Wingspan Americas Expansion Review
The latest expansion in the Wingspan universe, this time, the birds are from the Americas, with a special focus on hummingbirds.
Wingspan Americas Expansion: Quick Summary
Score:
8/10
Number of Players:
1-5
Time to Play:
60-90 minutes
A good expansion to the Wingspan collection, it's fast to incorporate, slicker than other expansions (looking at you Asia) and crucially adds more depth to the gameplay. Worth purchasing if you love Wingspan.
What we loved:
As always the range of birds added to the deck is vast and the facts on each are tremendous
The artwork is beautiful
The additional hummingbird elements to the gameplay actually make the game more fun
It's easily compatible with most of the other expansions
What could be improved:
It would still be easier and cheaper just to add new card decks as expansions rather than constantly adding to the rules
The rules for Nectar are slightly different to the Oceania expansion, so watch out for that
Another box and more board gaming room required!
Wingspan Americas Expansion - it's all about hummingbirds
Wingspan is a widely successful, very enjoyable engine-building game, combining beautiful artwork and easy-to-learn, satisfying gameplay. Wingspan Americas is the latest expansion from Stonemaier Games.
This time, the focus is on birds from Central America, South America and the Caribbean. As usual, the expansion adds to the enormous card deck available for Wingspan, with 111 new bird cards, each with their own little factoids, geographical distribution and beautifully rendered artwork. Also included in the expansion are new bonus cards and goal tiles for end-of-round objectives. There are also new eggs and player mats.
As with all Wingspan expansions, the Americas box adds a new way to play the core game. Adding hummingbirds and a hummingbird garden board to the playing area. Unlike the Asia expansion, this new set of playing rules is easy to incorporate and adds a real feel of hummingbirds flitting between your bird board and the garden area. Now you can gain points by attracting hummingbirds and moving objective markers up a new hummingbird track. It's all seamless, quick to learn and easy to teach - exactly what Wingspan should be about.
The beautiful thing about Wingspansions is that you can choose whether to add the new rules in, or just to play with the new bird cards and play the original mechanics. It's plug and play without permanently changing the playing style.
How to play Wingspan Americas
The core gameplay for Wingspan hasn't changed; instead, there are one or two additions that add to the points scoring abilities, plus some new powers on classic bird cards.
Each player adds a hummingbird bonus playmat alongside their normal habitat mat. Each turn hummingbirds flit to and from the newly designed habitat mats from a central hummingbird garden, providing the player with bonuses which are tracked on the new bonus playmat. This is alongside the normal actions of gaining food, laying eggs, drawing cards or playing new bird cards. Players must still balance playing birds, meeting end-of-round objectives, achieving bonus card criteria and gaining extra points from tucking birds or laying eggs.
The expansion has a range of new birds, from big point earners through to tiny birds that can have lots of eggs. There is variety and depth to suit any Wingspan tactic.
The pros and cons of Wingspan Americas
What we loved:
As always, the attention to detail and the time and care invested in getting the bird cards right are fantastic. They are all beautiful and will sit perfectly alongside your existing Wingspan deck. The variety of new birds chosen is also very good. Showcasing the huge diversity of birdlife across the Americas. I would happily have purchased the bird cards on their own, without needing all the extra playing mechanics Stonemaier always add in.
The new rules are well-balanced and easy to learn. Overall, the Wingspan expansions are good, but occasionally they can be hit or miss, or even make the game baggy when it doesn't need to be. Here, the rules have been carefully thought out, and the way the movement of the hummingbirds mimics their real-life flighty nature is very clever.
This isn't an expansion that replaces or works in isolation from the collection. You can easily combine the full Wingspan collection and play in one go without the game breaking. Our favourite combination is to play all the new rules from the expansions, except Wingspan Asia, but still include the bird deck and play the nectar rules from the Oceania expansion.
What we would improve:
I understand Stonemaier's drive to constantly keep Wingspan fresh and playable. But sometimes all we need is a bird deck update, additional cards we can add to the full deck to enjoy and add replayability to the game. The core rules themselves are good, fast and easy to learn, so they don't need constant add-ons or modules. All we need are new factoids and pretty bird cards. Wingspan Americas isn't as complex as Wingspan Asia, and we enjoy the new rules, but sometimes we wish we just had new birds.
The Wingspaniverse is now pretty vast, so you'll need even more space for that extra box, extra cards and playmat! If you're like us and collect everything Wingspan, then you'll be needing some serious storage space!
Wingspan Americas: A summary
Another beautiful addition to the Wingspan collection, the new rules are fun, but if you just want more bird cards, this won't disappoint either. If you love Wingspan, then it should be a definite purchase!
Expansions and Related Games
Expansions
The Wingspan universe has become pretty vast! There are now four expansions to the core game:
The oldest, Wingspan Europe, adds European birds to the game and round-end abilities. It has 81 new bird cards and you can pick it up for a bargain price at your local friendly gaming store.
Wingspan Oceania includes 95 birds from Australia, New Zealand and the surrounding islands. It also introduces the nectar mechanic alongside normal food which adds another layer of points at the end. It's a good expansion and the birds are very antipodean, which is super cool!
Wingspan Asia is perhaps the ugly duckling of the batch, the birds are all from Asia and the pacific, and are absolute top quality. If you just love adding bird cards to the deck then buy it. The new playing mechanics are very meh though, and we never add them onto the core game.
Related Games
If you love nature games and you are looking for a similar playing style to Wingspan, then you have some terrific options. The best we can recommend is Botany. It's beautiful, has exceptionally easy rules, is fun to play and also has a large range of expansions that add, rather than confuse the gameplay. We fully recommend you check it out.
Other Games You May Like
Finspan
Finspan is the latest branching out for the Wingspan franchise. This time you're taking to the deep, photographing the denizens of the worlds oceans. It is a faster playing style than Wingspan, and if anything is even more accessible. It still retains Wingspan's high production values, though, and we strongly recommend checking it out.
Wingspan Americas: Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need Wingspan to play this expansion?
Yes, Wingspan Americas only works if you have a copy of Wingspan or the standalone expansion Wingspan Asia.
Can the bird cards in Wingspan Americas be used in the Wingspan game?
Yes, the Wingspan Americas expansion contains 111 new bird cards and they can be used with the base Wingspan box or in conjunction with any of the other expansions.
Which region does the Americas expansion cover?
The Wingspan Americas expansion includes birds from Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Transparency Notice
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