The Five Best New Birds in Wingspan Oceania - The Mill

[@scottweighart1504]

Dusty, I enjoyed your commentary here. First off, I would say it's pretty hard to pick only five or so great birds in the OE! There are so many birds with creative and thematically clever powers. But here's a few that I think you overlooked: 1) the three warblers. These are the ones that all let you play another bird in their habitat when you take that action. I have had great success doing this in the forest, where I often have been able to gain food and play a bird in the same turn. Given the finite number of turns in Wingspan, this is a really valuable power to have if you get it early in the game. 2) Kakapo. This bird has the game-end power of drawing for bonus cards and keeping one. At that point in the game, you can simply pick and choose which one will give you the most points... And given that one ends up playing more birds in the OE, they're almost always seems to be a bonus card that will give you seven or eight points at the least. I've done very well with that card a few times now. 3) There are several birds that allow you to draw a face-up card from the tray with either a specific nest type or a star nest. Better still, you can reset the tray before you draw if you're out of luck with what you immediately see. With a bird like this in the grasslands, it can give you access to more bird cards without necessarily having many birds in the wetlands or having to take the draw birds cards action. So far these are a few of my favorites, but I have yet to have the opportunity to draw the little penguin, so we'll have to see if this changes!

[@realmchat6665]

Wingspan is one of my favorite games, thank you for your coverage of it - please keep it up :)

[@TheMillShow]

It's such a great game.. and the coverage is my pleasure. :)

[@doovies3739]

Yes! Bin Chicken confirmed 😆

[@TheMillShow]

😁

[@richardh1923]

Laughing kookaburra is so good with a repeat the brown power bird in the row too!

[@MatthewAnslow]

Ku-kah-bah-rah (Ku as in cook) Your mates in Australia thank you. ;-)

[@TheMillShow]

Thank you, Matt. I was pretty confident I was going to mispronounce one of the birds, but that was one I felt pretty confident about. lol. Just goes to show you. Okay, I'll try and nail the pronunciation next time.

[@misterhamez]

i'd argue it's more like cook-ah-burra

[@dannys_78]

Ahh, the glorious Death Chicken (Cassowary). They are big and scary birds in real life (although not all that dangerous unless you piss them off... they have very powerful claws)

[@timcherna4995]

Dusty, this is great. Also, "5" :)

[@TheMillShow]

I decided to go with “type” for one or two of them. lol Also, thank you!

[@ehhhsteve8582]

My favorite new bird is the galah. It combines the feature of rewarding an opponent with a powerful-card tucking ability.

[@literally_lukey4692]

My favourite bird by far is the Willie Wagtail. Love their passive-aggressive behavior. 😂

[@TheMillShow]

lol. Yeah, I guess it is passive-aggressive isn't it? Great choice!

[@daymongray3516]

3:03 "when your only paying one worm and one seed" You're overpaying!

[@SFuruli]

I'm a fan of birds with pink powers, but I also mostly play 2-player games where pink powers typically are at their weakest. With that said, one pink power I believe will be good in Oceania is the Spangeled Drongo "When another player gains Nectar, gain 1 Nectar from the supply.". I don't know if it's the best bird, but it certainly looks good. 😊 Thanks for making this video. One day after I requested it, haha.

[@TheMillShow]

Almost like it would have to have been filmed before you asked for it. lol. I do think that Spangled Drongo will be a good card in the expansion. Any extra ways to gain nectar are going to be good.

[@timcherna4995]

Yeah, it is great. I had it in my two first game!

[@denthap313]

I can attest to the greatness of this card, especially in a 4 player game.

[@bvc6940]

Almost certain to get the 15 points from nectar with the Spangled Drongo. :)

[@TheCartoonHead]

Oceania needs a nesting box expansion of its own, packed with the remaining 800+ birds of the region. 😜

[@redwlfjsc]

We've come a long way from favorite bird being "pretty bird"! ;-)

[@redwlfjsc]

The Hoard helps balance the "all players get" abilities with Automa. It's also helpful against the Automarazzi. Have you played co-op yet?

[@culdeus9559]

Has anyone done a video on the co op mode yet?

[@TheMillShow]

I have not played co-op yet. I should try two-handing it since my household is so busy right now. Just to get a feel. Then maybe I could film a round or two just to demonstrate it.

[@culdeus9559]

@@TheMillShow I think it will make a good video topic as it's a new mode and co op games are popular in pandemic.

[@AWarner1690]

Make this game asymmetric and make asymmetric mats! A set of 10 different biomes that all have different perks! Please see this Stegmaier!

[@J-Wheeler-G]

My favorite Wingspan bird Killdeer (I actually think it is better than the Ravens) I have never scored under 100 when I get it from the start, highest 117 (I thinks). Other than that I love tucking cards under my birds.

[@culdeus9559]

Killdeer is the most OP card overall but the ravens when playing two player is stronger because it freezes the feeder.

[@J-Wheeler-G]

@@culdeus9559 that makes sense.

[@tazatom]

I would wait. There are 3 more possible expansion places and other mini packs. When the game is finished, then I would be interested in mats.

[@TheMillShow]

The previous mats don't stop being relevant though. So unless you just refuse to play without all of the expansion content, then you'd still want those original boards. The one thing I did hope for was double-sided mats, and it sounds like those are being considered. Fingers crossed.

[@pawnstorminreno]

What? No Little Penguin? That card is bonkers. Risk/reward but I've already seen it with 20 + fish cache.

[@redwlfjsc]

The Little Penguin is so fun to play!

[@TheMillShow]

Oh there are way more than 5 great birds in the expansion. I'll admit that my list was largely influenced by cards I had already got in game and played. The Little Penguin has the potential to be great, but the one time I got him it really didn't do much for me. My like for the "5" I chose (lol) was also situation, I'm sure. There will be situations where some of these aren't so great, or are a total bust.

[@jamielehn6926]

Oh. They called them a Laughing Kookaburra? This is my favorite bird, they do laugh, but we don’t call them a laughing kookaburra - just a kookaburra

[@TheMillShow]

Is it perhaps a type of Kookaburra? Or their official name? I know we call American Robin's just Robin's here.. but I don't think I was aware of the fact they were called American Robin's until I was in school. It was just always Robin. :) They're loud little things, aren't they? At least some of the videos I've seen of them they were pretty loud.

[@jamielehn6926]

@@TheMillShow no, just Kookaburra - but like I said - boy, do they laugh! My favourite bird! When I was I kid a kookaburra killed a snake right in front of me!

[@redwlfjsc]

worms or invertebrate? pollen or nectar? seed or grain? mouse or rodent? cherries or berries? fish or ....?

[@TheMillShow]

Lol. I’m muting all future comments from you, sir. XD

[@redwlfjsc]

@@TheMillShow haha! Hey, I say "worm" and "mouse" and "grain" pretty regularly. This was not a jab at you. ;-)

[@jasonmetcalfe4695]

@@redwlfjsc we call them "bugs" and "rats"

[@balrog121]

Not a fan of the Bin Chicken. You're not gonna get anything good out of the discard pile virtually ever, so the effect is pretty much a worse tuck a card, draw a card ability.

[@TheMillShow]

I can see that argument. That said I've also played games where I passed on a good bird because I needed to get something done before rounds end and everyone else at the table had the same experience (or didn't notice) and something I would have normally gone for ended up in the discard. It's certainly situational. But there are other birds in the game that are too.