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http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/655877.page

Thanks!

Hey guys, so I dusted off my Tomb Kings and my girlfriend did so for her Lizardmen, and we tried out AoS last night. I must say, after reading the rules for the units, I was rather excited to give my Tomb Kings a go.

Forewarning, don't hate on me. My girlfriend knew before hand what I was bringing, and I that's how I told her to build her list.

I told her to bring every unit she possibly could (She doesn't own a huge amount of Lizardmen). So, she conjured up a unit of 40+ Skinks with blowdarts, 40+ Saurus Warriors, ~15 Cold One Riders, 2 Jungle Swarms, a Skink Priest, A Saurus Oldblood, and an Oldblood on a Cold One.

I simply brought Nagash.

I had a few reasonings behind doing that. A. I never really got to use him in a game previously, and really wanted to try out that $115ish dollar model. B. I "figured" the amount of models she brought would be a good match-up. C. I "figured" he wouldn't be too terribly powerful, as his last incarnation was good, but not stupidly good (at least from what I saw).

So, the game was as follows. She had first turn, and ran at me with everything. My first turn I stood in place and summoned 40 Archers, 20 Warriors, 10 Tomb Guard, 4 Tomb Swarms, and 13 Horsemen (I only own 13). Turn 2 I proceeded to summon 20 more warriors and 10 more Tomb Guard as the Banners in each unit revived most of whatever I lost (Losing 2 Horsemen to skinks, but restoring a d3 MODELS during my hero phase. That's a bit too much, imo). Between that, and Nagash's Command ability, I didn't even need to cast a spell the rest of the game (except the Magic Barrier spell, or whatever it's called. a 2+ rerolling 1s Save on Nagash was nice. I was also out of summonable models....). Then, since Nagash has a large base, he was always within range of my units. So, my Warriors were hitting on 3s (4s, with a +1 from a nearby Death wizard), rerolling 1s, then wounding on 4s, with 2 attacks each because they had 20 models in the unit. Then, of course, a 5+ rerolling 1s Saving throw on freaking skeletons. Needless to say, my dead pile was a measly 4 models, while my girlfriend called it after Nagash almost wiped out all 3 of her characters in a single combat phase.

In conclusion, don't use Nagash, EVER. He's too broken good. Other than that, I loved the overall feel of the rules. Seeing my skeletons in a 40k fashion (no movement trays), and seeing all of them have good, unique rules (Horsemen can now run and charge? Woohoo!) is awesome. Then, of course, despite the slaughter this game was, seeing Nagash being charged by the new Daemons of Order and having him raise an army of that size was spectacular to see, and then seeing the two armies collide, but having my skeletons actually stand back up as they seem to do in fluff was wicked. The only concern, which I'm sure everyone has, is the balance factor. There's really no way to balance the game without sitting down and talking with your opponent. But, we shall see how that goes. A couple of my friends are already looking at playing more or getting into the game if they're not already.

What about all you guys? How have your games been going?

Hm... question.

If you only had Nagash, how did you summon units? If I'm not mistaken, by default Nagash knows the Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust and Soul Stealer spells, and any spell known by any other death wizard on the battlefield.

I'm assuming no lizardman was a death wizard, and other than Nagash you didn't have any other mini, so... how did you end up knowing enough spells to summon 6 units? Or any unit at all, for that matter?

Am I not reading the rules correctly? (entirely possible, yeah >.&gt

 krodarklorr wrote:
I "figured" he wouldn't be too terribly powerful, as his last incarnation was good, but not stupidly good (at least from what I saw).

...Really?
This makes we wonder if you had seen any of him in 8th.

Hey, in AoS you make up your own rules!

Krodar just likes to carry out some domestic abuse.

Nagash only knows Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust, and Soul Stealer. If there is another Death Wizard on the table, he knows all of their spells as well. The Seraphon have no Death Wizards.

Another troubling comment by the OP:

Then, since Nagash has a large base, he was always within range of my units.

Base size has nothing to do with anything in AoS except to hold your model up on the table.

 Albertorius wrote:
Hm... question.

If you only had Nagash, how did you summon units? If I'm not mistaken, by default Nagash knows the Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust and Soul Stealer spells, and any spell known by any other death wizard on the battlefield.

I'm assuming no lizardman was a death wizard, and other than Nagash you didn't have any other mini, so... how did you end up knowing enough spells to summon 6 units? Or any unit at all, for that matter?

Am I not reading the rules correctly? (entirely possible, yeah >.&gt

It's in the Warscrolls for the Summonable units, something like 'in addition to any other spells he knows, all Death Wizards know...[insert Summon X here]' Nagash is a Death Wizard, so knows them.


My advice to your opponent would be to take smaller units. AoS is not really a game of huge units, so the Lizards/Skinks would probably have fared better as multiple units of 20-ish.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Nagash only knows Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust, and Soul Stealer. If there is another Death Wizard on the table, he knows all of their spells as well. The Seraphon have no Death Wizards.

Another troubling comment by the OP:

Then, since Nagash has a large base, he was always within range of my units.

Base size has nothing to do with anything in AoS except to hold your model up on the table.

Ah, wait, I see now: I thought "Death Wizard" was some kind of warscroll, unit or whatever, but it's not; it's just something with the "Death" and "Wizard" keywords. So Nagash is a Death Wizard, so he gets for free the Summon Harbingers, Summon Archai, Summon Vargueists, Summon Fell Bats, Summon Bat Swarms, Raise Zombies, Summon Dire Wolves, Raise Skeletons, Raise Grave Guard, Raise Black Knights, Summon Ghouls, Summon Crypt Horrors, Summon Varghulf, Summon Wraith, Summon Banshee, Manifest Spirits, Summon Hexwraith, Summon Terrorgheist and Summon Zombie Dragon spells.

...and so do any other death wizard in the table.

Let's go back to the rules for casting spells:

All wizards can use the spells described below, as well as any spells listed on their warscroll. A wizard can only attempt to cast each spell once per turn.

So the problem is not really Nagash, but any wizards that can try to cast a fething total of about 20 fething spells per turn.

Also, those rules mean either that Nagash's Nine Books don't do anything or that they allow him to cast the same spell multiple times in addition to trying to cast each fething one of them once per phase.

Well, that's... huh. Something, all right.

EDIT: Ninjaed xD

 Albertorius wrote:
Hm... question.

If you only had Nagash, how did you summon units? If I'm not mistaken, by default Nagash knows the Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust and Soul Stealer spells, and any spell known by any other death wizard on the battlefield.

I'm assuming no lizardman was a death wizard, and other than Nagash you didn't have any other mini, so... how did you end up knowing enough spells to summon 6 units? Or any unit at all, for that matter?

Am I not reading the rules correctly? (entirely possible, yeah >.&gt

Yeah, I thought that's how it works as well, but me and a rules-savy friend of mine discussed it a bit, and there's nothing that says he doesn't know those spells. Plus, theoretically, Nagash can't summon unless there's the same stuff on the field already. That doesn't really make sense to me.

I could be wrong, but that's how we interpreted it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Nagash only knows Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust, and Soul Stealer. If there is another Death Wizard on the table, he knows all of their spells as well. The Seraphon have no Death Wizards.

Another troubling comment by the OP:

Then, since Nagash has a large base, he was always within range of my units.

Base size has nothing to do with anything in AoS except to hold your model up on the table.

Because we believe measuring from the model is wonky, and I believe my group isn't the only one to believe so, judging by the internet. So, for simplicity sake, we measure from bases.

Some people are assuming that as long as you own the units you get to count as having those warscrolls, and thus count your death wizards as knowing those spells.

I think you need the units of the table to make this happen (As a partial balancing element)

alex87 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I "figured" he wouldn't be too terribly powerful, as his last incarnation was good, but not stupidly good (at least from what I saw).

...Really?
This makes we wonder if you had seen any of him in 8th.

I saw a little bit. His summoning was good, but much more balanced (i.e needing to roll a 24+ and choosing a certain amount dice from a randomly determined dice pool, then taking into account dispels, was harder to pull off than rolling 2 dice, not being able to fail, and not being able to be dispelled).

 Coyote81 wrote:
(As a partial balancing element)

Hmm, must be a mistake in the rules then. GW will probably fix that.

But, I agree with it. That's how my group is playing summoning also.

krodarklorr, buy your girlfriend Kroak... or at least a Slann. It will help.

She can then summon stuff also.

You two can go at it all night, trying to finish each other off.

 Red Viper wrote:

 Coyote81 wrote:
(As a partial balancing element)

Hmm, must be a mistake in the rules then. GW will probably fix that.

But, I agree with it. That's how my group is playing summoning also.

krodarklorr, buy your girlfriend Kroak... or at least a Slann. It will help.

She can then summon stuff also.

You two can go at it all night, trying to finish each other off.

I think she likes the new rules much better than the old. (She plays Chaos Space Marines as well, and is always like "Okay, so my WS is 4, so I hit you on......4s?") Because of that, I think she might want to get into the game more, and in which case, will be getting some more models, a Slann being top of the list.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Nagash only knows Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Hand of Dust, and Soul Stealer. If there is another Death Wizard on the table, he knows all of their spells as well. The Seraphon have no Death Wizards.

Another troubling comment by the OP:

Then, since Nagash has a large base, he was always within range of my units.

Base size has nothing to do with anything in AoS except to hold your model up on the table.

Ah, wait, I see now: I thought "Death Wizard" was some kind of warscroll, unit or whatever, but it's not; it's just something with the "Death" and "Wizard" keywords. So Nagash is a Death Wizard, so he gets for free the Summon Harbingers, Summon Archai, Summon Vargueists, Summon Fell Bats, Summon Bat Swarms, Raise Zombies, Summon Dire Wolves, Raise Skeletons, Raise Grave Guard, Raise Black Knights, Summon Ghouls, Summon Crypt Horrors, Summon Varghulf, Summon Wraith, Summon Banshee, Manifest Spirits, Summon Hexwraith, Summon Terrorgheist and Summon Zombie Dragon spells.

...and so do any other death wizard in the table.

Let's go back to the rules for casting spells:

All wizards can use the spells described below, as well as any spells listed on their warscroll. A wizard can only attempt to cast each spell once per turn.

So the problem is not really Nagash, but any wizards that can try to cast a fething total of about 20 fething spells per turn.

Also, those rules mean either that Nagash's Nine Books don't do anything or that they allow him to cast the same spell multiple times in addition to trying to cast each fething one of them once per phase.

Well, that's... huh. Something, all right.

EDIT: Ninjaed xD

Wizards have a cap on the number of spells they can cast per turn. Nagash can cast between 4-8 spells per turn, depending on how many wounds he's taken so far. He gets between +1 and +3 to his casting rolls, again depending on how many wounds he's taken so far. I don't believe any wizard can cast 20 spells per turn. You can only cast up to the number of spells you're allowed to cast and you can only attempt each spell once per round.

I think it's intended that any wizard automatically knows those powers... Why would you need the unit on the table to summon it? I understand wanting to balance summoning, because its broken as hell, but im pretty sure gw didnt intend to limit it to things you already have in your army.. That doesnt really make much sense.

I mean it kinda does for death wizards, necromancy and stuff but the others? Personally i think the reason they put the summon spell on the individual unit warscrolls is simply because they all have different casting values. You couldnt fit all those casting values on the wizard's warscroll. So they put tge appropriate casting value on the appropriate warscroll.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I think it's intended that any wizard automatically knows those powers... Why would you need the unit on the table to summon it? I understand wanting to balance summoning, because its broken as hell, but im pretty sure gw didnt intend to limit it to things you already have in your army.. That doesnt really make much sense.

I mean it kinda does for death wizards, necromancy and stuff but the others? Personally i think the reason they put the summon spell on the individual unit warscrolls is simply because they all have different casting values. You couldnt fit all those casting values on the wizard's warscroll. So they put tge appropriate casting value on the appropriate warscroll.

And also because most of the Death units have their own associated spell. That's a ton of spells to put on one page.

Yes, it would be a clusterfeth. Of course the best way of doing it would be to have a chart at the end of the compendiums in question that says "All death wizards know the summon undead spell. Use this chart to find the unit you wish to summon and its corresponding casting value. Then a list of all the units and their casting values.

That would have avoided confusion, and conveyed what was intended much better.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
Yes, it would be a clusterfeth. Of course the best way of doing it would be to have a chart at the end of the compendiums in question that says "All death wizards know the summon undead spell. Use this chart to find the unit you wish to summon and its corresponding casting value. Then a list of all the units and their casting values.

That would have avoided confusion, and conveyed what was intended much better.

That would also make it near impossible to add new summonable units without instantly invalidating the existing 'Summon Undead' spell. Given a War Scroll environment where rules are included in the box for new units and freely online (as we've been told will happen), it makes far more sense to add a Summon New Guys spell to the New Guys War Scroll and say it's available to all Death Wizards.

the summon spells are given through the warscrolls for the units that can be summoned.

So if your army does not have the warscroll 'grave guard' your death wizards will not have the raise grave guard power as it comes from that warscroll not from some other source.

there is just no RAW permission outside of the warscroll of an unit to summon the unit, and you only have the rules on the warscroll if you include the warscroll in your army, therefore you must have that unit to be able to summon those units.

So according to the rules, you probably lost first turn.

Summonable models don't count toward the number of models in your army, but do count toward casualties.

You started the game with one model.

As soon as you lost one model, you have suffered 100% casualties. Your wife can immediately claim a major victory.

I thought summoned models counted towards the army size.

Nomeny wrote:
I thought summoned models counted towards the army size.

Models added to your army during the
game (for example, through summoning,
reinforcements, reincarnation and so on) do
not count towards the number of models in
the army, but must be counted among the
casualties an army su ers.

So what was his army size? 1 Model. How many casualties did he suffer? 1 model. He has suffered 100% casualties.

 pretre wrote:

Nomeny wrote:
I thought summoned models counted towards the army size.

Models added to your army during the
game (for example, through summoning,
reinforcements, reincarnation and so on) do
not count towards the number of models in
the army, but must be counted among the
casualties an army su ers.

So what was his army size? 1 Model. How many casualties did he suffer? 1 model. He has suffered 100% casualties.

Well that just seems rather silly. I would think summoned models wouldn't count either way.

It is the balancing mechanic against summoning.

 pretre wrote:
It is the balancing mechanic against summoning.

Okay, so there's no point in using summoning. Gotcha.

 Kriswall wrote:
Wizards have a cap on the number of spells they can cast per turn. Nagash can cast between 4-8 spells per turn, depending on how many wounds he's taken so far. He gets between +1 and +3 to his casting rolls, again depending on how many wounds he's taken so far. I don't believe any wizard can cast 20 spells per turn. You can only cast up to the number of spells you're allowed to cast and you can only attempt each spell once per round.

Ah, you're right. Phew, that's much better

There probably should only need to exist one or two Summon undead spells, though , maybe even three (regular, special and character undeads, or something like that).

They only count for casualty numbers. This is an inherent balancing mechanism for over summoning. As has been said, if you start with Nagash only and summon a ton of units... as soon as you lose one model you've taken 100% casualties... two models and you're up to 200% casualties. More or less means your only chance to win is a Major Victory through full tabling your opponent or by achieving your Sudden Death objective, which you almost certainly will be eligible for. Tabling isn't always an easy task, so the Sudden Death objective is your best bet. Winning a Minor Victory would be almost impossible unless your opponent also has a tiny, summoning reliant army.

Nagash is fun, but only has 16 wounds and a 3+ save. Take some decent archers who get 2 shots each... Sisters of Avelorn from the High Elves are a decent example. Two units of 26 each will, on average, kill Nagash in one round of shooting. It would only take 36 Dwarf Irondrakes one turn of standing and shooting to wipe him out. He's not unkillable.

Given the inherent balancing mechanism... if my opponent put down Nagash and said he was done I'd just drop unit after unit of ranged attackers, kill Nagash ASAP and then treat the rest of his army as a clean up effort, all the while protecting whatever he claimed as his Sudden Death objective.

 Kriswall wrote:
They only count for casualty numbers. This is an inherent balancing mechanism for over summoning. As has been said, if you start with Nagash only and summon a ton of units... as soon as you lose one model you've taken 100% casualties... two models and you're up to 200% casualties. More or less means your only chance to win is a Major Victory through full tabling your opponent or by achieving your Sudden Death objective, which you almost certainly will be eligible for. Tabling isn't always an easy task, so the Sudden Death objective is your best bet. Winning a Minor Victory would be almost impossible unless your opponent also has a tiny, summoning reliant army.

This is better put than I put it.

I've been thinking more about this. Opponent drops Nagash. You drop 18 Dwarf Bolt Throwers behind a bunch of other units composed of 4 or fewer models. The 18 Bolt Throwers each have a 38" range, so will almost certainly be able to tag Nagash. He's so tall he'll be visible from anywhere. On average, they'll kill him. You won't have any Heroes, Wizards, Priests, Monsters or units with five or more models in your army. This means the Nagash player can't pick the Assassinate or Blunt Sudden Death objectives. He'd have to pick Endure, which could be very hard if you only have one round of summoning to deal with. His best bet would be to pick Seize Ground. That would be hard with so many Bolt Throwers pointed at him and whatever else you have charging him.

Nagash mono-build is potentially mean, but imminently counter-able if you have the right models. Keep in mind that I'm saying things like 18 Bolt Throwers. Could just as easily (and more likely) be an assortment of ranged attackers and War Machines.

Kriswall, youre right. It would invalidate the chart. I see now why they put them on the unit's warscroll. I still think they can be summoned without being in your army though.

Opps. My failure to read the rest of the Vampire Counts Warscrolls makes me look like I'm talking out of the orifice I sit on.

As a compilation of what a Death Wizard can cast (in addition to his own spells...)*

Summon Morghast Harbingers (7+)
Summon Morghast Archai (7+)
Summon Vargheists (6+)
Summon Fell Bats (5+)
Summon Bat Swarms (5+)
Raise Zombies (4+)
Summon Dire Wolves (5+)
Raise Skeletons (5+)
Raise Grave Guard (5+)
Raise Black Nights (5+)
Summon Ghouls (5+)
Summon Crypt Horrors (6+)
Summon Varghulf (7+)
Summon Wraith (5+)
Summon Banshee (5+)
Manifest Spirits (5+)
Summon Hexwraiths (6+)
Summon Terrorgheist (10+)
Summon Zombie Dragon (10+)

* Now, what is a Death Wizard?
Nagash
Arkhan The Black
Manfred, Mortarch of Night
Neferata, Mortarch of Blood
Vlad von Carstein
Count Mannfred
Isabella von Carstein
Vampire Lord
Vampire Lord on Abyssal Terror
Coven Throne
Heinrich Kemmler
Necromancer
Strigoi Ghoul King
Strigoi Ghoul King on Terrorgheist
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon

It would seem that the Vampires are now an army of summoning units... lots and lots of units. There are some modifiers too. Corpse Cart adds +1 to Death Wizards casting rolls while within 18", The Mortis Engine adds +1 to the casting roll of Death Wizards, but -1 to all other Wizards.

It's a very interesting army, especially with the minor victory conditions and summoning units rule.