The Four Actions of Wingspan

Hey there! Let me tell you all about the four actions you can take in the game of Wingspan.

1. Playing a Bird from your Hand #image.jpg

First up, you can play a bird from your hand. Take a look at the birds you’ve got in your hand and choose one to play. Each bird comes with its own special ability, so pick wisely! Playing a bird can help you score points, gather resources, or even mess with your opponents’ plans. It’s a great way to get started in the game.

2. Gaining Food from the Birdfeeder and/or the Bird Cards

Next, you can gather some tasty food for your birds. There are two places you can get food from – the birdfeeder and the bird cards. The birdfeeder holds a random assortment of food tokens, and the bird cards can also have food on them. Choose where you want to get your food from and take the tokens you need. You’ll need food to play some of the birds and activate their abilities, so keep an eye on your supply!

3. Laying Eggs on your Birds

Now it’s time to help your birds grow. You can lay eggs on your birds to increase their population. This is important because some birds have abilities that get stronger with more eggs, and you’ll also score points based on the number of eggs you have at the end of the game. So don’t be afraid to give your birds a little extra love and attention by laying some eggs on them.

4. Drawing Bird Cards

Lastly, you can draw some new bird cards into your hand. Having a variety of birds in your hand gives you more options for future turns. You might find a bird with an ability that’s just what you need to get ahead in the game. So take a card from the deck and add it to your hand. Who knows what feathered friends you’ll find?

Those are the four actions of Wingspan – playing a bird, getting food, laying eggs, and drawing cards. Each one is important for building your aviary and scoring points. So get out there and start taking those actions!

When you’re deciding to play a bird, think about where it lives, what it eats, and how many eggs it needs. Each bird has its own requirements for habitat and food, which you can see in the top left corner of the card.

Also, some birds have an egg cost shown at the top of the column where you want to play them (except for the first column). If you don’t have enough eggs to cover the cost, you can’t play that bird.

Here’s what you should do when you decide to play a bird:

1. First, choose a bird card that you want to play from your hand. Then, place an action cube at the top of the column where you want to play the bird. You’ll need to pay the required number of eggs by discarding them from any of the birds on your player mat. If you’re playing a bird in column 2 or 3, you’ll need to discard 1 egg to the egg supply. If you’re playing in columns 4 or 5, you’ll need to discard 2 eggs.
2. Next, you’ll need to pay the bird’s food cost. You can do this by discarding food tokens from next to your player mat, not from the food tokens on bird cards. There are 5 different types of food:

Note: These food types are quite general. For example, the symbol for invertebrates is a caterpillar, but some birds that eat invertebrates actually specialize in flying or swimming insects, or even shellfish.

#image.jpgWhen a bird’s food requirement includes a wild icon, you have the flexibility to use any of the 5 types of food to meet its needs.
#image.jpgIf a circle is crossed out, that means the bird does not require any food.
#image.jpgWhen you play birds, you have the option to spend any 2 food tokens as if they were a single food token. However, this exchange can only be made during the bird-playing phase of the game. For instance, if you need 1 fish, you may use 2 food tokens of any other type instead.
Place the bird card on the leftmost exposed slot in its corresponding habitat and move your action cube to the left side of the PLAY A BIRD row. The three habitats are:#image.jpg

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Hey there! Let’s talk about the second action in Wingspan: gaining food and activating forest bird powers. Food in this game is super important because it’s what you need to play bird cards. You can see your options for gaining food on the dice in the birdfeeder. Throughout the game, the birdfeeder will get empty and then get filled up again.

When you decide to get some food, here’s what you do:

1. Place one of your action cubes in the leftmost slot in the “gain food” row on your player mat. Then, choose some dice from the birdfeeder and take the amount of food shown on them. For each piece of food you take (you can take one for each die icon):
2. Remove a die from the birdfeeder and put it on the table.
3. Take a food token that matches the icon on the die you just removed and put it next to your player mat. Everyone can see your food tokens.

When you roll the dice, you’ll always get one food token. And if you roll a dice face that shows , you’ll get one token of either type, not two tokens.

If you put your action cube in a slot that offers a card-to-food bonus, you can choose to discard one bird card from your hand to get extra food. This is up to you – you don’t have to do it. If you decide to take the extra food, you have to pick from the remaining dice in the birdfeeder.

Next, you can activate any brown powers on your forest birds. You start on the right side and work your way to the left. Remember, these powers are optional, so it’s your choice whether or not to use them. To finish your turn, place your action cube on the left side of the “gain food” row.

Example: When you roll a die and get a food token, you can get an extra food token by discarding a bird card. After that, you can use the power on the bird card.

Managing The Birdfeeder

The birdfeeder has a tray for the 5 food dice. When you take a food token, the dice will stay outside the tray until the birdfeeder is filled again.

If the birdfeeder tray is empty, just put all 5 dice back in.

If all the dice in the tray show the same face (even if there’s only one die) and you’re about to get food, you can throw all five dice back into the birdfeeder first. The thrown dice count as their own unique face.

Handling Food Tokens

You can have as many food tokens as you want on your mat or on your birds. Some bird cards let you keep food tokens on them until the game ends. There’s also no limit on the number of food tokens in the supply. If, by chance, a certain type of food token is not available, use a temporary substitute instead.

#image.jpg3. Lay Eggs and Use Powers of Grassland Birds

Eggs are used as a payment for playing bird cards in columns 2 – 5. Additionally, each egg on the bird cards on your player mat will be worth 1 point at the end of the game.

When you decide to lay eggs, here’s what you should do:

1. When I want to lay eggs in Wingspan, I start by placing an action cube in the leftmost exposed slot in the “lay eggs” row on my player mat. I then lay that number of eggs. It’s important to remember that each bird card has a specific egg limit, which is shown by the egg icons. I can lay eggs on any combination of birds, including putting all of them on one bird. However, I need to make sure that I don’t exceed a bird’s egg limit. If I do, any excess eggs are lost. Once I lay an egg, I take an egg token from the supply (it doesn’t matter which color) and place it on a bird card that has space for it. This egg will stay on the bird card for the rest of the game, unless I decide to discard it. Here’s an image to help you visualize the process: #image.jpg

If you place your action cube in the slot that has a food-to-egg bonus conversion, you have the option to spend up to 1 food token to lay an extra egg. You don’t have to do it, but it’s a nice bonus if you want to. Here’s an image of what it looks like:

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You don’t have to worry about running out of eggs because there is no limit to the egg supply. But just in case, if there are no eggs left, you can use something else temporarily.

The nests of the birds are indicated by icons below their scores. These nest icons are important for end-of-round goals and bonus cards. There are 4 types of nests in total.

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Have you ever heard of star nests? They’re pretty amazing! These nests are unlike any other and don’t fit into the standard categories. They have the power to match any other nest type in terms of goals and bonus cards.

Remember: The egg limits in Wingspan are based on how many eggs birds actually lay in real life, but they have been scaled down for the game. Birds that can lay a maximum of 6 eggs may actually lay 15 or more eggs in a year!

#image.jpg4. Draw Bird Cards and Activate Wetland Bird Powers

When you draw cards, you have a few options. You can select from the 3 face-up cards on the bird tray or take the top card from the bird deck.

If you decide to draw cards, follow these steps:

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First, choose which cards you want to draw, either from the bird tray or the bird deck.

Next, add the drawn cards to your hand.

If you draw bird cards, you can activate any wetland bird powers you have on your bird cards. Just make sure to pay attention to the requirements for using these powers.

Put an action cube in the leftmost open slot in the “draw cards” row on your player mat. Take the number of cards indicated from either the face-up cards on the bird tray or the bird deck. There is no limit to how many cards you can hold.

If the slot where you placed your action cube has a bonus conversion from eggs to cards, you can choose to discard one egg from a bird on your mat and draw an extra card. This is optional. Take one egg from a bird card and put it back in the supply. #image.jpg

Managing The Bird Deck

When you draw face-up cards, you don’t immediately refill the empty spaces. Instead, wait until the end of your turn to refill the bird tray. If the face-down deck runs out during the game, shuffle all the discarded bird cards to make a new deck.

Once the round is finished, you should get rid of any cards that are still face-up on the table. Don’t worry, though. You’ll have a chance to replace them with three fresh bird cards.

Just so you know, Wingspan has an impressive collection of 170 bird species out of the 914 that exist in North America. And as a bonus, each bird card comes with a nifty little map that shows you which continents the bird can be found.