Disney Villainous: Rules, Boxes and Where to Start

What Disney Villainous is

Disney Villainous is a strategy card game where every player is a villain. Each villain has their own board, their own deck and their own goal. You don't race around a shared map. You work your own plan, on your own board, and try to finish it first.

The twist is how players interact. You never attack another player's pieces head-on. Instead, you reach into their Fate deck and play a hero onto their board, right where it hurts. You don't fight your neighbor. You mail them a problem.

Here's the table version of the box facts, from Ravensburger's rulebook for the original Disney Villainous (26295):

• Players: 2 to 6
• Age: 10+
• Play time: 40 minutes with 2 players, up to 120 minutes with 6
• In the box: 6 villain boards and movers, 6 villain decks of 30 cards, 6 Fate decks of 15 cards, plus tokens, reference cards and a guide for each villain
• Goal: complete your own villain's objective
• Co-op or competitive: competitive

The family has grown well past that first box. Our data lists Disney, Star Wars Villainous and Marvel Villainous titles from Ravensburger, most of them standalone games. Licensed lines are named here as the listings name them. I won't get into the stories behind any of the characters. The boxes do that themselves.

How Disney Villainous plays

The rules below are in my own words, from Ravensburger's instructions for the original Disney Villainous, product 26295. Where the Star Wars or Marvel rulebooks change something big, I say so in the editions section.

Setup

1. Each player picks a villain and takes that villain's board, mover, Villain deck, Fate deck, reference card and guide.
2. Choose a first player.
3. Hand out starting Power from the shared Cauldron. The first player gets none. The second gets 1. The third and fourth get 2 each. The fifth and sixth get 3 each.
4. Everyone draws 4 cards from their own Villain deck and keeps them secret.
5. Read your objective out loud so everyone knows what you're working toward.

The starting Power is a staircase: 0, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3. My seventh graders would call that fair: later seats get paid for waiting. It's a small number, and it matters on turn one.

Step 5 is my favorite rule in the book. Everybody announces their plan before the first move. In the movies, the villain waits until the end to explain it. Here, it's setup.

A turn, start to finish

Each turn has three parts, in this order:

1. Move. Move your mover to a different location on your board. You can't stay where you were, and you can't move to a locked location.
2. Act. Each location shows action symbols. You may take every action shown, in any order, once per symbol. All of them are optional.
3. Draw. At the end of your turn, if you hold fewer than 4 cards, draw from your Villain deck back up to 4.

You can't refill your hand mid-turn, even if you've emptied it. Patience is the one virtue this game asks of its villains.

The actions

• Gain Power: take that much Power from the Cauldron. Power pays for cards and abilities.
• Play a Card: play one card from your hand and pay its Cost. Allies and Items go below a location on your board.
• Activate: use a card's activated ability and pay its cost, if any.
• Fate: pick an opponent, reveal the top 2 cards of their Fate deck, play one against them and discard the other.
• Move an Item or Ally: shift one to the next location.
• Move a Hero: shift a hero on your board to the next location.
• Vanquish: defeat a hero using Allies at the same location whose Strength adds up to at least the hero's.
• Discard Cards: throw away as many cards from your hand as you like. You draw back up at the end of the turn.

Not every board shows every action. Each villain's board is different, and that's half the puzzle.

Heroes, and why your board fills up

When an opponent plays a hero on your board, it covers the top of a location. The actions under it are blocked until you move that hero or defeat it. That's how the game slows down a leader without anyone attacking anyone.

Lucho's take: "A hero parked on your best space is a car blocking the garage door. You don't argue with it. You tow it." That's the Vanquish action, and it's why Allies matter.

One rule keeps things tidy: a card's ability only affects cards on the same player's board. Nothing on your board reaches across to someone else's.

How it ends

The moment a player completes their villain's objective, the game ends and that player wins. Some villains can only win at the start of their own turn, and the rulebook marks which ones. Each villain's guide explains their goal and gives tips.

Villainous editions on Amazon US right now

Our data for this page lists 17 Villainous boxes on Amazon US as of October 2026, all from Ravensburger. The table above shows the players and age each listing states. Where a listing leaves a field out, the table shows a dash. Here's what tells them apart.

Disney Villainous standalone boxes

These are listed as standalone games, not expansions. All list ages 10+.

• Disney Villainous: the original box; the listing states 10+ and no player count
• Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil: 10+, no player count listed
• Disney Villainous: Wicked to the Core: 10+, up to 6 players; the listing names 3 villain boards, 3 movers, 90 villain cards, 45 fate cards and 42 tokens
• Disney Villainous: Evil Comes Prepared: 10+
• Disney Villainous Perfectly Wretched: 10+, 2 to 3 players
• Disney Villainous: Filled with Fright: 10+
• Disney Villainous: Sugar & Spite: 10+
• Disney Villainous: Treacherous Tides: 10+
• Disney Villainous: Four Character Collection: 10+; the listing names 4 boards, 4 movers, 120 villain cards and 60 fate cards

Wicked to the Core and Perfectly Wretched are the only two Disney boxes with a player count in their listings, and they differ: up to 6 against 2 to 3. The Four Character Collection, with 4 villains, is the biggest standalone box in our data by listed card count.

Disney Villainous expansions

Two Disney listings are marked as expansions:

• Disney Villainous: Come We Fly: 10+; names Disney Villainous as the base game; 1 board, 1 villain mover, 30 villain cards, 15 fate cards and 7 recipe cards
• Disney Villainous: Two Player Expansion: 10+; 2 boards, 2 movers, 60 villain cards and 30 fate cards; the listing doesn't name a base game

Come We Fly adds one villain to a box you already own. Read the base-game line before you buy it as a gift.

Star Wars Villainous

Four Star Wars Villainous boxes are listed, all 10+ and all marked as standalone:

• Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side: 2 to 4 players
• Star Wars Villainous: Scum and Villainy
• Star Wars Villainous Expandalone 2
• Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics: the listing names 2 sectors, 2 movers, 60 villain cards, 30 fate cards and 60 tokens

Ravensburger's Star Wars Villainous rulebook (27361) lists 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and about 20 minutes per player. It keeps the move-act-draw turn but uses Sectors instead of locations and adds Ambition and Vehicles. If your group knows Disney Villainous, plan on a short rules read before the first Star Wars game.

Marvel Villainous

Two Marvel Villainous boxes are listed, both 12+:

• Marvel Villainous: Twisted Ambitions: standalone
• Marvel Villainous: We Are Venom: an expansion that names Marvel Villainous as the base game

Ravensburger's Marvel Villainous rulebook (26844) lists 2 to 4 players, ages 12 and up, and about 20 minutes per player. It uses Power and Strength tokens. Note the age: 12+ is two years older than every Disney and Star Wars box in our data.

Which Villainous box to start with

My one opinion for this page: get a base game to the table a few times before buying expansions. Come We Fly and We Are Venom both need a base box, and an expansion adds rules to a game you haven't learned yet. Villainous already asks each player to learn a different villain. Add a new one only when the first set feels easy.

Quick matches, from the listings:

• A first Disney box: Disney Villainous or Introduction to Evil, both 10+
• A table of exactly 2 or 3: Perfectly Wretched, listed for 2 to 3
• A bigger Disney table: Wicked to the Core lists up to 6
• Star Wars fans, 10+: Power of the Dark Side, 2 to 4
• Older players, 12+: Marvel Villainous: Twisted Ambitions

Plan where the boxes live, too. A shelf of standalone boxes with matching spines is tidy. A shelf of half-sorted villain decks is a weekend project.

A few house rules

These are house rules, not Ravensburger's.

1. Open-hand first game. For a new player's first game, everyone plays with their hand face up and talks through choices. Turn it off after one game.
2. Guide in hand. Everyone keeps their villain's guide out and reads one tip aloud on their first turn.
3. Fate fairness. Before you take a Fate action, say which opponent you think is closest to winning and why. It keeps the table honest about who's ahead.

Who should skip Villainous

Skip it if your group wants to play together. Villainous is competitive start to finish, and the main way players interact is by making each other's turns harder.

Skip it for players under 10, or under 12 for the Marvel boxes. That's the age on every listing, and the game asks for a lot of card reading and a plan you hold across many turns.

Skip it if you like one shared rule set. Each villain plays differently, with a different goal and different cards. That's the appeal for some tables and homework for others. If your group wants the same goal for everyone, look at the strategy games below.

And skip the bigger tables if time is tight. With 6 players, the original rulebook estimates 120 minutes.

If you like Villainous, look at these

Pages chosen by what they share with Villainous: strategy, 2 to 6 players, about an hour or more.

• Strategy board games: the wider shelf
• 7 Wonders: everyone builds their own thing, with light interaction
• Dune: Imperium: cards and placement for a strategy table
• Best board games: our ranked list across kinds

Every Villainous box in our data is from Ravensburger. See the Ravensburger brand page for the rest of the lineup.

Read your goal out loud, then make everybody else's night a little harder.