Wingspan

1 Game Overview

Wingspan is an engine-building game where you compete to attract the best birds to your wildlife preserves. Each bird card represents a real species (drawn from North American birds in the base game), with accurate facts, food requirements, and unique powers.

The game is played over 4 rounds. Each round, you take a limited number of turns. On each turn, you choose one of four actions — and as you play more birds, those actions get more powerful (hence "engine building"). The player with the most points at the end wins.

Wingspan won the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur Game of the Year), one of the most prestigious awards in board gaming. It's earned its reputation: it's genuinely beautiful, intellectually satisfying, and surprisingly relaxing to play.

2 What's in the Box

• 170 unique bird cards
• 26 bonus cards
• 5 player mats
• 1 bird tray + 3 bird feeders
• 75 egg miniatures (3 colors)
• 103 food tokens (5 types)
• 75 action cubes (15 per player)
• 5 player aids
• 1 automa deck (for solo play)
• 40 goal tiles
• 1 first-player token

3 Setup

1. Each player gets a player mat, 8 action cubes, and 5 random food tokens.
2. Shuffle the bird cards and deal 5 to each player. Players may discard up to 3 and take that many food tokens from the supply as compensation.
3. Deal each player 2 bonus cards face-down; they keep 1 and discard 1.
4. Shuffle and place round goal tiles on the end-of-round goal board (one per round, either randomly or using the side with fixed goals for beginners).
5. Fill the bird tray with 3 face-up bird cards. Set the remaining birds as a draw deck.
6. Fill the bird feeder dice tower with all 5 food dice and roll them.
7. The player who last saw a bird goes first (or youngest player). 🐦

4 Your Player Board

Your player mat has three habitats (rows), each representing a different environment:

• 🌲 Forest (top row) — Gain food from the bird feeder
• 🌾 Grassland (middle row) — Lay eggs
• 💧 Wetlands (bottom row) — Draw bird cards

Each habitat can hold up to 5 bird cards. Birds are placed left to right. The spaces to the right of each row show what you gain when you take that habitat's action — plus all the powers of birds already in that row activate.

5 Taking Your Turn

The game is played over 4 rounds. Each round, players take turns in order until everyone has used all their action cubes for the round.

Round 1: each player gets 8 actions. Round 2: 7. Round 3: 6. Round 4: 5. (The rounds get shorter but your engine is stronger.)

On your turn, place 1 action cube on the leftmost open space of a habitat row (or on the "play a bird" card symbol) and take that action. That's it.

6 The Four Actions

🎴 Play a Bird

Pay the bird card's food cost and egg cost, then place the bird in the matching habitat. The food cost is shown in the upper left of the card. The egg cost is the number of eggs you must move from your supply to other birds already in that row (1 egg per bird already there, up to 2 total for the first couple of birds).

After placing, the bird's "when placed" power fires (if it has one).

🌲 Gain Food (Forest action)

Take food from the bird feeder (the dice tower). You take one food token per action cube space up to your current position in the forest row, plus all "when activated" powers of forest birds fire (left to right).

When the bird feeder runs out of a type, re-roll all the remaining dice.

🥚 Lay Eggs (Grassland action)

Take egg tokens from the supply and place them on your birds (distributed however you like). The number of eggs you get depends on your position in the grassland row, plus all "when activated" powers of grassland birds fire.

Each bird card shows how many eggs it can hold (its egg limit).

🃏 Draw Bird Cards (Wetlands action)

Draw bird cards either from the face-up tray or from the top of the deck. The number you draw depends on your position in the wetlands row, plus all "when activated" powers of wetlands birds fire.

You can hold any number of bird cards in your hand.

7 Playing Bird Cards

Each bird card has:

• Habitat icons (top left) — which rows it can go in
• Food cost (top left) — what you pay to play it
• Point value (top right) — end-game points
• Egg limit (shown by egg symbol) — how many eggs it can hold
• Wingspan (shown with wing symbol) — affects some bonus cards
• Power (bottom half) — brown = "when activated," pink = "once between turns," white = "when played"
• Bird facts — real info about the species (charming, you'll read them)

Food Types

• 🐛 Invertebrate (worm)
• 🌱 Seed
• 🐟 Fish
• 🍒 Fruit/Berry
• 🐭 Rodent
• 🌀 Wild food (shown as dice icon on some cards)

8 Bird Powers

🟤 Brown Powers — "When Activated"

These fire automatically when you take the habitat action the bird is in. You don't have to — you can choose to skip them. They fire left to right, one at a time. These are your engine.

🩷 Pink Powers — "Once Between Turns"

These fire during other players' turns under specific conditions (usually when someone else takes a specific action). The pink bird owner decides whether to use it.

⬜ White Powers — "When Played"

These fire once, immediately when you place the bird card. They don't repeat.

9 End of Round Scoring

At the end of each round, score the round goal tile (there are 4, one per round).

Goal tiles award points for things like: most eggs in grassland, most birds in forest, most birds with a specific food type, longest continuous series of birds sharing a habitat, etc.

In competitive play, goal tiles rank players 1st–4th with points (5/4/3/2/1 depending on how many players). In the simpler "automa/beginner" side, there's a fixed target to hit.

After scoring, slide all action cubes off the board. You start fresh next round.

10 Final Scoring

After 4 rounds, tally all sources of points:

• 🐦 Bird cards: Points printed on each bird card in your preserve
• 🥚 Eggs: 1 point per egg on your birds
• 🃏 Tucked cards: 1 point each (some bird powers tuck cards under birds)
• 🍎 Cached food: 1 point per food cached on birds (some birds cache food)
• 🎯 Bonus card: Score your bonus card (e.g., "3 pts per bird in wetlands")
• 🏅 End-of-round goals: Points accumulated from the 4 goal tiles

The player with the most total points wins. Ties broken by food tokens remaining, then eggs on birds.

11 Strategy Tips

• Check your bonus card early. Your bonus card tells you what to aim for. If it rewards birds with 5+ wingspan, prioritize those. Build toward it from round 1.
• Don't spread too thin. Three strong rows is better than two amazing rows and one empty one. But don't force yourself into a habitat that doesn't synergize with your cards.
• Pay attention to egg limits. Some birds hold 6 eggs. Lay eggs on high-capacity birds to maximize your egg points at end game.
• Brown powers chain. When looking at bird cards to draw or play, ask: does this bird's brown power work with the others in that row? Can I tuck, cache, or get free food in a chain?
• Birds that draw cards fuel your hand. A strong wetlands engine means you always have options. Flexible hands win games.
• End-of-round goals can swing 10+ points. Don't ignore them. Check what's coming next round and position your turns to compete for the top spot.