I first played Wingspan at Origins 2019, standing at the Stonemaier booth while the conventions swirled around me. Fifteen minutes in, I wasn’t just playing a game – I was constructing this intricate machine of feathers and abilities that kept generating more and more resources. By the time my demo ended, I’d already mentally cleared shelf space at home. Later that night at dinner, I couldn’t stop talking about how the bird powers had created this unexpected chain reaction that felt almost magical. Poor Linda nodded politely through her pasta, having long ago accepted that this particular brand of board game enthusiasm was part of the package deal of marriage to me.
Here’s the thing about Wingspan that continues to fascinate me after 87 plays (yes, I keep count – it’s a sickness): it’s not just a set collection game about birds. It’s a puzzle of constructing the perfect economic engine from seemingly disparate parts. And at the heart of this puzzle are the bird power combinations that, when aligned correctly, create cascading activations that can generate absolutely ridiculous amounts of resources and points.
I’m not talking about just playing good birds. I’m talking about creating symphonies of abilities that trigger each other in perfect sequence. After testing countless configurations across dozens of games, I’ve identified several “power trees” that consistently generate outsized returns. The game rewards this kind of deliberate construction in a way that feels deeply satisfying – like watching a Rube Goldberg machine you’ve carefully assembled run perfectly.
The most basic concept to understand is the difference between “when played” powers and ongoing powers. “When played” powers give you an immediate benefit but don’t contribute to your engine. They’re like a sugar rush – helpful in the moment but not sustaining. The ongoing powers – particularly the brown “activated” powers – are where the real engine-building happens. These are the gears and levers of your machine.
Let me tell you about a game from last month that perfectly illustrates this. I’d drawn a Common Raven early, which lets you cache food on it when activated. Decent start, nothing special. Then I drew a Chihuahuan Raven with the same ability. Still nothing revolutionary. But then came the California Condor, which gives you a point for each food on all ravens and other carrion birds. And finally, I added an American Kestrel, which activated when my predator birds did.
See what happened there? Every time I activated my forest row to gain food, I could trigger the ravens to store food, which would score points via the Condor, which would then let the Kestrel activate. One simple action was now generating food, points, and additional activations. By the end of the game, that single forest activation was worth about 7 resources/points. My friends now refuse to let me draft ravens without a fight.
This illustrates what I call “activation chains” – birds that trigger other birds in sequence. The most powerful chains generally start with birds that have brown powers in one habitat, which then activate birds with “activated” powers in other habitats. The classic example is the forest-to-grassland chain, where birds like the Franklin’s Gull or Killdeer activate when you gain food, essentially giving you free egg-laying when foraging.
Speaking of eggs, nesting strategies might seem obvious, but there’s subtlety to constructing the perfect laying engine. Birds like the Yellow-Rumped Warbler let you lay eggs when other birds lay eggs – which creates a fascinating compound effect. In one memorable game, I created what my group now calls “the egg factory” – a grassland row where a single “lay eggs” action resulted in 9 eggs spread across different birds. The exponential growth was beautiful to witness.
The wetlands row is typically focused on card draw, and this is where some of the most broken combinations emerge. The Cedar Waxwing, which lets you draw a card when you cache food, paired with food-caching birds creates a powerful draw engine. Add in the Barn Swallow (draw a card when another player draws) as defense against opponents with similar strategies, and suddenly you’re cycling through a significant portion of the deck.
Food generation requires careful planning but offers tremendous returns. Birds like the White-Faced Ibis, which gives food when wetland birds are played, paired with cheap wetland birds creates a food surplus that can fund expensive bird costs. My personal record is generating 14 food in a single round through carefully constructed activation sequences – significantly more than the meager pickings from the standard food dice.
The tucking mechanic offers perhaps the most direct path to big points. The Mississippi Kite, which tucks cards for points when predators are played, combined with small, cheap predator birds creates a tucking engine that can easily generate 20+ points. In one particularly ridiculous game, I had three tucking birds that fed each other in a loop, resulting in 19 tucked cards (38 points) from just a few activations.
Let’s talk about defense too, because bird combos aren’t just about building your own engine – they’re about disrupting your opponents’. Birds with defensive powers, like the Brown-Headed Cowbird (steal eggs when opponents lay eggs) or the Bushtit (gain food when others gain food) allow you to piggyback on opponents’ engines. Positioning these correctly can mitigate the advantage of a player who’s constructed a powerful combo.
The European Expansion adds new types of powers, including end-of-round abilities that can be devastating when combined properly. My favorite discovery was pairing the Eurasian Golden Plover (gain food when round ends with fewer than 5 eggs in grassland) with birds that move eggs around. This created a perpetual food engine that required minimal maintenance.
Temperature is another critical factor in combo construction. Because powers activate from right to left, the “temperature” of your row – how far to the right you’ve built up birds – determines how many powers trigger with each activation. A common mistake I see is playing birds with powerful activated abilities too far left, where they won’t be included in many activations. The right temperature creates maximum activation density.
Of course, the randomness of the card draw means you can’t always assemble your ideal engine. This is where flexibility becomes crucial. I’ve seen players stubbornly pursue a tucking strategy despite never drawing the key birds, while ignoring perfectly good food-generation combos available to them. The best Wingspan players I know maintain multiple potential combo paths in the early game, only committing once a critical mass of complementary birds appears.
Actually, a funny story about that – in our Christmas game last year, my brother-in-law Mike was determined to build a wetland drawing engine because it had worked for him in the previous game. Three rounds in, he had exactly one wetland bird while ignoring perfectly good forest combos. His final score was… well, let’s just say we don’t bring it up unless we want to watch his face turn interesting colors.
The player mat actions form the backbone of your turn choices, but the real art is in creating bird combinations that give you those same actions for free. When your birds are laying eggs, drawing cards, and gaining food without spending the limited actions on your player mat, you’re essentially playing with more turns than your opponents. That’s the secret to consistently winning Wingspan – not just playing good birds, but creating good birds that play well together.
After hundreds of combinations tested, I’ve found that the most reliable benchmark of a strong engine is achieving at least 1.5 resources (counting cards, food, and eggs each as 1 resource) per single action by the mid-game. If your activations aren’t generating bonus resources at that rate, your engine probably needs recalibration.
The beauty of Wingspan’s design is that these combinations aren’t obvious from reading the cards – they emerge through play and experimentation. Each game feels like a unique puzzle because the available birds (and therefore potential engines) change dramatically. No matter how many times I play, there’s always some new interaction to discover, some new sequence that makes me say, “Wait, I never thought of combining those!”
I’ve kept detailed notes on bird combinations and performance across those 87 games, and what continues to impress me is how the game rewards creativity over formulaic approaches. Yes, there are reliable combinations, but the player who can spot unusual synergies among the available birds usually outperforms the player trying to force a pre-planned strategy.
So next time you play, look beyond the individual bird powers and start thinking about how they can trigger each other. Listen for the rhythm of your engine – the sequence of activations that cascade across your habitats. With practice, you’ll develop an ear for which combinations create beautiful music and which produce just noise. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll create an engine so impressive that even your spouse will briefly look up from their pasta with genuine interest – or at least convincing feigned interest, which after 22 years of marriage might be the greatest victory of all.
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