Overview:
- Ages 14+
- 1-5 Players
- Playtime: 90-120 minutes
- Gameplay: Engine/Tableau building, Resource Management
- Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Wyrmspan is the second in a series of games. Beginning with Wingspan, which took the board game world by storm with a bird theme, Wyrmspan brings the dragons. With amazing artwork and beautiful base components. The game takes you on an adventure to entice dragons into the caves you have excavated. As an extra bonus in the gamebox there is a booklet titled Wyrmspan Dragon Facts. In this booklet, the statistics and a blurb are included for all 183 dragons in the game.
Components
- Dragon Guild Board
- 4 Double Sided Dragon Guild Tiles’’
- 183 Dragon Cards
- 75 Cave Cards
- 1 Card Display Board
- Round Tracker Board
- 10 Objective tiles, double sided
- 5 Player Mats
- 10 Quick Start Guides
- 1 Score Pad
- 45 coins
- 25 meat tokens
- 25 gold tokens
- 25 crystal tokens
- 25 milk tokens
- 55 eggs
- 20 multiplier tokens
- 1 Round Marker
- 1 Starting player marker
- Player Pieces
- 1 Adventurer in each color
- 8 player markers
- 1 Guild Token
Gameplay Overview
The game plays over four rounds with only one action happening for players at each turn. The actions: Excavate, Entice, and Explore. If a player can no longer play a dragon card (or do not wish to) or they run out of coins, players pass. When all the players have passed, the round ends.
Excavate
Each player board has three caves with three sections in each to excavate. For the Excavate action, players place a cave card into the leftmost free space in one of their caves. They also need to pay the cost, and the cost increased with each section of cave excavated to the right. The first section in a cave costs one coin, the second costs one coin plus an egg, and the third section costs one coin and two eggs. Excavating more of the cage opens more options and benefits when the player chooses the Explore action in a future turn.
Entice
Players can choose to use the Entice action to add a dragon from their hand to their player mat, for the cost of one coin plus the cost listed on the dragon card. On the dragon cards icons let you know the additional cost to play them. Most dragons will require meat, gold, and/or crystal. Some dragons require a coin too or insead of. However hatchling dragons require, milk (in various quantity, and an egg.
More About the Dragons
There are 183 unique dragons in Wyrmpan, with 148 full-grown dragons and 35 hatchlings. The dragons have a preferred habitat, and need to be placed accordingly. The left hand side of the card has three rectangles which indicate their preferred habitat. The three caves are: Crimson Cave, (red) Golden Cave (gold), and Amethyst Cave (purple).
Each Dragon Card has one of four potential abilities or benefits. Those include:
When Played: Occurred when the dragon card is enticed into the cave.
Activated by and Adventurer: During the Explore phase, when an adventurer crosses a dragon card.
Once per Round: The benefit occurs at the end of each round
At End of Game: These provide victory points if certain criteria specified on the card are met.
Hatchling cards are a special type of dragon that has a three part ability. First, and if activated ability. Second is when the listed item is cache or card tucked, there is a benefit. The third benefit occurs the third time you cache or tuck a card (depending on the card).
Explore
When you choose the explore action each time you need to pay the cost, which is listed on the player mat. The cost is independent of each cave. First exploration of a cave costs 1 coin. The second exploration costs a coin and an egg, and the third costs a coin and two eggs. The player moves their adventurer left to right through the cave and activates all the “if activated” abilities they pass over. A player must stop when they reach the stop icon in that cave.
Dragon Guild
Players can also advance along the Dragon Guild when they play or explore certain dragon or cave cards with the Dragon Guild icon. As players advance around the Dragon Guild mat, they gain benefits. At the very top and bottom of the mat, players can also select a special guild benefit that are limited. There are three different guilds and one is chosen at the beginning of the game.
Additional Notes
For those familiar with Wingspan, there is a section in the rulebook which highlights the differences between the games.
Family Game Assessment
For those who love dragons the art and feel of the game evokes hit all the right notes. The artwork and the details on the cards as well as components make this a beautiful game on the table and a pleasure to play. The details for each unique dragon card adds such a remarkable flavor to the game. The gameplay has multiple choices and steps, but once players learn the flow of the turns, it flows nicely.
Wyrmspan is a wonderful game that is suited for experienced gamers. On the Stonemaier games website they list Wyrmspan as a heavy weight game. There are multiple mechanics and many components and features to manage and pay attention to. For families, you need to have all the players experienced with the different mechanics. Plus, this is a longer game with a play time of about 90 minutes. so having all the players at the table able to sustain long enough, or be willing to break the game into shorter playing sessions. Some families leave the game set up between sessions and are able to break it up into shorter sessions that are better suited for their players and/or the time they have available.
Final Thoughts
In whatever format works best to play for your family, Wymspan brings so much within its box. For families looking for a more complex game with beautiful pieces and gameplay with lots of choices…and of course dragons, Wyrmspan is everything you could want. It is a worthy addition to the collection of experienced gamers.
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