It’s funny when you finally get that one game night click, that moment when you’re playing a board game and it all comes together. I experienced that with Wingspan about three years ago at one of our family game nights. I was introducing the game to Dave and the kids, telling them about the different bird abilities and how each bird had different powers, and then suddenly I realised my Great Blue Heron was activating my Franklin’s Gull anytime I fed myself. That is, one power gave me food AND eggs, and I was convinced I had found a hidden cheat code. Lily then asked, “Mom, doesn’t that seem unfair?” which made me much prouder than I should have been.
That’s when I went down the rabbit hole of Wingspan engine building. What nobody tells you when explaining the beauty of this bird game is that it’s not really about collecting pretty cards. It’s about creating chains of events, where one small action creates this beautiful orchestra of bird abilities, generating absurd amounts of resources. Since I’ve probably played more than sixty games now (yes, I’m sure I’ve played more than that – Dave occasionally reads these), I’ve learned which combinations of birds actually work, and which ones just look great on paper.
Most people, however, play Wingspan as if it’s simply “get birds, collect points.” People see a high point bird and slapping it down without considering how that bird might relate to the other birds on the board. But the players who consistently win — and I mean crushing wins, not by a hair, but crushing wins — they build engines that interconnect all the birds. Each bird enables every other bird to perform even better.
You want to hear about the game that opened my eyes? I’d managed to get a Common Raven early and that bird caches food when you use it. Unremarkable. I then drew another raven (the Chihuahuan Raven) with the same ability. Also unremarkable. But then I got the California Condor and had that aha moment. The Condor rewards you for each piece of food that’s cached on your ravens and vultures. So, every time I activated my forest habitat to get food, I could also use both ravens to cache food, and thus get points through the Condor.
Max was watching me play and said, “Why are you smiling at those cards like that?” Well, I’d created this amazing little engine that allowed one action to produce food, cached food, and points simultaneously. And by the end of that game, my forest activations were producing approximately six different positive benefits. It was like watching dominoes fall in the most delightful manner possible.
This is what I call an activation chain, and once you start looking at them, you can’t help but continue to see them. The most effective ones typically begin with birds that have brown “when activated” powers (these are the birds whose abilities are triggered each time you take an action in their habitat). Then you layer in birds that have pink “once between turns” powers that trigger based on what the brown birds are doing. All of a sudden, instead of taking four actions per turn, you’re taking additional actions and generating resources across the entire board.
My grassland habitat has produced some of the most outrageous engines I’ve ever constructed. For example, there’s a bird called the Yellow-Rumped Warbler that lays an egg for you every time any of your other birds lay eggs. Sounds easy enough, correct? However, if you combine it with birds that lay multiple eggs, or birds that lay eggs under certain conditions, you get this compounded effect where one “egg-laying” action generates eggs all over your board. I once had a turn where I laid two eggs using my base action, which caused three other birds to lay eggs, which caused the warbler to lay eggs twice more. Seven eggs from one action. Lily claimed I cheated, and I thought that was a compliment.
Food generation is where the fun begins, though. Most players struggle to generate food throughout the game because they rely on those dice rolls, which are always awful. However, if you construct a proper food engine, you’ll generate significantly more food than those dice rolls allow. The White-Faced Ibis provides you with food each time you play a wetland bird, so if you buy a bunch of cheap wetland birds, you can create this cycle where playing birds produces food to play more birds. I’ve had games where I generated twelve pieces of food in a single round due to the sequence of cards I chose.
Traditionally, the wetlands have been about drawing cards, but that’s where some of the most insane combinations reside. The Cedar Waxwing draws a card whenever you cache food, so if you have a food caching engine, you’ll be cycling through a ton of cards. More cards = more choices = more opportunities to find the exact birds you need for your engine. Additionally, the Barn Swallow draws cards for you when your opponents draw cards, which essentially acts as insurance against any opponent that discovers the same combination strategy.
About three months ago, Dave discovered the tucking strategy and now he’s obsessed with it. Some birds like the Mississippi Kite tuck cards under themselves for points each time you play predator birds. Therefore, if you purchase a lot of cheap predators, each bird you play is worth two points: one for the bird itself and one for the tuck card. In his highest-scoring game, he tacked seventeen cards for thirty-four points solely from that one bird. I was truly irritated at how well it worked.
However, what continues to fascinate me with Wingspan is how creative you can be with the combinations. There is no single “best” strategy since the available bird cards vary every time you play. The person who wins is typically the person who identifies potential synergistic relationships among the birds that appear in the game, rather than the person attempting to follow some pre-determined strategy.
Therefore, the next time you play Wingspan, do not focus solely on the individual birds. Think about how those birds may work together; think about how one bird’s ability can activate another bird’s ability. Listen for the rhythm of your engine starting to build momentum. Once you develop some experience, you will naturally identify the combinations that create beautiful cascading effects, versus those that create clutter. And perhaps you will experience that same moment I had, and realise that you have created an engine that is not only highly efficient, but is aesthetically pleasing. Although, I warn you: once you start identifying these patterns, you will find that collecting birds will never feel quite the same again.
Defensively speaking, defense is something that most family gamers never consider, but it is vital when competing against players who know how to build engines. The Brown-Headed Cowbird steals eggs from opponents’ eggs whenever they lay eggs, which can completely dismantle someone’s grassland engine. The Bushtit gives you food whenever anyone else gains food, therefore you are profiting from their strategies. While these birds are dull to play, they prevent others from dominating the game.
What I love most about Wingspan is that I still have combinations to discover. Last week, I noticed that the European expansion includes birds with end-of-round abilities that create automatic passive engines that require very little upkeep. The Eurasian Golden Plover generates food at the end of rounds when you have less than five eggs in your grassland, which works well with birds that move eggs around. It’s like having a backup generator that fires off automatically.
Nowadays, I document which combinations of birds work and which ones fail to function properly, primarily because my memory is no longer what it used to be, and I have too many birds to remember. Generally, my rule of thumb is that by mid-game, each of your actions should provide at least one-and-a-half resource units worth of value — whether that be cards, food, or eggs. If your engine does not meet that minimum, there is likely something incorrect with your configuration.
The most rewarding experiences are when everything clicks perfectly. Your birds are all working together; every action triggers additional effects; and you can see your opponents realising that they are in trouble. It is not about the individual cards you play — it is about the complex machine you are able to create with those cards, and how those cards interact with one another.
Three years after initially learning Wingspan, I am still amazed by how many creative combinations of birds you can develop. The combination of birds you see in the game changes every game, so there is no single winning strategy. Rather, the winner is generally the player who finds ways to use the available birds in unique and unexpected ways.
Meeple Power is all about celebrating the joy of board games—great stories, clever mechanics, and big laughs around the table. We cover everything from easy-to-learn gateway games to deep strategic epics, shining a light on the creativity, community, and occasional chaos that make tabletop gaming so much fun. Whether you’re rolling dice, flipping cards, or arguing house rules with friends, we’re here to keep the game night spirit alive.