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I'm playing a demons order of battle in Crusade in 9th ed. There are two very concerning balance issues I need some help with.

The first is summoning. This is a cool thematic ability that chaos has and there are LOTs of rules that leverage the summoning concept (strategems, terrain, model specials, legion traits, etc). In matched play you could reserve some points to summon in later which basically turned it into a versatile deployment option. In narrative there is not any restrictions on summoning, and this seems to be a big problem. You can use combos to roll 4d6 summoning dice with rerolls and statistically summon greater demons or big units fairly reliably. In a 50 to 100 power level game taking a couple summoners that combo can yield you a FREE 20%-40% boost to your army total per turn (both summon once, then one strategems to summon again)

Split is a similar problem. Pink horrors burst into smaller blue and then brimstone horrors. This had a matched play cost to it but in narrative it does not. Meaning a 30 man unit of pink horrors would blow up into 60 blue horrors and then 60 more brimestone horrors before the unit is removed. That is 150 wounds for single troop choice that cost 12 power level.

How are people adjudicating this in narrative? I feel like we shouldn't use it at all because it's unfair but I feel like I'm losing a big part of my army concept. using it seems overpowered but I look at like necrons who can get a free resurrection orb on every model that can take one can recoup 1/3rd of any unit they use it on and nobody thinks that is a problem. Any advice would be appreciated.

It's Narrative play, the whole point is for you to make up stuff as you go along.

If you're worried about Narrative play balance relying on self-limiting of stuff like Daemon spam, then Narrative play isn't what you want, you want Matched play.

I get that delineation in the core book, but I'm more trying to understand what people think about the situation. Matched play is fine and dandy but crusade is cool if it is fun for all and having to abandon because of overpowered 'unfun' combos seems lame when it has all those new rules built into the new edition :(

Summoning is a miserably nerfed mechanic in matched play, so be grateful that you get a chance to actually use it! Daemons usually need a bit of help anyway.

I can see how it could be distruptive in smaller games though. If you want to avoid excessive summoning and blue horror spam then can't you just design your list around something else? If you feel it is too cheesy then I don't see what other option you have,

I'm feeling the same way. Basically it's setting up a house rule to limit it but seems weird to limit the codex feature but like not limit say reanimate protocols in necrons, which could be very OP if dice rolls are hot

I play Daemons in Crusade. So far I have summoned zero, and only plan to summon if the battle is dire and one-sided to my opponent.

Why, narratively?

Well, I have the good fortune to play Slaanesh, which means my leader, the Exalted Keeper of Secrets Czumneth Ereshkigal, is selfish and prideful. The units I have in her roster represent the Daemons under her direct control in the heirarchy, and any glory earned by them is hers. But any summoned units are either wild or belong to other Keepers, and so she would use them only grudgingly.

This is actually somewhat supported by the rules too, since summoned units can never gain XP or anything, so if you do everything with summoned units your Crusade list doesn't get anywhere.

If summoning became a problem we would probably fix it, but I know there are CSM players using it in my group's campaign and we haven't had any complaints or major issues.

I would first of all suggest bearing in mind that Necrons' ability to resurrect is one of their army-wide rules - it's baked into their internal Codex balance in a similar way that Loci are for Daemons. I don't know that it's exactly a fair comparison, and it's also far from guaranteed even with Orbs and the like, so I wouldn't get too hung up on their ability to do it.

Just because a rule belongs in Matched Play, doesn't mean you can't use it in Narrative Play - there's nothing to stop you from applying the usual reinforcement points to your Crusade games too. The way that Daemons are right now, this might well put you at a disadvantage, if anything...I can only suggest trying it out and maybe tweak with house rules from there if necessary (for instance, maybe force yourself to pay points for most summons but not Spawn, and for Blue Horrors but not Brimstones).

We had the same problem in 8th and I simply stopped summoning or restrained myself to once per game. Plopping down 30Plague Bearers out of nothing was bad enough, even worse if I had done it every round, at least in a more Standard mission, in a mission where all your destroyed units can come back anyway it's actually pretty cool.
I guess you should think of restrictions. Right now there's the summoning secondary objective in eternal war that allows a psyker to do a Ritual only when 6" around the middle of the table. You could apply that.
Or you could say all Heroes can summon only once or only your Warlord can summon. Or pay half the power Level for summoned units instead of full like in matched. Or disallow summoned units to act in the turn they arrive. Or apply a negative modifier to your summoning roll for every enemy unit within 12" (or 18") so your opponent can try to do something to counter it.

Same with Horrors. You could pinks only allow to split into Blues but not into brimstones, but if you buy a Blue unit that can split into brimstones. Or make it cost a CP every round you use it or only allow splitting on a 5+ like the Necrons you mentioned.

Splitting and summoning is horribly broken in narrative gaming. You need to limit it, or have a winning condition for your opponent which is achievable.

Why is splitting such a big deal? Horrors used to split without the need for "reinforcement points" and other nonsense in the past and it was never a big deal in 40k.

All this reinforcement junk, especially with Daemons, always struck me as a GW overreaction to the way Daemons were in WFB 8th Edition

Being an AoS player (I play Sigmar far more than 40k these days), I don't have an issue with summoning. I'm perfectly fine & used to additional units showing up "for free".
I have even less issue with Horrors splitting. It's simply what they do.
Personally whenever I read the Reserve Points rules the first thought that occurs to me is "what garbage, utterly un-necessary".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why is splitting such a big deal? Horrors used to split without the need for "reinforcement points" and other nonsense in the past and it was never a big deal in 40k.

All this reinforcement junk, especially with Daemons, always struck me as a GW overreaction to the way Daemons were in WFB 8th Edition

If I recall correctly it was actually a pretty big deal at the start of 8th, that's why they brought in the rules about reinforcement points. Though I think the main problem was brimstones having invuln saves and therefore were pretty hard to move for something you got for free.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why is splitting such a big deal? Horrors used to split without the need for "reinforcement points" and other nonsense in the past and it was never a big deal in 40k.

All this reinforcement junk, especially with Daemons, always struck me as a GW overreaction to the way Daemons were in WFB 8th Edition

I take it you're thinking back to the days of, say, 2nd to 5th here? Back then, the unit sizes couldn't be nearly as big as they can now, and Brimstone Horrors didn't exist either. 10 Horrors going to 20 is not nearly as much of a problem as 30 going to 60 and then some.
Objectives were also much more varied than the markers we have now, with quite a few focused on killing things, so providing more models to kill would in some cases be playing into the opponent's hands.

I would just not play that many units that rely on the mechanic. I only own 10 brims, 20 pinks and 10 blues, so I'd probably limit myself to that, and like, whatever abilities turn things I kill into spawn because that's just funny when it happens.

Tell you what I'd probably do as a self-check balance without having to rely on 'house rules' or whatever: Run 11 pink horrors and have them split.

8pl is perfectly fine for 11 pinks, 10 brims, 10 blues.

We just use matched play rules for crusade games as usual - none of us see any value in taking the breaks out that limit competitive gaming for games that are supposed to be less competitive.

Unlimited summoning was horrible in 7th and it won't be any more fun now. Same for other reinforcement points, 240 horrors splitting into 570 points of blue and brimstones is neither fun nor fair.

 Jidmah wrote:
We just use matched play rules for crusade games as usual - none of us see any value in taking the breaks out that limit competitive gaming for games that are supposed to be less competitive.

Unlimited summoning was horrible in 7th and it won't be any more fun now. Same for other reinforcement points, 240 horrors splitting into 570 points of blue and brimstones is neither fun nor fair.

The limit on summoning in matched play is essentially a limit to make sure no summoning of any kind ever happens.

Personally, I think the idea of daemons getting to summon is cool. In a perfect world, I'd take out the fact that you can summon any unit and apply a pretty significant points discount to any unit you bring summoned.

The limitations only makes summoning useless from a competitive point of view. That's not the reason why we are playing a crusade though, if someone wants to play a summoner, he can absolutely do that.

It also has the advantage that summoned daemons are not on their crusade rooster and therefore don't count against their maximum points, plus that they can change both the type and number of summons as well as their gear at will, while all other units are fixed entries unless you spend requisition to change them.

So I dug a bit deeper into the use of summoning in the local Crusade campaign by the TS player and found out why it's not an issue.

With 40k's new 9th edition detachment structure, it's actually quite crippling. Most detachments are likely to have 3 Character models at most (hello HQ slots). Each of these character can summon once per turn, and none can do so without risk. Additionally, in order to summon, these characters must stay stationary.

That last bit is crucial; most lists don't function if 3 characters stay stationary, because that means whatever is guarding them has to stay stationary as well (if they move more than 3" away, the character can be freely targeted and blown away). Summoning, therefore, is restricted to characters who don't mind staying stationary, in armies that also don't mind being fairly stationary, and that's a great way to lose 9th edition.

So to go back to the local anecdote, the TS player typically only brings in 2 or 3 units per game, max, because he needs his characters to actually play the game (e.g. maneuvering to get psychic powers off and to support his troops). Those 2 or 3 units can't be relied upon, because while they can be anything, it's not likely that he'll get a Greater Daemon every time or anything like that.

That's not to say it isn't problematic, but the drawbacks are more severe in 9th than they were in 8th, where characters could sit way in the back many inches from any friendly units and just be summon bots. Nowadays those characters will get blasted.

At least for DG there is a way to super-charge summoners though, which then becomes an issue.
As "The Wretched" you summon 7+d6 for 1 CP *after* moving, even if you arrived from reserves this turn. So you can basically deep strike a terminator character somewhere and get a guaranteed free daemon prince or as part of the deal.
The other stratagem rolls 4d6 to summon and ignores mortal wounds for doubles, usually at least yielding a free Soul Grinder.

The other issue is that DG have lots of cheap characters which can just sit on objectives when their abilities are no longer needed and keep summoning endless waves of nurglings or plague bearer is you roll high enough, or pox bringers and Epidemius wif you roll low who combo with DG daemon engines.

Crusade games are usually played at 1000 points, even if I only have 3 characters and most of them want to move at least in T1, I could easily end up with 1500 points without being too competitive.
In relation, in one of our campaigns we changed a mission reward mid-campaign because 10% extra points basically made the side which got it auto-win games.

Interesting that it is your experience. The TS player has summoned every game up to and including several units of horrors and a LOC and still continually loses.

He recently lost to Tau, of all things, even after summoning. Has also lost to Grey Knights (ok that's fair), Space Marines, and flyerspam Militarum Tempestus, IIRC.

In retrospect he's lost well over half his crusade games...

Interesting that it is your experience. The TS player has summoned every game up to and including several units of horrors and a LOC and still continually loses.

He recently lost to Tau, of all things, even after summoning. Has also lost to Grey Knights (ok that's fair), Space Marines, and flyerspam Militarum Tempestus, IIRC.

In retrospect he's lost well over half his crusade games...

How is he using them I wonder? In our games my Tsons tend to win via summoning. As Jidmah points out w/DG, Tsons also have ways to super-charge it. It then becomes a question of what those summoned units are doing. Large shoals of Screamers buffed by a Vortex beast make a surprisingly strong anti-Primaris unit. Horrors summoned to ring objectives that are already held by bigger groups of Rubrics can make things difficult even for Marine players. Especially at the smaller points levels.

All that being said though - it's not game breaking like the OP is concerned about as it's being done through a fairly sub-optimal army. Demons are in a wierd spot and Tsons, while they faired well with the points changes, got their only strong tricks pretty much nerfed into oblivion through FAQs and the new force org charts.

OP - I really wouldn't worry too much about it unless you're just going crazy and summoning 100+ plus horrors a game in a really small game. Especially if you have a lot of marine opponents. Just be somewhat reasonable with what you do and it will be fine. The people I play against even have fun with it.