Solo: Theodore
Bone Wars solo mode against Theodore: setup, his rule changes, his turn, his team and paleontologist actions, and passing.
Setup
Set the game up for 2 players. Theodore, your rival, takes an unused colour; the virtual opponent pieces of a 2-player game are still used (setup).
- Instead of team cards Theodore uses 12 basic solo action cards, shuffled face down beside his board.
- Shuffle his 6 advanced solo action cards and set them aside. For a harder game use the 6 expert cards instead.
Choosing a career goes in this order:
- Theodore takes a species card and its bones from the offer (see his choices).
- You take a species card.
- You choose a career path.
- Theodore takes the highest free profession and starts on the highest-numbered space of the university you did not pick.
His choices
Whenever Theodore must pick one of several species cards, he takes:
- a card an award needs, checking awards A, then B, then C;
- otherwise a card that fits his right-most free archive slot;
- otherwise the first card in alphabetical order.
Rule changes for Theodore
- Bones: he takes them as normal. No room? Remove a cover tile automatically (no bonus) and store it. All crates full: he swaps only if that gives him more different bones. Any skull counts as either skull, any limb as any limb.
- Rare bones: he takes the kind with fewest left in the display; on a tie skull, limb, torso, tail.
- Cover tiles: if he gets to remove one, he takes $2 with less than $5, otherwise 1 RP.
- Paleontologist cards: drawn from the top of the deck. If one matches the paleontologist action he performs, he discards it for 1 loyalty instead of its bonus.
- Upgrades: the top basic card of his deck leaves the game for the top advanced (or expert) card.
- Reclassify: he moves a card from his left-most slot to his right-most free slot; all full, he skips it.
- Upgraded action slots: cover his $3 slot, add an extra slot, cover his $2 slot, add an extra slot, and so on — never over a $1 slot.
- Grants: he uses his grant as normal. Offered a choice of round bonus, he takes 1 loyalty; he always prefers the round bonus to a minor find bonus.
- Money, RP and species cards: as normal.
His turn
- Turn the top solo action card face up into his leftmost empty action slot and pay the slot cost (his cards cost nothing). This is his current card; the new top card of the deck is the next card.
- Look at the back of the next card: a purple paleontologist icon means he does the top half of the current card; a green team icon, the bottom half.
- For team actions, find his action points and depth:
- he has a species card whose minor find matches the slot: he takes its prize bonus, discards it and uses the slot’s values;
- otherwise he uses the values on the back of the next card.
- Work through the half from its first action, following the arrows: do each action he can, skip the rest, until his action points are spent or he has done his paleontologist action.
| Icon on the next card’s back | Effect |
|---|---|
| Paleontologist taken back | He removes his paleontologist before his paleontologist action. |
| Rival loyalty | He gains that much  loyalty with the patron he does not support. |
| Icon on the current card | Effect |
|---|---|
| 2× | He runs the paleontologist loop twice. |
| Reclassify | He reclassifies an archived card before his team actions. |
| Round bonus | He gains the current round bonus before his team actions. |
| Paleontologist card | He draws a paleontologist card before his team actions. |
His team actions
| Action | Theodore’s way |
|---|---|
| Discover | Takes the species card at his site for 1 action point. |
| Dig for Bones | Takes the deepest bone his depth allows. |
| Establish Base Camp | At his site; camps in the order movement, archive, movement, archive. |
| Move Your Team | One step in the direction shown, with a free move if he has one, else an action point. Out of action points, the rulebook ends his turn even with free moves left; the designer later said using them is also acceptable (FAQ). |
| Dig Site Action | Ignores his base camps: does the dig site actions in the order shown on the next card’s back, each as often as he can (switching patron and removing his paleontologist only once). |
His paleontologist actions
He may not use the space his paleontologist started the turn on. If he can do none of the actions shown, he goes to the team half of the card with the current slot’s values.
- Publish Papers — not with full archive slots. He picks cards as in his choices, pays as many bones (2–4) as he can, ignoring skull and limb kinds, and repeats while he can.
- Debunk Papers — as a player, with all skulls alike and all limbs alike; as many papers as he can, highest value first.
- Claim an Award — only if he meets at least the second row. Several possible: the most loyalty, ties A, then B, then C. He gains the round bonus as normal.
- Make a Minor Find — not with full archive slots, and only with a species whose icon matches a tile. He picks the card as in his choices, takes the left-most matching tile and its bonus.
Passing
He plays cards until all his slots are full (5, plus extra slots) or he cannot pay, then passes:
- Profession: the highest free space that is still useful to him; he also draws 1 species card.
- Team: the university side with more published papers; tied, his current patron’s side; tied, the highest-numbered space.
- Discard his played solo cards; reshuffle them when his deck runs out.
Ties at the end: Theodore’s head measures 56 cm.