Wingspan: Oceania Expansion Review – From Potato Salad to a Proper Engine Builder

Wingspan, the big bird board game, just got bigger. With two expansions already released, Stonemaier Games recently announced Wingspan Asia. An expansion focused on solo, two-player, and six player modes of the game. As well as bringing in birds from all around the Asia region.

But, that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Previously, I’ve already reviewed the Wingspan: European Expansion, so today we’re looking at the latest bird-filled expansion to hit the market, Wingspan: Oceania Expansion. Breaking down what you receive in the game box, and how that affects the gameplay.

Finally, I’ll give you a run-through of how it plays with the European Expansion. Because if you’re like me, you’re probably going to jam these two expansions together. So you don’t have to mess around with sorting out cards and components before you play.

What’s new in Wingspan: Oceania Expansion?

The Oceania Expansion also introduces a whole flock of new avians, 95 in fact. These birds continue the trend from the European Expansion, adding powers that beg to be combined with others. But unlike the European Expansion, these feathery friends are the least interesting part.

Also in the Wingspan Oceania Expansion:

• 95 bird cards
• 69 nectar tokens
• 5 player mats, and wooden dice
• 15 yellow eggs
• 5 bonus cards
• 4 goal tiles
• 7 Automa cards
• 1 scorepad, reference tile, Automa rulebook, standard rulebook

The biggest change is the introduction of a new type of resource: nectar. This resource acts as a wild and can stand in for any resource when playing birds. Sounds great, except any nectar you have in your personal supply at the end of the round is lost for good.

The nectar you spend doesn’t go back to the supply, instead it stays within the habitat you used it on. Like the bird you played brought it there – how thematic. Then, at the end of the game, whoever has the most nectar in each habitat scores five points.

This new resource really opens up the game and allows you to play more birds on your boards than ever before. It also adds a bit of strategic thinking around when to pick it up, as you need to work out if and when you’re going to use it before the round ends.

It’s a fun new mechanic and something you need to keep on top of throughout the game. As the end-of-game nectar points are extremely strong.

Tell me more about the player boards

The other big change in Wingspan Oceania Expansion is the player boards. While not as flashy as nectar, the changes these new boards drastically change some of the fundamentals of how Wingspan plays.

For example, the whole egg currency has been scrambled. Playing birds now costs fewer eggs than before. However, it’s also harder to generate the same amount of eggs. You don’t have access to generating three eggs per turn until you reach the fourth column. Before that, extra eggs will cost you resources or cards.

With this reduction of egg-laying, it’s no longer the go-to move in the last round. You can give your female birds a rest, as it’s actually worth playing birds up until the final buzzard. Given this was an issue that was raised in my original Wingspan review, I was happy to see how this change completely removed my criticism.

That’s not the only change these player boards bring, there are a lot more chances to spend resources and cards for different benefits. Overall, these changes really open up the game and allow for different strategies across the board.

In the original, you felt unrewarded for going down the wetlands route, because doing so meant you missed out on resources and bird-playing power. The Oceania Expansion has no such faults, as no matter which habitat you pursue, you can exchange your extra resources for whatever you need.

Wingspan plus the two wxpansions

Playing Wingspan with both the expansions almost feels like a new game. The ratio of new birds to old gets closer to one-to-one, so nearly every second bird is more interactive and adds additional twists and complications to your habitats.

With this, Wingspan turns from a board game you could switch off when it wasn’t your turn to a game requiring you to be eagle-eyed and engaged at all times.

My criticism of Wingspan being the potato salad of board games no longer stands true. It’s no longer the board game to pull out when you’re trying to please everyone, it’s the game to pull out when you want a great engine builder with birds.

That is with one exception: player count.

When playing with four or more players, these new birds delight in both appearance and abilities. Although they, like the Australian plovers on our lawn, never shut up. Abilities that should only activate some turns, activate almost every turn. Leading to a deluge of extra resources for every player.

This removed the tightness and careful planning around resources found in the base and two-player game. Because of this, I enjoyed the two-player game a lot more than the four-player version.

However, one thing I absolutely loved was seeing the local birds throughout the Oceania Expansion, and in the end, isn’t that what Wingspan is all about?