This is something of a touchy subject for anyone who remembers the horrors of 7e daemon factory. No arguing that it was insane in concept and application. But what we have now is a garbage mechanic that cripples a few army concepts that I'm guessing a fair few would like to use a bit more.
First off, I believe that there should be two outcomes of summoning. The current, where you utilize reinforcement points is fine. Free things is a bad concept no matter the army/mechanic. The added bit would be nearly identical in concept to how Tervigons can reinforce a unit that has lost things. Daemons would differ a bit, as the summoning via PL. Anyway, here's the meat of the matter.
A Chaos Character attempting a Daemonic Ritual must first declare what type of ritual is being attempted.
Incursion is current mechanic. Select Alignment > Roll up to 3d6 > Get a unit of equal or lesser PL.
Warp Tether is new proposal, and it isn't too much different. Select friendly unit with Daemonic Ritual within 12" of the character> Roll up to 3d6 > Restore a number of models equal to the total of the roll, but not exceeding the original unit size. Any doubles causes mortal wound, triple causes d3.
I had also thought to allow this to be a healing mechanic, perhaps limited to the walking heralds and dark apostle, something like
Aetheric Resurgence: Pick friendly Chaos Daemons monster or vehicle within 3" that has lost wounds in this. Roll up to 4d6 and compare to PL of unit. Monster/Vehicle gains a wound back for each point in excess, but if it would bring it over it's starting wounds the character attempting takes a mortal wound. Doubles deal MW to character attempting, triples d3.
So Warp Tether example. You had a full unit of daemonettes, but they get wrecked by t1 alpha and are reduced to 5 in the unit. Your Slaanesh herald elects to warp tether, rolls 5,5,3. You get 13 back to the unit bringing them up to 18, but the herald takes a MW.
Aethereic Resurgence: Bloodthirster has takes 4 lascannons to the face 2 rounds in a row, takes 9 wounds after everything. A WB Dark Apostle attempts DR:AR. Thirsters are PL 17, so rolls and uses WB stratagem to reroll dice, and Soul Sacrifice to roll an extra (still a Daemonic Ritual, so anything that helps/hurts that also applies to these new proposals). Rolls 5d6, rerolling any or all, getting 5,5,5,6,6,. SWEET! 27 total, so thirster gains 10 wounds back, bringing it to 17. The dark apostle suffers 2d3+1 mortal wounds (triple, soul sacrifice, double). But because it wasn't summoned to the battlefield via Incursion, it doesn't get the rerolls from Soul Sacrifice strat.
This is my initial thoughts on how to make Daemonic Ritual a worthwhile mechanic, while still keeping the inherant risks in being able to heal/restore units quickly.
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