Wingspan: Oceania Expansion Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at the new expansion for Wingspan!

00:00 - Introduction
01:26 - Game overview
08:38 - Final thoughts

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[paulszki]

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.

[Noonycurt]

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!

[ESCTom]

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.

[AndreasBeham]

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.

[halt]

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 <75cm. In the expansion, that card lets you pick a card from the three face-up cards, which triples your chance of getting one and practically guarantees you'll have a card to tuck, as well as letting you take powerful cards away from your opponents being able to grab one. Or they let you draw three cards and tuck all of them behind that bird, instead of just one or maybe two like the base game had. They're just unbalanced compared to the base game options, and act as some instant win options.

And then there's nectar. It's very strong, and I don't get why they thought they had to add points for using the most nectar at the end of the game. It's already the best option by far. If anything, they probably should have made it so that you lose points for using the most nectar instead.

[TrpleOseveN]

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

[Regimeta]

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.

[ericmartel]

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

[brandobombchu]

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.

[dansioui]

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.

[GGdeTOURS]

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!

[ESCTom]

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

[budsticky]

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.

[draheim]

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.

[dpearson]

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

[thekarlwithak]

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

[BenjaminH_]

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

[Calistake]

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).

[TrizzyH]

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.

[TheGameBoyGeeks]

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.