Board Game Arena

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=688302339

I wasn't at all sure what I should do here.
At one point I seemed way behind, but I got lucky and edged out a win. I needed my opponent to have at least one dud bonus card, which ended up being the case.

Yes, it's not an easy starting hand.

Food is a major problem for this starter, since we don't have any forest or food birds in the starting hand, with the exception of the Lincoln's sparrow.
There's the Woodpecker on the tray, but I wouldn't bet all my marbles on that, since we're not the first to play.
Personally, I'd go for Lincoln's sparrow only, invertebrate, seed, fruit and rodent. I'd rather keep the Backyard Birder bonus card because I already have a bird that meets the objective, but without much conviction. The main difficulty at the start of the game seems to be access to food, so I'm keeping as many as I can to have a chance of playing the birds I manage to pick. I'm keeping fruit and rodent because they're easier to use for the type of bird I'd ideally like to land (forest birds)
For the rest of the game, there are two ways to go depending on what my opponent does.

Plan A (best): my opponent doesn't take the Woodpecker. I take it and play it turn 1 & 2. A forest turn is needed to play my sparrow on turn 4 (potentially with 3 foods). By leaving an egg with the Woodpecker's power, I won't need a turn of grassland before drawing two birds on turn 5.

Plan B (more probable): my opponent takes the Woodpecker. I take the duck and play it (using whatever is least likely to be missed to play the Sparrow). My goal on this path is to have the ability to draw lot of birds, and be able to trade one bird for food in the forest (with the Sparrow), to play the good birds I may draw

FrankJones wrote: ↑15 June 2025, 23:20 https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=688302339

I wasn't at all sure what I should do here.
At one point I seemed way behind, but I got lucky and edged out a win. I needed my opponent to have at least one dud bonus card, which ended up being the case.

This is a tricky starting hand indeed, your only "solid" keep would be the Lincoln's sparrow, nothing more really. I would have thought about the black belt whistling duck, as it counts for anatomist (which I would have kept), and as it gets the right nest type for the woodpecker. And you can always throw it away for one supplement food when you have one bird down in the forest. But in general it's a very bad bird... The avocet is great but costs 3 food, and with so few food access, it's too much and it would slow you down. I would throw away the inca dove as well, as it's really not useful here (you don't know how many right nests you will have, and it costs 2 seeds, no brown power...).

I would throw the fish and keep the anatomist, which is better than backyard birder because you only need 2 birds to score 3 points, and not 5 birds. Then, Kostinen sums up quite well what needs to be done with plan A and plan B. Among the 8 birds you see, the two best ones by far are in the tray (mallard and woodpecker), so despite you're playing 2nd, you have high chances to be able to take one of those, or even both. Btw I was pretty sure your opponent would take the woodpecker. In this case, I think you can spend 2 turns taking birds, it's better than forcing your starting hand with bad early game birds. That's great if you manage to grab a close win at the end anyway

FrankJones wrote: ↑15 June 2025, 23:20 https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=688302339

I wasn't at all sure what I should do here.
At one point I seemed way behind, but I got lucky and edged out a win. I needed my opponent to have at least one dud bonus card, which ended up being the case.

I'm going to check this out before I look at the other responses that you got, so some of this may be repetitive, or perhaps completely different who knows!

I would have hated that starting hand too. I spotted PIleated Woodpecker in the tray and your opponent goes first so in your position I would assume they will take it.

My first thought was to keep just Lincoln's sparrow and the Backyard birder bonus card. It helps with EOR goals alhough the very last round, plus it's got some flexibility of where you can play it. So if your opponent takes Woodpecker, you can take Mallard on your first turn (which also counts towards Backyard birder) and make that your Wetland bird and Lincoln's sparrow your Forest bird. And if they don't take Woodpecker then you can take it, and Lincoln's sparrow becomes your Wetland bird.

I would also keep American Avocet too, it's annoying that it clashes, food wise, with Lincoln's Sparrow and you wouldn't be able to play it straight away, but it would set you up nicely for that round 4 EOR goal when you eventually get to play it. Keeping those 2 cards means that food wise you can keep invertebrate, seed and cherry, and then see what happens with the Woodpecker.

Ok now I'm going to press play and see how you actually played it.

I kept the inca dove solely to trade it for an extra food, since I calculated needing more worms and grain than I could possibly get from my starting food and gain food actions. There was never any intent to actually play that bird.

This is an unpleasant situation to be in. A Pileated Woodpecker and you have no Cavity nest to shield yourself somewhat from its full abuses. Letting your opponent have that is not going to be fun. The opening itself shows only one playable bird ion Lincoln's Sparrow and the Invertebrate and Seed to play it. From there's its deciding if it's better to keep extra food or use spare birds to discard for Birdfeeder fodder. I have no real objections to keeping 2 other birds to toss expecting the birdfeeder to work better than the remaining food options. Avocet seems like the most likely to maybe do something, and maybe Flycatcher on the hopes the throat part of its name might align with Anatomist. Your opening is pretty much Lincoln's Sparrow and go. Your opponent just kept 4 birds and tossed the Yellow Rumped Warbler, which is usually really good, especially for these hands. So, they either don't know how to play or their hand is insane. Frankly I'm bettering on the latter even if the former is true too. This is not going to be pretty.

They lead with Northern Flicker to avoid you taking one of the Invertebrate on your own first turn. They have a Cavity Nest, so a Woodpecker in their hands would destroy you. It's absolutely worth a 1 card draw. You decide to be sneaky and play Sparrow, hoping they won't notice you laying the eggs, going into the wetland, and doing a double draw. Instead, they're the ones that play you like a fiddle. They use one turn you gave them to play Song Sparrow in the Wetland, and the next turn to snap up Woodpecker with a single draw while enabling Sparrow to slide into the Forest. So while they only got a draw 1 out of it, it's a tempo-saving trick to move Sparrow around. They get 2 food and here they mess up and don't move Sparrow out of the Forest so they can lay eggs and play something, and it takes them another turn of gaining food before they do. They end up playing Redstart, perhaps out of a desire for food and a fear you'll get a Bowl Bird, though a Woodpecker unopposed by any Cavity Nests on your end would have been devastating for you. Fortunately for you a couple of blind Cavity Nest draws offer some defense and by the end of round 1 they have missed their chance to get in unopposed Woodpecker eggs. In round 2 I figured you'd show more love for Northern Mockingbird given you pulled Cassin's Sparrow. That would have given you quite some Grassland potential with two egg layers and who knows what else Mockingbird might pick up. Pipit flipping you an 8 point bonus went a long way to stealing that. Your opponent fumbled a game they should have won.

I usually grab the mockingbird fast. I didn't, and I ended up with a weak grassland. I would need to review it to see what I was thinking.

Agreed, letting my opponent get the PIleated Woodpecker was bad. I was surprised it did not come into play sooner.

I also got absurdly lucky on my third bonus card, drawing what was probably the only bonus card in the deck worth 8 points.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=689306257

Talk about a crappy opening hand and with nothing to help me in the tray.

Archisian wrote: ↑18 June 2025, 00:32 https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=689306257

Talk about a crappy opening hand and with nothing to help me in the tray.

That's a bad hand indeed. Even if you cold-draw the Barn Swallow, you have no forest. Ouch.

I really don't enjoy this game much without expansions. I'm just being stubborn in continuing to play because I have been doing well and I want to see how high I can get my ELo.

This won't help:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=688914856

I'm going to guess I was supposed to keep the migrating bird, Lincoln's Sparrow. Getting the food I needed was a chore throughout the game. And I was one nest short when it came to the goal for that nest.