We all had time to be razzled and dazzled by the good boys. You can have a legion of dogs at your command to destroy your foes and zoom about the map.

But these aren't even okay boys, let alone good boys.

As a 4 stacked ally, Sled dogs create what veterans of the TCG community know of as a 'Rube Goldberg Deck.' Your making a ton of effort and investing time and resources into a combo, which can be fine, but the payout isn't proportional at all to what you are getting. And understanding why they are bad is important to understanding what makes a combo deck actually good.

Sled dogs is taking up an ally slot, 12 resources, 4 cards, and 4 actions to come online. If your using the rod of animal magnetism that also comes out to a relic slot, and adds an action and card, but reduces the cost of the dogs by effectively 2, if you get the rod first. Because actions and cards are worth more than resources, this comes out to you 'behind' to play the rod in the best case scenario, and worst case if you need it to play your last two dogs because you found the first two before the rod, your looking at a grand total of 12 resources, 5 actions, and 5 cards to get set up for...

A damage 4 attack that can only be used once per turn, or the ability to move 2-4 spaces for one action, which doesn't even have the pathfinder or shortcut effect of actually saving you time to do things that turn (like fight) unless you 100% had to move all those actions anyway.

And its worse because this is a 5 card combo that really needs to be fully completed to get a payoff better than A worse Mauser. Would you pay your ally slot and 8 resources for an infinite ammo Mauser or a weird pathfinder pseudo-downgrade that only is usable if you move two spaces a turn? Probably not. But your going to be spending most of any given scenario doing exactly that. By the time your dogos are actually starting to resemble something better than a 3-4 cost level 0 weapon you could have just... played... your likely almost done.

Dogos show you what a combo element shouldn't be: Low payoff, high effort, and 'backend heavy' all at the same time. There are plenty of clunky combos in Arkham that are varying degrees of good, but in general for a combo to 'make sense' you want the payoff to be something that actively helps you win the game and thus worth time and deck inconsistency, relatively low effort (its ok that your going to go out of your way a BIT to do the combo, but not 20+ some odd cards, resources, and actions expensive), and should start paying off before it even is 'ready to go.'

It is ok if you don't have all of these qualities, but having all 3 is a bad sign. Sign Magick isn't amazing, it is a clunkier LeoDeLuca at first, but its offering you a bonus action every turn the second you get two relevant spells and it into play, which is probably just a 3 resources tax for ya, a card, and an action, and then it can scale up from there. So while its low payout, its also not a huge sacrifice (your playing spells anyway) and not too high in opportunity cost (Its half the price of leo, and while mystics have decent hand options they aren't going to lose sleep over it). Pendant of the Queen takes a lot time to do anything, but it is very cheap to do (your doing something you should be doing all the time anyway: Getting cards in seeker), and the reward is huge (extra testless actions and the ability to teleport anywhere in an action-less manner to boot). And while some recursive ally stuff in Guardian using things like Agency Backup and Beat Cop are going to take mountains of resources and a lot of your actions, they are going to be doing work from the second you initially play the card (neither of these cards require other combo elements to start to do something, and the payoff for the work is very proportional to it (who doesn't want effectively infinite free testless, action-less damage and cluevering?).

This is ultimately what makes dogos a 'Rube Goldberg' strategy: you are making a huge expensive machine that takes five minutes to set up and operate all to flick your lightswitch. Your paying a ton of money, slots, cards, and actions to... get a relatively janky weapon or movement too. It is a 'nothingburger' combo because what they give you doesn't really help you win the game (payoff), takes a ton of work and resources (effort) doesn't turn on until you get a lot of dogos (back-heavy). So, sadly, these dogos just don't make sense unless you know the scenario is going to demand you move 2+ spaces a turn constantly. At which point they kinda start to make sense, because while they don't help you 'stuff a turn full' like the aforementioned shortcut and pathfinder, if your always taking those actions even outside of reacting to threats you probably will save a lot of time in a scenario if you get two dogs and are using them most turns (and aren't able to slot a better action compression tool like Leo, Running Shoes, or those aforementioned cards) they will do... alright... but I think any campaign where sled dogs is a huge difference maker is going to be a deeply unfun campaign anyway.

And sure, they are neutral, but if you don't have a 'weapon' better than the sled dogs, you probably should be running other tools to defend yourself. Like I am sure Mandy COULD get the dogs out to serve as her 'offensive tool' but that isn't going to be a remotely good use of Mandy's time compared to the aforementioned Pendant, or the plethora of Seeker evasion tools that exist now.

EDIT: It turns out harshing folks mellow of leading a legion of dogos understandably ruffled some feathers. Some common counterpoints to the good dogos and why they don't make sense.

"You can't compare them to an XP card." I absolutely can, unless we are comparing the 2 dogs, which are the only ones who anyone but Leo can run. As a 0 XP card, dogs compare poorly to most weapons, as most weapons already grant you a +2 damage bonus. While dogs don't run out of ammo, they are once a turn, which is really bad for a 2 damage weapon, as anyone who has run a Mauser outside a 'success by X' test can tell you. The reason spammable, high/infinite 2 damage weapons are good is you can freely push up to 6 damage in a turn. Dogs can't do that, so not only is it action intensive to get the dog past a knife but you need to either have innate evade to handle 3+ health, or a secondary weapon, just pushing up the insane cost of dogs more. At 3-4, you can then directly compare them to XP cards (Both weapons, and 'assemble the pieces' cards like Segment of Onyx), and they REALLY don't do well there.

"What about the soak?": We all know highly action inefficient healing isn't good in Arkham, and the dogos are that. 2/2 is a very common ally statline on 'your not supposed to kill them' utility allies for a reason: it pushes the ally to being about as inefficient as something like Emergency Aid. Is emergency aid totally unusable? No, but you absolutely wouldn't rush to play it. Unless an ally is one shot or has unusually good soak values (ex: Peter, who effectively is infinite healing), the soak value is not the 'good' part of an ally. Would you run an ally with 2 health, 2 sanity, 3 resource cost, and no text box?

No one plays 2/2 allies as 'soak first' because the action economy is terrible. 2 Dogs takes 2 actions to play, 2 cards drawn (which are a little less than an action), and 6 resources (Valued at their lowest, which favors the dogs the most, a resource is going to be fractional of an action at around .75 resources to an action). This makes playing 2/2 allies that you need alive (And if you don't need the dogs alive play literally any ally that gives you either a come into play or on death benefit) at 3 cost worse tempo than first aid (Your looking at around .6 healing per-action spent from First Aid viewing resources as expensive as possible, with about .57 for dogs valuing resources as little as possible). First aid is probably the worst healing card in the game.

This means the 'text value' of the dog needs to be good enough not to just pass first aid, but to get past equivalent card effects. A lot of effects boost damage and to hit rates at a level similar to a fully assembled dog team at far less resources, decksearch effort, and action investment: Custom ammo, beat cop, enchant weapon, Delilah O'Rourke, Acidic Ichor, an upgraded shriveling, and the bows all will give the characters who can take them a larger effective boost than the dogs (outside of custom ammo obviously, but guardians have comically little need for the dogs), and only require one card and way less resource investment. You can (generally) evaluate a +1 damage for the rest of the game as about 3 resources and 1 card/action on top of your weapon, and some of these cards (such as the bows, or custom ammo) are doing even better than that. So, in reality, your dogs are just giving you 1 free 'first aid' in addition to the 2 you played first once you get to 3 dogs to match "weapon+enhancement." Would you play 2 first aids if, after clearing the first two out, you got a third one (Completely ignoring that you need to see 21 cards to even find the 3rd dog 50% of the time) finished for free? Almost certainly not.

A Principle Guide to Play These “Good” Dogs and Be a Winter Olympic Champion:

Contra to some of the previous negative reviews, I shall argue that this combo is actually a "good" combo in its own right when properly built. Here's how the combo can or should be set up:

1) It requires your “full commitment” from the get go in order to make it shine. The combo will cost you 5-6 desk space, 1-2xp (4 dogs + I recommend 2 Rod of Animalism for consistency. If you commit to this build, you might as well go all in for it), five actions and $10 to set up (almost always play your Rod first before the dogs). Seriously consider In the Thick of It for 2 Rod from the start if you really are going for this build.

2) Choose the characters who can make this combo reliably works: they are those with the (innate) ability to do consistent + fast card draws (+ good economy). You want to get Rod and dogs out reliably so that by mid to mid-late game you are all set for it.

3) For example: Harvey Walters can reliably cycle his desk 2+ times per scenario. He’s get strong economy to put the combo down (with free actionless cash in Cryptic Writings, as well as Dr. Milan Christopher, Crack the Case and Burning the Midnight Oil). The same can be said for Winifred Habbamock, especially once you have got Lucky Cigarette Case + Pickpocketing (and, better, its lv. 2 version) down for draws, and $ isn’t an issue for Rogue. Carolyn Fern is another candidate who will find this combo beneficial, and can make is combo work, although her card draw will still be significantly slower comparing to Harvey and Wini.

4) Now the last obstacle for making this combo work is the total amount of action (5!) that it requires (unless you are using Leo Anderson which I won’t address his case here. Guardians minus Carolyn in general don’t need the dogs to help them fight anyways). This obstacle is real, and my advise is to realistically think of this combo as (usually) a mid-to-late game combo. You can get this combo set up early-mid game if you’re lucky. But it’s perfectly fine to be patient and wait. The key is to not feel that you are “forced” to play Rod and dogs down when you have other more important things to do in early game (i.e., stuffs that help you to get clues!). In early game you usually don’t need to use the dogs’ strongest +4 move and +4 fight/damages abilities anyways. So, if you are Harvey, in early game play Rod and dogs down only if you need their soaks that protect you from being badly damaged by his weakness Thrice-Damned Curiosity. Or, If you are Wini, start playing the combo down when you have nothing better to do after your Lockpicks is exhausted. Remember, having 1 dog down is useless, having 2 down is weak (although it occasionally helps you move 2x for an action), having 3 down is the turning point, and with all the commitment you really want all the dogs to fight for you & teleport you across the map.

5) For low fight characters, you will need to prioritize and pack ?? (or fist) skill cards that can help you to land the dog bites. For example, Harvey fight at +5 with 4 dogs out. So you want to pack some (upgraded better) Essence of the Dream (via Dream Diary translation), Plan of Action, Inquiring Mind and maybe even an Unexpected Courage or two. I would take Plan of Action over Perception, for example, if I know I am using this combo in a Harvey desk. And, of course, another way to help with having your dog bites land on a tough enemy is to ask your teammate to give you one of their Promise of Power or Overpower, etc. Wini can fight with +7 with 4 dogs down, plus you will have her signature Anything You Can Do, Better + multiple ? skill cards (Opportunist, Unexpected Courage , "Watch this!", Momentum, Quick Thinking, etc.), so this should not be an issue for her.

6) In conclusion: Is this the most efficient or powerful combo in the game? Well, it isn’t. But it's still rightfully good when properly built. Sure, it is certainly the one combo that requires both careful planning and commitment. So why do it? Because coming with this level of commitment I would argue that the level of satisfaction that you will be rewarded after all the effort made, is also unparalleled. It’s a satisfactory 10/10 level combo when it works and you see your dog bites landed and finished off a boss, dealing as much damages as your fellow Guardian teammates and stealing the show from them; or when you see your dogs sled you to the finish line to resign or pick up that final clue from afar just before that stupid final doom ruin your scenario and spare you from taking (another) mental trauma. You are a Winter Olympic champion in the story of Arkham when all is said and done.

I posted this in a reply, but I've been playing it with William Yorick in Edge of the Earth, running Short Supply Charisma and In the Thick of It. From the start that meant that my chances of getting at least 2 dogs up for +2 to hit, 2 damage (or 2 moves) were pretty danged good, and turns out that was right. In Yorick these are great. You draw a dog in upkeep? Commit it for an icon on your next fight test, defeats the enemy and play it from your discard pile. Or maybe there's a dog or two already in there thanks to Short Supply. Honestly to have these dogs as a baseline for moving and attacking, while adding in and out other assets as needed - these babies are perfect for Yorick, and relatively easy to get into play. You do have to watch your resources, but even with an item-heavy build (that Willie likes), 2 copies of Schoffner's Catalogue and 2 copies of good ol' Emergency Cache, you're in pretty good shape!

So first of lets get it out of the way...

Who's a good lil pack of puppies, you are! you are!

Okay now that is out of my system we have a card here that does a very very nice pair of things "handless 2+ damage attacks" and "high speed movement for one action" notice that both of these only actually require two dogs to be in play to be good, once you have three dog's in play you start entering sweet territory and at four dogs....well that's about 1 enemy per scenario survives you whistling to your dogs.

Getting 12 resources worth of dog into play while also having the ally slots to hold them is a big ask. it is made a lot easier by calling in favors (which also will probably grant you some amount of restored soak) and any other support cards we might see in the future for allies seems good.

Now I am going to say something shocking here, I don't think Leo Anderson is the best dog handler, that is to say, I don't think he receives the most benefit from having them in play, I foresee these dogs going a long way to supporting more non-guardian fighty decks, those that struggle with their class options weapons being too niche and too situational to be consistent enough to be worth running, you can use your dog's to fill in the gap you might be missing.

The other case I see the dogs being insanely good in are primarily or flex clue decks that have decent enough time with their fight stat, people who will use the dogs primarily to get them across the map and occasionally chomp on an enemy that would be too annoying for a guardian to come deal with. Minh has no issue boosting any stat to any number but she can't capitalize on that without weapons, now she can just run a bunch of happy doggies instead, I never found Minh dependent on any ally before so losing the slot isn't a major deal, she also draws at an obscene rate so getting to the two doggo minimum is pretty simple for her.

Can't wait to play with them and hopefully my theories to their usefulness don't fall flat on their face.

The last thing to highlight here is you CAN (with some great deal of luck) have 14 doggo's in play at the same time under your control, how you achieve this is left as an exercise for the reader, good luck! (bonus star for anyone who figures out how to get more, no matter how hair brained the method)

Dogs are an expensive weapon that takes up the ally slot. Having just 2 dogs out compares compares quite favorably to the .45 Thompson, albeit one that can only shoot once per round. The movement effect is mostly icing — situationally useful, but not what you get the dogs for.

Being able to fight only once per round is bad for a primary fighter, but being such a heavy investment, they're too expensive to run as an off-class combat tool if you don't expect to use them often. Usually events like Occult Invocation and Backstab are favored for those purposes because Seekers and Rogues usually have better things to do with their ally slots. Playing down 2-3 dogs just to use them twice or thrice a scenario is an extremely poor use of resources and actions. The same is true for Mystics have their combat spells, and Guardians just have better weapons. That includes you, Leo Anderson.

Which leaves us with Survivors, who can actually use the dogs quite decently. Survivors have good draw and econ now, but notably poor action compression which the dogs help with. Calvin for example likes the soak the dogs give and doesn't have to worry about managing horror from the Meat Cleaver. If they miss, they have Live and Learn and Oops! (2) to compensate for the miss the same way they would use an Old Hunting Rifle. Tommy can also borrow those tools if he wants to be creative, but like other guardians he's got better weapons when he gets XP.

The other candidate is Lily Chen, who lacks good low-level weapon options due to her Firearms restriction. Instead of playing several mediocre spells just to power Dragon Pole, why not bring a couple of dogs along?

EDIT: Due to me failing to notice a key element of one of the cards used in the combo below, this review is effectively irrelevant! Thank you to the commenters who called it out and corrected me. So feel free to ignore, or read on for a brief vignette about the perils of hubris or something.

+++

From Zerogrim's review: "...The last thing to highlight here is you CAN (with some great deal of luck) have 14 doggo's in play at the same time under your control, how you achieve this is left as an exercise for the reader, good luck! (bonus star for anyone who figures out how to get more, no matter how hair brained the method)"

I can getcha 16!

This method works for any 'gator, tho Leo Anderson can skip a step or two via Mitch Brown.

Required: 4P multiplayer.

Each player must have in play:

• P1: Rod Of Animalism, Sled Dogs x 4
• P2: Rod Of Animalism OR Charisma, Sled Dogs x 4
• P3: Rod Of Animalism OR Charisma, Sled Dogs x 4
• You: Relic Hunter x 2, Rod Of Animalism, Charisma, Sled Dogs x 4

At least 1 player must have and be able to play Teamwork.

All gators move to the same location.

Play Teamwork.

P1 gives you their Sled Dogs AND their Rod Of Animalism. (Relic Hunter * 2 = 3 Accessory Slots, so you can hold 3 Rod Of Animalism.)

Base Slot + Charisma + 3 Rod Of Animalism = 8 (creature) Ally Slots = 16 Doggo Slots.

P2 & 3 give you their Sled Dogs.

TA-DA! You now have 16 Sled Dogs!

(At this point, if you have an Expensive Sofa in play, you must immediately discard it.)

I recently tried to make the Sled Dogs work in a Leo Anderson deck, thinking that his investigator ability would be the centerpiece of what made the dogs truly shine. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. What truly matters is draw speed.

So after a swift rebuild (due to a certain snake-infested second scenario) I replaced a third of my deck with spirit events, equipped my Boxing Gloves, and choose the 5th dog for my combo piece. Bark Harrigan, the Barkham Investigator who starts with two additional weapon hand slots. I didn't upgrade into any weapon, trusting only to my Sled Dogs and Catling Gun. The 8 dmg per round carried us through the entire 4P TFA campaign (with the help of a dedicated evader for big HP pools) since my fight value was at 10-11 with these options.

But Sled Dogs should work even better with Nathaniel Cho. NatCho has the least setup of all Guardians. He hits the floor running and just needs to keep drawing events with his Boxing Gloves. Sled Dogs is a nice addition to him since you're not reliant on the dogs to function so you can churn through your deck to get the combo pieces (Ever Vigilant, Rod of Animalism, minimum 2 dogs) in your hand.

And when you do have them in your hand they're a solid complement to a weapon-less Event playstyle. Instead of wasting one of your best events on a 3 or 4 health enemy harassing the cluever you can simply tap the dogs for a highly accurate attack and save your event for when you need to deal 15 damage in a round against the big Elite.

====

Other observations

• Considering Duke's investigate FAQ, all subsequent move actions after the first action don't provoke attacks of opportunity. Like say there's an Acolyte two locations away with a massive enemy dealing 3/3 damage/horror inbetween. With 4 sled dogs you can run over there, get the acolyte engaged with you, and end your movement back where you started. Without taking any attacks of opportunity.

• Every dog is worth +1/1 soak before you need to kill them off. This value is doubled with The Star when they go to 3/3.

• The Sled Dogs only give some value (beyond soak) when you have at minimum two of them. So the priority is to get the Rod ready. Not to spend three resources to get one dog out early.

• You only ever need 3 resources when you play Ever Vigilant since Rod of Animalism doesn't exhaust. Either you're playing the Rod and two Dogs for a total of 3. Or you're playing three dogs for a total of 3 because you've already played the Rod.

• While Rod of Animalism gives you all the Ally slots you need, it is not a bad idea to buy a Charisma later on as insurance against effects like Crypt Chill and Snakescourge.