Summoning Discussion Post GHB

[amysrevenge]

1 minute ago, Kevin K said:

The way it read to me was that you chose your allegiance after you complete deployment, implying it is based on your army at that point in time and has to meet all minimums and maximums allowed.

 

Yeah, my first impression on the incomplete information leans this way as well - with the implication that future summoning can allow you to bypass the "maximum X of type Y" restrictions.  But we need more detail to know for certain.

[daedalus81]

Having now read the rules it looks like you can summon whatever you want provided you know the spell,.

(Unless another page restricts summons themselves).

[DamonRafael]

On 6/29/2016 at 8:09 PM, amysrevenge said:

 

Yeah, my first impression on the incomplete information leans this way as well - with the implication that future summoning can allow you to bypass the "maximum X of type Y" restrictions.  But we need more detail to know for certain.

Mmmh not sure about that. Maybe I'm missing something, and maybe the following calculations are totally wrong but still...

If we play 1000 points, you still need to have 1 hero and 2 battleline units. Now with that base you most likely reach about 450 points (maybe more, maybe less but not so far away). Now you have 550 points for summon, even if you don't have to list them, let's say you can summon up to 3 heroes, which anyway bring you to the maximum of the game (1000 pts -> 1 to 4 heroes), or 1 or 2 monsters behemoths, again in the allowed range.

I don't see Summoning a way to "cheat", hope you get the point even if that's not the correct word  

 

[hobgoblinclub]

I definitely prefer this method. It avoids having to think and rethink army lists, it's simple and it's versatile. 

[Akempist]

I think the risk/reward element is fairly balanced even if you could summon to exceed maximum number of behemoths/leaders.  You still have to pay full price for them, you run the risk of losing your summoner(s), there's a chance you can fail to summon, etc.

I suppose it may even put you at a bit of a disadvantage points wise too.  An army that fields a full 2000 points vs. a summoning army that, through the course of the game summoned up some units but, because of the way it adds up, really only amounts to 1920 or something.  I suppose you could always throw down 10 zombies for what?  60pts.  My point is that it may not add up right when you're doing it on the fly leaving you some chunk of useless points vs. an optimized, highly tuned (but static) 2000 point army.

[Brian Andrews]

This is probably a stupid question but regarding the Rule of ones where you can only cast a spell once per hero phase; is summoning a single spell so you can only do one summon per turn or is it distinct per unit summoned? For example can you cast "Summon Lord of Change" and "Summon Great Unclean One" in the same turn because they are two different spells or us all summoning grouped as one spell?

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Brian Andrews said:

This is probably a stupid question but regarding the Rule of ones where you can only cast a spell once per hero phase; is summoning a single spell so you can only do one summon per turn or is it distinct per unit summoned? For example can you cast "Summon Lord of Change" and "Summon Great Unclean One" in the same turn because they are two different spells or us all summoning grouped as one spell?

It'll be per spell.  So you could attempt a single Summon Lord of Change or Summon Bloodletters in each game turn

[mmimzie]

IT definitely you can cast each spell once, and each summon is it's own different named spell. 

Additionally, summoning is pretty good. I used it to replenish my zombie horde units, by leaving a life line tail in the back and it worked quite well.  Specially because you basically just remove those guy you summoned 9" away from the action as casualties any way. You only need about 4 or 5 guy to stay back and be a tail that you can summon the zombies on to. 

[Kato]

Hi!

Been browsing quite a while now and I'm having a hard time finding definite answers so I thought I'd bump this old thread. I'm quite new and going into tournament play in a months time. I would like to know for sure how this actually works. I'm guessing I have to deploy battleline units at setup, am I right? But concerning behemoths and leaders?

Can I state that I have say 1100pts of "specific units" and 400pts of reinforcements, "not specified" to summon (do I need to state which reinforcements or can I just keep a variety of units here?) so that I could basically surprise my opponent for example by summoning something completely different from what I summoned in the previous game? Would this let me exceed limit for behemoths and leaders or can I not summon another behemoth if I have filled their slots on setup or by previous summoning? 

 

Kato

[mmimzie]

10 hours ago, Kato said:

Hi!

Been browsing quite a while now and I'm having a hard time finding definite answers so I thought I'd bump this old thread. I'm quite new and going into tournament play in a months time. I would like to know for sure how this actually works. I'm guessing I have to deploy battleline units at setup, am I right? But concerning behemoths and leaders?

Can I state that I have say 1100pts of "specific units" and 400pts of reinforcements, "not specified" to summon (do I need to state which reinforcements or can I just keep a variety of units here?) so that I could basically surprise my opponent for example by summoning something completely different from what I summoned in the previous game? Would this let me exceed limit for behemoths and leaders or can I not summon another behemoth if I have filled their slots on setup or by previous summoning? 

 

Kato

Hello necromancer of threads,

The way it works is you make your list putting all the model you want in it and then one of the entries in your list is "reinforcement points" that contains your summoning pool.

example list

Necro mancer 120

Vamp lord 140

10 zombie 60

10 zombie 60

10 zombie 60

Reinforcement points  440

For a 1000pt/1000pt list


Note i could actually instead say 420pt because most of my summoning will be in intervals of 60, but that's just me being cute. 

[Kato]

Thanks you conjurer of answers. 

So I cannot exceed hero/behemoth limits this way? The reinforcement list is just another part of the list? But I do need to deploy my battleline? Or can I keep them as reinforcements and summon ex my bl zombies 9" from enemies to have them keep up with my flying and cavalry ?

peace

 

[rokapoke]

58 minutes ago, Kato said:

Thanks you conjurer of answers. 

So I cannot exceed hero/behemoth limits this way? The reinforcement list is just another part of the list? But I do need to deploy my battleline? Or can I keep them as reinforcements and summon ex my bl zombies 9" from enemies to have them keep up with my flying and cavalry ?

peace

 

Summoning allows you to break many of the rules -- so add all the Behemoths and Leaders you like -- as long as you stick with a single grand alliance. 

[Bradifer]

16 hours ago, Kato said:

But I do need to deploy my battleline? Or can I keep them as reinforcements and summon ex my bl zombies 9" from enemies to have them keep up with my flying and cavalry ?

One of the requirements is that you must have your required minimum battleline and general deployed when the game starts.

I.e. @ 2000 pts, you would need to have minimum 3 units of battleline, EX: zombies (10), zombies (10) and skeletons (10).

If you have more separate units of battleline you don't have to deploy them, you can summon them later.

[Killax]

My solution would revolve around Battle Traits for certain factions. Making Summonning different for certain factions.
As we speak on the forums I have a really simple plan for the Death Grand Alliance to at least make Summonning (essential part of their faction) a true viable thing for them. Without ****** keeping Units in Reserve.

For other Summoning I'd try to come up with different solutions. Summoning is found in many factions but I do think that for some they are essential and for others they simply arn't.
As an example, Blades of Khorne functions really well without Summoning despite having a ton of Daemons that can technically be summoned. For them this largely isn't an issue because that's not really the main draw into the faction.

For Lizardmen summoning for example I would apply a different set of Command Traits that might assist or might not assist into Summoning. Then if I'd be inclined to flesh that out I'd rather think about longer ranged Summoning as opposed to how I would resolve Summoning for the Death Alliance. 
More on that later! My moral is, flesh out ideas! There are many good ones and nothing stopping you from writing them up and adding them to local House-rules for example.

[wayniac]

I have thought a lot about how to "fix" summoning without making useless (as it is now) or too OP (as it was before).  So far this is what I've come up with, I need to test it out:

Summoning

Some units have a spell or special ability that let them summon additional models or units for their army.  These follow the below restrictions.

1. You may not summon any unit with the MONSTER or WAR MACHINE keywords, unless you have set aside the correct amount of Reinforcement Points to do so.
2. Units that are summoned lose any abilities that could also summon.  In other words, you cannot chain summon.
3. All summoning spells and abilities may be without having Reinforcement Points set aside once per game, regardless of how many wizards know the spell or ability.  For example, if any WIZARD knows the spell "Summon Pink Horrors", you may only cast it once per game without using Reinforcement Points.   When this applies to a special ability, such as the Coven Throne's kiss, the ability follows all the same rules as a spell (so in this case, you could use the Kiss once per game to summon a Vampire upon killing an enemy HERO)

The idea here is that #1 stops summoning monsters for free; #2 prevents abuse (no summoning pink horrors who summon pink horrors who summon pink horrors).  #3 brings summoning back into like as a thematic special ability without making it prone to abuse.  Note it does NOT affect things like replenishment, only summoning where before you would have to set points aside.  So, for example (citing a recent discussion on the AOS Facebook group), a Chaos Lord has a chance to become a Daemon Prince; under the normal rules this is basically nonexistent due to needing to set aside points.  Under this system, it can happen for "free" but if you had more than one Chaos Lord, only one could do it during the game (however another might fall from grace and be turned into a Spawn...).  The idea is that it being a 1/game ability isn't game breaking, but stays fluffy and thematic for the armies that want to use summoning.  At best you can get 1 extra unit from your summoning (although you could take, for example, a lot of wizards and summon 1 of each unit, but this would likely not be optimal).  However, you can circumvent that if you put aside Reinforcement Points, thus allowing players who do make use of summoning to still do so.  Note that some things need to be tweaked to fit this model, the Ring of Immortality for example.

I need to playtest this idea, but I think it's clean and simple and not too overpowered, although I'm sure a lot of people will still cry that it's "not fair" that some armies get any advantage at all.

[KnightFire]

On 4/30/2017 at 9:29 PM, Kato said:

Thanks you conjurer of answers. 

So I cannot exceed hero/behemoth limits this way? The reinforcement list is just another part of the list? But I do need to deploy my battleline? Or can I keep them as reinforcements and summon ex my bl zombies 9" from enemies to have them keep up with my flying and cavalry ?

peace

 

You absolutely can exceed your hero/behemoth limits this way. 

 

From the GHB FAQ

Page 108 – Reinforcement Points Add the following to the end of the second paragraph: ‘Reinforcement units must belong to the same Grand Alliance as the rest of your army, but can otherwise have any allegiance. Because restrictions are determined when you pick your army, units added later using reinforcement points can allow the army to exceed the normal limitations for leaders, artillery and behemoths.’

[KnightFire]

25 minutes ago, wayniac said:

 

I need to playtest this idea, but I think it's clean and simple and not too overpowered, although I'm sure a lot of people will still cry that it's "not fair" that some armies get any advantage at all.

It isn't fair at all though, that just means an army that can summon (such as nurgle daemons) gets a free unit each of each of its types of daemons (460 pts) giving it a 460 point advantage over an army that can't summon.

But actually its worse than that, as you can summon outside your alleigance, so the nurgle daemon army can also summon all the khorne, slaanesh and tzeentch daemons, potentially giving it over 2000 points of extra models.

 

So with my ironjawz, Instead of having to kill 2000 points of stuff (as it is with current rules), I have to kill 4000 points!

 

Summoning already gives advantages - you can pick what you summon and where you place it, allowing you to be adaptable to the scenario, it doesn't need to be any more powerful.

 

[Killax]

Tinkering with costs is not what I'm thinking at personally.

@Sedraxis and I will test something in the future revolving around something akin to Blood Tithe points. What I'm think at here is something I'd call Battlegrave. What happens is that for every Unit you kill you recieve 1 Battlegrave point which allows you to Summon up to 100 points of unit. These points accumulate but also drop to 0 as soon as you start Summonning.

What this can lead to is having a nasty suprise at the end of the battle or re-fill the board with Zombies/Ghouls/Undead. The prime idea that you'd have to defeat it still isn't too different from how Warhammer Fantasy presented Vampire Counts, go and Hero-hunt or get swarmed basically.

Offcourse the fine details still have to be made and once we're happy with it we'll put it online. 

[Jamopower]

There's also a reason why Vampire counts was mostly quite broken army as even with only zombies to summon, a "summon horde" army was very powerful (of course being unbreakable and causing fear helped also).

 

Edit: and in a game about objectives it would have been even worse.

 

That said, it would be nice to have a command trait giving bonus to casting summoning spells. I would like to summon stuff with my Chaos, but it is so uncertain it mostly isn't worth it.

[mmimzie]

I think paying for summoning is okay, but where summoning is weak, it's weak in very specific aspects. 

So some units are quite strong when summoned. Harbingers can be tough when summoned and can make a powerful buffed up unit that charges from out of no where and demolishes units, and are even more powerful when nagash summons a nice fat unit. 

Dire wolves, Hex wraiths make great walls. Bats are a novel -1 to hit anti shooting unit that come a minimal cost for the effect in some situations. Zombies can replenish units. Banshees can get war machine crew, and carin wraiths allow for pocket heros for specific scenarios, or tough objective stealers. 

Now where summoning falls flat is most everywhere else. The reason being is that most summoned units are not much better than than just deploying the unit some where on the table and having them wait a turn. Where these summons need work are they need ways to get onto the table and do a job, or in other words they need a reason to be summoned. 

As such i think future summoned units should be given purpose for thier summoning. Something that gives you a reason to use them as a summoned unit similar to the units i listed above. The units i listed above (besides zombies maybe) would almost exclusively be used in thier summoned capacity, but as such are well worth thier points when used in thier best case scenarios. Which makes it worth having the reinforcement points set aside. What also makes it worth keep the reinforcement points is that thier are a large list of instances in which we could gain from having these reinforcement points to spend, which means in a take all comers (tournament style) list it is well worth keeping these points to the side.  New summoned units that could come out that game buffs on the turn they are summoned or something like this to encourage using them specificly for this role. Lastly, they are unique from side boarding in that they gain many of these benefits exclusively when summoned, and thus would not benefit from being side boarded in.

A final potential avenue for summoning that needs exploring by GW is the summoner. Currently nagash is a very powerful summoner. His ability to summon double size units is amazing and lets him game units who normal sort of suck when summoned. Nagash can reliably summoning blocks of skeletons/spirit host/etc to the table who work best in larger groups. This turns units who would never normally be summoned into units who could be summoned in an effective manner. More summoning bonuses such as closer to enemy summoning or allowing movement after summoning for specific summoners or artifact for summoners would increase the usefulness of summoning for units who normal don't benefit from summoning. 

In summary, summoning is really good for specific unit. Future summoned units should be developed with the purpose of summoned units with specific roles that can only be fulfilled by being summoned (carin wraith/banshee/Dire wolves). Summoners could also be made more powerful in being better at this job, by gaining powers similar to how nagash summons large units. I also don't think summoning is to weak, but as of yet thier remains few units who benefit specifically from summoning. I wouldn't like to see summoning change from it's current state, but instead in many of the situations people want i'd like to see unit healing spells. 

Edit: i guess my real summoning thought is that i feel like summoning units should feel better than just deploying them for the majority of units, and that specific units should be much better when summoned or provide alternate utility.  This organically can make units that aren't normally good when summoned better, as keeping the pool of reinforcement points will be worth doing as the pool of niche units is worth having, and in the case where no niche quite fits for your game summoning a more standard unit can be a fine waste or a way of using the last of your reinforcement point pool. It makes summoning more of a cool option than a requirement to playing AoS. 

[Killax]

16 hours ago, Jamopower said:

There's also a reason why Vampire counts was mostly quite broken army as even with only zombies to summon, a "summon horde" army was very powerful (of course being unbreakable and causing fear helped also).

 

Edit: and in a game about objectives it would have been even worse.

 

That said, it would be nice to have a command trait giving bonus to casting summoning spells. I would like to summon stuff with my Chaos, but it is so uncertain it mostly isn't worth it.

Yep that first part is certainly true. GW had a real fear of Magic so to say aswell, as it's also quite limited in the basic rules of AoS.
As I see it I think we'll see Summon bonusses where it would fit. Largely in the form of indeed Command Traits and in the case of Death I'd make it a straight up Battle Trait. 

Currently summonning isn't bad, but nothing really is in AoS. What it isn't is interesting enough to become a large viable part for multiple armies. Though because summoning is working on other models to synergize in the first place it's very difficult to put a 'correct' cost on it.

So instead of putting a correct cost on that I'd gladly see Death factions having specific Battle Traits that allow them to 'cheaper' Summon specific Units with specific Keywords. What this does is add flavour and power, but in a way that it's still restricted to theme, instead of unrestricted or simply lowering costs of Units.

[Jamopower]

The idea about summoners having abilities that would make give bonuses to summoned units sounds like a great idea. There could be all sorts of possibilities from re-rollable saves on the summoning turn to possibility to summon closer to the enemy.

[KnightFire]

I like the ideas of keeping points, but giving an advantage to summoned units, but rather than from the summoners, you could just improve the summon spells, with different units getting different bonuses - e.g. can move after being summoned, bonus to charge after being summoned, +1 to hit until next hero phase, +1 save until next hero phase, nearby enemy get -1 bravery until next hero phase etc.

You could give units like bats and dire wolves some real flavour and in game ability by making them do what you would imagine they would in the turn that they are summoned. A swarm of bats suddenly appearing could give nearby enemies -1 to shoot until your next hero phase, making them great to summon in front of a gunline, wheras dire wolves could get bonuses to charge, making them a cheap unit you can summon and have a good chance of getting them into combat in that turn, to slow down parts of a combat army. 

 

[Turragor]

Why not give summoning a much greater range and have it a bit like stormcast scions of the storm.

I mean, the dead are no doubt lying everywhere in the mortal realms.

I dont think anything needs to be free of points costs. That way lies madness.

/edit even summoning directly into combat is handy for deaths current weaknesses? (am not a death player)

You might grant unbinds to within range of the summoning point instead of the caster.

[Killax]

16 minutes ago, Turragor said:

Why not give summoning a much greater range and have it a bit like stormcast scions of the storm.
I mean, the dead are no doubt lying everywhere in the mortal realms.

I dont think anything needs to be free of points costs. That way lies madness.

/edit even summoning directly into combat is handy for deaths current weaknesses? (am not a death player)
You might grant unbinds to within range of the summoning point instead of the caster.

It's one of the ideas to add to an Artefact I'd say. Again Summoning isn't a 'one-rule-fix' kind of deal. Summoning undead ideally should work out differently from summoning Saurians or Daemons. As for them lying everywhere... Don't know my AoS lore enough to comment on that. 

Free of point costs are allready typical to Age of Sigmar, Battle Traits, Command Traits, Artefacts and direct Spell List upgrades are FREE OF COST. This isn't madness, this is the game working on the rules it was initially designed with. The only place where costs are attached at all is for Matched play.  

Summoning into combat is another cool idea, if it fits. As before Warhammer Fantasy's Bloodlines offered a depth to Vampires and Undead characters that Age of Sigmar currently does not offer. This is exactly where the issue lies for Death in general, it isn't even exclusive to Summoning at this point. Though Summoning as a general rule isn't fleshed out well enough for Matched play to be honest.

So as before, I'd like to see all ideas fleshed out, but in a logic dictated by Narrative in the said factions. For example Chaos currently doesn't have amazing Daemonic Summoning, it would be very cool to see Everchosen or Slaves to Darkness eventually recieve a Hero for that. Something akin to a Age of Sigmar Word Bearer Chaos Lord would not only potentially look awesome it would also be easy to blend into the Narrative. 
In that same vein I think Khorne Lords care much less about summoning (and this is also reflected) because they most certainly have faith in their own combat poweress to purely focus on that. Much was true for WFB's old Vampire Blood Dragons bloodline who didn't care as much about summoning as for example the Necrachs, likewise I see summoning into chaotic melee as something perfect to add to a Strigoi bloodline. So where does this all thake us? Directly into FREE Command Traits, Artefacts, Battle Line and likely Spell lists upgrades exclusive to a sub-faction specialisation of the Death Alliance.