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My friend and I are divided over this question.

When does the rule on a warscroll apply?

EX: A necromancer is on the field. He's the only model. During the hero phase, can he summon zombies?

The zombies are not on the field, so my argument is that the necromancer is not granted the rule, so he can't summon them.

My friend says that the necromancer knows all the summon spells as long as you own the appropriate models.

If my friend is right, then does this apply to the wood elf glade lord rules? If I have 100 glade lords sitting off the table, then I get 100 pre game shots at the enemy general as long as my glade lord on dragon can see the enemy general.

What's your opinion?

Per the core rules...

"You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to fight in this battle, or have run out of space. This is your army. Count the number of models in your army - this may come in useful later. Any remaining units are held in reserve, playing no part unless fate lends a hand."

My take is that if you have units in reserve that you have not deployed, then their war scrolls are 'available'.

So, if you show up with Zombies and a Necromancer, leave the Zombies in reserve but deploy the Necromancer... you will have the ability to summon Zombies as you have them in reserves. You wouldn't be able to summon anything else and you wouldn't be able to summon more than one unit of Zombies because you have nothing else in reserves.

Reserves basically means "everything you brought to the store/club/your buddy's house but didn't deploy".

Those reserve units are available, but what allows rules from those units to apply to units in your actually army, like summon fell bats.

 Coyote81 wrote:
Those reserve units are available, but what allows rules from those units to apply to units in your actually army, like summon fell bats.

What doesn't? You brought the war scrolls with you to play and the rules are printed right there. What is stopping you from reading them? I would argue that the rules are in play as soon as you bring the War Scroll... you just can't use 99.9% of the rules unless the models are also in play.

But how did you pick which ones you were allowed to use off the table? I know some have ranges, but there are just general buffs that wouldn't need the model to even be on the table. I'm not a fan of leaving it up to opinion.

Read the glade lord The Arrow of Kurnous rule, then come back to me about using rules from models off the table. As far as I can tell, i could put 100 glade lords in my reserves and shoot 100 pregame shots at your general, if my glade lord on dragon can see him.

 Coyote81 wrote:
But how did you pick which ones you were allowed to use off the table? I know some have ranges, but there are just general buffs that wouldn't need the model to even be on the table. I'm not a fan of leaving it up to opinion.

Read the glade lord The Arrow of Kurnous rule, then come back to me about using rules from models off the table. As far as I can tell, i could put 100 glade lords in my reserves and shoot 100 pregame shots at your general, if my glade lord on dragon can see him.

But the Summon Zombies ability isn't a rule the Zombies EVER have. It's a rule assigned to Death Wizards. It just happens to be on the Zombie's War Scroll. The Death Wizard would need to be on the table to use it. Doesn't matter where the Zombies are. I would just argue that if there aren't any Zombies in reserves, that the spell wouldn't do anything.

Hmmm, I can kind of see it like that. Its a rule for death wizards printed on a different warscroll, so as long as you have a death wizard on the table he gets that rule.

 Coyote81 wrote:
Hmmm, I can kind of see it like that. Its a rule for death wizards printed on a different warscroll, so as long as you have a death wizard on the table he gets that rule.

Yep. Agreed.

The only reason the summoning rules are on the individual units is because they don't all fit on the wizard warscrolls. And a lot more convenient. I don't have to look at some huge list of spells. I want zombies, it tells me how to get zombies.

 mikhaila wrote:

 Coyote81 wrote:
Hmmm, I can kind of see it like that. Its a rule for death wizards printed on a different warscroll, so as long as you have a death wizard on the table he gets that rule.

Yep. Agreed.

The only reason the summoning rules are on the individual units is because they don't all fit on the wizard warscrolls. And a lot more convenient. I don't have to look at some huge list of spells. I want zombies, it tells me how to get zombies.

Another very good reason is that putting all the spells on the Wizard War Scroll would mean that the Wizard's scroll would need to be updated every single time a new unit is released that can be summoned. That would be a terrible way of doing things. It's better to say "Here's a new unit. Here's a new War Scroll for said unit. You'll note on the War Scroll that Death Wizards can summon this unit by using the Summon New Guyz spell, which we've conveniently included for you."

 Kriswall wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 Coyote81 wrote:
Hmmm, I can kind of see it like that. Its a rule for death wizards printed on a different warscroll, so as long as you have a death wizard on the table he gets that rule.

Yep. Agreed.

The only reason the summoning rules are on the individual units is because they don't all fit on the wizard warscrolls. And a lot more convenient. I don't have to look at some huge list of spells. I want zombies, it tells me how to get zombies.

Another very good reason is that putting all the spells on the Wizard War Scroll would mean that the Wizard's scroll would need to be updated every single time a new unit is released that can be summoned. That would be a terrible way of doing things. It's better to say "Here's a new unit. Here's a new War Scroll for said unit. You'll note on the War Scroll that Death Wizards can summon this unit by using the Summon New Guyz spell, which we've conveniently included for you."

Agreed.
It seems like GW is actually committed to the idea of a living rulebook and being able to make changes or update rules. For a company that ignored the internet for a decade and said nobody would buy models online, this is truly amazing.

You don't even have to have the zombies in reserve. You can literally bring 1 necromancer and summon whatever you want.

Page 1 of the rules:

"All models are described by warscrolls,
which provide all of the rules for using
them in the game. You will need warscrolls
for the models you want to use."

Because there is no pre-set army list, nothing says you have to deploy a unit or even a reserve a unit whose warscroll you wish to use. So I bring a necromancer but declare I am also using the warscrolls for every unit in the VC book.

mch21689 wrote:
You don't even have to have the zombies in reserve. You can literally bring 1 necromancer and summon whatever you want.

Page 1 of the rules:

"All models are described by warscrolls,
which provide all of the rules for using
them in the game. You will need warscrolls
for the models you want to use."

Because there is no pre-set army list, nothing says you have to deploy a unit or even a reserve a unit whose warscroll you wish to use. So I bring a necromancer but declare I am also using the warscrolls for every unit in the VC book.

Well, if you don't have any in reserves, i.e., you didn't bring any with you, it's going to be awful hard to summon them. Reserves basically means "all the stuff you brought with you but didn't deploy at the start of the game". If they're in a case next to the table, they're effectively in reserves.

 Kriswall wrote:

mch21689 wrote:
You don't even have to have the zombies in reserve. You can literally bring 1 necromancer and summon whatever you want.

Page 1 of the rules:

"All models are described by warscrolls,
which provide all of the rules for using
them in the game. You will need warscrolls
for the models you want to use."

Because there is no pre-set army list, nothing says you have to deploy a unit or even a reserve a unit whose warscroll you wish to use. So I bring a necromancer but declare I am also using the warscrolls for every unit in the VC book.

Well, if you don't have any in reserves, i.e., you didn't bring any with you, it's going to be awful hard to summon them. Reserves basically means "all the stuff you brought with you but didn't deploy at the start of the game". If they're in a case next to the table, they're effectively in reserves.

Where does it say this? That's your conception of reserves from other systems but as ipointed out in the rules it states i can bring any warscroll i wish to use. Nowhere does it then say by using a warscroll i am forced to deploy or t reserve a unit of that warscoll type.

Keep in mind that 'reserves' effectively means 'any models you happen to have with you but didn't deploy during the start of the game'.

If I show up with 10,000 models and deploy 100 at the start of the game, I effectively have 9,900 models in reserves.

Yeah you have 9900 in reserve, but without either a rule to bring them onto the board (thus you did in fact deploy them but into a special reserve) or summoning, then they remain in your "reserve" for the entire battle. That being said, their warscrolls are available to you even if they aren't on the field as nowhere does it say a unit must be fielded for you to take its warscroll.

And yeah your right, technically you have the skeletons in "reserve" but in this case GW is referring to like you pointed out, your entire collection not on the field, and not part of your active army just deployed in a special manner as in 40k.

Exactly. 'Reserves' isn't like 40k - it just means "available but not currently on the board", as far as I can tell.

A unit can't do anything whilst it's not on the board but the summon spell isn't the unit doing anything - it's an extra rule that a CHAOS/DEATH/SLANN wizard has.

In the leaked rules for armycomposition one of the restrictions is that you may take 4 warscrolls for every 25 wounds (or something like this).

So you can take warscrolls of units you want to summon later, but you cannot summon units you don't have the warscrolls for.

Furthermore you lose if you lose 100% of your starting wounds. If you start with only a character that summons other units, then the number of wounds of the characters (usually about 5) is the number of wounds you can lose in the battle before you lose the game. So thjat is not the way to go, because if you sumon your army later the loss of 5 wounds of any of these is enough to lose.
Balancing the number of starting wounds and number of units you want to summon is something to think about.

You balance the game in the number of (starting) wounds on both sides. So an army that can summon, like undead or lizardmen, starts with a number of units and can summon more units as long as the units are already on the table (so the rules are available anyway) or the (extra) warscrolls were taken.
But the number of extra warscrolls is (or rather: will be) restricted.

That is what i can make of it anyway...

Those are not "leaked" rules. They are simply the ideas of ONE store that has no backing from GW itself. Those will not be the final rules.

Ah... my bad...

ORicK wrote:
In the leaked rules for armycomposition one of the restrictions is that you may take 4 warscrolls for every 25 wounds (or something like this).

So you can take warscrolls of units you want to summon later, but you cannot summon units you don't have the warscrolls for.

Furthermore you lose if you lose 100% of your starting wounds. If you start with only a character that summons other units, then the number of wounds of the characters (usually about 5) is the number of wounds you can lose in the battle before you lose the game. So thjat is not the way to go, because if you sumon your army later the loss of 5 wounds of any of these is enough to lose.
Balancing the number of starting wounds and number of units you want to summon is something to think about.

You balance the game in the number of (starting) wounds on both sides. So an army that can summon, like undead or lizardmen, starts with a number of units and can summon more units as long as the units are already on the table (so the rules are available anyway) or the (extra) warscrolls were taken.
But the number of extra warscrolls is (or rather: will be) restricted.

That is what i can make of it anyway...

You are miss-understanding the minor victory.


"IF IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO FIGHT A BATTLE TO ITS CONCLUSION OR THE OUTCOME IS NOT OBVIOUS, THEN A RESULT OF SORTS CAN BE CALCULATED BY COMPARING NUMBER OF MODELS REMOVED FROM PLAY WITH THE NUMBER OF MODELS ORIGINALLY SET UP FOR THE BATTLE". (Page 2).

So 1) Its not total wounds of your army, its MODELS. So 1 Nagash is 1 model, not 15 or w.e stupid wounds he has. So if you lose 1 skeleton you are now at 100% casualites, however 2) A minor victory only happens if the game drags on and you all decide to end it early NOT as soon as you hit 100% casualites. So as long as I summon 100 skeletons and kill your entire army or complete my sudden death objective, then I win regardless of my % of casualities taken.

And as others have pointed the leaked rules are just a wish-listing attempt by some to try and come up with a way to bring balance to choosing an army list and are by no means official or even final.

Somewhat related, I have finally decided that what we were reading RAI for Summoned models count toward casualties, should be RAW, and will be played RAW for balancing purposes.

For those that have not read it before:
-Models added to your army during the game, do not count toward the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers.

This is the blaancing factor for Summoning. If played RAW, this makes summon a hard choice.

Do I bring forth addition models to attempt to table my opponent, or win the objective? If I fail, I have a higher chance of losing by %.

I'm not the biggest fan, but it does stop massive unit summons, however a lot of people will be just fine with summoning a couple of big monsters to turn the tides.

Except casualties only matter if you don't lose all your models or the scenario has different rules.

what about the first line under glorious victory?

"...with one side able to claim victory because it has destroyed its foe OR there are no enemy models left on the board."

does this mean the original models on the board count as "foe?' or the starting model count being the threshold? either way it seems to point to another way of getting major victory without wiping the table to the last model.

And on the subject of warscroll rules, do you need to declare how many warscrolls of each type you have in reserve, I.E. how many times can a unit or model be killed and re-summoned? not a big deal for block units, more for big hitters. can you just throw your bloodthirster into battle and just re-summon when he dies several times, or would you need to tell your opponent that you have X bloodthirster scrolls in reserve?