Rules
One turn, three phases
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A turn in Defenders of Hogwarts is exactly one Main Action, chosen from three: Explore (play a card to move your pawns), Learn (discard cards to acquire better ones — House Players only) or Replenish (discard and refill your hand to 5, which advances the Dark Arts Marker) [official, p. 16]. The House Player to the Dark Arts Player’s left goes first, then play continues clockwise [official, p. 10].
What a turn contains
A turn is a fixed little ritual [official, p. 16–17]:
- Choose and complete one Main Action — Explore, Learn or Replenish.
- Resolve any Bonus Space your pawn ended its movement on.
- Resolve any number of Free Actions, in any order.
- Put your played cards on your Discard Pile and pass play to your left.
The Dark Arts Player’s turn is embedded in the same clockwise loop, with their own version of each step below [official, p. 21]. Note what is missing for them: the Dark Arts Player has no Learn action at all — their deck grows by bumping House Players and by their own simpler Replenish [official, p. 21].
Explore — play a card, move a pawn
Explore means playing 1 card from your hand and resolving its move and/or effect in whichever order you prefer; the card goes to your Discard Pile when your turn ends [official, p. 16]. A second card is only ever played if the first card’s effect allows it, and only after the first card’s move and effect are fully resolved [official, p. 16].
Movement values come straight off the card corner [official, p. 10, p. 16]:
- A single value, e.g. 4: move one non-stunned pawn up to 4 spaces.
- A double value, e.g. 3 + 3: either move two pawns 3 spaces each, or one pawn up to 6 in total — no other split is allowed.
- You need not use all your movement points, and you cannot backtrack through spaces you already crossed this turn.
- One space means moving to a fully adjacent space — two spaces sharing a complete border or a dotted line.
Protective spells, locked doors and similar barriers stop House pawns; the Dark Arts Player moves through them freely, and if their pawn lands on yours you are bumped and stunned [official]. The Dark Arts Player may also spend 1 movement point to bring an off-board pawn onto an unoccupied Deployment Space [official, p. 20].
Learn — turn discards into new cards
Learn is how House Players escape their identical 7-card starter decks — and it is only available while at least 1 of your pawns stands outside any Protected Area [official, p. 17]. Three options, all restated from p. 17 [official, p. 17]:
- Discard 1 card: take one of the 2 face-up cards in the Acquire Row.
- Discard 1 card, blind: take the top card of the face-down Acquire Deck.
- Discard 2 cards: take one of the 2 face-up cards in the Advanced Acquire Row, and step forward 1 space on the Hogwarts Loyalty Track.
Whatever you take goes face-down on top of your Draw Deck — not into your hand — and the row refills by sliding the remaining cards right and drawing into the leftmost empty space [official, p. 17].
Replenish — refill your hand, feed the enemy
House Player Replenish is three steps, in this order [official, p. 17]: first discard any number of cards (zero is allowed) and draw until your hand holds 5; second, stand up all your stunned pawns; third, advance the Dark Arts Marker 1 space along the Dark Arts Path — and if it lands on an Event Space, that event is resolved right now. You cannot end up with more than 5 cards from a Replenish [official, p. 17].
The Dark Arts Player’s Replenish is two steps — stand up stunned pawns, then draw to 5 — and they may never discard: only House Players can discard cards before drawing [official, p. 21].
Rulebook check
Every House Player Replenish advances the Dark Arts Marker one space, and the marker’s progress is how the Dark Arts Player reaches their win condition [official, p. 22]. In other words, whenever a House Player heals their own hand or wakes their pawns, they also march the enemy along its track. This is the game’s central tension: the more you need to refill, the closer Voldemort’s plan gets — which is exactly why hoarding cards has a cost, and why the Dark Arts Player’s pressure compounds.
Bonus Spaces and Free Actions
Three Bonus Spaces exist, and they only trigger when a House Player pawn ends its movement on one [official, p. 10–11]: Card Acquire (take a row card, blind-draw, or discard 1 card for an Advanced row card plus a Loyalty Track step), Card Draw (draw 1), and Play Again (take another turn). Card draws from effects and Bonus Spaces never stand pawns up or advance the Dark Arts Marker — that is Replenish’s job alone [official, p. 12].
Free Actions can be taken any number of times, before or after your Main Action [official, p. 17]: Use a Hogwarts Token gained on an earlier turn (return it to its space, then immediately Explore with a card of the matching type), or Gain a Parchment Scroll by showing that your pawns satisfy 2 of your 3 House Player Location Cards — which discards those two cards; a first scroll refills your hand of location cards, a second empties it, and 2 scrolls is the per-game cap [official, p. 17].
The three phases at a glance
| Phase | What you do | Key limits | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explore | Play 1 card and resolve its move and/or effect in your chosen order; played cards discard when your turn ends. | One card only unless a card effect chains another; unused movement is lost; no backtracking; Dark Arts pays 1 movement to deploy off-board pawns. | Playing a second card before the first card’s move and effect are fully resolved. |
| Learn | Discard 1 card for an Acquire Row card or a blind top-of-deck draw, or discard 2 for an Advanced Acquire Row card plus 1 Loyalty Track step. | House Players only; needs a pawn outside Protected Areas; acquired cards go face-down on top of your Draw Deck; rows refill from the left. | Paying 2 discards at a Card Acquire Bonus Space — there the Advanced option costs only 1 discarded card. |
| Replenish | Discard any number, draw to a 5-card hand, stand up stunned pawns, advance the Dark Arts Marker 1 space. | Never more than 5 cards in hand from Replenish; marker events resolve immediately; the Dark Arts Player cannot discard at all. | Treating card-draw effects or Bonus Space draws as Replenish — they neither wake pawns nor advance the marker. |
| Free actions | Any number, any order: return a Hogwarts Token and Explore with a matching card type, or trade in 2 satisfied Location Cards for a Parchment Scroll. | Tokens cannot be used the turn they are gained; maximum 2 Parchment Scrolls per player per game. | Spending a Hogwarts Token in the very turn it was picked up. |
Watch each phase explained
Chapter deep links into the official MinaLima how-to-play video (timestamps verified against the video’s chapter markers on 2026-10-12):
- House player turn (4:52)
- House player — Explore (5:06)
- House player — Learn (6:54)
- House player — Replenish (7:34)
Sources
Official rulebook PDF, MinaLima — turn flow p. 10, p. 16–17, Dark Arts turn p. 20–21, Dark Arts Path p. 22: media.minalima.com — Defenders of Hogwarts rulebook. Video and chapter timestamps: MinaLima Design, “How to Play: Defenders of Hogwarts ⚡️”.