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[LastFootnote]

In these dark days it’s good to have reliable companions, friends that will stick with you to the bitter end. But in a pinch, a dog will do.



Faithful Hound is an Action-Reaction card, like Moat. And just like Moat, it draws you two cards when you play it. The reaction is quite different, though. When you send a Faithful Hound away, it comes right back as an extra card in your next hand. You might never even play your Faithful Hounds, just discarding them to Cellars and the like.

And like most Reaction cards, Faithful Hound can help against some attacks. It’s nice against Attack cards that make you discard from your hand, like Militia. But maybe sometimes you’ll get lucky and a Bandit will flip your Faithful Hound. Hope springs eternal.

Faithful Hound doesn’t have an Heirloom, look at that. It’s an off-theme preview! Tomorrow’s bonus preview will have an Heirloom to make up for it, I give you my word.

[LaLight]

Blue dog!

[ThetaSigma12]

I dislike the art. This really is a guilds expansions, it continues the theme of weird art.

[werothegreat]

He's not so much a cunning bloodhound as the addle-brained mongrel that follows you around unwanted.

[ConMan]

They're good dogs, Brent.

Combos nicely with Vault - play Vault, discard the Hounds for coin, get a bigger hand next turn to get even more coin from Vault.

[pregnantbird]

Nice still no chihuahua

Isn't something like "your" or "the" missing in the end of the text?

Put it in your hand at the end of **** turn.

[Chris is me]

Does “at end of turn” mean “at end of YOUR turn” or “at end of ANY turn”? EG if I discard it to Militia do I immediately get it back before my turn starts?

[LastFootnote]

Does “at end of turn” mean “at end of YOUR turn” or “at end of ANY turn”? EG if I discard it to Militia do I immediately get it back before my turn starts?

Any turn. So yes, if you discard it to Militia, you'll get it back in hand at the end of that player's turn.

[markusin]

So it returns to your hand after cleanup if discarded on your turn?

[LastFootnote]

So it returns to your hand after cleanup if discarded on your turn?

Yes.

[J Reggie]

Blue dog!

Donald must have had this in mind at some point during the design of this card, right?

[crlundy]

So it returns to your hand after cleanup if discarded on your turn?

Yes.

(But not if you discarded it during Clean-up)

[SuperHans]

I look forward to playing with this one.

It's been said, but I think this card is going to be very good with most sifters and a crucial engine component. Its an easy choice for a discard and it increases hand size the next turn. Multiple FH paired with multiple Warehouses has the chance to be really powerful.

[allanfieldhouse]

There's gotta be some sort of powerful golden deck type thing with this card. Vault + 2 Hounds discarded previously would be a Province. Scheme the Vault so you can do it every turn. Might work out well...

[Asper]

Ow, I like it :3
In my opinion the art is perfectly fine, or rather it appeals to me a lot. And I'm not even a dog person. This has to be my favourite for now.

Wonder how good it'll be, though. I guess just like Moat, the reaction sometimes will and sometimes won't matter, but here it's not player dependent and you can very much control it yourself. Ah, probably much better than Moat.

[Willvon]

I don't really mind the choice in dog, but I can think of so many better ways to portray a faithful hound than in a forest with leaves falling to the ground around him.  First of all, since when do leaves fall in nice tidy piles for you?  They usually would blanket the ground.  And the 3 leaves falling next to the center tree trunk look like they are attached to the trunk in some weird way.  So I would give it a 7 for the dog, but 1 for the rest of the scene. 

My idea of portraying a faithful hound would be showing him at the feet of his master lying down by a fireplace.  I guess the problem would be that if you are going to have your faithful hound go fetch something for you, you might prefer him to be alert and ready to go as seen on the card.  On the other hand, since he first gets set aside, to picture him lying down and waiting for the next command from his master could be appropriate.

(When I clicked the Preview button to make sure my post looked OK, I noticed that it said "fetching preview".  How appropriate!  )

[Ethan]

well...i have to say this card is boring compared to other cards previewed.

[mameluke]

This is great! Just played a fun game with Faithful Hound and Torturer, and I was able to discard the Hound to get Ghost and Arena points, too.

[KingPeter]

I'm trying to think of a way for the Blue Dog Rule to come up with the Blue Dog Card.

Rules errata: when you buy this card, you must take it for a walk.

[mameluke]

Faithful Hound + Journeyman is hilarious. Not sure what to do with all of those in your hand, though.

[Chappy7]

I kinda expected something like the dogs on Hunting Party.  This one could be called 'playful pup'

I'm pretty excited about the function of the card though! Obviously as a 2 cost card it won't be crazy good (Is Chapel listening?) but its affect seems like a lot of fun.  Tunnel has always been fun to me, so I expect this will be too.  You'll need loads of villages though

[Jeebus]

This seems to me like the first weak-ish card from the Previews. As in it's not good in the great majority of kingdoms. But I'm less sure about this one than I was of cards like Beggar, Duchess and Mandarin. (I remember thinking that IGG was weak, which was obvously way off.)

But yeah, better than Moat, but... All it does in the end when you do actually play it, is +2 Cards. And before that it doesn't do anything except return to your hand. Yeah, it's ok for discard for benefit like Cellar, Warehouse, Vault...

(It's cool that actually both Adventures and Empires have none of these weak cards, except maybe Rocks, but I haven't seen anybody go for it yet.)

[grrgrrgrr]

I think Stephert + Inheritance + Faithful Hound will be a pretty good trio.

[Chappy7]

Seems awesome with inn.  Discard the hound, draw it back, have extra actions to use.  Hm. The more I think about it the more I like Hound/Inn

[mameluke]

Seems awesome with inn.  Discard the hound, draw it back, have extra actions to use.  Hm. The more I think about it the more I like Hound/Inn

Note that you don't get it back until the next turn (if you have an Inn then, then great)

[humcalc216]

Hound/Quest: Gain a gold basically every turn

May be way too slow, but it's pretty funny

[Chappy7]

Note that you don't get it back until the next turn (if you have an Inn then, then great)

lol.  I'm dumb.  Thanks

[Minotaur]

Oh Jesus.  Apparently puppy Mills are going to be a good thing now...   

[Kirian]

Blue dog!

OMG

[Cave-o-sapien]

I dislike the art. This really is a guilds expansions, it continues the theme of weird art.

It's not my favorite card art, but I do think it would look better with a different color frame.

[jonaskoelker]

Scheme + Cellar + Faithful Hound seems like a great way of starting each hand with +n cards where n is the number of Faithful Hounds in your deck. If you Seaway and Lost Arts your Cellar it's like you played a Tactician without the penalty

Other next-hand/turn interactions are Courtyard, Mandarin and Summon; other sifters are Storeroom, Warehouse, Embassy and Forum.

Unlike Tactician, this is vulnerable to Militia, Minion etc.

Unlike Tactician, this is vulnerable to Minion since you may lose your Cellar. It gets hampered by Militia to about the same degree Tactician does.

[pacovf]

Unlike Tactician, this is vulnerable to Militia, Minion etc.

In both those cases you will get all your Hounds back, so it's not that vulnerable, and in the first case you even get to keep the Cellar in hand.

[Cave-o-sapien]

Unlike Tactician, this is vulnerable to Militia, Minion etc.

The effect of the attack is mitigated based on how many Hounds you have in hand.

If you have 5 Hounds and end your turn with 10 cards in hand, and the next player plays Minion, you'll still have 9 cards in hand at the end of their turn, right?

[viserkulikov]

This card may or may not be good, but because it's a blue dog it's my favorite card in the set.

[FemurLemur]

I remember thinking that IGG was weak, which was obvously way off

If I remember correctly, that consensus remained popular for a while, right?

[jonaskoelker]

In both those cases [Scheme+Cellar+FH vs. Militia or Minion] you will get all your Hounds back, so it's not that vulnerable, and in the first case you even get to keep the Cellar in hand.

The effect of the attack is mitigated based on how many Hounds you have in hand. If you have 5 Hounds and end your turn with 10 cards in hand, and the next player plays Minion, you'll still have 9 cards in hand at the end of their turn, right?

Oh hey I said nonsense again. Funny how that happens when I don't think carefully

Yup, Militia is not a big deal vs. Scheme+Cellar+FH. Minion might make you lose a Cellar, which will hurt more. Moat, Secret Chamber and Diplomat all defend against this. Redundant Cellars might mitigate. Secret Passage tricks seem difficult if you draw deck.

[Asper]

Took me a while to understand that the Hound returns to your hand at the end of the turn it got discarded, and so is not vulnerable to discard attacks at all.

[William Howard Taft]

Took me a while to understand that the Hound returns to your hand at the end of the turn it got discarded, and so is not vulnerable to discard attacks at all.

He can't protect you from Curses but he'll never leave your side.

[Gherald]

I don't really mind the choice in dog, but I can think of so many better ways to portray a faithful hound than in a forest with leaves falling to the ground around him.  First of all, since when do leaves fall in nice tidy piles for you?  They usually would blanket the ground.  And the 3 leaves falling next to the center tree trunk look like they are attached to the trunk in some weird way.  So I would give it a 7 for the dog, but 1 for the rest of the scene.

I think the idea is wind made them pile up around trunks/roots.

[King Leon]

This dog reminds me of Hachikō, that loyal Japanese dog who kept going to the train station every day, even after the death of his master.

[Ethan]

This dog reminds me of Hachikō, that loyal Japanese dog who kept going to the train station every day, even after the death of his master.

ハチ公，in Chinese 忠犬八公

[benedettosoxfan]

Just played my first game with the pup (that's what I'm calling it anyway) and artificer happened to be in the kingdom and oh my goodness I just found one of the most fun synergies I think I've ever found. I lost but it was hilarious. Piledrive faithful hounds, get an artificer chain going, discard 5 pups for artificer, discard 5 more pups for whatever you want, start next turn with 15 cards in hand, have a ball. Of course, if you find a turn where you can't play artificer, your pups get loose and then you've got 10 of them running amok in your deck. There's got to be some crazy golden deck potential here though. It just happened to be my first ever game with faithful hound.

[AJD]

Discard the Faithful Hound, and it returns to its master's hand. "You gotta see the Reaction" indeed.

[Eran of Arcadia]

This dog reminds me of Hachikō, that loyal Japanese dog who kept going to the train station every day, even after the death of his master.

And, by extension, Seymour.

[pacovf]

This dog reminds me of Hachikō, that loyal Japanese dog who kept going to the train station every day, even after the death of his master.

And, by extension, Seymour.

I was waiting to see how long it would take for somebody to make that reference.

[Co0kieL0rd]

Wow, this card is actually much better than it looks. Before playing about 10 games with it online I didn't think there were so many cards that combo with Faithful Hound. Another simple, well-designed card!

[Asper]

"Oh no, the fiendish Militia! Run, Waffles, my dear friend, save yourself!"
"Aawoooof! I will return to you, my master!"

"Woof! There's an Oasis in the distance, my lord!"
"But you are weak, Waffles! I can't leave you here!"
"I will catch up... eventually."

"Poor Waffles (sniff). He was a faithful friend to me for many turns... Rest well in these Catacombs, my faithful hound... Wait, what's that sound?"

[ConMan]

"Oh no, the fiendish Militia! Run, Waffles, my dear friend, save yourself!"
"Aawoooof! I will return to you, my master!"

"Woof! There's an Oasis in the distance, my lord!"
"But you are weak, Waffles! I can't leave you here!"
"I will catch up... eventually."

"Poor Waffles (sniff). He was a faithful friend to me for many turns... Rest well in these Catacombs, my faithful hound... Wait, what's that sound?"

"Oh wise Sage, why do you have so many dogs yapping at your feet?"
"I was looking for something, and they all just showed up. You want them?"

[Asper]

Played a game with this and Faithful Hound might be my favourite Dominion card right now.

[Minotaur]

"So, I basically got a bunch of Hirelings today."
"Oh, that's good. .......wait.  Basically?"
"..."
"WTF, why are there a bunch of dogs in our Cellar???"

[Witherweaver]

Ow, I like it :3
In my opinion the art is perfectly fine, or rather it appeals to me a lot. And I'm not even a dog person. This has to be my favourite for now.

Wonder how good it'll be, though. I guess just like Moat, the reaction sometimes will and sometimes won't matter, but here it's not player dependent and you can very much control it yourself. Ah, probably much better than Moat.

They're good dogs, Brent.

[Asper]

"We shall go on a hunting party today, gentlemen. Release the hounds!"
"All of the hounds, sir?"
"All of the hounds!!!"

[Minotaur]

The Lost Art of Being a Lab
Best-selling how-to for dogs!

[Commodore Chuckles]

I'm not really a fan of the art (the dog looks more dopey than faithful) but my dislike for it went up several notches after seeing the shrunken online version. It looks like the dog has creepy shining pupil-less blue eyes.

[Jeebus]

This seems to me like the first weak-ish card from the Previews. As in it's not good in the great majority of kingdoms. But I'm less sure about this one than I was of cards like Beggar, Duchess and Mandarin. (I remember thinking that IGG was weak, which was obvously way off.)

But yeah, better than Moat, but... All it does in the end when you do actually play it, is +2 Cards. And before that it doesn't do anything except return to your hand. Yeah, it's ok for discard for benefit like Cellar, Warehouse, Vault...

I actually got to play with Faithful Hound only twice I think. But I'm already thinking that it's better than I thought. The thing I didn't consider is the following: If you can trigger it, it's not +2 cards but rather +3 cards effectively. It'll be tricky to have the right amount of Hounds I guess. You either have to discard them yourself (for some benefit), or be discard-attacked. Then you need enough villages to take advantage of the draw on the next turn. (This is based on using the Hounds to play them, not things like just using them purely for discard for Vault, Artificer etc; I have no idea how easy that would be to pull off.)

[Chappy7]

I never got to try this, but it seems like scheme artificer hound will be really good.  You can get a couple of hounds early, get 2+ schemes and one artificer.  Use artificer to gain more hounds and schemes until you can get up to 8 with it. Then once you get it rolling, you should be able to topdeck at least a scheme and an artificer, along with a whole pack of dogs.  I guess it will stop working if you don't get enough schemes, but it still sounds pretty good.

Anyone try this? Would it actually be decent?

[trivialknot]

I never got to try this, but it seems like scheme artificer hound will be really good.  You can get a couple of hounds early, get 2+ schemes and one artificer.  Use artificer to gain more hounds and schemes until you can get up to 8 with it. Then once you get it rolling, you should be able to topdeck at least a scheme and an artificer, along with a whole pack of dogs.  I guess it will stop working if you don't get enough schemes, but it still sounds pretty good.

Anyone try this? Would it actually be decent?

That does sound good, although I don't think it would work quite that way.  You don't really need Scheme, just topdeck an Artificer every turn.  The problem is that you'd really rather be doing more than just gaining an Artificer every turn.  The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.  I expect that at some point, you hope your deck is reliable enough to draw an Artificer every turn, and you start discarding Hounds for other $5-costs or Provinces.

[Asper]

I never got to try this, but it seems like scheme artificer hound will be really good.  You can get a couple of hounds early, get 2+ schemes and one artificer.  Use artificer to gain more hounds and schemes until you can get up to 8 with it. Then once you get it rolling, you should be able to topdeck at least a scheme and an artificer, along with a whole pack of dogs.  I guess it will stop working if you don't get enough schemes, but it still sounds pretty good.

Anyone try this? Would it actually be decent?

That does sound good, although I don't think it would work quite that way.  You don't really need Scheme, just topdeck an Artificer every turn.  The problem is that you'd really rather be doing more than just gaining an Artificer every turn.  The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.  I expect that at some point, you hope your deck is reliable enough to draw an Artificer every turn, and you start discarding Hounds for other $5-costs or Provinces.

The good thing here is that if you discard Hounds to topdeck an Artificer, you start your next turn with more than five cards in hand, so you would in fact not sacrifice a turn to topdeck an Artificer.

[Jeebus]

That does sound good, although I don't think it would work quite that way.  You don't really need Scheme, just topdeck an Artificer every turn.  The problem is that you'd really rather be doing more than just gaining an Artificer every turn.  The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.  I expect that at some point, you hope your deck is reliable enough to draw an Artificer every turn, and you start discarding Hounds for other $5-costs or Provinces.

But Chappy7's idea was not to gain Artificers, just to get one Artificer and several Hounds and Schemes. You would only need 3 Hounds actually, barring discard attacks. With that you can gain a Province every turn. But then you do need Schemes, because you always need to start with an Artificer in hand. So I guess you would get several Artificers, to quickly get more Schemes, unless there's some other gainer.

In the end it's a 3-card combo, so... I guess extremely rare.

[Chappy7]

That does sound good, although I don't think it would work quite that way.  You don't really need Scheme, just topdeck an Artificer every turn.  The problem is that you'd really rather be doing more than just gaining an Artificer every turn.  The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.  I expect that at some point, you hope your deck is reliable enough to draw an Artificer every turn, and you start discarding Hounds for other $5-costs or Provinces.

But Chappy7's idea was not to gain Artificers, just to get one Artificer and several Hounds and Schemes. You would only need 3 Hounds actually, barring discard attacks. With that you can gain a Province every turn. But then you do need Schemes, because you always need to start with an Artificer in hand. So I guess you would get several Artificers, to quickly get more Schemes, unless there's some other gainer.

In the end it's a 3-card combo, so... I guess extremely rare.

Yeah that's true.  Artificer hound sound like it will have some fun synergies on most kingdoms though.  Scheme would just make it even better. 

[Witherweaver]

I really like how derpy Faithful Hound is.

[trivialknot]

That does sound good, although I don't think it would work quite that way.  You don't really need Scheme, just topdeck an Artificer every turn.  The problem is that you'd really rather be doing more than just gaining an Artificer every turn.  The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.  I expect that at some point, you hope your deck is reliable enough to draw an Artificer every turn, and you start discarding Hounds for other $5-costs or Provinces.

But Chappy7's idea was not to gain Artificers, just to get one Artificer and several Hounds and Schemes. You would only need 3 Hounds actually, barring discard attacks. With that you can gain a Province every turn. But then you do need Schemes, because you always need to start with an Artificer in hand. So I guess you would get several Artificers, to quickly get more Schemes, unless there's some other gainer.

In the end it's a 3-card combo, so... I guess extremely rare.

Okay, I see what you mean.  The nice thing is that before you green, you can topdeck gain Artificers/Schemes in order to ensure that the combo is 100% consistent.  Once you start greening you have to hope that your Artificer/Scheme density is high enough.

I don't think it's a killer combo--I mean you could do the same thing with a regular old draw engine.  But it's a nice synergy, using Faithful Hounds as cheaper Hirelings.

[pacovf]

The other problem is that if you ever miss, then all the dogs get loose in your deck and you have to gather them up again.

Ok so I had been holding up on doing this one for too long and now I can't take it anymore