Wingspan: How It Plays, What Wins, and Who Should Buy It

Each player is dealt 5 random bird cards and 5 food tokens at setup, then keeps up to 5 bird cards and discards the rest. For each bird card kept, you must discard 1 food token, so you might keep 2 birds and 3 food, or 4 birds and 1 food.

Each player receives 1 player mat, 8 action cubes of one color, 2 random bonus cards, 5 random bird cards, and 5 food tokens (one of each type). You then narrow down your birds, food, and bonus cards before the game begins.

The green side is the default and creates direct competition, awarding points for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place on each goal. The blue side is gentler for new players, awarding 1 point for each targeted item up to a maximum of 5 points.

Shuffle the double-sided goal tiles without looking at them, then place 1 tile (random side up) on each of the four blank spaces on the goal board. Return the extra goal tiles to the box.

The first player is selected randomly during setup and receives the first-player token. At the end of each round, the token rotates clockwise to the next player.

Yes. You choose 1 of the 4 actions each turn, and the rulebook explicitly allows picking the same action again and again. There is no restriction against repeating actions across turns.

No. When paying a bird's food cost, you discard food tokens from next to your player mat — cached food on bird cards cannot be spent. Cached food is instead worth 1 point per token at the end of the game.

Yes, but only when playing a bird. During the play-a-bird action, any 2 food tokens can be spent as if they were any 1 food token; this exchange cannot be used during other parts of the game.

No. Brown WHEN ACTIVATED powers are optional each time you use the habitat, and powers generally are always optional. You also activate them from right to left in the row, skipping any you don't want to use.

No. When you take the draw bird cards action, you draw the number of cards shown on the slot from the face-up cards on the bird tray or the bird deck, and there is no limit on how many cards you can hold.

The extra eggs are lost. You may distribute eggs on any combination of birds — including all on a single bird — but each bird has an egg limit shown by its egg icons, and a bird card can never hold more than that number.

There is no egg cost for the first column. To play a bird in column 2 or 3, you discard 1 egg to the egg supply; in columns 4 or 5, you discard 2 eggs, paid from any birds on your player mat.

If the birdfeeder tray is ever empty, throw all 5 dice back in. You may also reroll all 5 dice before gaining food whenever every die in the tray shows the same face — including when only 1 die remains.

The tied player with the most unused food tokens wins. If players are still tied after comparing unused food, they share the victory.

Each egg on a bird card, each food token cached on a bird card, and each card tucked under a bird card is worth 1 point at the end of the game. These are scored on top of the points printed on your bird cards, bonus cards, and end-of-round goals.

Tied players both place their cubes on the tied place, and the next place is not awarded. At game end, add the points for the tied place and the next place(s), divide by the number of tied players, and round down. For example, two players tying for 1st on a 5-2-1 goal each get 3 points.

No. You must have at least 1 of the targeted items to score points for a goal. For example, you need at least 1 grassland bird to score for the “most birds in the grassland habitat” goal.

Empty spaces on the bird tray are not refilled right away as you draw. You wait until the end of your turn before refilling them, so other bird powers you activate during that same turn draw from a tray that hasn't been restocked yet.

If the face-down bird deck is emptied at any point, you reshuffle all discarded bird cards to form a new deck and keep playing. Note that the discard pile is kept face-up.

A pink power can trigger on opponents' turns, but you can only use it once between each of your own turns, even if multiple opponents would trigger it. The rulebook recommends telling other players what the power is and what activates it so the table can help notice when it should fire.

You pay the egg cost by discarding eggs from any birds on your player mat — they do not have to come from a specific bird or habitat. The discarded eggs go to the egg supply.

It's the group's choice. The rules allow each player to keep their hand of cards either private or public throughout the game, so you can play openly if you prefer—handy when teaching new players.

Star nests are wild: they match any of the four standard nest types (platform, bowl, cavity, and ground). This makes them powerful, since they count for any nest type required by end-of-round goals, bonus cards, and bird powers.