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Hi Guys,

there was a time I knew rules like the back of my hand....then GW increased the prices of codexes and priced me out of it!

Anyhow, I was playing in a huge 9k per team battle recently and two of my opponents had Chaos lists, including models from various books I think. Controversy emerged as the two guys I was playing with questioned exactly WHAT could be brought back after death....

My opponents brought back a Helldrake 3 times, Lord Discordant twice, Great Unclean One twice, and numerous Obliterators....even from my viewpoint (which is pretty laid-back), this did appear pretty strong. They rolled 3 dice, plus an extra one which might have been a strategem.....and seemed to make units re-appear with relative ease that we had spent ages trying to kill.

I posted this issue on another gaming site and several people immediately yelled "cheat", your opponents "cheated" you. But I have to say, I don't feel cheated, they were really nice guys who genuinely seemed to play the rules as they felt they should be played.
Incidentally, NOT ONE of the people yelling cheat could qualify their argument, or point to page references. I would therefore be really super-grateful if someone out there in Dakka land CAN answer this question and provide evidence please?

The question is, WERE we being cheated? Is there a guide to exactly WHICH units can be brought back please?

Thanks for reading. Happy gaming.~~Reborn.

First off, were you playing matched play? If yes, you need to set aside reinforcement points at the start of the game for summoning. This comes out of what you'd otherwise spend on your army. Once you've used them, you can't summon anything else. In other play formats, there is no limit which is extremely imbalanced. To make a fun game, this should be discussed beforehand.

Second, a lot the units you listed can't be summoned. Not all units with the DAEMON keyword can be summoned, only ones with the Daemonic Ritual ability. Heldrakes, Lord Discordant, and Obliterators cannot be summoned. So this bit they were either cheating or just didn't know their rules.

Yeah they didmt know thiwr rules.. key points..
-In matched play you pay for what you summon. Assuming this wasn't matched , then yes you can summon a lot of powerful stuff, and it isn't at all balanced.
-summoners can't move. This is quite a big drawback.
- only units with the daemonic ritual rule can be summoned . So none of the chaos marine codex stuff.
Great unclean ones are quite hard to summon, even with a stratagem for extra dice. Could have rolled hot, but suspect something was being done wrong.

 The Reborn wrote:
... I was playing in a huge 9k per team battle recently and two of my opponents had Chaos lists, including models from various books I think. Controversy emerged as the two guys I was playing with questioned exactly WHAT could be brought back after death....

Summoning doesn't quite work like that. you just summon a unit, it does not have to be a unit that died previously.

My opponents brought back a Helldrake 3 times, Lord Discordant twice, Great Unclean One twice, and numerous Obliterators....even from my viewpoint (which is pretty laid-back), this did appear pretty strong. They rolled 3 dice, plus an extra one which might have been a strategem.....and seemed to make units re-appear with relative ease that we had spent ages trying to kill.

Umm... some of those units do not have the Daemonic Ritual ability (more on that later). and the others can not be summoned with the normal 3d6 Daemonic Ritual rules.

I posted this issue on another gaming site and several people immediately yelled "cheat", your opponents "cheated" you. But I have to say, I don't feel cheated, they were really nice guys who genuinely seemed to play the rules as they felt they should be played.
Incidentally, NOT ONE of the people yelling cheat could qualify their argument, or point to page references. I would therefore be really super-grateful if someone out there in Dakka land CAN answer this question and provide evidence please?

The question is, WERE we being cheated?

In a word Yes, they cheated.

Is there a guide to exactly WHICH units can be brought back please?

Yes, every Datasheet that has Daemonic Ritual can be summoned. You are going to have to look at the datasheet to see if a unit has the Daemonic Ritual ability though.

Basically summoning works like this: Instead of moving a CHARACTER can summon a DAEMON unit that has the Daemonic Ritual, an ability listed on their Datasheet. (The Lord Discordant, Helldrakes, and Obliterators do not have this rule and as such can not be summoned). They choose one of the 4 chaos gods, (if you are a NURGLE Character you can only summon NURGLE units etc...). Then you roll 3d6 and can summon a unit, that has the Daemonic Ritual rule and the Keyword you choose, that has a power level that is equal to or less than the sum of the 3d6. (A Great Unclean One is 17 power so it wont be able to be summoned unless they spent 2 Command Points on Soul Sacrifice which lets you roll 4d6, but even they a 17 is going to be tough to get). Then you pay the reinforcement points for those units. (In matched play, not sure about narrative). and rolling Doubles are bad triples are worse.

Hi, Thanks chaps for your answers and thoughts. This makes a lot of sense....thanks so much.

--Reborn.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Yeah they didmt know thiwr rules.. key points..
-In matched play you pay for what you summon. Assuming this wasn't matched , then yes you can summon a lot of powerful stuff, and it isn't at all balanced.
-summoners can't move. This is quite a big drawback.
- only units with the daemonic ritual rule can be summoned . So none of the chaos marine codex stuff.
Great unclean ones are quite hard to summon, even with a stratagem for extra dice. Could have rolled hot, but suspect something was being done wrong.

Seeing we don'' know did they use the matched play rules(9k suggests not) big claim to claim they don't know rules. Maybe they know better than you...

A unit must have Daemonic Ritual to be summoned. That's a given.

However, there are some missions with special rules that allow units to come back. In Vigilus Ablaze, for instance, there's a Sustained Assault rule. These units would not be summoned, there's specific rules for how they come back on the table.

Mentioning this because maybe your opponents were not summoning units, they were using some other mechanic. Otherwise, they did not understand their own rules.

tneva82 wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Yeah they didmt know thiwr rules.. key points..
-In matched play you pay for what you summon. Assuming this wasn't matched , then yes you can summon a lot of powerful stuff, and it isn't at all balanced.
-summoners can't move. This is quite a big drawback.
- only units with the daemonic ritual rule can be summoned . So none of the chaos marine codex stuff.
Great unclean ones are quite hard to summon, even with a stratagem for extra dice. Could have rolled hot, but suspect something was being done wrong.

Seeing we don'' know did they use the matched play rules(9k suggests not) big claim to claim they don't know rules. Maybe they know better than you...

Non matched play doesn't explain everything. They still either got their rules very wrong or cheated.

Other posters have covered it pretty well, but yeah, your opponents were playing wrong. They might've made an honest mistake, or they might've been cheating.

tneva82 wrote:


Seeing we don'' know did they use the matched play rules(9k suggests not) big claim to claim they don't know rules. Maybe they know better than you...