Wingspan

Set out the preserve and choose your starting birds

Use Stonemaier Games' physical English original Wingspan base game, with its original mats and five non-nectar food dice, for 2–5 individual players. This guide uses the blue goal-board side. Keep expansion and promo cards separate; use the original 170-bird deck. Swift-Start teaching cards, if included in your box, can stay aside for this ordinary random setup. Solo Automa, Asia Duet or Flock, Oceania mats, European powers and Wingspan Pocket use other instructions.

Seat everyone at an indoor table with a clear view of the shared bird tray, feeder and goal board. Give each person one mat, eight action cubes of one color and room for their hand and food. Each mat has three habitats: forest for food, grassland for eggs and wetland for cards. Each row holds up to five birds.

Shuffle the bird deck and place three cards face up in the bird tray. Put the rest face down beside it, leaving a discard area. Shuffle the bonus deck separately. Put food and eggs in shared supplies, and roll all five custom dice through the feeder. Turn the goal board blue side up. Randomly select four goal tiles without choosing their faces; place one random face in each round's goal space. Put unused tiles away.

Deal each player five bird cards, two bonus cards and five food tokens: one invertebrate, one seed, one fish, one fruit and one rodent. Look at both bonuses while choosing your birds. Keep any number of the five birds, including none, and discard the rest. Return one food token of your choice for each bird you keep. Keeping two birds leaves three food; keeping all five leaves none. Keep one bonus card and discard the other. Choose the first player randomly and give them the first-player token. Everyone starts with no eggs or birds on their mat.

Before starting, point out the first empty slot in each habitat. Its benefit is available even with no birds in that row. Read each public goal aloud, using the appendix's goal explanations for the symbols. Put the scorepad, pencil, rulebook and appendix where everyone can reach them.

Choose one action, then move the cube

The first player takes one turn, followed clockwise. Take one unused cube and choose exactly one of the four actions below. You may choose the same action on consecutive turns. A cube counts the turn; do not return used cubes to your supply until the round ends.

For food, eggs or cards, put the cube on the leftmost uncovered action slot in that habitat, immediately after its last bird. With five birds, use the benefit printed beyond the fifth bird. Resolve that slot's benefit and any optional conversion shown there, then slide the cube left across the row. You may activate each brown bird power you pass once, in right-to-left order. Leave the cube at the row's far left. An empty habitat still supplies its printed benefit.

Read the bird's timing and keep its points separate

White powers happen only when that bird is played. Brown powers happen when you take its habitat action, after the slot benefit, from right to left. Pink powers can trigger during another player's turn, at most once between your own turns; tell the table what triggers yours and help each other notice. All powers are optional. Follow the particular card's costs and limits, using the appendix for named-bird clarifications. A benefit from a power is part of the current turn, not another action or another cube.

Food gained from the supply is different from food gained from the feeder: take supply food without removing a die unless the card instructs you to do so. A predator that says to roll dice outside the feeder uses only those dice; it does not reroll the feeder's available dice. Leave those rolled dice outside afterward. Resolve its exact success condition and reward. Cached food sits on the bird as points and cannot pay future costs. A tucked card is slid face down behind a bird as points: it has no active power, nest or extra bird identity. Only tuck or cache when a power tells you to.

A repeat power can use an eligible other bird's power in the same habitat again, even if that bird has already activated this turn; follow the repeated power's costs and limits. A moving bird can change habitats only when its own power permits it and it is the rightmost bird in its current row; move it to the leftmost empty slot of the destination row. Moving is not playing a bird, so it does not trigger pink powers that require another player to play a bird. A white power allowing a second bird still requires that second bird's full food and column egg costs, but no extra action cube.

A bird's nest icon is platform, bowl, cavity, ground or a wild star. A star matches any of the four ordinary nest types for goals and bonuses. Its egg limit still applies. Use the printed wingspan only when a power or bonus asks for it. Each bonus card states what qualifies, often particular played birds and sometimes cards in hand, and how many points it earns. A percentage printed on a bonus describes deck composition, not an extra score. If a power draws two bonuses and keeps one, keep your existing bonuses too; reshuffle discarded bonus cards if that deck runs out.

Score the goal and begin the next round

Round 1 ends after every player has used all eight cubes. Collect cubes from the mats, count the current goal and leave one cube per person on that round's goal track, even for zero points. With the blue board, each qualifying item is worth one point, up to five points. Score the same goal independently for every player: another player's result does not reduce yours.

A habitat-bird goal counts played birds in that row; the total-birds goal counts all played birds. A nest-type bird goal counts birds of that nest type that each hold at least one egg, once per bird. A habitat-egg goal counts every egg in that row; a nest-type egg goal counts every egg on birds with that nest. Wild-star nests qualify for each ordinary nest type. For sets of eggs across habitats, count complete sets, each containing an egg in forest, grassland and wetland: 3 forest eggs, 2 grassland eggs and 4 wetland eggs make 2 sets. Read the tile's symbols against the appendix before counting.

Leave scored cubes on the goal board for the rest of the game. Discard all remaining face-up birds and deal three fresh tray cards. Pass the first-player token one seat clockwise. Keep your birds, eggs, tucked cards, cached food, hand and personal food. Do not reset the feeder just because a round ended. The dice still available remain there.

Play the next round with the cubes not on the goal board. Everyone gets seven turns in round 2, six in round 3 and five in round 4. Resolve and score round 4's goal before final scoring. The game does not end early because one player fills their mat or has an especially high score.

Add the six scoring categories

After round 4, total each player's printed points on played bird cards, all earned bonus-card points and the four recorded goal scores. Add one point for each egg still on their birds, each cached food token on their birds and each tucked card. A tucked card contributes one point, not its printed bird value. Ordinary food beside the mat and cards still in hand score nothing unless a bonus specifically says otherwise.

The highest total wins. If totals tie, compare unused food in the tied players' personal supplies; the one with more wins. Cached food is not unused food. If unused food also ties, share the victory. For another game, return all cards and supplies, shuffle, deal new starting hands and select new goals.

Keep resource mistakes and forgotten powers manageable

Explain the four actions before explaining clever combinations. Let players plan during other turns; announce the action you chose and any power that affects others. Offer choices and explanations during teaching, then let each person make their own decision. Gathering food or cards and playing a bird are separate actions. The optional conversion under a habitat benefit is not a mandatory price for using that habitat.

The feeder refills whenever it becomes empty: roll all five dice back into it. If you are about to take food from the feeder and its remaining dice all show the same face, including a single remaining die, you may reroll all five first. The invertebrate/seed face is one distinct face; it is not identical to a seed-only face. Check this permission before each food selection, including food taken through a power. A power that only gives food from the supply does not by itself let you reroll the feeder.

Reshuffle discarded bird cards if the bird deck runs out. Food and egg supplies are not a limit: use clearly distinguished paper substitutes if the physical supply runs out, recording which bird holds any substitute eggs or cached food. Egg capacities still apply. Keep ordinary personal food and cached food physically separate.

For a rules dispute, pause before the next choice and read the card, base-game rulebook and appendix. This guide suggests a house correction for an immediately noticed illegal move: restore its paid resources and position, then have that player take a legal action with the same cube. Agree before playing that a missed optional power can be taken back only before the next player starts, and only if its conditions were met and no new hidden information was revealed. Later missed powers stay missed. These correction limits are house suggestions, not printed penalties.

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