Is it possible to have a modification placed on the pup. I can see both reasonings behind yews and no. For yes it is part of your fleet at the beginning of the game. I can see no because it is not placed on the field of play until the title requirements are met. This came up in a game yesterday for me.

Good question.

It all really depends if the Nashtah Pup is considered an 'upgradeable ship' while building your squad or not.

It, as it's own ship, is not part of the squad building part of the game. There is no way to pay points to put an upgrade on a ship that is not in your list.

The ship 'exists' when the YV is destroyed. Before that, it's just part of an upgrade itself. Not an actual ship.

And the other side of the argument would be that the same happens to the wave 8 phantom, until it is deployed.

If the owner never deploys it (to enable the Ghost's rear arc forever) the phantom also never truly exists in the game. It would be only another card, like the pup.

But if we ask if that phantom could equip modifications your answer would be a profound 'Yes!!!', Right?

However the only real difference between the Pup and the phantom is the moment of their deployment.

No, because the wave 8 Phantom has a points cost, and upgrade slots. All of which you pay for and fill when making a list. And it can be taken on it's own.

The only similarity is that is CAN be inside another ship. It's never on the Ghost JUST as an upgrade until it's deployed, unlike the Pup. It's always a seperate ship that exists, it's just, in some circumstances, attached to another ship.

Hell, we don;t know yet, but the Phantom's upgrades might affect the Ghost while it's docked.

The Pup is just a little extra thing that happens if you take an upgrade on the YV.

I'll take the other side of the argument just for the academical purposes.

For all intents and purposes, the Pup is effectively another ship, not an upgrade. It has it ship's card, it requires a dial, a model and everything else, you also have to buy the additional model in order to use it. In that, it has no differences with the ghost. As I said, the only real difference is that you cannot choose when to deploy it.

And it has a cost... 6 points... (also note that the ghost title costs '0'). It is half of a standard Z-95, but it is not so strange if we take into account that it doesn't enter into play until the hound's destruction, it has no EPT or missile slots, and the fact that your squad is effectively playing with 6 points less until you lose your main ship.

The Nashtah Pup uses the deployment rules, but not the docking rules. (See the new FAQ.) It is not part of your list building, and can't take upgrades.

The new FAQ also explicitly states that the Pup cannot have any upgrades, so case solved.

Is the Pup considered a "docked" ship? I could not find anything in the FAQ that says it is not. All the other rules seem to apply to it as if it were docked. The book that came with the Hound's Tooth mentioned that the Pup was docked within the Hound's tooth. Could someone paste the part that definitely states it is not a docked ship in the reply. Thanks.

The docked ship is one that you have paid for as part of your list building and has to start docked on the 'mother' ship.

The Pup does not have any of that, as it only 'appears' when the ship is destroyed and has a certain upgrade on it.

The rules are on the FAQ ready for the Gozanti I think. As it'll be out sooner than the Ghost/Phantom combo.

EDIT: Actually, the easiest way to explain the difference is this:

Docked ships (as per the FAQ) exist the ENTIRE game whether you un-dock them or not. They have cards and upgrades and points costs. They are always ships.

The Pup, in certain games, might NEVER exist, as your YV might not be destroyed. And so it never comes into play in terms of a model, cards or points. You basically paid 6 points for nothing.

Is the Pup considered a "docked" ship? I could not find anything in the FAQ that says it is not. All the other rules seem to apply to it as if it were docked. The book that came with the Hound's Tooth mentioned that the Pup was docked within the Hound's tooth. Could someone paste the part that definitely states it is not a docked ship in the reply. Thanks.

Compare the Hound's Tooth to the spoiled Ghost title:

It's a case of do what the rules say, and don't do what they don't say. The Hound's Tooth title doesn't say the Nashtah Pup Pilot is docked, so it isn't docked.