Summoning / Reinforcement Pts Alternative

[Nikobot]

There has been speculation that reinforcement/summoning may change in the future of AOS matched play. Nurgle is doing it different, no longer summoning via spells but rather by contagion point accumulation. Yet at matched play it doesn't seem to have been received as anything game changing due to the requirement of taking reinforcement points still in force.

A friend of mine made a suggestion and I thought it had merit, wondering what others thought.

Basic way it works would be using summoning points (e.g. contagion points) to summon, paying points depending on what you summon, and those units summoned only last a certain amount of time, usually 1 turn, possibly more, but you can pay to extend their stay. After their time runs out, they start to fade (seraphon)/crumble (undead)/disappear (daemons) etc.

Key elements of it are :
- Reinforcement points not required to be taken
- Summoning systems would move away from using spells to summon and adopt a "summoning points" accumulation systems like Nurgle has
- When a unit is summoned, it only lasts 1 turn
- You pay more summoning points to make the unit last longer, say another 1 turn

Possible changes :
- A dice roll could alter how long a unit might stay after initially summoned, or if additional points are paid to extend their stay, might be 2-3 turns at most.
Might be roll a d6 and on a 6+ the units stays an additional turn before starting to fade.
- Might still require reinforcement points to be taken, but as a maximum pool, meaning if something fades or dies then room in the pool opens and you can summon more units up to the total size of your reinforcement points. So once you expend reinforcement points you can get them back, they aren't one use only.
- When units start to fade they lose d6 wounds at the start of each their hero phases

It seemed in this way summoning could move away from spells, and to points based systems without getting tooooo out of control, players would need to think about building to accumulate points, when to summon, what to summon, the chance a summoned unit wont hang around too long but if they invested appropriately they could still have benefit of the versatility of choosing what to summon, when to summon, where to summon.

Forces could be built to really get behind summoning with some of the usual risks of going too focused, but it seems better than having the risks of the only characters that can summon being sniped off. Its obvious Death are expected to get behind such a mechanic and could get bonuses and such to improve summoning. The whole system seems like it can be easily tweaked by adjusting summoning costs to each unit.

What do people think?

[RuneBrush]

I do think summoning is going to change, we had the start of it with Blades of Khorne (though rarely used in Matched Play) and now a new system in Maggotkin.  I can also see something new appearing in Legions of Nagash.  What I can't ever see is you having "free" units in an army within a Matched Play environment (I'm excluding the faction terrain we're starting to see), which means either reinforcement points or a tax of some kind on the army.  Even lasting just one turn, being able to plop down a Great Unclean One to clear an objective for basically no points cost is game changing.

As with all things within AoS the biggest challenge is keeping it simple - if you're having to put down tokens to mark that they're summoned or other such states then this is when it starts to become unwieldy and open to mistakes.

Some armies should be able to summon from the start too - Death and Seraphon both make sense to be able to pop up units from the beginning due to Necromantic/Star power.  The Chaos Gods make more sense to have to attract their God's attention before they start to reward them etc.  To this end it makes sense for each army to have it's own summoning mechanic rather than one generic one.  It certainly makes things more thematic!

[Killax]

Hi! Cool topic.

For both Matched play in AoS and 40K I think the simplest solution is often the best. For me this would lead to the following:

- Summonning, like prayers, can't be dispelled and can be done multiple times even if failed by specific Characters. Ideally it has little to nothing to do with regular offensive/defensive magic.
- Summonning doesn't have to be tied to any other point system in my opinion. For Matched play however I would limit the ammount of units summonned to 25% of the matched play point army. So for 2000 points you could summon up to a maximum of 500 points. 

Note: I think/believe that Death Allegiances (maby not all but certainly those who are made up of undead) can adopt an additional point system that opens X points for X units killed so they effectively use their enemy corpses for their own purposes to some extend in battle.

E.g. 1 unit killed could lead to 100 points of 'free' summonning/adding to units. However like Blood Tithe points I would then specifically state that the use of these points leads to an all or nothing deal. So; if you have 4 points (4 oppossing units destroyed) you could summon up to 0-400 but once you do no points are left, so summonning 200 points of something still leads to 0 points left.

It could be seen as bland but the issue I have with Contagion points or summonning ala 40k is that there are parts that are too restricted and parts who are unrestricted. E.g. in 40k you need to have a unit on board to deep strike one. However this can lead to a 60 point unit on board allowing for 500+ points to be deep-striked, which in game terms feels very silly. Cool and powerful too but not really a balance to those who don't have acces to 60 point units.

A simple mandate of 25% is competitively speaking impacting a game without thaking it over.

[Killax]

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Some armies should be able to summon from the start too - Death and Seraphon both make sense to be able to pop up units from the beginning due to Necromantic/Star power.  The Chaos Gods make more sense to have to attract their God's attention before they start to reward them etc.  To this end it makes sense for each army to have it's own summoning mechanic rather than one generic one.  It certainly makes things more thematic!

I agree that the summonning engines should differ. At the same time though like having points for Matched play for competitive balancing reasons I do believe some overlapping cap should be presented for several reasons.

Summonning/deep striking/teleporting is a great aspect of the game but at the same time I also don't feel it should be a massive priority in the game. Not even for armies like Death.

There is an aspect to preparing your army for battle and even with the fantastical AoS lore I refuse to believe that certain armies should be capable to be made up on the fly when war is allready happing. It just removes important aspects of deployment and basically gives another disadvantage to having multiple units to deploy/no relevant Battalions.

[Turragor]

I have to just copy a post I made elsewhere on this:

Quote

What's the core motivation in trying to make summoning take armies over 2,000 points in matched play?  I don't see why people want that advantage (or disadvantage if they get no rolls off during a game). It seems like a complete wild card for balance and I know the main complaint people level at AoS (GW in general) is their rules and balance application.

I think better balance is what makes matched play fun. Summoning throws it all out of joint. For example, you can't say "summoning opponent will average X points added over 5 rounds so his units cost 20% more to begin with"...

The only way to balance that kind of thing properly is to have the army start off at a matching, set point cost and then the summoned parts of the army arrive onto the board each round - but isn't that exactly how summoning works right now?

Contagion points move it more towards a more reliable way (no dice roll) that's a bit more thematic to get the stuff on the board.

I mean, if it's about fun and thematic games, play open or embrace summoning as a flexible unit choice option and deepstrikeesque delivery tool for your force in matched (and set points aside).

If you dislike how it's unreliable then the Nurgle change is pretty good news - no more cast roll failures.

 

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Killax said:

E.g. in 40k you need to have a unit on board to deep strike one

8th ed now has the rule that you must deploy 50% of your army at the beginning of the game even if it could all deep strike in, so they've sort of catered for the old "random model with a teleport homer" issues

Just now, Killax said:

I agree that the summonning engines should differ. At the same time though like having points for Matched play for competitive balancing reasons I do believe some overlapping cap should be presented for several reasons.

Summonning/deep striking/teleporting is a great aspect of the game but at the same time I also don't feel it should be a massive priority in the game. Not even for armies like Death.

There is an aspect to preparing your army for battle and even with the fantastical AoS lore I refuse to believe that certain armies should be capable to be made up on the fly when war is allready happing. It just removes important aspects of deployment and basically gives another disadvantage to having multiple units to deploy/no relevant Battalions.

Makes sense.  I've always felt that leaving points in the reinforcement pool was dicey - snipe that summoner out (or unbind repeatedly) and the army is hamstrung, which I guess is one of the reasons we don't see it used often.  I think we're at a "watch this space" point in time to see if many people pick up the new Nurgle summoning option.  Contagion points are going to restrict how many units are brought on during each game but how this relates to army builds I'm not sure, being able to swap around one or two units doesn't feel too powerful but I'm sure time will tell

[Killax]

6 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

8th ed now has the rule that you must deploy 50% of your army at the beginning of the game even if it could all deep strike in, so they've sort of catered for the old "random model with a teleport homer" issues

Makes sense.  I've always felt that leaving points in the reinforcement pool was dicey - snipe that summoner out (or unbind repeatedly) and the army is hamstrung, which I guess is one of the reasons we don't see it used often.  I think we're at a "watch this space" point in time to see if many people pick up the new Nurgle summoning option.  Contagion points are going to restrict how many units are brought on during each game but how this relates to army builds I'm not sure, being able to swap around one or two units doesn't feel too powerful but I'm sure time will tell

Yeah but that 50% can be 'less' when you factor in transports and the like. But the thing really is that it still feels a bit odd because the stronger choices usually include super cheap units on the board and expensive stuff played in as a form of denying that first turn shooting round... In any case, it kinda works but to me plays a bit of a too large part because it isn't limited to points or power levels. 

I too am looking forward on how the design team will handle it for AoS. But to be honest to those who are holding their breath, I think AoS design hasn't displayed "great summonning designs" just yet. To be honest it's also difficult to do right and becomes even more difficult when board placement plays such a large role with Objectives and the like.

All in all I think the easiest way to do it remains to link it to actual costs. Wether or not you want to play with Matched play point costs I think many would agree that "no summonning limit" is not a great alternative either. The prime reason as to why I'm not such a fan of Nurgle's thake on it or Khorne's for that matter is that you don't really have an option in the matter either. E.g. Khorne needs 8 BT points to do it, which is a lot really. Nurgle needs 21 points to bring in a GUO, again, this requires quite some turns....

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Killax said:

I too am looking forward on how the design team will handle it for AoS. But to be honest to those who are holding their breath, I think AoS design hasn't displayed "great summonning designs" just yet. To be honest it's also difficult to do right and becomes even more difficult when board placement plays such a large role with Objectives and the like.

Could be a good question to put to the design team at the Open Day in a month or so.

[Nikobot]

I don't think there is anything about summoning that is compelling at this stage. There seem to be a lack of any excitement about the Nurgle rules, touted as worse than before under current matched play restrictions. 

It seems something will need to change in order for it to become a major part of the game. 

Maybe a flat cap could work as you say Killax, build your force and pay the "tax", as well as play the game with sub-objectives in mind (units in deployment zones etc) in order to generate the summoning points to summon in up to a maximum of up to X points/percentage of units.

It will make things harder to balance but may not break the game.