In the first expansion for Wingspan, the world of our feathered friends is expanded to include the beautiful birds of Europe. 

The expansion not only brings a host of new, beautifully illustrated cards from the amazing artists of the original base game, but introduces a host of new abilities for players to enjoy and form new strategies with. 

If you are a fan of the original game, you may be wondering if this expansion is worth picking up to add to your playing experience. We’re breaking it all down below with our thoughts on the European Expansion!

This review is for the European Expansion to Wingspan. This is not a standalone game. You MUST have the base game in order to play the European Expansion. To read our full review of Wingspan, click here.

What is New in the European Expansion?

In the European Expansion, the most notable new elements players will be able to enjoy are the 81 unique bird cards, 15 purple eggs, and new custom bird tray with lid. Along with these items comes a handful of new bonus cards, goal tiles, extra food tokens, a fresh score pad, and new Automa cards for those who want to play solo.

What Do We Think?

If you have been playing the base game a lot and have been feeling like you need something to add a jolt of freshness to it, the European Expansion provides it. The European Expansion only enhances the play experience of the game and doesn’t distract or alter the spirit of the base game we have fallen in love with. We both were very impressed with this first expansion and the new powers it brought to the play experience through the various bird cards that neither makes the game more difficult or artificially increases the play time. 

In the base game, we have found that the most successful strategy route seems to be to stick with laying eggs as often as possible. However, the European Expansion changes that by brining in powers that make caching food on birds and tucking cards an interesting strategy to pursue. 

We have found this to make for a more enjoyable experience as it makes the game more competitive and interesting, adding to the replayability. I loved the game before, but now I’m excited to get it out and try something different, even if it’s just challenging myself to see how many cards I’m able to tuck in a single game.

End of Round Powers

The new addition of birds with blue, End of Round powers feels like the perfect next step for Wingspan. Now players have even more to consider and strategize with as they decide which birds to play. To activate these powers at the end of the round, players may need to work through the whole round to satisfy the requirements such as building up a food supply that they could discard. It’s more to think about and plan for without being too difficult or taking away from the general spirit of the base game that we love so much. These powers fit perfectly within the game. 

Any Complaints?

Overall, our experience playing Wingspan with the European Expansion has been wonderful and we don’t have any complaints on the game play itself. All of the new components are of the same high quality as the original base game and blend together perfectly. 

The only small complaint that we would have is if you choose to shuffle all of the cards together, the new cards just simply don’t come out as often as you’d like, especially at smaller player counts. 

Along those lines, the game now has so many cards that you need to utilize both card trays however, both card trays will not fit in the box so we have taken to keeping the two card trays stacked inside the European Expansion box with the rest of the components in the base game box. This is not ideal. We much prefer to have everything together in one box. 

The best part about Wingspan and this Expansion is that the expansion cards are all clearly marked win the lower right hand corner of the card so you can choose to mix all, some, or none the cards together. For our first few games with the expansion, we chose to only mix in a random 50 or so of the original cards so that we could see more of the expansion cards in those initial plays. Then we just kept shuffling in more and more of the base game cards as our plays went on. 

So, in short, the cards you choose to play with in Wingspan are completely customizable. If you want to see more of the new cards you can definitely make that happen. If you’d rather filter them out for another game, it’s easily done.

Summary

For players who love Wingspan and are looking for a way to add fresh strategies to explore, we highly recommend picking up the European Expansion. When it comes to expansions, this one does my very favorite thing: it adds exactly the right amount of new to the game you already love without taking anything away or changing the spirit of the original in any way. Players will be able to quickly look over the new rules, shuffle the cards, and get right to playing. There is nothing overly complex or difficult to grasp for those with experience playing the base game. 

This doesn’t make Wingspan feel like a new game, rather, it enhances the original and expands upon the universe to make the game better — ensuring you’ll keep brining it back to your table again and again. 

Pick up a copy of the European Expansion here.
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Game Info:
Title: Wingspan European Expansion
Designer: Elizabeth Hargrave
Artist: Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Beth Sobel
Publisher: Stonemaier Games

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