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So this came up the other day in a game and I just want to be sure we got the rules right.

Match play says that you have to deploy at least half of your forces on the field, the rest can be in reserve if they have the special rule to do so. Summoning deamons would not count however in this situation because they are not in your army list until you actually roll to summon them, allowing a player to choose what they want to try to summon when they do so. For example, if I rolled an 18 for my summon I could choose at that point to pick a bloodthirster instead of the normal khorne deamons.

So that means if I have 2 squads of raptors, 2 squads of Marines, a squad of terms, and a say a sorcerer I can for example deploy the 2 marine squads and sorcerer and then drop the raptors and terms in whenever I want and summon deamons and it's legal correct? (Yes I know I would still have to pay for what I am summoning whenever I do so)

That is accurate.

"Summoning deamons would not count however in this situation because they are not in your army list until you actually roll to summon them"

Is this specified somewhere? I'm reading the Ritual from the Index (I know, the codex is out) and from everything talked about by GW, you pay for those Demons in your list. Then, you summon them in. Effectively, it's the last kind of Reserves roll still left in the game. If your opponent pays for a Bloodthirster, but never rolls high enough to summon it in, it is considered destroyed at the end of the battle.

It would seem to me that Demons count toward the total number of units a list has, and how many units can be held in reserve during Matched Play; therefore in theory a Chaos army could have more units of Daemons than other choices that must be set up on the battlefield during deployment.

Except let's say you put aside 360 points for summoning.

Is that 6 sets of 3 Nurglings?

Is that 2 Daemon Princes?

Is it 30 Plaguebearers and some Plague Drones?

You don't pay for the Daemons in your list. You keep unspent points as Reinforcement Points and then spend those for a successfully summoned unit.

You do not have to mark what those points are spent on until you roll for the Ritual and succeed. You do have to declare what your attempting to summons but not how much.

For example:

I declare Nurglings and roll a 18. I can bring on unit of nurglings of power level 3, 6 or 9. And must pay 20 pts per nurgling I bring into the game.

 Ghaz wrote:
You don't pay for the Daemons in your list. You keep unspent points as Reinforcement Points and then spend those for a successfully summoned unit.

If that's the case, then yeah you're playing with a very under-strength force initially, so you would be fielding a minimum of half of whatever that is. So presumably if you paid for 2 units and left the rest of your points for Daemonic reserves, only 1 unit would need to be on the battlefield during deployment.

Youn wrote:
You do not have to mark what those points are spent on until you roll for the Ritual and succeed. You do have to declare what your attempting to summons but not how much.

For example:

I declare Nurglings and roll a 18. I can bring on unit of nurglings of power level 3, 6 or 9. And must pay 20 pts per nurgling I bring into the game.

This is wrong. You do not have to declare what you are going to summon before you make your attempt. From page 68 of Index Chaos:

... first choose one of the four Chaos Gods – KHORNE, TZEENTCH, NURGLE or SLAANESH. A CHARACTER who owes allegiance to one of the Dark Gods can only attempt to summon the units of their patron – for example, a KHORNE CHARACTER could only attempt to summon KHORNE DAEMONS... You can summon one new unit with the Daemonic Ritual ability to the battlefield that has a Power Rating equal to or less than the total result so long as it has the same Chaos God keyword you chose at the start...

Thanks guys. I think this leads to a very awesome side effect for deamon army's. The ability to take a solid Center force then modify your list in game depending on not only what you need but also what your going against. If your doing a random pickup game and don't know who your going against this makes deamons a very adaptive force.

Wait, so I could have a tray full of khorne demons, bring something odd, say 1875pts of Word Bearers to the table for a 2000 point game and then summon based on what I roll so long as the total I summon doesn't exceed 125?

Ironragincajun wrote:
Wait, so I could have a tray full of khorne demons, bring something odd, say 1875pts of Word Bearers to the table for a 2000 point game and then summon based on what I roll so long as the total I summon doesn't exceed 125?

Exactly.

Ironragincajun wrote:
Wait, so I could have a tray full of khorne demons, bring something odd, say 1875pts of Word Bearers to the table for a 2000 point game and then summon based on what I roll so long as the total I summon doesn't exceed 125?

Yes, that's exactly how summoning is both intended to and actually works. Basically you start with fewer "on the board" points, in return for being able to summon whatever is best needed mid game.

You guys just made me so happy and at the same time so frustrated because I left my daemons home and can't go back to get them for NOVA!!! LOL.

If it's any consolation, you're not running IMPERIUM SOUP with 300 flyers so you wouldn't win anyway. #Bitter