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Thinking along the lines of the idea posed earlier, of using rules already in the game with the Sudden Death mechanic, I feel a big big change needed for Summoning comes in mission tie-breakers. It's really not right that summoned in units dying doesn't count towards your kill-count in the event of a tiebreaker, that's a big thing that needs to change.

On top of that, another idea I had was;

What if Summoned in Units (Units added to your army after creation, however it ought to be worded properly) do not count towards the model count to control objectives.

Honestly, Some kind of mechanic where the summoned unit begins to Disolve or suffer attrition, maybe taking mortal wounds the longer they stay active on the field, or losing models in this way?

Yup. This is what I would do as game wide rules:

1. Destroyed Summoned units count for kill based VP.
2. Summoned units cannot hold objectives.
3. Hard cap on total point value of units summoned - as a starting point, maybe set to the allies limit? So in a 2k game you can never summon more than 400pts.

Or just give sudden death win conditions to the other side if player summons 500 or more points. No caps, big tradeoff and a risk.

Keeping track of which units are summoned can be a pain. Rather they should count for VPs and for objectives. One less bit of book keeping.

I do think it is ridiculous that summondef units don't count when determining minor victories. And that a hard cap equal to the tally limit would be a nice easy way of reigning things in in a manner simple enough that GW couldn't screw it up.

What if every summoned unit destroyed gives the opponent a victory point?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
What if every summoned unit destroyed gives the opponent a victory point?

That just incentivises summoning harder to kill stuff like Keepers.

Yeah you either have to introduce a legit risk to summoning, or you need rules that hard cap what can and can't be summoned and it not be everything you want.

Personally I think a hard cap is better than risk. A hardcap you can work with because you've got limit points that you can plan for. Introducing risk to summoning adds a lot of random that you can't easily plan for. Just as you could chance and get way more you could also chance and get way less which makes the game swing too much on the summoning chance as a single element which is bad for game and army balance.

I don't understand how adding risk to summoning makes the game swing too much and how that is bad for the game and army balance, considering we are literally standing almost as low as we can go in terms of balancing already. Adding risk adds meaningful choices. Meaningful choices are at least from where I am standing what makes me interested in a game. Games that make the choices for me, such as AOS, are things that make games (to me) not good.

The more meaningful choice you can return to the game, the better it gets IMO.

A hard cap would be acceptable, but does not add meaningful choices. Instead, a hard cap adds a listbuilding constraint that can and will be min/maxed for optimal scenario. A risk can be mitigated as best as possible, but if written properly will always be an actual RISK that will be present and I feel is more of a choice to have to make over a hardcap because the hardcap will just be mathed and maxed, presenting itself with a decision that will make itself for you.

 auticus wrote:
I don't understand how adding risk to summoning makes the game swing too much and how that is bad for the game and army balance, considering we are literally standing almost as low as we can go in terms of balancing already. Adding risk adds meaningful choices. Meaningful choices are at least from where I am standing what makes me interested in a game. Games that make the choices for me, such as AOS, are things that make games (to me) not good.

The more meaningful choice you can return to the game, the better it gets IMO.

A hard cap would be acceptable, but does not add meaningful choices. Instead, a hard cap adds a listbuilding constraint that can and will be min/maxed for optimal scenario. A risk can be mitigated as best as possible, but if written properly will always be an actual RISK that will be present and I feel is more of a choice to have to make over a hardcap because the hardcap will just be mathed and maxed, presenting itself with a decision that will make itself for you.

B.c hard risks should be for tactics not for mechanics. Otherwise someone that thinks Healing, or spell casting is OP would want a higher risk than running at your and pound face.

What about shooting? CoS and DoT can literally shoot you off the board in 1 turn with some matchups, should you take blow back for shooting now? Its high risk, so its ok?

See what i mean? Basic game mechanics should never be high risk.

I strongly disagree with your assessment. Particularly when it comes to something like adding free points to your army which is an unbalancing mechanism which begs the question "why would I never do this?".

There is nothing tactical about maxing out free summoning. Its something so elementary of a decision that even the most daft among us realizes how useful and powerful it is to want to do it as much as possible. It is as tactical and strategic as being allowed to backload a chess board with all queens because you are smart enough to realize thats more powerful.

Pretty much EVERY wargame from time immemorial up until recent times had risks baked into their basic mechanics of varying degree. In WHFB, summoning was both limited to
* Basic core units
* you couldn't get that many of them anyway
* you ran the risk of miscasting which could blow your wizard or army up.

8th edition took the steps to removing risks by making the miscast table laughable to not be a risk. AOS took that ball and ran it across the goal line for maximum effect for no risk.

How about something like the way Khorne does it? You get one set of points; enjoy your summoning or your abilities and all points empty out on each usage.

I guess for me, the khorne stuff has been out for a long while now and 9 times out of 10 the people using it are always summoning instead of using the abilities - because free summoning will always be more useful.

That is something I consider a false decision. Its there, it gives the illusion you have all kinds of stuff to do, but in reality people trend toward the same choice.

Hence when you break from the mold and do something drastic, it throws people for a loop! Nobody expects the Khornish Inquisition!!

 auticus wrote:
I guess for me, the khorne stuff has been out for a long while now and 9 times out of 10 the people using it are always summoning instead of using the abilities - because free summoning will always be more useful.

That is something I consider a false decision. Its there, it gives the illusion you have all kinds of stuff to do, but in reality people trend toward the same choice.

Then I would say the Khorne players in your area should reassess their strategies. There are many occasions where adding a blessing to a unit or healing wounds would be much more useful than adding a unit of 10 Bloodletters

Nearly no khorne player I know summons specially competitive ones because the blessings are better for your bloodthirsters.

Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

 vipoid wrote:
Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

Maybe but the real issue is "free points" and nothing else.

I guess you could put that to a poll with a larger audience: hey khorne players - do you like to summon with your blood tithe or do you like to use it for blessings.

 vipoid wrote:
Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

The problem is, he has a problem with what he thinks is Free points. If you took out all summoning then these armies with summon would just be given more points of models anyways via making units cheaper, more heavily buffed them.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

The problem is, he has a problem with what he thinks is Free points. If you took out all summoning then these armies with summon would just be given more points of models anyways via making units cheaper, more heavily buffed them.

I'm not convinced that level of care is being taken when writing the different tomes.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

The problem is, he has a problem with what he thinks is Free points. If you took out all summoning then these armies with summon would just be given more points of models anyways via making units cheaper, more heavily buffed them.

I'm not convinced that level of care is being taken when writing the different tomes.

I fully agree with this.

But is the mechanic bad? Or is it only some books were written with imbalances? Or is it only bad b.c of a few books? My PoV is no, summoning isn't bad as a mechanic, but some books are bad. GW has notice this and has tried to fix it a bit (Some can argue not enough, which i can understand their PoV on it). I personally think at this point summoning isn't a problem, but power level of some books that can summon is a problema nd it isn't the summoning mechanic that makes those books the problem, instead its over powered units (Like Flamers and KoS) that are the real problem and if those units were toned down you wouldn't see summon as a problem other than some people mad that they dont be "free units" but we can ague that free units isn't actually free. My BoC Ungors are straight up worst than Clanrats, but i can summon an extra 30-40 in a game. Is an extra 30 Ungors really that strong? They are 1 attack 4+/4+ no rend, they are not going to do damage, its just more wounds on the table, but vs some armies this is pointless, against others is game winning. BoC summoning is only strong b.c they can summon on an objective near an edge. Otherwise the BoC player will wait 2-3 turns to get 1 unit that might do something. Is that really better than all 120 of my Ungors on the table literally doubling their damage and immune to BS? IMO No, i'd rather have the Immune to BS and Double damage, as i can take 30"+ movement units if i needed to steal back objectives. Really I don't need to summon to do what summoning does.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Would it help if summoning was limited to Baseline units?

The problem is, he has a problem with what he thinks is Free points. If you took out all summoning then these armies with summon would just be given more points of models anyways via making units cheaper, more heavily buffed them.

I have pointed out a few times that other games that have free points do it in a sane way and have given examples. Baseline units... TRUE baseline units (aos flew that coop long ago by making elites "core") summoned in limited numbers would not break the game. The stupid crap with summoning entire half to full extra armies is bad. The ability to summon in multiple greater demons extra is bad. Limited summoning as a mechanic is fine and can be fun.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
How about something like the way Khorne does it? You get one set of points; enjoy your summoning or your abilities and all points empty out on each usage.

i absolutely love the way Khorne does it. It is fully integrated where summoning actually means giving up something else and I wish all armies were like that. But failing that just have a weaker set of allegiance abilities to compensate for summons, like Starborne Seraphon, Nurgle, or Beastmen.

I don’t remember; how bad is it considered to have an entire army of Gaunt Summoners that port in an army of Pink Horrors? You can get 6 Gaunt Summoners (3 on, 3 off disc), access to tons of magic for them with added Destiny Dice, and you have 500pts to cover Endless Spells, 3 core units, and you can have a total of 300 lesser daemons (each unit of 10 horrors can be seen as 50 potential bodies).

And yes, that’s a point of summoning. Plus make them a cult to LoCs and watch your first LoC drop into the game turn one from all those successful spells.

I know people say HoS is worse than DoT for summoning, but I think seeing that happen across the table from me would make my eyes water from the sting. That’s 1350pts summoned on turn 1, almost guaranteed (only LoC isn’t a guarantee).

Slaanesh is definitely not the only offender. There are usually at any given time in the life cycle of 2.0 2-3 builds that can do something obscene with summoning.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I don’t remember; how bad is it considered to have an entire army of Gaunt Summoners that port in an army of Pink Horrors? You can get 6 Gaunt Summoners (3 on, 3 off disc), access to tons of magic for them with added Destiny Dice, and you have 500pts to cover Endless Spells, 3 core units, and you can have a total of 300 lesser daemons (each unit of 10 horrors can be seen as 50 potential bodies).

And yes, that’s a point of summoning. Plus make them a cult to LoCs and watch your first LoC drop into the game turn one from all those successful spells.

I know people say HoS is worse than DoT for summoning, but I think seeing that happen across the table from me would make my eyes water from the sting. That’s 1350pts summoned on turn 1, almost guaranteed (only LoC isn’t a guarantee).

Just FYI, there is no rule of three in AoS---one can take as many gaunt summoners as they like of either variety (up to 9, of course). And each comes with a 200-point unit baked in, so they basically cost 40 points!

They’re heroes. So 6 in a 2k game is the max, which is why I used that number.