Wingspan: Americas Expansion Review

“We're going to need more Birds.” - The Simpson's Movie

Tell anyone you have an expansion for Wingspan, inevitably they will ask “How many new birds are added?” So, without further ado, there are 111 new bird cards are added with the Americas expansion. So, by my calculations, that's about a hundred instances of “Oh, check this bird out!” over the course of a half dozen games. Of course, in our first few games with this expansion we put the new Americas birds on the top of the deck and dispensed with actually shuffling them in. We also cherry picked the new Goals and Goal cards from Americas just to accent all the new aviary delights and the Hummingbird mechanic. It was just the juice/nectar we were looking for and gave us a crash course in Americas.

I've never been a real fan of smaller cards being added to a game that already has traditional sized cards but it really fits the diminutive Hummingbirds. Despite my inability to properly shuffle the little suckers, it is easy to see why they chose the smaller size to allow for use with other expansion materials. Actually, the whole Hummingbird portion of the expansion is so spot on it's hard not to be impressed. The Hummingbirds (represented by 40 smaller hummingbird cards) flit in and out of your player boards in almost an identical way that the birds themselves zip from flower to flower. This is achieved because the hummingbird actions are all directly linked to existing actions in Wingspan. Lay an egg? Take a hummingbird action. Get food? Take a hummingbird action. The only action not linked to taking a hummingbird action is when you place out a bird in your tableau. This gives a little more weight (and, possibly, decision time) to choosing to add a bird since you don't get to “double dip” with a second action.

As such, the Americas expansion does add a bit of length to the duration of a game of Wingspan. It seems to add between five and ten minutes per player in my estimation. But, honestly, my core game group moves though a typical game of Wingspan at a very brisk pace, so even with the added game time, it doesn't really cause the game to drag.

I've been playing Wingspan with the Oceania expansion since that expansion was released. So much so, that I just combined the two into the base Wingspan Box and can't imagine playing without it. Americas takes Oceania into account when adding the new overlay for the boards, with each overlay being two-sided. One side you use if playing with Oceania (thus adding nectar locations on the overlay) and the other side for playing without it. If there is one stumbling point in Americas, it is that Nectar is also included with this expansion and it plays differently (with the nectar not spoiling) if you play without Oceania. It's a small hiccup but one that can be confusing.

Where Oceania made some changes to the egg management, Americas is happy to just give you more in the terms of Birds and the Hummingbird Track. The game does weave the track in such a way that you definitely have to engage with it. The default for not progressing up the various sections of the track is negative points, so you are somewhat forced to consider it. Don't get me wrong, in traditional Stonemaier fashion, it focuses strongly on positive interactions with you (and sometimes other players) getting something every time you engage with it.

If I was recommending a Wingspan Expansion on gameplay additions, I'd still suggest picking up Oceania first. But if you are looking at adding something that just seamlessly fits the whole aesthetic of birding, Americas nails that. Just be aware that if you are adding both this and Oceania to base Wingspan, you'll committing to either having more than one box for Wingspan or upgrading to a custom boxing solution. I should also note that Americas uses a folding box instead of the traditional 2 piece box, which is a great environmental choice but might not be to your personal preference if you tend to keep expansion boxes.

Wingspan Americas adds a bit more gameplay, a healthy dose of new birds, and a great representation of Hummingbirds to base Wingspan. The only real “downside” is that games will take a bit longer. (This is addressed in the rulebook, with a suggestion of taking one less turn per player but it never bothered us enough to play this variant).

A review copy of this release was provided by the publisher. Therewillbe.games would like to thank them for their support.

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