Board & components
The board: zones and barriers
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The game is played on two boards: a main board showing the Hogwarts castle and its grounds (adapted for play, not a film map), and a side board holding the two progress tracks — the Hogwarts Loyalty Track and the Dark Arts Path [official, print pp.4, 7]. Everything else on the main board is zoning: spaces that block movement, spaces that trigger effects, and a handful of shortcuts that only one side can use. This page walks each zone by function. The full piece list lives on Everything in the box, and the printed locations get their own honesty-first page at Locations: what’s actually printed.
The main board: castle and grounds
The board is a single continuous map. Spaces are separated by white lines you may cross freely; red lines mark the castle’s entrances and exits; and the castle walls themselves cannot be crossed by anyone, house or Dark Arts [official, print p.10].
Along the board’s edge run letters and numbers — a grid coordinate system used to pinpoint the spaces depicted on Location Cards [official].
Common mistake
MinaLima’s own board illustrations carry lettered markers (A, B, C…) — these label setup steps, not grid coordinates. The confusion isn’t ours alone: one third-party wiki explicitly warns that the letters on the publisher illustration “label setup steps, not grid coordinates” [second-hand]. The real coordinates are the letter–number pairs printed along the board’s edge.
One rulebook wrinkle to flag while you read the map: the movement chapter defines 1 space of movement as moving to “a fully adjacent space” sharing “a full border”, while the glossary defines adjacency as spaces sharing “a white or red dotted line” [official]. The two phrasings don’t say quite the same thing at edges and diagonals; we track that discrepancy on the Rules FAQ.
The zones, functionally
| Zone | Where | Count | What it does | Rulebook |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Hall | Castle | 1 | Start and respawn: three pawns from each house begin here, and pawns bumped by the Dark Arts return here. | pp.6, 21 |
| Library | Castle | 1 | Arrive without a Library Book Card and take one of the two face-up books on the side board (limit 1 each). | p.11 |
| Protected Areas | Castle & grounds | 4 | Blue-shield safehouses — a Dark Arts pawn can never pass through or end its move on one. | p.10 |
| Defence Shield Spaces | Castle & grounds | 6 | End a move here holding the printed 3-item set to claim the shield — two shields win the game. | pp.5–6, 18 |
| Hogwarts Token spaces | Castle & grounds | 7 | Land here to pick up the subject token (hold 1 at a time); usable as an extra Explore from your next turn. | p.11 |
| Bonus Spaces | Castle & grounds | Not totalled | End a move here as a house pawn: acquire a card, draw a card, or take another turn. | pp.10–11 |
| Dark Detector icon spaces | Castle & grounds | Not totalled | End a move here and your Loyalty Track pawn advances 1 space. | p.12 |
| Deployment Spaces | Grounds | 4 | Dark Mask spaces where Dark Arts pawns re-enter the board from the pool, at a cost of 1 movement point. | pp.6, 20 |
| Fly Off Points | Castle & grounds | Not totalled | With a card authorising it, any pawn jumps from one to any other — free of movement cost. | p.10 |
| Secret passageway endpoints | Castle & grounds | 3 × 2 | Colour-matched tunnels — house players only, by card effect, 1 movement point per crossing. | p.10 |
| Room of Requirement | Attached to main board | 1 | Separate piece added only while revealed; entering grants a D.A. Coin (limit 1). | pp.12, 19 |
| Hogwarts Loyalty Track | Side board | 7 spaces | The house race meter — space 5 or higher wins you the Dark Detector and opens the Room. | pp.18–19 |
| Dark Arts Path | Side board | 3 colour zones | The villain’s clock — event spaces, Progress Tokens and the 3/2/1 pawn win condition. | pp.22–23 |
The four barriers
House pawns cannot cross any of the four obstacle types unless the card played for that movement says they can. Dark Arts pawns ignore all of them [official, print p.10].
| Barrier | Starter card that passes it | Dark Arts pawns |
|---|---|---|
| Locked Doors | Alohomora (3) | Pass freely |
| Protective Spells | Partis Temporus (3) | Pass freely |
| Physical Objects | Strengthening Solution (3) | Pass freely |
| Water | Gillyweed (3) | Pass freely |
The design consequence is spatial: which barriers you can cross on a given turn depends on which of those cards is still in your hand or draw deck — the map’s difficulty is dealt to you, not printed on it [our analysis]. Acquire cards like Filch’s Keys (2 + 2, locked doors) extend the same toolbox.
Shortcuts and safehouses
- Secret passageways — three of them, in red, green and blue. Each connects two otherwise non-adjacent spaces, marked by matching colour icons at both ends. Only house players can use them, only via a specific card effect, and a crossing counts as 1 movement point [official, print p.10]. Dark Arts pawns never use them — the tunnels are the houses’ private geometry [our analysis].
- Fly Off Points. With a card that allows it, any pawn — either side — moves from one Fly Off Point to any other, at no movement cost at all. The icons distinguish points inside the castle from points outside [official, print p.10].
- Protected Areas — four of them. Blue shield icons mark spaces a Dark Arts pawn can neither pass through nor end on. The rulebook’s own example is Hagrid’s Hut, and its worked example states the point plainly: a pawn inside is protected from being bumped [official, print p.20]. In a game where bumps reset you to the Great Hall, these four spaces are the only guaranteed parking.
Rulebook check
Bumping is asymmetric. A Dark Arts pawn finishing its move on a house pawn sends that pawn back to the Great Hall; a house pawn finishing on a Dark Arts pawn stuns both pieces sideways. Protected Areas block the first kind of collision entirely, which is why the four blue-shield spaces matter more than they look [official, print pp.16, 21].
Spaces that trigger things
- Bonus Spaces trigger only when a house pawn ends its move on them, never mid-route, and never for the Dark Arts [official, print pp.10–11]. Three effects: Card Acquire (from the Acquire Row, the deck’s top, or — spending a discard — the Advanced Acquire Row plus a Loyalty step), Card Draw, and Play Again, which grants another full turn.
- Dark Detector icon spaces do nothing on arrival except nudge: end your move there and your pawn on the Loyalty Track advances one space [official, print p.12].
- Defence Shield Spaces hold six shields — three that demand a Dark Detector, three that demand a D.A. Coin — set face-up at setup. Land on one while holding its printed three-item set (Library Book Card + Parchment Scroll + Detector or Coin) and you swap the set for the shield. Two shields, any mix, wins instantly [official, print pp.5–6, 18, 23].
- Deployment Spaces are the grounds’ four Dark Mask spaces — the only doors through which Dark Arts pawns re-enter play, at 1 movement point per deployment, never onto a space already holding a Dark Arts pawn, stunned pieces included [official, print pp.6, 20].
The side board: the two races
The side board carries the game’s two meters — one per side.
The Hogwarts Loyalty Track is a 7-space track, one pawn per house, that measures your school spirit. You advance it three ways: ending a move on a Dark Detector icon space, playing a card effect that says so, or discarding 2 cards to buy from the Advanced Acquire Row [official, print p.18]. Space 5 is the hinge: the first pawn at space 5 or higher and furthest along immediately takes the Dark Detector — the only copy in the box — and the first arrival at 5+ also reveals the Room of Requirement for the whole table. Contesting it is legal: land on the space of the player holding the Detector and they hand it over, retreat 1 space and draw a card. Spending the Detector on a shield costs you 3 spaces back down the track [official, print p.18].
The Dark Arts Path is the villain’s road: three colour zones (white, orange, red), each dotted with event spaces and holding one Progress Token — Giant, Acromantula, Dementor, which must be taken before advancing into the next zone [official, print p.22]. The marker moves only when a house player Replenishes, when an event says so, or when the Dark Arts player holds every House Marker at once [official, print p.22] — the tension engine: the houses’ own refuelling advances the threat. Deeper in the red zone, the Dark Arts win condition gets cheaper: 3 pawns delivered to the Location, then 2, then 1. When the marker reaches the path’s last space, everyone draws to 5 and Replenish is off for the rest of the game; whatever happens next decides the match [official, print pp.22–23].
The Room of Requirement bridges the two boards: a separate piece placed onto the main board only when any house pawn reaches Loyalty space 5, paying out a D.A. Coin to each entering house player, and removed again if every house pawn falls below 5 — with any pawn inside stranded until the room returns [official, print pp.12, 19].
Sources
- Official rulebook — board composition, movement chapter, Loyalty Track, Dark Arts Path, Room of Requirement (print pp.4–12, 18–23): media.minalima.com rulebook PDF
- Third-party fan-wiki location index (archived copy, reviewed 2026-10-12 — consulted only to cross-check the setup-steps/coordinates confusion; no link because we cannot verify its original address).