Dogs and Factions: Rule Question

Rulebook, pg 51
"Dogs
Dogs count as the same faction as the player’s Leader."

Does this apply only to whether a dog can benefit from the leader’s abilities, or for all faction-related rules?

Ex: in narrative or settlement mode a player with a supermutant leader brings a dog. Does the dog use the faction ability for the survivor faction printed on its card (gain a strong armor token) or the faction ability of the supermutant leader (immune to rads, all food counts as cooked, etc)? The same question would work the other way for a mutant hound taken in a force with a survivor leader.

From what I have seen on the forum earlier the model always uses the rule for the faction printed on the card. Generic Dogs will always get the armor, and Mutant Hounds will always be immune to radiation, etc… As to counting as being in the same Faction as your leader, I don’t think it makes any kind of difference what so ever right now. Maybe in some future rule it might, or maybe I am forgetting something…

Yep. Talked about here:

@haytu2 - Leader ability cards only benefit models that share a faction with the leader, so it’s relevant for that.

@AlxRaven - the weird case with dogs isn’t mentioned anywhere in that thread as far as I can tell.

Right, so “Dogs” are counted as being in the faction of their Leader, thus getting the bonus from the Leadership card, but it doesn’t give them the Leader’s Faction bonus, since all “Dogs” are already in a Faction. Either Survivor for the Shepherds, or Super Mutant for the Mutant Hounds.

You’re right, it doesn’t reference dogs specifically. It does clarify some things regarding the relationship of factions/leaders/etc. in ways that could be relevant to this case.

My apologies. I should have clarified.

Hi. I’m glad you asked that question as it has highlighted two typos that had not been spotted. The line in the rule book should say ‘Neutral dogs count as the same faction as the player’s Leader.’ (Neutral meaning ‘without faction’.) Plus, the Unit called ‘Dog’ should be neutral (i.e. have no faction written on it, not Survivor). I have added these to the next version of the FAQ.

The answer to your question is that it is the former. Dogs benefit from any abilities the Leader has that could affect them, but not the faction-related rules. (The rules on the Faction reference cards apply only to models with that faction written on their Unit card (not all of the force of that faction), so Dog (Neutral) does not gain the armor boost token when in a force with a Survivor Leader, and it would not be immune to radiation in a force with a Super Mutant Leader.)

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