How much do you think summoning will affect the 'meta' in AoS 2?

[Jamopower]

9 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

mbined with massive units it becomes very powerful.  Personally I've said for a while that you shouldn't be able to spend more than 25~35% of your points on a single unit.  As an example that means you could only field a unit of 20 skeletons at 500 points and couldn't field a unit of Morghasts - but it would also mean you couldn't play BCR at that level.

I will grant you that gravesites don't scale - I'd probably say 2 for every 1000 though.

I agree that the max size of units should be smaller in smaller games, but even with those percentages, you can get units such as 40 skeletons in 1000 points, which is not fun at all. Even bit less frightful 10 hexwraiths, or 6 spirit hosts, or 10 black knights are very powerful in those sizes if you can easily recycle them, especially in a more casual environment where everyone are not playing the latest battletome armies. Those units can easily destroy a unit or two before they die, which is a good dent of an army, especially in a game with multiple objectives. Essentially the summoning abilities are more or less twice as good in 1000 points as they are in 2000 point game.

 

As a side note, beast claw raiders in a 500 point match doesn't sound too interesting as a game.  For 500 points, it's good to halve the minimum size of the units as the game really benefits on having at least 5 units per side on the table. 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

I think that there are so many changes being done in the game that it's impossible to make a statement that summoning is going to dominate the meta - yet.

From the information we know, I think there is the potential to make some super strong summoning lists - to the point that we may well get errata's to balance them.  Most armies have weak points in their summoning strategy, LoN is dependant upon the general, a command point and a gravesite being free.  Tzeentch is dependant upon spells being cast, Khorne units being killed etc.

I don't think Endless Legions is overpowered in small games, however when combined with massive units it becomes very powerful.  Personally I've said for a while that you shouldn't be able to spend more than 25~35% of your points on a single unit.  As an example that means you could only field a unit of 20 skeletons at 500 points and couldn't field a unit of Morghasts - but it would also mean you couldn't play BCR at that level.

I will grant you that gravesites don't scale - I'd probably say 2 for every 1000 though.

There's not though. The game is remaining mostly the same. Shooting hit a few nerfs and endless spells and free summoning are the big changes. Everything else is really minor compared to that. Games will continue to play out roughly the same for non summoning armies than they did before.

[Carnelian]

2 hours ago, Planar said:

Killing the general is not a solution any more since you can nominate a new general in the new edition

I'm pretty sure people have been saying that is not the case in matched play

[Enoby]

8 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

I'm pretty sure people have been saying that is not the case in matched play

I really hope that you can't nominate a new general in matched play. Needing to prioritize targets is a really important part of the game, and nullifying that removes strategy and the satisfaction of a successful (as well as meaningful) assassination. 

[RuneBrush]

11 minutes ago, stratigo said:

There's not though. The game is remaining mostly the same. Shooting hit a few nerfs and endless spells and free summoning are the big changes. Everything else is really minor compared to that. Games will continue to play out roughly the same for non summoning armies than they did before.

You're forgetting the new & changed battleplans and points/battleline changes.  Many non-summoning armies have received points drops which means they can field more models on the table.  We can't conclude that non-summoning armies will play the same as they did previously unless they've received zero changes.

[Planar]

18 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

I'm pretty sure people have been saying that is not the case in matched play

Must have missed that. My bad!

[Jamopower]

23 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

You're forgetting the new & changed battleplans and points/battleline changes.  Many non-summoning armies have received points drops which means they can field more models on the table.  We can't conclude that non-summoning armies will play the same as they did previously unless they've received zero changes.

For the armies that are/were somewhat frequently seen at the top tables, there were more points increases than decreases (Khorne, mixed order, Tzeentch, Fyreslayers), like it should be. Outside those, the decreases seem to be more for the units that are hard to see having a big impact on the competitive side of things, like steam tanks and such. Maybe Sylvaneth (who happen to also summon stuff) and some destruction stuff (with the reduction for the mammoths) will raise their heads again a bit. The command points will likely have an impact also, especially as it seems that there is no limits on how many times you can use them. That's bound to create some deathstar type of armies where you buff up a big unit with 4-5 command abilities for a turn and let it loose.

Battleplans will have an impact though, although I have a feeling that if there are some changes, the summoning armies are those who benefit more from them, as the main advantage in the whole summoning mechanism is with the objectives and it's hard to see that they would change them to be less objective focused.

[stickybluetoffee]

I played LoN last night. I think I would have got a chance to summon (we had to call it due to time) but only because my general was a small character I was able to bubble wrap. However, I nearly had that plan foiled due to where my grave sites were. Managing this all is going to be quite tricky.

Had I summoned it would have made a significant difference in that game.

If I’d had a VLoZD as my general I think it would have been even harder trying to keep him in range of a gravesite and still contributing to the game. Giving up a turn with a 440 point model to resummon a even a unit of Grave Guard is a tough choice.

[Jamopower]

Now with bit more of insight to the new edition, I would say that the multiple command abilities will be the main thing to change how the game is played, not the summoning. It can cause some ridiculous stuff and is very easy to apply, unlike the summoning, which is bit more of a finesse thing.

[mmimzie]

3 hours ago, Jamopower said:

Now with bit more of insight to the new edition, I would say that the multiple command abilities will be the main thing to change how the game is played, not the summoning. It can cause some ridiculous stuff and is very easy to apply, unlike the summoning, which is bit more of a finesse thing.

I agree one small example is deepkin who can spam +1 attack on morrsarr guard who each have multiple muti damage attack profiles. Death can do similar.  I dont know all the combos of the game, but I'm sure there is more nasty stuff to uncover. 

 

Iron jaws can go bonkers and get the whole army in combat in a single turn just about. Combine that with using ardfist that let's them bring back dead units, and that seems pretty solid. 

 

I think summoning will be powerful in armies where you can do the summoning on top of bringing something powerful.  It's why my money is on tzneetch despite point changes. Access to the endless spell with powerful wizard. Spells that can target out and snipe any summoning characters.  While also having splitting horrors and summoning via successful spells.

[stratigo]

12 hours ago, Jamopower said:

Now with bit more of insight to the new edition, I would say that the multiple command abilities will be the main thing to change how the game is played, not the summoning. It can cause some ridiculous stuff and is very easy to apply, unlike the summoning, which is bit more of a finesse thing.

Being 100 percent honest, I am still expecting there to be SOMETHING that prevents this. This is quite silly.

 

Also summoning armies will still abuse this while getting a free bloodthirster or something

[Jamopower]

5 hours ago, stratigo said:

Being 100 percent honest, I am still expecting there to be SOMETHING that prevents this. This is quite silly.

 

Also summoning armies will still abuse this while getting a free bloodthirster or something

Yeah, I hope so. It sounds so stupid if you can just spam the same ability from same hero multiple times to an unit. And it also allows for "interesting" stuff like +4 attacks. Still even if it is not allowed, there are armies (such as legions of nagash) that have multiple good abilities and their stacking is for sure to be allowed as they used is an example in the LoN preview. 

[mmimzie]

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

Yeah, I hope so. It sounds so stupid if you can just spam the same ability from same hero multiple times to an unit. And it also allows for "interesting" stuff like +4 attacks. Still even if it is not allowed, there are armies (such as legions of nagash) that have multiple good abilities and their stacking is for sure to be allowed as they used is an example in the LoN preview. 

Appart from that big factions like mixed chaos and order could also take advantage of this as well. So restricting it only just pointless makes those larger factions/ armies just pointlessly better for no real reason. 

Honestly if you save up X turns to throw down +4/5 attacks thats a pretty big investment and it's cool that such and investment can be reward in a risk vs reward style game play.   in my opinion.

[Jamopower]

Well you don't trlly have to save much, just buy two for 100 and have a batallion (or onr of those traits that give command points, GA order at lesst has one) and you can use four already on first turn. I could bet money that there are plenty of combos that do it if it's not restricted anyhow. If it's valid strategy, we'll see, but it's so easy to do (and also quite awesome)  that many will at least try it. 

[Keldaur]

21 hours ago, Jamopower said:

Now with bit more of insight to the new edition, I would say that the multiple command abilities will be the main thing to change how the game is played, not the summoning. It can cause some ridiculous stuff and is very easy to apply, unlike the summoning, which is bit more of a finesse thing.

Half agree, not only multiple command abilities, but multiple command points spend. The vectors and timing of when many units can engage will change. Deep strikers rerolling their charges paired with the +2 charge endless spell, run&charge getting the guaranteed 6", etc.

Summoning, as far i have seen it, doesn't seem as powerful as before. Death is the only one who can get the most out of it, but first it needs a spicy unit to die, second he needs to keep his general alive and the space wholy withing a tomb to deploy it. Tzeench, sure the split seems nice, but you are paying 200 points for that, and you don't get to put what you needed/wanted with total agency outside of the reinforcement's restriction, no more turn 1 herald of tzeench with tzeench bolt, no more keeping this objective this turn due to splitting, etc.

 

[Keldaur]

8 hours ago, stratigo said:

Also summoning armies will still abuse this while getting a free bloodthirster or something

Taking a free bloodthirsters stops Khorne from doing so much stuff, and would get so late in the game that i would gladly accept my opponent using his tithe points for that.

[Jamopower]

I'd say seraphon have the best summoning as it's quite easy and they have the teleports and other shenanigans to put it to full use. 

A further thought on command abilities. The main effect of it is that you need to be prepared to stuff like fully beefed up unit of blight kings/40 skeletons with 240 attacks/etc. charging your whole army on turn one or two. Don't know if it's different from what the daughter do already though. 

[Roark]

Yeah, I don't anyone should lose too much sleep over Khorne's summoning. It uses the same currency as our army trait... and unlike other summoning armies (from what I've heard), the whole bank is spent upon use.

I'm slightly amused and bemused that we are considered to be a frequent "top table" army...

[Carnith]

Slaanesh just got an overall buff when it comes to summoning. Our prices stayed the same, but our lists will want to max out heroes. We want our heroes dishing out damage, and receiving damage in return. My plans are to make it as hard as possible for the enemy to accomplish the goal though of removing my heroes, but I've worked it out that I can get a total of 2 keeper of secrets in my army of just my heroes dying. Now, that's somewhat not perfect considering if all of my heroes died in the same turn, then it doesn't matter how much points I gained since I cannot summon, but gaining about 520 in free points, can really help put my army a bit over the edge.  Also for 3 more wounds done, overall I could summon in 600 points of daemonettes. 

For a fairly mid-tier army, Slaanesh really moved up and has more options. 

[blueshirtman]

I think what could make slanesh really good, is a hero with range ability. Does damge done by spell count for getting summoning points?

[Carnith]

It'll probably be ruled no as the ruling states wounds, and not wounds or mortal wounds. I'd see the arguement it should be for both, but it'd make exalted chariots way too good as they could crash into a giant group of multi-wound and gain something like 5-6 points based on MW charge and gain the 8 from their death anyways, almost gaurenteeing you a brand new chariot. 

[Enoby]

I'm pretty sure mortal wounds count for depravity points, using this ruling in AoS 2. It says a mortal wound is treated as a wound for all purposes after it has been allocated. 

[Carnith]

Well then, even better. Question is, will chariots MW count for depravity? Cause they'd be great to slam into stormcast either way. Need to know if i'm capping myself on depravity. I'd say no based on what this picture shows and that the mw caused my chariots count towards depravity. 

I'm going to need more models.

[stratigo]

21 hours ago, Keldaur said:

Half agree, not only multiple command abilities, but multiple command points spend. The vectors and timing of when many units can engage will change. Deep strikers rerolling their charges paired with the +2 charge endless spell, run&charge getting the guaranteed 6", etc.

Summoning, as far i have seen it, doesn't seem as powerful as before. Death is the only one who can get the most out of it, but first it needs a spicy unit to die, second he needs to keep his general alive and the space wholy withing a tomb to deploy it. Tzeench, sure the split seems nice, but you are paying 200 points for that, and you don't get to put what you needed/wanted with total agency outside of the reinforcement's restriction, no more turn 1 herald of tzeench with tzeench bolt, no more keeping this objective this turn due to splitting, etc.

 

Nurgle gains contagion points for playing the game. They do nothing special and give nothing up to get them and they get A LOT. you'll be seeing quite the number of free summoned units in an already dead hard army.

 

Seraphon give up bad spellcasting in a slann. Oh no. Everything else the slann does (teleports and ability buffs) are unaffected. He'll be helping poop out units. Also the engine just relies on a dice roll. You're gonna be seeing a lot of engines.

 

Khorne gets points for... things dying (and you can build around this). And can summon a bloodthirster (or archaon if they haven't caught that. A free bloodthirster turn 3 is still fugging scary). Oh, wait, know what else if a demon of khorne? An exalted blood thirster. Boy will one of those for free be fun to play against.

 

Sylvaneth just magically summon dryads. And allerielle gets a treelord for free too.

21 hours ago, Keldaur said:

Taking a free bloodthirsters stops Khorne from doing so much stuff, and would get so late in the game that i would gladly accept my opponent using his tithe points for that.

You can build an army around generating extra blood tithe points and pop it turn three. Or earlier if you are really going for it. A free exalted greater demon, which is, what, a 500 point model. Yeah. That's fun and fair.

 

20 hours ago, Roark said:

Yeah, I don't anyone should lose too much sleep over Khorne's summoning. It uses the same currency as our army trait... and unlike other summoning armies (from what I've heard), the whole bank is spent upon use.

I'm slightly amused and bemused that we are considered to be a frequent "top table" army...

Build around blood tithe points, get an extra 500 points. That's a pretty darn good deal. And khorne is very much not the best summoning army either. So, that tells you something about summoning. I'd give up an extra pile in and attack, or healing d3 wounds to gain a 500 point model.

[Roark]

47 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Build around blood tithe points, get an extra 500 points. That's a pretty darn good deal. And khorne is very much not the best summoning army either. So, that tells you something about summoning. I'd give up an extra pile in and attack, or healing d3 wounds to gain a 500 point model.

Mate, if we build around summoning, we're not building for combat (ie: our one thing). A sub-optimal force on the field is going to need those reinforcements. And the summoning table doesn't include anything remotely close to 500pts. And those abilities are worth 4 and 5 Tithe respectively, not 8, so yeah that would be a great trade-off.

I'm guessing you don't play Khorne eh... ;-)