Lego is a fond childhood memory for most people. That might be quite an overbearing statement, but when you consider that by 2015 over 600 billion Lego parts had been manufactured it might not seem so farfetched – at the time it was almost 100 Lego parts per person on Earth! The business launched a Lego Board Games series in 2009, the idea was that children would build the board game, then play with it for longevity. It is a great idea on the surface, let’s see how well it worked out.
Table of Contents
- Heroica: Fortaan
- Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts
- Lego Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
- Minotaurus
- Lego Creationary
- Kokoriko
- What Have We Learnt About Lego Board Games?
Heroica: Fortaan
The Heroica series is probably Lego’s most successful foray into the board game world. They are mostly dungeon crawler type fantasy-themed games. Every game is stand alone, but they can also be put together to create a larger game.
Fortaan is probably the most well received game of the series. The games are aimed at younger children with simple rules and simple objectives – a game will last around 5 minutes so you are spending the majority of your time building the game itself.
Movement and Gameplay is determined through dice throws. There is a 50/50 chance to take damage on any given roll and 2/3 chance to kill most monsters. Thankfully there are health potions spread across the level to make sure your character does not die.
The ultimate aim of Fortaan is to defeat the Goblin King in the depths of the castle and claim the helmet of protection. It is not Shakespeare by any means, but nor is it meant to be.
Fortaan is the largest of the individual Heroica Lego sets – with a price to match – it contains the most playable characters and also a locked door mechanic that does not appear in the other Heroica board games released at that time.
Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts
Given Lego’s seemingly infinite funds it is not unsurprising that they managed to snap up several high profile franchises to feature in their Lego board games series. In Harry Potter Hogwarts you can play as fan favourite characters like Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Your objective is to be the first to complete your homework and return to your common room.
The best part about Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts is that it makes you feel like you are in the castle itself, or as close to be able to feel this in a board game. The players have real ownership over the way the castle moves and bends, with the famous Harry Potter staircases featuring heavily in gameplay. Rolling a 3 for example lets you remove one piece from the board, change the position of 3 others, and then replace the piece you took out. It is a game that really speaks to the creativity of the Lego Series and is a welcome addition.
The game plays best in more than 2 players. In a 1 vs 1 scenario there can be a bit of bullying if one player seemingly gets all the good rolls and the others bad. In a 3 or 4 player game changes to the board will often help or hinder multiple players, not just the one taking the action.
Lego Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is our second and final Lego game that is of another licenced franchise. This one did exceedingly well getting a German children’s game of the year nomination in 2013. This game came as somewhat of a surprise given that it is a children’s game released in 2011, but based on a film from 1980. In any case, they seem to have done something right!
Team win by either destroying all of your opponent’s pieces (figuratively), or getting one of your pieces to your opponent’s start line. In this way we can begin to see different winning strategies. A great part of the game is that each piece plays differently. Ok, troops can only fire one space, but AT-ATs can fire three and Tauntauns can only fire two diagonally. It makes the game more complex that one would initially think for a children’s game. When you add in certain bonuses of the Lego characters of Darth Vader and Luke suddenly the game becomes very interesting.
It is certainly the most tactical and strategic game we have discussed so far and we could go as far as saying not only children will enjoy it, but adults too.
Minotaurus
Lego Minotaurus is a great way to introduce children into the theme of Greek Mythology. This theme that has been popularized by teenage-book series like Percy Jackson and so this game can begin to nurture an interest into something that that will continue past the ages of 5, 6, and 7 that it is initially marketed at.
The Player’s aim is to get to the centre of the maze and moving is dictated by dice rolls. The best thing about Minotaurus is that both players are able to make use of the terrifying Minotaur to send pieces back to the beginning of maze.
As is typical of all the lego board games on this list they are quick and easy to play with the main feature being the building of the game itself.
Lego Creationary
Creationary differs from most of the games on this list because you do not have to pre-build it before you start playing. The game is effectively a Lego version of Pictionary. To start, you roll a Lego dice and this determines if you pick an easy, medium or hard card. You must then recreate the picture using the Lego in the set.
The great thing about this game is that you can go as far as your imagination can take you. We would recommend mixing in additional Lego sets because Creationary itself has a bit of a limited scope of pieces. By using other sets you will have more options – just make sure you know which set is from where when you put it away!
The rules seem a little harsh as you can only have one guess per builder, but really you can play the game in whatever way suits you.
Kokoriko
Kokoriko is a super straightforward game about owning a chicken farm. The idea was so good that we could not ignore it!
It is another game dictated by dice throws: grey or brown and you can either take a chicken of that colour or the chickens you already own of that colour lay an egg. A Pink roll, however, means that the first player to pick the worm piece lets all their chickens hatch eggs.
As you might have gathered eggs are the name of this Lego game and the player with the most eggs at the end of the game wins. It is a less well known Lego board game, but tickled our fancy when we saw it so worth checking out for you too.
What Have We Learnt About Lego Board Games?
Lego Board Games are surprisingly flexible. Games like Harry Potter Hogwarts really utilise the framework of Lego well, the idea that you can build create and transform anything, a bit like the Harry Potter Universe in general. While most are incredibly short, being played in 10-15 minutes that also fits with children’s attention spans and so is quite fitting. Star Wars: Battle of Hoth came as a genuine surprise and may have even come out more strategic and interesting than the designers had originally though. There are well over 50 Lego Board Games produced by our favourite Danish toy company, some good, some bad, but all certainly worth checking out at least!
