Hogwarts Defenders
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Same money, other games

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On this page
  1. What Defenders actually costs
  2. The shortlist
  3. The one-vs-many peers
  4. The deck-building neighbours
  5. Where Defenders genuinely wins
  6. Reading the prices honestly

Defenders of Hogwarts asked £58, £115 or £280. The honest comparison: at £58 you get the complete game — and the same money buys finished, better-rated titles such as Clank! or Hogwarts Battle. The £115 and £280 tiers mostly buy artwork and collectibles, not more gameplay. The price bands below are indicative [retail prices vary — indicative]; the complexity figures are BoardGameGeek weights [BGG, 2026-10-12].

Scope note: we have not played the games listed here; this page reasons from published BGG data, the official rulebook and the official price and FAQ record — it is a value comparison, not a review.

What Defenders actually costs

Three anchors before any comparison [official]: the campaign tiers were £58 / £115 / £280 plus shipping and taxes; the recommended retail price for the base game is £75 including UK VAT; and the retail product contains none of the Kickstarter exclusives. So “same money” here means the tier you would have chosen, not the future shop price.

The shortlist

Alternative buys by budget bracket — indicative price bands, BGG weight and rank checked 2026-10-12 [BGG; retail prices vary — indicative]
PickTypical UK priceWeightBGG rankBracketWhy it competes
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle£35–£502.08466≈ £58The co-op HP deck-builder the licence is known for — usually for less than Defenders.
Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure£30–£452.23105≈ £58Deck-building plus board movement — Defenders’ closest mechanical cousin, shorter and cheaper.
Tyrants of the Underdark£40–£552.56167≈ £58Deck-building fused with area control, with a much larger card pool.
Not Alone£20–£302.00985≈ £58One-vs-many in about 30 minutes — the light entry to Defenders’ signature structure.
Whitehall Mystery£20–£302.13759≈ £58Hidden-movement cat-and-mouse that fits on a weeknight.
Fury of Dracula (fourth edition)£50–£703.28411≈ £58–£115The full one-vs-many production — same 2–5 player count, far deeper rules.
Azul£25–£351.7799≈ £58The “beautiful object on the table” alternative at a third of the price.
Ticket to Ride£35–£451.82263≈ £58The default family buy in exactly Defenders’ weight class — and quicker.
Horrified£30–£402.02247≈ £58Light co-op against classic monsters — for groups who genuinely want to team up.
Dune: Imperium£50–£703.086≈ £115Deck-building plus board conflict at award-winning depth — one box, top ten.
Lost Ruins of Arnak£45–£602.9330≈ £115Explore a map while building your deck — the closest structural sibling to Defenders’ pitch.
Root£45–£603.8434≈ £115What “asymmetric” means when every faction truly plays differently.
Star Wars: Rebellion£70–£903.7510≈ £115–£280The ceiling for asymmetric one-vs-two cat-and-mouse with a licence.
Star Wars: Imperial Assault£60–£803.3088≈ £280The classic one-against-many campaign — core box plus expansions costs about a Collector tier.
Mage Knight Board Game£60–£804.3839≈ £280The hardcore deck-building epic the other end of Defenders’ weight spectrum.

The one-vs-many peers

If Defenders’ hook is “one player against the table”, two games bracket that genre neatly [BGG]: Not Alone (weight 2.00, rank 985) proves the tension in half an hour for a quarter of the price, and Fury of Dracula (3.28, rank 411) delivers the full hunter-versus-monster production Defenders gestures at. Both, notably, weigh more than Defenders’ 1.33 despite the genre’s reputation for heaviness. And unlike Fury of Dracula, Defenders has no hidden movement: everything is on the table, so the drama comes from bumps and stuns on the board rather than deduction. If the shape is what appeals, Not Alone is the cheap experiment before any £115 decision.

The deck-building neighbours

Among deck-builders, Clank! (rank 105) is the direct comparison — cards drive movement on a shared board — and Dune: Imperium (rank 6) and Tyrants of the Underdark (rank 167) show the genre with much larger card pools. Defenders runs deliberately lean: you typically play one card per turn, and the whole shopping pool is 42 house cards plus 20 Dark Arts cards [official rulebook]. Players who want the deck-building itself to be the meal will notice the difference immediately.

Where Defenders genuinely wins

Versus our analysis

Defenders’ unique angle is collection value: a single coherent MinaLima artwork set — gold-foiled board, 100+ illustrated cards — plus Kickstarter-exclusive upgrades that, per the official FAQ, will never be part of any retail product. Mechanically, cheaper options exist and rate higher. If you want the art, no alternative sells it; if you want the game, the £58 tier already contained all of it. The £115 and £280 tiers are collectible pricing, not content pricing — exactly the critique Bower’s Game Corner made in its campaign-period D- review of the add-on prices [second-hand review].

That is also why this page is text only: no photo of a rival game’s box makes a price argument, and we keep unlicensed images out of our sourcing altogether.

Reading the prices honestly

The bands above are typical UK street-price shapes, not quotes — retail prices vary [indicative], and we have not verified a US price for Defenders at all. The base game reaches select House of MinaLima shops in autumn 2026, with wholesale retail following in 2027 [official FAQ] — and the retail box omits every exclusive, which changes the “same money” maths in Defenders’ favour if the artwork is what you’re paying for. For the full cost picture including shipping and taxes, see Landed cost — the real total.

Sources

Related reading

Against the other HP gamesHogwarts Battle, DADA and the whole licensed shelf, compared.Is it worth it? Our honest verdictWhere Defenders earns its price — and where it doesn't.Retail vs Kickstarter at a glanceWhy the retail box will contain less than any pledge tier.Landed cost — the real totalTier price plus shipping plus taxes, by region.