Tuck, Cache, and Hunt: Wingspan's Scoring Powers

The midgame lesson met the birds whose powers put points on the board each time they fire. This lesson looks at them up close. In the base game they come in three families: birds that tuck cards, birds that cache food, and predators, which do one or the other when a hunt succeeds. Each tucked card and each cached food is 1 point at the end.

Counts below come from our tally of the 170 base-game birds, checked against the Wingsearch card database.

Why these birds matter

A brown power fires every time you use its row. A power that gains food or draws a card helps you build. A power that tucks or caches does that and scores. Put one in a row you use five or six times over the game, and it can be worth more than any printed number on a card.

About 57 of the 116 brown birds in the base game tuck or cache in some way. They are not rare. The skill is in telling the strong ones from the weak ones.

Tucking: three common shapes

Tuck from hand, then draw. Nine base birds say: tuck 1 card from your hand behind this bird, and if you do, draw 1 card. Your hand size stays the same, you score 1 point, and you get a fresh look at the deck. That is about as close to a free point as Wingspan offers. The catch is that you need a card in hand to tuck, which most players have.

Tuck from hand, plus a bonus. Other birds tuck a card from hand and then lay an egg on themselves or gain a food. These cost you a card from hand each time, but give two things back. Good when your hand is large and full of birds you will never afford.

Pay a food, tuck two from the deck. A few birds let you discard a seed or a fish to tuck 2 cards from the deck. That is 2 points for 1 food, as long as you have the food. Strong in a forest engine that makes spare food.

Many of these tucking birds carry the flocking icon. It does not change how they work, but some bonus cards count it.

Caching: the steady ones

Cache from the supply. Five base birds simply cache 1 seed from the supply on themselves. No dice, no cost. One point every time the row runs.

Gain from the feeder and cache. Six birds gain 1 seed from the birdfeeder, if one is there, and let you cache it. You choose between a food to spend and a point to keep. In round 4, keep the point.

Predators: hunting with odds

The base game has 22 predators, and they hunt in two ways.

Dice hunters. Twelve predators roll all the dice that are not in the birdfeeder. If any show a rodent, or a fish for the fishing birds, they cache 1 of that food. Each die shows that food on one face out of six, so the chance of success depends on how many dice are out:

So use these birds when the feeder is nearly empty. A dice hunter with one die to roll is mostly a wasted activation. Activate the row after a few dice have been taken, not right after a refill. The odds lesson at Level 3 shows the math.

Card hunters. Ten predators look at the top card of the deck. If its wingspan is under the bird’s limit, they tuck it. If not, they discard it. In a base-game deck, about 57% of birds are under 50 cm, 70% are under 75 cm, and 78% are under 100 cm. So the 75 cm and 100 cm hunters succeed most of the time, and the 50 cm hunter a little over half the time.

Card hunters are dependable scorers. Dice hunters are swingy and depend on timing.

One more thing: three base birds with pink powers gain a die from the feeder whenever another player’s predator succeeds. If a rival has one, your successful hunts feed them a little.

Where to put them

The power fires when you use the bird’s row, so the row matters as much as the bird.

• In your main engine row, a scoring bird adds a point to an action you were taking anyway.
• In a row you rarely use, it might fire twice all game.
• The column does not change how often it fires. Your cube starts to the right of every bird in the row and slides left past all of them, so every brown power in the row gets its chance.

Ask of every scoring bird: how many more times will I use this row? With 15 turns left and a row you use one turn in three, a tuck bird might fire five times. That is five points plus its printed value, for a single action.

A simple rating

When you weigh one of these birds, ask:

1. Does it score every time, or only sometimes? Cache from supply and card hunters are steady. Dice hunters are not.
2. What does each use cost? Nothing, a card from hand, or a food.
3. Which row? Your engine row, or a quiet one?

For how these powers fit the wider family of engine builders, see our explainer on engine building games.