How To Play Wingspan: European Expansion

Wingspan is one of the most popular and beloved games in our hobby. It’s easy to teach, endlessly varied and absolutely gorgeous to look at. Not to mention the fact that the theme is wonderfully original.

This first expansion adds 81 new birds, introducing brand new powers and mechanics. There are also some new bonus cards and additional end-of-round goals.

In this How To Play, I won’t be covering the full rules for Wingspan (you can find our guide here), only the new features.

A Classic Setup

When playing with Wingspan European Expansion, there are no changes to the regular Wingspan setup. You can shuffle the new bird cards into the main deck, the new bonus cards into their deck and the end-of-round goal tiles into their set (before drawing 4 as usual).

New Birds, New Powers

There are two new mechanics introduced in this expansion and both of them are through bird powers.

End-of-Round Powers (teal stripe). If a bird with an end-of-round power is played into your habitat, it will trigger once everyone has completed all of their actions. These powers provide a range of bonuses, from scoring opportunities to extra actions.

Alternative costs, some of the European birds have a * next to their cost. These provide alternate ways to pay for a bird when placing it in your habitat, or sometimes allow you to place it on top of a previously placed bird.