked as well as half of your cards. It can get brutal. You get reset to 10 but the damage and loss could be brutal. Keep in mind these are the early games they're playing. It gets harder and harder but is an amazing game. Plus the expansion comes out in July or August.

[@docdelta]

PW Bue In Game 4 we learned how fast locations can be filled with death markers. And we kept running after healing ali the time. So getting stunned was very bad deal, even resetting health to 10. Also, the villains combined effects on turn start were very punitiva and could easily drop your health by half in just one turn.

[@MoniqueSummers]

I want so much to play a game with you all! :)

[@SpieleBlog]

cool! Need this for my kids ....and for me :-))

[@NolanTrapp]

I know this is years late but I saw Lincoln make a mistake on the 2nd turn. He had the cloak and should have only taken one damage (when he chose not to discard is where I think it happened so it might have been David's turn instead but the point still stands). Cloak is active all 4 turns, not just on his own turn.

[@christalbot210]

Silly question: why did you put the cards that are "in your hand" actually in your hand? Just as the left of the cardboard is your draw pile, right is your discard pile, and top is you character card and turn reminder, below is where your hand is supposed to go so everybody can see each other's hand. i would have thought that would have been better for showing the camera your hand as well. Also, I have a stupid little trick: I put all cards of the same spell in one pile (offset so you can see how many you have). That way, when you get more than five cards from various Draw a Card effects, you have more room to put them in. Mind you, I have had instances of 8 unique cards for my hand.

[@jasonbarager7967]

I was on the fence about this game and happy to see how it's played through. the only thing I didn't like was that stun reset concept. it seems like it makes it harder for the game to beat you later on. so instead of being more of a challenge it becomes more of strategy of when to stun yourself.

[@jasonbarager7967]

p.s. you guys rock. I've watched every episode. can I suggest betrayal on house sequel.

[@papaleguaz]

I don't think this is spoilery, but to be safe, light spoiler warning. At this stage in the game (game 3), sure, the stun concept doesn't seem too bothersome, but later on once you get to games 5 - 7, being stunned could set off a chain reaction for the villains causing them to do a good combo against the players, sometimes filling up a big chunk of the location on a single turn. You start to dread getting stunned.

[@jasonbarager7967]

Cool. Thanks for the reply.

[@angewomon143]

Is it easy to separate the cards back out if you wanna replay from year one?

[@Subangelis]

Yes. They all have which game the card is from printed on them.

[@user-yl2zf7qj1u]

So, I had a quick look at the Co-Op-Playthroughs and made a Little list. Win percentage at the bottom: Shadowrift: W (1/1) Star Wars: L (1/2) Andor: W (2/3) Legendary Marvel: W (3/4) Hanabi: 15 Sentinels of the Multiverse: W (4/5) Geister, Geister...: W (5/6) Freedom: The Underground Railroad: W (6/7) Forbidden Desert: L (6/8) Legendary Encounters - Alien: L (6/9) Pandemic: The Cure: L (6/10) XCOM: L (6/11) The Game: 10 left - "A most excellent game" [I will Count it as a win] (7/12) The Grizzled: L (7/13) Burgle Bros.: W (8/14) Carnival Zombie: L (8/15) Leo goes to the barber: W (9/16) Mmmmmmmm: [2 Plays] W & W (11/18) Pandemic Legacy S1: L (11/19) T.I.M.E Stories: did not Play to the end Star Trek Panic: L (11/20) Arkham Horror Card Game: W (12/21) Pandemic - Reign of Cthulhu: W (13/22) Black Orchestra: L (13/23) Magic Maze: [2 Plays]: W & W (15/25) Harry Potter: W (16/26) 16/26 --> 62%

[@opeth7712]

Don't the dark arts card stack up after each turn? Looking at your game, it seems like you are only using the active one. Can anyone with the game confirm? Thanks

[@Evermore112]

At roughly 31:00 and I'm losing my mind because Dave didn't use his attack. I'm sure it's handled in the next minute or so but AHHHH!

[@spritemon98]

It took my friends 3 days to beat game 3 or four. The one with david Tennant

[@damaddestgamer]

Nice one, good fun.

[@Advocate.bettie]

I have one gripe. The rules say you start each year with your starter cards only. In no other deck building games do you do this. Anyone else notice that? That's like saying you learned this spell but you have to relearn it every year. Deck building not deck rebuilding 😂

[@IronHeel]

At 53 min, Dave didn't discard half his hand for being stunned.

[@midcoregamer7625]

Neville's ability makes him my favorite character to play. That's why it hurt to watch as everyone else snagged up the multiplayer heal effects. But why did no one take the promo card? At this level, losing health is basically inconsequential, especially with Neville's recovery skill.

[@gejyspa]

I'm surprised you let Lincoln take Mrs. Weasley instead of saving it for Aaron, for whom it would be net +4 health

[@audioweasel6997]

Jim Daly did do a great job reading the books..... but the british version was read by Stephen Fry. No contest

[@davidarnott6085]

I agree. Stephen Fry is pretty much awesome in everything he does. Oh, and it's Jim Dale (who was also great in Barnum).

[@smolle8906]

This game is only sold in usa :(

[@blakecurry3880]

At 51 minutes Neville was stunned and you forgot to add to the location. This is a really fun game and I enjoy its progression.

[@michaelask2004]

Blake Curry He also forgot to lose two hearts on account of Draco a couple turns prior. There is a lot to keep track of in this game.

[@georgemoore8987]

Love your videos and I hate to point this out but here it goes. In harry potter hogwarts battle when a player is stunned they lose their turn/remainder of their active turn and you also add a skull/villain token to the location. This is detailed in the large rulebook and it also tells you at the bottom of the thick cardboard plaque where you put you influence and attack.

[@SuperJoe7997]

Actually you don't lose your turn you lose half your cards and all tokens you've saved up

[@Subangelis]

You guys kept reshuffling your discards too early. You only shuffle up when you need to draw or reveal a card from your deck. This caused Nikki not to be able to search through her discards to put a spell into her hand earlier in the game.

[@trdi]

Nice game. And I haven't watched any of the movies or read the books. So one fewer than Aaron.

[@jamieh4148]

It really helps to watch the movies first but isn't necessary.

[@Ahoge-dono]

Neville with Herbology would be overpowered if it wasn't for enemies like Fenrir Greyback and the Basilisk.

[@jahimalnar7978]

DenkitekiKesshiRune I believe that is the primary point among other reasons

[@pawjack]

I got stupidly happy when I saw what you were playing.

[@Minouki82]

Loved the se7en reference at the end “What’s in the booooox”

[@WardNightstone]

WAIT there is GAMENIGHT! merch?

[@WardNightstone]

also fun fact the picture they picked for tom riddle is Frank Dillane who plays Nick Clark on Fear the Walking Dead

[@jacqueszachariethaddeuspon4151]

Thanks gamenight for following me! Can you please reply!!! And can you play game 4-7 pleasse And canyou please play season 2 of zombicide!!!

[@daddyV88]

Yes please!!!!

[@angewomon143]

Zaq Ponce i wanna play this game now

[@Hix108]

First, everyone notes that Peter Pettigrew is not a threat at the beginning of the game, since their decks are not yet full of expensive cards. But moments later they all agree that he is the biggest threat and must be eliminated first....

[@blakecurry3880]

Hix108 if they don't kill him early while they can he becomes remarkably deadly though.

[@angewomon143]

That is the way gamer brains work XD

[@ricksleurink5064]

Lincoln's shirt :D I saw what you did there...

[@jeremyirvin1386]

Rick Sleurink I did not notice his shirt until I read this comment. Now I want one really bad.

[@gabordc97]

As I undesrtood, this is not a player vs player borad game, is it? It think it is a game where the players combat together against the bad ones. Can one player play the rol of villain?

[@Subangelis]

It is a cooperative game, and no, you can't play the villains.

[@angewomon143]

I wonder if this game plays more than four

[@chrstiania]

No. It is just the for characters.

[@Advocate.bettie]

I know it's super cheesey but this is my all time favorite game! Any other games like this anyone can recommend?

[@boardgamegeek]

Elizabeth, there is a game that uses the same system called Toy Story: Obstacles and Adventures the is also from The Op. I haven’t played it yet but I am excited to.-Lincoln

[@martinlarouche4418]

This is a good game... but i found it extremely formulaic. If you played any deckbuilder, you played this one. The boxes offer new stuff, but they are not that exceptional. They don't change the game that much. Even when you open the box with the dice (not a spoiler, they are listed in the list of components), they end up being a really minor element to the game...

[@pawjack]

The game is perfect for two groups of people; fans of the source material and people newer to the genre. I brought this out to play with people who had little to no experience with deck builders and they had a blast. It's also a great way to get people to play a more advanced board game (as opposed to the likes of Monopoly or Life) because of the cooperative nature. It's a lot more difficult I find to get people to try a game if they think I'm just going to steamroll them because I have experience. But yeah. For hardcore groups, this is certainly on the less complicated side. Even though Game 7 gets nuts.

[@TorIverWilhelmsen]

If a formula works, why mess with it? This is formulaic because it targets newcomers to the hobby who will not have played "any deckbuilder". And because the theme is more important than mechanisms. If it works, that is more important than breaking from the formula in a way that feels like "change for the sake of being different".

[@Subangelis]

In Game 7, the dice are not minor.

[@Advocate.bettie]

Ok everyone... depending on whom I am playing with we take our decks to the next game instead of building our deck each year. We do this because logic says we don't forget things we have learned or acquired the year before. Is there a rules for this?

[@Mjscry_2018]

On the back of the mini rules you get from each box it says you do not get to take the cards from the previous game. You shuffle them back into the Hogwarts deck

[@joaorobalo7594]

While that's against the rules, it's always fun to make your own houserules to any boardgame as long as you keep having fun. I'd say taking your entire deck would make the following games both too easy and boring, since you're stuck with whatever strategy you chose in the previous games. What you could try to do is to select only one card per deck, which you can keep in the following game. That could be fun and wouldn't be so overpowered.

[@misterjinxy]

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn

[@improg]

This is such a well-balanced game considering how much luck is involved.

[@angewomon143]

40:15 Aaron was salty

[@Lavoye]

Being stunned is not punishing enough. That game is way too easy. Very hard to lose a game.

[@jtmather]

Lavoye It gets way harder later on. Trust me

[@chrstiania]

What are you talking about? I got killed countless times by the game. My friends and I failed year 4 a few times, we got lucky with year 5 and now were stuck in year 6 again. Depending on the combinations of villains its near impossible to beat the game.

[@floodkevin4716]

@@chrstiania they're probably playing it wrong haha

[@Jindorek]

I'm with Aaron on this one. fun game, no interest in the books or movies.

[@claudeguilbaultdumais7050]

i notice 4 wrong things here but good video!

[@davidarnott6085]

Only 4? :p

[@Subangelis]

@@davidarnott6085 - A big one is not adding a Villain Control Token (that is the real name) to the location when Neville (Aaron) first got stunned around 48:00

[@SuperJoe7997]

Another big one was that at almost the end they used a gains influence and a heart but Neville took an influence and attack

[@stevepruneau6561]

Hmm Not much replayability in this but much fun to play I can see that. So basically 7 hours of gameplay for $50? Am I wrong about this? Only for the Potter fans I guess.. I am one. :D

[@StarfallShadow]

A game with all 7 sets at once can take sometimes as much as 3 hours if you're unlucky and keep getting hammered by the dark arts cards and villains. Also, the Monster Box of Monsters expansion is being released this year which will add in new locations, main deck cards, Monsters (which act differently than villains), dark arts cards, and... LUNA LOVEGOOD as a playable character!

[@jamieh4148]

It is way more than 7 hours and all deck buildering games have replayability because you build differently each time.

[@Ethan-wy3go]

hmm Dave sorta cheated

[@Asaloy]

The theme is great, the gameplay is not.

[@IronHeel]

This game is hot garbage. Avoid it at all costs. It's the Monopoly of deck building games. The game is entirely luck-based - do you have the villain that prevents you from removing locations and you get dark arts cards that add location tokens multiple times? Is the shop frozen with high valued cards that you randomly draw and can't afford because you will only have 5 cards at any one time? What about if the shop is just filled with the many terrible items, or ones that have you draw a card, only for a dark arts card (one of many) to prevent you from doing that? Or what about building up allies, only to have the villain that has you lose two health for each ally in your hand or discard the card? The game is entirely random and is so poorly designed. It's entirely illogical as well... You never get new spells, or more money, can't keep your money from turn to turn. The characters in the books learn more spells each year and get more help from others, yet players get a shitty contextual ability in game 3, but that's it (I stopped playing at year 4). That doesn't even touch on how piss-poor the documentation is, never explaining card interactions or the many other details. The BGG forum is essentially an unofficial addendum to the game. I'm tempted to set my copy on fire, because it's so bad.