WARDOGS Factions
Three shirts, one vendor, one Control Zone. Pick a colour, then play the census.
Every WARDOGS match asks you to pick a faction before you are a living body the 30-second clock can count. The three names are Lonestar, Valkyra, and Manticore. Official Steam FAQ copy paints them as a Western paramilitary, a Soviet restoration project, and Tehran’s shadow army. In the builds players actually shot each other in, they used the same vendor and the same win condition. You are choosing a colour, a voice, a starter rifle, and which teammates you will revive.
This hub is the roster. Deep dives: Lonestar, Valkyra, Manticore. Scoring stays on how to play. If a TikTok told you one faction has secret HP, treat it as fiction until BULKHEAD writes it down.
The three shirts
| Faction | Colour (official posts) | Pitch | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lonestar | Blue | Western paramilitary heavy-hitters | Lonestar |
| Valkyra | Red | Restore the Soviet People’s Republic | Valkyra |
| Manticore | Green | Kingdom of Persia, Tehran’s shadow army | Manticore |
You pick every match. You can switch mid-match if the destination team has space. Servers try to seat ~33 per side so the room can hit 100. If your friends already locked a colour, join them. “Maining” a faction does not unlock a hidden tree in current notes.
How to pick as a new player
- Join the side with your stack, or the side that is not already overflowing.
- Note the starter rifle so your first loadout is a complement, not a clone.
- Mute lore arguments until you can stay alive through a tick. See getting started.
- After a few matches, read the individual pages if you care about the fiction.
Playing “against” a faction is the whole mode. Three teams means the leader gets third-partied. Colour identity is how pubs call targets (“blue on the tower”) in proximity VOIP.
What factions do not do (yet)
- They do not split the weapon pool into unusable trees.
- They do not assign you a class. Anyone can buy a defib or a hammer.
- They do not have confirmed unique vehicles. The vehicle list is a shared catalogue with unlocks on your account, not on the shirt.
- They do not replace the need for tower codes. A Valkyra tower still needs digits.
If Early Access later adds asymmetric doctrines, this hub will say so. Until then, skill issues are not faction issues.
Teamplay still has a colour
You revive your colour. You taxi your colour. You type digits to your colour. You can troll the other two on proximity chat because BULKHEAD designed a social sandbox, but shooting your own tick to be funny is still a loss. Read how to win before you treat the shirt as a fashion choice only.
Community servers — part of the PC-first pitch — may eventually let people run themed nights. That is an updates topic, not a reason to wait on buying a Galil.
Related pages
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common WARDOGS questions.
Which WARDOGS faction is best?
In current builds they play the same. Pick the side with your friends or with open seats. Lore and starter rifles differ; the vendor does not.
Can I switch factions mid-match?
Yes if the destination team is not full. Useful for regrouping a stack, not for fleeing a lost tick.
Do factions have unique abilities?
Official beginner-facing material does not list hidden bonuses. If a patch adds them, it will show up in updates.