Birdy board game Wingspan’s Asia expansion will also support solo, duet play and new Flock Mode
Pre-orders open in November of this year and will support avian rescues in Asia.
Super popular board game Wingspan will be getting a third expansion that introduces avian species from the Asian supercontinent, along with new game modes and support for both solo and duet play styles.
Wingspan Asia was first spotted by Essen Spiel goers but now has a dedicated page on publisher Stonemaier Game’s website detailing what all players get inside this red watercolour box. It will introduce 90 new bird cards and 11 additional bonus cards that can be mixed into the base game, just like previous regional-themed expansions.
Unlike those titles, Wingspan Asia will be designed to support a standalone experience for one or two players that doesn’t require base Wingspan or anything else. Probably due to the massive size of Asia, there will be plenty of winged friends to recruit into your egg-making engine. The Asia expansion will reportedly contain all the components - eggs, food counters, etc. - necessary to play directly from the box.
The solo mode will use new automa rules and cards included in Asia to guide play against an imagineed opponent and has been designed to complement the original solo mode introduced in the original Wingspan. The broad goal is to purchase birds from a limited market with food tokens, using their abilities and characteristics to earn eggs and victory points through four rounds. The one with the most at the end wins.
The board game's duet mode will work a little differently. According to the rulebook provided by the gamee’s designer, Elizabeth Hargrave, both opponents in a duet game will race to claim spots on a map by playing specific birds. For example, playing a berry-eating shrike in a grassland will let a player cover spaces indicating that particular diet, habitat, size or nest type. Covered spaces can be uncovered later to reset either the bird tray or birdfeeder.
Larger gatherings can take advantage of the newly introduced Flock Mode, which supports six or seven players at the same table. Flock Mode does require base Wingspan (plus any other expansions) in order to work, but it speeds up what might sound like laboriously long waits by having two active players at the same time. Everyone still competes separately, but smaller groups will be assigned specific bird trays and bird feeders to keep from over predating the table each round. A note: everyone apparently shares end-of-round goals and “between turn” action triggers.
Wingspan Asia will also be available in the first printing of the Nesting Box, a storage solution for those hoarding birds who have managed to peck a copy of every Wingspan board game yet released. No other board games will be included with the Nesting Box, so it’s a neat way to give yourself way too many bird cards and little plastic eggs, and then easily solve your self-made problem.
Stonemaier Games plans to fully enveil Wingspan Asia in the coming weeks, and preorders are planned to open sometime in November of this year. Fulfilment will reportedly begin a couple of weeks later. The box price was not included in information provided to Dicebreaker by the company.
The publisher states that it will donate $1 for every person who signs up for pre-order notification to several planned charitable organisations in Asia, including BirdLife International, Animals Asia, Flight, and the International Crane Foundation. More information about these groups can be found on Stonemaier Games’ website.