Wingspan: Oceania Expansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • Reference Tile
• Setup
• Game Play
• Nectar
• New Player Mat Action: Reset
• Game End Powers
• Flightless Birds
• Adjacency
• Bonus Cards
  • Data Analyst Bonus Cards
  • Mechanical Engineer
  • Site Selection Expert
  • New Words for Bonus Cards
• Appendix
  • Bird Powers
    • Food-Gaining Powers
    • Card-Drawing Powers
    • Egg-Laying Powers
    • Flocking Powers
    • Hunting and Fishing Powers
    • Bonus Card Powers
    • Other Powers
  • End-of-Round Goals

Components

• 1 rulebook
• 95 bird cards
• 5 bonus cards
• 1 scorepad
• 4 goal tiles
• 1 reference tile
• 15 egg miniatures
• 5 food dice
• 69 nectar tokens
• 5 player mats

Reference Tile

End of Round Reference

1. Use round end bird powers (if playing with European Expansion).
2. Discard any unused nectar.
3. Score end-of-round goal.
4. Remove all action cubes.
5. Discard and replace all cards in the bird tray.
6. If Round 4 is over, use game-end powers. Otherwise, pass the first-player token.

Setup

1. Shuffle together the bird decks you want to use. If you own multiple Wingspan expansions, you have a lot of bird cards! Each deck is balanced to work with the bonus cards from the base game and to provide relatively even numbers of birds from each habitat and with each nest type. You may play with all expansions mixed in, or mix and match any combination of two decks. Use the icons in the bottom right of each expansion card to help separate expansions.
2. Mix the bonus cards and end-of-round goals in with the others.
3. Set up as you normally would for a game of Wingspan, except:
   • a. Replace all 5 food dice from the base game with the 5 new dice.
   • b. Replace all player mats from the base game with the new player mats.
     • i. The new player mats can even be used without other elements of the Oceania expansion if you prefer them to the original mats.
   • c. Place the reference tile near the goal board.
   • d. Add the nectar tokens to the food supply. Each player selects 5 starting cards/food from their 5 dealt cards and 5 standard food (not including nectar) as normal. Then, all players gain 1 nectar.

As a reminder, all action cubes should stay in the row used until the end-of-round scoring. They play a part in one of the end-of-round goals added in this expansion.

Game Play

When playing with the Oceania Expansion the general structure of game play is the same as in the base game, but there is one additional step and one note about end of game (see bold).

At the end of each round:

1. Use "round end" bird powers, if playing with European Expansion.
2. Discard any unused nectar (as described in next section).
3. Score end-of-round goal.
4. Remove all action cubes.
5. Discard and replace all cards in the bird tray.
6. If Round 4 is over, use game-end powers. Otherwise, pass first-player token clockwise.

At the end of the game, complete the end-of-round steps, then activate any "game end" bird powers (as described in the section about new bird powers below).

Nectar

Plant-based sugars are an important food source for many birds in Oceania.

In his book Where Song Began, biologist Tim Low argues that more nectar is available to birds in Australia than in other parts of the world because, in the region's poor soils, trees don't have the nutrients they need to turn sugars into new tissue—so they give it away to pollinators, including honeyeaters and many parrots.

Excess sugars also are available in other forms. When some eucalypts are attacked by insects, the insects exude a sweet substance called manna. Other insects excrete excess sugar from tree sap as substances known as lerp and honeydew. A wide variety of birds in the region, from silvereyes to malleefowl, eat at least one of these sources of sugar.

To represent this abundant sugar in all its forms, this expansion introduces nectar as a new food type and replaces the dice in the birdfeeder with new ones that provide nectar.

Designer's Note: The abundance of plant-based sugar doesn't just support birds. It attracts a wide variety of insects and mammals. And eventually, the pollinated flowers turn into fruits or seeds. It's this role in the ecosystem that led me to make nectar wild – not only do many birds eat nectar or lerp directly, but other birds might find the food they're looking for as a direct result of the presence of nectar. When you feed nectar to a hawk, imagine it finding a sugar glider in a flowering eucalyptus!

When paying food to play a bird, use an "any food" bird ability, or upgrade an action, nectar is a wild food. You can substitute nectar for any of the 5 other food types when playing a bird, discarding any food type for a bird's ability, or upgrading an action (e.g., discarding a food to lay an extra egg).

• Some birds have nectar as a food cost. The normal rule that you can spend 2 food tokens as if they are any 1 food token also applies to nectar.
• The any food type symbol always includes nectar. If you find that this rule makes the Chihuahuan Raven and Common Raven in the base game too powerful, remove those two birds from the deck while playing with the Oceania Expansion.

When bird powers refer to a specific food type, nectar is not a wild food. If a bird's power looks for mice in the birdfeeder, for example, do not also count the nectar there.

Any nectar remaining in your personal food supply at the end of the round is discarded. You cannot carry over any nectar from round to round.

• Nectar discarded at the end of the round goes back to the supply, not to one of the "spent nectar" spaces (see page 3).
• This rule only applies to unspent nectar in your personal food supply. Do not discard the nectar on your "spent nectar" spaces or cached on your birds.

When spending nectar to play birds, use an "any food" bird ability, or upgrade an action, put it onto the "spent nectar" space for that habitat. You can put nectar onto your mat when:

• you spend nectar as part of a bird's food cost (nectar costs paid with 2 any food type = nectar are not placed on the "spent nectar" space. The nectar never enters your supply.)
• you spend nectar on a bird ability that has the any food type icon. (Remember, if the bird ability lists a specific food, you must use that food. Nectar is not wild for bird abilities.)
• you spend nectar to pay for one of the action upgrades printed on your player mat (such as resetting the birdfeeder or card tray, or gaining more eggs or cards).

You must put it on the same row where you spent it: when playing a bird, put it in the row where you played the bird. Otherwise, put it in the row that you activated that turn.

You may not trade away nectar in the 2 any food type = any food type conversion. Nectar is already wild.

At game end, count who has the most nectar tokens in the "spent nectar" space of each habitat. Award points as shown on the player mat. In each habitat:

• The player with the most nectar receives 5 points, and
• The player with the second-most nectar receives 2 points.

As with the end-of-round goals, you must have at least 1 nectar token in a habitat to qualify for the nectar points for that habitat. If two or more players are tied, add the points and divide them evenly, rounded down. For example, two players tied for most nectar would each receive 3 points. Two players tied for second most nectar would each receive 1 point.

New Player Mat Action: Reset

In columns 2 and 4 of the new player mat, there is a new option in the forest and wetland rows.

• Forest: you may discard any 1 food to reset the birdfeeder.
• Wetland: you may discard any 1 food to reset the bird tray.

Use the actions on each space in the order they are printed: Reset if you are going to, then take food or cards.

Game End Powers

Some birds have yellow powers that activate only once, at the end of the game. Activate these powers after completing all end-of-round steps. If you have more than one bird with a "game end" power, you may activate them in any order. These birds do not trigger birds with pink "once between turns" powers.

Flightless Birds

A few birds in the deck have a * symbol for their wingspan. These are flightless birds, and some have only vestigial wings. For any bird power or bonus card that contains a condition on wingspan, flightless birds function as wild cards. For example:

• Flightless birds always satisfy conditions on wingspan in a predator's power.
• Flightless birds can be treated as having any value for bonus cards that give points for birds with wingspans in ascending or descending order.

Adjacency

If a card refers to adjacent birds, it's referring to orthogonal adjacency (birds immediately to the left or right, and those immediately above or below the given bird).

Bonus Cards

Data Analyst Bonus Cards

Forest, Grassland, and Wetland Data Analyst: These bonus cards each grant points for a long enough sequence, in the corresponding habitat, of consecutive birds with wingspans in ascending or descending order. The sequence need not consist of all birds in the habitat, and it need not start or end with the first or last bird in the habitat. A sequence may include two or more birds with the same wingspan.

As mentioned earlier, the wingspans of flightless birds are wild: For purposes of these bonus cards, you can assign a flightless bird any wingspan.

For example, if the wingspans of the first 3 birds in your wetland are in ascending order, but the fourth bird in your wetland has a wingspan smaller than the third bird there, the length of your sequence is 3, in which case the Wetland Data Analyst bonus card would grant 3 points.

Scoring on each of the three Data Analyst bonus cards:

• 4 consecutive birds: 5 points
• 3 consecutive birds: 3 points
• 5 consecutive birds: 8 points

Mechanical Engineer

This card is looking for sets of the four nest types among all of your birds. The order and location of the nests do not matter; it only matters that each set includes all four nest types. Each star nest can be substituted for one nest of any type in one set. For example:

• a cavity nest, a platform nest, and two stars would be a complete set.
• two cavity nests, two platform nests, a bowl nest, a ground nest, and two stars would be two complete sets.
• two bowl nests, two cavity nests, two platform nests, and one star nest count as one set, not two, because the star nest can only be a member of one set.

Scoring: sets of the 4 nest types. Each star nest can be treated as any 1 nest type. No card can be part of more than 1 set.

• One set: 3 points
• Two sets: 8 points

Site Selection Expert

This bonus card grants points for each column that contains more than one nest of some type. A column is worth 0, 1, or 3 points, according to whether it has 0, 2, or 3 matching nests in that column, respectively. Different columns may (but need not) score using different nest types.

Star nests are wild. A single star nest counts only once; it cannot be used to match 2 different kinds of nests in the same column.

Scoring: columns with a matching pair or trio of nests. Different columns may (but need not) score using different nest types. Star nests are wild, but each counts only once.

• 2 of the same nest in a column: 1 point
• 3 of the same nest in a column: 3 points

New Words for Bonus Cards

Three bonus cards in the base game look for words in the names of birds. This expansion adds the following terms for those bonus cards:

• Photographer: crimson, orange, pink, rufous, silver, sulphur, tawny

The European Expansion rulebook erroneously includes honey as a term for the Photographer bonus card. Honey does not count as a color word.

• Cartographer: Australasian, Australian, mallee, New Holland, North, Pacific, plains, sea, scrub, South
• Anatomist: back, ear, foot, head, mouth, wattle

Appendix

Bird Powers

Food-Gaining Powers

• Spangled Drongo. Once between turns: When another player gains nectar, gain 1 nectar from the supply.
• Lesser Frigatebird. When activated: All players may discard 1 egg from a wetland bird. Each player that discards an egg gains 1 any food type from the supply.
• Silvereye. When activated: All players gain 1 nectar from the supply.
• Eastern Rosella. When activated: All players gain 1 nectar from the supply. You also gain 1 seed from the supply.
• Many-Colored Fruit-Dove. When activated: All players gain 1 fruit from the supply. You gain 1 additional fruit from the supply.
• Count Raggi's Bird-of-Paradise, Eastern Whipbird, Lewin's Honeyeater, Regent Bowerbird. When activated: Choose 1 other player. You both gain 1 [FOOD TYPE] from the supply.
• Rufous-Banded Honeyeater. When activated: Discard 1 invertebrate. If you do, gain 1 nectar from the supply.
• Korimako. When activated: Discard any number of rodents to gain that many nectar from the supply.
• Mistletoebird. When activated: Gain 1 fruit from the supply, or discard 1 fruit to gain 1 nectar from the supply.
  • Note: The "toe" in this bird's name is etymologically unrelated to the anatomical part and so does not qualify this bird for the Anatomist bonus card.
• New Holland Honeyeater. When activated: Gain 1 nectar from the birdfeeder, if there is one.

Card-Drawing Powers

• Masked Lapwing. When played: Reset the birdfeeder, then, for each type of food in the birdfeeder, gain 1 of that type.
  • Note: For dice showing two types of food, you may gain both types. However, this bird's power lets you gain at most 1 token of each food type. Remove each die from the birdfeeder as you gain food.
  • Note: While resolving this power, roll the dice just once at the beginning. If, as a result of gaining food with this bird's power, the remaining dice in the birdfeeder are showing just one face, you may not reroll them as part of the Masked Lapwing's action.
• Australian Owlet-Nightjar. Once between turns: When another player takes the "gain food" action, gain 1 invertebrate from the birdfeeder, if there is one, at the end of their turn.
• Brolga. When activated: Choose 1 other player. They lay 1 egg; you draw 2 bird cards.
  • Note: You may draw cards even if the other player is unable to lay an egg.
• Australasian Shoveler. When activated: Choose 1 other player. You both draw 1 bird card from the deck.
• Pink-Eared Duck, Green Pygmy-Goose. When activated: Draw 2 bird cards from the deck. Keep 1 and give the other to another player.
• Kelp Gull. When activated: Discard any number of any food type to draw that many bird cards.
• Australian Shelduck, Musk Duck, Royal Spoonbill, Willie-Wagtail. When activated: Draw 1 face-up bird card from the tray with a [NEST TYPE] or star nest. You may reset or refill the tray before doing so.
  • Note: Before drawing a face-up card with the nest type shown, you may:

Egg-Laying Powers

• Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo. Once between turns: When another player takes the "lay eggs" action, lay 1 egg on a bird with a wingspan less than 30 cm.
• Pheasant Coucal. Once between turns: When another player takes the "lay eggs" action, lay 1 egg on this bird.
• Princess Stephanie's Astrapia. When activated: Choose 1 other player. You both lay 1 egg.
• Horsfield's Bushlark. When activated: Discard 1 seed. If you do, lay up to 2 eggs on this bird.
• Peaceful Dove. When activated: Discard any number of seed. Lay 1 egg on this bird for each discarded seed.
• Stubble Quail. When played: Discard up to 6 any food type. Lay 1 egg on this bird for each discarded food.
• Pūkeko. When activated: Lay 1 egg on an adjacent bird.
  • Note: Adjacent birds are those immediately to the left or right and those immediately above or below.
• White-Breasted Woodswallow. When played: Lay 1 egg on each bird in your grassland, including this one.
• Pacific Black Duck. Game end: For every 2 eggs in your wetland, lay 1 egg on this bird.
  • Note: The egg limit of this bird still applies. For example, if you have 6 eggs in your wetland but only space for 1 more egg on this bird, you lay 1 egg.
  • Note: Round down (i.e., if you have 5 eggs in your wetland, lay 2 eggs).

Flocking Powers

• Galah. When activated: Choose another player. They reset the birdfeeder and gain a seed, if there is one. You tuck 2 bird cards from the deck behind this bird.
• Crimson Chat. When activated: Discard 1 any food type to tuck 1 bird card from the deck behind this bird.
• Cockatiel. When activated: Discard 1 seed to choose a bird card from the tray and tuck it behind this bird.
  • Note: Choosing and tucking using this bird's power comprise a single action. You may not use this ability to draw a card into your hand.
• Australian Zebra Finch. When activated: If the player to your right has a seed in their personal supply, tuck a bird card from the deck behind this bird.
• Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, Major Mitchell's Cockatoo. When activated: Tuck 1 bird card from your hand behind this bird. If you do, all players (including you) gain 1 [FOOD TYPE] from the supply.
• Noisy Miner. When activated: Tuck 1 bird card from your hand behind this bird. If you do, lay up to 2 eggs on this bird. All other players may lay 1 egg.
• Budgerigar. When played: Tuck the smallest bird in the tray behind this bird.
  • Note: The size of the bird refers to its wingspan. If there is a tie for the smallest bird, you choose.
• Maned Duck. When activated: Tuck up to 3 bird cards from your hand behind this bird. If you tuck at least 1 bird card, gain 1 seed from the supply.
  • Note: This bird never gains more than 1 seed in a turn, no matter how many cards you tuck.

Hunting and Fishing Powers

• Little Penguin. When activated: Draw and discard 5 bird cards from the deck. For each fish in their food cost, cache a fish from the supply on this bird.
• Rufous Owl. When activated: Draw 1 face-up bird card from the tray with a wingspan less than 75 cm and tuck it behind this bird.
• Rufous Night-Heron. When activated: Look at a bird card from the deck. If it can live in wetland, tuck it behind this bird. If not, discard it.
• Brown Falcon. When activated: Look at a bird card from the deck. If its food cost includes an invertebrate or a rodent, tuck it behind this bird. If not, discard it.
• Wedge-Tailed Eagle. When activated: Look at a bird card from the deck. If its wingspan is over 65 cm, tuck it behind this bird and cache a rodent from the supply on this bird. If not, discard it.
  • Note: The wedge-tailed eagle is looking for birds OVER 65 cm, unlike most predators.
• Grey Butcherbird. When activated: Look at a bird card from the deck. If its wingspan is less than 40 cm, tuck it behind this bird and cache a rodent from the supply on this bird. If not, discard it.
• Black-Shouldered Kite. When activated: Reset the birdfeeder and gain 1 rodent, if there is one. You may give it to another player; if you do, lay up to 3 eggs on this bird.
  • Note: Remove the die from the birdfeeder when you gain the food, as you would normally.
• Grey Shrikethrush. When activated: Reset the birdfeeder and gain all rodents, if there are any. You may cache any or all of them on this bird.

Bonus Card Powers

• North Island Brown Kiwi. When played: Discard a bonus card. If you do, draw 4 bonus cards, keep 2, and discard the other 2.
• Plains-Wanderer. When played: Draw 1 bonus card for each bird in your grassland. Keep 1 and discard the rest.
• Kea. When played: Draw 1 bonus card. You may discard any number of any food type to draw that many additional bonus cards. Keep 1 of the cards you drew and discard the rest.
  • Note: You first draw 1 bonus card, then decide how many additional cards you want to draw and discard the corresponding amount of food. This is a one-time decision. Among all the bonus cards drawn using this bird's power, you keep only 1.
• Abbott's Booby. When played: Draw 3 bonus cards, then discard 2. You may discard bonus cards you did not draw on this turn.
  • Note: This temporarily adds 3 bonus cards to your hand of bonus cards, then from that hand you discard any 2 bonus cards.
• Wrybill. When played: Look through all discarded bonus cards. Keep 1 of them.
  • Note: The discard pile remains separate from the bonus deck.
• Kākāpō. Game end: Draw 4 bonus cards, keep 1, and discard the other 3.

Other Powers

• Superb Lyrebird, Tūī. When activated: Copy a brown power on one bird in the forest of the player to your [left/right]. The copied power must be a brown "when activated" power.
• Red-Winged Parrot. When activated: Give 1 nectar from your supply to another player. If you do, lay 2 eggs on this bird or gain 2 food die from the birdfeeder.
• Southern Cassowary. When played: Discard a bird from your forest and put this bird in its place (do not pay an egg cost). If you do, lay 4 eggs on this bird and gain 2 fruit from the supply.
  • Note: You must pay the food cost of the cassowary, but not the egg cost. The discarded bird's eggs, cached food, and tucked cards are all discarded with it. You may play the cassowary in an empty space, but then you must pay its egg cost and you do not lay eggs or gain fruit.
• Australian Reed Warbler, Golden-Headed Cisticola, Grey Warbler. When played: Play another bird in your [HABITAT]. Pay its normal cost with a 1 egg discount.
• Magpie-Lark. Game end: Discard 2 eggs from your forest. If you do, play 1 bird in your grassland at its normal food cost (ignore its egg cost). If it has a "when played" or "game end" power, you may use it.
  • Note: As usual, you cannot activate other types of bird powers (such as "round end" powers) when you play a bird with this action.
  • Note: You will have already discarded nectar when the Grey-Headed Mannikin is activated, so if you want to use it to play a bird with a nectar cost, you will need to use the 2:1 food conversion to obtain the nectar.
• Grey-Headed Mannikin. Game end: Play a bird. Pay its normal food cost, but ignore 1 egg in its egg cost. If it has a "when played" or "game end" power, you may use it.

End-of-Round Goals

• (Food) in food cost of your birds: Count the number of the food symbol(s) on this goal tile that are in the food costs of your bird cards. For example, for the goal "fruit+seed in food cost of your birds," look at the food cost in the upper left of the birds you have played onto your mat, and count all fruit plus all seed. If a bird has a "fruit/seed" cost (you paid a fruit OR a seed to play the bird), it only counts as one food for this end round goal. Do not count any food type or nectar.
• No goal: Don't score a goal at the end of this round. Keep your cube. All of the following rounds will have 1 more turn than they normally would.
• Beak pointing left/right: These goals count cards that show a bird whose beak is facing in the direction stated. Birds whose beaks are pointing straight ahead (or straight up) don't count toward either the left- or right-facing goal.
  • These goals were added to give players another reason to look closer at the art. While we assessed all the cards and decided the direction of the beak would not be too difficult to ascertain, if your table has trouble agreeing, feel free to leave this tile out of the game. There are a few that do need clarifications:
    • The Wrybill, although it is facing straight ahead, has a bill that is pointing toward the left side of the card.
    • The Common Loon card (from the base game) has 1 bird facing in each direction, so it qualifies for both goals.
    • The Great Crested Grebe card (from the European Expansion) has 2 birds facing the same direction: it counts as a single card that has a bird facing left.
  • The following is a list of the birds that are not pointing left or right.
    • Base game: Barn Owl, Barred Owl, Burrowing Owl, California Condor, Eastern Screech-Owl, Great Horned Owl, Horned Lark, Spotted Owl
    • Europe: Little Owl, Snowy Owl, Short-Toed Treecreeper
    • Oceania: Australian Owlet-Nightjar, Kākāpō, Rufous Owl