A quick note before we start: this is a review of the Dragon Academy expansion for Wyrmspan and assumes some familiarity with the base game!

Dragon Academy, by Stonemaier Games, introduces Fledglings – teen dragons that require training to unlock their abilities – along with some other less significant additions and changes to the base game. Keep scrolling for full details of what’s new and my thoughts on how this impacts the gameplay.

What’s new?

Introducing Fledglings, i.e. teen dragons! Fledglings are played into your reserve as normal, but have to be trained before you can use their abilities. When you explore the cave of a Fledgling dragon, pay the indicated cost and place a training token. Once a Fledgling has completed its training its ability is unlocked. 

Fledglings score 1 point per Fledgling on your board, meaning points grow exponentially with each added, but remember that they’re basically useless until their training is complete!

Dragon Academy also includes a new round tracker board which lets you choose your income for the next round – a mix of coins, eggs, resources, cards, and dragon guild movement. Each can only be chosen by one player so being first to pass means first choice of the available options, a small but interesting change from the base game.

We also get some new objective tiles, caves, and Dragon Guilds to mix in with the base game components.

Solo mode

The Automa plays exactly the same as in the base game with a couple of changes:

The starter player now alternates between you and Automa, better mimicking a real opponent

Automa can now cache resources and will do this whenever you trigger an ability that other players would benefit from, causing you to think twice before filling your reserve with those abilities! Automa gains 1 point for every 2 cached tokens at the end of the game.

If the Automa passes first, it chooses the 6 coin income space, blocking this option for you.

My thoughts

All changes to the solo mode subtly improve how well the Automa mimics a real opponent and how their decisions may impact your game, and vice versa. Otherwise this remains a lovely light Automa that Stonemaier are so well known for. 

While many expansions add complexity to a game, I don’t think that’s really the case here – just more variability and strategies to explore. As a result I’ll always play with the expansion from now on, as – in my view – it only adds to what was already a fantastic game. 

I love the introduction of the choice of income. It’s a small change but really increases your sense of agency and gives greater significance to the decision of when you choose to pass. 

The addition of new objective tiles and Dragon Guilds add more variability to the game. While I don’t think the base game missed this, it’s always nice to have!

The art by Clementine Campardou is simply stunning – as expected but still worthy of note! 

My only gripe is that I wish all of the components would fit in the base game box. Maybe it’s because I got deluxe resources (how can you not?!) but also may be due to the number of dragon cards increasing by 50%… who knows!

Verdict

Dragon Academy gives an extra layer to Wyrmspan which adds variability and new ways to play the game without increasing complexity. I didn’t think Wyrmspan needed any changes, but having met the Fledglings I can honestly say I’ll never play without this expansion. If you’re a fan of the base game I can’t recommend it enough. Just don’t expect everything to fit in one box!   

Disclaimer: Dragon Academy was kindly provided to me by Stonemaier Games for review purposes, but all thoughts are my own.