Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So it never sat right with me that the Primaris for Malefic was 3 WC. Sure you get a free unit, but the Primaris should be easier to get off, that's its appeal.
I also don't know why the discipline has to allow you to summon every naturally aligned unit entry (except the poor Beast of Nurgle) in the codex.
Furies, Princes and Grinders don't count her because they can be dedicated to any god, and Chariots are too big to summon (unless taken by a Slaanesh Herald apparently?)

So I propose changing Summoning and Incursion to reflect the above. Note that I think Sacrifice and Possesion are fine as they are, and I am not commenting on the non-Conjuration powers.

****Summoning: 2 WC, if successful conjure 1 Daemon "Troop" unit of the following: 10 Bloodletters, 10 Plaguebearers, 10 Deamonettes, 10 Horrors, or 3 Nurglings
By removing Hounds, Seekers, Flamers, you remove the fastest, non-infantry units as well as the Flamers which can arguably deal the most damage on the turn they arrive.
this should make the other choices easier to keep up with (summon any "Troop") and make lowering the WC cost make sense.

****Incursion: 3 WC (as now): If successful, conjure 1 unit to the following: 3 Blood Crushers, 3 Plaque Drones, 5 Seekers*, 3 Screamers
The only thing this changes is swapping the Fiends for Seekers. It just "feels" right to have all the "cavalry/stead" units being conjured in the same power since you are summoning either a 'Letter on steed, PB on steed, Deamonette on steed, or a "riderless" Disc of Tzeentch. So this feels like a beefed up version of the Primaris above.

*I am tempted to say this power could summon 10 Seekers since that would be closer to the points value/ wound count/ durability of the other 3 choices, but it's pretty clear GW wants these powers to be 1 box set = unti size.


Now this also means that Malefic does not summon: Fiends of S, Beasts of N, Fleshhounds of K, or Flamers of Tz. But that's only fair since Beasts cannot currently be summoned, so why shouldn't the other gods have 1 unit that cannot be summoned. Besides, the Lore of Change can summon Flamers, Chariots and I think Exalted Flamers. And the Blood Tithe can summon Hounds.
So in all, this would make Summoning easier to cast, but more limited, it would make Incursion "feel" right and would make certain units form each god "unsummonable"

Thoughts?

TL;DR: change Summoning to 2 WC, summons Troops only. Incursion summons "steed" units only
-

I'm not personally a fan of lowering the WC of Summoning to 2. When I see it used, it's generally either used to bring in more pink horrors to up your available warp charges, or else it's used to bring in daemonettes for their rending and number of bodies (makes them give up kill points less easily than, for instance, seekers).

What I'm getting at is that Summoning isn't normally used to bring in quality units that you kill things with; it's used to bring in more warp charges and more units with which to exert board control. So limiting the units it can summon doesn't actually make much of a difference in its effectiveness. What it does do is lower the number WC you need to reliably cast it from 6 to 4 meaning daemon summoning lists become more problematic than they already are. It goes from being a big investment that gets you free points to a moderate/minor investment that gets you free points. You no longer really have to consider bringing a spell familiar or that paradox artefact to help ensure that the power goes off.

TLDR; it makes it too easy to spam "free" units.

The changes to incursion are probably fine, though I don't personally share your feeling that fiends feel out of place alongside those other options. Personally, I feel like the "three-relatively-powerful-bodies" thing makes Fiends fit the theme better than Seekers. Also, some might make the argument that it's preferable to have a beast option rather than a cavalry/jetbike option in case you're on a table with lots of difficult terrain.

That said, I would definitely try to get the points values to be as roughly equal to the other options as possible. You're probably right about the "one kit = one unit" thing, but you're actively punishing people for choosing the Slaaneshi option if it isn't worth as many points as the others. Besides, this is a homebrew. Not something that needs to coincide with GW packaging and marketing strategies.

TLDR; I don't like the changes to Summoning. I'd be fine with the changes to Incursion, but I'd recommend matching up the points costs to the other options as much as possible.

I agree with some of your points but no Primaris power should be WC 3, so my goal is to make Summoning WC 2.

So would lowering unit size make Summoning worth WC 2?
5-model units might be too squishy and merit WC 1, which is too far in the other direction.
What about D6+4 models? Hmm, I don't like that. I wanna keep it simple and without random rolls.

 Galef wrote:
I agree with some of your points but no Primaris power should be WC 3, so my goal is to make Summoning WC 2.

So would lowering unit size make Summoning worth WC 2?
5-model units might be too squishy and merit WC 1, which is too far in the other direction.
What about D6+4 models? Hmm, I don't like that. I wanna keep it simple and without random rolls.

I'd avoid the d6+4 thing because chaos factions already have enough random rolling to keep track of as is.

Making it a 5-model unit might help slightly, but it doesn't really fix the major problems with reduced cost Summoning. You're still pumping out extra warp charges if you go with pink horrors, and you're still tossing out more MSU units to exert board control and drown your opponent in targets. Granted the latter is less of an issue as it takes less firepower to remove the unit from the table. Another thing to consider is that it makes it difficult to work in nurglings as an option. How do you balance a single nurgling base against a single plague bearer?

Personally, I'm fine with the primaris being WC3. Here's how I see it:

* If you want a cheaper power, you just stick with whatever you roll instead of swapping it for the primaris.
* The role of a primaris is to be consistently useful, not necessarily to be cheap. See prescience for an example of another primaris with a WC higher than 1.
* Summoning is consistently useful and makes for a good "basic" power in a discipline that's largely about conjuring up daemons. However, bringing ~90 points worth of units onto the table is potentially very good, especially if you build your army around it. Therefore, the power costs WC3.
* WC 3 is a small enough investment to slow most armies down from casting a bunch of other stuff, but not so large an investment as to make it impossible to cast, even if you don't have a ton of mastery levels in your army. This is as it should be. If you're bringing free points onto the table, there should probably be some drawback to that.

Perhaps we should identify what your core objection to Summoning is. You say you don't like the fact that it's WC3, but why is that exactly? Is it purely the sticker shock? Because I feel it's well worth its 3 warp charges. Is it that you want to be able to choose a cheaper option rather than rolling for it randomly? If that's the case, perhaps an existing power could change places with summoning on the malefic table, or perhaps daemon players should be able to replace Summoning with their chaos god's primaris if they're aligned with a chaos god.

I don't run a summon heavy list and I ususally have about 10+D6 WC available. I like summoning an extra unit per turn, but generally would rather cast a few buffs instead.
Even rolling 7 WC, I successfully cast summoning less than 50% of the time, meaning that if I really want to summon, I need to roll 8+ WC.

Possession and Incursion bring in units that can be well over 100+pts and they should be WC3. Summoning is supposed to be calling forth the easiest to summon lesser daemon horde that is just waiting on the otherside to burst forth.

WC 3 should be reserved for really devastating powers. I don't see how using around 7 WC just to bring in an unit that generates 1 WC a is useful tactic. Why not just use those 7 WC of something else? So I don't see your point about summoning Horrors being an issue

What I am suggesting is restricting the units that can be summon to only the Infantry Troops at their minimum unit size. Maybe even don't allow them to be summoning with upgrades as they can be now. That reduces it's usefulness by a TON. No more objective grabbing Seekers, Instant Flamer templates or T4 fast Hounds. Being stuck with your (non-ObSec) Infantry unit of your choice makes the power less useful in many situations, thus allowing it to be only WC2

You could even make a limit to how many times a Conjuration power can be used to 1 per turn. So no matter how many psykers on your side have Summoning, Incursion, Sacrifice or Possession, each of those powers can only be successfully cast once per turn per army.
For example, Let's say these are my psykers and their powers:
LoC, Summoning, Incursion, Cursed Earth
Horror unit 1: Summoning
Horror unit 2: Incursion

If I start with the LoC, attempt Summoning, but it fails or gets denied, Horror unit 1 can now attempt it.
if then the LoC casts Incursion successfully, Horror unit 2 cannot attempt it at all.

Therefore at the very most an army could only ever summon 4 total units per turn using Malefic.

-

I've never played with or against Summoning Spam, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I have heard that it's really annoying. If there's an issue right now with Summoning, it's that you get a lot of choice in the matter, meaning that you always receive exactly the daemons you want. Given the predilection for Daemons to have "lolz randum!" in their army, wouldn't it make sense to have the type of daemon summoned be randomised as well?

-----------------

d6 roll:
1 - Furies*
2 - Daemonettes
3 - Horrors
4 - Bloodletters
5 - Plague Bearers
6 - Your choice
* - If the model casting this power is a Daemon of a particular god or is marked by that god, you may replace Furies with a unit of daemons of the same type as the the caster's Daemon type or Mark.

-----------------

This would make Daemons and Chaos Marines summon their desired type 50% of the time, but that's still less than current, and non-Chaos aligned factions have an even less chance of getting their desired type.

 Yarium wrote:
I've never played with or against Summoning Spam, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I have heard that it's really annoying. If there's an issue right now with Summoning, it's that you get a lot of choice in the matter, meaning that you always receive exactly the daemons you want. Given the predilection for Daemons to have "lolz randum!" in their army, wouldn't it make sense to have the type of daemon summoned be randomised as well?

-----------------

d6 roll:
1 - 10 Furies* "Daemon of" your choice
2 - 10 Daemonettes
3 - 10 Horrors
4 - 10 Bloodletters
5 - 10 Plague Bearers
6 - Your choice of the above
* - If the model casting this power is a Daemon of a particular god or is marked by that god, you may replace Furies with a unit of daemons of the same type as the the caster's Daemon type or Mark.

-----------------

This would make Daemons and Chaos Marines summon their desired type 50% of the time, but that's still less than current, and non-Chaos aligned factions have an even less chance of getting their desired type.

Wow. I had a similar idea a while ago but couldn't quite form it into words. This is probably the best way to make Summoning a WC 2 power. I added a few changes above in bold
The only issue is that since there are no Khorne Psykers (aside from the occasional Tetrad Prince), it would be harder to get BloodLetters. It might be better just to leave that part out and let the chart be on it's own. Roll a 6 and choice, roll a 1 and get a Fury unit of your choice.

For incursion, I think the units should still be chosen (since WC3) but I'd amend the unit list to: 3 Bloodcrusher, 3 Plague Drones, 10 Seekers, 6 Screamers. That is the closest way to make them A) the equivalent of 1-2 box sets, B) roughly equal points cost, C) roughly equal wound count

Lets compare:
3 Bloodcrusher w/ Icon, Champ & Instrument- 160pts, 9 wounds
3 Plague Drones w/ Icon, Champ & Instrument- 151pts 9 wounds
10 Seekers w/ Icon, Champ & Instrument- 145pts, 10 wounds
6 Screamers (no option here for upgrades)- 150pts 12 wounds <-----it wound be closer to have this unit start at 5 models for 125pts, 10 wounds, but GW packs them in 3's

-

Every single game I've played against an army with Summoning that wasn't a dedicated summoning battery army, they pulled flesh hounds. Flesh hounds are really good. I think by taking those out of the summoning spell, it gives a little more reason to summon something else...or just spam Horrors. Still, could be on to something.

But on that related note, making it 2WC and still letting you summon Horrors could make summoning batteries a lot more reliable, and let them cast another power they normally wouldn't have been able to/have less risk of perils. Or maybe it's not enough to really worry about, I haven't played it enough.

Also, cavalry units ride STEEDS, not STEADS.

That's why I like Yarium's idea of making Summoning a random unit of 10, with the '6' roll of a unit or your choice.

It makes it a good power to get a free unit (which is should be), but a bad power to use as a WC battery (which is shouldn't be).

But at the end of the day, I'd be happy if Summoning only summoned Infantry Troops, and Incursion summoned the "STEED" units (fixed my original post btw).

I'm not familiar enough with Incursion to go mucking around with it. I thought Furies were always undivided, hence why I made them the "1" result. Yeah, Bloodletters will always be harder to get on this table, but hey, Khorne hates psykers anyways, so why were you even trying to summon them?

Generally speaking, I figured that the unit you get should always follow the same formula; on a 1 you get an undivided daemon, 2-5 is a randomly marked daemon, and 6 is your choice. If you're aligned to a god, a result of 1 is your choice as well. But I don't know if there are more elite non-aligned daemons to make this work.

 Yarium wrote:
I'm not familiar enough with Incursion to go mucking around with it. I thought Furies were always undivided, hence why I made them the "1" result. Yeah, Bloodletters will always be harder to get on this table, but hey, Khorne hates psykers anyways, so why were you even trying to summon them?

Generally speaking, I figured that the unit you get should always follow the same formula; on a 1 you get an undivided daemon, 2-5 is a randomly marked daemon, and 6 is your choice. If you're aligned to a god, a result of 1 is your choice as well. But I don't know if there are more elite non-aligned daemons to make this work.

I get where you're going in theme and I like it overall. In practice however, it would be best to simplify. 1 is Fury with mark of your choice, 2-5 are marked infantry, 6 is your choice. That gives any psyker a 50/50 chance or getting a daemon unit of there chosen god if they are playing a theme. But the most important thing is that it limits players from spamming the same unit (like Horrors), which should be MORE than enough to allow the power to be WC 2.
No more Hounds - check
No automatic Flamers dropping in - check
No guarantee of Horrors/ Daemonettes - check

I think I'm done here. Where do I send this to get put into 8th edition? (as if that were possible)

-

Alternately, from a balance perspective, take your cue from WHFB's summoning rules. Allow the Primaris to be cast at a target Warp Charge from 1-3, and cap the points cost of the unit summoned by how many Warp Charge you aimed for.

I'd have to spend more time with the math and the Codex to think what the costs should be, but current powers give around 50pts per Warp Charge, if you factor in the sacrificed models. You would have to keep three separate powers, for the sacrifice-nothing power, sacrifice-a-wound power, and sacrifice-the-caster power, though.

I love some of the ideas but I'd just point out that if you lower it to WC2 you'd be enticing more nutters like me using loyalist chapters and casting from the Malefic discipline.
WC2 means less chance of perils even more so for people who roll them on any double.
I run the risk because I'm casting with a multi-wound unit packing FNP and IWND.
If that risk was lowered I wouldn't be thinking twice before casting from the naughty tree.

You can already use a random chart if you want too, just roll before picking which unit to deploy.

WC 3 is fine, daemons already ignore perils on non 6 doubles for malefic, have insta WC horror generators who have the brotherhood of psykers rule allowing freebie sacrifice models that dont affect the usefulness of the unit you elevate them from. Maybe you just arent risking it enough and throwing too many dice at each cast?

I would much rather see pink horrors lose their WC's all together and just go back to an assault 3 at 18" bolter shot. Removes the summoning battery and brings back some kind of shooty that I miss from my Tzeentch daemons.

I am adamant about the Primaris NOT being WC 3. I can concede that summoning a free unit is worth WC 3, but then it should not be the Primaris.

What about making Cursed Earth the Primaris? Make it WC 2 (as it is only WC 1 now) since it is a really good power and by making it the Primaris, you are guaranteed to have it. This would also make it less appealing for non-Daemon/CSM armies to roll for. This would also be a nice contrast to Sanctic, whose Primaris is -1 to Daemon's invulnerable

Then Summoning is rolled for just as Incursion. Summoning would be just as it is now, but you can only pick the Infantry Troops (including Nurglings). Incursion picks the 4 "steed" choices

-

1. Make Cursed Earth the primaris.

2. Let CSM get the perils reduction together with daemons. They are used to daemonology; they do not explode as much as a desperate IG psyker would.

the more I think about this, the more I question why Curse Earth ISN'T the Primaris.
If Malefic and Sanctic Deamonology are supposed to be opposites, then Curse Earth is the perfect opposite to Banishment.

But if it's the Primaris, it'd have to be WC2 for balance

 Galef wrote:
I agree with some of your points but no Primaris power should be WC 3, so my goal is to make Summoning WC 2.

So would lowering unit size make Summoning worth WC 2?
5-model units might be too squishy and merit WC 1, which is too far in the other direction.
What about D6+4 models? Hmm, I don't like that. I wanna keep it simple and without random rolls.

Make it not the primaris power, then.