Introducing Wingspan European Expansion - The Mill

[@bradybugsmom]

My two favorite colors are purple and gray so I was over the moon when I saw the expansion - PURPLE! I’m excited about all of it and will be buying a mat and the starter pack along with the expansion. Can’t wait for new cards! Love that it integrates with the base game cards yet has identifiers if you want to separate the expansion out again.

[@TheMillShow]

sublimestars it is definitely purple! :) And it sounds like our order is going to be the same. Gotta get some mats and the swift start guide.

[@xJAMESVICIOUSx]

Very excited!!! I introduced a friend to the game and she has been wanting to get her own copy. This is the perfect time with the new edition coming out that has the Starter pack :D Looking forward to playing the expansion!

[@TheMillShow]

I'm looking forward to checking out that swift start guide too.

[@StevenStJohn-kj9eb]

The base game is so carefully constructed I was wondering how they would do an expansion without messing with that construction. The economy is so inter-connected between food, cards, and eggs, and the mat holds only so many birds. But I think this expansion looks like they pulled it off.

[@TheMillShow]

It was definitely a great idea to develop the new cards with the same percentages in mind. I can’t even imagine how much work it was to develop with the restriction in place. I wonder if some birds were chosen or booted from the expansion for that reason.

[@Farstr1d3r]

This might have been answered already, somewhere, but what happens to all the percentages that are listed on the hidden objective cards in the base game that we can use for determining if we want to use that goal or not? Was the new expansion done with those percentages in mind and they still remain accurate, or....?

[@firebound12]

Yes all percentage remain intact

[@TheMillShow]

Hi Jason.. yeah, Elizabeth has stated that she designed the expansion in such a way that all of the original percentages still apply. There might be a fraction of a percentage off, but not enough to really change the goal cards.

[@Farstr1d3r]

The Mill - Awesome! Thanks for the reply.

[@mkitten13]

Really look forward to this one, and I'd definitely be interested in those mats Depends on the price and how accessible they will be for me though (I live in Norway, so unless I want to import stuff myself directly, I'm subject to the whims of the handful of game stores in the country, lol). Would definitely be cool to have a full set all curled up in the box, hehe.

[@TheMillShow]

I hope Jamey is able to get the mats to a distributor near you. They're pretty reasonably priced for the US, but I can see how shipping would make it anything but for the rest of the world. I definitely hope you're able to snag a few.

[@mkitten13]

@@TheMillShowshipping is just one factor, import fees are another (for a private individual, you have to pay a 25% tax on item and shipping price, as well as a 17$ or higher fee in addition to that). I don't see a ton of playmats and other upgrades/gaming equipment in circulation in stores here, so very much subject to the whims of the stores. But SM is fairly popular, so hopefully one of them will choose to sell it.

[@TheMillShow]

@@mkitten13 - I hope so.. those extra fees are brutal.

[@Stephen-Fox]

All of the additions look neat, and I'm generally all for More Stuff expansions particularly to games that use around 20-40 cards per player per game depending on exact strategies being used. However intimidating 251 cards sounds to me to shuffle. This also adds a major mechanic and has a couple of minor mechanics in there as well that should spice things up (once between round cards, sideways cards, weird things that reward playing in slightly unusual ways and oh wow the most complete columns tile is going to combo so well with 2 points per completed column bonus card. Will likely play our first couple of games after getting the expansion with just those cards before mixing them in. And not just because 81 cards is a lot easier to shuffle than 251.

[@TheMillShow]

Jamey mentioned that you could probably play a 1-3 player game with just the new bird cards. I do think the shuffle is going to be more time consuming but when it’s only done once during setup, I’m probably cool with it.

[@Blister77]

Really looking forward to the sideways cards. Looks like a trade off between filling rows/columns and points for birds. An interesting decision.

[@J-Wheeler-G]

I love what I have seen for the new teal power. I think it tweaks the game just enough. I also think that it is nerfing the last round egg laying strategy. Even though I don't think it is as powerful as a lot of people say (to me it is more situational ), but then again I think the birds that give you 2 cards for discarding an egg are better than the Ravens (I know I am in the minority). Over all I am very excited. My wife loves the game and she seems interested in the expansion (we are not expansion gamers).

[@TheMillShow]

I do think that this expansion has the potential to address the egg spam strategy in some games with the new round end goal that rewards you for birds with no eggs. It's cool that the new expansion interested you both despite not typically enjoying expansions.

[@J-Wheeler-G]

@@TheMillShow the way I see it is if I already like the game why get and expansion, and if it needs it in order for me to like then I rather play another game.

[@Blister77]

Collared Dove shouldn’t have a hyphen. Can this be corrected before publishing?

[@TheMillShow]

Elizabeth has mentioned that hyphens are a problem, not due to printing errors, but due to the various bird resources she uses eBird, some other sources, they seem split 50/50. There was another bird with a similar issue. I guess in European sources, they hyphens are less prevalent? That is what I took from that conversation. In any case, no, it couldn't be fixed before publishing because it's already been produced. It's not an error, just a localization thing, I guess.

[@timgrossman84]

Not really sure the point of the swift start cards. This game is so easy to learn. My 8 year old niece plays it with me a lot. The mat looks real cool though, as does the new expansion.

[@TheMillShow]

Tim, what I noticed in very short order was that Wingspan was attracting a lot of non-board gamers who read about the game from non-traditional board game hobby sources. Wingspan is a very light game by board game standards, but that's because we're familiar with the parlance. It's easy to take for granted how much of the hobby is common place to us that isn't necessarily common for people who don't play. One person I talked to on the Facebook group was having issues with the concept of getting 5 birds, 5 food and then narrowing it down to 5 total.. how do you even decide what bird to keep? The food for that bird makes sense, but how do you get eggs? How do you get more food. The Quick Start guide was something I told Jamey that I was going to try and put together with the original cards. I was inspired by Root. It has a little guide that says draw these cards into your hand, setup your clearings like this.. and it walks you through your first two turns. If you're playing a 4 player game, you get a good idea of all of the different things you can do. Jamey mentioned he was going to look into it, and frankly I got busy and never got around to creating my own 'quick start guide'. But I'm very glad that it came to be, and even happier that it'll just be in the box for people who maybe getting their first exposure to modern board games. So yeah, it does nothing for us except give us some new cards. But I'm confident it's going to help a lot more people than we think.