I really enjoy the Deck-building boardgame Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, and so for Christmas I also got the expansion pack Monster Box of Monsters. It’s always fun getting more of the game you enjoy, and I was looking forward to trying it out. It adds Luna Lovegood as a playable character, as well as more cards, locations, and entire new mechanics around Monsters, encounters, and even detention.
The basic game is split up into 7 chapters, with each one being based on its respective book. I was surprised by the rules when we opened the box, that said that the 4 new chapters are to be played AFTER you complete Book 7. So we skipped to Book 7 to warm up, which is already incredibly difficult, then added in the first additional box, essentially making it Chapter 8. We immediately noticed some problems.
First, adding in Hogwarts cards. In Book 7, you have 122 Hogwarts Cards that you can purchase and add to your deck. Then, in Box 1 of the Monster expansion, you add 13 cards. That means the new cards make up only 10% of the deck, and there is a good chance you don’t get to play with all of them. I wanted to see all the cool new cards in action!
Then, it’s already taking us about 8 hours to play through the whole game (usually spread over two or three days), and so we rarely would want to keep playing after that.
Lastly, adding in Luna only at this point is strange. We usually keep the characters we’ve been playing the whole time. It’s not like we switch characters around between books.
While those problems can be solved by integrating the games together, I do have to point out one problem that I haven’t been able to solve. While the first Box is themed around Year 1, the second is Year 3, the third is Year 5, and the fourth is Year 4!? Why is it out of order? That takes what could have been a great plan and just slightly ruins it.
How to Incorporate the Monster Expansion into the Core Game
Step 1: Easter Egg In Game 2
This is a very small change. In the second game, replace the Basilisk from the core game to the Basilisk Villain-Creature from the Expansion. It doesn’t change anything else, but makes you ask “What’s a Villain-Creature?”
Step 2: Care of Magical Creatures
In the Third Year, Hogwarts students begin taking the class Care of Magical Creatures, so that is where we will begin to incorporate the Expansion at Box 1. It’s easy enough to add in the Dark Arts cards and the Hogwarts Cards (now 14% of the deck).
We need to first determine how many Locations we should use, and which ones? We don’t want to use all 6, as that makes the game too easy. We do want an extra Location, because we are adding more complexity than the game originally intended. So we will use the 3 Locations from Book 3, then add in the final location of Box 1 (Great Hall). Great Hall has 3 Dark Arts events, but also has 7 tokens for villain control, which is the most of this book. This is how we will manage many of these.
For the Villains and Creatures, we don’t want to add in all of them, because that will make the game longer, which is one of the problems we are trying to avoid. The core game has 8 at this point, but the Monster Expansion says to choose 9. Since we have added 1 Location, I think 9 is an appropriate amount. Make sure to include in those 9, the 4 creatures (Troll, Fluffy, Cornish Pixies, Norbert), the 1 new Villain-Creature (Dementor), and 1 new Villain (Peter Pettigrew). That leaves 3 Villains to be randomly chosen from the previous 2 Books. This allows some variety in the Villains moving forward. We will only have 2 Villains at a time, as it says in the Core game. The Monster Expansion says 3, but again, that is meant to be AFTER you’ve already completed Book 7, which we have not.
For the Encounter cards, we will include them, though we have a bit of a problem here. The second Encounter of Box 1 requires you to roll the House Dice, which don’t get introduced until Book 4! So, if you have purchased an Ally (so not one you start with), you can roll the Dice of the Hogwarts House they are affiliated with, in an attempt to get the token required (Heart and Card) to complete the Encounter. If you don’t get one of the two required tokens, then you play the Ally as normal. You cannot get the standard benefit of the House Dice, it is only for completing the Encounter. If you are unsure what House an ally is affiliated with, or they were not a student at Hogwarts (such as Dobby), they cannot be used to roll the House Dice.
Step 3: Patronuses + Voldemort’s Return
In the Fourth Year, we will add Box 2 to start.
We will also add in the Patronuses that normally aren’t added until Box 3. Now, the reason we are adding them in now, is to balance the pace of Character Upgrades.
- Game 1 – Starting Hero Card
- Game 2 – No Player Bonus
- Game 3 – New Hero Card
- Game 4 – Patronus
- Game 5 – Box 1 Hero Card
- Game 6 – OWL Proficiency
- Game 7 – New Hero Card
Locations – All three Locations from Book 4, adding the final from Box 2 (Whomping Willow).
Villains – We will stick again with only two at a time, with 10 Total. We will have the new cards of Barty Crouch Jr, Death Eater, Scabbers, Werewolf, and the Boggart. Our final villain will be Book 5 Voldemort, which I think fits since the first time Harry fights Voldemort is at the end of the Fourth Year, not to mention the Monster expansion gives us a new and exciting end boss Voldemort, so we have to push him up. We will round out the deck with 4 randomly selected previous Villains and Creatures.
Step 4: Box 1 Abilities
In our Fifth Year we bring in the Box 3 cards to start.
Though, like I mentioned, we will add in the Box 1 Hero Cards. I wasn’t sure if we should bring these in now, or push the Game 7 Hero Cards to here, but looking at the pictures on the Hero Cards, those are clearly the Year 5 versions of our heroes, so the decision was made for me.
Locations – All three Locations from Book 5, adding the final from Box 3 (Giant Clearing).
Villains – 12 Villains, 3 at a Time: Death Eater, Dolores Umbridge, Centaur, Ukrainian Ironbelly, Grawp, Aragog, Book 6 Voldemort, 5 randomly selected.
Step 5: OWL Proficiencies
In Game 6 we add in Box 4 cards. We also add in the OWL Proficiencies here, like normal. This means you do have 3 different Player Ability cards, but the dragons in this book are brutal, and we needed the help for sure.
Locations – The first two Locations from Book 6, the third Location from Box 4 (Mermaid Village), back to the third Location from Book 6 (Astronomy Tower), then the Fourth Location of Box 4 (Triwizard Maze).
Villains – 14 Villains: Chinese Fireball, Swedish Short-snout, Hungarian Horntail, Mermaid, Common Welsh Green, Grindylow, Fenrir Greyback, Bellatrix Lestrange, Book 7 Lord Voldemort, and 5 randomly selected.
Step 6: Ultimate Voldemort
Finally, Game 7 is fairly straightforward, as it is the culmination of the whole game. The only real change is that we are using the Box 4 Voldemort, which requires both attacks, as he is aided by Nagini, who is a creature.
Locations – Keep the Locations the same, as we haven’t added anything from the Monster Expansion.
Villains – 15 Villains: Box 4 Lord Voldemort, and 14 Randomly Selected.
Step 7: The Luna Lovegood Problem
Finally, I want to be able to play Luna Lovegood the entire game! Why wasn’t she given other Hero Cards to incorporate in the earlier books? Rules as Written, you can’t play her until you’ve already beat the 7 books, and my version (so far) you can only play her for Books 5 and 6. That just won’t do. So instead, we will make a Luna Lovegood Hero Card for Books 3, and 7 (Book 1 doesn’t get an ability).
Looking at the Characters, they all seem to have a theme to them.
- Harry – Removing Dark Marks
- 3 – First time Dark Mark is removed each turn, any one Hero gains 1 Power
- 5 – Each time Dark Mark is removed, All Heroes gain 1 Heart
- 7 – First Time Dark Mark is removed each turn, 2 Heroes Each gain 1 Power
- Ron – Assign 3 or more Power and/or Coin
- 3 – Any one Hero gains 2 Hearts
- 5 – All Heroes gain 1 Heart
- 7 – All Heroes gain 2 Hearts
- Hermione – Play 4 or more Spells
- 3 – Any one Hero gains 1 Coin
- 5 – Any two Heroes each gain 1 Power
- 7 – All Heroes gain 1 Coin
- Neville – Healing Begets Healing
- 3 – First time each hero gains Heart on your turn, they get another
- 5 – First time each Hero gains Heart on your turn, they choose another Heart or a Coin
- 7 – Each time a Hero gains Heart on your turn, they get another
- Luna – Draw an Extra Card
- 3 – The first time you draw an extra card on your turn, any one Hero can also draw a card.
- 5 – First time you draw an extra card, any one Hero gains 2 Hearts
- 7 – The first time you draw an extra card on your turn, All Heroes choose: Draw 1 Card or Get 2 Coins.
Slight note on this list, Ron’s Hero Ability should be “Assign 3 or more Power AND/OR Coin” so that it can be consistent throughout the game.
The Nerdd 