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“I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.” - Wreck It Ralph
Yes the bad guys in the magical world of Disney do seem to have the most fun and, unless you’ve been living under a rock for a few years, you can’t have missed that Disney Villainous has grown into a massive board game franchise. Through all of its many releases, Ravensburger has provided players with the opportunity to scheme away as their favourite Disney baddies, reenacting their diabolical plots.
So with that in mind, here are some of our favourite characters to play as in this tabletop game of vile villains!
Queen of Hearts – Rachael Duchovny
The Queen of Hearts appears in the base game of Disney Villainous, The Worst Takes it All and has a beautiful shaped resin miniature representing her character with a vibrant red dress that shows a heart shape in the upper part. Her locations are well themed and drawn ranging from the Courtyard and Hedge Maze to the White Rabbit’s House giving her plenty of places to play the many allies, effects, conditions and items at her disposal in support of her winning the game.
The queen’s card art perfectly displays her anger and huffiness whilst her villain cards are curiouser and curiouser in supporting her achieve her ultimate goal of villain domination of the kingdom. From shrinking and enlarging heroes to wishing them a merry unbirthday the queen can certainly use her fury and judgement throughout gameplay.
Whilst the King and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are on hand to help the queen out her hero cards come in all shapes and sizes form the dithering dodo and the mischievous Cheshire Cat to the wonderful Alice herself in an attempt to thwart her success.
The queen’s winning objective really does ring true to the Disney movie where she simply needs to have a wicket at each location before successfully taking a shot, making her a real flamingo to play. The links to the movie and the wonderful characters make her a truly exciting and formidable villain to play. It’ll be off with your heads if you dare to challenge her.
Ratigan - Pete Earnshaw
As a child of the 80s, aka Disneys ‘Dark Age’, I have a very fond connection to the movie “Basil The Great Mouse Detective”. The crazed Ratigan, wild eyed in his torn up clothes, savagely chasing after the titular hero was one of those ‘glued to the edge of your seat’ moments for me as a kid.
It’s no wonder then that I LOVE playing as Ratigan when enjoying a good game of Villainous. The key to this success is that Ravensburger have perfectly captured the spirit of the character. As the movie begins, Ratigan is a debonair, pseudo charmer with the silky smooth voice courtesy of cinema legend, Vincent Price. This makes his final decline into savagery all the more unsettling when his house of cards falls.
And that’s why playing as Ratigan is so fun; he is a unique character with, not one, but two objectives. It really leans heavy into the “Always have a back up plan” mentality. Oh, and the artwork on his objective card is PHENOMENAL!
Players begin as Ratigan, The Superior Mind, aiming to play The Robot Queen (a high cost card, so get saving!) and move it to Buckingham Palace. However, if The Robot Queen is discarded by Basil, Ratigan becomes The Rat, and his Objective changes to a simple goal… KILL BASIL!
And if this happens then Basil, you better run!
Lotso - Andre Stern
Lotso’s goal is to have four Heroes with 0 Strength and Buzz Lightyear in the Caterpillar Room. This is a series of smaller tasks that, with a bit of luck and strategy, are not as daunting as they may sound. Villains who need Heroes to be played before they can win aren’t uncommon in the game, but unlike those who need one specific character, like Captain Hook with Peter Pan or Evil Queen with Snow White, Lotso requires every single Hero from his deck to be played. Because of that, opponents may want to leave you alone to avoid accidentally helping you, but Lotso is able to pull those cards out himself, and he’s not at a shortage of tools do it.
Buzz Lightyear Is a special card in that it can serve as either a Hero or Ally – much like Kronk for Yzma or the Heroes Jafar hypnotizes. As an Ally, he is formidable because he doesn’t get discarded when he Vanquishes, and he moves other Heroes immediately to where you need them to be to fulfil your ultimate winning condition. And as a Hero, he is ruthless because he stops any other Heroes in that location from being defeated. Players must prioritize managing Buzz at all times.
The final peculiarity about Lotso is that, like Syndrome, he comes with Strength tokens, which can add or subtract from a Hero’s basic Strength. When Lotso Vanquishes a Hero, they aren’t discarded, their Strength just goes down to zero, but Fate actions can bring them back up, essentially reviving them. This means that he’s one of the Villains whose progress can be backtracked by an opponent, unlike someone like Scar, who has a partial objective of defeating Mufasa. Once he is defeated, that can never be reversed. Lotso must reach milestones and maintain them. When all pieces come together, however, Lotso can end up being a Villain who scores a win fairly quickly. Nothing outrageous like Maleficent or Dr. Facilier, but a powerful character in his own right.
Hades – Luke Pickles
When I’m sitting down to play Villainous, I’m always wondering which dastardly character I’d like to play. Inevitably, it comes down to a choice between a new one or Hades from the Wicked to the the Core set. Why do I keep being drawn back to Hades? (The character not the underworld named after him.) I flipping LOVE Greek Mythology and Hercules is one of my favourite Disney films growing up. As I've gotten older, I've come to get a mild annoyance for the mythological inaccuracies (like Hercules being the Roman name for the hero and it should be called Heracles) but hey, it's still a good movie.
In the game, Hades is trying to get three of his Titans from the Underworld to Mount Olympus to run riot and defeat the Olympian gods. The five available to you, Pyros, Lythos, Arges, Stratos and Hydros, stomp their way through the Greek world, coming up against heroes such as Hercules, Zeus and Phil, avoiding being trapped at a location. Hades is a difficult character to play because although his objective is easy, a fate action can really slow down the progress of the Titans. But if they can go the distance and make it to Mount Olympus, Hades will rule supreme.
The character is one of my favourites in Disney history and I love how his mannerisms come through in the game. Highly recommend this set if you want to get into Villainous, but don’t want to try the whole base set.
Oogie Boogie - Dan Street-Phillips
As soon as Disney Villainous came out I was hooked. I was always more obsessed with the baddies than the goodies and one of my all time favourite was Ursula the sea with from The Little Mermaid. I would always pick her and enjoy digging through my deck to find that oh so precious crown. But then…they decided to release perhaps my all time number one favourite bag of bugs! Oogie Boogie is the newest addition to the Villainous family and on top of a wonderful sculpted piece and Oogie’s dice, which add a wonderful thematic edge, the fact is, he plays really well! The main objective is to defeat Jack Skeleton. Sandy Claws will start in your lair as bait for Jack but before he will reveal himself you need to find four of the imposter Sandy Claws and play them next
to the real deal. Oogie has his usual band of allies, Lock, Stock and Barrel who each help to add to his strength if they work together but it’s the dice that add a wonderful spin to the gameplay. For example, “What do we have here” allows you to vanquish at any location and a roll of the dice could mean losing your allies from that location of drawing them back into your hand. The gambling side of Oogie Boogie is really unlike any other villain in the series. There are also some great fate cards. Jack, is great as if he is drawn to early he works as an effect card getting rid of the of one of the imposters and “hello Oogie” is attached to your character piece and will add two for any dice roll you make. He really is a fun villain to play and a great opponent, but remember as Mr Oogie Boogie says, there’s trouble close at hand!