The 35 mistakes we filed

Almost every rules argument in Defenders of Hogwarts traces back to one of 35 traps — misread turns, misfired effects, and the bump/stun mix-up above all. Each is filed below in one blockquote: the wrong reading first, then the rulebook’s answer, restated in our own words [official]. BoardGameGeek’s Rules subforum for this game is empty, so this page is the running errata nobody official maintains — file yours in your house rules and move on.

Moving around

Mistake 6

Splitting a “3 + 3” card as 2 spaces with one pawn and 4 with the other. The rulebook allows exactly two readings — move 2 pawns 3 spaces each, or move 1 pawn up to 6 in total. No other split exists, and you never have to spend all of it [official, p. 16].

Mistake 13

Walking Dark Arts pawns into a Protected Area. They cannot enter one, not even to pass through — the blue-shield-icon spaces are absolute no-go ground for the dark side [official, p. 10].

Mistake 14

Cutting across castle walls. The walls are a hard boundary for every player, House and Dark Arts alike; only the marked red dotted lines act as doors in and out of the castle [official, p. 10].

Mistake 15

Letting the Dark Arts Player use Secret Passageways. All 3 passageways are House-Player-only, and even for them a card effect must allow the crossing [official, p. 10].

Mistake 16

Flying through a Secret Passageway for free. Crossing one counts as 1 movement point, on top of whatever else the played card allowed [official, p. 10].

Mistake 17

Paying movement to travel between Fly Off Points. The hop from any Fly Off Point to any other costs nothing — but only if a card effect permits the flight in the first place [official, p. 10].

Mistake 31

Doubling back over a space your pawn already crossed this turn, or ending its move where it began. Backtracking is banned outright — route each move as one continuous, one-way path [official, p. 10].

Playing cards

Mistake 10

Using a Hogwarts Token in the same turn you picked it up. It cannot be spent that soon — gain it now, use it from your next turn onward [official, p. 11, p. 17].

Mistake 11

Spending a Hogwarts Token to play any card you like. The free Explore must use a card of the same type as the returned token — a Charms token unlocks a Charms card, nothing else [official, p. 11].

Mistake 12

Treating a Hogwarts Token as a permanent upgrade. Every use returns the token to its own space on the board; merely holding it does nothing [official, p. 11].

Mistake 32

Resolving every card effect as if it were mandatory. Effects are optional unless the card’s wording says they must be resolved — you decide, card by card [official, p. 16].

Learning & decks

Mistake 2

Reading Replenish as “draw 5 cards.” It refills your hand to 5 — you cannot end the action holding more than 5, and discarding down first is always allowed [official, p. 12, p. 17].

Mistake 3

Letting the Dark Arts Player discard before drawing on their Replenish. Only House Players can discard cards; the Dark Arts Player draws to 5 and keeps everything they hold [official, p. 12, p. 21].

Mistake 4

Advancing the Dark Arts Marker when the Dark Arts Player Replenishes. Their own Replenish moves nothing — the marker advances only when a House Player Replenishes, when an event card instructs it, or when every House Marker is held at once [official, p. 22].

Mistake 5

Treating a card-draw effect or a Card Draw Bonus Space as a mini-Replenish. Plain draws neither stand stunned pawns up nor advance the marker — only the Replenish action does both [official, p. 12].

Mistake 7

Slipping newly acquired cards straight into your hand. Every acquired card goes face-down on top of your Draw Deck — you will see it when you draw it, not before [official, p. 17].

Mistake 8

Refilling the Acquire Rows from the right. Slide the surviving cards right, then draw from the Acquire Deck into the leftmost empty space [official, p. 17].

Mistake 9

Paying 2 discards for an Advanced card at a Card Acquire Bonus Space. Only the Learn action charges 2 for the Advanced Acquire Row — the Bonus Space’s advanced option costs just 1 discarded card [official, p. 10–11, p. 17].

Stuns & bumps

Mistake 18

Swapping the bump and stun resolutions because some reviews use the words loosely. A bump — the Dark Arts pawn lands on yours — sends your pawn to the Great Hall and theirs back to the pool. A stun — you land on theirs — lays both pawns sideways, and you relocate theirs to any adjacent space you choose [official, p. 16, p. 21].

Mistake 19

Drawing from the Dark Arts Acquire Deck after every bump in a busy turn. The draw-2-keep-1 step resolves once per turn, no matter how many House pawns got bumped [official, p. 21].

Mistake 20

Skipping the House Marker after a bump — or forgetting what it fuels. Every bump takes the victim’s marker, and the moment all markers are held, the Dark Arts Marker must advance 1 space and every marker is handed back [official, p. 21].

Dark mechanics

Mistake 21

Deploying onto an occupied Deployment Space — including one holding a stunned Dark Arts pawn. A stunned pawn still occupies its space, so the deployment is illegal [official, p. 20].

Mistake 22

Bringing an off-board Dark Arts pawn in for free. Deployment costs 1 movement point, paid out of the played card’s movement value [official, p. 20].

Mistake 23

Resolving a Dark Arts card’s colour effect before its zone is reached. Until the marker gets there, the effect is ignored when the card is played — it still moves pawns, it just does nothing extra [official, p. 21].

Mistake 24

Reaching back into an old zone’s Event Cards after the marker moves on. Once the marker enters a new colour zone, the previous zone’s Event Cards are unusable for the rest of the game [official, p. 22].

Mistake 25

Taking a zone’s Progress Token and the Event Card’s benefit together. On each Event Space it is one or the other — choose [official, p. 22].

Mistake 26

Rushing past a zone without claiming its Progress Token. Each zone’s token must be taken before the marker advances into the next zone — no sprinting to the red zone with pockets empty [official, p. 22].

Mistake 27

Cancelling the event’s House half by taking the Progress Token. The House Players resolve their half first, and the Dark Arts Player’s choice does not undo it [official, p. 22].

Shields & winning

Mistake 1

Playing the four houses as one co-op team against the Dark Arts Player. There is no co-op mode: the rulebook’s win text is singular, and a rulebook-credited design consultant confirmed on BGG that it is “a competitive deck building game (1 Winner)” with the House Players racing each other too [official, p. 5; BGG — design team reply].

Mistake 28

Assuming space 5 on the Loyalty Track always yields the Dark Detector. You must also be the furthest-ahead pawn on the whole track — a tie on the same space goes to whoever reached space 5 or beyond first [official, p. 18].

Mistake 29

Handing over the Dark Detector and keeping your track position. Trading it for a shield moves your pawn 3 spaces back down the track, and the detector returns to the side board — or straight to any rival already at space 5 or beyond [official, p. 18].

Mistake 30

Treating the Room of Requirement as permanent. It closes and leaves the board the moment every House pawn sits below Loyalty space 5 — and any pawn inside is stuck there until the room is revealed again [official, p. 19].

Housekeeping

Mistake 33

Ending your turn the instant your hand is spent. The full sequence still has to run — Main Action, then any Bonus Spaces your pawn landed on, then any number of Free Actions, then the Discard Pile and pass left [official, p. 16–17].

Mistake 34

Replenishing after the Dark Arts Marker reaches the path’s last space. From that point nobody Replenishes again — but card effects and Bonus Space draws still work, so hands keep circulating [official, p. 22].

Mistake 35

Celebrating the moment the marker reaches the final space. It only triggers the endgame phase — the Dark Arts Player still needs their pawns at the location, or the final hands get played out to a win or a draw [official, p. 22–23].

Rulebook check

Two spots the rulebook itself never settles — whether a final-phase hand keeps, replaces or counts your existing cards, and whether the card Conspire’s deploy effect costs a movement point — are flagged honestly rather than ruled on, in our Rules FAQ. If your group house-rules them, write the decision down and use it all game [our analysis].

Sources

Official rulebook PDF, MinaLima — turn and movement rules p. 10–22, glossary p. 25: media.minalima.com — Defenders of Hogwarts rulebook. Single-winner confirmation by Theofilos Koutroubis (rulebook-credited Development Consultant): BGG thread 3731440. Loose “bump” usage observed in: One Board Family review.