Bonuses and Abilities

Every Bone Wars bonus: other actions, specialists, dig site actions, prize bonuses, bonus tiles, grant abilities and paleontologist cards.

Other actions and bonuses

Dig sites, bonus tiles, envelopes, prize bonuses and the profession track all hand out these.

Bonus	What you do
Receive money	Take the dollars shown.
Bone tokens from the bag	Draw that many at random into your crates. Short of room, discard bones of your choice — old or new.
Rare bone tokens	Take that many from the rare bones display into your crates. It is not refilled, and when it is empty you get nothing (FAQ).
Exchange a rare bone	Swap one bone in your crates with one in the rare bones display: yours goes to the display, so the display count stays the same (FAQ).
Swap patron	Flip your patron tile. Everything tied to your patron now works for the other one.
Remove your paleontologist	Take it off the board; your next paleontologist action may use any space, even the one you left.
Draw 3, keep 1	Look at the top 3 species cards, keep 1, discard 2.
Draw a species card	Take the top card of the species deck. Reshuffle the discards when it runs out.
Draw a paleontologist card	Take one of the 3 face-up cards (or the top of the deck) and refill the display (FAQ).
Dig site actions	Do that many dig site actions, at any of the 6 sites — the same one more than once if you like.
Receive loyalty	Advance on your current patron’s track; 1 RP for each step beyond the top.
Reclassify an archived species	Move one archived card to another envelope (within its limit) and gain that envelope’s bonus once.
Upgrade an action slot	Take an upgraded action slot tile and lay it over one of your slots or beside your board as an extra slot. No limit on how many.
Remove a cover tile	Discard a cover tile to open 2 more crates, and take $2 or 1 RP — even when no cover tiles are left, including when a profession space removes it (FAQ).
Upgrade your team	Swap a basic team card for an advanced one from your reserve, or hire a specialist from your reserve.

Specialists

A specialist rides on a team card with a torn photo when you play it, and adds its bonus — before or after the team actions, as you like (FAQ). It returns beside your board at the end of the round.

Specialist	Bonus
Miner	Reclassify an archived species card; use the bonus before or after that card’s team actions (FAQ).
Sketch artist	Gain the current round bonus; use the bonus before or after that card’s team actions (FAQ).
Ichnologist	Draw a paleontologist card; use the bonus before or after that card’s team actions (FAQ).

Dig site actions

Six tiles, one on each dig site.

Prize bonuses

Printed on species cards; you gain one when you publish with 3 or 4 bones, or when you play the card into a slot with its minor find icon.

Bonus tiles

Eight tiles: one under each column of the minor finds area (the minor find bonus) and three on the round track (the round bonus for rounds 1–3).

Grant abilities

Four grant tiles sit at the universities. Your grant is the one above the university space where your team returned; it works for you as long as your grant marker is on it — other players on the same grant keep theirs too (FAQ, FAQ).

This list follows the publisher’s web rulebook. Printed tiles can differ from it; the tile in your box wins.

Paleontologist cards

Each card’s bonus works only on the action it names; with several papers it counts for one paper.