Stats:

No. of players: 1-5
Amount of time to play: 40-70 min
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: 5 min

The European expansion adds 81 more birds, 10 more goals, 5 more objectives and a few new wrinkles to Wingspan.

Wingspan European Expansion Rules Description:

This review assumes you have played Wingspan. If you haven’t read my Wingspan review and overview here. I am going to highlight the new elements introduced in the European expansion.

Most of what this expansion adds is more of the things already in the game. There are new objectives, goals, and more birds. The expansion combines with the base game and then set up is the same. The gameplay is mostly the same too.

The changes come from some of the bird powers. Some birds can be played sideways and take up two spaces in their habitat. New predators allow you to tuck birds from your hand under them to reduce their food cost. Other predators may replace (and tuck) a bird currently on your board. Some birds let you sweep the current bird offering and take a card. There are also light blue colored powers which trigger at the end of each round. They let you gain food, new cards, place a bird, or get more points.

There are five new double-sided goal tiles. Some highlights of the ten new goals are having birds with no eggs, birds with no powers, or the most food tokens. Be aware the new goals work better with the green-sided (competitive) end-of-round scoring.

You also get a new purple tray for the cards, purple eggs, additional food tokens, and a score pad.

Quick Review of Wingspan European Expansion:

The Wingspan European Expansion adds some variety and a few new elements to the the series. It is easy to integrate into the base game and there are no major rule changes.

Just like the base game the expansion has great components. The art is great and the chits and cards are high quality. The rules are well written and easy to follow.

One complaint about Wingspan is the lay egg strategy. Some feel it is far too powerful in the base game. Some of the new birds and goals help to make eggs less valuable. This helps open new ways to win. Egg laying can still be powerful, but the changes address it as a go to strategy. The end of round bird powers help make other resources worth VPs too.

The new birds offer some interesting decisions too. Do you lay a bird sideways to build your engine quicker or is it more worthwhile to place two birds for the VPs they give?

Being able to wipe the available birds is great but it would have been nice to have more birds with that power. You can always pick randomly from the deck, but that doesn’t always work out very well. Maybe the next expansion will give even more opportunities for this.

Wingspan European Expansion is a no-brainer if you enjoy the base game, but want to mix it up a bit. I like that it addresses the egg strategy and create more paths of victory (especially for beginners). If you do not like the base game I am not sure this expansion will change that. But if you fo like it, pick this expansion up.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 2 out of 6
Replay Value 6 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 6 out of 6
Overall 6 out of 6