Topic: Rules topic: Summoning

[Oxycutor]

This seems to be one of the most discussed areas of the rules, and there doesn't appear to be a consensus.

So, what is your take on it?

[StealthKnightSteg]

Well summoning means no other spell in that slot will be used (magic shield, bolt), and I have yet to see it become game breaking, but then again haven't really seen the whole potential it could bring (only 2 summons in a 4 way battle). Summoning can fail to cast and well it just gives you a main target to take out quick..

[Oxycutor]

I haven't seen it game breaking either, well only once, but one guy wanted to try out Nagash, which is a whole different ball game when it comes to summoning.   And yeah, summoners become HVTs(High Value Targets - I've taken a summoning player by surprise, to his horror, who had bean boasting that nobody could beat a summoning army, and I broke him on turn 1, before he even had a go)

How do you deal with it though, do you play it as though you have to have a unit of type in play in or to enable to the spell, or do you take it a Chaos Wizard, Death Wizard or Slann or whatever always know all the summoning spells that are relevant to their faction?

And then what about summoned units that can summon, like some of the Deamons of Chaos?  Do you allow them to also summon in the turn they arrive?   In theory this could go on and on, until they run out of stuff to summon, and each time you kill it, they can summon it again.   However, given that you have to carry stuff to games, I'm not sure that is likely to be abused, especially as it would also slow the game down quite a bit.

[undivided.capital]

My group hasn't found it game breaking. It is fricken tough though. Also we noticed that as we play bigger games death is just incredible. We attributed this to the amount of buffs that the heroes give as well as summoning.

Either way, I think if you want to play AoS you have to take something that can reach your opponent's "family jewles" whether is be flyers or cannons.

[Oxycutor]

Stormcasts can really get at summoner quickly,  being able to lightning strike in helps a lot,  and anyone else,  if you can take ranged stuff, and get the first turn,  you can maybe get one or two summoner out of action quickly before they can even cast.

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[Dosiere]

We tried having any summonable models count against your point limit for the game and just banning it outright. 

I would say at the very least just ban Nagash and don't let summoned models act in the hero phase the turn they are summoned.

I think it totally depends on what you are trying to do with the game.  At the club, as a pick up game?  Just ban it, it really serves no purpose and there are other ways to deploy close to enemy forces if you really want to, like the options Stormcast have. 

At home I didn't really worry about it though, aside from Nagash which should probably never be used anyway he takes a lot of the fun out of games.

[undivided.capital]

Do you men just ban summoning? Isn't that a little extreme? 

[Oxycutor]

I'd never go for the ban option.  If someone has shelled out on Nagash, and put the effort into painting it, for people to turn round and say no, you can't have that just ain't on.    I'd agree to play him as long as I can pick the scenario, in which case I'd pick a scenario I'd get the first turn, and the victory conditions were favourable.   Or if he's got other units, take advantage of deployment rules to get the first turn.  if you can get him down a few wounds, preferably close to half way or more in the first turn, you can really dent his casting power.

Of course, If I was to use Nagash, I wouldn't just turn up with him and say, haha, here is my army, I'd say next time I fancy using Nagash, want to take him on?

[Dosiere]

Do you men just ban summoning? Isn't that a little extreme? 

Again, totally depends on what you're trying to accomplish.  In my case, I am speaking mostly from a position of the players trying to make it work easily as a pick up game at the store.  When AoS first dropped, summoning was an issue for people.  It really only becomes silly with a handful of units (like Nagash), but the simple and quickest way to deal with it is just to get rid of it.

 The problem was made more acute when we were using points, as summoning several nasty things early in the game often led to it being very one sided, which is what was trying to be avoided.  Hence the decision to just include any summonable units in your forces point allowance, which is what was ultimately the case rather than banning anything.

I'd never go for the ban option.  If someone has shelled out on Nagash, and put the effort into painting it, for people to turn round and say no, you can't have that just ain't on.    I'd agree to play him as long as I can pick the scenario, in which case I'd pick a scenario I'd get the first turn, and the victory conditions were favourable.   Or if he's got other units, take advantage of deployment rules to get the first turn.  if you can get him down a few wounds, preferably close to half way or more in the first turn, you can really dent his casting power.

Of course, If I was to use Nagash, I wouldn't just turn up with him and say, haha, here is my army, I'd say next time I fancy using Nagash, want to take him on?

What was settled on after a few weeks was simply to get rid of summoning, which "fixed" Nagash enough that people didn't mind it.  It was felt this was a better solution than just banning the model and rules entirely, for reasons you point out. After that, we went with the idea of including any units you can summon in your points cost as noted above, which made it a non-issue after that.  THis had the effect of nerfing summoning of course so people rarely used it anyway, but at least the option is still there.

This whole thing was brought on by the way the rules for summoning and sudden death interact as well.  IT was a common sight to see a much smaller force that had strong summoning abilities get the instant death rule, which then via summoning defeated the purpose of the rule.

I guess the point is that summoning is very hard to balance IF that's your goal.  It's very random, but also very powerful when it works in your favor and in the interest of having interesting games that aren't over in turn 2 we picked up a point system and didn't allow models to be summoned that weren't part of your pre-game list.

[StealthKnightSteg]

Just read up on a battle report for a month long campaign where they limited summoning like this:

Non summoning army (you can choose to not summoning) 130 wounds limit
Summoning army 100 wounds limit with a side list of 50 wounds to summon

That might work.. to even things out a bit

[Sharkbelly]

Interesting compromise. I'd hate to see it banned outright, especially for armies like the undead...

[undivided.capital]

I don't really think it is necessary to nerf summoning at all. Just make it so that you can only summon the things from within your wound limit or point limit.

Also you can note that the summoner wouldnt be able to raise anything that didnt start on the board because the spell comes with the unit.

"Of course, If I was to use Nagash, I wouldn't just turn up with him and say, haha, here is my army, I'd say next time I fancy using Nagash, want to take him on?"

I really like this idea best. It is what us Hobbit players do with Smaug too. and no one ever has a problem.

[StealthKnightSteg]

Also you can note that the summoner wouldnt be able to raise anything that didnt start on the board because the spell comes with the unit.

I like to react on this..

As I believe that the Summoner knows the spell as soon as you got the unit available.. not just on the table.
Normally I would shoot down any suggestion to this when trying to summon proxies of stuff.. then you clearly don't have it. Unless before the game started it was asked if they could use a proxy unit to test it.

[Sharkbelly]

I would say at the very least just ban Nagash

Not a good idea... he gets mad...