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Bears Vs Babies
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Description
Bears vs. Babies is from the same creators as Exploding Kittens and is the next instalment of their crazy, fun-fuelled, family friendly, party card gaming minds.
Once you've opened the faux, bear-fur covered box you will find a massive set of cards and a play mat that helps you set-up the game. The packs are shuffled and three stacks of cards, to randomise the draw, are set out on the play mat. Players draw a hand of five cards. If anyone has a baby in their hand they place it face-down on the appropriate baby army space, land, water or air being the three baby army factions, before drawing back up to five.
The game is simple, you have two actions and on each can either draw or play a card. There are two main types of cards which represent the two warring factions, monster cards and baby cards.
Players build monsters; starting with a head that is a type of animal that matches the three baby armies their are also bear heads acting as wild cards, counting as any army.
You can then add body sections, legs and arms. This is where the hilarity, creativity and fun starts as the cards are full of ridiculous combinations. You can create a dolphin wearing a suit with octopus legs and bat wings, or an eagle in business attire who is also sushi.
At any point when you feel your monster is strong enough you can provoke a baby army. At this point any monsters in the same faction (land, air or, water) have to total up their card points, each body parts scores points towards your total monster points. The opposing baby army deck is picked up and each card turned over and the baby total calculated. If monsters win, the players whose monster army had the most points collects all of the baby cards for scoring at the end of the game. If the babies win, all monster cards are discarded and play continues.
Like a card someone has discarded, you can dumpster dive to get it back, but this will be your only action. There are also bonus cards that you can add to your monster that will increase your actions, although cost you points in a baby war.
Bears Vs babies is random and a lot of fun particularly for those who like the zany artwork and crazy combinations you can build.
So, grab your cards, build your monster and battle those babies!
Player Count: 2-5
Time: 20 Minutes
Age: 10+
Do you love bears? Do you have an undeniable displeasure when around babies? Or are you just a fan of competitive hand management card games? Regardless to any of your answers, so long as you have a slightly twisted sense of humour and enjoy card games, Bears Vs Babies by Elan Lee and The Oatmeal is the game for you! Players compete to defeat abominable babies whilst creating their own equally horrifying Frankenstein-esque “bear” creations.
Bears Vs Babies is entirely centred around creating an army of bears capable of defeating hordes of unusual and questionably designed babies that only a mother could love. Players compete to construct the best ‘bears’ using cards from their hands that will have an attack value powerful enough to defeat land, sea, or sky baby armies.
Gameplay
Each turn, players can play two cards, draw two cards, draw one and play one, dumpster dive, or provoke the baby armies. The two cards played must be attached to a bear head card or ongoing creation, and the stitches must line up; if the stitches don’t match then you can’t attach those body parts.
Bears are comprised of heads, torsos, arms, legs, tools and hats. Other than tools which are attached via plugs (yes, plugs) and hats which sit nicely on the head, all cards must match the stitches set out on the cards and must make sense (you can’t attach a torso to a torso, not even bears have two chests). All cards attached to the bear will contribute to its battle capability and will aid it in its inevitable battle with the babies. Determining which army the bear will battle is done via the bear’s head; the attack value on the head card will determine which babies are attacked. Blue is for sea, green for land and red for sky, although some heads are wild and can contribute to all battles.
Bear cards aren’t the only things lurking in the deck, you may be unlucky enough to draw a baby card! These cards are immediately added to their respective army and this counts as an action, meaning you may spend your turn empowering the enemy! The baby cards have values of 1-3 and these are cumulative, meaning the longer an army goes unprovoked, the more powerful it becomes!
On the flip side, you may acquire an action card. Action cards work differently dependent on what card you acquire; the ones that will benefit you can be played from your hand, but those that are less beneficial are played immediately! Drawing cards can be equally as risky as provoking the babies! Dumpster diving is the only surefire safe way to acquire powerful cards, but this takes two actions; it enables you to go into the discard pile and draw any one card, so if you’ve been hunting down one body part and have no luck, you can always pillage the corpses of others’ fallen bears!
Down to the business at hand! Battling babies! To take on an army of babies, you need to spend no actions and draw no cards on your turn, you instead shout PROVOKE! The provoking player chooses which army to take on and all bear armies of that type must engage the enemy. Players’ armies don’t fight together but also don’t count against one another, so choosing when to provoke and which army to provoke is important both tactically and for points! The player with the most powerful army that can beat the babies gets those baby cards, and all monster cards that joined in the battle are discarded. If no one can beat the babies, no one wins and all cards involved are discarded.
Final Thoughts on Bears Vs Babies
The game is quick but doesn’t play smoothly, however it’s not meant to. You’ll spend a lot of time getting annoyed at other players! Every opportunity that you get to outdo, hinder or straight up annoy your opponents is meant to be grasped.
Bears Vs Babies is one of those games where, if you don’t act like a terrible human being, you’re going to lose. On top of that, the game requires a lot of social deduction in terms of establishing what your opponent’s next move is. Should they provoke a baby horde they aren’t going to be fighting, they may massively disrupt three turns effort!
The game is designed as a filler and should be played as such, too much play in quick succession will cause the game to lose its charm! The artwork is hilarious and reflects the comedic theme of the game, but don’t let that fool you, the cards are only the tip of the iceberg when you remember the box is coated in a thick fuzz!
Ahhh babies, little cute pudgy balls of gurgling joy!
Well not these infants, these are horrific, terrifying, monstrous children who will no doubt grow up to be the kind of people who don’t re-fill the empty toilet roll holder or use the same knife in the butter AND the jam – just despicable! But fear not the bears (and friends) are here to defeat them, and they’ll need your help to take them from dismembered heads to a grizzly bear wearing a prom dress on squid legs, it’s the only way!
Bears vs Babies is from the makers of exploding kittens, a game for between 2 – 5 players where you’re competing against the other players to win the most points by successfully defeating the dreaded babies!
These babies are going down… for nap time!
The babies that appear will be one of three types, land babies (green), sky babies (red) and sea babies (blue) – side note, my youngest used to call seaweed, sea babies naaww. All the babies have a number on them representing their strength which ranges between 0 and 3 but will remain napping face down until provoked. You will need to build monsters of the same type with a stronger strength to defeat the relevant baby horde. The only exception being the actual bears which are wild and can be used to defeat any type of baby. Whilst this makes the bears all powerful, it also makes them so much more vulnerable too.
You’ll all start with a bear in hand (it’s better than two in the bush!) then be dealt an additional 4 cards, any babies dealt out are instantly put face down in there relevant piles and you draw back up to 5. On your turn you’ll be able to take a number of actions, the number will depend on the amount of players, the more players there are the less actions you’ll be able to use. Those actions will consist of any combination of either playing a card or drawing a card from and of the three draw piles. When you play a card more often than not you’ll be using it to build on your monster army but there are also special cards to be used along the way too.
Monsters must be built starting with a head and then follow in the same way with a body, arms, legs etc. with each body part also having a strength value, just like the individual babies. The more you build your bear or monster the stronger they get in the hope of besting the gangs of babies.
Bears are wild, in fact they’re positively livid!
So how do you actually start a fight with babies? You provoke them, that’s how. Do you do this by taking away their dummy or bottle? What if you try and change your nappy while there happily playing? Or perhaps you take away their mobile phone… no wait, that’s how you provoke a teenager!
It’s obviously none of those, when it’s your turn instead of taking any actions there are two other things you can do and one of those is to say provoke, then you choose which pile of babies your calling to the fight. All players who have the right type of monster and any bears in play (as remember these are wild) must fight the babies, the winner of this rumble is the player with the highest score which also beats the babies score. They then get to keep the babies, but all other cards used by all players in this particular battle are placed on the discard pile. If the babies are victorious then all the monsters AND the babies involved in the scuffle end up on the discard pile. Then play resumes as before.
Speaking of the discard pile, let’s talk about dumpster diving. The other thing you can do instead of taking actions is dumpster diving, where you forego gaining new cards or fortifying your monster army by taking any card you wish from the discard pile. This is particularly handy if you’re in need of a head or other specific body part, or even to pull out a baby to add back into a baby army, which can be beneficial for so many reasons.
There’s so much going on in Bears vs Babies, tools for your bear to hold (if it has arms…. Or bat wings?) that give you extra turn but reduce your strength, natty party hats to double strength, brutal dismemberment cards which… well… de-limb-ify. And so much more strategy than you could ever imagine. You’re not only trying to strengthen your monster military, your also trying to sabotage your opponents front line all whilst trying to keep track of how many babies have been added to each army. And then theres always a chance you draw a wild provoke, and if you do it has to be played instantly, this means one of those infant infantries (see what I did there!) is going to attack whether you’re ready of not!
Bears vs Bairns
Bears vs Babies not only comes in a bonkers fur covered box but has a nifty fabric play mat showing you where all the cards go and giving you a reminder of your possible actions. This reduces any chance of confusion as to which pile’s which and what you can do on your turn. The cards come separated into two packs to help you learn the game by only using some of them while you get used to the flow, but it’s so simple to get to grips with it won’t be long before you’re ready to open the next pack. Like most exploding kitten games the rules are well laid out with a frequently asked questions sheet to clarify any sticking points.
Although the game states from ages 10 plus we’ve played this with some our kiddos from around the age of six-ish, but as always this will vary from child to child, but it’s totally plausible. I’d say the only caveat to that is younger kids might get grumpy as the game can be quite cut-throat, having said that my 12 year old still gets the mards on now if I decapitate one of her creatures (in the game not real life you understand!)
I really have a soft spot for this game, we’ve had it so long now it tends to get forgotten about in our house, then every couple of months or so we’ll pull it out and really enjoy playing it – amazing. I wish there was an expansion for it suitable for us as a family but currently theres is only a NSFW expansion. Imagine if they expanded with a bears vs toddlers, or bears vs teenagers.
On second thoughts bears vs teenagers would be far too terrifying.
**shudders**
Zatu Score
You might like
- The comedy element of the game.
- That the game is easy to pick up and learn.
- The hilarious artwork.
- The tactical gameplay and opportunities to squander someone else's efforts.
Might not like
- The heavy reliance on luck of the draw.
- The uphill climb to gain points.
- The heavy risk/low reward opportunities when picking up cards.