Wingspan

At a glance

Components

Setup and reading the player mat

1. 1Shuffle the bird cards into the bird deck and populate the bird tray with 3 face-up cards from it.
2. 2Put all food and egg tokens together as the supply, accessible to everyone.
3. 3Toss the 5 dice into the birdfeeder.
4. 4Choose which side of the goal board to use — green is the default, blue is good with new players.
5. 5Shuffle the goal tiles without reading them and place 4 of them, random side up, on the goal board. Return the rest to the box.
6. 6Shuffle the bonus cards into a deck.
7. 7Each player takes 1 player mat, 8 action cubes of one color, 2 random bonus cards, 5 random bird cards, and 5 food tokens (1 of each type).
8. 8Keep up to 5 bird cards; for each bird you keep, discard 1 food token. Keep 2 birds and you have 3 food left; keep 4 birds and you have 1.
9. 9Keep 1 of your 2 bonus cards and discard the other. You may look at both while choosing which birds to keep.
10. 10Choose a first player at random and give them the first player token.

• Each habitat is tied to one action. Forest gains food, grassland lays eggs, wetland draws bird cards.
• A habitat holds at most 5 birds, and a bird always goes into the leftmost exposed slot of its row.
• So as birds accumulate, the slot you use in that row moves right and the amount you get grows.
• The bonus conversion differs by row — forest lets you discard 1 card for 1 food, grassland pay 1 food for 1 egg, wetland discard 1 egg for 1 card.

Your turn — exactly one action

On your turn you take one of the four actions and pass clockwise. All three habitats are always available to you.

1. 1Place 1 action cube on the leftmost exposed slot of the row you chose, and take the amount shown on that slot.
2. 2If the slot shows a bonus conversion, you may make exactly one extra exchange (optional).
3. 3Move the cube from right to left, one slot at a time, using the brown «when activated» power of each bird it passes. Skip any you do not want.
4. 4When the cube reaches the action name on the far left, your turn ends. Leave the cube there.

Action 1 — play a bird from your hand

1. 1Choose a bird from your hand and find the leftmost exposed slot of its habitat. Place a cube at the top of that column, on the «play a bird» row, and pay the egg cost — 1 egg in columns 2 and 3, 2 eggs in columns 4 and 5, none in column 1.
2. 2Pay the bird's food cost to the supply. Only the food tokens next to your mat count; food cached on cards cannot be spent.
3. 3Place the card on that slot and move your cube to the «play a bird» label on the left.
4. 4If the card has a «when played» power, you may use it now.

Action 2 — gain food and activate the forest

• Place a cube on the leftmost exposed forest slot and gain food from as many birdfeeder dice as that slot shows.
• You always gain 1 food token per die. Remove the die from the birdfeeder and take the matching token from the supply.
• One die face lets you choose between two types — even then you gain only 1 token, not 2.
• If the slot shows a card-to-food conversion, you may discard 1 bird card from your hand for 1 more food. You must still pick from the dice left in the birdfeeder.
• Dice removed from the birdfeeder do not go back until the birdfeeder is refilled.
• Your food tokens are public information, and there is no limit on how many you may hold.

Action 3 — lay eggs and activate the grassland

• Place a cube on the leftmost exposed grassland slot and lay as many eggs as it shows, taking them from the supply onto your birds. Egg color means nothing.
• You may put them all on one bird or spread them around, but never past a bird's egg limit.
• If you run out of space, the excess eggs are simply lost.
• If the slot shows a food-to-egg conversion, you may pay 1 food token to lay 1 more egg.
• An egg stays on its card for the rest of the game unless discarded, and is worth 1 point each.

Action 4 — draw bird cards and activate the wetland

• Place a cube on the leftmost exposed wetland slot and draw as many cards as it shows.
• Draw from the 3 face-up cards on the bird tray or from the top of the bird deck, in any mix.
• There is no hand limit.
• If the slot shows an egg-to-card conversion, you may discard 1 egg from one of your birds to draw 1 more card.
• Gaps in the bird tray are not refilled immediately — you refill them at the end of your turn.
• If the bird deck runs out, reshuffle all discarded bird cards into a new deck.

Bird powers — the color tells you when

• Cache — putting a food token on a bird. It does not count as food you hold and cannot pay for birds, but it is worth 1 point each at the end.
• Tuck — flocking birds slide other cards underneath themselves. Each tucked card is worth 1 point.
• Some birds are marked as predators, and some powers compare wingspan values.
• Every power is optional. Skip any you do not want to use.
• Pink powers fire on other people's turns, so it helps to tell the table what your pink power is and what triggers it.

End of the round and end-of-round goals

1. 1Once everyone has used all their action cubes, the round ends. Remove all cubes from your player mat.
2. 2Score this round's end-of-round goal and place 1 action cube on the goal board to mark what you scored.
3. 3Discard all face-up cards on the bird tray and replenish it with 3 new ones.
4. 4Pass the first player token clockwise.

• The table above is the green side (the default). The blue side gives 1 point per item, up to a maximum of 5.
• You must have at least 1 of the targeted item to score at all — for a goal counting grassland birds, you need at least 1 bird there.
• Even out of the places, you must still put a cube on the 0 space. Cubes leaving your mat is exactly what shortens the next round.
• Star nests count toward every nest-type goal.

Game end and scoring

The game ends at the close of round 4. Use the scorepad and add all of the following together.

Strategy that follows straight from the rules

• Keep birds with brown powers that fetch more food or cards. The rulebook gives the same advice — those effects cluster in brown.
• Keep the food your kept birds ask for. Every bird you keep in setup costs you a food token, so the food left over has to match the birds left over or your first turns stall.
• Read your bonus card before picking birds. The rules explicitly let you look at both while choosing.
• Turns drop 8, 7, 6, 5. How many times a bird played in round 1 or 2 fires in rounds 3 and 4 is its real rate of return.
• Stacking one row only strengthens that row. Fill all three to some degree or you run out of worthwhile actions late.
• Eggs are a cost too. Columns 4 and 5 want 2 eggs each, so budget whole turns for laying.
• All 4 end-of-round goals are face up from setup. Look at which habitats and nests they count and aim your first birds there — it saves you a wasted cube.

Editions and expansions

• Solo play uses the «Automa» opponent. The rulebook itself covers the multi-player game only; Automa comes as its own booklet.
• The blue side of the goal board (1 point per item, 5 maximum) cuts direct competition, which is what the rulebook suggests for new players.
• The Swift-Start guides in English printings walk each player through their first four turns. Once everyone has learned, shuffle the 10 Swift-Start birds into the deck.

Rules people get wrong

History and editions

• The rulebook credits the bird information to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Audubon guide, and the Sibley field guides. The base game covers North American birds.
• The birdfeeder dice tower was designed by Tower Rex. The container that holds the dice is itself the food market of the game.
• Printings from September 2019 onward began including the Swift-Start promo pack (10 bird cards and 4 player guides). It entered the English rulebook text by revision r24, and the Korean rulebook (2021) still does not carry it.
• The title «Wingspan» is the measurement itself. Each card prints a wingspan, and some powers compare that value.