Wingspan Americas review – a gem to dazzle all species of board game fan

Wingspan Americas, the fourth expansion for Elizabeth Hargrave’s hit engine-builder board game, is an inch forward rather than a leap. Where previous expansions have entirely remade the game’s meta, Americas offers a more subtle modification, a new set of rules that are simple to add, but still have a significant impact on how the game plays.

That’s a pretty mechanical description of an utterly gorgeous board game that’s stuffed to the brim with hovering hummingbirds. It also might undersell how much I enjoyed playing with the copy that publisher Stonemaier sent me. So, let’s break this Wingspan Americas review down a little more.

What is Wingspan Americas?

Wingspan Americas reflects the avian population of Latin America. Roughly one tenth of that is made up of hummingbirds alone, so these tiny critters are the expansion’s main focus.

Hargrave notes in the rulebook that, because these many species share similar habits, habitats, and food, “figuring out how to include a significant number of them in Wingspan was tricky”. Thus, an entirely new gameplay mechanic was born.

As well as 111 new bird cards, the expansion features 40 hummingbird ‘mini cards’. These generally live in the hummingbird garden board, but they’ll occasionally flutter over to your player board, bestowing benefits before they zip away again. It’s a thematic mechanic that captures the birds’ signature movements well.

To attract a hummingbird to your board, simply perform one of your usual habitat actions: gathering food, laying eggs, or drawing bird cards. When the action cube reaches the far-left of your player board, it will now come across a hummingbird space before your turn ends. If that space is empty, you can choose a bird from the hummingbird garden to place there. You’ll immediately reap the rewards printed on the card, whether that is gaining nectar, a card, an egg, or a space of movement on your hummingbird board.

The ‘hummingbird board’ I refer to here is a separate scoring board each player now owns. On it, you’ll find five tokens, each representing a different ‘suit’ of hummingbird, and each with its own points value, ranging from -3 to 10. That’s a dramatic boost in points if you can push multiple tokens high up the board, but doing so won’t be easy – especially if there are several players picking from the hummingbird garden.

As well as attracting hummingbirds with the right power, you also push your tokens up the hummingbird track by returning these mini cards to the garden. Play as normal, but when you reach a hummingbird space that is already occupied, boot that bird back to the garden. You’ll push up the token matching the card you sent away – or, if you covered up a hummingbird with a different suit, you can choose to boost that token instead.

Your hummingboard boards offer further value through end-of-round bonuses and combos with a handful of birds, but most of the points they offer come from these flying visits to your patch of land.

Who is Wingspan Americas for?

There are two distinct target audiences for Wingspan Americas.

The first is the person that recently bought Wingspan, maybe because they heard it was one of the best board games around. They’ve played it, loved it, and they’re ready to expand the rules.

Wingspan Americas is the most approachable expansion, and it’s the one I’d recommend new players pick up first. While the extra boards and overlays are a little fiddly, the new rules are easy to understand, and the barrier to entry is extremely low.

Plus, Americas includes a simplified version of Wingspan’s nectar rules. Nectar was first introduced in the Oceania expansion, and at the time, it took a sledgehammer to Wingspan’s meta. Before, going all-in on eggs was key to victory, but Nectar diversified the field, offering more routes to high scores.

In Americas, hummingbirds can be a source of Nectar. Nectar can replace any food you spend, as usual, but there are no bonus points for collecting the most Nectar in a certain habitat. The benefit of this slight variation is two-fold. Firstly, this provides a gentler introduction to a new rule for beginner birders. Secondly, anyone playing with the Oceania expansion now benefits from a more balanced meta. Where games were previously ruled by whichever player could score the nectar-generating bird cards, the source of this precious food is now more diverse.

That brings me to the second target audience for Wingspan Americas: the completionists. You already own the other expansions. Heck, maybe you’ve invested in the fan packs and the Big Box. Wingspan is one of your favorite games, and you’re hungry for more.

Americas complements Oceania nicely. Plus, despite how easy the rules are to pick up, the expansion adds a rich web of new decision points to consider. Playing optimally now means taking actions at the perfect time to benefit from the hummingbird garden. Only the most efficient players will manage to juggle everything, and they’ll enjoy the puzzle of balancing eggs and Nectar with their hummingbird board.

Is Wingspan Americas good or bad?

Perhaps the only Wingspan players who won’t enjoy this expansion are those who prefer simplicity. The base game is fairly light, as far as engine-building board games go. For some, that’s a problem solved by expansions like Oceania and Americas – but not everyone wants every new instalment to up the complexity.

Wingspan Americas isn’t a difficult expansion to understand. It is, however, one that significantly extends Wingspan’s playtime, thanks to its additional decisions and fiddly boards. This is most noticeable at high player counts, where everyone’s time uhmming and aahhing over hummingbirds adds minutes to the clock. That might be off putting to target audience number one, Wingspan’s less experienced player base.

There’s also an issue that might irk the completionists, too. Wingspan Americas’ components are a little awkward, especially when considered alongside other expansions. There are only five player mat overlays for your hummingbirds, so you can’t play with Wingspan Asia’s expanded player counts. There’s nowhere to record Nectar bonus points on the Americas scoresheet, but there’s also nowhere to score hummingbirds on the Oceania scoresheet, so final scoring gets a bit messy when playing with both.

The Americas expansion also comes in a cardboard foldout box rather than the standard board game box we’ve come to expect from the series. I’m a fan of this personally, as it’s eco-friendly, and the hummingbirds easily fit inside the core game box. However, if you’re someone who likes to display or separate each expansion, the inconsistency may bother you.

Still, that’s a fairly nit-picky complaint. Fiddliness aside, Americas is a delightful expansion to the world of Wingspan. Its gameplay cleverly captures the most wonderful aspects of a hummingbird: their vibrancy, their size, and their delicate flight. It’s an expansion that feels simple, sensible, and smooth – and it’s one I’m looking forward to playing again.

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Source: Wargamer