Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 30-60 min
Age requirements: 11+
Set-up time: 5 min

The Monster Box of Monsters is the first expansion for Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. It adds more difficulty and more content, including a new Hero to help you and creatures to fight.

Harry Potter: The Monster Box of Monsters Description:

If you have not tried the base game, read my full review of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. This post is going to focus on the new elements introduced in The Monster Box of Monsters expansion.

Though still just for up to four players, you can now play as Luna Lovegood. Like the other heroes she has her own unique starting deck. If you use her you remove her ally card from the Hogwarts deck. There are also new Hero cards for the heroes in the base game.

This expansion also adds Encounters. Encounters add creatures or villains to the game. And if you meet their requirements they trigger negative effects. They resolve after the Dark Arts events.

What would an expansion named for monsters be without some monsters. Creatures have been added. They act the same way as villains but some cards only effect creatures, not villains and vice versa. Some creatures take money to defeat instead of lightning bolts. The twist is that you may only assign one coin per turn and then don’t have that money to spend on new cards.

You can now get detention. Detention cards are dead weight in your deck they don’t help at all. In fact if you discard them when you are to discard a card you lose 2 health.

A couple change help with the game’s flow. You can now cull your deck. Some spells and effects allow you to remove cards from your deck. Once per game one player may forgo buying cards to sweep those available. This can help avoid situations when there is nothing there you can afford.

I don’t want to spoil anything but there is a new setup. Now you add the new cards from a Game box and some additional random villains from the base set and a Lord Voldemort card. After you have played through all four game boxes there are instructions on how to set up future games using all the content up this point.

Quick Review of The Monster Box of Monsters Expansion:

The Monster Box of Monsters Expansion is a good way to ramp up Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. Many people thought the base game was too easy. Well this expansion makes things more difficult. It also ramps up the complexity a bit.

The components for this game are a mixed bag. The artwork and graphics are comparable with those in the base game. But the coloring of the cards is off. You can easily see which cards come from which set. Not a huge deal but annoying none the less. The rules are well written and easy to read and follow.

I like the new content a lot. The ability to cull your deck is great and being able to sweep the cards for purchase is awesome. We played too many gams where the cards available were too expensive so we weren’t able to build good decks to win the base game.

Being able to customize the game going forward is a nice touch too. It adds a bunch of replay value to the series even if this is the last expansion.

If you enjoy Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, you should probably pick The Monster Box of Monsters Expansion up. It adds more content, more difficulty and more fun. It does make the game more complex so if you are a newer gamer be aware of that.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6