Just FYI: a good number of us do keep the cards separate by region, integrating them when we care to. Thanks for the review: will not purchase unless the PRICE drops a lot!
15:20 "How much more content do you need," can be said about any/every game. Did Marvel United need 200 characters and 20 boxes? Everdell has 5 expansions and a huge box of its own. Most of it probably isn't needed, but it exists for those who want it. Same is true here, Wingspan now has its crate and space for the 3 expansions yet to come.
I think there was a large effort to make the nesting box work for as many people as possible for a variety of upgraded/additional components. I haven't upgraded anything and the only extra I own is the speckled eggs. I have only the cardboard food tokens- they fill up 3 trays. With the extra eggs, the egg trays were so full the lids wouldn't snap on properly. I have all my cards in the card trays, so I used those card slots to store the 6 plastic bins from the base game. 2 of them on their side fit perfectly in those slots. I put the duet tokens, the 3rd set of dice, and all the purple eggs in 3 of them. Those card slots by the bird feeder are annoyingly big. Overall, I like it, but don't love it. I'm glad I have it.
Yes, some people do separate the expansions. You are more likely to see certain bird cards this way. I also recommend playing with one expansion instead of mixing them all together because I recall from a Dice Tower Podcast (At the Table #6) with Elizabeth that the expansions are "mainly" balanced based on the base game.
The idea with expansions was that the cards were added in a roughly equal % rate for the objectives. And besides, with my house rule taken from Ark Nova regarding the bonus cards you start with - the idea of not mixing them is then a mute point.
Appreciate the review and your thoughts. I was really excited about this box and don't regret my purchase. I think there is lots of space for you to store things how you want to store them. You don't have to use the included trays and could put your own inserts in there (folded space in your case). I like the idea of everything being in one box and to hand. I like the option of being able to store things how I want to. I like that you don't have to use any of the components in the box, but you have the option to use them if you want. I do agree with you on the card dividers. This really bugs me. They could have been made taller, or the colour could have gone to the top of cards to identify the expansion etc. I think it was a hard box to design but the way they have done it gives people a choice on how to store. I don't really like the idea of the card trays but will use the tall one to store base game cards and then the rest in the in the big box.
@The Broken Meeple I agree the price was a bit of a shock. You don't have to buy it and there are some things they could have done better. I guess it comes down to personal choice. I really like the big boxes and having everything in one place. Keep up the good work and looking forward to the Asia review
Hi, quick question. If I were to buy this nesting box and all 3 expansions, would there be any piece at all that couldn’t fit in the box? Sorry for asking but you said you had it and like it so I figured I’d ask
@Kyuss Ropka Everything fits in the box. It's designed in such a way that there are several ways to store things. Its also future proof. There is only space for one fully built bird feeder. You do get a second flat packed in wingspan asia but can be stored flat. I also have several extras like the neoprone mats and everything fits. I don't think you will regret your purchase!
I heard that the 6-7 player expansion for Wingspan Asia was mainly because Jamey knew that people would make up a variant to work with that count so they came out with an official version. Makes sense, 7 colors, 7 players. Of course most are probably not going to play that but duet is kind of cool.
@@TheBrokenMeeple Yeah, likely true, I'm just saying what the justification was but you can take it or leave it. I think the duet is really the focus and look forward to your thoughts either way :)
Thanks Luke!! This was an easy pass for me as I loathe these obnoxiously oversized boxes and refuse to buy them (or games that come in them). Folded Space inserts are lightweight and convenient; that works for me should I need aftermarket inserts.
Thank you for this review , I almost ordered it , so glad I passed . I agree its far too expencive for what it is , and I do not understand why they could not design it to fit better into the Kallax shelves and how they managed to mess up quiet a few things . They too quiet some time to design it !
Thanks for the review! I ordered the box with Asia. I got the Viticulture wine crate, too. Ended up sorting it in a way that works for me rather than their guide. Hoping I can do the same with this box. I am a little disappointed that they scraped the scissor tail from the cover. IMHO it's a much better image than the toucan. Toucan makes me think of Fruit Loops.
So glad your not in the pocket of publishers luke, honest, blunt opinion, which is needed with every other content creature hyping everything to the point of passing out. Spending £80 on a box I don't need doesn't do it for me, and those dividers not high enough. Who divides their cards!? Ps. I love this game
I think that´s a whole lot of money for a whole lot of plastic😮I would have expected that (for this amount of money!) the inlay was some kind of foam or thin wood or whatever - like the ones you can buy from “e-raptor” or “folded space 😳 the box though has a nice artwork🥰 but 80 €???? No thank you not for me! I have come up with my own idea to store the game with all of the expansions 😊
I got this idea from a reboxing video but you want to put all your bird cards where the bird house is. Make sure to put score cards to the side of where your bird cards currently are(formally your bird house area) for some stability. Remove the yellow tray entirely. This will leave room for the bird house in the center of the second layer. You can use those divided card wells on the other side for future cards(or whatever you want). This will mean that you'll probably have to take one of the food/egg containers on the bottom tier. But that might be how the box already tells you to do it, i forget. I prefer this to how they recommend. This way you have easy access to all your cards and don't have to sort through trays.
The Nesting box. A jack of all trades but a master of none. Well besides a master of taking up space and persuading you to buy every expansion without a clue what they'll offer.
Master of taking up un-necessary space - I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
I kinda hate the nesting box, but i do separate my expansions. This is such a disappointment in comparison to the Big Ol Box of Everdell and the big box of Terraforming Mars. I would like to have the dividers though that comes with the box, the rest they can keep, I'm not spending my money on the nesting box. I have everything stored in my base game box with an insert of Feldherr and I'm happier with that than I would be with an oversized box I hate. I know there is alot of time and effort in such things as a designer myself what works comes with it but i think they went all wrong with this one.
I seperate my cards by expansion but I don't play too often with the copies I own because I tend to go to another friends house who has everything too and plays a lot more than me. Whenever I play with my copy it's nice to be able to easily play with just the expansions not available on Steam yet so I can get more familiar with their powers for when I do play in person with them.
@@TheBrokenMeeple The champ of birds challenge where using a replayable fixed game state you can compete against the entire playerbase for a global high score keeps me coming back. It resets weekly. Oceania should be released soon(tm)
I am glad that I passed on the nesting box. On the dividers, I do use them, but I am glad I did not buy the big box to put them in, lol. I bought an insert for the game and keep the cards for the different expansions in separate spots. Thanks for the review, Luke.
Great idea! I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup with Folded Space and 2 boxes - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
It looks awfully big. I don’t know…. Like you, Luke, we mix all the cards together so there would be no need for that little file box arrangement. We have a rather large replacement bird house dice tower that sits on a shelf and won’t go in the box. The Nesting Box is pretty but I’m not sure that it is worth the precious space that it will take up. ( I struggle with finding space for games as it is.) Thank you for the review!
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
Seems like they tried to make the box viable to as many people as possible which ultimately turned it into one that wasn't optimized for anyone. I'm also shocked it doesn't fully fit in a Kallax as, from memory, Jamey Stegmaier was very adamant that it did and stated that this was an important feature of the box's design. Nonetheless, briefly considered this and very glad I didn't - seems so excessive for a game such as Wingspan and not worth the shelf space. At some point, it's just better to have two boxes or just stop getting expansion than a behemoth box such as this one which would die on my shelf since I'd never want to bring it out or transport it to game nights. Btw it's possible to fit everything from Spirit Island (except the upcoming expansion) into the base box, even sleeved, with some caveats. 1) Only components for up to three people, 2) No inclusion of redundant content (e.g., stuff from Horizons, except the spirits), 3) The thin foil/Horizon-style spirit panels instead of the thick ones, 4) No rulebooks OR can only have 4 player boards, otherwise there's lid lift. It's probably possible to include rulebooks and all six boards but the way I have mine I wouldn't be able to use my deckboxes then.
You can do with SI for sure - but with a folded space insert I keep it in two boxes and it doesn't bother me really. Still takes up less space than this Wingspan box does!
@@TheBrokenMeeple Yeah that's totally fair. Two boxes for SI might be better than one very dense and heavy box. Just seen some people suggest there is absolutely no way to get expansion stuff into the SI box which isn't entirely the case, if you make some concessions.
I was reorganizing my Wingspan to incorporate Asia. I was looking for the nesting box so I thought I'd be a good idea to look at reviews. You showed exactly what I needed to see and I'll be passing on this. Idea was good but their execution not as much. Thanks. Also, I do sort my cards by expansions, I usually mix 2 of them before a game, changing every game or so.
70$ on the producers website. Chintzy would be my first impression of that product. Super thin plastic. Paper and cardboard inserts will not survive high humidity locations (I live in Hawaii). I'm going to bet its made in china for about 15$. Personally I find the best upgrades are: 1. A wooden or ceramic lazy susan with at least 6 dividers. 2. A card shuffler if you dislike doing it yourself. 3. A wooden dice tower-roller made yourself or by your woodworking friend. Overall I wanted the box to be useful but I feel like it just looks to cheap.
Thank you for your review! I was so disappointed when I finally got the last piece of the puzzle, Europe, only to find that they'd replaced the purple card trays with a compostable lunch container and in my upset wondered if buying the Nesting Box was the answer, but now I know that it wont be right for me either! Maybe I'l have to look into other card tray alternatives
I'm in the same boat as you (let's play wingspan since we're in this boat 😆) in that I feel the nesting box isn't what I was hoping it would be. But I paid for it and will use it.
Damn, look at the size of that box. That's borderline ridiculous. After watching the review, there's too much empty space left in that box, even if there are many more expansions coming out. The initial card trays were nice, but I don't want a new card tray for every expansion. As the card count grows, I'd prefer to grab a stack of cards out of the box and add it to the card tray. I don't need to bring out every card to the table. So at that point, a generic cardbox (BCW shoe box) would be perfectly fine. Having boxes stick out from whatever shelving solution (Kallax or not) is really annoying. I could imagine bumping into it if it was in any of the shelves directly behind your table. I'd have to stick it on either the far left or right and out of the way. Between the big boxes I currently have and the ones that will arrive someday (Dungeon Universalis, Oathsworn, etc) I'm beginning to feel big box fatigue. As cool as the miniatures for Oathsworn would be, I don't think I'd have room for the additional large boxes. The image they had of the boxes stacked on that hand cart was ridiculous.
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
@@TheBrokenMeeple But where would you store your custom birdhouse dice tower? 🤣 A good storage solution should make a game easier to get to the table. This big box takes up the entire table when closed. LOL! Then you have to take off the cover and put that somewhere, then pull out the top tray to get at the components in the middle of the box. Definitely prefer the original box and the Oceana expansion box to store the extra boards and whatever else.
This box really isn’t for those that have the bare minimum. It’s meant for those that have the many many extras people have gotten for this game. If there wasn’t enough room then the opposite complaint would be made. Board gaming doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t need this box to enjoy wingspan.
Not even that, the box does a terrible job of holding the extras. I have the first 2 waves of meeple source birds because colorblindness sucks, and they have to be tossed in the bottom.
What Matthew said. I have a bunch of extras and I can tell you (and show you) that it's not a perfect fit at all. This was literally just a box with space in it, very little thought put into it.
I wonder if the dividers are basically to get you hyped at what's coming in the future. I really can't imagine anyone is separating their cards after mixing them, it would make tear down beyond tedious. This big box trend just isn't for me anyway. It seems every hot game is coming out with one, but you'd need a warehouse to store all of them. I'd rather just store Wingspan in a couple of regular sized boxes than this giant box.
I got to admit, I can't fit it where it used to be and that alone may make me either ditch this box entirely or just keep it in storage until the other content comes out.
I'm lucky it fits in the kallax (because I have a few inches spare space behind it). Agree there's a lot of remaining empty space in the box, for now. Maybe the future expansion will fill up the whole box. I would love to see a kind of explanation from the designer himself how it was intended to use this box.
With everdell they waited till the last one to have the big ol box. Maybe wingspan should have done the same if there is that much extra. I did pre-order the nesting box and asia separate. I am excited about both, but for travel I am still keeping some of the boxes for storage.
Not a bad box, but also not as good as I would have liked. The guide in the lid is close to worthless, I am also a bit worried about the lid itself, can it support weight on top over an extended period of time without risking damage, would maybe have been better with a divider in the top compartment to strengthen the middle of the top lid and to make sure stuff don't move around. Sorting the cards was a mess, do you throw out the old automa cards as there is only one divider, not played the new one so can't say if it will be universally better than the old (but I guess it should?). Why did they not make special rooms for the odd cardboard tokens that comes with the game, there were space for the first player ones, but why not the asia ones or the round guides and what not. I assume the wider area near the bird feeder space is for some future components, looks like the current cards that is supposed to go there should be flat on top, something they currently cannot do as there is nothing supporting the weight. This box looks nice, but appears rushed. And why, oh why! does it not fit on my Kallax. :D (Rant over)
I replaced the Automna cards as most are identical, I think it just adds one or two to account for Asia Duet. The box is indeed just a bunch of space, hastily rushed to give people a reason to spend a ton of money alongside Wingspan Asia.
Quite confused by your confusion. Three trays for bird eggs and food tokens = plenty of room for them. In the middle section, the place that you think is for more cards ... is NOT for cards!
Thanks for this one, Luke. Going into hearing they were coming out with a larger box, I was pretty excited. But after seeing the price and the actual product, I just don't understand the design behind this... It seems the whole bottom 1/3 is kinda pointless. And I dont see the point of the trays now that there are sections to hold sleeved cards. For that price (and box size) I kinda wish they would have included a bigger, new dice tower with the box. Maybe they have a bunch of new content (outside of cards) that they plan on doing to fill in the space in the future, but I'm not sure if I'd even want that. Just give me the new cards, please. Lol.
@@TheBrokenMeeple I'll be on the lookout for others' thoughts on this one (out of curiosity), but yeah. I want to try out the Asia cards as I like the small changes that they have done with expansion sets so far. I don't see myself ever playing at 6 or 7, who knows. I am curious about the 2 player mode though! I doubt I'll prefer it over normal play at 2, but I could be totally wrong! I'm all for making improvements to a game over time and think Europe and Oceania did a great job at this! I suppose adding new modes of play does this too, but I wish it were more of an option. I just wish it wasn't a forced thing. Maybe I'll feel differently once I try it, I am skeptical though... We'll see. Anyway, if they had made this box half the size (and 2/3 the price or so) I probably woulda been all over this. It is a shame.. I really hope everyone else gets enjoyment out of it though!
I wonder whether the generic nature of the box is because the future expansions are yet to be designed and so this gives maximum latitude for future content. However if that's the case it seems an odd decision to launch a storage solution before the details of what is to be stored have been finalised. Whereas if they offered a nesting box with the final expansion it could be better designed. The big boxes are a lovely idea (I have the everdell one ...) But they also make the game un-portable and if they aren't helping with faster set up or better protection or organisation... I'm failing to see the advantages for the price point. Have you any experience with the viticulture wine crate... If so interested to hear your thoughts...
The Wine Crate I covered in my expansion review for Viticulture World I believe. It's a better box than this one for sure. This one was too early frankly - should have come out AFTER the new content releases not before. But hey SM needs a cash grab!
@@TheBrokenMeeple thanks will give it a watch, and agree vis a vis SM not waiting and cashing in now... possibly concerned that enthusiasm for wingspan will have waned by the time the last expansion comes out... though I still enjoy it.
Imagine the whole Wingspan Mania would have started with this Huge Nesting Box, I'm sure everyone would beg for one box per expansion 😅 I only wish the expansion boxes would have been the same size...
You miss the point. The box is designed to fit most people. Some mix together, some wont. And my seperators are way bigger than the cards so you always see the banners. Maybe u got an early copy??? And all the empty spaces is for the future expansions. So all in all i guess this box will be great when all expansions are available. But i can see your poi t that the box isnt for everybody bc it tries to be for everybody.
It was the first copy sent to people on retail, so many, many more will have got the same thing. i would bet money though that more people just mix all the cards together rather than separate - that's a huge hassle to do after every game otherwise. Plus also, even though this is meant to hold future stuff also, the design of the box is just inefficient anyway - other big boxes have been better at maximising the use of the space within.
Yep, even if it wasn't inexplicably imperfect for kallax and not designed too well internally, this would still just be an overpriced box. I was going to list things you would be better spending that amount on, but quickly realized that would be everything in the world costing 80 pounds or less..
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
Getting away with £30 for Scythe box, they thought they see just how much board gamers will pay, and not surprised it is £80 a box. Will be curious what the next over priced box will be.
@The Broken Meeple They claim 70% the money is for shipping, Would been better to come with better trays, plastic tokens, sleeves 3d player boards, anything... put some things inside, anything really, This would help the pricing feel better to a consumer. Hope SG learns, but sadly, too much money has pushed what they learn from making g good products, toward making more money.
It is clearly overpriced, unfortunately I am a sucker for big boxes when available as I dislike pulling multiple boxes when setting up a game. And I will get the future expensions which I hope will be more birds mostly, none of this 7 players nonsense (although duet is pretty cool). I hope spirit island offers us a big box soon :p
@@TheBrokenMeeple I'd rather get an official one when they are done making new content. But nature incarnate is probably going to make the game harder to table already.
Personally I feel they designed the box as an by-the-expansion organizer rather than what it should have been, fast setup storage that keeps everything in one box. I hope someone makes third party inserts to go inside and rectify this disaster. Even the plastic trays and storage slots have too much empty space for the price we paid, and there aren't even dedicated slots for the new Asia parts. Speaking of, don't even get me started on Asia. Such a waste.
I was beyond disappointed in this. I couldn't agree more that it seems pointless to leave room for empty plastic card trays. That entire bottom section makes little to no sense to me. Just dead space to hold empty plastic trays? I know it is "future proof"... but I do not see the point of having an entire row dedicated to holding cards. Absolutely agree that those dividers are beyond pointless as well, I can't imagine them to be functional for most anyone. Unsure why they give you a second birdfeeder for flock mode and then do not give you space to store it. Which seems weird, considering how much empty space in in that box. Speaking of flock more, they give you another pair of dice... fantastic... but they're not the dice with nectar on them. So, the only way to play flock mode out of the gate is without nectar? Really? Not that I can imagine that I would ever want to play that mode anyways, it still strikes me as odd. For all the money I spent on this... I wanted to be blown away. I just found myself disappointed more often than not. Do not even get me started on the ying-yang tokens that never actually go together in the "duet" mode either. Talk about poor thematic immersion. I would've been happy with just more cards and not all of this useless bloat. Feels like an absolute cash grab to me.
So many things wrong with it - it's on my shelf but every time I look at it I wonder if I should just go back to my original setup and just keep the box in storage until the extra space is required. And yet you won't hear any other bad words said by the "friends of Stonemaier".
@@TheBrokenMeeple I have pondered the same thing. Especially if I just store the birdfeeder outside of the box. I think it is because Jamey is such an awesome dude and is very charismatic. Makes ripping on Stonemaier gut wrenching. Just unfortunate this product got the green light.
It's a real shame because I just saw it today when I was shopping for the Asia expansion here in Australia and I had no idea it would be so expensive. Maybe I'd consider it at maybe 1/4 of the price?
€65 for a carboard box to house a load of plastic tat. This is just taking advantage of people that get a dopamine hot from having all their shit neatly stacked on the shelf. I threw out the oversized plastic card holder after a few plays: wtf is the point of this? You can just lay them flat on the table. Time saving organisation in games is great but this is just a cash grab.
Seems that nowadays the trend is to buy fancy empty boxes. With how overpriced everyone of them are might as well store stuff in empty amazon cardboard boxes or plastic storage boxes. Pointless and needless purchases imo.
Spirit Island is a bad comparison when GTG is planning the exact same Big Box nonsense. Nature Incarnate isn't the end for Spirit Island. The goal of these companies is to keep throwing more and more content of these top 50 games until they're bloated, unwieldy, and unrecognizable so they can squeeze every penny out of you.
We shall see what that box is like though on release - if it has the same design flaws as this box then it will get the same treatment. We'll just have to see if GTG have more design talent for boxes.
@@TheBrokenMeeple absolutely. I'm mixed with my Everdell Big Box. I didn't like the original storage for Spirit Island. Especially the silly inserts. I junked all that for something from Etsy.
Is this what board gaming had become? Buying expensive empty boxes for the price of an entire new game? What a rip-off. Glad I quit board gaming last year. This makes me sick 🤮
Just FYI: a good number of us do keep the cards separate by region, integrating them when we care to. Thanks for the review: will not purchase unless the PRICE drops a lot!
15:20 "How much more content do you need," can be said about any/every game. Did Marvel United need 200 characters and 20 boxes? Everdell has 5 expansions and a huge box of its own. Most of it probably isn't needed, but it exists for those who want it. Same is true here, Wingspan now has its crate and space for the 3 expansions yet to come.
MU certainly did not need all that, and many paid a significant cost for it.
I think there was a large effort to make the nesting box work for as many people as possible for a variety of upgraded/additional components. I haven't upgraded anything and the only extra I own is the speckled eggs.
I have only the cardboard food tokens- they fill up 3 trays. With the extra eggs, the egg trays were so full the lids wouldn't snap on properly. I have all my cards in the card trays, so I used those card slots to store the 6 plastic bins from the base game. 2 of them on their side fit perfectly in those slots. I put the duet tokens, the 3rd set of dice, and all the purple eggs in 3 of them. Those card slots by the bird feeder are annoyingly big.
Overall, I like it, but don't love it. I'm glad I have it.
The phrase "When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one" comes to mind.
You make some great points; very astute observations; your word carries a lot of weight with me, and yet... I WANT THAT!!!
Ha ha RESIST!
Yes, some people do separate the expansions. You are more likely to see certain bird cards this way. I also recommend playing with one expansion instead of mixing them all together because I recall from a Dice Tower Podcast (At the Table #6) with Elizabeth that the expansions are "mainly" balanced based on the base game.
The idea with expansions was that the cards were added in a roughly equal % rate for the objectives. And besides, with my house rule taken from Ark Nova regarding the bonus cards you start with - the idea of not mixing them is then a mute point.
Is there a chance to know what this house rule about the bonus cards is? I've never played Ark Nova but got interested by this comment. Thanks!
Appreciate the review and your thoughts. I was really excited about this box and don't regret my purchase. I think there is lots of space for you to store things how you want to store them. You don't have to use the included trays and could put your own inserts in there (folded space in your case).
I like the idea of everything being in one box and to hand. I like the option of being able to store things how I want to. I like that you don't have to use any of the components in the box, but you have the option to use them if you want.
I do agree with you on the card dividers. This really bugs me. They could have been made taller, or the colour could have gone to the top of cards to identify the expansion etc.
I think it was a hard box to design but the way they have done it gives people a choice on how to store. I don't really like the idea of the card trays but will use the tall one to store base game cards and then the rest in the in the big box.
That's a lot of money to fork out though on a box where you don't use what's included and use your own ideas.
@The Broken Meeple I agree the price was a bit of a shock. You don't have to buy it and there are some things they could have done better. I guess it comes down to personal choice. I really like the big boxes and having everything in one place. Keep up the good work and looking forward to the Asia review
Hi, quick question. If I were to buy this nesting box and all 3 expansions, would there be any piece at all that couldn’t fit in the box? Sorry for asking but you said you had it and like it so I figured I’d ask
@Kyuss Ropka Everything fits in the box. It's designed in such a way that there are several ways to store things. Its also future proof. There is only space for one fully built bird feeder. You do get a second flat packed in wingspan asia but can be stored flat. I also have several extras like the neoprone mats and everything fits. I don't think you will regret your purchase!
@@petersteele1014 Ok, so it fits everything everything, even the original boxes?
I heard that the 6-7 player expansion for Wingspan Asia was mainly because Jamey knew that people would make up a variant to work with that count so they came out with an official version. Makes sense, 7 colors, 7 players. Of course most are probably not going to play that but duet is kind of cool.
Then let them come up with a variant on their own time as it's going to be such a rarity that anyone will use it.
@@TheBrokenMeeple Yeah, likely true, I'm just saying what the justification was but you can take it or leave it. I think the duet is really the focus and look forward to your thoughts either way :)
Thanks Luke!! This was an easy pass for me as I loathe these obnoxiously oversized boxes and refuse to buy them (or games that come in them). Folded Space inserts are lightweight and convenient; that works for me should I need aftermarket inserts.
Thank you for this review , I almost ordered it , so glad I passed . I agree its far too expencive for what it is , and I do not understand why they could not design it to fit better into the Kallax shelves and how they managed to mess up quiet a few things . They too quiet some time to design it !
Glad it was helpful and saved you some pennies!
Thanks for the review! I ordered the box with Asia. I got the Viticulture wine crate, too. Ended up sorting it in a way that works for me rather than their guide. Hoping I can do the same with this box. I am a little disappointed that they scraped the scissor tail from the cover. IMHO it's a much better image than the toucan. Toucan makes me think of Fruit Loops.
There's probably room in the box still for some Fruit Loops.
Love your honest assessments. Very refreshing. Keep it up!
I appreciate that!
So glad your not in the pocket of publishers luke, honest, blunt opinion, which is needed with every other content creature hyping everything to the point of passing out. Spending £80 on a box I don't need doesn't do it for me, and those dividers not high enough. Who divides their cards!? Ps. I love this game
Definitely not in anyone's pocket, least of Stonemaier's! :D He cut me off from reviews the second I gave Pendulum a bad review.
You have convinced me that I want it
I think that´s a whole lot of money for a whole lot of plastic😮I would have expected that (for this amount of money!) the inlay was some kind of foam or thin wood or whatever - like the ones you can buy from “e-raptor” or “folded space 😳 the box though has a nice artwork🥰 but 80 €???? No thank you not for me! I have come up with my own idea to store the game with all of the expansions 😊
I got this idea from a reboxing video but you want to put all your bird cards where the bird house is. Make sure to put score cards to the side of where your bird cards currently are(formally your bird house area) for some stability. Remove the yellow tray entirely. This will leave room for the bird house in the center of the second layer. You can use those divided card wells on the other side for future cards(or whatever you want). This will mean that you'll probably have to take one of the food/egg containers on the bottom tier. But that might be how the box already tells you to do it, i forget. I prefer this to how they recommend. This way you have easy access to all your cards and don't have to sort through trays.
Reboxing video is by SideGame LLC. The video itself might explain things better.
Sounds good but currently everything fits in the original box so I'll take the box out again for more cards later
The Nesting box. A jack of all trades but a master of none.
Well besides a master of taking up space and persuading you to buy every expansion without a clue what they'll offer.
master of taking up space, lol!
Master of taking up un-necessary space - I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
I kinda hate the nesting box, but i do separate my expansions. This is such a disappointment in comparison to the Big Ol Box of Everdell and the big box of Terraforming Mars. I would like to have the dividers though that comes with the box, the rest they can keep, I'm not spending my money on the nesting box. I have everything stored in my base game box with an insert of Feldherr and I'm happier with that than I would be with an oversized box I hate. I know there is alot of time and effort in such things as a designer myself what works comes with it but i think they went all wrong with this one.
I seperate my cards by expansion but I don't play too often with the copies I own because I tend to go to another friends house who has everything too and plays a lot more than me. Whenever I play with my copy it's nice to be able to easily play with just the expansions not available on Steam yet so I can get more familiar with their powers for when I do play in person with them.
Yeah the lack of expansions hurts my wanting to play Wingspan online anywhere.
@@TheBrokenMeeple The champ of birds challenge where using a replayable fixed game state you can compete against the entire playerbase for a global high score keeps me coming back. It resets weekly. Oceania should be released soon(tm)
I am glad that I passed on the nesting box. On the dividers, I do use them, but I am glad I did not buy the big box to put them in, lol. I bought an insert for the game and keep the cards for the different expansions in separate spots. Thanks for the review, Luke.
Great idea! I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup with Folded Space and 2 boxes - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
Now we know someone who sorts their cards by expansion. Nice to meet you. :)
Thanks Luke for saving me 104euro :) I was looking for this for long time but I share your oppinion...
Oh god yeah, put that money to better use.
It looks awfully big. I don’t know…. Like you, Luke, we mix all the cards together so there would be no need for that little file box arrangement. We have a rather large replacement bird house dice tower that sits on a shelf and won’t go in the box. The Nesting Box is pretty but I’m not sure that it is worth the precious space that it will take up. ( I struggle with finding space for games as it is.)
Thank you for the review!
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
What I want is a box with pull out shelves.
Why would they have a “compendium” book when there are at least 2 more expansions expected?
That is a fair point on the rulebook.
Seems like they tried to make the box viable to as many people as possible which ultimately turned it into one that wasn't optimized for anyone. I'm also shocked it doesn't fully fit in a Kallax as, from memory, Jamey Stegmaier was very adamant that it did and stated that this was an important feature of the box's design. Nonetheless, briefly considered this and very glad I didn't - seems so excessive for a game such as Wingspan and not worth the shelf space. At some point, it's just better to have two boxes or just stop getting expansion than a behemoth box such as this one which would die on my shelf since I'd never want to bring it out or transport it to game nights.
Btw it's possible to fit everything from Spirit Island (except the upcoming expansion) into the base box, even sleeved, with some caveats. 1) Only components for up to three people, 2) No inclusion of redundant content (e.g., stuff from Horizons, except the spirits), 3) The thin foil/Horizon-style spirit panels instead of the thick ones, 4) No rulebooks OR can only have 4 player boards, otherwise there's lid lift. It's probably possible to include rulebooks and all six boards but the way I have mine I wouldn't be able to use my deckboxes then.
You can do with SI for sure - but with a folded space insert I keep it in two boxes and it doesn't bother me really. Still takes up less space than this Wingspan box does!
@@TheBrokenMeeple Yeah that's totally fair. Two boxes for SI might be better than one very dense and heavy box. Just seen some people suggest there is absolutely no way to get expansion stuff into the SI box which isn't entirely the case, if you make some concessions.
I was reorganizing my Wingspan to incorporate Asia. I was looking for the nesting box so I thought I'd be a good idea to look at reviews. You showed exactly what I needed to see and I'll be passing on this. Idea was good but their execution not as much.
Thanks.
Also, I do sort my cards by expansions, I usually mix 2 of them before a game, changing every game or so.
That must be a lot to sort out when packing the game up!
70$ on the producers website.
Chintzy would be my first impression of that product. Super thin plastic. Paper and cardboard inserts will not survive high humidity locations (I live in Hawaii). I'm going to bet its made in china for about 15$.
Personally I find the best upgrades are:
1. A wooden or ceramic lazy susan with at least 6 dividers.
2. A card shuffler if you dislike doing it yourself.
3. A wooden dice tower-roller made yourself or by your woodworking friend.
Overall I wanted the box to be useful but I feel like it just looks to cheap.
It's just a box with dividers, not much else.
Thank you for your review! I was so disappointed when I finally got the last piece of the puzzle, Europe, only to find that they'd replaced the purple card trays with a compostable lunch container and in my upset wondered if buying the Nesting Box was the answer, but now I know that it wont be right for me either! Maybe I'l have to look into other card tray alternatives
Folded Space do a great insert which would suffice for a typical card tray I would have thought.
@@TheBrokenMeeple I just looked it up! This looks great thank you so much!
I'm in the same boat as you (let's play wingspan since we're in this boat 😆) in that I feel the nesting box isn't what I was hoping it would be. But I paid for it and will use it.
I'll use it...........eventually. Call it an investment.
Damn, look at the size of that box. That's borderline ridiculous. After watching the review, there's too much empty space left in that box, even if there are many more expansions coming out. The initial card trays were nice, but I don't want a new card tray for every expansion. As the card count grows, I'd prefer to grab a stack of cards out of the box and add it to the card tray. I don't need to bring out every card to the table. So at that point, a generic cardbox (BCW shoe box) would be perfectly fine.
Having boxes stick out from whatever shelving solution (Kallax or not) is really annoying. I could imagine bumping into it if it was in any of the shelves directly behind your table. I'd have to stick it on either the far left or right and out of the way.
Between the big boxes I currently have and the ones that will arrive someday (Dungeon Universalis, Oathsworn, etc) I'm beginning to feel big box fatigue. As cool as the miniatures for Oathsworn would be, I don't think I'd have room for the additional large boxes. The image they had of the boxes stacked on that hand cart was ridiculous.
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
@@TheBrokenMeeple But where would you store your custom birdhouse dice tower? 🤣
A good storage solution should make a game easier to get to the table. This big box takes up the entire table when closed. LOL! Then you have to take off the cover and put that somewhere, then pull out the top tray to get at the components in the middle of the box. Definitely prefer the original box and the Oceana expansion box to store the extra boards and whatever else.
This box really isn’t for those that have the bare minimum. It’s meant for those that have the many many extras people have gotten for this game. If there wasn’t enough room then the opposite complaint would be made. Board gaming doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t need this box to enjoy wingspan.
Not even that, the box does a terrible job of holding the extras. I have the first 2 waves of meeple source birds because colorblindness sucks, and they have to be tossed in the bottom.
What Matthew said. I have a bunch of extras and I can tell you (and show you) that it's not a perfect fit at all. This was literally just a box with space in it, very little thought put into it.
I wonder if the dividers are basically to get you hyped at what's coming in the future. I really can't imagine anyone is separating their cards after mixing them, it would make tear down beyond tedious.
This big box trend just isn't for me anyway. It seems every hot game is coming out with one, but you'd need a warehouse to store all of them. I'd rather just store Wingspan in a couple of regular sized boxes than this giant box.
I got to admit, I can't fit it where it used to be and that alone may make me either ditch this box entirely or just keep it in storage until the other content comes out.
I'm lucky it fits in the kallax (because I have a few inches spare space behind it). Agree there's a lot of remaining empty space in the box, for now. Maybe the future expansion will fill up the whole box. I would love to see a kind of explanation from the designer himself how it was intended to use this box.
Probably to cater for all possibilities while being a master of none.
With everdell they waited till the last one to have the big ol box. Maybe wingspan should have done the same if there is that much extra. I did pre-order the nesting box and asia separate. I am excited about both, but for travel I am still keeping some of the boxes for storage.
Not a must for me by any means. I'm glad I missed out on the initial availability.
Yeah I say wait until the extra content comes out.
Do you think the bird meeples will fit? I only use those instead of the cubes. I have 7 sets of bird meeples. Can't wait for mine to arrive. Thanks!
Will fit in the box. Not likely to fit in those little wells based on what I saw.
My little birdhouses fit fine with some space left, but it depends how big those meeples are.
Can’t fathom spending $60+ for a box. I could buy 2 more new games for that.
Especially not for this subpar box.
Not a bad box, but also not as good as I would have liked. The guide in the lid is close to worthless, I am also a bit worried about the lid itself, can it support weight on top over an extended period of time without risking damage, would maybe have been better with a divider in the top compartment to strengthen the middle of the top lid and to make sure stuff don't move around. Sorting the cards was a mess, do you throw out the old automa cards as there is only one divider, not played the new one so can't say if it will be universally better than the old (but I guess it should?). Why did they not make special rooms for the odd cardboard tokens that comes with the game, there were space for the first player ones, but why not the asia ones or the round guides and what not. I assume the wider area near the bird feeder space is for some future components, looks like the current cards that is supposed to go there should be flat on top, something they currently cannot do as there is nothing supporting the weight. This box looks nice, but appears rushed. And why, oh why! does it not fit on my Kallax. :D (Rant over)
Note: I'm not sad I got it, just not overly joyed either. And that is a shame.
I replaced the Automna cards as most are identical, I think it just adds one or two to account for Asia Duet. The box is indeed just a bunch of space, hastily rushed to give people a reason to spend a ton of money alongside Wingspan Asia.
Great review Luke, coming to Wingspan late, as before now it just didn’t do it for me I really appreciate your thoughts………….now………about that accent?
Somerset ;-)
you need more space for at least 3 others expansions coming
Whenever that will be! How long since Asia?
Quite confused by your confusion. Three trays for bird eggs and food tokens = plenty of room for them. In the middle section, the place that you think is for more cards ... is NOT for cards!
Then what is it for?!
Thanks for this one, Luke. Going into hearing they were coming out with a larger box, I was pretty excited. But after seeing the price and the actual product, I just don't understand the design behind this... It seems the whole bottom 1/3 is kinda pointless. And I dont see the point of the trays now that there are sections to hold sleeved cards. For that price (and box size) I kinda wish they would have included a bigger, new dice tower with the box. Maybe they have a bunch of new content (outside of cards) that they plan on doing to fill in the space in the future, but I'm not sure if I'd even want that. Just give me the new cards, please. Lol.
Totally agree! And how much you want to bet that we won't see another review of the box from those praising Asia? 😏
@@TheBrokenMeeple I'll be on the lookout for others' thoughts on this one (out of curiosity), but yeah. I want to try out the Asia cards as I like the small changes that they have done with expansion sets so far. I don't see myself ever playing at 6 or 7, who knows. I am curious about the 2 player mode though! I doubt I'll prefer it over normal play at 2, but I could be totally wrong! I'm all for making improvements to a game over time and think Europe and Oceania did a great job at this! I suppose adding new modes of play does this too, but I wish it were more of an option. I just wish it wasn't a forced thing. Maybe I'll feel differently once I try it, I am skeptical though... We'll see.
Anyway, if they had made this box half the size (and 2/3 the price or so) I probably woulda been all over this. It is a shame.. I really hope everyone else gets enjoyment out of it though!
I wonder whether the generic nature of the box is because the future expansions are yet to be designed and so this gives maximum latitude for future content. However if that's the case it seems an odd decision to launch a storage solution before the details of what is to be stored have been finalised. Whereas if they offered a nesting box with the final expansion it could be better designed. The big boxes are a lovely idea (I have the everdell one ...) But they also make the game un-portable and if they aren't helping with faster set up or better protection or organisation... I'm failing to see the advantages for the price point. Have you any experience with the viticulture wine crate... If so interested to hear your thoughts...
The Wine Crate I covered in my expansion review for Viticulture World I believe. It's a better box than this one for sure. This one was too early frankly - should have come out AFTER the new content releases not before. But hey SM needs a cash grab!
@@TheBrokenMeeple thanks will give it a watch, and agree vis a vis SM not waiting and cashing in now... possibly concerned that enthusiasm for wingspan will have waned by the time the last expansion comes out... though I still enjoy it.
I thought the same and skipped this box (and all expensive big empty boxes for other games). I'm refusing to pay for an empty box.
@@markusbiewer2756 dont say that to a funeral director...
🤣🤣🤣
Imagine the whole Wingspan Mania would have started with this Huge Nesting Box, I'm sure everyone would beg for one box per expansion 😅
I only wish the expansion boxes would have been the same size...
Yes, this 100 times! Or that oceania actually fit in its own box (my copy is about 2mm too shallow for the dice)
You miss the point. The box is designed to fit most people. Some mix together, some wont. And my seperators are way bigger than the cards so you always see the banners. Maybe u got an early copy??? And all the empty spaces is for the future expansions. So all in all i guess this box will be great when all expansions are available. But i can see your poi t that the box isnt for everybody bc it tries to be for everybody.
It was the first copy sent to people on retail, so many, many more will have got the same thing. i would bet money though that more people just mix all the cards together rather than separate - that's a huge hassle to do after every game otherwise. Plus also, even though this is meant to hold future stuff also, the design of the box is just inefficient anyway - other big boxes have been better at maximising the use of the space within.
Yep, even if it wasn't inexplicably imperfect for kallax and not designed too well internally, this would still just be an overpriced box. I was going to list things you would be better spending that amount on, but quickly realized that would be everything in the world costing 80 pounds or less..
Yeah many design flaws with this box to the point where I'm tempted to put it in storage and revert back to my normal storage setup - then when the expansions release, I'll migrate on over.
hahaha...that's a hard pass for 80 Quid!
Even at the revised £65 which doesn't include shipping, it's not worth it yet.
Getting away with £30 for Scythe box, they thought they see just how much board gamers will pay, and not surprised it is £80 a box. Will be curious what the next over priced box will be.
Or overpriced thing in general. Yet people have fallen for this. If I wasn't a reviewer I wouldn't have paid money for this.
@The Broken Meeple They claim 70% the money is for shipping, Would been better to come with better trays, plastic tokens, sleeves 3d player boards, anything... put some things inside, anything really, This would help the pricing feel better to a consumer. Hope SG learns, but sadly, too much money has pushed what they learn from making g good products, toward making more money.
It is clearly overpriced, unfortunately I am a sucker for big boxes when available as I dislike pulling multiple boxes when setting up a game.
And I will get the future expensions which I hope will be more birds mostly, none of this 7 players nonsense (although duet is pretty cool).
I hope spirit island offers us a big box soon :p
I think I remember Broken Token once offered a big crate box but it was pretty costly.
@@TheBrokenMeeple I'd rather get an official one when they are done making new content. But nature incarnate is probably going to make the game harder to table already.
Convinced me to pass. Thank you!
Excellent! Glad I helped save you money. Don't waste it on this box.
Personally I feel they designed the box as an by-the-expansion organizer rather than what it should have been, fast setup storage that keeps everything in one box. I hope someone makes third party inserts to go inside and rectify this disaster. Even the plastic trays and storage slots have too much empty space for the price we paid, and there aren't even dedicated slots for the new Asia parts. Speaking of, don't even get me started on Asia. Such a waste.
Wingspan Asia review airs tomorrow 😉
Thanks for keeping our FOMO in check!
Always!
I was beyond disappointed in this. I couldn't agree more that it seems pointless to leave room for empty plastic card trays. That entire bottom section makes little to no sense to me. Just dead space to hold empty plastic trays? I know it is "future proof"... but I do not see the point of having an entire row dedicated to holding cards. Absolutely agree that those dividers are beyond pointless as well, I can't imagine them to be functional for most anyone. Unsure why they give you a second birdfeeder for flock mode and then do not give you space to store it. Which seems weird, considering how much empty space in in that box. Speaking of flock more, they give you another pair of dice... fantastic... but they're not the dice with nectar on them. So, the only way to play flock mode out of the gate is without nectar? Really? Not that I can imagine that I would ever want to play that mode anyways, it still strikes me as odd. For all the money I spent on this... I wanted to be blown away. I just found myself disappointed more often than not.
Do not even get me started on the ying-yang tokens that never actually go together in the "duet" mode either. Talk about poor thematic immersion. I would've been happy with just more cards and not all of this useless bloat. Feels like an absolute cash grab to me.
So many things wrong with it - it's on my shelf but every time I look at it I wonder if I should just go back to my original setup and just keep the box in storage until the extra space is required. And yet you won't hear any other bad words said by the "friends of Stonemaier".
@@TheBrokenMeeple I have pondered the same thing. Especially if I just store the birdfeeder outside of the box.
I think it is because Jamey is such an awesome dude and is very charismatic. Makes ripping on Stonemaier gut wrenching. Just unfortunate this product got the green light.
This is insanity. It's just a cardboard box. Couldn't you just get a custom made wooden box for about the same price?
Probably, and it would be better designed also.
It's a real shame because I just saw it today when I was shopping for the Asia expansion here in Australia and I had no idea it would be so expensive. Maybe I'd consider it at maybe 1/4 of the price?
€65 for a carboard box to house a load of plastic tat. This is just taking advantage of people that get a dopamine hot from having all their shit neatly stacked on the shelf.
I threw out the oversized plastic card holder after a few plays: wtf is the point of this? You can just lay them flat on the table.
Time saving organisation in games is great but this is just a cash grab.
Yeah it sits in my cupboard un-used until it gets to a point where i physically can't fit it all in the base box.
Why do you pronounce Asia like it's spelled Asure?
Remnants of childhood speech impediment ;-)
Where's the chicken?!
Seems that nowadays the trend is to buy fancy empty boxes. With how overpriced everyone of them are might as well store stuff in empty amazon cardboard boxes or plastic storage boxes. Pointless and needless purchases imo.
A decent functional storage box I'm cool with just like a good insert. This isn't a good box.
2:37 gf literally asked this five seconds earlier
He he my accent I take it you mean, not the shelf bit? :P
So this is seriously, just a box. No cards, eggs, game components at all? Rip off.
Indeed...
@@TheBrokenMeeple BTW your video was a huge help to me, thanks a bunch for doing such a detailed breakdown.
Spirit Island is a bad comparison when GTG is planning the exact same Big Box nonsense. Nature Incarnate isn't the end for Spirit Island. The goal of these companies is to keep throwing more and more content of these top 50 games until they're bloated, unwieldy, and unrecognizable so they can squeeze every penny out of you.
We shall see what that box is like though on release - if it has the same design flaws as this box then it will get the same treatment. We'll just have to see if GTG have more design talent for boxes.
@@TheBrokenMeeple absolutely. I'm mixed with my Everdell Big Box. I didn't like the original storage for Spirit Island. Especially the silly inserts. I junked all that for something from Etsy.
I'd rather buy two games. It is just a cash grab.
Definitely and JS is a businessman after all.
@@TheBrokenMeeple At this point he can sell his waist and a lot of people will buy it.
I'm sorry but this is a disaster. I hate it.
Hope you mean the box 😜😅
@@TheBrokenMeeple oh yes, the box 😂
I love organization and this is suppose to provide that but I feel like it's just a mess.
Is this what board gaming had become? Buying expensive empty boxes for the price of an entire new game? What a rip-off. Glad I quit board gaming last year. This makes me sick 🤮
Yes this is a representation of every single board game past present and future. It will never change. What a dope
One of many worrying aspects of the industry!
I know. I ate a really overpriced meal a while back. Quit eating for good. Never looked back.
So the nesting box comes with asia?
It did for the bundle on the SM website but it doesn't normally
Beth Sobel is annoying, so, not interested.
Annoying in what way?