Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – Defence Against the Dark Arts Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Set Up
  • Sort and Distribute the Contents
  • Separate the Hogwarts Cards into Four Decks
• Gameplay
  • Information on Ally cards
  • Information on Item and Spell cards
  • Resolve Hex Cards
  • Play Hogwarts Cards to Generate Effects
  • How to Apply Attack and Health Effects
  • Use Influence to Acquire New Cards
  • House Effects
  • Banishing
  • End Your Turn
  • Stunning a Player
• End of Game
• Contents

Set Up

Sort and Distribute the Contents

• 4 House cards
• 8 House movers
• Practice Mat
• 8 Attack tokens
• 5 Stun tokens
• 8 Health tokens
• 14 Influence tokens
• 31 Hex cards
• 8 Book cards
• 24 Starting cards
• All cards have the same back — 121 Hogwarts cards

Place the Practice Mat lengthwise between both players, with the tokens nearby. Each player chooses a House (you may choose the same House). Place the associated House card in front of you and the House mover on the START space on your side of the Practice Mat.

Separate the Hogwarts Cards into Four Decks

1. Hogwarts cards — Shuffle the Hogwarts cards. Reveal the top four cards of the deck, place them face up along the side of the Practice Mat to form the Classroom.
2. Hex cards — Place shuffled Hex cards face down. When a card directs a player to put a Hex in their discard pile or hand, draw from this stack.
3. Book cards — Stack Book cards face up to form the Library next to the Practice Mat. You may acquire these cards any time you would acquire cards from the Classroom.
4. Starting deck — Each player takes 7 Alohomora! cards, 1 Wand card, 1 Cauldron card and chooses one of the three Starting Ally cards: either a Cat, a Toad or an Owl. Return the other Ally cards to the box. Shuffle and stack your 10-card deck face down, then draw 5 cards into your hand.

You are now ready to learn how to defend yourself.

Gameplay

Information on Ally cards

1. House Identifier — Only on select cards. For game balance, not all Allies are tagged with a House.
2. Ally Name
3. Ability — A recurring effect gained on each of your turns as long as the Ally is in play on your side.
4. Value — Amount of Influence you must spend to acquire it.

Information on Item and Spell cards

1. Card Type — Either Item or Spell. Some effects may reference these types.
2. Card Name
3. Card Effect — Gained when you play the card.
4. House Effect — Additional effect gained if you chose the indicated House card or have an Ally in play with that House Identifier (See House Effects below.)
5. Value — Amount of Influence you must spend to acquire it.

On your turn play the cards in your hand to generate effects.

Resolve Hex Cards

Neither player will start with these, but they can be acquired by the effects of some Hogwarts cards. Simply take the top card from the Hex deck and place it in either your hand or discard pile as directed.

Hexes must always be resolved first on your turn when you have one (or more) in hand. If you draw a Hex later during the turn, it must also be resolved immediately. After resolving Hexes, they are set aside just like other cards you play, and are placed into your discard pile at end of turn.

Note: Hexes cannot be discarded when you are directed to discard a card unless the directive states to discard a card at random. Additionally, a Hex cannot be banished on the same turn it is resolved, since it is no longer in your hand and not yet in your discard pile.

Play Hogwarts Cards to Generate Effects

There are three main types of Hogwarts cards—Item, Spell, and Ally. When you play Spells and Items, you immediately generate their effects, which usually consist of gaining Attack, Influence, Health, and drawing cards. As you play these cards, set them to the side to indicate that they have been played. When you play an Ally, place the card in front of you. Ally cards generate effects that you may use on each of your turns including the turn you play them. Ally cards are not discarded at the end of your turn.

How to Apply Attack and Health Effects

• Slide your opponent's mover back one space toward the edge of the Practice Mat for each Attack, discarding the tokens.
• Slide your mover forward one space toward the center of the Practice Mat for each Health, discarding the tokens. Note: a player may not advance past their START space on the mat.

Attack and Health tokens are included to help keep track of these effects. However, these are not required for game play as the effects can be resolved immediately.

EXAMPLE: On this turn you have a Cauldron, Severus Snape, Bombarda!, and two Alohomora! Cards.

1. Place your Severus Snape Ally card in front of you. It is now available for the rest of the round of the duel, and will not be discarded at the end of the turn. You may now use any Slytherin House Effects in addition to Gryffindor House Effects (see House Effects below).
2. Gain two Attack from Severus Snape and one Attack from Bombarda! Use all Attack gained to slide back your opponent three spaces on the Practice Mat.
3. Using the Bombarda! Card, also banish the Sleeping Draught from the Classroom (see Banishing below).
4. Gain two Influence for your Alohomora! Cards. Since you are on your START space, use your Cauldron to gain one more Influence. Use your three Influence to acquire the Chocolate Frog card from the Classroom, placing it in your discard pile.

Use Influence to Acquire New Cards

Use your Influence to acquire new Hogwarts cards from the face up cards available in the Classroom or Library. When you acquire new Hogwarts cards, place them in your discard pile unless otherwise directed. Immediately replace the acquired card with the top card from the Hogwarts deck. This means a player can spend some of their Influence to acquire a card, see what new card becomes available, and continue to acquire cards.

Note: The Library has a finite stack of book cards available. Book cards cannot be banished, they are always returned to the Library.

House Effects

Some cards are color coded and have a House crest in the upper-left corner. Allies, Items and Spells will be identified this way, but since Ally cards work differently than Items and Spells let's look at them first.

At the start of the game you chose a House. This choice allows you to gain the additional effects of the Items and Spells affiliated with your House. To gain the additional effects of other House-affiliated cards you will need to acquire an Ally identified with that House. Once you have an Ally in play with a House Identifier you have the aid of that House-affiliated Ally.

You will notice that Item and Spell cards with a House Identifier have two effects. You ALWAYS get the first effect. The additional effect listed at the bottom of the card is triggered when you play a card affiliated with your chosen House or have an Ally with that House Identifier.

For example, if a Hufflepuff player has the Ravenclaw-affiliated Cho Chang as an Ally in play and plays the Crystal Ball card, they gain the 2 Influence as the extra Ravenclaw effect, in addition to the main effect on the card.

Banishing

Banishing allows you to remove cards from the game. In most instances banishing cards is an optional effect. Take a card from the directed location (player's hand, discard pile, or Classroom), and place it face up next to the Banished section of the Practice Mat. This allows you to remove undesirable cards like Hexes or weaker Starting cards as you work to improve your dueling prowess. When a card is banished from the Classroom, immediately replace it with the top card of the Hogwarts deck.

End Your Turn

After playing cards and taking actions including attacking your opponent or regaining lost health, do the following at the end of your turn.

1. Place all Item, Spell and Hex cards in your discard pile. You cannot save these cards for your next turn.
2. Leave all Ally cards in play on your side. You can use these cards on each of your subsequent turns.
3. Discard any unused tokens to the pool.
4. Draw five new cards. Only shuffle your discard pile when you need to draw and your deck is empty.

Stunning a Player

If you can slide your opponent's marker onto the stun space, you win this round. Your opponent takes a Stun token and places it on an open space on their House card. (You may still continue to play and acquire cards to finish your turn.)

To reset and prepare for the next round, each player shuffles all their cards in play (Allies), hand, deck, and discard pile to create fresh decks that includes all of the cards acquired in the previous rounds. Both players return their movers to the START space on their side of the Practice Mat and draw a hand of five cards. The player who was stunned chooses who goes first in the next round.

End of Game

Game play continues until a player has received their third stun token. The player who stunned their opponent three times wins.

Contents

• 1 Practice Mat
• 4 Oversized House cards
• 8 House movers
• 2 Bases
• 24 Starting cards (14 Spells, 4 Items, 6 Allies)
• 31 Hex cards
• 129 Hogwarts cards (72 Spells, 35 Items, 22 Allies)
• 5 Stun tokens
• 30 Chip pieces (14 Influence tokens, 8 Attack tokens, 8 Health tokens)