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Beast of Chaos is almost out, and with it so as the debate about summoning. I would like to see how peoples opinions may have changed(or not changed) on that matter.

At first I was primarily against free summoning, but have lately softened my opinions on the matter. That said some armies can just runaway with the free summoning to the point where they can almost double their army. So my proposed fix would be to place an upper limit on the max number of points you can add to any given list, something like 25% of the total play cost. So in a 2000 pt game, you cant bring in more than 500pts of extra models. If you really want to summon more than 25% you can leave points out to summon in later and take advantage of some free command points, so for example, In a 2000 pt game you could bring 1800pt and this would give you 4 Command Pts and the ability to summon up to 700pts to the field.

I know my its not perfect(no compromise is), but that my opinion, whats yours.

I think both current ways are good (either earning summoning points for in-game actions, or one-time summons built into units (like FEC) in theory. Obviously some balance fine-tuning would be good. As a general rule, you probably shouldn't be able to summon units that can themselves majorly contribute to further summoning. Also some better scaling to game size in certain cases (Nurgle).

Since 2.0 any game that I have been in or watched that has had one side free summon and the other didn't has 100% ended with the free summoning player winning.

Any game I've watched a busted summoning army like Nagash or Seraphon go at it, they have always won due to the free summoning because they are pushing over 1000 points of free crap a game.

I find the free summoning worse than the double turn overall.

I think that if it were capped at around 400 points in 2000 that it would be a fun addition. Any more than that and I feel it just makes the game a foregone conclusion that if you aren't doing it as well that you might as well not bother playing with a couple edge cases like stormcast that are already underpointed in a lot of ways anyway so their 2000 points fight like 2500 points in relative balance terms.

So - it can be fun. If both of you are doing it. And only if both of you have the same type of summoning output. Its not fun if I'm a nurgle player or a khorne player summoning against a seraphon player or a nagash player.

For a seraphon or nagash player, its fun if i'm playing another seraphon player or nagash player. Otherwise, I'm probably going Crimson Tide on my opponent and having a squash match.

The only way I would find it acceptable is if every army could do it across the board and in addition it was the same relative amount of summoning, and additionally it wasn't tied in any way to listbuilding so that you weren't pigeon holed into certain builds to be able to have a good competitive game. That some armies are already busted and underpointed (stormcast) means that either the design team would need to acknowledge that they made stormcast too powerful and kept not being able to summon, or they'd need to actually balance their game as the bell curve in 2.0 between casual and competitive is worse than previous (a lot of the underpointed high powered units are in the same handful of factions).

I'm definately considering that the summoning is now better, without silly points limits. Yes, I have nagash (though havent played with him yet), but summoning has always been fluffy and good tactic. If someone has to blame unbalance, fault might be in the design of other armies. I'm not suggesting, that every army has to have summoning, but other means that could make them more competitive.

Well yeah its a good tactic. If I could play games with 1000 more points than my opponent and get them to agree to it every time, then I could be considered a tactical master.

Well, I recently played a 500 points game, and My zombies didnt kill any of my opponents stormcast, even when I resurrected 25% worth zombies. Conclusion? If I could get same stats/points than my opponent, I could win more!

A blob of zombies buffed with a corpse cart is one of the most disgusting units in the game stat wise. 2+ to hit, 3+ to wound, a boat load of attacks. The ability to just continue to recycle them makes them that much worse.

If you didn't kill any stormcast then you either rolled bad, he rolled great for saves, or you didn't get enough of them into contact.

There is really not much in the game hitting on 2s and wounding on 3s that you can additionally just bring back.

Yeah, we were just starting the league, with only 500points. My original point, was that other armies could do better with a proper design. Taken as an example, kharadron overlords. They are fast, shooty, durable and had their points cost reduced. They dont even need summoning.

Thing is at 500 points a lot of things don't work quite like they should. Units that expect/need buffs don't have them; armies have to leave a lot of tools behind and thus there's an increased chance of your opponent putting down models that might be the perfect counter to your own with no comeback for you etc... 500 is a nice starting point though and and still lots of fun; but its important to remember its a point level where the game isn't running quite right where its balanced.

To me thinks like Summoning can be fun and sometimes you can twist things - I've read of people facing undead and not killing entire units so that the opponent can't just summon the unit back. So there are some tricks you can use to stall or limit a summoning army. However I do agree, when summoning is adding 50% or so in points value to one faction then its giving them a serious advantage over the enemy side. the only way to balance that is to make the summoned units utterly rubbish so that whilst they count as 500 points; they are actually far weaker. Of course then the issue is that those models are basically worthless and can only be used in a summoning based army; which is thus not an ideal fix as it then drastically limits army build variety.

The only people who think free summoning is a good idea are the people who's army has free summoning..... who would have thought it!

If points were truly reflective of what they should be and 2000 points == 2000 points, no army would *need* summoning.

If a 2000 point *needs* summoning to be competitive, its not worth 2000 points.

I'm good with all of it except Seraphon. I find that all of the other games it doesnt' matter against my non-summoning armies but Seraphon combine an amazing army ability, with an amazing trait (teleport twice), and two sources of summoning. That doesn't take into account that there are very, very few bum units in the Seraphon.

I don't see the issues with the LoN summoning. But I tend to play aggressive fast armies that negate a lot of the ability to return units to play while also keeping the units from crumbling to bravery so I will admit I'm not the best source on that. Locally it just hasn't been a problem and didn't seem to be a problem at Nova (80+ player event) from the games I caught.

I like the ingame summoning effects. Complete things to get points and toolbox it. I think a lot gets lost in the fact that anything summoned is generally not usable the same turn. Additionally the good ones normally have you paying points to work toward the effect so it's not as "free" as it's made out to be. And the ones that don't have the points have higher costed "point" items to make up for it.

So TLR I like summoning and mostly like the implementation less Seraphon.

Everyone are counting the points, that summoning can include to an army. When people start to counting, how many attacks elite army units does compared to horde armies? If your elite force is struggling against horde army, that uses its advantage to recycle weak units, is that not balanced?

Balancing two entities is a combination of its estimated damage output vs its estimated damage it can take before it drops.

An elite model that has 2 attacks and a 3+ save should cost more than the model that has 1 attack and a 5+ save.

An elite army that has more attacks than a horde army is supposed to be balanced by the point system that says that the horde army has more models.

Allowing the horde army to get more free models on top of that is the opposite of balance. You can say its more fun. You can say its fluffy and narrative. You can't say its balanced or belongs in a game where you are trying to push its competitive merit however.

Free summoning can work just fine. Other systems have incorporated it for years without issue, it can be done in AoS as well.

There are more ways to balance things than straight points. We have many things that don't cost points in game (allegiance abilities, spells, artifacts, etc) that things can be balanced around. Summoning can just be what 1 army does. While another army controls your shooting phase. And another army can utilize non-traditional maneuvering.

Also worth noting that with all the major events we have had since AoS 2.0 dropped, top 10 has been pretty evenly split between summoning and non-summoning armies. DoK, IDK, and mixed Order are still giving consistently great showings.

One change I would incorporate from Malifaux though is that a summoned unit can't claim an objective on the turn it is summoned.

There really isn't a lot of data from the "major events" since 2.0 dropped to actually have that mean anything though.

Also the whole "powergamers at tournaments are fine with it so its fine" isn't a very convincing statement because a powergamed optimized summoning list will absolutely trash a non optimized list, which wouldn't be present at most "major events".

When I look at all of the systems in the past that have used free summoning where it hasn't been an issue, the biggest thing they had in common are that you aren't summoning over half of your army back in those games.

Free summoning at the level some AOS armies can do is one of the main sources of why the gulf between a casual and a powergamed list are so grossly disparate. If you aren't powergaming too, don't bother showing up. Thats not a good system.

 Spreelock wrote:
Everyone are counting the points, that summoning can include to an army. When people start to counting, how many attacks elite army units does compared to horde armies? If your elite force is struggling against horde army, that uses its advantage to recycle weak units, is that not balanced?

Generally the thing called "attacks" is calculated in point cost of unit. Elite unit costs more, horde unit costs less.

Not sure about other factions but it seems to me free summoning has an inbuilt cost. As I've explained in the Beastmen thread you need to invest more than the bare minimum in order to get good returns. Trading a unit of Ungors for maaaybe getting a Chimera turn 2 or 3 has some serious drawbacks.

Perhaps since it's a later army book and therefore more balanced thanks to previous experience it's not such an issue.

Also I'm not sure we should really include the posterboy faction in any discussion about game balance since SCE seem to be designed to win against great odds. Sort of a reversal there as compared to 40k where Marines are left wanting deliberately to encourage players to look at a second army.

My opinion on free summoning is outlined in the beastman thread in response to the summoning has costs so is fine argument.

There are no serious drawbacks. Beastmen are not giving up anything except a sacrificial unit of 10 ungors and trading that for monsters popping up in ambush that are worth many times more.

The shamans doing the summoning are still performing the same tasks they would be doing if summoning didn't exist so there is no loss there.

Summoning some free points would be fine. If everyone could all potentially summon the same amount of free points. But there has to be some kind of cap or restriction to not let it get too stupid. AOS has kind of implemented that cap, but then have made it very loose, particularly with some armies like nagash or seraphon.

Mass spammed summoning is not fine to me because

* if the opponent is not able to summon, or is not able to spam summon, this makes the game one-sided and is essentially winning before turn 1 via list building. A 2000 point list will struggle against a list that is greater than 2000 points. There is a degree of acceptability (2400 vs 2000 is uphill but not insurmountable whereas 3000 vs 2000 is a waste of time to play unless you just like throwing models around for the sport of it and don't care about the outcome)

* if you can just mass summon a great amount of free points, the points system is in and of itself not useful. Especially as a balancing tool.

Summoning is just far too often just icing on the cake. You get all the benefits other armies get, plus summoning. It becomes a tool that simply makes your army like another’s but with more points. Look at legions of nagash before and after the jump to 2.0 because an army that was pretty good just got a free buff. I play LoN, and I can say that ya summoning is broken and unfun when before our shtick was being unmoving blobs of hard to kill (permanently) fodder. Now even if you kill it, it comes back, which is unsatisfying and makes the person playing it not have to think.

 Jaxler wrote:
Summoning is just far too often just icing on the cake. You get all the benefits other armies get, plus summoning. It becomes a tool that simply makes your army like another’s but with more points. Look at legions of nagash before and after the jump to 2.0 because an army that was pretty good just got a free buff. I play LoN, and I can say that ya summoning is broken and unfun when before our shtick was being unmoving blobs of hard to kill (permanently) fodder. Now even if you kill it, it comes back, which is unsatisfying and makes the person playing it not have to think.

I completely agree. Summoning is a big advantage and needs to be compensated for as such. Legions of Nagash and Seraphon are particularly good examples where the allegiance is strong and potentially OP even if summons are removed entirely. Then they get that as a massive free benefit just for showing up. There are armies where summoning is compensated for, if anything the majority of summon armies are like that, but the overall trend is heavily skewed towards cheese. Even the worst army with summons (FEC) is not a weak army.

I don't find LoN summoning to be an issue personally. I have yet to actually play an LoN player that has been able to respawn a significant unit. It is very easy to zone out the 1 or 2 relevant grave markers or the general himself (or just kill the general).

Different issue with Nagash himself though. But that's a whole different discussion.

Lizardmen seem troublesome, but I heard they go hosed by the FAQ, and they have not exactly been tearing up the tournament scene. I have had no personal experience against them however.

The tournament scene is only a small slice of the overall community. Just because something doesn't tear up the tournament scene, a place where everyone is expected to be powerlisting, does not mean that in the casual context that everything is perfectly fine.

Because in the casual context, those lists ARE tearing up the casual scene.

AverageBoss wrote:
I don't find LoN summoning to be an issue personally. I have yet to actually play an LoN player that has been able to respawn a significant unit. It is very easy to zone out the 1 or 2 relevant grave markers or the general himself (or just kill the general).

Different issue with Nagash himself though. But that's a whole different discussion.

Lizardmen seem troublesome, but I heard they go hosed by the FAQ, and they have not exactly been tearing up the tournament scene. I have had no personal experience against them however.

Kroak got nerfed hard but nothing else did. Also, with all due respect if you are blocking off LoN gravesites easily then it is because they were placed poorly. All the tournament tier LoN games I have seen blocking the grave sites would effectively be forfeiting the game due to their placement relative to objectives. As for killing the general that is again down to either hoping the LoN player screws up or just happening to have one of the few army builds that can reliably do it.

Even putting that aside entirely, the potential for abuse undeniably exists when it should not be there at all.

auticus wrote:
The tournament scene is only a small slice of the overall community. Just because something doesn't tear up the tournament scene, a place where everyone is expected to be powerlisting, does not mean that in the casual context that everything is perfectly fine.

Because in the casual context, those lists ARE tearing up the casual scene.

Well that because you have tournament level list in your casual setting. Tournament list will always be a tier above the casual crowd.

when I play kings of war or battletech or lord of the rings, these problems aren't present.

Same group of people.

Because those games don't say "max out on mortal wounds and spam summoning to have a good game" and then leave a bunch of other useless ways to construct an army list.

 Venerable Ironclad wrote:

auticus wrote:
The tournament scene is only a small slice of the overall community. Just because something doesn't tear up the tournament scene, a place where everyone is expected to be powerlisting, does not mean that in the casual context that everything is perfectly fine.

Because in the casual context, those lists ARE tearing up the casual scene.

Well that because you have tournament level list in your casual setting. Tournament list will always be a tier above the casual crowd.

But why would it be acceptable that power level between the two would be so big?

tneva82 wrote:

 Venerable Ironclad wrote:

auticus wrote:
The tournament scene is only a small slice of the overall community. Just because something doesn't tear up the tournament scene, a place where everyone is expected to be powerlisting, does not mean that in the casual context that everything is perfectly fine.

Because in the casual context, those lists ARE tearing up the casual scene.

Well that because you have tournament level list in your casual setting. Tournament list will always be a tier above the casual crowd.

But why would it be acceptable that power level between the two would be so big?

The problem I see is that the difference in power level is so big, and most armies can’t come close, which results in certain armies being trash.

Thats pretty much the crux of my entire dispute.

The power level between powerlisting and casual is so wide that unless you really don't care about having a good game and just want to throw models around (or you enjoy one sided destroying your opponents) that this actively corrodes the playerbase.

And summoning is one of the pillars of powerlisting in AOS 2.0.

Fortunately my group understands tourney tier vs normal and we do not run one against the other. But that is exactly it; we go out of our way to avoid it.