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Like it, hate it, or apathetic, many of us enjoy sharing our opinions (or simply venting) in regards to summoning in AoS. Clearly such a discussion has need of its own thread...

For reference to those of you coming over from 40k or who joined AoS recently; in first edition AoS operated off reserve points like 40k does now where summoning a new unit meant paying its point cost mid-game so players needed to reserve points out of their list if they wanted to do so (the advantage being one could summon the exact unit they needed for a given situation). In second edition AoS transitioned to free summoning where each army that summons has its own resource mechanic but the units ultimately summoned with that mechanic are free.

Remember to keep it polite!

One thing I dislike about summoning is when GW does it like they did for Slaanesh.

In that case only heroes generate summoning points to pay for summoning and they only do so by taking wounds (not being killed) and by giving wounds (not causing death). This results in a limited resource that has some peculiar properties.

1) It means that multi-wound heroes are the BEST thing to take in the army in terms of being efficient. It also means that summoning more multi-wound heroes is the best summoning option.
This weights things heavily for the heroes and has left many other army builds out. Going chariot heavy; going for fiends or deamonettes or more combined balanced forced - all are invalid compared to taking lots of multi-wound heroes (often keepers of secrets).

This is bad for the internal balance of the batteltome/army because it gives a huge bonus to taking one or two specific types of list and making limited actual choices. The choice to limit generation of points was a good one, but the method has resulted in a huge imbalance.

2) The way its generates by causing wounds, but not when those wounds cause a model to be killed; means that generating points varies greatly on the opponent.
A whole army of 1 wound skaven will generate way less than an army of stormcast of the same points; since all those stormcast have more than one wound for the most part.

This results in a situation where some armies will balance better against them than others. That 1 wound skaven army will have a much easier time than the multiwound Stormcast; even though otherwise their battle performance could be very similar.

This is bad all round because it means that values for the total estimated number of points per turn vary greatly and means that whilst the numbers for buying new models might balance out quite fair if against a 1wound majority army; they could be too great against a multiwound.
Conversely the opposite is true; if the costs were balanced against multiwound then any single wound opponent would have a much easier time by far. .






In the end the choice to limit was correct, but the method results in a system that leaves imbalance within the army and imbalance without the army - the latter of which is almost impossible to ever balance fairly for both opponent types.

My biggest issue with summoning is how often it is a free upgrade; armies with full and viable sets of allegiance abilities will get the ability to summon on top of that. It is actually easier to count the armies for which that is not the case.

Khorne and Seraphon (with the new battletome) have 'integrated' summoning where there is a trade off that requires giving up something for the ability to bring in free units.

Nurgle and BoC both have sets of allegiance abilities that are notably lackluster if summoning is not included. Both also have integrated terrain features that play an important role in how summoning, and for Nurgle the army, functions.

IMO either of those design directions are good. It is too bad such is the exception rather than the rule.

My opinion on summoning is that there are shades of grey for it.

Some armies that are C-B Tier that have summoning capabilities rely on it to be more competitive, such as Sylvaneth summoning in more Dryads to hold objectives and screen. However, this is also on the more mild side of summoning, as it's a spell that needs to be cast on a 7+, has restrictions on it's placement (Inside forest) and can "only" bring on one 100pt unit per turn.

Then, on the opposite side you had armies like the old Seraphon where they were doubling their army point total over the course of the game, but their units were pretty bad and they needed it. I played a few games against Seraphon before their new book, and even thought they were aggressively summoning, the games felt tight and were over all pretty alright.

And the other type of Summoning Army... Ones where the army is already strong (FEC, Slaanesh, Legions of Nagash) and then they have summoning added on top of their strong units. I'm sure there are other examples, but those stand out as the worst offenders to me.

In a perfect world, one army wouldn't need a points advantage to compete. In a better balanced world, armies wouldn't have summoning tacked on to powerful profiles that make for an obscene army.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
My biggest issue with summoning is how often it is a free upgrade; armies with full and viable sets of allegiance abilities will get the ability to summon on top of that. It is actually easier to count the armies for which that is not the case.

Jeez, was writing up a post and both of you already shared basically how I felt about it. Whole heartedly agree.

Sylvaneth seem to be designed as if Tree and Spite Revenants are front-line melee infantry, which they are not. At all. This leaves a glaring hole in the core strategic functionality that dryads desperately struggle to fill. The dryad summoning on its own is broken in balance (an 80 point hero summoning 100-point units for free, no further explanation needed) but in the context of the army they really need it.

However that is a niche case and when people refer to summoning as a concept they tend to mean armies that have a major mechanic for doing so.

All i will say is points should be equal across the board for all armies. 2000 points should be worth 2000 points. Not 1500 for some armies and 3000 for others.

If some armies need summoning free points to be competitive, that is a highlight to how bad the points are.

The already-strong armies also getting free points on top is just vulgar.

Matched play balance means nothing right now.

The problem with the statement that 2000 points shold be 2000 points and not 3000 is that some armies do not get the same for one point spent. Not just in different armie books, but also from one sub optimal list to an optimal list within the same armybook.

 Niiai wrote:
The problem with the statement that 2000 points shold be 2000 points and not 3000 is that some armies do not get the same for one point spent. Not just in different armie books, but also from one sub optimal list to an optimal list within the same armybook.

Ok, but it's not normally a 50% discrepancy (outside of maybe a handful of hyper over or under performing units).

The only summoning I have seen that it is properly balanced is the khorne one because basically if you summon you have no allegiance habilitie.s

 auticus wrote:
All i will say is points should be equal across the board for all armies. 2000 points should be worth 2000 points. Not 1500 for some armies and 3000 for others.

If some armies need summoning free points to be competitive, that is a highlight to how bad the points are.

The already-strong armies also getting free points on top is just vulgar.

Matched play balance means nothing right now.

Who says getting summon units isn't equal to another armies non summon worth in points? If 1 army has a unit that fully equal to another unit, but it is getting 1/2 the rules, or costs more but they can summon it, how is that not equal? Special rules costs points.

The problem is that we don't know GW's value on special rules, they may value higher movement over higher wounds, or Fly over armor.

IMO about summoning

When it comes to summoning, all summoning armies do have draw backs from non-summoning armies, take IDK for example, they can have a full army with Fly, fight first, +1-5 attacks, +3-9" to the charge, 3+/3+ with re-roll 1's across the board, MW bombs, outflanking full armies, and still a low drop army (3-5 easily), depending on how they play they can turn 1 charge you with the full army (forgoing +attack buffs) and try to table you turn 1. They do not have summoning but are still consider high tier. They also completely counter OBR and DoT if played correctly.

To properly determine the value of summoning we would need to know a close value of all the rules in the game. How do you value Fight twice? Some units its extremely strong on and others its pointless, so do you value it as a whole or unit by unit? Or how do you value armies like CoS? They have one of the most broke units in the game, you don't see it being played b.c most players are not willing to drop $900 and paint 18+ chariots (each one is equal to 5 models themselves), a 50pt unit with 2 guns that can hit on 2+ wound on 2+ are -1 for D3 and can deal MW's, 6 wounds each, 12" movement, can either Ouflank or run and shoot. Then you also have Shadow warriors, Phoenix guard, Hammers, etc.. etc.. all these units are extremely point efficient for their damage/survivabilities. 1 unit hammers are able to deal over 100D to a 4+ save unit, they can literally 1 round out a unit of juiced up DoK.


When looking at balance and summoning we should look at how the army is preforming over all, see why they are winning and if summoning is a factor or not. Examples: BoK do win events, but they do so with almost 0 summoning, BoC almost never win events and they summon 200-300points a game easily.

Why is it that FS, DoK, IDK, CoS all can win an event even tho they don't have summoning, if summoning wasn't balanced? WHen it comes ot DoT and HoS the top 2 best armies with summoning, they are not winning b.c of summoning tho, they are winning b.c of 1-2 units are extremely good. Play any HoS without KoS or chariots, or DoT with Tzaangors (no horrors or Flamers) and see how well it goes with those 2 armies, it wont be pretty thats what.

 Niiai wrote:
The problem with the statement that 2000 points shold be 2000 points and not 3000 is that some armies do not get the same for one point spent. Not just in different armie books, but also from one sub optimal list to an optimal list within the same armybook.

The fact some armies do not get the same for one point spent is entirely the problem.

Granted thats impossible, but it should be in the same ball park.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
All i will say is points should be equal across the board for all armies. 2000 points should be worth 2000 points. Not 1500 for some armies and 3000 for others.

If some armies need summoning free points to be competitive, that is a highlight to how bad the points are.

The already-strong armies also getting free points on top is just vulgar.

Matched play balance means nothing right now.

Who says getting summon units isn't equal to another armies non summon worth in points? If 1 army has a unit that fully equal to another unit, but it is getting 1/2 the rules, or costs more but they can summon it, how is that not equal? Special rules costs points.

When looking at balance and summoning we should look at how the army is preforming over all, see why they are winning and if summoning is a factor or not. Examples: BoK do win events, but they do so with almost 0 summoning, BoC almost never win events and they summon 200-300points a game easily.

Why is it that FS, DoK, IDK, CoS all can win an event even tho they don't have summoning, if summoning wasn't balanced? WHen it comes ot DoT and HoS the top 2 best armies with summoning, they are not winning b.c of summoning tho, they are winning b.c of 1-2 units are extremely good. Play any HoS without KoS or chariots, or DoT with Tzaangors (no horrors or Flamers) and see how well it goes with those 2 armies, it wont be pretty thats what.

When you perform a linear regression model on the entire game (as I have) you will see that there are massive discrepancies in a lot of point values. At its base sure if a unit can be spam summoned it shoudl cost more etc etc, but thats not always the case. Often is not the case.

When you start breaking out tournament results to back up your claim you are forgetting about the other massive amount of people that don't do tournaments, and aren't running the most optimal lists. Yes a handful of super optimized lists can deal with summoning. That doesn't mean off the chain free summoning is perfectly fine because a few lists can deal with it though. It means if you are playing an optimized tournament-powered list that you can deal with it. But if you aren't playing an optimized tournament-powered list you are pushing pretty models around and rolling dice with an already predetermined outcome. Out of the entire game, how many builds can deal with off the chain free summoning? Not very many.

When it comes down to playing at the store on a saturday, and your opponent shows up with three keeper of secrets and then summons an additional 2000 points by the end of turn 2, and you aren't rocking an adepticon list, there is no point in you playing that game. And I will never agree with the whole git gud concept where you have to go out and buy very specific optimal lists to have good games and on top of that, those armies change every 6 months to a year because of new ghb or erratta/faq. Thats not a good system. I don't care if a few power lists can deal with it just fine, the vast majority of the builds cannot, and it destroys any concept of what matched play was touted as being.

The reality of tournaments is that you MUST be able to deal with mass summoning, or you simply are not running a top-tier list in the first place. Just like mass MWs or nearly-unbreakable armor that is simply something that if an army cannot deal with it, it is not a top-tier tourney army.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reality of tournaments is that you MUST be able to deal with mass summoning, or you simply are not running a top-tier list in the first place. Just like mass MWs or nearly-unbreakable armor that is simply something that if an army cannot deal with it, it is not a top-tier tourney army.

Tournaments yes, but the game shouldn't be (and isn't) balanced around tournaments. So when its basically "play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning" that's not a good response.

 auticus wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The problem with the statement that 2000 points shold be 2000 points and not 3000 is that some armies do not get the same for one point spent. Not just in different armie books, but also from one sub optimal list to an optimal list within the same armybook.

The fact some armies do not get the same for one point spent is entirely the problem.

Granted thats impossible, but it should be in the same ball park.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
All i will say is points should be equal across the board for all armies. 2000 points should be worth 2000 points. Not 1500 for some armies and 3000 for others.

If some armies need summoning free points to be competitive, that is a highlight to how bad the points are.

The already-strong armies also getting free points on top is just vulgar.

Matched play balance means nothing right now.

Who says getting summon units isn't equal to another armies non summon worth in points? If 1 army has a unit that fully equal to another unit, but it is getting 1/2 the rules, or costs more but they can summon it, how is that not equal? Special rules costs points.

When looking at balance and summoning we should look at how the army is preforming over all, see why they are winning and if summoning is a factor or not. Examples: BoK do win events, but they do so with almost 0 summoning, BoC almost never win events and they summon 200-300points a game easily.

Why is it that FS, DoK, IDK, CoS all can win an event even tho they don't have summoning, if summoning wasn't balanced? WHen it comes ot DoT and HoS the top 2 best armies with summoning, they are not winning b.c of summoning tho, they are winning b.c of 1-2 units are extremely good. Play any HoS without KoS or chariots, or DoT with Tzaangors (no horrors or Flamers) and see how well it goes with those 2 armies, it wont be pretty thats what.

When you perform a linear regression model on the entire game (as I have) you will see that there are massive discrepancies in a lot of point values. At its base sure if a unit can be spam summoned it shoudl cost more etc etc, but thats not always the case. Often is not the case.

When you start breaking out tournament results to back up your claim you are forgetting about the other massive amount of people that don't do tournaments, and aren't running the most optimal lists. Yes a handful of super optimized lists can deal with summoning. That doesn't mean off the chain free summoning is perfectly fine because a few lists can deal with it though. It means if you are playing an optimized tournament-powered list that you can deal with it. But if you aren't playing an optimized tournament-powered list you are pushing pretty models around and rolling dice with an already predetermined outcome. Out of the entire game, how many builds can deal with off the chain free summoning? Not very many.

When it comes down to playing at the store on a saturday, and your opponent shows up with three keeper of secrets and then summons an additional 2000 points by the end of turn 2, and you aren't rocking an adepticon list, there is no point in you playing that game. And I will never agree with the whole git gud concept where you have to go out and buy very specific optimal lists to have good games and on top of that, those armies change every 6 months to a year because of new ghb or erratta/faq. Thats not a good system. I don't care if a few power lists can deal with it just fine, the vast majority of the builds cannot, and it destroys any concept of what matched play was touted as being.

But again, thats the KoS fault not Summoning, like i said, play without Keepers or Chariots and see how well it does. You talk about not bring a tournament list but yet you said a HoS with 3 Keepers, the beginner go to HoS tournament list.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reality of tournaments is that you MUST be able to deal with mass summoning, or you simply are not running a top-tier list in the first place. Just like mass MWs or nearly-unbreakable armor that is simply something that if an army cannot deal with it, it is not a top-tier tourney army.

Tournaments yes, but the game shouldn't be (and isn't) balanced around tournaments. So when its basically "play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning" that's not a good response.

Not but tournaments heavily show what is good and isn't, if someone was broken (say summoning) then you can easily tell by the lists and numbers of the results of those events. Watching the armies play as well (everything is recorded now days, at least for some events) and looking at their unit choices/list builds etc.. etc... Then we can conclude what is OP.

From the data we have right now, we can say that summoning is not a problem, as 1/2 the top armies are not summoning, and a couple that do summon are using it more as a tool and not a full out way to play like it was 6 months ago with the stacking CP FeC/BoC lists.

CoS, IDK, FS, DoK, Orruks, BoC/Ogres, OBR has all won events with at least 30+ players from the last GH, but so has DoT, HoS, BoK, and FeC. If summoning was a real problem we would see it i the data.

EDIT: ADD: PS; If you are talking about pickup casual games ONLY and ignoring tournaments 100%, then honestly the bigger issues is shooting lists and unkillable super heroes (like Nagash or Archaon) i feel, they are leaps and bounds more scarier for a lax player than summoning. But we can get into that in another thread.

I'm talking about the entire game. The entire game is casual pick up games, power listing tournament armies, all of it.

If the goal of matched play is a balanced game then I don't see how anyone here can say that free summoning supports that goal in its current incarnation.

The great divide and gulf in these conversations is that for some, if its not broken at a tournament, the game is fine to them.

The response is still play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning.

None of that indicates a well balanced game. It indicates that the game has a huge skew towards certain things and if you aren't using those certain things you might as well not play at all or be ok with getting crushed.

If its ANY element that requires a tournament level list to be able to have a good game against, it goes against the goal of matched play.

 auticus wrote:
I'm talking about the entire game. The entire game is casual pick up games, power listing tournament armies, all of it.

If the goal of matched play is a balanced game then I don't see how anyone here can say that free summoning supports that goal in its current incarnation.

The great divide and gulf in these conversations is that for some, if its not broken at a tournament, the game is fine to them.

The response is still play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning.

None of that indicates a well balanced game. It indicates that the game has a huge skew towards certain things and if you aren't using those certain things you might as well not play at all or be ok with getting crushed.

If its ANY element that requires a tournament level list to be able to have a good game against, it goes against the goal of matched play.

Ok, how can free rules be balanced and supported? There is no point value to army rules, then how can you say the game is balanced without making them point costed? I can say the same thing here for what you are saying about summoning, How can you balance the game with rules like Tides? Or can't be shot at but being the closest, how about rules like Herdstone? It can make you -1 save and give me immune to moral phase. Thats 16.7% more damage for my full army, but then you have terrain like Ogres that heals, how can you balance those two against each other and still have match play?

Free summoning isn't free tho, just b.c you can't see a numerical value for it doesn't mean the army isn't paying for it in some way or another.

And i can tell you don't play just by this response The response is still play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning. b.c the armies that crush you don't do it summoning. Sure some might win b.c they sommoned something onto a objective, but you didn't get crushed that way. HoS did get to summon to much, but now that is gone, and it finally is showing the problem wasn't summon but the KoS are the problem (well and the fight first, but IMO that is still a problem b.c its still a 3+ on KoS)

Wayniac wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reality of tournaments is that you MUST be able to deal with mass summoning, or you simply are not running a top-tier list in the first place. Just like mass MWs or nearly-unbreakable armor that is simply something that if an army cannot deal with it, it is not a top-tier tourney army.

Tournaments yes, but the game shouldn't be (and isn't) balanced around tournaments. So when its basically "play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning" that's not a good response.

Ah I must not have communicated clearly, I meant to say that summoning is a strong enough tactic to be considered standard at the most powerful level of play. I was commenting on how strong it is, not saying everyone should be able to deal with it.

 auticus wrote:
I'm talking about the entire game. The entire game is casual pick up games, power listing tournament armies, all of it.

If the goal of matched play is a balanced game then I don't see how anyone here can say that free summoning supports that goal in its current incarnation.

The great divide and gulf in these conversations is that for some, if its not broken at a tournament, the game is fine to them.

The response is still play a top tier list or get crushed by summoning.

None of that indicates a well balanced game. It indicates that the game has a huge skew towards certain things and if you aren't using those certain things you might as well not play at all or be ok with getting crushed.

If its ANY element that requires a tournament level list to be able to have a good game against, it goes against the goal of matched play.

Yeah, sorry, I'm just not feeling the overwhelming threat from our Sylvaneth player summoning wise. He summons Dryads & slightly annoying trees.
So I'm thinking it's not ALL summoning that's your problem.

His problem is really "free points" since people love to say matched play is balanced (while everything else isn't) because "points are equal" when due to summoning that's really not true at all. So the first thing is the hypocrisy of the "matched play or bust" crowd because it's actually not equal anything if you factor in summoning. The general quality of what you summon isn't really the point, it's still free points that make "2000 points" a lie to feel like things are balanced when they aren't.

I think that's auticus' main issue: Not so much summoning is op (and it is in certain cases) but because it's showing people really aren't as concerned about actual balance where 2000 points is actually 2000 points despite saying how important balance is since summoning, no matter what form, turns 2000 points vs 2000 points into 2000+ vs 2000.

You have to remember auticus is one of those people that constantly get backlash about how "balanced" Matched Play is while everything else is scary and unfamiliar and might be unbalanced because "it's not equal points" but neither is Matched Play equal points when you get down to it, there's just the illusion of equal points. So I suspect that's a big part of his problem. Summoning making 2000 points 2500 or 3000 or whatever just throws balance out the window and yet people still try to claim that Matched Play is balanced while nothing else is.

My main issue is that if I'm playing a 2000 point game I want it to be a 2000 point game. I don't want it to be a 4000 point to 2000 point game, or a 3000 point to 2000 point game.

There are many games where you can get in free summons and its not as bent. There is summoning in AOS that is also not bent. There however is a lot of summoning that IS bent and people build around overwhelming their opponent with army and a half to double the army vs theirs, and I find that to be vulgar.

Sylvaneth summoning is an example where your opponent might get 500 extra points of dryads. Thats an advantage sure, but not a vulgar advantage.

When you have armies that are gaining 1000 - 2000 points of extra troops, that is vulgar. And they aren't just like dryads they are getting. They are summoning in more greater heroes and elites as well as trash troops.

So you're right its not ALL summoning I have a problem with, its the several factions in AOS that can do vulgar summoning because it wrecks the concept of matched play without every faction having a counter balance of some kind.

And we've seen yes tournament powered forces have counter balances to vulgar summoning, but if you are forced to field tournament powered lists to counter vulgar summoning, thats not balanced, nor is it aligning with the goals of matched play which was to provide a fair and balanced game (as can be).

And I believe Wayne is also correct - I have a very strong desire for balanced games where someone can't just be the rooster strutting over the board crapping on everything because they keep up with the busted things and don't really have to invest much in playing the game (yes I know the top tournament players yadda yadda they always win, yes they are truly good players, I'm not referring to them). If you follow my complaint about summoning upstream, it is because it severely disrupts the whole "balance" of the game in regards to specifically the armies that can vulgar summon 1000+ free points.

But thats my point, you can't say summon is free points without saying army rules are free points.

IDk has a +1 attack hero that can give 3 units +1atks and can stack X times along with full army fight first. But when you look at BoC with an equal unit (Enlighten Tzaangor on Disks) and Gave spawn able to give them +1 as well as a Taurus to make them fight first, once you look at the difficultly, the points, etc.. to make 3 units equal in strength, you find out really fast that the BoC player is well over 10c harder to get the same damage and abilities, they are relialing ona Spawn (easy to die, slow, etc..) and 3x the CP, along with a spell to even get to fight first (which can back fire and make YOU fight last).

How can you say summoning is not balanced and then say all abilities are balanced? I just can't understand that type of thinking.

We have given a few examples that summoning isn't OP, Sylvaneth, BoC, BoK, MoN all are mid/low tier armies and has summoning. When has any thought those armies summoning was to strong?

From my pov, what i really see is when they are losing and then someone summons in something it feels like a kick to the gut while they are down. Not that summoning is a problem, but it makes a bad experience feel worst. But the same thing happens if you had 1 more combat and you stack +1atks 4x onto a uit you know is already dead, people don't like that either, its just not as easily brought up, or when you declare you fight first when you know you won, etc.. It could also be that tje people are complaining hasn't played in the last 6 months as summoning has greatly been nerfed (or its just lingering bias).


Finally a Question for @Auticus; when was the last time you played a game of AoS vs new Sylvaneth or MoN and then have you played against nerf HoS? What about OBR, CoS, and KO? They don't summon. I would like to hear your games, what you played, what they played, etc..

I can't comment on Summoning too much. I make use of it in a limited way via Warcry Cultists and the Occasional Eye of the gods result which are both limited either by spending a CP or randomly getting a free summon. I often find it kinda a hassle as I have bring extra models to have the option to use it as they aren't always worth summoning or don't happen at all.

However, when it comes to free points, how to people feel about Healing or similar abilities that bring back units? It technically isn't summoning, but can bring back a fair amount of points. At least against an army such as mine that does low damage. Because of that, I have played games where my opponent basically got a few units for free as I just can't wear them down off an objective fast enough.

I am sure that most don't see healing as nearly as problematic as summoning. They're probably right. It is a sort of free points though.

But thats my point, you can't say summon is free points without saying army rules are free points.

I certainly can because models that are appearing for free have a point value attached to them.

If my opponent summons in two squads of daemonettes, two squads of daemonette cavalry, another keeper of secrets, etc those have fixed points values.

If an army rule is "all models in the army gain +1 attack if Mr. Man is on the table" I can also find its points values through a regression by inflating all units in the army with +1 attack and following the linear progression to see what their new true value is.

I can also tell you, having done exactly this, that the free models often outstrip these army rules. Which is why the powergamers are summoning in literally up to 2000 extra points, because that is far more useful in most cases.

I'm also not really sure what the point of when the last time I played against armies that don't summon is.

This is a thread on the current summoning.

Your point is centered around "these armies don't summon but are very powerful and those armies need free summoning to keep up" - going back to your army rule argument.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

What I'm disagreeing with is once again we have things in place that not every faction has the tools to deal with. Which is absolute garbage.

And again, tournament power lists can deal with summoning is great. If you're running tournament power lists.

The rest of the game gets face planted against vulgar summoning.

Vulgar summoning is pay to win in many cases.

Pay to win needs to go away.

The vulgar disparity in balance needs to go away as well.

If all factions are not able to play against each other and have a good game, the overall game is garbage in my opinion.

That means if vulgar summoning is going to be a thing, there had better be a counter available to every single army in the game. Not just a handful of the chosen tournament factions.

If there was a viable counter to it that every faction possessed to keep things in check, I probably wouldn't care so much.

But spending the entire three or so years of watching the powergamers in my area **** all over narrative campaigns with pay to win summoning, forcing the rest of the players to either give up or go out and buy tournament armies defines my opinion on it.

I am sure that most don't see healing as nearly as problematic as summoning. They're probably right. It is a sort of free points though.

Free healing is the same as free summoning. In limited measures its fine. In vulgar displays where you can just recycle your whole army over and over its busted unless there is a counter to it. Its a huge negative play experience to throw a bunch of resources at your opponent, and then they just shrug and chuckle and recycle the unit that you just removed, if you have no counter play available.

The nexus point of this entire issue seems to boil down to not every faction has comparable tools which means if you aren't chasing the power armies, you don't get a good game without either giving in and chasing the power armies, or pleading with an opponent to not field their adepticon list against you because you chose to like a gimp faction.

Many players in my experience will summarize that with "not my problem".

Circling back to army rules being worth points, which I agree with, the problem with those (outside of the scope of this thread which is on summoning) is that some of those are equally busted and worth much more than they should be because they cause the same problem - not all factions have the tools to counter and thus a poor game experience is very common.

Summoning could be done in a way that adds flavor to an army. Something like legions of nagash resurrecting the dead to fight once more, or Daemons where bloodshed, violence and warp energies draw forth more Daemons to the field to battle, as has already been done.

The concept of summoning doesn't need to be broken in my mind. It does however, require appropriate balancing so that, even with an average number of summoned/recycled units per game, that the armies still end up balanced.

The execution has ended up done poorly, where LoN pay the same to bring back 10 Graveguard as they do to return 30 Grimghast Reapers or 20 Hexwraiths, or Slaanesh essentially getting a free Keeper of Secrets from one KoS dying and doing damage with a certain faction trait.

I'm glad that the only summoning I need to experience on a daily basis is my own Sylvaneth, or my opponents Khorne/Nurgle summoning, or a unit of Grots maybe coming back.

I would agree that the concept of summoning doesn't need to be broken, and there are other games and even past versions of whfb where summoning wasn't as bent as it can be today.

The power gaming right now is NOT summoning 2k points, no army can do that anymore without giving up a LOT of other stuff. DoT can summon a LoC each turn, but no one plays it, why? B.c its BAD, yes summoning a Greater daemons turn 1 is bad b.c its a huge investment, one that doesn't work out in the end compare to what else you could be doing, like teleporting Horrors, using Flamers. Etc.. you need at least 5 casters to make that list work otherwise you get run over and don't have the tools to make it work, and when you do all of that it still is to slow and doesn't work well. Especially when looking at Duplicitous horror bombs.


"The nexus point of this entire issue seems to boil down to not every faction has comparable tools"

I don't see that in the game other than weak armies like Sylvaneth, Goblins, etc.. some armies are just to weak in general and won't be able to handle summoning or non-summoning armies. We have given many examples of many armies that can handle it. When you look at the armies that can't, you'll see they all have the same 1 thing in common, its a weak force in general. Or its the player playing with a weak list.

note
I want to talk about that for a second, when i say a weak list, its not always "power level" weak. A lot of the times there is no synergy within the army, or there is to much of 1 thing and not enough of another. Even tho you should be able to play with all units in a army, you still need to have balance with what works together and what doesn't. This is most likely one of the reasons why GW decided to move everything into categories of buffs, artefacts, traits, etc.. to help the common player build their armies. When building a army you need to have some plan as to how to play that army, how to win, and how to handle different things. If you are not putting all that into consideration, then yeah you shouldn't be able to handle a player that is doing that, regardless of the rules or balance, etc..




Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS i want to add, the worst part about summoning IMO is for ties, they don't count for kills.

Your perspective is still skewed primarily at the tournament level. As long as we keep going back and forth from a tournament-only perspective to the overall game perspective, we will never be meeting in the middle.

There are a number of factions that cannot deal with excessive summoning. Outside of the realm of the tournament where most players are powergaming.

Then looking at the factions that CAN deal with excessive summoning, a number of those have to build a certain way to deal with excessive summoning, leaving a very large number of builds that cannot from those factions.

PS i want to add, the worst part about summoning IMO is for ties, they don't count for kills.

Totally agree. There is no cost to doing it. Its all free and all beneficial. If there was a risk of some type added, it wouldn't be as bad.

I'm not talking about tournament level anymore, and i haven't been for a bit.

You can't expect to put any unit on the table and do well, you still need synergy and a means to an end even at casual levels. Each unit should have a purpose, even if you are playing it for fun you should still look at what the unit does and what to expect it to do, work with those expectations. Just randomizing units together you might get 2 units that can't even work together.

Take the BoC Herdstone, a Daemon prince is a very good Ally, but Belakor is better simply b.c the Herdstone won't effect him but it does effect the Daemon Prince (-1 to the save of all units that are not BoC). Even at a casual level this can ruin a Daemon Prince, a unit that is consider very good, all b.c you didn't look at how it'll work with the army.

You don't need to do to the extremes and make super combos, just like my example, some as little as that can change how you play the game, or that unit.

 auticus wrote:


There are a number of factions that cannot deal with excessive summoning. Outside of the realm of the tournament where most players are powergaming.

What do you think those factions are?
For that matter which factions are you accusing of "excessive summoning"?

 auticus wrote:
Then looking at the factions that CAN deal with excessive summoning, a number of those have to build a certain way to deal with excessive summoning, leaving a very large number of builds that cannot from those factions.

What factions do you think those are? And the (summarized) builds required.

I would constitute anything greater than 500 free points as excessive summoning and anything cascading higher than 1000 points as vulgarly excessive summoning.

Just randomizing units together you might get 2 units that can't even work together.

That one gets thrown around quite a bit but I'm not suggesting randomly putting units together and making it work.

There is absolutely no way I will believe you can take a non tournament list to a game where your opponent is bringing out 1000 free extra points and expect me to acknowledge that some sort of competitive good game is going to be had with that. I've seen literally dozens of those matchups and they have never been fun to watch or fun to play (on either side of the table).