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ERJAK wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Its not gonna be that bad is it? At least for LoN, the General has to be with in 9" of a Gravesite and then there has to not be enemies with in 9" of them.

Gravesites cover a HUGE amount of the board, considering there are 4 of them. You'll likely be able to pick 2 you can block, the rest will be free game for a competent LoN player. At best, in an even match, you'll be able to force them to pop-up in their deployment zone, but considering dire wolves, hexwraiths, and blackknights are all summonable and fast, that won't account for much. Even if you do manage to stop him from summoning at any of the gravesites, how sustainable is blocking off all 4 really going to be? And you're probably not going to be sniping characters with the new shooting changes and the expanded unbinding range. The biggest limitation the LoN player is going to have to deal with is command points, but considering they benefit the most from the resurrection in the late game and have good, cheap battalions, you could be looking at a turn 2-5 where they just replace everything they lost the previous turn.

It's possible that all they get over the course of the game is a single unit of blackknights...but it's also possibility they get a 10 man unit of hexwraiths, a 30 block of dogs, a 40 brick of skeletons, and a 30 block of graveguard.

As for Maggotkin, you can definitely get a GUO turn 3 with minimal effort on your part, which seems like pretty big deal to me, or failing that force your opponent to be in the area of the board he oreally doesn't want to be. Of course, even just 20 plaguebearers could be game winning in the later turns.

It seems like a lot of games between summoning and non-summoning armies are going to come down to 'Can you win before the summons go off?' It doesn't help that the armies that benefit the most from summoning also tend to be very high powerlevel already(Maggotkin and Tzeentch are top tier, LoN has had some pretty respectable performances of late)

(Legion of sacrement lists also have 'kill an enemy unit on a gravesite, on a 4+ bring back a unit

You gotta keep in mind that only the General can bring back units through Gravesites. Kill the general, you cut off the summoning.

Sylvaneth faction focus out.

Allariel (however you spell it) got her heal d3 (or reserve point summon) tweaked to the heal, or once per game summon one of the following

-20 dryads
-10 tree revenants
-10 spite revenants
-3 kurnoth hunters
-1 branchwych
-1 treelord

I get that no one used summoning before, but 20 dryads are a huge defensive block, hunters are crazy good (and are getting a point decrease now? Guess the character sniping nerf deserves it?) And a freelord is something else entirely. Like really, you just pop soul amphora turn one since you don't need to heal and give yourself a free unit of hunters or a treelord. No counter play.

Sylvaneth were my first aos army, and while I'm sure they got blasted at top tables, theyre frustrating enough to not need a free monster or blobs of guys off of a model that already beats people down

It does seem really bonkers. We'll give it a go. Worst case, we'll just move the entire summoning rule set into quarantine.

So for our narrative, I'm implementing a mechanism to combat some of this... as a lot of our power gamers began salivating at the thought of sweet sweet free points again (because why would you never)

Everytime you get a free unit or model you note how many points for free you just got. once you've crossed that 25% of your total army threshold (so 250 pts in a 1000 pt game... 500 pts in a 2000 pt game etc) your opponent may draw a sudden death victory condition from the open war deck.

I get that a lot of people are super stocked about getting free stuff again but this type of thing really drives players away, particularly those not wanting to invest in more models while the guys that have no problem with it will spam as much as the rules allow (and no one wants to play against the 3000 pt army masquerading as a 2000 pt army in a 2000 pt game)

auticus wrote:
Everytime you get a free unit or model you note how many points for free you just got. once you've crossed that 25% of your total army threshold (so 250 pts in a 1000 pt game... 500 pts in a 2000 pt game etc) your opponent may draw a sudden death victory condition from the open war deck.

That's an interesting idea.

Yeah. If there's no risk to doing it and the answer is why would I never do this, everything devolves into that. And then a bunch of people sell their stuff and quit, which destroys my community and I really really hate that lol.

For competitive AOS I'd never do that though, but for narrative campaigns, there needs to be something to reign this stuff in.

I hate being negative but I’m growing increasingly concerned about these summoning mechanics. I can see the abuse coming from a mile away and I think I’ll be on the receiving end of it.

Interestingly enough the community seems split on this. A good chunk are concerned, the other chunk is excited and wants summoning to be free points and very influential in the game.

auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough the community seems split on this. A good chunk are concerned, the other chunk is excited and wants summoning to be free points and very influential in the game.

I'm of the opinion that it should be influential in the game--and it absolutely looks like it will be for the armies that have access to it. The non-Daemon stuff we'll have to see how it works or is worded, but I think a lot of the doomsaying ignores that what makes Maggotkin and Arcanites strong isn't their summoning alone, it's that they're quality books.

Therein is the rub and why thiis has destroyed my community in the past.

1) not everyone has equal access, so the powergaming meta moves toward only the armies that can max out summoning (reference: pretty much everytime this situation existed in the past, 7th edition whfb, 6th and 7th ed 40k, aos 1.0) and if you are playing armies that can take 2000p and turn it into 3000p there really is no point in playing the game unless you can too.

2) it compels people to feel like they need to buy even more models. This causes a lot of people to feel that its "pay to win" and quit altogether.

Now like my maggotkin army... I can usually get around 22 points to summon with frm their point system in a game. I usually snag another tree and two units of drones. I once had 26 poiints and almost had another GUO. Those results aren't game wrecking to me.

Watching a couple 40-model units of skeletons come back at full strength after killing it though will probably incite a lot of rage.

So, I run legion of sacrament and that current ability being complained about is totally useless.

I need to:

(a) set aside reinforcement points at the start of the game, so i'm actively weaker than my opponent
(b) need to keep my opponent fighting on gravesites
(c) need to keep my heroes alive
(d) need to lose a unit
(e) need to kill a unit
(f) need to roll a 4+

Then yes, I can bring back a unit and realize the potential of those reinforcement points.

OR, i could just add the unit to my army at the start of the game and not worry about the stars aligning perfectly.

A lot of the LoN abilities in 1.0 are flat useless in matched play rules, and everyone plays matched play, so what's the point of them? You haven't even seen the full rules on summoning yet, but can we at least agree that the LoN abilities are flat useless in their current form?

Ok, serious question: is there even a sizable enough competitive scene for AoS for things like questionable balance to matter? Do people actually play this game competitively on a regular basis?

I just don’t see it, at least where I’m at and certainly not in my personal games. The admittedly few times I see it played by people at the store it’s incredibly casual. I dont think most people even keep track of victory point or even see who won/lost? I can’t remember the last time I even heard of a tournament for it.

My point is, unless the new summoning stuff is just mind boggling broken I don’t think it really matters if one side ends up with a hundred extra points on the table.

Edit -I should note I play exclusively at home with people who aren’t really gamers themselves, with house rules and such. I’m very disconnected from any wider AoS community aside from what I happen to notice at my FLGS, which is the occasional game on Warhammer night (99% being 40k), or a narrative event hosted by staff.

Kind of the same impression as you. It doesn't seem meant to be a competitive rule set in the first place. But, we haven't even seen how summoning and reinforcement points will be replaced. All we know is it is different... without the surrounding details. So all of this is jumping the gun anyway.

I don't play pure matched rules. We have always used a form of free summoning but we paid comp points to be able to use them and they always capped out at about 25% of your army to prevent them from getting way too overbearing.

y point is, unless the new summoning stuff is just mind boggling broken I don’t think it really matters if one side ends up with a hundred extra points on the table.

100 extra points? No. No one cares about that. I'm not tallking about +100 points.

We're talking one or two 300 point skeleton units that come back (in essence, another free 300 points) or greater demons or things like that.

I find once you go over 25% of the game's point level, things have gone into busted town. At 1000 points, summoning in a free greater demon is overbearing to a lot of people. At 2000 points, bringing in more than 500 points is overbearing to a lot of people. It causes people to quit the game regularly and this is exactly what I don't want happening.

Whether or not there is currently a sizeable AoS competitive scene is irrelevant. If GW ever hopes there to be a good sized competitive scene, they need to make sure they balance these summoning rules carefully, because, as has been said, this can drive a lot of people away.

We see a ton of armies that have access to it and a ton of armies that don't. That already splits the factions into 'haves' and 'have-nots'. That already is... questionable at best. Competitive players will flock to those armies (and honestly, many already do play things like Death, Seraphon, Sylvaneth, and Nurgle because of how strong they can be) and if something doesn't come in to balance these summoned units, the meta will quickly devolve into just that.

The fresh new Stormcast, Deepkin, and Daughters of Khaine models will cease to sell. Older players at shops will tell the new players interested in the game "If you don't like any of these competitive armies, don't bother."

"Why?" The newbies will ask.

"Because these special armies get free units, which means you have a 2500 point army when your opponent will only have a 2000 point army if they don't play one of these special armies."

"Oh! I'll do that then!" the new player will say, or at worst, "Oh, that doesn't sound very fair..." And they'll go play something else.

My thinking is that GW is aware of this issue. With all of the complaints bombarding their Facebook accounts and with complaints in the past about summoning systems, they must be aware that something needs to balance these 'free' (or really, 'freemium') units.

And here's the thing... everyone's talking about how you can counter this strategy or that strategy, capping gravesites or sniping generals, but a good player in control of one of those armies will make sure to prevent that from happening. "Well, don't fully kill the unit of 40 skeletons, then!" The Death player will find a way to suicide a weak squad to get it back, or will use that squad to cap an objective, knowing you don't want to kill it fully. It gives that Death player a massive strategic advantage that other armies don't have access to. It means that I have to engage my opponent on their terms in every game, that they can control my movement by placing these gravesites and positioning their units however *they* want, and I have to respond to that, or else they get a lot of free crap.

It means I have to make a concerted effort to play an extra game within the game. I have to put units in my opponent's deployment zone to prevent Nurgle from getting more points so that I don't get a GUO in my face. It means I have to bubble-wrap Alarielle, to be right where SHE wants me to be just to prevent her from getting an extra 20 dryads that she can plop out whenever she wants, and I may not be able to prevent that from happening if she does it turn 1!

It does, without a doubt, turn the game into a 2200 vs 2000 point game for many matchups. It may not be a problem if you have, say, Sylvaneth vs. Legions of Nagash, or Khorne Daemons vs. Nurgle Daemons...

But what happens when it's Orruks vs. Nurgle? Deepkin vs. Sylvaneth? LoN vs. Kharadron Overlords? Any of these combos means one side gets extra points that the other does not. Any hoops that the 'have-not' army has to run through is another strategic disadvantage that's hard to calculate in points. It means they may come upon more auto-lose situations where if they cap the objective, the opponent gets a free unit that will kill them next turn, but if they try to prevent that from happening, they lose out on the objective.

It's bad. There's concerns. The more we learn, and the more rules that come out, the less faith I have that GW knows what they're doing and the more I fear they just want to sell more models at the expense of the game system.

If people are already coming up with house-rules to put on extra limitations to a broken set of rules, that's a really bad sign guys. In a game that normally takes 3 hours to play, I've seen many a game conceded on turn 2 because of a bad matchup, and that's in the current rules. I foresee games being conceded as soon as a 'free' unit is put on the board, either by sore losers, or simply by people that see that happen late game and determine 'strategically, there's nothing I can do to stop this and it's all downhill from here'. Very few people will continue that game thinking 'maybe my opponent's free GUO will roll really poorly'. No, we assume he'll roll average, slaughter a bunch of units that you didn't get for free, and better control the table.

More games given up by the 'have-nots'. More games conceded as soon as a giant block of free units hits the board. Fewer games had. More people giving up the game. It all comes down to one rule that, let's be completely honest, AoS didn't need in the first place. Yes the summoning rules as they were weren't doing anything for the game, but I fear that these new rules will really damage the game more than help it.

Absolutely. It allows one player to force how the game is going to play everytime while the other player has to react the whole time. (unless of course you both are running one of the meta armies which means armies start to begin to be samey, which has always been a GW games issue)

Again, it's only free stuff if there's not some kind of commodity associated with it.

Totally free summoning = broken, overpowered
Reinforcement point summoning = broken, useless

Have we seen evidence to suggest this isn't in the middle ground?

 Marmatag wrote:
Again, it's only free stuff if there's not some kind of commodity associated with it.

Totally free summoning = broken, overpowered
Reinforcement point summoning = broken, useless

Have we seen evidence to suggest this isn't in the middle ground?

The points that you get or the rules that give you access to summoning thus far have no limitations except for what you bring in your list. We have seen GW hyping up the rule, but not talking about the balance of it, and that's what everyone is worried about. We've seen all of the good with none of the bad, but good for armies with summoning is only bad for armies without.

drbored wrote:
The points that you get or the rules that give you access to summoning thus far have no limitations except for what you bring in your list.

How do you come to this conclusion? Is blocking Gravesites, avoiding to wipe a Skeleton block or prioritising their Army General only related to what you bring in your list?

Many (granted, not all) of the summoning mechanics mentioned so far are tied to conditions that can be controlled by the player's decisions and performance.

drbored wrote:
We have seen GW hyping up the rule, but not talking about the balance of it, and that's what everyone is worried about. We've seen all of the good with none of the bad, but good for armies with summoning is only bad for armies without.

I agree completely, but they will have something in store for those armies. Endless spells are a strong suspect, but they'll definitely have to show us something sooner or later.

So yeah if there is a commodity tthats good. Unless the commodity is easily farmable or say you can trade in a command point for 300 points of skeletons.

A CP you can get for +50 points spent. I'll spend +50 points all day every day all year for 300 points of skeletons.

Or like... I take a batallion, spend +50 points for another CP, and start with one. The game begins with 3 CP. And I get a CP each turn, so a five turn game I'd have a total of 8 Command Points thatt I could use to minmax powergame the summoning phase with.

If its like the nurgle book I'm not worried. The legion of nagash book is a bit bent though IMO iif its just one CP = your recycled unit because if I'm going to break the game for some sweet wins you bet I'd spend 3 or 4 of those CPs on 300 point skeleton units or whatever.

Or another example would be if say tzeentch gets summons points for spells cast... max your spell casters and cast easy spells to start farming those summon points and then unleash the change tide on your opponent's face.

So again if its like nurgle book currently, I'm not really sweating that. Thats pretty under control IMO. To get a greater demon you'd need to bank some serious points and even then you're probably not getting it until turn 4 or 5 anyway.

If its a CP = a sweet recycled unit for Legion of Nagash, that will be bad.

Well, ultimately we'll have to wait and see, but it sounds like you earn points which can be spent on these abilities by achieving something in games.

In either case, if you kill say 35 skeletons and leave 5 left alive, you've essentially played around the revive.

 Knight wrote:
It does seem really bonkers. We'll give it a go. Worst case, we'll just move the entire summoning rule set into quarantine.

Yeah, without some restriction or downside we haven't seen yet this will probably just get banned from many game groups and certainly many tournaments.

BertBert wrote:

drbored wrote:
The points that you get or the rules that give you access to summoning thus far have no limitations except for what you bring in your list.

How do you come to this conclusion? Is blocking Gravesites, avoiding to wipe a Skeleton block or prioritising their Army General only related to what you bring in your list?

Many (granted, not all) of the summoning mechanics mentioned so far are tied to conditions that can be controlled by the player's decisions and performance.

drbored wrote:
We have seen GW hyping up the rule, but not talking about the balance of it, and that's what everyone is worried about. We've seen all of the good with none of the bad, but good for armies with summoning is only bad for armies without.

I agree completely, but they will have something in store for those armies. Endless spells are a strong suspect, but they'll definitely have to show us something sooner or later.

To the first point, the problem is that blocking gravesites, avoiding wiping skeleton blocks, and prioritizing the general means that I'm having to allocate resources (dice rolls) and units to doing those things /instead/ of playing the objective. It means skirting around weak skeleton units, and lets'b e honest, LoN have ways of bringing that skeleton block back up to full strength WITHOUT having it die and be re-summoned, so whether it's wiped out and summoned, or left with a few models and grows back, either way my opponent is getting a lot of free models. With the nerf to sniping heroes, it's harder for an army to take out that general. It requires better positioning, significant shooting, or significant spellcasting. Most heroes that would be generals have good defenses or can be bubblewrapped by other units to be protected so they can do what they want to do. And finally, if I want to block gravesites, it's likely I have to put models there that now are away from objectives, or where my opponent wants them, not where *I* want them. It puts a lot of the flow in the opponent's hands, which puts me at a disadvantage just so I don't allow him to have free points. If the only way to balance this is by putting it on me, as a player, to out-play my opponent, then that's not really balance. That means that if I have the same skill level as my opponent, he has an advantage, because he has more options of play than I do, and can ultimately have a larger army than me by virtue of summons or reviving models. If there's another point of balance, I would love to hear it, and that's what I want from GW right now.

To the second quote, I agree. I'm hoping that the endless spells help balance out the summons. My concern, however, is that armies with summons will ALSO be able to use these endless spells, or that these endless spells can be dispelled like normal, which is now easier than ever with the 30" range. It means that if I don't get that spell of on turn 1, I may get unlucky and not get it off at all if it's unbound by the enemy that may have better spellcasting or unbinding than me. Idoneth Deepkin don't have the outrageous bonuses to dispelling or spellcasting that LoN or Tzeentch do. So, on top of being able to summon, if those armies can also use these endless spells, then that's even less of a balance.

I've talked a lot, but at the end of the day I am still hopeful that GW has some sort of balancing mechanic in mind, or that there's just not enough in our hands to paint the full picture. I know plenty of people out there are laying out examples of how a game would go against a summoning army, but I'm just not convinced. There are many people that will push their army to the extreme to either farm CP, farm points for summons, or do other things to give them a leg up. I already see plenty of Sylvaneth players talking about the merits of Alarielle, and how her turn 1 summon is effecitvely a discount on her cost as a whole. Taking her and some Branchwraiths could mean that while the Sylvaneth player starts at 2000 points, they can get up to 2500+ very easily, flooding the board not just with wyldwoods that are already incredibly potent, but also dryads and other things. It's even harder to snipe Sylvaneth units that can summon thanks to all of the terrain they can put down to block me from getting to them, and all of the healing they get access to.

We'll see. I'll just be anxious until we get an official word.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
Well, ultimately we'll have to wait and see, but it sounds like you earn points which can be spent on these abilities by achieving something in games.

In either case, if you kill say 35 skeletons and leave 5 left alive, you've essentially played around the revive.

Except most armies that will take that many skeletons can get 20+ back through other spells and abilities anyway. So either way, the undead player is getting free models. :/

drbored wrote:
.../

Yeah, I see where you are coming from. In a perfect scenario, your opponent will have to work against your strategy just as hard as you have to work against his, but there is always going to be imbalance across factions. Concept wise, I like the idea of having to prevent the enemy from summoning as just another objective, depending on which opponent you are facing. It could very well lend more depth to AoS and I'm excited to see if this is going to be the case.

People will, as with every edition, find the best combos and the most efficient lists, some of which will most likely result in cheese of varying degrees of maturity - it's inevitable.

The best solution to that is to pick your opponents and refrain from fielding filthy lists yourself, because the game will not provide the right framework for equal strength across multiple factions.

The good news for me will be, my undead army that I used for ten years on the GT circuit when vampire counts were filthy busted (5th, 6th, and 7th ed) will be dusted off and allow me to play in tournaments again

auticus wrote:
The good news for me will be, my undead army that I used for ten years on the GT circuit when vampire counts were filthy busted (5th, 6th, and 7th ed) will be dusted off and allow me to play in tournaments again

You'll be a skilled and experienced player again!

MalfunctBot wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Its not gonna be that bad is it? At least for LoN, the General has to be with in 9" of a Gravesite and then there has to not be enemies with in 9" of them.

Gravesites cover a HUGE amount of the board, considering there are 4 of them. You'll likely be able to pick 2 you can block, the rest will be free game for a competent LoN player. At best, in an even match, you'll be able to force them to pop-up in their deployment zone, but considering dire wolves, hexwraiths, and blackknights are all summonable and fast, that won't account for much. Even if you do manage to stop him from summoning at any of the gravesites, how sustainable is blocking off all 4 really going to be? And you're probably not going to be sniping characters with the new shooting changes and the expanded unbinding range. The biggest limitation the LoN player is going to have to deal with is command points, but considering they benefit the most from the resurrection in the late game and have good, cheap battalions, you could be looking at a turn 2-5 where they just replace everything they lost the previous turn.

It's possible that all they get over the course of the game is a single unit of blackknights...but it's also possibility they get a 10 man unit of hexwraiths, a 30 block of dogs, a 40 brick of skeletons, and a 30 block of graveguard.

As for Maggotkin, you can definitely get a GUO turn 3 with minimal effort on your part, which seems like pretty big deal to me, or failing that force your opponent to be in the area of the board he oreally doesn't want to be. Of course, even just 20 plaguebearers could be game winning in the later turns.

It seems like a lot of games between summoning and non-summoning armies are going to come down to 'Can you win before the summons go off?' It doesn't help that the armies that benefit the most from summoning also tend to be very high powerlevel already(Maggotkin and Tzeentch are top tier, LoN has had some pretty respectable performances of late)

(Legion of sacrement lists also have 'kill an enemy unit on a gravesite, on a 4+ bring back a unit

You gotta keep in mind that only the General can bring back units through Gravesites. Kill the general, you cut off the summoning.

Which relies on you A. Having shooting units that can kill a -3 to hit character(easily achievable) B. Have magic strong enough to bypass the second best magical army in the game or C. Dive their backline to get after the most protected unit in the entire army. It's not a reliable strategy for anyone but Tzeentch.

It also doesn't account for the Legion of Sacrament rule where there is a 50/50 shot the death player gets that unit of Graveguard you killed back(in your backfield, on your objective) because he put a gravesite directly under the objective you were camping with 10 marauders or w/e and then managed to sneak a unit around to kill them.

The LoN summoning has counters, sure. It's unlikely that in a normal game they'll get more than 500pts or so across the entire 5 turns even. But preventing him from getting those high-roll resurrections is going to involve spinning a ton of plates, whereas getting the highroll resurrections is just waiting to see which plate you drop.

I admittedly have the same problem with LoN summoning for free that I have with every army(as well as the realm specific spells) which is the balancing nightmare they are GOING to end up being. My specific problem with Nagash is how much more punishing it makes the army to play against, and how binary it makes your counter strategy. Thanks to deathly invocation, you can't afford to leave weakened units alive. They'll just come back. Summoning though, means that killing units risks the whole thing coming back in one shot. If you don't have the resilience or model count to outplay them on the mission, your strategy becomes 'Go after the general or lose' and/or 'block the gravesites or lose' which doesn't seem very engaging to me. It also makes units like Morghasts and Terrorgeists much less appealing on the simple basis of not even having the OPTION to come back.

Maybe they'll have some sort of additional caveat they haven't mentioned yet and maybe other armies are getting something equivalent that we haven't heard about yet(unlikely) but I just don't see how an army stuck at 2000pts(beastclaws, Kharadron), even strong armies like Daughters of Khaine or Fyreslayers are supposed to keep up with sylvaneth lists running 2240, Nurgle lists at 2400, death armies at 2300-2500, or whatever unholy nightmare DoT end up being capable of. We've even seen the Daughters of Khaine preview and they got NOTHING.'oh but they got relics' actually those relics were just copies of things already in the DoK battletome.

It seems like they're either making thematic changes at the expense of a reasonably balanced game, or they're using summoning to force people to play larger games, which forces people to buy more models, as a fairly cynical cashgrab.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
Well, ultimately we'll have to wait and see, but it sounds like you earn points which can be spent on these abilities by achieving something in games.

In either case, if you kill say 35 skeletons and leave 5 left alive, you've essentially played around the revive.

Like was mentioned early, Deathly invocations will just let you replenish the 35 skeletons you lost anyway, the only difference is that you don't get a free deepstrike out of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BertBert wrote:

drbored wrote:
The points that you get or the rules that give you access to summoning thus far have no limitations except for what you bring in your list.

How do you come to this conclusion? Is blocking Gravesites, avoiding to wipe a Skeleton block or prioritising their Army General only related to what you bring in your list?

Many (granted, not all) of the summoning mechanics mentioned so far are tied to conditions that can be controlled by the player's decisions and performance.

drbored wrote:
We have seen GW hyping up the rule, but not talking about the balance of it, and that's what everyone is worried about. We've seen all of the good with none of the bad, but good for armies with summoning is only bad for armies without.

I agree completely, but they will have something in store for those armies. Endless spells are a strong suspect, but they'll definitely have to show us something sooner or later.

The armies with the most summoning are the ones who have the best magic also. It's more likely that endless spells pushes summoning armies further ahead than nerfing them in some way.

BertBert wrote:

drbored wrote:
.../

Yeah, I see where you are coming from. In a perfect scenario, your opponent will have to work against your strategy just as hard as you have to work against his, but there is always going to be imbalance across factions. Concept wise, I like the idea of having to prevent the enemy from summoning as just another objective, depending on which opponent you are facing. It could very well lend more depth to AoS and I'm excited to see if this is going to be the case.

People will, as with every edition, find the best combos and the most efficient lists, some of which will most likely result in cheese of varying degrees of maturity - it's inevitable.

The best solution to that is to pick your opponents and refrain from fielding filthy lists yourself, because the game will not provide the right framework for equal strength across multiple factions.

I certainly have no problem with being choosy in my opponents, and my local group isn't as cheesy as some others. The problem comes when there are imbalances that are so great that you are much more likely to lose no matter what kind of list you play if you go up against certain factions. Let's assume that the game only consists of armies that have been fully brought into Age of Sigmar, leaving out things like Darkling Covens, Dispossessed, Scourge Privateers, etc that are pretty much just remnants of the past that happen to have plastic kits and that are, by and large, in need of some changes to keep up with the newer factions. If we leave those out and I take Deepkin and my opponent takes Nurgle and by virtue of their buffs, special rules, magic, and, on top of that, they also have access to summons for 'free' units, I should be able to point to my own faction and say "Alright, that's all powerful stuff, but I have my own special rules too." And, I do. I've got Tides of Death and Forgotten Nightmares which gives me a little bit of added defense and offense. My units are faster and cheaper to a degree as well.

The trouble is, if after playtesting and game after game, I'm losing more and more often against things like Nurgle because they *also get summoning* on top of their faction special rules and magic, then I'm going to become much more frustrated. A growing schism is created, again, because of the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. I get that there's no perfect balance, but the risk is that summoning without proper checks and balances may swing the pendulum too far, giving a significant advantage to the 'haves' and leaving the 'have-nots' in the dust. That's my concern. I'm not looking for or expecting perfect balance. I just don't want the difference in strengths of armies to be thrown even further off.

And again, just to make sure I don't come off the wrong way, I still want to wait for the full rules. I'm not saying that this is definitely how it will go down, that's just my concern. I'm sure they've playtested these rules with their combo of playtesters to make sure there are no grand oversights that would cause problems like this, and it's also likely that actual games won't go the way that we are imagining at all. Still, I'm waiting for some official word, or the full rules, before we can determine if it's horribly broken or if this is a lot of hoopla about nothing.

You're going to have issues with Idoneth versus Maggotkin not because of summoning, but because Maggotkin are best served by shooting/magicking the snot out of them before they can get anywhere near you.

Idoneth don't have the kind of shooting/magic necessary to do that. You have to play very well thought out in order to succeed against Maggotkin with Idoneth.

Although it's also worth mentioning that Idoneth are, in general, going to be much stronger versus shooting heavy armies than they are anything else. Forgotten Nightmares ensure that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

auticus wrote:
The good news for me will be, my undead army that I used for ten years on the GT circuit when vampire counts were filthy busted (5th, 6th, and 7th ed) will be dusted off and allow me to play in tournaments again

You'll be a skilled and experienced player again!

I know right? I'll suddenly remember how to play the game and git gud