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I've been thinking about summoning and, in my opinion, it is not nearly as powerful as many people think. I think there are implicit, hidden restrictions built into summoning that makes the idea of spamming infinite units unlikely.

1) Summoning spells can fail. A majority of them are likely to work, but the better the unit summoned, the more likely it is to fail. Bloodthirsters have a summon skill of 10, which means it will only succeed 1/9th of the time.

2) Wizards can only cast one spell per round. If the spell fails or the wizard decides to use his spell for something else, the onslaught of summoned warriors will be limited. So you'd need to bring multiple wizards.

3) Wizards can challenge other wizards to stop their spells. If you get a wizard within 18" of the enemy, he make it more difficult to summon.

4) Summoned units take up room. They must be summoned within 18" of the wizard and cannot move in the following movement phase, which means they'll still be there, taking up space during the next summon spell. Some units move very slowly, only 4" at a time, and may end up clogging the area for multiple turns. On a table with a heavy density of terrain, unit cohesion rules could make it problematic to find a legal space.

5) Summoned units are usually minimum unit sizes. Even though Skeleton Warriors can have 10+ models, summoning creates a new until of only 10 models. As a horde unit, they gain extra attacks for having 20 and 30 models, which the summoned versions will never have. In these cases, it is probably better to have the skeletons on the field from the start, rather than summoning them.

6) Summoned units can't be placed within 9" of an enemy unit. Smart positioning could greatly reduce the amount of space a summon has to place units. A single model can lock off a circle with an 18" diameter. A unit more so. Dryads must be summoned completely within Sylvaneth Wyldwoods terrain, 3" away from the enemy, so even one model placed directly in the middle could prevent any summoning happening there.

7) The player has to own enough models to do summon. You can't summon a hundred skeleton warriors if you don't have a hundred skeleton warriors.

8) In the Warhammer World campaign, players were instructed to bring 100 models to play with. With this limitation, your summoning pool is shared with all the other units you want to bring. Any limitation

9) When summoned units are slain, they are removed from play. To me, this suggests that they can not be re-summoned, as they are no longer part of your reserve army.

10) Summoned units are instantly counted as casualties, which means that in games which do not get completed for whatever reason, summon-heavy armies will pretty much lose.

This is not to suggest that summoning isn't powerful, or without limitations, way too powerful. I mean you can bring a hundred skeleton units and a half dozen wizards and absolutely flood the table, but the practicality of that example is suspect. There are actually quite a few limitations, both explicit and implicit, that can impede a spam onslaught, and opponents have a good number of ways to affect its viability before even the first pile in is achieved.

I watched a battle report - elves vs Vampire counts. 2 turns into the game some knights were eating away the necromancer's starting forces. The first thing he did after that was to try and summon things in the beginning of the round. I have the impression that summoned units may in some cases be weaker and the player will have to use summoning to win. Also this happened...

6) Summoned units can't be placed within 9" of an enemy unit. Smart positioning could greatly reduce the amount of space a summon has to place units. ..

The necromancer could only summon units in the back of his army where they were much more useless. To top it all, depending on the interpretation of the rules, once you wipe out any instances of a given unit from the battlefield it can't be summoned any longer.

Also you're giving up your chance of casting Arcane shield. Characters that can't be hidden in units are very vulnerable. Arcane shield is a commonly used spell in Warmachine (atleast in my Cygnar army) for that reason among others.

9 and 10 seem to be misinterpretations of the rules. Models added to your army during the game do not count towards the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers. So any casualties count, but it does not say that they immediately count as casualties.

And all models slain are removed from play. This has nothing to do with summoning units- nothing is "re-summoned". A unit is summoned and placed so long as the player has appropriate models.

 jmurph wrote:
9 and 10 seem to be misinterpretations of the rules. Models added to your army during the game do not count towards the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers. So any casualties count, but it does not say that they immediately count as casualties.

The rules state:

"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."

English is an imprecise language, so I had the idea to grab the German version of the rules and put that section through Google Translate:

"Models during the game your army
be added ( for example reinforcements
gene summoned or revived models )
do not count the number of models in the work
mee ; if among them but losses ,
so count this to your losses"

I don't know German so I don't know how accurate this is, but it does seem to indicate that your reading is correct.

And all models slain are removed from play. This has nothing to do with summoning units- nothing is "re-summoned". A unit is summoned and placed so long as the player has appropriate models.

Regarding set-up:

"You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to fight in this battle, or have run out of space. This is your army. Count the number of models in your army – this may come in useful later. Any remaining units are held in reserve, playing no part unless fate lends a hand."

And slain models:

"Once the number of wounds suffered by a model during the battle equals its Wounds characteristic, the model is slain. Place the slain model to one side – it is removed from play. Some warscrolls include abilities that allow wounds to be healed. A healed wound no longer has any effect. You can’t heal wounds on a model that has been slain."

I feel pretty confident on my interpretation of this one. Slain models are removed from play. They are no longer in your reserve with the rest of the models. The German version of the rules says to remove it from the game (spiel).

(I realize that using translations is kind of a stupid way to get official rulings on vague wording, but until GW releases a FAQ, it's the closest thing we have)

You raise a number of legitimate limitations, though some of them aren't too difficult to get around (hide the summoning wizard in the back to avoid dispel attempts), but really the problem is twofold; one is that summoning can still easily unbalance a game. They are free models going above and beyond whatever the players started with. If there's no balance/comp mechanism in play then it hardly matters but if there is then summoning will break that. In WHFB units that could be 'summoned' often had relatively high points costs relative to what they did to compensate, AoS hardly makes summon-able units weaker.

Two is that there are certain abilities/spells/combinations that break out of the initial mold. A Bray Shaman, for instance, can summon anything with the "Monster" keyword on a 9. Bloodthirster? Sure, but why bother when you could summon Glottkin or Nagash? A Herald of Tzeentch can summon another Herald on a 5. Once per game he can use 3 dice to cast a spell, giving him almost guaranteed success. The summoned Herald? Well he can summon another. And so on. Then when you decide to stop summoning they will all get to use their 18" shooting attack. Next turn if they don't feel like summoning they can use fire of tzeench spells to mop up whatever is left. While not technically summoning, a Chaos Lord's command ability adds any "Slave to Darkness" unit on a 4+ which, as it is not a spell, can't be stopped. That massive Chaos War Mammoth from FW? 4+ says it comes on within 5" of the board edge any distance from the enemy. It can move, shoot, and charge the same turn.

Now, there are ways summoning can be brought into line (including plain-old good sportsmanship) but I am addressing the initial comment about it not being so bad from a rules perspective. The above reasons are pretty much why people think that, and the examples are only a fraction of the cheese that people can pull off.

In rapidly finding the best counter for summoning is preventing them from being deployed by having the table covered.

One thing I noticed is that summoning heavy armies have little to no artillery or serious long range to speak of.

Another way to counter summoning is to put down models to out number them initially (hopefully without giving them the sudden death option)

Depends on what you are playing, if its scenario based... Depends on scenario, if it's basic "kill or be killed" just use the "casualties" rule and summoned things will be used wisely... Or if all else fails there is always that one rule oh yea... " THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE"... I usually ask for the casualties rule, they are summoned and do not count towards the army but count as casualties, as you have 1 herald who does his infinite summon, he stops summoning, I kill one unit auto win for me as he suffered 100% casualties... Even if he gets sudden death there is pretty much no way he can win... But this solely depends on the players playing, I would not really care... Let him summon as many things as he wants, the journey is more fun than the destination.

The initial question is one of if summoning is overpowered or not, obviously reasonable players would not abuse it in this way, but that's already making the conscious choice to hold back because the rules in question are overpowered. Army casualties only go so far, in the herald example you raised the summoning player could bring loads of tomb swarms and just burrow them the whole game, forcing his enemy to target the heralds. Chances are the heralds are going to win the casualty war very quickly. Not to mention if the summoner is putting into play massive monsters instead of numerous units. If I summon the Glottkin and a Chaos War Mammoth onto the board the casualty argument isn't exactly going to help.

Again, this stuff is cheesy and I would never endorse it on the table, but the fact that I am saying that already suggests summoning is overpowered. While the points raised do help, I don't feel that they hinder summoning enough to put it into practical terms.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The initial question is one of if summoning is overpowered or not, obviously reasonable players would not abuse it in this way, but that's already making the conscious choice to hold back because the rules in question are overpowered. Army casualties only go so far, in the herald example you raised the summoning player could bring loads of tomb swarms and just burrow them the whole game, forcing his enemy to target the heralds. Chances are the heralds are going to win the casualty war very quickly. Not to mention if the summoner is putting into play massive monsters instead of numerous units. If I summon the Glottkin and a Chaos War Mammoth onto the board the casualty argument isn't exactly going to help.

Again, this stuff is cheesy and I would never endorse it on the table, but the fact that I am saying that already suggests summoning is overpowered. While the points raised do help, I don't feel that they hinder summoning enough to put it into practical terms.

why would the heralds win casualties of war? It all really depends on both armies and what they bring, I couod bring out a whole load of anti magic things and make both summoning and the rest of your magic pointless l.

One high elf mage on a dragon would give the summoners fits, he'll counter spell, his mount hands out mortal wounds, it can fly past any units summoned to get to the meaty bits, his footprint is pretty intense, AND it can go toe to toe with just about anything in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other limitation on summoning is needing the models.

If you are summoning an army of daemons to win the game, I'll be damned if I am going to be cool with you using imperial guardsmen as stand-ins!

Don't forget if your opponent somehow summons a lot of models that you get to use the sudden death rules, which make it easy to win in one or two rounds.

I've seen many a 'summon' based army get curb stomped. Summoning is not as broken as many naysayers originally thought.

 455_PWR wrote:
Don't forget if your opponent somehow summons a lot of models that you get to use the sudden death rules, which make it easy to win in one or two rounds.

Naah, sudden death check happens after the generals are established and before the game begins. Summoned models don't count for sudden death.

I'm still not seeing a valid counterpoint to the idea that summoning is overpowered unless players take measures not to use it to its full potential. There have been a few vague counters to just a few of my examples while those I raised which don't fit with those counters aren't addressed. Further, these don't even include the actual point I'm making. I fear this will turn into a big back-and-forth over just one or two examples while the original point is ignored. At any rate, I think both sides have had their say so I'll just leave it here.

Nowhere in the rules does it say that you must summon from among the units held in reserve. There isn't any limitation like that, nor about similar units needing to be part of an army before others can be summoned.

In other words, if you have the models to put on the table and the wizard to summon them, you can. In my view that's the strength of summoning: you can get units back that have just been eliminated (technically they're not the same unit of course, you're just using the same models).

Cheers.

In the example of the tzeench heralds, you need the herald models to do so, then they are wasting their one use only of guaranteeing the spell goes off to get more daemons.

With that, they are single model units and I can stop them by closing g the distance next turn and invalidating their summoning potential. Then I kill them with basic troops, cavalry, and artillery. If they are all hiding in the back, I am disallowing them escape routes and gaining the bonuses from the terrain they are allowing me to sit in. He may have free units, my whole army is sitting in magical woodlands and gaining+1 to all of their saves.

For the chaos warriors, that ability is only usable by the lord if he is your general, and that means you aren't giving anyone I.munity to battleshock tests near them. So your lesser soldiers will die twice as fast any turn you decide to try and bring in a unit.

I'd like to make a rule that if you kill the wizard his summoned units vanish too.

Quiet Sage wrote:
Nowhere in the rules does it say that you must summon from among the units held in reserve. There isn't any limitation like that, nor about similar units needing to be part of an army before others can be summoned.

I think it is implied. With the first one, you bring all your models with you. The models you don't put on the table are put into your reserve automatically. Just by having the models, they are in reserve. Figures are removed from your reserve when you summon them, but do not return to your reserve when they die. Your reserve can only ever get smaller.

There's nothing that says you have to summon from your reserve, but I think asking a friend mid-game to borrow a horde of skeletons might be pushing it in the sportsmanship area.

As for needing to be part of the army, the point of confusion is that in order to have the summon spell, you must have the warscroll. I think some people read this as having an army with that warscroll on the table, but I think it just means that you have access to the warscroll. In games where you are limited in the warscrolls you can bring (Bring 1 monster, 1-2 heroes, 4 troop warscrolls), this would come out of your allocation of warscrolls. It says "You will need warscrolls for the units you want to use", so if you are limited by warscroll, you are limited in what you can summon.

I also assume that multiple units of the same time require multiple warscrolls of the same time, since limiting it to 1 monster would be silly if you could field a dozen of the same monster. By that logic, you can't use one warscroll to summon multiple units of skeletons (in warscroll-limited engagements).

(EDIT - I think I'm wrong here, as the warscroll simply adds a spell. The spell spawns the units, not another warscroll. So one warscroll can describe multiple units, I guess. This means that you'd need a second limitation on army size. So warscroll limits + wound or model limits)

So, you don't need a unit of them on the table, but you do need to have access to the warscroll to summon them. That only matters when limiting the warscrolls you can use, which is probably a good policy whenever you want to affect how powerful summoning can be.

In other words, if you have the models to put on the table and the wizard to summon them, you can. In my view that's the strength of summoning: you can get units back that have just been eliminated (technically they're not the same unit of course, you're just using the same models).

Slain models are put off to the side and removed from play. They are removed from the game and cannot be summoned again.

In this instance I think you're attributing a far tighter use of language than GW have demonstrated thus far!
Summoning is boundless - if you have the models and they're not on the board, you can summon them; references to removed from play etc. are concepts refined in games like WMH, but in AoS it's just a turn of phrase - it's not defined.

Summoning can be broken when stretched, but so can deployment with any force. Summoning can be countered with a number of methodologies - but if you don't plan/play to do so, then no - you're going to hate it.

Indeed, removed from play is not a notion in GW terms. It is a notion in WMH.

Summoning is such a crutch.

Yeah you can summon loads of stuff but remember your starting force now no longer counts in terms of casualties. Every model you summon now becomes a liability for you. Going by how folks are summoning in a lot as long as I keep one single mode alive I auto win as I can kill a higher % of models than you can of mine.

Yes summoning is strong but its also very weak as victory conditions and kills % are how you work out who wins. If you summon loads you're giving your opponent an auto win

RoperPG wrote:
In this instance I think you're attributing a far tighter use of language than GW have demonstrated thus far!
Summoning is boundless - if you have the models and they're not on the board, you can summon them; references to removed from play etc. are concepts refined in games like WMH, but in AoS it's just a turn of phrase - it's not defined.

"Removed from play" is board game parlance. I've seen it used in many board games and CCGs. The whole "stick it back in the box, it has been removed from play" is not uncommon, and that's exactly what this sentence sounds like - except there is no box to put things in, so you put them off to the side. If GW just wanted you to remove the models from the table, they would've said remove from your army or remove from the table or return to your reserves. Remove from play means just that - you can't play with it anymore.

Basically, you can not summon more models than you brought with you. Those are the basic currency of the game, and summoning those models spends them.

Not quite summoning, but as an example - played a game a couple of weeks ago and I decided to use the Stormcast 'Deep Strike' formation, and told my opponent I was.
(We used the standard terrain generation for the game).

WIth little more than spacing some minis out, he completely locked me out of his half of the 6x4. It's actually not that difficult to do, and when you consider that 'normal' summoning also has a maximum range from the caster, it makes it even easier.

 Sqorgar wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
In this instance I think you're attributing a far tighter use of language than GW have demonstrated thus far!
Summoning is boundless - if you have the models and they're not on the board, you can summon them; references to removed from play etc. are concepts refined in games like WMH, but in AoS it's just a turn of phrase - it's not defined.

"Removed from play" is board game parlance. I've seen it used in many board games and CCGs. The whole "stick it back in the box, it has been removed from play" is not uncommon, and that's exactly what this sentence sounds like - except there is no box to put things in, so you put them off to the side. If GW just wanted you to remove the models from the table, they would've said remove from your army or remove from the table or return to your reserves. Remove from play means just that - you can't play with it anymore.

Basically, you can not summon more models than you brought with you. Those are the basic currency of the game, and summoning those models spends them.

100% agreed.

The rules only seem to allow you to summon units from your Reserves. When units die, they are removed from play... not put back into Reserves. In other words, if you want to be able to summon 10 units of Skeletons during the course of the game, you need to bring 10 units of Skeletons with you at the start of the game. This is an inherent balancing mechanism. If your opponent shows up with 10 units of Skeletons, but only deploys Death Wizards, you can be pretty certain he's going to try to summon then and you can deploy accordingly.

Adding artificial wound or comp point limits breaks this inherent balancing mechanism.

 Sqorgar wrote:
If GW just wanted you to remove the models from the table, they would've said remove from your army or remove from the table or return to your reserves.

Actually this is exactly how "remove from play" has been defined in 40k (in its own rule section). It is also mentioned in the same way in 8e FB. If you want to draw similarities between games - you have the grounds. On the other hand AoS is neither 40k nor FB so one can interpret "remove from play" exactly as he interprets other words like "move" or "within" which also lack concrete and exact explanation in the context of the game - you won't be playing with this model any more. It is disconnected from the game. IMO this is a little far fetched, though....

 CoreCommander wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
If GW just wanted you to remove the models from the table, they would've said remove from your army or remove from the table or return to your reserves.

Actually this is exactly how "remove from play" has been defined in 40k (in its own rule section). It is also mentioned in the same way in 8e FB. If you want to draw similarities between games - you have the grounds. On the other hand AoS is neither 40k nor FB so one can interpret "remove from play" exactly as he interprets other words like "move" or "within" which also lack concrete and exact explanation in the context of the game - you won't be playing with this model any more. It is disconnected from the game. IMO this is a little far fetched, though....

I do not have access to the 40k or WFB rules. Perhaps there is something in those rules that makes it more obvious? I've always heard "removed from play" to be removing it from the game. Yugioh, Doomtown Reloaded, Warhammer 40k Conquest, Warmachine, Magic, Monsterpocalypse, Dust Tactics, Descent, etc all use "removed from play" to mean that it is no longer in the game.

(EDIT - Also, the first half of the rule "place slain models off to the side" indicates that they are neither on the table, nor in your reserve).

Perhaps the difference is in how individual models are treated. In a game where the models simply represent a unit, you are removing the unit from play, not the models. But AoS treats the models are currency, and so models are removed from the game.

The issue is tied to what GW considers "play area" or "in play". LCG/CCG's have this defined as does previous GW games to some extent , but there is nothing in the AoS rules dealing with it so I assume a common sense interpretation would be my best guess. The play surface and everything you use to play the game at a given moment is "in play". This leaves units left aside out of play.

 Sqorgar wrote:

I do not have access to the 40k or WFB rules. Perhaps there is something in those rules that makes it more obvious?

I brought this up only as a reference to what GW has done in the past, but it was wrong to do. AoS does not require from a player to have read previous rules - it is its own game so any rules references to other GW games should be avoided The best case scenario is that they will make the game more like them and the worst is imposing unnecessary confusion in a new GW gamer's mind.

This is quite interesting. In all my games so far I have let Death players summon their dead units as new units.

Makes sense they can't, there are only so many skeletons to raise in an area. Even lizard men, there can only be so many guys on the ship to bring down via the web way

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Makes sense they can't, there are only so many skeletons to raise in an area. Even lizard men, there can only be so many guys on the ship to bring down via the web way

To me it works the other way: if you can summon a skeleton once, then why not again, and again, and again ... that's the whole point of necromancers: call up the dead.

Now if we forget about what might have been implied, ignore house rules about the use of warscrolls, don't look at what is common and mentioned in other rules, and only look at what's written in AoS, then there're really no issue:
you can summon anything that you can put models for on the table, provided you have the wizard to do it.

Cheers.