Wyrmspan Board Game Review

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Wyrmspan Board Game Review

The Cardboard-Based Characteristics

From Birds to Dragons

I really enjoyed playing Wingspan, with its engine-building, come tableau-building set of mechanisms. I did find, however, that the theme divided my game groups. On one hand, I found it attracted people to the hobby that would not normally play but on the other hand, it did put a few of my friends off due to its niche subject matter. So when a follow-up to Wingspan was announced, with dragons of all things, I thought, for me anyway, it would be a perfect fit for my collection.

Stonemaier Games have sent me a copy of Wyrmspan to review and I have played it over the last week or so with a few different groups. I have added to deluxe components though, so be aware of that as you read on. We will touch on components a tad later. Let’s excavate, collect and entice dragons…… let’s Wyrmspan!

The Setup

In Wyrmspan, while not being trivial, the setup is quite quick. Give everyone a board, some cubes, a guild tracker, six coins and two eggs. After that, shuffle the cave and dragon decks, organise the shop and deal three of each to each player. Gather all the resources, eggs and coins nearby in the lovely included trays, well within reach of all players. After that, randomise the round goals, randomise the Dragon Guild and you are just about ready to rock!

Players must select four total cards from the six they have between caves and dragons, then select any three resources to start the game. You obviously select resources for the dragons you have; it gives you a nice start to the game and a direction to take with your first few turns.

Game Flow

Over the course of four rounds, players will spend their silver, taking turns to hopefully end up with the most points. Points come from dragon cards, the guild, cached resources, eggs, tucked cards and of course, round-end objectives. Each turn, you spend silver to excavate caves, entice dragons or explore a cave of your choice.

It’s what dragons you select, paired with what actions you take, that can create combos and strategies to win the game. All dragons have abilities, all caves have bonuses and it’s how you weave them into the game’s round objectives, exploring and working on the dragon guild, that will decide how well you do come game’s end.

Actions – Excavate

Each player’s mat is split into three horizontal caves. These caves are where you entice your dragons. To entice your dragons, you must excavate the cave. Each cave starts with one space pre-excavated but after that, you have to do the work yourself. To excavate, you pay a silver and play a cave card from your hand into the left-most space of any cave. After that, you complete whatever bonus is on the card, which makes which cave cards you acquire, a juicy decision indeed. They can give you resources, eggs or even the ability to play dragons for a discount.

Having another layer of card-play on top of the dragons is a nice addition indeed. It gives payers more options to consider and broadens the actions you can take on your turn. It also means I have to think a bit more ahead, to squeeze out a few extra resources and to maximise every turn.

Actions – Entice

This action is pretty much the same as playing birds in Wingspan. Each dragon can go into one of the three horizontal caves and has a resource cost to entice it. I did find that where you placed your dragons had more of an effect in Wyrmspan, dragons have lots of different abilities and I found the engine-building far more substantial here than in its predecessor.

Dragons have instant abilities, explore abilities, end-of-round abilities and even end-game scoring abilities, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Combined with the explore action, they can create a whole plethora of engine-building opportunities.

Action – Explore

With this action, you send your explorer down one of the three caves, getting all the bonuses until you hit a cave that does not contain a dragon. The top row mostly awards resources, the middle dragon cards and the bottom cave cards. Along with that, you get eggs and movement on the dragon guild. The more you put into a cave, the more lucrative an explore action will be. There are exploration rewards on the board but placing dragons with explore rewards on them, will increase this action’s effectiveness massively.

What I like about this system is that, depending on the dragons you place, you also get other boons as you explore. It’s a bit like the powers for all your birds activating, but in reverse order to Wingspan. Only here it’s a whole action and a system on its own. You can plan your whole strategy around exploring and the systems it keys off. It does get more expensive every time you explore the same cave within the same turn, I suppose, to stop players milking a well-planned cave.

Wingspan to Wyrmspan

The main differences to Wingspan, on the outside, seem quite small. All of these things combined, however, lead to quite a different feeling game. Firstly, the action selection system is different. You use coins instead of cubes to select your action. This may seem like it’s the same thing but in Wyrmspan, you can get more coins, carry them from round to round and spend them on expensive dragons. This leads to players having a differing number of actions and creates a more dynamic feeling round structure. You also don’t lose them over time, like in Wingspan, meaning that the last round is not reduced in actions.

Along with that, I found that the resource-gathering mechanism was different in a few key areas. In one way, gathering resources required a bit more planning and budgeting. On the other hand, because you are not dependent on dice, you could have whatever resource type you wanted. You also got the odd resource from other places, but this also needed to be kept an eye on. The fact that every time you go to gather, it gets more expensive requires players to plan more efficiently. I like that a lot, but it is a significant change, and it did seem harsh in my first game or two.

The Dragon Guild is also new, a rondel of sorts that players can go around getting bonuses and rewards. Things from free actions, eggs, coins and even end-of-round scoring opportunities can be earned. There are also different Dragon Guilds in the game, providing differing rewards and end-game scoring objectives. I really appreciated this addition; it enabled me to, from time to time, squeak out a little extra action or resource and set me up for my next turn.

What do Points Make? Prizes, of course!

Your point scoring is very similar to its predecessor. Dragons get you points, both in placing and endgame actions. The Dragon Guild gets you points and the end-of-round objectives also give you points to fight over. I always enjoy looking ahead and trying to plan my dragon placements to try and win each round’s objective. Whether it is certain types of dragons, egg placements or other goals, working on these as much as you can will serve you well.

I found the game’s new systems, like the Dragon Guild and the array of new dragon abilities, worked nicely together to give you a reasonable amount of choice of how to approach each game and also help you work out where you should be focusing your time and effort to get the most points.

Components

Let’s be honest, one thing Stonemaier are known for is a good quality component or two. Wyrmspan is no different, even though I had to plum for the deluxe upgrade pack. That’s just me though. I am weak when it comes to upgraded components. The bog standard stuff is very good, with beautiful speckly dragon eggs, lovely cards and clean, clear resource chits.

The game also comes with trays to keep this stuff in too, which I adore. I usually add these to games myself to help with setup, teardown and make things a bit tidier on the table. The rulebook has that lovely linen-finish feel and is very well written. Everything about Wymspan is well thought out and very well presented. The components are of a normal Stonemaier quality and lovely all round.

Wingspan Plus

After my first play of Wyrmspan, I was torn between that and Wingspan. I thought the resource gathering was harder and the engine-building required more forethought. However, on subsequent plays, with these thoughts in my head, I found Wymspan started to spread its wings. Being able to pick which resources you want instead of being dependent on dice is great, even if you have to work a tad harder to get them.

I enjoyed the Dragon Guild and how it combined with other facets of the game, making it a bit more combo-heavy and allowing you to manipulate the game more. I got rid of my copy of Wingspan to make space for Wyrmspan and I am glad I did. Wyrmspan is a little bit more gamery and I adore the theme. Don’t get me wrong, I like birds but dragons are a lot closer to my heart.

Wyrmspan is both beautiful and very entertaining. If you like Wingspan, you will also like this. Unfortunately, if you did not like Wingspan, I cannot see Wyrmspan winning you over. However, if you wanted a Wingspan-type system with a bit more to it and a few more wrinkles, this may be your jam. Right, I’m off to lure a dragon into a cave with some amethyst. See you next time table-toppers!

Rapid Reviews Rating

4 out of 5

4

You can buy Wyrmspan from the Stonemaier store here.