The Clash of Chaos and Confetti 5 – Wingspan

The Premise and Standings

Each week we’ll face off in a best of three series playing a different board game from our collection.  The winner claims the moniker of C&C Clash Champ for the week.  The loser will try to hide their tears.  The lesser player also gets to choose the game for the next week.

We will maintain a record of wins and losses throughout the year to see who finishes 2022 as the ultimate board game champ in our household.

Our current C&C Champion is Chaos after winning last week’s Quacks of Quedlinburg showdown.

Pre-Clash Current Standings:

• Weekly Winner: 3 Chaos – 1 Confetti
• Individual game wins:  7 Chaos – 4 Confetti

After losing last week, Confetti has chosen Wingspan.

The Game – Wingspan

The perfect game for bird and board game lovers!  Wingspan has players working to build the best possible wildlife preserves in order to attract awesome and sometimes powerful birds.

Over the course of four rounds, made up of multiple turns, players will play birds into three unique habitats, each focusing on a different action type: gaining good, laying eggs, and drawing cards.  Adding birds to your board will increase your efficiency with each action, which in turn will hopefully help you play even more birds.  This is a bird-themed engine builder.  

Birds, eggs, and bird abilities such as caching food and tucking cards will help players as they hope to end the fourth round with the most points.  They will also need to keep in mind their private personal goals and the public objectives in order to gain even more points. 

The base Wingspan game starts players with 170 real world birds to play with.  The European and Oceania expansions more than double the number of birds by adding birds from their respective regions and a few new mechanics as well.  We’ll be playing with those included with the base set.

Wingspan is about maximizing points and bird plays while carefully balancing your need for card draw, food acquisition, and egg output.  Your birds will normally need all three to leave your hand and enter your preserve.

Are Chaos and Confetti ready to leave the nest and soar, or are they still fletchlings not yet ready to fly?

Chaos’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:

Once again, I walk in as C&C Clash Champion.  Luck was on my side last week, but I can’t count on it being there again this time.  I love a good engine builder, especially when things start coming together and giving me multiple benefits each turn.  Wingspan offers a number of ways to pull in points, so I have to make sure I weigh my options and allocate resources appropriately.  Maybe I do need luck.  Based on my own memory, I’m pretty sure Confetti has beaten me in Wingspan more than I’ve beaten her.  However, she’s never faced the C&C Clash Champion at Wingspan before.  Something tells me, this bird will be singing a different tune today.  Ka-kaw!

Confetti’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:

I’m still super annoyed about losing that one game of Quacks of Quedlinburg last week. Wingspan is one of my favorite games of all time, so hopefully playing it will put me in a better mood. I love to look at all the bird cards and I tend to be able to get a decent engine running most games. Let’s see what happens!

Game 1:

Chaos and Confetti both started the first game by trying to increase their food intake with birds in the forest habitat.  Chaos focused on more of a draw engine, while Confetti used her wetlands to house several card tucking birds.  Both players neglected their grasslands, which slowed them down as they often lacked eggs.   

Confetti mostly added low point birds as she focused on her card tucking power.  She had no issue with scooping up high point birds from the supply only to tuck them under her birds.  They may have only been one point that way, but it meant Chaos couldn’t have them at all.

Chaos’ strategy was a bit more scattershot.  He cached some mice, tucked a few cards, and set up some end of round powers.  His birds sat mostly in the middle-range for points.

Late game, Confetti had finally built herself up enough that she was able to throw down the 9-point Baltimore Oriole and the 8-point Bonelli’s Eagle.  Most games, two big bombs like that can be what it takes to pull out a win.  Not this time however.  Instead, they just added a little more icing to the cake because Confetti’s 18 tucked cards already helped usher her to victory. 

Final score: 64 for Chaos, 86 for Confetti

Game 2:

Having struggled for eggs last game, both competitors seemed to take a more even approach across their habitats.  They slowly built up all three, neither obviously leaning into one area.  

Not afraid to learn new tricks, Confetti mostly abandoned her tucked strategy.  Instead, she played more mid-ranged point birds this game and carefully curated end-of-game powers.  On the surface, her build didn’t seem too impressive, but she was playing the long game.

Chaos also tried skewing his bird-points slightly higher, mostly dropping four-point birds.  He even managed a 7-point Easter Imperial Eagle and a 5-point American White Pelican.  One thing that did stay consistent between games though was Chaos’ attempt to pull from multiple point sources.  His final board saw tucked cards, a smattering of eggs, cached food, and a mix of power types (end of round, between turns, activated brown powers, tuck, and predator). 

In the end, Chaos’ eclectic strategy paid off.  He scored higher than the previous game.  Unfortunately for him, Confetti’s plans beared fruit as well.  By the time her end of game powers had finished, she now had 19 eggs and thus 19 points to add to her total.  She also pulled in an impressive 13 points from her bonus cards (Chaos only scored 6 bonus card points).  Confetti also showed improvement in this game. 

Final score 72 for Chaos, 90 for Confetti

Game 3: 

As we discussed last week, when a player locks in victory during the first two games, it is up to the guaranteed loser whether or not they would like to play the third match.  Last week, Confetti opted to forgo the final game.  Chaos however, needed to try for at least one win.

Right out the gates, Confetti started building up her wetlands and grasslands.  Going against her usual tendencies, she let her forest stay mostly unpopulated this game.  This time she planned to use eggs and bird points to claim victory.  She saw no problem with shutting out Chaos in all three games.

Chaos actually brought some focus to this game, deciding to prioritize his bonus card.  His bonus card offered big points for every column he had which contained three different colored powers.  In a strange way, Chaos’ more focused strategy still encouraged him to approach the game with a more diverse playing style.  It didn’t take long for him to regret his plans though as he saw brown power after brown power and little else.  After completing his first column successfully early, he mostly alternated between slowly building his preserve and drawing through the bird deck for the rest of the game.  It wasn’t until the final round that he finally got to play his final two wetland birds.  

Playing birds more slowly and deliberately ended up with Chaos mostly playing high point birds which surprisingly netted him 40 points to Confetti’s 41.  This coupled with the fact that he ended up successfully making three bonus cards work propelled him to his highest score of the day and into victory.  Sure the final win didn’t matter, but Chaos got it anyways!  

Final score: 85 for Chaos, 76 for Confetti

Your winner and NEW C&C Clash Champion: Confetti

Chaos’ Post-Clash thoughts:

I held the championship long enough to set the record as longest reigning champion of all time.  I’m hoping that’s a record that stands the test of time, or at least until I reclaim the championship again soon.  As for this week though, I knew my track record for Wingspan wasn’t great, but I’m happy to see my score improved each round.  I’m willing to believe that my scores would have kept increasing and I would have won a best of 5 or at least 7 series.  On the bright side, I know what I want to play next week and I’m already excited for that.

Confetti’s Post-Clash thoughts:

I’m pleasantly surprised that I won two games in a row! Chaos likes to act like I always beat him at Wingspan, but I don’t think that’s true. I like that I managed to get two wins with two very different strategies. It’s exciting to be the new C&C Clash Champion and I hope I can repeat my performance next week. 

Next Week:
With the next clash falling so close to Valentine’s Day, Chaos has decided to shake things up a little.  Chaos and Confetti will still be gunning for first place, but this time they’ll have to do it a bit more cooperatively.  Can these two get along enough to win three games of Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game?  With each player earning individual points, will they be able to balance attempts for points with the team’s greater good, or will their individual greed allow evil to vanquish good?  Find out next week!