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I think we all know that many of the warhammer models from the previous game carry over into AOS.

That if I had invested over 10,000 into warhammer as a whole that is INCLUSIVE of AOS. Not two separate things. That by including my start time that that should have meant that in the 22 years of GW gaming with warhammer as a whole I have spent that much, not 10,000 spent since AOS launched in 2015.

So after all that? You only bit of useful advice is to out-damage them?

So after distilling through your hostile aggressive post, what you are after is a legit way with no house rules and no negotiation, just plain old by the rules, ways to counteract excessive spam summoning.

Play an army that can do it (counter it or do it yourself). If you play an army that can't do it (counter it or spam summon), I guess you locked yourself into a paradox if the rest of those pointers were not useful. A good portion of the army books cannot really deal with it very well.

Its so odd, b.c i don;t see this "spam" summing you keep talking about. The past 6 months had no lists dedicated to spamming summoning as the core mechanic for a win condition. Players use it as a tool to help just like how many armies can Teleport, Move fast, Heal, Count as more models, Fight twice, Fight first, 1 Drop, etc..

No list is built to win from summoning anymore, sure a year ago that might have been. But GW has changed that and made it much harder to do. The last army that was able to do that (Seraphon) now literally loses a host of rules in order to do it and i haven't seen 1 person playing it that way anymore.


So please point me to a list that was built and won via Summoning as its core purpose, after the new GH and with a new Battletome. GW as i see it, its not a problem but inexperience players not understand how to counter a mechanic, or a player bringing a casual list vs a non casual list.

I believe it’s still considered “broken” for Slaanesh. Syll’Eske’s host and KoSs with minimal troops and just summon more heroes. Tzeentch as well. Khorne, Nurgle and S2D are under control, and I believe the rest of the other summon armies are as well. Just DoT and HoS are considered filth summoning.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its so odd, b.c i don;t see this "spam" summing you keep talking about. The past 6 months had no lists dedicated to spamming summoning as the core mechanic for a win condition. Players use it as a tool to help just like how many armies can Teleport, Move fast, Heal, Count as more models, Fight twice, Fight first, 1 Drop, etc..

No list is built to win from summoning anymore, sure a year ago that might have been. But GW has changed that and made it much harder to do. The last army that was able to do that (Seraphon) now literally loses a host of rules in order to do it and i haven't seen 1 person playing it that way anymore.


So please point me to a list that was built and won via Summoning as its core purpose, after the new GH and with a new Battletome. GW as i see it, its not a problem but inexperience players not understand how to counter a mechanic, or a player bringing a casual list vs a non casual list.

Are you joking? Slaanesh summon-spam won LVO, among the biggest AoS tournaments worldwide, and that was after the summon nerf.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its so odd, b.c i don;t see this "spam" summing you keep talking about. The past 6 months had no lists dedicated to spamming summoning as the core mechanic for a win condition. Players use it as a tool to help just like how many armies can Teleport, Move fast, Heal, Count as more models, Fight twice, Fight first, 1 Drop, etc..

No list is built to win from summoning anymore, sure a year ago that might have been. But GW has changed that and made it much harder to do. The last army that was able to do that (Seraphon) now literally loses a host of rules in order to do it and i haven't seen 1 person playing it that way anymore.


So please point me to a list that was built and won via Summoning as its core purpose, after the new GH and with a new Battletome. GW as i see it, its not a problem but inexperience players not understand how to counter a mechanic, or a player bringing a casual list vs a non casual list.

Are you joking? Slaanesh summon-spam won LVO, among the biggest AoS tournaments worldwide, and that was after the summon nerf.

With old rules, LOV didn't have all the new rules. But thats ok, w/e.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I believe it’s still considered “broken” for Slaanesh. Syll’Eske’s host and KoSs with minimal troops and just summon more heroes. Tzeentch as well. Khorne, Nurgle and S2D are under control, and I believe the rest of the other summon armies are as well. Just DoT and HoS are considered filth summoning.

DoT is for sure a problem, but not for summoning, as i practice against them for events. Its the 1 drop turn 1 i kill 1/2 your army with 20 Horrors in your face that makes them win. If they can't do that then np.

While yes HoS still summons, after the updates (what i'm pointing out) is not very strong now. Many events with over 20 players (anything less then its just to local) HoS haven't been amazingly for how this tread is saying summoning is broken.

8th place https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/bcpevent/CYxt2EEFIL?league=24wBDHSRsT&embed=true
5th place https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/bcpevent/GMcdcjTtHM?league=24wBDHSRsT&embed=true
6th place https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/bcpevent/cofjUesebE?league=24wBDHSRsT&embed=true
14th place https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/bcpevent/YQztxmmluG?league=24wBDHSRsT&embed=true
13th place https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/bcpevent/zUqn876d8X?league=24wBDHSRsT&embed=true


The only problem is DoT, and thats b.c high range shooting. They literally have multi summoning only lists, but those are not the lists that are winning. ALso note the 1st 2 events i posted yes DOT was top many, but after that you see they slightly are worst b.c the FAQ came out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS i wanted to note before anyone says. "But these are events not open table games"

You can't find balance in open table games b.c not everyone wants the same game, and not everyone might be equally skilled, so i look at events as they are the ones looking to find what is and isn't balanced. Joe and Bob for a pick up game isn't doing that, but if Billy brings his super CAAC lists Joe and Bob might still look like an donkey-cave to Billy.

There you have it. Summoning is fine because in tournaments its fine. Just get good and stop fielding non tournament powered lists. And don't choose or like factions that the designers happen to not have given tournament powered options to.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its so odd, b.c i don;t see this "spam" summing you keep talking about. The past 6 months had no lists dedicated to spamming summoning as the core mechanic for a win condition. Players use it as a tool to help just like how many armies can Teleport, Move fast, Heal, Count as more models, Fight twice, Fight first, 1 Drop, etc..

No list is built to win from summoning anymore, sure a year ago that might have been. But GW has changed that and made it much harder to do. The last army that was able to do that (Seraphon) now literally loses a host of rules in order to do it and i haven't seen 1 person playing it that way anymore.


So please point me to a list that was built and won via Summoning as its core purpose, after the new GH and with a new Battletome. GW as i see it, its not a problem but inexperience players not understand how to counter a mechanic, or a player bringing a casual list vs a non casual list.

Are you joking? Slaanesh summon-spam won LVO, among the biggest AoS tournaments worldwide, and that was after the summon nerf.

With old rules, LOV didn't have all the new rules. But thats ok, w/e.

Which new rules was it lacking, exactly?

Summoning is fine overall. Fine =/= perfect.

Currently HoS is really the only egregious offender, with Syyleskan Host exacerbating that offense. Maybe a Tzeentch build can get silly?

If we made a list of all the armies that have a summoning ability, I believe we’d see that the overwhelming majority are largely balanced. The broken stuff are truly outliers.

 nels1031 wrote:
Summoning is fine overall. Fine =/= perfect.

Currently HoS is really the only egregious offender, with Syyleskan Host exacerbating that offense. Maybe a Tzeentch build can get silly?

If we made a list of all the armies that have a summoning ability, I believe we’d see that the overwhelming majority are largely balanced. The broken stuff are truly outliers.

I agree with the overall statement, but I feel it is more a matter that summoning is as misbalanced as everything else. However, summoning armies have more of a floor; while some may not be good, there are not any summoning armies that are actually bad.* Pre-Wrath of the Everchosen Nurgle is probably the only one.

*As previously established, having a niche spell or ability that technically summons something does not make a summoning army. Sylvaneth, StDs, etc. are not in that category for the purposes of this argument.

Are there many armies or pre summoning builds, that were made unplayable, because they couldn't deal with armies that summon a lot of units?

Karol wrote:
Are there many armies or pre summoning builds, that were made unplayable, because they couldn't deal with armies that summon a lot of units?

Depends how far back you look.

Very early Nighthaunt were considered strong. Stormcast and Legions were ok. All kind of trash in any competitive setting now.

It is good that it ain't too many armies. Maybe in the end every army is going to be doing summoning, and this way it balances itself out. Well to a degree that GW games can be balanced of course.

Karol wrote:
It is good that it ain't too many armies. Maybe in the end every army is going to be doing summoning, and this way it balances itself out. Well to a degree that GW games can be balanced of course.

I certainly hope not!

I dont want to have to buy, paint, and bring with me 3k of models to play a 2k game without hobbling myself.

Summoning fine overall - I'd say if you take all of the armies that can get free points that most of them don't break the game wide open. That part is true (and I posted that on a previous page in this thread).

Summoning as basically free bonus points, besides the fact that I hate that because its basically a mechanism in place that makes balance now impossible, would be ok in the hands of a team that has a track record of not busting their game wide open several times a year.

Now the armies that can excessive summon, which are armies I'd say that can push near 1000 free points in a game, may be a smaller number and thats also true.

However in my neck of the woods, few people play the armies that cant compete at Adepticon, so the armies that excessive summon are the common armies alongside the armies that have excessive damage output that can table you in 1 or 2 turns.

While its true there are a fair number of armies that are for the most part ok, those armies are rarely seen because they are for the most part ok.

Which means the common opponents are the ones either pushing damage output to table you in 1 or 2 turns (thats another topic for another thread), or summoning free 1000+ points in a game.

Which concludes that if you want to enjoy yourself in AOS and that is your environment, you need also be playing one of those forces. Which also means every GHB and every FAQ you need to be prepared to buy a new army.

Overall summoning may be ok. I can concede that overall when all factions are included thats fine. But in the wild... thats not what you see. In the wild its the armies that have excessive whatever that takes the most visibility and who, unless you are playing in a private group, you will have to face off against.

For free summoning to be OK - GW needs to stop playing amateur hour with their rules design and stop releasing armies that bust the game wide open with it. As of the release of 2.0 where free summoning returned, there has always been multiple armies that can do it that cycle back and forth. There has never once been a time in 2.0 where there was no excessive summoning running amuk.

Being fine and ok in the tournament world is fine and ok if you live in the tournament world and don't mind buying new armies to keep up with the tournament world. Its not ok for the rest of us that don't want to have to buy new armies to keep up with the tournament world every year.

Being busted in public open gaming is fine if you have a private group and dont ever do campaigns or public events so you can bounce people out that want to continue doing it even after told not to.

Its not ok otherwise.

I'd say a good percentage of people play open tables or events of some type and I don't find it a reasonable request at all to have to buy new armies regularly to keep up with the GW power fluctuations to have good games.

I don't see how people defend that as a good system or a good game unless they just truly don't care about outcomes and just want to socialize and lolzer the dice around the table for fun (which I know a couple people like that so I know its legit).

What about the flexibility approach Chaos marines got in 40k.
For certain not broken because you can't exceed your points but a handy flexible multitool (who am i kidding the most summoned stuff is what is worth it's points )

Is the cost of summoning added in to lists that summon in some way, like maybe the units that aren't summoned cost more, or the summoned army have lower stats and weaker rule sets, then those that do not summon stuff?

Or is a totaly free?

You will get debate on that. I have done a complete linear regression on the game and the cost of a lot of those models are still way undercost. In essence: free.

Keepers for example are very undercost for what they do and are not only summoned, but the key in which slaanesh lists with triple keepers generate most of their summoning points.

People tend to not summon the weaker stuff. They are summoning the good stuff. And the good stuff tends to not be costed more, or if so its marginal.

There is a counter that these units "cost more" but I have never heard that officially been stated, nor does the math really support that statement overall.

Well if they are still so efficient, the either the "more" isn't enough or the "more" is just mythical.

But I assume it is different among other armies. I can bet 1 internet, that there probably is one list that can summon that is considered medicore or maybe even bad, or good only in a very specific, maybe soup, build.

Karol wrote:
Is the cost of summoning added in to lists that summon in some way, like maybe the units that aren't summoned cost more, or the summoned army have lower stats and weaker rule sets, then those that do not summon stuff?

Or is a totaly free?

No, you leave points out, as in if you play 2000 pts you field a 1500 pts CSM army and then can summon for about 500 pts. It's also tied to a roll, and can potentially make your HQ go pooof.

Honestly, i wonder what would happen if everyone had access to summoning. Not the ‘teleport in a blood thirster’ Kind of summoning, but more like the units come in off a flank or arrive at a specific point. Would it be more balanced then?

Yes if everyone had the same level of tools that would help out a lot.

There’s no reason every army COULDNT have that. The S2D faction does it easily enough. Reinforcements coming from a table edge are doable by dwarf, man, rat or elf.

Doesn't have to be summoning per se either. I am sure units could be teleported in by magic or even be hidding or outflanking. There are scouts, as in real world scouts or ranger, units in AoS, right?

Karol wrote:
Doesn't have to be summoning per se either. I am sure units could be teleported in by magic or even be hidding or outflanking. There are scouts, as in real world scouts or ranger, units in AoS, right?

As I say though, I would hate for that to be a core part of the game for every faction! Fine if it's a few armies but it needs to be balanced against armies that dont have it - or at least there needs to be a tradeoff whereby you are not at a disadvantage for not using summoning.

Reason being you shouldnt feel forced to buy excessive quantities of extra miniatures to play a game just so you have a buffer for summoning.

Well I don't think that "not being forced to buy excessive quantities of extra models" is an option with GW.
To use AoS examples, why can't the spells in AoS just be cast or be tokens, and not high cost models everyone has to buy? Or why does every army require an obligatory terrain pice , why can't the rules be just part of the army?

well it is all done to make people buy more models, and after a threshold it is hard to quit or dumb an game you spend 1000$ or more. And even if someone does quit at the 600-700$ mark they still made good money for GW with all the expansions, obligatory models etc.

All GW needs is to have GW specific dies and their own measerment for ranges. Call it something goofy and make it impossible to use normal cm or inch tape measurs, so that everyone has to buy the official thing. Heck they could make different ones for different armies, so people wouldn't be able to share one, outside of mirror matchs.

Hard disagree there. As it stands, most armies in AoS I could buy exactly 2k points of and while I wouldnt have the flex to keep up with the tourney scene I could build something that did well in store games for a long time.

You dont have to buy spells. They cost points, theres a tradeoff. You arent hobbling yourself by not using them.

If every army got free summoning, you would NEED to own a ton of extra models or get steamrolled by anyone with a bigger collection. It's an awful idea.

One thing I have told myself is any future army I do cannot have summoning. I have no desire to buy a solid core of an army and THEN buy a bunch of extra crap to summon too.

 Stux wrote:
Hard disagree there. As it stands, most armies in AoS I could buy exactly 2k points of and while I wouldnt have the flex to keep up with the tourney scene I could build something that did well in store games for a long time.

You dont have to buy spells. They cost points, theres a tradeoff. You arent hobbling yourself by not using them.

If every army got free summoning, you would NEED to own a ton of extra models or get steamrolled by anyone with a bigger collection. It's an awful idea.

And this way you just get steam rolled, if your army doesn't happen to either summon stuff itself or is so super efficient that it doesn't need to summon. Although from the looks of what is winning stuff around the world, the summoning armies, seem to be doing real well.

I don't get the part about the store games being different from tournament games. I mean sure the armies, maybe ain't painted, and maybe aren't 100 optimised. But is it really so much of a differance, in AoS, if the opposing army summons 500pts turn 1-2, or just 300-400? Specialy if your army happens to be one of the weaker ones.

Our store games are pretty much similar to tourney games. Youll face the same stuff.

Karol wrote:

 Stux wrote:
Hard disagree there. As it stands, most armies in AoS I could buy exactly 2k points of and while I wouldnt have the flex to keep up with the tourney scene I could build something that did well in store games for a long time.

You dont have to buy spells. They cost points, theres a tradeoff. You arent hobbling yourself by not using them.

If every army got free summoning, you would NEED to own a ton of extra models or get steamrolled by anyone with a bigger collection. It's an awful idea.

And this way you just get steam rolled, if your army doesn't happen to either summon stuff itself or is so super efficient that it doesn't need to summon. Although from the looks of what is winning stuff around the world, the summoning armies, seem to be doing real well.

I don't get the part about the store games being different from tournament games. I mean sure the armies, maybe ain't painted, and maybe aren't 100 optimised. But is it really so much of a differance, in AoS, if the opposing army summons 500pts turn 1-2, or just 300-400? Specialy if your army happens to be one of the weaker ones.

I'm not saying things are fine as they are at all. I'm saying I think giving every army the ability to spam summons is a terrible way to fix it.

Instead Summoning needs to be a proper tradeoff, with checks and balances.

It depends on the store, but a lot of store games will be more casual and you dont need to bring a top tier list to win reasonably often. Your mileage will vary of course, and it will depend on who exactly you are playing. My comment was specifically about how if you want to consistently do well in tournaments you likely need to continuously change your list or whole army every time something changes the meta, which is costly. No player should feel they need to do this in casual settings unless they want to.