Thanks to my friend Gav alerting me to this.

If you have a 3D printer or access to one, and you play D&D. Then you may want to get the latest bundle to hit the Humble Bundle site.

For $15 or as I write this just over £11 at current exchange rates you get a load of stl files for various 3D models of terrain, props, tiles, figures that can be used to enhance your D&D games.

I have to admit there are some sweet models here.

You can buy the bundle HERE. At time of writing this bundle has 13 days left to run. After that you missed it.

Have you had enough of the fanboying over a game that hasn’t been released yet? I haven’t. The latest spoiler looks at the player mats, and sheds some light on what a turn looks like for a player. Followed by a look at bonus cards within the game. Just like the previous posts looking at Wingspan I’ll be copying and pasting the words typed by Jamey on the Facebook group, and adding some commentary, and wildly incorrect speculation.

So let’s start with them there player mats.

“…On your turn, you select one of the four actions on your player mat. You take the action, and play progresses clockwise.

Like in other Stonemaier Games, we like to keep the core action system very simple. However, Wingspan adds several layers of complexity that increase throughout the game as you build your engine, as each habitat on your player mat is linked to a specific action.

Both layers are linked to the bird cards and where you play them. The more birds you play in a habitat, the more powerful that habitat becomes for you on future actions (though there are egg costs to playing bird cards in columns 2-5). Also, many of the birds in Wingspan have “when activated” abilities that I get to use every time I choose the habitat in which I played those birds.

This adds up to a huge amount of progression over the course of the game, with players chaining together birds and improving their core actions as they play…

The player mats are huge and sturdy, and they each fold down the middle (the outside is designed to look like a leather field guide).”

So my guess about the action selection and the cards was partially correct. I got the obvious part right, but was way way off on the use of the cards.

I have to admit some games have that wow factor when you look at them on the table. Doesn’t matter what you thought of that pyramid in Camel Up! and it’s practicality, you couldn’t deny that it caught the eye and made you go wow. The same for Colt Express, it’s physical presence of the 3D train and carriages wow. I like to sometimes refer to it as table theatrics. Before you even know anything about the game, it has your attention and interest already. The photos of the table with the bird table dice tower and the eggs for me add that wow factor for Wingspan.

Ok time to look at those bonus cards within the game.

“With such a wealth of options in Wingspan, we wanted to give players a few beacons to help guide them as they make choices about which birds to draw and play (and where to play them). One example of this is the set of 26 bonus cards.

Each player gets 2 bonus cards at the beginning of the game; they choose 1 to keep, and they discard the other. There are also some birds with “when played” abilities that let you draw 2 more bonus cards (keep 1, discard 1).“

An interesting idea for the game. I’m assuming that the other beacon they will be using within the game will be the goals. I can see some interesting choices having to be made between cards that boost the bonus scoring and ones that drive your engine forward. I like those kind of decisions.

Oh and yes I nearly forgot the photos are copyright Stegmaier Games and I’ve used them without permission once again.

So I’m continuing my posts about Wingspan based on the drip drip of information that is slowly being released.

Somehow I missed the first bit of information, because it should have been in the previous post. But I’m making up for it now. Once again before I start the photos used in this post are copyright Stonemaier Games, I’m using them without permission because I’m a rebel.

“We’ve never designed a cardboard dice tower, so I reached out to the experts at TowerRex. They designed the template, and Beth Sobel illustrated it. It’s a 2-piece component, and it’s designed for easy storage–simply lay the tower horizontally into the tray and place it in the box according to the storage guide on the side of the box.(I’ve exploded out that part of the image Jamey provided.) ”

First wow. Love the fact a dice tower is included, and it looks cool. Looking at the storage guide I’m not going to be too worried about wear and tear on the cardboard. And it’s great that they have actually designed the contents of the game to take into account storing of the dice tower.

But let’s look at the rest of the photo as well. The eggs look to be in the same storage containers used for the resources in Scythe. I actually like those a lot. So much so I bought a pack of ten to use with other games. I hope an extra two are included to store the cardboard tokens. The storage guide hints at there will be two provided containers of some sort.

Looking at the storage guide we can see there will be goal tiles, so I’m jumping to the conclusion that these will be randomly selected at the start of each game. And naturally there appears to be a mat for these goals to go on. Will we see players claim goals as they achieve them, and new ones get revealed. Or will they be goals that are there for the whole of the game, and can be claimed by whoever completes them? Or a combination of the two?

There will also be player mats, a score pad, and action cubes (if I’ve read the blurry text correctly). So will we be selecting actions on a turn based on our player mats and birds that make up our engine? I’m whistling in the wind here really, as I don’t have any insight into what is actually going to happen. But I’m guessing that the player mats will be basic actions you can take.

There was a bit more information given about the dice in the game and how they are used.

“The food dice in Wingspan are an example of input randomness (the randomness happens first, and then you make a choice–the randomness doesn’t make the choice for you). Basically, whenever you gather food from the birdfeeder, you remove a die from the tray and gain the corresponding food token. If the tray is empty (or if all dice show the same face and you don’t want that food), you toss all of the dice back into the tower. And if you still really aren’t getting the food you want, when playing bird cards, any 2 food tokens always equals any 1 food token.”

What I like about this bit of information is that firstly Jamey explains what the technical design term is that he uses. We then get told how the dice are used. But what I like from this snippet is that there is a mechanic to mitigate bad dice rolls. That’s important. You don’t want to keep having to reroll to try and get the resource you are after. Two for one seems a pretty standard conversion rate.

Then hot off the presses yesterday some photos of the Automa – solo play side of things were released.

“The Automa system uses cards to simulate an intelligent opponent (without requiring all the upkeep of actually taking turns for a player who isn’t there). Wingspan’s Automa includes a separate rulebook and a total of 16 cards, my favorite of which is the cleverly named “Automubon expert-level” card.”

As you can see it follows the same format as the other Stonemaier Games. It’s nice that it is there, but it’s not a side I’ve ever used with any of the games (so far). But these posts have peaked the interest of my friend Jonathan who does play much more solo games than me. So he will like this option for sure.

Ok that’s it for this post.

Ok Jamey Stegmaier has been releasing more info on the Facebook group about the up and coming release of his game, Wingspan. So without permission, because I’m an unscrupulous rebel like that, let’s look at the information released and the photos.

So what is the theme of the game exactly? Well from what we have seen so far, you wouldn’t be far wrong deducing it had something to do with birds. However Jamey has given us the overall theme now, “In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts who are populating your aviary with birds.” Naturally looking at the info below about the cards the person with the most victory points will win.

“Wingspan includes 170 uniquely illustrated bird cards, each with a different ability.” Which according to Jamey from the times he’s played the game led to “very different strategies and engines each time” due the variety in the cards. I like the sound of that, adds to replay ability, and having to adapt strategies. Plus it means you have to play the game a few times to truly learn what all the cards do (unless you sit down and read each card). Plus there will be that element of discovery as you come across combos etc. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest these bird cards for the basis of your engine. So I’m willing to bet that at least one of any possible future expansions will be just more bird cards.

The art on these cards (see below – once again I’ve “borrowed” these photos from the Facebook page and the copyright is all Stonemaier Games) looks amazingly realistic and wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Observer pocket guides.

But what exactly are we looking at on these cards? Use the close up of the Peregrine Falcon card and this description by Jamey explains it all. “In the upper left of each bird card is the habitat(s) it can be played into, as well as the food cost to play it. End-game VP is the number near the feather, followed by the nest type and the number of eggs the bird can hold. The bird’s wingspan is noted on the right, and finally there is the bird’s core ability.” It also looks like we get the latin name of the bird plus an interesting fact about it also on the card. Will we be learning stuff as we play? Will the game be fun and educational?

Mechs vs Minions was not only a great game. But it had a great insert also. It’s a nice trend that some publishers have picked the mantel up and continued. A recent example I can think of illustrating this is Wildlands by Martin Wallace and published by Osprey Games. The only draw back of some of these inserts is they don’t work with sleeved cards. Which is disappointing when that happens.

“…we partnered with Game Trayz… I had a very specific vision for a two-part tray: The tray itself would hold cards (yes, sleeved or unsleeved) for storage purposes, and the lid of the tray would serve as a card mat during the game.”

“Pictured here is the tray included in every copy of Wingspan.”

Yep every copy of the game will have this insert. I’m assuming cards will be standard MtG size so I can use my favourite clear sleeves, Mayday Premium. It’s nice to see that sleeved cards have been taken into account. I remain to be convinced the depth is deep enough on the insert. But width looks fine.

Well that’s all the new stuff I’ve seen, if anything else gets released I’ll save it up and do a combined post. I hope that this is proving of interest to folks. It certainly is for me.

It isn’t a state secret I’m a fan of the games by Jamey Stegmaier (Scythe is my favourite game of all time) and his game company Stonemaier Games (although I’m not a fan of Between Two Cities – it just didn’t click with our game group). So when they announce a new game I’m all over it. Well unless it’s that Between Two Cities tie in with the Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Jamey is starting to drop information about their next game Wingspan.

So far we know it’s “a bird-themed, medium-weight, engine-building game.” I like engine builders. London, Imperial Settlers are great games. The theme sounds interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing more about it.

Jamey has shared these photos below on the Wingspan Facebook group that I have “borrowed” for this post. (Copyright of these images is all with Stonemaier Games)

Wingspan is designed by Elizabeth Hargrave (I’m not familiar with her work). Art for the game is by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, and Beth Sobel. Going by the box art I think we will be in for a visual feast. I really love that box art. And graphic design was by Christina Santana.

From posts and comments there is an Automa for the game, so that would be solo play taken care of.

So apart from Jamey and David Studley who developed and did the Automa respectively. This was an all female designed game.

We also can see from the box art that Wingspan plays 1 – 5 players, with a playtime of between 40 – 70 minutes. That’s if my reading of the side of the box is correct.

This info was being released later today. But I’m jumping the gun after it was pointed out on Facebook my prediction of 1 – 4 players, and 60 – 90 minutes was wrong, and the info is on the image above.

I think that sums up everything we know currently. But there may have been a nugget or two I’ve missed.

Oh and you can pre-order Wingspan from Stonemaier Games from the 9th December 2nd January 2019 I believe.