Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Resummon?

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**HawaiiMatt**

A local guy came up with an idea on summoning, after watching a handful of Pink Horrors turn into an overwhelming tide of pink horrors.

Basically, you can only create new units from summoning out of your "dead pile."
You've got to lose the models before you can create them again.

In a scroll/wound limit format, it seems like a good balance.
Likewise, it makes the stupidly high bravery of demons work against them a little, if you don't flee and die, then you cannot come back.

-Matt

**Hettar**

Have you read the additional scenario rules i nthe new age of sigmar book? there is literally so many different ways of getting reinforcements now is there any point to any limitations?

**JohnHwangDD**

Isn't Summoning already balanced?

AoS rules, p.2 wrote:GLORIOUS VICTORY

In the Mortal Realms battles are brutal and uncompromising – they are fought to the bitter end, with one side able to claim victory because it has destroyed its foe or there are no enemy models left on the field of battle. The victor can immediately claim a major victory and the honours and triumphs that are due to them, while the defeated must repair to their lair to lick their wounds and bear the shame of failure.

If it has not been possible to fight a battle to its conclusion or the outcome is not obvious, then a result of sorts can be calculated by comparing the number of models removed from play with the number of models originally set up for the battle for each army. Expressing these as percentages provides a simple way to determine the winner. Such a victory can only be claimed as a minor victory. For example, if one player lost 75% of their starting models, and the other player lost 50%, then the player that only lost 50% of their models could claim a minor victory.

Models added to your army during the game (for example, through summoning, reinforcements, reincarnation and so on) do not count towards the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers.

If you summon a lot of models, you have to table your opponent, to "claim a major victory."

However, upon tabling, the opponent should then immediately state that "the outcome is not obvious," and require that " a result of sorts can be calculated by comparing the number of models removed from play with the number of models originally set up for the battle for each army."

If the summoner causes 100% casualties (tabling 50/50 enemy models), but suffered 120% casualties (30 summoned daemons "auto-lost" out of 25 starting models), then the player who was tabled "could claim a minor victory", replacing the incorrectly-claimed major victory.

Doesn't this automatically balance the power of summoning?

Or rather, shift the summoning toward preferring Greater Daemons with many wounds per model?

**Lord Corellia**

I wouldn't call that balanced though, because it only effects the game if you call it before everything in one army is killed. Seeing as how the rules (such as they are) state that the game should end when one side is wiped out then it should rarely come up. Conversely, if one side can summon a feth load of minis then it will be much more difficult to beat them since wiping their force is harder.

**JohnHwangDD**

As edited, if I'm tabled by someone who summons a lot of models, I'm going to dispute the claimed major victory as "not obvious" and force a calculation so I can claim minor victory instead.

**Lord Corellia**

Ah, fair enough. I still think there should be some limit or drawback to excessive summoning. Admittedly, I haven't looked into the rules for summoning but the way people are talking about it it seems like summoning massive hordes is easy.

**JohnHwangDD**

With high-enough level Wizards and such, I think it's not too hard to summon a lot of stuff. I just don't think people are paying much attention to the "count as casualties" bit.

**HawaiiMatt**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
With high-enough level Wizards and such, I think it's not too hard to summon a lot of stuff. I just don't think people are paying much attention to the "count as casualties" bit.

With ~30 models on the table at the start of the game, another 5 or 6 vampire lord riding zombie dragons hardly shift the casualty count significantly.
Summoning 30 grave guard might be a problem, but that's not the case with the single model units.

**JohnHwangDD**

HawaiiMatt wrote:
With ~30 models on the table at the start of the game, another 5 or 6 vampire lord riding zombie dragons hardly shift the casualty count significantly.
Summoning 30 grave guard might be a problem, but that's not the case with the single model units.

Sure, hence my thought that one might "shift the summoning toward preferring Greater Daemons with many wounds per model?"

Or, Vampire Lords on Zombie Dragons, in the case of Undead vs Daemons.

Which probably works fine for GW, as they probably drive higher margin on those mega kits vs RnF infantry. RnF infantry that Undead players probably already own from the Horde push in WFB8.

**NinthMusketeer**

The contesting victory as 'not obvious' works somewhat (it's a bit TFG, but so is summoning that many models in the first place...) though the opponent could disagree, forcing the "roll a 4+" clause. Essentially this turns the decision of victory into the result of a coin flip, assuming they spammed numbers and not just a few powerful ones.

Perhaps its best to just avoid players who are summoning that much.

**JohnHwangDD**

Gotta say, if the Laws of War PDF isn't fake, GW did a pretty good job of placing a lid on summoned units:

LAWS OF WAR - ULGU

SPECIAL RULES
Entangling Mist: If your opponent would “summon” a new unit onto the
battlefield (not considering units with special deployment rules which
were set up with the rest of the army), roll a D6. On a 4+ the unit gets lost
and doesn’t appear. In addition, each newly created unit can only contain a
maximum of 10 wounds. New units created from scenario rules or from the
Laws of War – Shyish warscroll are not affected by these rules.

Half the time, they don't appear when called, and they can never have more than 10 wounds. It doesn't shut things down, it just slows things down.

Amusingly, this shuts out Bloodthirsters from being Summoned.