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If an Independant Character joins a battle brother unit of a different faction, what faction is the unit considered?

It has to be either both, the ID's original faction, or the faction of the allied unit he joined.

An Independent Character that joins a unit is considered to be a part of that unit for all rules purposes.

My understanding is that, since the Independent Character becomes part of the unit for all intents and purposes, that the unit is still considered a unit from the faction it was selected from. Note, however, that the Independent Character is still a model from its own faction.

So, in the case that you have Preferred Enemy (Space Marines), and there's a Commissar joined with a Space Marine squad at the front, and you shot a 1-shot lascannon at them, you would reroll a roll of 1 to hit, but wouldn't reroll a roll of 1 to wound, since the wound would first be against a model that's not a Space Marine.

In reverse, if you had Preferred Enemy (Astra Militarum), and the same set-up, you wouldn't reroll a roll of 1 to hit (as you're shooting a unit of Space Marines), but you would reroll a roll of 1 to wound (as the model is Astra Militarum).

It depends on the situation and the rule calling the Faction in to play, really.

If the situation is targeting the unit, than the IC will be swept up in it.

However, if the situation is targeting the model, the IC should retain its Faction Identity.

Like if a Ministorium Priest joins a Crusader Squad and the unit is shot at by something with Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) and no Precision Shots. The unit is being shot and Wounded, and the Priest cannot be separated out, so the rerolls of 1 To-Hit and 1 To-Wound will still happen.

 Yarium wrote:
So, in the case that you have Preferred Enemy (Space Marines), and there's a Commissar joined with a Space Marine squad at the front, and you shot a 1-shot lascannon at them, you would reroll a roll of 1 to hit, but wouldn't reroll a roll of 1 to wound, since the wound would first be against a model that's not a Space Marine.

Not quite. Rolling To-Wound is performed on the unit level. Allocating Wounds is performed on the model level. So, the rerolling 1s To-Wound will still happen, no matter where the Commissar was in the squad.

Unit's faction for reasons stated in first reply.

This also applies to 2 ics joined together(as it always has). ic 2 joins ic 1; thus a sm captain joined by the commissar is a sm unit, a commissar joined by the captain is an ig unit(or the new names, shut up, whatever)

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Unit's faction for reasons stated in first reply.

This also applies to 2 ics joined together(as it always has). ic 2 joins ic 1; thus a sm captain joined by the commissar is a sm unit, a commissar joined by the captain is an ig unit(or the new names, shut up, whatever)

100% correct. Not always intuitive, but correct.

To be honest the rules don't really cover this. The argument that he is part of the unit for all rules purposes means he can not change unit level properties is clearly false.

The easiest example being how many models a unit must take as casualties to force a morale check, this clearly can change when an IC (or when ICs) attaches to the unit. Thus a unit of 4 models takes a morale test after a single model dies however adding even a single IC to that unit doubles that number to two. So we know adding an IC can change unit properties.

The unit has it's faction. However we are never told how to determine unit properties dependent on model properties. For instance a unit containing only models with the Jetpack unit type is clearly a jetpack unit. However add an IC without that unit type is the unit still a jetpack unit? We simply can not say for sure.

Finally it is true that a unit has a faction listed on it's datasheet, so there is an argument that the Faction of the unit is in no way dependent on the faction of the models with in it. It is certainly true that nothing tells us that the unit Faction cares about the model's faction, heck there's even an argument that model's do not possess a Faction.

So in conclusion I believe the rules are completely unclear in this regard. However that Kriswall and Kel have the position that is nearest to being supported by the rules.

The impacts this have are as follows. That Commissar is Space Marines example interacts with PE (Marines) as follows:

1) When shooting at the unit you always get your rerolls to hit and to wound regardless of where to commissar is or if you have precision shots. As in both cases only after the To Wound step do you worry about allocating those wounds to the Commissar if necessary.
2) The same is true for combat the only possible exception being a challenge. If you believe that Faction is a wholely unit level attribute even being in a Challenge would trigger PE(marines) for blows against the Commissar. If however you believe models have a Faction then PE would not trigger for the model fighting in the challenge against the Commissar (though the rest of his unit would benefit as long as marines were alive even if the wounds caused end up getting allocated to the Commissar).