Which Wingspan Expansion Should I get?

expansions, Stonemaier Games, Wingspan

With the imminent release of the third expansion Wingspan Asia for Wingspan I thought I’d give my ill informed opinion on which of the expansions to get.

Please remember I’m not a reviewer, I don’t get early access. So I’m basically saying I haven’t played Wingspan Asia yet. So my opinion on that at the moment is based on currently released information such as the rulebook.

Also please remember I do not play games solo. So I won’t be making any comment about the Automata. Besides with the app why would I play it solo with the Automata with all that setup?

I’m also not going to mention the Swift expansion as that is included in every copy of Wingspan now. It was only released as a separate expansion for those of us that had an early printing of the game.

My final disclaimer these are not in-depth looks at each expansion, they are brief summaries hopefully justifying why I selected that particular expansion for that particular thing you are looking to add to Wingspan.

I want a great engine builder…

Wingspan the million plus selling hit board game.

Ok technically not an expansion.

I really like this game. I think it’s still Jonathan’s all time favourite game (it’s not it’s in his top two!). I haven’t done my paired comparisons for a while to determine my top ten list, but I’d be surprised if this was outside my top five.

I’ve played the game with all player counts (except solo – see previous comment above about this). I’ll never ever play Wingspan at five players again. There is too much downtime, it takes forever to play. It’s just not an enjoyable experience. The sweet spot is three or four players.

I love how your actions get more powerful but you get less of them as the game progresses.

Great theme, beautiful looking game, easy to teach. Ticks all the boxes.

I just want more of the same…

You have Wingspan and just want more. The European expansion gives you just that.

It adds more birds to the game. European birds naturally, an extra card tray for storage, purple eggs, bonus cards, goal tiles, food tokens, etc.

There are a “variety of new powers, including “round end” powers, powers that increase interaction between players, birds that can cover multiple spaces to make future actions more profitable, and birds that benefit from excess cards/food.” I consider these minor changes to the game. And not nearly as big game changer as my answer to the next bit.

I want to shake things up a little…

With the introduction of the Oceania expansion the core game play hasn’t changed. But we get a new food type nectar, new player boards, new dice, plus the usual more eggs, cards, etc.

This expansion is a much bigger impact on game play, although in my opinion not a massive one, with the nectar.

It changes things up, adds new end gaming scoring opportunities, makes it “easier” to get birds out.

If you had to get only one expansion…

This was a hard one to answer, but in the end I think it has to be the Oceania expansion for the same reasons I gave above.

I only play two player…

You can play Wingspan as a two player game. And it’s perfectly fine as a two player game.

However the new Asia expansion “is a stand-alone game for 1 player or 2 players (Duet mode).” That comes with everything (“1 duet map, 6 goal tiles, 30 duet tokens”, tokens, dice, player mats, etc) for two players.

Obviously I’ve not played it two player yet. But if I only played two player, or the majority of my gaming was two player, then this is the version I’d get. In fact I will be buying this as Nathan’s Christmas present.

I want to play with more than 5 players! Why?

I think we know from previous comments in this post where I stand on playing five player Wingspan.

So imagine my horror to see “A new Flock mode is also included to expand the base game of Wingspan up to 6 or 7 players”.

To support this new mode of play the expansion includes a “1 turn-order dial, 1 round-end goal board”.

Be warned “Plan for a Flock mode game to last about 2 hours on your first try—longer if there are inexperienced players in your group.”

I obviously don’t know how long a “normal” game with experienced players takes in Flock mode, but it does “require 2 simultaneous active players to speed up gameplay…” But I’m guessing it won’t be much under two hours.

I don’t know how this plays naturally. You know I’ll try this once. I’m a sucker for punishment.

However if you want to play Wingspan at the higher player counts this is the way to go.

Or you can…

Just do as I do get them all (obviously not the Asia expansion but it will be added), shuffle all the cards together and play with everything.

Ok the draw decks are massive (especially sleeved)! So I normally select one of the card trays (until the storage box comes out the current available expansions just about fit in the trays sleeved) and that is the one we play with that game.

The big advantage is that with (currently) 356 cards the likely hood of the ravens being a problem is greatly reduced.

For a new expansion I’d get a random 180 cards and mix in the new cards so I get to play with the new cards. I’d only do this once I’ve played a new expansion a couple of times.

I suppose this everything in, including the kitchen sink approach should be given a name. Let’s call it Ultimate Wingspan. Although cluster mode might be appropriate.

Well I hope the above has helped.

D&D Grp 2 Session 9 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

Do I really need to keep saying the following on these types of post? Shouldn’t it be taken as a given?

But just in case here is the boilerplate disclaimer.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

I’ve been looking through the pages of my copy of kobold press’ Tome of Beasts 2, and I’ve been really enjoying the experience.

The art for the monsters is amazing, and brings them to life. And really fires the imagination.

I am building up a menagerie of creatures I want the players to encounter. I already have the monster and npc stat cards from the Monster Manual in my DM folder that I plan to use, or can fall back on for a random encounter or two.

I really should look into getting the pawns that kobold press sell to go with this book. I think the only problem I have with this sort of product is you usually only get one of the monsters. Which isn’t very helpful when you want to run multiple of the creatures in an encounter.

Talking of 2D standee stuff there are also a couple of Wizkids 2D standee products I want to get my grubby hands on. Those being the Player Character Pack, and the Shipwreck Isle set.

At the last session Anthony very generously gave me three pre-painted Wizkids minis, the Viper Vine, Witchfire, and Gate Hellknight.

As pre-painted minis go I quiet like the look of these. The paint job isn’t going to win awards. But they are perfect for the table top. And more importantly I don’t have to paint them.

I believe these minis are for Pathfinder and the Maze of Death adventure (?).

So I need to get the Pathfinder stats for these minis and then convert to 5e.

But the players will be seeing these sooner than later.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #8

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

With a free week the party spent the time on some self improvement, studying, practicing, and even some research.

Outside the streets of the lower reaches were a buzz with the news of a heroic party rescuing a family from a collapsed villa in the Second Reaches.

Outside on their way to Adele’s Emporium the party were approached by Esme a rival of Adele. Who tried to bribe the party to spy on Adele for her.

At the Emporium the party found a note on the door saying Adele was in the Second Reaches investigating the ruined villa.

So the party made their way to the Second Reaches looking for Adele.

Eventually they found Adele, but not before upsetting a few locals and attracting the attention of an officer of the Silver Talons.

At the ruined villa they met Adele coming out of a cave entrance that had been revealed when the villa collapsed. While talking to Adele Tantalos joined them. He’d been helping Adele.

Adele and Tantalos left to return to the emporium to research the newly revealed chambers.

The party entered the tunnel and immediately went up some steps into a chamber that they soon discovered had two young unkept, spooky looking children at the end of it.

We leave the party in the chamber having defeated the spooky children.

  • Behind the screen
  • Session notes

Post Mortem

Yep it’s that part of the post where I share my thoughts on the session and ideas for future ones. So I need to say this.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

The session itself was about two hours of play, and about twenty minutes of finishing off character levelling up.

It would have been nice to have a longer session, but time constraints with my dog-sitter put a dampeners on that.

For this session I had used the Tome of Beasts 2 from Kobold Press for most of the potential monsters to use in the encounters.

I do like this book as an alternative to the Monster Manual. It really does make encounters feel fresh and mysterious. Especially for the players.

For the NPCs that the players encountered I used the newly arrived Monte Cook NPC cards plus my Pathfinder ones I had already been using.

I love the art on these cards, plus the extra info on the back of them.

That extra info on the back really does help during the session to help (however poorly) flesh out the NPC at the table. And I don’t have to make up a name either.

During this session I did feel like the DM who says no.

Like pointing out that a red Slaad is from a different plane and wouldn’t be known on this one.

I really like to say yes and see where we go with it. But it was hard today because the choices being made were based on information that the characters would not know.

This was a very heavy role play session. Something I’m not great at. So not sure this was a fun session for the players.

For me and I’m not sure if the players felt this way too, that they were being railroaded to the ruined villa and the mysterious chambers it revealed.

There was a hook to go after a wanted criminal they could have done instead.

For the map for the mysterious chambers I used the goblin caves map from the “old” D&D starter set. It seemed the right size to start exploring. Although in future I’d love to use larger more complex dungeons.

In the meantime with this repurposed map I have to populate it with appropriate monsters, which for this dungeon is using appropriate monsters from the tome of beasts 2. Well ones that look really cool.

This was also the first session that I used the DM Screen from the Dungeon Kit instead of the DM Screen Reincarnated. No one even noticed the switch!

Anyway now to start planning session 9.

I join the Stonemaier Signed Card Club

new arrivals

This morning I joined the Jamey Stegmaier signature club with the arrival of the latest Rolling Realms promo packs.

Admitting this will open me up to much ridicule at this Fridays club night. But I’m looking forward to the banter between friends.

Sadly the card I got wasn’t a Scythe card, for the obvious reason. But it was a Viticulture card which is also a favourite game.

I should point out that when you put a signed card in your basket on the Stonemaier online shop you have no control over the card you get. It is a random signed card from one of his games that gets sent to you.

So if you want a specific signed game card then you need to rely on luck and any specific deity you believe in to hopefully get a signed card from that game.

It almost has that MtG pack opening feel when you look to see what rare you got, and if it’s full art or foiled when you get your signed card.

I can see it being just as addictive as you hunt that specific game card.

In an ideal world Jamey would be at a UKGE so I can get my copy of Scythe signed. In the meantime I’ll settle for the hunt for a signed Scythe encounter card.

Included with the Rolling Realms promo packs was a free copy of Jamey’s latest game (designed specifically to celebrate Stonemaier Games tenth anniversary) Smitten.

Smitten is a ten minute playtime co-op micro game for two players.

I’m looking forward to getting it to the table. Until then it joins the other 56 games left to play in my unplayed owned games challenge.

But wait I’ve not even mentioned the new Rolling Realms promo packs yet!

There are three previous Rolling Realms promo packs released, Terra Mystica, Libertalia, and Rolling Realms.

Which are now joined by promo packs for the following games Smitten, A Feast for Odin, and Honey Buzz.

The latest three are unusual in that they were released all at the same time. Whilst the previous ones were released by themselves.

Doing it the current way means that we save on postage when just ordering them. Previously when it was a single promo pack it was hard to justify only ordering the promo pack. Although obviously I did!

With the latest promo packs added to Rolling Realms (assuming you have the previous ones to) the number of realms you are choosing from goes from the core eleven to seventeen. And that will only grow as more promo packs are released.

It’s almost like Rolling Realms is a living roll and write.

At some point I’d like to see Stonemaier do a promo pack that adds new cards to the solo mode that make use of the promo pack realms. At the moment I think Hole 18 is the only one that could use the promo realms instead of core game cards.

Well that’s it for this post, I’ll just add once again happy tenth anniversary to Jamey and all those at Stonemaier Games. Thanks for all the fun times.

Gloom Digital First Impressions

apps, first look, iOS

Since Gloom has had my interest reignited in it in the past week or so I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to find out there is a digital version of the game.

I don’t know why I was surprised at all.

These days it would have been more surprising if there were no app version of the game.

But still I was.

So I parted with the pennies, all £5.99 to download it. Another £2.49 of them would get me the Unhappy Homes expansion as an in app purchase. Which I didn’t part with until I had at least decided if I liked the app.

Naturally the app version uses the same art style and art of the physical game. I personally do like the art.

I love the music for the game, it kind of has that Danny Elfman Batman Returns feel to it. It’s suitably atmospheric. There are also little sound bites for each of the family members to try and give them a bit of character.

The BIG surprise for me is this is a solo game where you play against up to three AI bots. Which you can’t even change the difficulty level of. Multiplayer and/or pass and play (standard features in other digital adaptations of board games) should have been included. But are sadly missing.

Speed of play is a little bit of an issue for me. There is no way to speed up the AI turns (something you’d expect should be there from the start). This digital version isn’t going to be one of those games you turn to when you find you have five minutes to fill.

I did find it nearly unplayable on my iPhone. The cards are just too small and unreadable. This is much better on an iPad.

Personally I think some sort of card zoom feature similar to that in Epic the Card Game could have been used.

Naturally playing against the AI looses something from the physical game. The storytelling element. Even with online play against others this would be missing without some sort of voice chat. But that’d never be implemented in app. You’d have to use a third party service like discord or zoom to get the voice side of things. Without the storytelling Gloom is reduced to “just” a card game.

Overall this app version of Gloom has an alpha/beta release feel to it. It’s missing what I’d consider to be core functionality that you’d expect to be there.

‘Horror’ Themed Games In My Collection

TopXX Games

It’s that time of year when people start getting ready for Halloween and all things spooky.

I’ve never been that into it. For me as a kid growing up in the UK in the 70’s it was always penny for the guy, and bonfire night. Halloween was never a big thing back then.

I have fond memories as a kid of family gatherings, fireworks, baked potatoes, hot dogs, and dark cold autumn nights lit up the flickering glow of bonfires.

I don’t know when things changed. But it seemed all of a sudden trick or treat was a thing, shops were full of Halloween merchandise and branded sweets. The Americanisation and commercialism of this time of year was complete. Yes I’ve always seen this big celebration of Halloween as an American thing that sadly made its way over here.

Maybe it’s my age. But I just don’t see the attraction. However each to their own.

In the meantime I get to be a Halloween grinch.

At least it gives me some things to write about!

The idea for this post comes from that recent Dice Tower video about their top ten horror themed games as part of their Autumn Spooktacular.

While I was thinking about my own collection thinking I had only a handful of horror themed games.

However as I started to tag games I owned in the bgstat app that figure grew and grew.

The criteria I used to add the tag was that the game had to have something associated with the horror genre, have a dark theme, be spooky!, or associated with halloween.

So some of these games tagged are very light in tone, such as Broom Service that has you delivering potions around the map as a witch on their broomstick.

By the end of the exercise I had thirty five games tagged. Although the image below only shows thirty three. I had missed a couple when I generated the images to use. Laziness stopped me correcting the omissions.

My horror themed games that I own (missing two Ghost Stories and Tannhauser)

Below are my top twenty played horror themed games that I own based on number of plays.

My most played horror themed games

I might even enter into the spirit of this commercial holiday and try and play one or two of these nearer the “big” day.

September 2022 Gaming Stats

bgstat, by the numbers, gaming stats, stats

I hope you like the new image for these posts. Don’t worry that’s the only change. I’m not going to start changing the current no thrills, just the data format.

No onto the data.

My top 9 played games for September 2022

Ok here are the stats and games played for the month.

Bgstats for September 2022

Finally here is my current challenges progress.

Current challenge progress

More ramblings

D&D, D&D Grp2, Gloom Chronicles, life, the universe, and everything, Marvel Champions, rambling, RPG, session planning, still alive

Well just like politics a day in my life can be a long time, and things change.

The next session arranged for Saturday has had to be cancelled due to a union work thing that has cropped up.

However it looks like it may go ahead Monday (currently my day off!) evening instead. I’m still on lates next week, so I don’t have to worry about getting up for a damn early start the next morning.

So there is a silver lining to this cloud.

It would appear that soon (next payday) I will be jumping into the lcg from FFG, Marvel Champions.

Hence the new little icon thingy I’ve done.

I did enjoy the game when I did the “try before you buy” game with Gavin. And it is his copy with expansions I’m buying.

I also think this is a game I can play with Nathan that I’m pretty sure he will enjoy. I’m not sure I’ve played a co-op game with Nath. But I know just from the theme alone he will love it. And I’m excited that I will be able to play this with him.

Buying Marvel Champions does boot into the distance any decision I was going to make about getting into another FFG lcg The Lord of the Rings Card Game. Which does also appeal to me on theme alone.

We know I like the idea of solo gaming, and when I see a game can be played solo it does help sell the game to me. But when it comes to actual reality I very rarely play a game solo. I think I can count on one hand the games I’ve played solo. So I’ll never (ok I know never say never) play Marvel Champions solo.

Another given is in the coming months once Marvel Champions has joined my collection I will be catching up with the expansions I don’t have. It’s that whole Pokémon “got to catch ‘em all” thing.

Bugger they also have playmats for the game. And we know how I am about playmats.

I better order in a lot of sleeves. I usually go Mayday Premium with boardgames. But this technically is a card game so I may fall back to my other preferred brand Dragon Shield Matt sleeves. The ones I use for playing MtG.

Before I look for players willing to commit to playing the campaign version of Gloom, The Gloom Chronicles, I need to get the two expansions that I currently do not own.

Obviously The Gloom Chronicles uses the core game. But it also needs Unfortunate Expeditions, Unquiet Dead (need to get), Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall, Unhappy Homes (need to get), and Unwelcome Guests.

It’s a twenty game campaign. It should be possible to play multiple games a session. I don’t see it being much of a commitment, three or four sessions at most.

I’m very intrigued how Gloom plays as a campaign. It’s a story based game. Well technically if players are not into the story side can be played as just a card game. I know other games like Scythe, Pandemic, etc have campaigns that are tied together by an over all story. But that’s a story written by the designer. Gloom is a different animal altogether. The storytelling is part of the game.

I definitely want to get Gloom to the table sooner than later for sure. Especially around the end of the month. I don’t do Halloween but if that isn’t the time to at least play the game once I don’t know when is.

A Rambling Wednesday Update

life, the universe, and everything, rambling, still alive

The September monthly stats will go live on the last day of the month. I suppose they could have gone live now. It’s not as if I will have played any more games before October starts.

Being one of those glass half empty doom merchants I don’t think October will be a massive month for playing games.

October starts at the weekend with a D&D session. But after that my next bit of gaming will be the following Friday with the next Fenland Gamers session.

My next day off is a Monday when our hosts are not open. Plus I’ve not had much luck getting others interested in gaming on days I’m off. So even if they were open I don’t think I’d find others to game with.

That’s the drawback of my current job with my shifting days off during the week.

So far I’ve been lucky that I can make the Friday evening sessions.

It also makes it harder to arrange things. I should know three weeks in advance what my rota is. But at the moment I know what I’m working up to the end of next week and that’s it. I’m on lates for this and next week. Which I like working.

I do have a weeks holiday next month as well. I’m hoping to visit Nathan then. So that will be quality time together gaming.

But for the next five months I do have a week off each month, as until that week off I’ve only had one days holiday this year.

I was watching The Dice Tower Autumn Spectacular – Top 10 Horror Games last night.

It reminded me although I own them I still haven’t got Fury of Dracula nor Ghost Stories to the table. Plus The Others appeared on a couple of the lists, and now I want to get that back to the table.

The Others has the dubious distinction of putting me off ever backing or buying a CMoN game again. Or I should clarify it was the Kickstarter campaign CMoN ran for it and not the game itself (which I really enjoyed).

But one omission from the four top ten lists the Dice Tower contributors came up with for me was Gloom.

Which I have played once. But I really do need to get back to the table (especially now I have the fancy storage box, Gloomier, and Gloom Chronicles from the last Kickstarter) as I think there are others in Fenland Gamers that would also enjoy playing it.

10th October sees a World Mental Health Day.

I’m going to try and “celebrate” it with a post. I don’t know how the post will come out. That will all depend on the day I suppose.

That’s it for now. See you in the next post.

Flashback to September 2016

Blast from the past, flashback, gaming stats, stats

It’s time to quantum leap back to September 2016 and the games I was playing that month.

My top 9 games played in September 2016

It’s an interesting top 9 this month. Four of the games played were Kickstarter editions.

It’s nice to see I was getting Android Netrunner to the table. I think this was the time that it started to get some traction at a local gaming group and the FLGS. So games were easier to come by.

I don’t remember much of the game play for Thief’s Market. I vaguely remember dice and I think I split you choose mechanic. But I might be wrong on the mechanic.

I’m always going to remember Saloon Tycoon as the first game I ever played with Diego. It’s also the game he earnt the reputation as points monster. First time he ever played the game he wiped the floor with Jonathan and myself.

Grifters was a very cool card game with an interesting cool-down mechanic that I backed on Kickstarter. I even backed the follow up to this. I loved the cyberpunk theme that might be connected to the Resistance universe if I remember correctly. The art is pretty cool.

Talking of theme Hit Z Road just oozes it’s post zombie apocalypse theme. It’s a nice light dice based game too. Jonathan even enjoyed this one!

I really need to get Spectre Ops back to the table. I think we have the play group for this now. The promised app for it never did appear. And I really should get the follow up. I see the basis of another bgstat challenge here.

The Great Heartland Hauling Co. is a nice light pick up and deliver game. Pretty small box also. I liked it so much I got my own copy.

Here are the full bgstats for the month.

Bgstats for September 2016