Although the numbers were severely dented by holidays, work commitments and norovirus, there were still nine of us, and although everyone was late, timings were perfect and the whole group arrived within moments of each other.  There was the usual chatter, as people bought drinks and shared stories of the week, then everyone finally settled down to play some games.  The “Feature Game” was the shiny new Asia expansion to one of our favourite games, the multi-award-winning bird-themed card game, Wingspan.  But first we had to decide who was playing what.

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Like last time (when there were also nine people), splitting the group into two or three was quite challenging, but eventually, we decided to go with two tables with Blue, Plum, Black and Ivory playing Wingspan with Pink and Pine leading the rest in a game of Downforce. Downforce has three parts:  a car auction, a race, and betting on the race which occurs during the game.  Downforce has had a couple of outings in the last year, and after last time we played, we concluded that the betting skewed the game a little.  Essentially, when the first car crosses the first betting line which triggers players to place their bets, if several people bet on the same car that tends to lead to a runaway leader.

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After a little research, we found an alternative, “Odds Betting” variant that we thought might be worth a try and Pink was keen to give it a go.  This scheme rewards riskier bets because a player’s winnings depends on the position of the car at the point in the race when the bet is made.  Thus, if a player bets on the leading car at the first betting line and it comes in first, they will win three million dollars ($3,000,000 × 1), however, if they bet on the last car and it defies the odds, they will take eighteen million dollars ($3,000,000 × 6).  Even if that last car comes in third, anyone betting on it will take six million dollars ($1,000,000 × 6)—twice that of betting on the leader if it wins.

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The track chosen was Switchback Pass from the Danger Circuit expansion.  The race began and as the cars weaved around the track, players tried to muscle past each other.  Purple made good use of her power, “Tough” (from the Danger Circuit expansion).  This allowed her to move an extra two spaces every time she finished her move on a space adjacent to a “rumble strip” and she used that a lot, an awful lot.  This was in contrast to Pink who didn’t use his “Determined” power at all.  Despite using her power a lot, sadly, Purple wasn’t able to capitalise on it.  “Ambitious” Lemon was the first to cross the line, shortly followed by “Unpredictable” Orange.  However, the winner is the player with the most cash including income from bets, and in this case, that was Orange who had backed himself from the start.

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The consensus was that the “Odds Betting” variant was a definite improvement on the rules as written, though they made things significantly more complicated.  As a result, they weren’t considered a perfect fix.  There are other options still to try though:  the “Simple Odds Betting” variant (where players only bet on the winner with the takings based on position at the time of the bet); the “All Bets are Off” variant (where the betting rules are as written but each player must bet on three different cars, none of which are owned by that player), and the “Three Bets” Variant (which just increases the number of cars everyone has an interest in).

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While the race was ongoing, the next table were playing Wingspan.  This is one of the most popular games within the group, so we were keen to give the brand new Asia expansion an outing.  The basic game is simple enough:  on their turn, players either play a bird card in one of the three habitats, or activate one of those habitats and all the birds in it.  The three habitats are Woodland, Grassland and Wetland giving food, eggs and bird cards respectively.  Food and eggs are necessary for playing bird cards, as well as eggs being worth points in their own right at the end of the game.  The European and Oceania expansions both added more cards and the latter also added nectar as a food source.

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Wingspan: Asia is a standalone two-player game that can also be added to the base game as providing new bird and goal cards.  It also adds a new “flock” mode for playing with six or more players, but with only four players this time, the group decided to make the most of the Asia expansion.  So Ivory, Plum and Black started by removing all the other expansion bird cards from the deck and shuffling in the new ones while Blue sorted out all the other bits needed to play.  That all took longer than expected, but with everyone knowing the game well, there was no need to revise the rules before the game, with just a few edge cases that were checked during play.

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Ivory started the fastest, with more birds in his reserve than anyone else by the end of the first round.  The goal at the end of that round was the rather cool “most birds facing right”, and although Ivory won it, everyone else was close behind.  That wasn’t the case in the later rounds though, with somebody struggling to get points in each case, but Ivory taking the top bonus in every round.  Some of the new birds offered a bit more, in particular, those that allowed players to cache food, but gave them a wider choice of options.  Some allowed players to choose which food, and there was another that gave the option of caching food or tucking cards.

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Although some of the bonus cards were the same as those in the base game and the other expansions, there were also new ones.  There was one that rewarded having different nest types in the trees. Ivory and Plum both got cards that gave points for playing birds in a given habitat that increased or decreased in value.  Although these were a bit different and added variety, they didn’t fundamentally change the game. As Black pointed out, sometimes the bonuses are a bit too difficult and the other ways of accumulating points much easier.  They are good to give a steer at the start of the game though, when the range of options can be overwhelming.

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With eggs worth one point each, the final turns involved the usual round of egg-laying.  It felt like it was less of a frenzy than it sometimes is, probably because everyone had other things that they felt they needed to do that were more important.  Towards the end of the game, Plum also picked up a couple of extra goal cards, but had to choose between them.  Both gave points for having birds that increased or decreased in value in a Wetland or Woodland—she went for the Wetland as at least the values were increasing, decreasing values was not ideal at that stage of the game.  Black also picked up a couple of extra goal cards during the game, but from Blue’s perspective, Ivory was where he always was, out in front with a formidable lead.

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That was not quite how it turned out in practice, however.  Ivory said he thought Black might have it, and ultimately he was proved right.  The differences in the scores were not quite as anybody expected however.  As the scores came in, it became clear that Ivory had a lot of end of round bonus points (twenty-two in fact) and Black had a lot of points from the bonus cards (fourteen) while Blue had the most from her birds (thirty-eight) and Plum had the most cached food (nine).  Of course it is the total that counts, and in the event, Black was some way ahead of the rest with a total of seventy-seven points.

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It was much closer for second than anyone expected as Blue had made an extremely slow start, but Ivory’s total of seventy-two pipped her by a single point.  Everyone had enjoyed the game, but then we always do enjoy Wingspan.  The Asia expansion didn’t change things very much, though it did feel a little different, mainly because of the new goal cards (e.g. the cards that reward placing birds in order of points and for playing birds with different types of nests).  These were the biggest difference, though some of the bird card caching options were a little more flexible and players seemed to like that too.  It is unlikely we’ll play Asia in quite this “Asia strong” way again as it will get mixed in with the other expansions, but it was a good way to introduce it to the group.

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Downforce never takes very long to play and the other group were still only half-way through Wingspan, but rather than something longer, the racing group decided to play something lighter and eventually settled on No Thanks!.  This is a very simple game, but always a lot of fun.  Players take it in turns to either take the card on display, or pay a chip to pass the problem on to the next player.  At the end of the game, players sum up the total of their cards and subtract the number of chips they have left and the player with the lowest total is the winner.

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The catch is that if a player has a run of cards only the lowest counts, but some of the cards have been removed…  This time, that rule was really critical.  Lemon managed to collect cards thirty-two to thirty-five, but unfortunately, that still gave her lots of points.  Orange did a bit better with his run from twenty-four to twenty-seven finishing with just thirteen points.  Sadly however, Pine did slightly better and finished with an excellent eight.  Points in the second game were much higher—Lemon’s twenty-six points gave her second place, but Pink just nicked it with twenty-three.  And as Wingspan had finally finished, that was it for the night.

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Learning Outcome:  Playing an expansion without other expansions makes its features more obvious.