F@#$ Wingspan

Metaphorically living in a cave!  What's a boy to do but post to his mostly abandoned board game blog!

This year's installment. Wingspan.

Theme

Once again proving that theme matters not one iota to me, this is about birds.

But having said that, a lot of love went into this game.  (both images grabbed from board game geek)

So for me, gameplay still is the biggest factor in my enjoyment, let's take a moment to admire the art work and production.

And the theme has decent integration.  While the general actions a player takes are pretty generic, the reactions on the bird cards are specific to this game.

Mechanics

The core mechanic is engine building.  There's 4 actions to take and 3 paths

1. play a bird (place a bird in card one of the paths)
2. Forest Path  get food (resource used to play any and every bird) 
3. Grassland Path: get eggs (end game VP and a resource to play more birds in the same action path)
4. Wetland Path: get cards (bird cards.)

As you play in an action path, you may trigger the re-actions of any bird in that path.  Let's say you play in the Grassland path (eggs) and you have (in order) a hawk, sparrow and dove played.  You would take the tier 4 reward for playing in the Grassland (3 eggs and the option to trade a food for another egg) then trigger the dove's power, then the sparrow's and finally the hawk's.  The riggered actions vary, quite a bit.  Get food, get eggs, get VP, etc.

odds and ends

• not every bird has a triggered power
• eggs are stored on bird cards, and they have a maximum capacity.
• while actions get better, your total number of actions per round decrease.
• you have 26 actions total

Scoring

Wingspan is a points salad game.  There's four general paths for scoring.

First, each bird has a VP value.   Each bird counts for your sum, and high VP birds are either expensive, useless, or both.  This is usually about 1/3 of your score, and is the only constant scoring mechanic no matter what strategy path was chosen:  every path to victory requirees playing birds.

Second, secret goals.  At the beginning of the game players draw a secret goal they should strive for.  Some birds may grant new goals.    This can be as little as 1/10 of your score and as much as 1/3.  Secret goals are tough, they're probably the toughest socring aspect to focus on.  They're also complimentary to other aspects; work on something else and you'll still get secret points.

Third, on card resources.  Most of the time these are eggs, but many cards have mechanics where you 'tuck' a card or add a token.  Generically, they all score the same.  The only difference is that a player must occasionally spend eggs to unlock the higher tiers along the action paths.  Tucked cards and tokens only are good for VP.  Generally about 1/3 your score, but this has an amazing amount of variance.  In my limited play, I've seen this VP path yield as little as 10% to as much as 50% of the total score.

Fourth, end of round goals.  These are known by every player and vary from "Total number of birds" to "Birds with an egg on them of this specific nest type".  (Nest type being a symbol on the bird card).  Goals VP value increases the longer the game goes on, and is another 10 to 33% factor in your total score.

Review

Wingspan, is, in my opinion the best points salad game I have ever played.

A flaw with most point salads games is there's always a horrible, inefficient path, that once discovered, experieinced players will do their best to not pursue.  This is the 'pickled beets' of the point salad.  While this doesn't inherently lead to scripted play, it does really cut down on viable otions.  Which I hate.

Wingspan does not have that problem!  Depending on your draw, there are still picked beets.  But what move is pickled beets changes from game to game.

Also, it's reasonably fast paced and after a couple run throughs it clocks in at about 30 minutes per player.  I love fast paced games with impactive decisions.

Tips

In general, bird cards are worth more early and eggs are woth more late.  Seems like every game is an exception...so YMMV.

Even numbered slots aren't great.  Those allow you to trade a food/egg/card for a food/egg/card.  You're not actually gaining anything:  think carefully before you make use these.

Pay attention to end round goals.  It's very hard to win without at least a decent showing here.  But know when to bail, investing several moves to finish third will kill you!

Pay attention to your opponents bird tableau!  Some birds are reactive to your moves, but every single one of them has a once per turn cycle limit.    I'm not saying let this dictate play, but I am make this a tie breaker for your decision if someone else hasn't triggered yet.