Disney movies heroes. However, heroes would be pretty dull, or not even heroes at all, if it were not for the villains. Some of the greatest villains of all time are the Disney Villains. Eight years ago a new game was released that let players take on the roles of these villains. In Disney Villainous, players could play as one of six fiendish and diabolical villains as they competed to be the most…villainous. Since that time, expansions have been released to add an additional 20 villains to the mix. Now more villains make their villainous debut: The Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus in Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing plus Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco and Prince Hans from Frozen in Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost.
What Is Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing?
Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing is a new starter game for the card-based Disney Villainous strategy game. It is designed for 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 20 minutes per player to play. In the game, players take on the role of one of four Disney villains and work to achieve their unique objectives before the other villains. In addition to the Sanderson Sisters which are new to the series, Darkness Brewing also includes three villains that have been released previously: Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Ursula. The game includes a hand management mechanic with some “take that” elements as well. It’s currently available for purchase from local game stores or Target as well as online retailers such as Amazon, with a suggested retail price of $29.99 for a copy of the game, though you can sometimes find it on sale. Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing was designed by Mike Mulvihill and published by Ravensburger, with illustrations by Jason Kang, Eduardo Francisco, Lucas Torquato, Valero Bulfantino, and Yuri Cameirana.
Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing Components
Here is what you get inside the box:
- 4 Villain movers
- 4 Villain decks (30 cards each)
- 4 Fate decks (15 cards each)
- 4 Realm boards
- 4 Villain guides
- 4 Reference cards
- 1 Recipe deck (5 cards)
- 1 Cauldron tile
- 6 Recipe tokens
- 10 Strength tokens
- 40 Power tokens
- 1 Lock token
The villains are represented by their own sculpted movers which are used to show the location where a villain is on their realm. Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing includes four unique movers all with a similar multi-color design that is unique to this set.
Each villain has their own realm made up of locations from their story. Each realm has four locations, each with four symbols for actions which can be taken by the villain when at that location. The realm boards also list the objective for the villain to help remind you what you must do to win the game.
The villain cards are what you use to take control of your realm and work towards your objective. There are four basic types of villain cards in Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing. Allies are characters who help you and can attack heroes that other villains may play on your realm. The number in the bottom left corner is their strength. Items are also placed in your realm and provide lasting effects. Effect and Condition cards are played immediately and then discarded. The number in the upper left corner of a villain card is the cost you must pay in power in order to use that card. Each villain has some interesting and powerful cards.
Fate cards are unique to each villain and are played against you by other villains. Effect and item cards function similarly to those types of villain cards. Hero cards are similar to ally cards in that they represent characters. However, unlike allies, heroes are trying to prevent you from achieving your objective. They also have a strength number in the lower left corner.
Recipe Cards are used by the Sanderson Sisters. They act like a cookbook for making the life potion, one of the objectives of these villains. As they complete various tasks, they collect ingredient tokens they place on the cauldron tile so they can brew the life potion.
There is a villain guide included for each villain that explain in greater detail how that villain can win the game. It also offers tips to help you win and descriptions of how some of the cards in the villain deck work or interact with other cards. It is a good idea to read through the villain guide before you start playing. There is also a QR code on the back with a link to a quick video on how to play that specific villain.
The reference cards are useful reminders to use during play. One side lists all the action symbols from the realm boards and explains each action. The opposite side lists the objectives for each of the four villains to remind you what your opponents must do to win.
Power tokens are used to represent power, which is the currency in the game. There are also strength tokens which can be placed on allies or heroes to represent a modification to the strength listed on their cards due to effects during the game.
What Is Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost?
Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost is a stand-alone expansion for the Disney Villainous series. This expansion can be played by itself with 2 players or added to other Disney Villainous games. It’s currently available for purchase from Target as well as Amazon and other online retailers, with a suggested retail price of $19.99 for a copy of the game. Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost was designed by Mike Mulvihill and published by Ravensburger, with illustrations by Stella Fiorello, Valero Bulfantino, and Yuri Cameirana.
Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost Components
Here is what you get inside the box:
- 2 Villain movers
- 2 Villain decks (30 cards each)
- 2 Fate decks (15 cards each)
- 2 Realm boards
- 2 Villain guides
- 2 Reference cards
- 6 Ernesto photo cards
- 16 Frozen ring tokens
- 15 Strength tokens
- 25 Power tokens
Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost includes two unique movers for the two villains: Ernesto de la Cruz and Prince Hans.
Like all villains, these two have their own realm boards. Prince Hans’ realm actually has two sides: one normal and one with the same locations in their frozen state.
Each of the villains have their own deck of villain cards.
The fate cards for each hero are unique and feature the heroes as well as other characters and actions to play against the villains.
Both of the villains have their own villain guide and a reference card.
In addition to the power and strength tokens used by villains in other sets, Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost includes frozen ring tokens used by Prince Hans to freeze locations within his realm as part of his objectives to win the game.
How to Play Disney Villainous
Ravensburger has created a video to quickly describe the rules for the Disney Villainous series. It can be found here. The rules are the same for which ever set you are playing.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to be the first to fulfill your villain’s objectives.
Setup
At the start, each player chooses a villain and takes that villain’s realm board, mover, villain deck, fate deck, villain guide, and a reference card. Open up the villain board and position it in front of you. Place the mover on the portrait of your villain on the left side. Shuffle our villain deck and place it face down to the left of your realm board. Draw four cards from your villain deck to form your starting hand and place them face down in front of you. Now shuffle the cards in your fate deck and place it face down above your villain deck. Place all of the power tokens in a pile in the in the center of the table so all players can reach it and the strength tokens in a separate pile. Choose which player will go first and give the player going second one power token. Finally, each player reads aloud their villain’s objective to the other players. You are now ready to play the game.
Gameplay
Disney Villainous is played in turns. During each player’s turn, they go through three main steps. First they move their villain move to a different location in their realm. They cannot stay in the same location. Next they perform as many actions as they wish that are available at that location. Finally, if the player has fewer than four cards in their hand, they draw cards from their villain deck until they have four in their hand.
Each location on the villain’s realms has four action symbols. There are seven different types of actions. The Gain Power action lets the player take a number of power tokens from the cauldron equal to the number in the symbol. The Play a Card action allows a player to play one card from their hand. They can play one card for each symbol of this type they have in their current location. First a player must pay the power cost in the upper left corner of the card by returning that many power tokens to the cauldron. Ally and item cards are played to the bottom of the realm at any of the four locations. Effects and condition cards are played and then discarded immediately. The Fate action lets you choose another villain to target. Draw two cards from their fate deck. Choose one to play and then discard the other. If you play a hero card, place it on the top of one of the locations so that it covers and blocks the top two action symbols. While blocked, the villain cannot take an action at that location. Move an Item or Ally lets you take an item or ally already in your realm and move it to another location. Move a Hero lets you move a hero from one location to another in your realm. The Vanquish action lets you defeat a hero at a location where you have one more more allies. The ally must strength equal or greater than the hero in order to remove them from your realm. You can also must multiple allies at the same location as the hero and combine their strength to defeat the hero. Any allies whose strength was used to defeat a hero are discarded. Finally, the Discard cards action lets you discard any number of cards from your hand. This is a good way to get rid of cards you don’t need so you can draw new ones at the end of your turn.
Game End
The game ends as soon as one villain achieves their objective. That player is the winner.
Why You Should Play Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing and Success at Any Cost
The Disney Villainous series is one of my favorite games and I have shared it with many of my friends and family. I also enjoy Star Wars Villainous and Marvel Villainous, separate Villainous lines which are not compatible with each other or Disney Villainous. First off, the Disney Villainous games look incredible and have a classy table presence. The art on each card is original, but based on the movies from which the respective villains came. For example, the art on the Sanderson Sisters’ cards are illustrations and not photo images from the movies. I like how each villain has different objectives and as a result plays a bit differently. The villains in Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing and Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost are no exception.
Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing is a new starter set to help get new players into the game. While Maleficient, Ursula, and the Evil Queen have been available in previous sets, the Sanderson Sisters are new to the series. As mentioned earlier, these witches must brew the life potion and then place it on a hero and defeat that hero to win. The Evil Queen must defeat Snow White to win. However, unlike other villains, she does not have a vanquish action in her locations. Instead at her laboratory, she can brew poison and then personally get heroes to ‘take a bite’ with a villain card. Maleficent’s objective is to cast curses at each location in her realm. Each type of curse can affect that location and provide Maleficent an advantage there. However, fate cards can lift curses. Finally, Ursula must get both the trident and the crown and move them both to her lair location. Like the Evil Queen, Ursula does not have vanquish actions. Instead she plays Binding Contract villain cards to locations and uses them each for a one-time vanquish action against a hero.
Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost also comes with some great villains. Ernesto de la Cruz must eliminate the proof of his crimes against his former friend Hector by turning the six photo cards face down to change the photo of Hector to one of Ernesto. Villain cards help him flip photo cards while fate cards can flip them back. The Miguel hero card can both be helpful or harmful to Ernesto depending on where he is moved to. Prince Hans has a completely different way to win. He must defeat both Anna and Elsa heroes at locations that are fully frozen. To do this, he can use cards and actions to play frozen tokens onto the actions at locations. When all four actions at a location are frozen, that location is considered frozen. If Hans can freeze all 16 actions on his realm, he can flip over the realm to the frozen side. This provides the same actions at each location; however heroes can only cover one action instead of two at a location, providing Prince Hans an advantage.
When playing, it is easy to focus on completing your objectives. However, it is important to also play fate cards as often as possible against your opponents. That is where the interaction between the players really takes place. Nothing can be more satisfying, or frustrating, is when a fate card wrecks a carefully laid plan–especially when getting close to winning. Playing fate cards requires some strategy of its own as you try to determine which of the two cards you draw will have a greater effect on your opponent.
The villains from Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing and Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost can be added to any of the other sets. These two sets bring the total number of villains in the series up to 29! (if you have the Queen of Hearts and Jafar which were included in the very first game of the series, Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes All). By adding more villains, you can also bring the number of players up to six for a single game. I have found that while a two-player duel is fun, adding one or more players can make things more interesting. Sometimes in a two-player game, when a player gets close to winning, it can be tough for one opponent to stop them. However, with multiple opponents, there is a greater chance to prevent them from completing their objectives.
I really enjoyed playing as all of these villains. The new villains are great additions to the line-up of villains. Each plays differently and has great interactions among their cards. If you have never played Disney Villainous, then Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing is a great place to start with its four heroes. Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost can also be a great way to get into the game. It is considered an expand-alone game since you can play it with two players by itself or use it to expand the series. If you already have some of the series of games, then I highly recommend adding Disney Villainous: Success at Any Cost to your collection. For those who already have the three returning villains in Disney Villainous: Darkness is Brewing, you can purchase the Sanderson Sisters by themselves in the single villain expansion Disney Villainous: Come We Fly! which is available from Amazon and other retailers for around $14.99. My family and friends love this series and I am sure you will too!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
