Villainous Wicked to the Core: Step into Some New Villain Shoes

The first expansion to Disney Villainous brings three new villains to the game. Play the expansion as a standalone, or mix it in with villains from the base game. Play as Hades, Dr. Facilier, or the Evil Queen, and see who is the wickedest of them all.

Gameplay

In Disney Villainous, each player starts by choosing a villain to play. A villain comes with a board showing four locations, a villain deck, and a fate deck. Each villain also has a personal, unique objective that they must complete in order to win the game. On your turn you start by moving your villain token to a new location on your board. You may then take each action that is shown on the board, such as playing cards, using another player’s fate deck, or collecting power. Power is often used to play certain cards or activate abilities on cards.

When a player uses your fate deck, they draw two cards from it and then choose one to play. These will always hurt you in some way, such as playing a hero onto a location on your board or a one-time ability that sets you back. Heroes block some actions and must be defeated by playing enough allies from your hand and then taking an action to have them attack.

Each villain also comes with a little booklet that gives tips and suggestions on how best to accomplish their personal objective.

Villainous: Wicked to the Core comes with three new villains. Dr. Facilier may discard certain cards into a special discard pile called a fortune deck. Once he plays an amulet onto one of his locations, and the Rule New Orleans card into his fortune deck, he must then play a card that will allow him to shuffle the fate deck and draw a certain number of cards from it at random. If he draws the Rule New Orleans card, he wins the game. However, heroes played onto his board can steal the amulet and fate cards can be used to clog up the fortune deck with additional cards, lowering the odds of him drawing what he needs.

Hades needs to play his titan cards on one end of his board and move them to the far end. He must win at the beginning of his turn. The Evil Queen must find Snow White (she is in the fate deck, either opponents can play her from the fate deck or the Queen can use one of her own cards to find her) and then defeat her. The Evil Queen does not have regular allies to help her defeat heroes played onto locations; rather, she must convert power tokens into poison, move to the hero’s location, and then play a card to poison the hero, defeating it.

Review

Villainous is already a fun game: it’s deeply thematic, has amazing artwork and components, and has a fun nostalgic theme. Many Disney games out there are targeted at children or are party games; Villainous is one of the few that is aimed at a slightly older audience due to its strategy and depth. It’s easy to learn and teach, but still presents you with challenging choices.

The fact that Villainous: Wicked to the Core acts as a standalone game is a neat feature for an expansion, but mixing the villains in with the base game villains is also fun, and adds a new level to the gameplay as you see how well different villains compete against each other.

Villainous has always been low on player interaction, and that’s still very much the case in the expansion. There’s also still a good bit of downtime when playing with more people. The expansion doesn’t really change any of the core concepts in the game, fix any possible issues, or make any big changes, but like the original, each villain plays a little differently, posing its own difficulties, advantages, and mechanics.

There are some interesting and fun new concepts in the Wicked to the Core villains that play well with the theme. Dr. Facilier especially, with his reliance on luck and stacking his fortune deck, is thematic but also something new to the game.

If you enjoyed Villainous, then Wicked to the Core is a delightful addition that will add more variety and villains. If you didn’t enjoy Villainous this isn’t likely to change your mind.

Pros: Can be played stand alone or with base game, new villains have interesting new mechanics

Cons: If you did not enjoy Villainous there’s nothing here to change your mind

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.