How to play Bears vs Babies

Learn the rules to the card game Bears vs Babies quickly and concisely - This video has no distractions, just the rules.

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RULES:
The object of the game is to eat the most babies. Lay out the playmat in the middle of the table. Give 1 bear head card to each player and shuffle the remaining with the rest of the deck. Deal 4 cards to each player. Players look at their own cards but hide them from others. If you were dealt any cards with “baby” in the title, then place those cards face down on their matching color then draw replacement cards until you have 5 again, repeat if you draw more baby cards.

Once drawing has stopped, divide the remaining card into roughly 3 equal piles and place them face-down here. Pick a player to go first then play proceeds clockwise. On your turn you can do one of 3 things: take actions, provoke, or dumpster dive.

Take actions is based on the number of players. 4 actions for a 2 player game down to 2 actions for a 4 or more player game. As 1 action, you can either play a card or draw a card. To play cards, you build monsters face up in front of you. Monsters must start with a head, and you connect body parts to the monster by lining up the stitches on the card. You don’t have to complete a monster before you can start building another one. The number on each body part card indicates that cards strength. Combine all the numbers of all body parts together to determine that monster’s total strength.

To draw a card, take the top card from any of the 3 piles and add it to your hand. If that card is a baby card, immediately add it facedown to the proper colored pile, this still counts as a draw action. There are some cards that have special abilities; simply follow the instructions on the card to use them.

Instead of taking actions on your turn you can choose to provoke the babies by saying “provoke”. Pick a colored baby army and flip over all their cards and add up all the numbers together. There are 3 types of monsters as determined by the colored icon on their head: Land, Sea, and sky which match the types of baby armies. Bear heads are all three types. All your monsters of the same type fight together in an army and add up their combined strength. When a baby army is provoked, all monster armies of the matching baby army type of all players fight the baby army. The player with the monster army of the highest strength goes against the babies and if the strength is equal to or greater, then that player wins and collects all the babies. If no player’s monster army is stronger than the baby army, then the baby army is discarded. At the end of the battle, no matter who won; all players must discard all their monsters of the same type as the baby army that was provoked. You do not need to have any monsters of the same type you provoke if you don’t want to.

Instead of taking actions or provoking, you can dumpster dive. Take 1 card from the discard pile and add it to your hand. After taking actions, provoking, or dumpster diving, you end your turn and the next player clockwise goes. If a draw pile runs out, do not reshuffle but leave it empty. When the last card in the last draw pile is drawn, then each player gets 1 final turn, then the player with the most babies, as determined by adding up all their numbers together, wins.