I can tell you why I would watch a review about the second expansion to a game that I don't really play all that often in addition to many other reviews of games I will most likely never play. Because it just calms my soul to listen Tom review board games because no matter if the game is good or bad or mediocre. It distracts from the problems one might have or other problems in the world. It's just .... nice having Tom contemplate on useless but still nice new yellow eggs. Tom and the Dice Tower crew (and many other creators) are more than "information givers". They're the warm blanket over your soul.

The "no goal" tile is my favorite one! The rules say that you don't have to give up one of your action cubes for this one, so you have an extra action for the remainder of the game!

No goal is great because you get to have more action the following round...😁👍🏼

I like Wingspan a lot, so my family and I picked up the expansion, which we were very excited about. Unfortunately, I have a few issues with it. First of all, I find that some of the bird cards are significantly more powerful than the ones in the base game. For instance, in the base game, you might have a card which lets you tuck a card from the deck if it has a wingspan of

Yea the nectar control thing makes no sense to me at all. I had one game where one player 2 birds that gave him nectar and he easily won all 3 areas as well as being able to build anything he wanted. The benefit of nectar is already self evident, I don’t see why it needs extra. I almost feel it should be the opposite, that you lose points for overusing nectar instead of the actual ingredients. Maybe just -3 for most used.

I feel like the reduction in eggs that you get in the grassland row is good for balancing. I did not play so many games yet, but it appears to me that eggs are quite abundant in a normal game and that often the grassland lane gives most points per cube in the last round unless you have maxed out on eggs. Getting one egg less makes eggs a little more scarce, thus requiring more cubes to be spent (like with food and cards) and also the grassland row is a little less "profitable" in the final round. In any case, I can totally relate to what you said. I did not play this expansion, but reading about the nectar I also don't like the idea of it, nor do I like the magenta color. It doesn't fit very well the colors for the existing food tokens. And we already have wildcard food icon on the birds. So I agree the board is better (I agree about your remarks on it being a bit too dark), but overall, I'll probably skip this one.

Did you know having the 'no goal' tile increases the lengrh of the game, if placed on the first three goals? You don't place a cube there, meaning the game lasts longer. I really dig that, as having 3 more turns rewards a LOT more than the measly 4 points you can get from the first goal.

I appreciate the fact that you didn't just shower it would praise simply to appease the masses. Thank you for that

Did he refer to wheat as a feather?

The balancing of the game is what Tom said he wasn’t knowledgeable enough on, and I completely understand why he wouldn’t like the nectar, but it really did balance out the points in investing in food and card drawing. I can’t imagine going back to the base game where egg engines reigned supreme.

I think the new boards are supposed to fix the dominant egg galore strategy, particularly towards the end (since pretty much everyone's last action is always laying eggs).

We've been enjoying using the no goal tile to increase the overall number of actions throughout the game.

I LOOOOVE Tom Vasel and here again he said EXACTLY what I think about the Oceania expansion: ---> Positive: - GIMME MORE BIRDS! Yes! Together with new powers, new end of turn objectives and new bonus cards! - THE NEW BOARD IS GREAT! Yes! For a better balance between forest, grass & water! But not as clear as the old one! ---> Negative: - NECTAR HANGOVER! Well, an interesting idea but too easy and too much! - NECTAR STRANGE RACE! Like Tom I really don't see the point here! So I completely agree with you Tom! For info we play with 3 new dice and 2 old dice to slow down the Nectar avalanche! ;) Keep the faith Tom! I'm fan!

Seems like the new board is to try to balance the game a little better in that eggs are harder, also get food out there faster so the game can be a little more fun

Thanks for the review Tom. We have considered Wingspan and the Oceania add-on. Looks great. Feedback from others indicates there are plenty of alternatives re the nectar. As an Aussie (Tasmanian) I have to say keep up the practice in pronouncing Emu (not Emoo)! Good job.

I felt much the same way about the nectar. Between the nectar, the new boards, and the area majority bonus it took the game in a direction I didn't personally enjoy. It's like a free for all where you can do anything. We had many games where players had just one or two eggs at games end. I know that when the base game came out people complained about the egg spamming strategy but I feel the European Expansion helped that. With the new board and the easy availability of nectar, eggs are an afterthought for anything other than being able to play more birds. I also enjoyed the tightness of the bird feeder. I enjoy the meta game of who is going to take the one piece of food that is going to allow for a re-roll. That all went away with this expansion. That said, I do love the new birds and the game end goals. I think what I'm going to try is doing as Jamey Stegmaier suggested in the Wingspan Facebook Group. I'm going to remove the few birds that deal directly with nectar, take the nectar out entirely, and play on the old boards with all the rest of the stuff from Oceania. Haven't done so yet but I'm anxious to try.

*Build* a bird!! (10:48) 😃 I always try to make my partner say "attract" instead of "build" a bird, with no luck obviously 😂

I like the new boards for buffing the food and get cards actions and nerfing the lay egg actions. Plus I like the way you can spend a food to refresh shown cards and birdfeeder. New birds, new round end goals, yellow eggs: all awesome! I don't love wild food token and I could not care less about the game end goals for nectar token used. I get that food was the hardest resource to score with in the game, but wild food token is strong enough by itself...now using more of these lead to potentially more points in the end...it feels overpowered and way to easy to get (1/3 odds per die)... I also heard that some people had no nectar left before the end of the game. I'll probably try some variants I heard about...use only 2 new dice mixed with 3 dice from the original game to reduce nectar....maybe ignore completely the game end nectar score...I don't know. Great review

As fun as the component drop is, that panning over the contents is much, much more useful

Just played Wingspan for the first time tonight with four other people who had played it multiple times. Didn’t know we were playing with expansions (EE and OE) until halfway through and they explained nectar was added in OE. Definitely struck me as an unnecessary addition and made playing birds too easy, as you mentioned. Someone even played a bird that gave them a nectar once per turn when someone else grabbed one so they were living easy. But even that wasn’t enough to stop other players from grabbing nectar given how powerful it is (and also prob not as worth it to deny people at your detriment in a 5p game). Having nectar also meant we didn’t want to grab food until we could reroll…and I think throughout the game there were two food types I never even grabbed.

We played a game where the nectar could only be used for nectar or the wild symbol. This only presented one problem that it was hard to add nectar to a sector later in the game.

How about playing with mixed dices? Like 2 new and 3 old one?

Appreciate the nixing of the component drop! I like the panning quite a bit more.

I think the variation of egg colors is cute. The base and the previous expansion offered a nice variety of birds already. I like the idea of having more goals to play with for variability. I however don’t like the nectar or more complex player boards. I want it to be easy enough to teach to other. I usually play games with non-gamers and need something with low complexity

I can put up with the nectar for more ways to interact with people. I agree by and large

Feathers.....do birds eat feathers Tom??? Come on, call it grain, seeds or wheat :P

Is it possible to use only the birds in Oceania by either excluding those that use nectar, or allowing fruit to be used instead of nectar?

Bin Chicken! I knew there'd be one in there.

So I've played this, and am wondering if it would be balanced with using the regular board, but with the new dice and nectar. That way their no area control and the board options aren't as easy (like getting two food on the second space). The board and the nectar together made it feel like it was too easy to get birds out... Also aesthetically I don't like the look of the new board. It's a lot more drab

I think if I get this expansion if a bird needs nectar I’ll just say you can use any food for it. Really like the new birds but agree about the nectar. Especially like the new round goals.

So if you want to play the original game rules and have integrated all the cards, do you just discard any that come up that really on nectar or use new mechanics, or do you actually remove the cards after each game?

I hope there’s a Africa and South America expansion

Nice review ... thanks! Now it's not easier, wheather I will buy this expansion.

There are only a few Oceania birds that require nectar. I remember Jamey said you can easily sort them out and play with the old boards and without nectar, but with the majority of the new birds, if you like.

I so much want to buy it for various reasons: 1. first for the birds! Never too many birds when you play this game a lot! 2. for the better balanced board (in my humble opinon - we used to mitigate/houseroule this initial 1 food die by allowing 1 free card at the start without paying food for it) 3. to discover the new tiles, bonus cards, end of game rules (seems better than the meh end of turn ones from Europa exp.)... BUT: I found the price tag of Europe waaay too steep for basically only a bunch of additional cards (no one needs this second purple plastic cardbox), and this one is even a bit more expensive (admittedly it has new boards in it). In Europe, this expansion costs more than Zombie Teenz for instance, and barely less than Marvel United full box with its minis... I know card quality is top notch, but c'mon...

We love it. And with the Broken Token original insert, it all fits (if you take the original boards out)

I have one problem with this expansion. When i play this, i shuffle all the cards together. But i really care for my games so i keep them organised and on display. So when the game ends...do i end up sorting the cards out for a couple of hours? Or can i just shuffle ALL the cards together with all expansions and they fit in this european purple box?

I was taught Wingspan with this expansion and I learned it fine. I also at least don’t mind the nectar.

Jamie stonemaier said in a blog on their website that if you don't want to use the new nectar resource, you won't have to..remove the nectar birds, end-round goals with nectar and use the original board and you are essentially using this expansion the same as the European expansion. Problem solved.

Whats the game above tungaru?

I unreservedly like everything about this expansion except the nectar. To be honest, I have waffled back and forth on the nectar. My initial impression was that I can consistently get out 10+ birds with no difficulty whatsoever and thus it made the game too easy. Also, the end game nectar scoring felt tacked on. My current thought is that, by making it so easy to get birds out, the nectar frees me to focus on aspects of the game beyond just "What can I play?" That's after trying a couple of house rules that limit nectar, and then going back to the game as designed. I was surprised by how much more I was paying attention to bird powers and synergies with the full amount of nectar than I was without. You have to pay some attention in the base game, and better players than me surely pay way more attention than I, but the difficulty in getting birds out because of both food limitations and the tight action economy has meant that those considerations have very much taken a back seat for me. Until now. The one thing I think is a pity is the reduction in importance of fruit goes a little far for my taste. The nectar majority scoring still feels a little tacked on, but not entirely out of line with the overall increase in player interaction in this expansion.

I think Tom you meant wheat when you said Feather. Next expansion maybe will have feathers now. 😃😃😃

is there a way to differentiate the expansion cards from the original if you decide you want to take them out?

I could see this (along with the Asia expansion) muddying the waters. I’m not sold on the nectar mechanic as I’ve yet to hear anyone say they liked it. I do really appreciate the board change. Eggs are heavily prioritized in the 4th round and food especially at the beginning of the game is scarce and is something that can often come down to chance.

If your components do not fit inside a box you can extend it easily by creating an insert (a rectangular "tube") from cardboard that fits right inside the bottom part of the original box being tall enough to contain everything when the lid is lowered on top of it. Cardboard used must be rather thin (e.g. 1.5mm or 1/16"), not rigid but quite firm (bends 180 degrees without cracking). Corrugated or laminated (boardgame cardboard) might not be the best choice. If the extension is tall you may want to make a "turn back cuff" to it so that the lid fits tighter, perhaps even double turn back. If the extension is very tall and the cardboard is visible when lid is closed you can fix it by coloring or adding a slice of tape or paper there - easier to have it contrasting than a match.

you should try the 'no goal' tile and force it to be in the 1st or 2nd round, you don't spend your cube at the end of the round and you get more final actions.

Couldn’t agree more Tom.

Question for Tom? Would you simply be able to ignore the "Nectar" and just say that whenever you would see or add one (via dice or card) that it is a fruit instead? Then it isn't a "wild" and you can always trade 2 of any 1 food for another food you needed. Ignore the Nectar End. Game Bonuses. I guess the other option could possibly be to treat the nectar as regular food and NOT a wild.

Ive been really enjoying this expansions, though the nectar makes it a bit too easy to get big birds. Playing with the old mat feels tougher now in a way that i like as your engine ramps up slower

I just bought the game, literally just got home. I have an idea about the other exp, if I buy Oceania instead of the other, does that mean I won't have the new end of round objectives (I don't remember what it's called). Basically I'm asking if the thing that helps the egg spamming is also included in this expansion?

Reduce to 2 nektar dice too make it way more balanced and exciting to get nektar. 3 nektar is still good, I think it just makes it too easy to spam birds. 5 is way too many, didn't enjoy it. I have played about 60 games too find a good balance. Love this game too bits and the expansions together make every game so different. Draw bird build got me 132 points, insane.

One suggestion I have seen on BGG that I like Tom is to only include like 2 nectar dices (or 3, whatever you prefer) and the rest are normal dices. That way it makes it rarer to get nectar and as such, there are more situations where birds are not as easy to pay for.

Overall we feel it is a great expansion because it increases balance but the color of the nectar though... sore to the eye in comparison with the other colors of the supply...

We have played with this new expansion a lot and have found this to be the best use of it: -original player boards -use all birds -use 2 new dice and 3 original dice -include new goals We don’t miss the majority competition for the most nectar per habitat.

Did he say feather resource? :D

Yeah, I think I will just ignore much of the nectar stuff. Just more birds thank-you-please.

waiting for paradise bird expansion

All the Oceanian birds are already included in the Wingsong app 😍

I love seeing our beautiful wildlife getting featured. Most people know about the marsupials but not the birds so much. And not to be “that” person, but it is pronounced EEM-YOU and not EEMOO

biggest ding against it for me is - it doesn't mix in, you need new resources if you bought fancy ones, and you need new playmats.

I didn't play this game but if you think wild makes game easier just take 3 dice from original and 2 from expansion.

I wanted to love this expansion. Turns outs, for me, its good, not great. Separating the cards, once mixed in is a royal pain. Unlike the European expansion, which is super easy for 1st timer players, means I just leave that expansion in with the base game; there is no need to take it back out. Tom is right, this Oceania expansion is something you don't always want to play with. So, the extra rules, the fiddly aspect of the most nectar bonuses, and the post-game deck separation, makes Oceania an odd beast. If your group is bored with Wingspan, get it. It deepens the strategy too.. Otherwise it's not as streamlined.

I thought about picking this up but the nectar thing seems needlessly fiddly.

Huge positive: this adds a little bit of much needed player interaction! Positive: more birds! Indifferent: bird feeder, there was already plenty of ways to manipulate the food. Negative: board is extremely cluttered by icons.

has no one critisised the fact that there are only 14 yellow power birds in a 90 ish stack, if we're only ever going to see them in this expansion (like blue powers in europe) that's a bit dissapointing; the same goes with birds that eat nectar, although maybe the theming of the birds might explain that

Did he say «gain all the feathers»? 🌾 isnt it wheat?

I ordered the game because.. I want more birds, but I'm genuinely worried about Nectar, having the ability to reset the bird feeder by spending food tokens, chances are that you'll spend a specific food type, re-roll and gain a wild token that also gives you a majority score at the end, even worse, you will likely want to pre-empt your opponent from gaining a wild resource, even if you can't spend it. Maybe it will help make it easier for all players to get their engines up and running, but the fact that there are birds who also produce WILD resources, simply by being activated, seems crazy to me, especially where there's even an end game incentive to use those resources. Surely it would make more sense to punish players for using them, at least if used as a wild token, forcing people to weigh getting their engine running compared to the end game penalty. It's definitely the most controversial addition to Wingspan so far. If they want an idea for components that could be added to the next expansion; a sturdier bird feeder.

If I have to remove all of these new birds from the pile when I want to teach a new player, then this isnt worth mixing in. Kind of like Venus Next... once its in there... its IN there. I think I may pick this one up to play on its own though. It feels like this game mostly replaces the old one, rather than expanding it.

@The Dice Tower You really need to try out the official Coop variant. All the birds that interact with other players make an interesting game for a team strategy. Might be a good way to teach. Honestly, I wanted to play coop with my wife from the beginning with this game because it felt like you could have that group hug strategy from the get-go. Normally, only play with 2 players, but I think overall, I like the game as a coop over un-interactive competitive. The boards are amazingly more balanced overall, You start getting food a little faster (I felt you used to lose if you didn't take two birds in the original forest near the beginning). Nectars do enable a lot more easy to place birds, but I see that as good, rather than the food you need not showing up over and over. Overall, the game feels more about playing birds rather than spending a bunch of actions on laying eggs for the more points (at the end). I actually felt I could have a biome engine where it allowed me to skip one of the other 1 biomes. This game has always been called and engine builder, but sometimes that felt true and sometimes that felt very false. I loved it either way, but I think Oceania Boosts and fixes everything in the game.

That’s presumptuous of you Tom, I don’t own wingspan but am watching this video nevertheless ! Lol

Feather=nectar?

Less eggs is pretty good for end game.

The concerns you outlined are the concerns I had when I found out about the expansion..... I don't think I like wild tokens...... Hmmmm I'm thinking though. What if you use the old board, the new dice, the new birds, and treat nectar like a normal resource.

@5:35 BIN CHICKEN SPOTTED

Recently got the base game and after watching both expansion reviews, think I will get European but not this one.

"Gain a feather from the supply"... Uhhh, that's supposed to be grain 🌾.

Hi Tom, you can always mix in the non nectar birds, and just leave the 17 or however many there are with the extra boards and nectar. Jamie mentioned to me that the birds are still balanced that way. Maybe that’s how you already split them up but since I specifically wanted to do this I asked them about it.

No kiwi?

Oh wow was that an actual component breakdown shot instead of a component drop?? Tom must really love Oceania!

The only thing I don't like is that the box isn't square

The no goal tile lets you have an extra turn each round because you don’t spend a cube to put on the goal mat.

It's crazy how in less than a week this has more views than any of the channels who got early review copies and Stonemaier didn't give The Dice Tower one of them...

Is my guy calling grain, feathers?

Agree witj Tome, Wingspan is good as it is. No need to more rules. Just new Birds. If you add this expansion I garantee you that you wont play it as much with new gamers which is the whole point with Wingspan...

The more one says the word nectar, the less it sounds like a word.

Hi Tom, I think the new board is suppose to give an Australian feel.

Feathers 😂😂😂 it’s wheat!!!

feather?!? how about wheat!

I love your reviews Tom, but you left out the single greatest thing this expansion added.... No more sitting there with 3 crap face up birds. The ability to spend a food to discard the 3 cards that no one wants and replace them makes this expansion a must have, all on its own.

I wanted my albatross....

One of the things I really dislike about the original Wingspan is egg spamming at the end of the game, rather than building new birds. Egg spamming works 99% of the time, so why even consider collecting food and build birds? Egg spamming works if you have a lot of birds in the middle field. Therefore, the entire strategy becomes: building as many birds as possible in the middle field and then spam eggs. The lack of player interaction in this game means that no one can stop you from doing so every single time. It seems that the expansion fixes it.

What’s this now?? A component drop with no component dropping?? Madness!! 😜

We no longer play this expansion. Nectar unbalances it too much. Very happy with the base game and European expansion.

Man, was Tom ready to toss that expansion from the roof or what!?

I think this expansion is great, specially those new boards. I have mixed feeling about nectar. I think that from time to time I would prefer to play without nectar. I think that can be arranged though, since nectar is wild, I will treat it as Any Kind of Food. If a bird ask for nectar, and I want to ignore nectar, just use any type of food. This is our house rule.

Meanwhile, us European people with our 'neat' European birds ☹️

This is a great expansion. In fact if you get any of the expansions this is the one you should get. In the base set, egg engines are pretty much what you HAVE TO PLAY in order to win. If someone does eggs and you didn't you will most likely lose. This is the major issue with SM games. Scythe had a balance issue with rusviet industrial combo. Tapestry had an imbalance with one of the tracks and wingspan it was eggs. now the eggs have a slight nerf, but food got more a buff to COMPETE with eggs. This is AWESOME for this reason, now you actually have options in how you can build your engine. I may go a food engine you may go eggs who wins? in the base it would have been eggs easily but now its balanced. After playing many games of this expansion the wild food really isn't that strong. You can only use it for 3 types of actions. The best thing other than playing birds is to use the upgrade actions on the board for the wild nectar end game points. Along with the new end game bird cards and the cool bird facing and NO GOAL end round goals this expansion is one of the best expansions to any game I've played. The only problem I have with wingspan is the goal cards. I feel like having end of round goals AND goal cards is a bit redundant. I'd rather the cards do something to help progress your engine in a way. For example maybe if a condition on a green card is met then play a bird for free or grab food or something. At any rate this is the expansion to get if you like wingspan even casually.

The nectar should give negative points

European expansion is exceptional but I'm sadly gonna have to skip this one. Hopefully the next expansion is better

I gotta say, Stonemaier did a great job with this expansion. After 30 plays, I think Oceania has actually fixed Wingspan and I’m so glad it did.