Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Any character can summon them so it seems like you’d have quite a few options during a game for bringing on daemons as reinforcements, I haven’t really heard and CSM players talk about doing this.

Looks like you get a large unit for points and a big unit of deamonettes or blood letters could do some damage in melee???

The issue is that you can Reserve Deploy them for CP and be certain you can bring them on when you want and the boards are small. And (iirc) a character can't move the turn you attempt a summoning and that's really restrictive.

Basically summoning is kind of a trap.

Thanks, but there are other options for bringing on reserves so what’s the advantages of daemons?

Horrors have a decent range and look really hard to kill but not very deadly

Summoning Daemons is the second best example of "Sins of the Father Syndrome" in 40k (the best being Grey Knights).

They were ludicrous in the past, so GW for 8th make them unusable (I am sure many tears of sadness were shed in lament for the poor souls who now had armies that were worthless and had to buy new ones, of course).

The strat to deep strike anything took away the summoning advantage as said above. The CP cost is cheap, and you're guaranteed without worrying about a roll.

However:
The above ignores the biggest advantage to summoning Daemons. They do not use up a force org slot. Therefore you can run an emperor's children army (or whatever CSM) and add daemons besides Daemonettes etc (who are in the CSM book) like an enchantress, or herald. It is up to you to decide if that is worth it. I have also used this way to add a daemon prince to my Emperor's children army after using the 3 HQ slots in a battalion on other HQ's. This is a little niche, but there.

Can you buy daemons and use the strat to deep strike them if they are not on your FOC? (I really am not sure where daemons bought as reinforcement points fall for that strat. I've never used it) so that is something to think about. Otherwise, if you want things besides the most basic daemons, you would cost CP for a second FOC and the strat. My CSM Emperoor's children army is CP hungry.

I have had some luck with the infernal enchantress against heavy psycher armies. Summon her (she is easy at 4 PL) then next turn have her (or better, a master of posession with the Psychic power summons on turn 2) summon 30 daemonette's. Give them all the +1 to their Invuln, and use the slaanesh strat turning a charge die (which has already been rolled) into a 6 and its near guaranteed charge doing 90ish attacks, each 6 to wound at ap-4 (on average, 10 auto wounds to Primaris marines...) Not claiming it is OP, it just has worked well for me.

However:

As said above, there are drawbacks to summoning.
Your character cannot move the turn they summon. (which can be a drawback but if you play to do so and plan to have a character who doesn't need to move (usually a sorceror type) it isn't so bad). 1st turn move up, second turn sit and summon 12" ahead of you still can be good.

Summoning requires a roll (that can cause Mortal Wounds). Daemonette's, for example, are 4, 8, or 12 Power level for 10, 20, 30. You can take a turn to summon, roll bad, and get 10. Useful, but not great. You can blow this roll and be in real trouble.

Summoning can be a kind of trap, it can also be a game winning move. It is a risk. Mitigating risk from die rolls is one way to win 40k.

The advantage of summoning Daemons is that you can bring in the right units for the job as long as you make the roll to summon them.

It's good for Chaos Knights armies, as it's an easy way to get some cheap bodies for holding objectives/screening, without needing to worry about detachments.

I'd almost always just bring a patrol, even now that it costs CP i'd do it. It is almost /never/ worth it.

To me the big problem with summoning is the no move part. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. But when it does it is a big deal as you are out of position or not summoning. I have used summoning with my TS to bring in either horrors or flamers depending on the situation. So that tactical flexibility can be nice. But the no move thing really sucks.

Summoning had a niche role in 8th - niche, but it was there. Usually not more than about 60 points, but I had a list that actually reserved 250 that worked pretty well.

In 9th, with splitting horrors nerfed into oblivion, and with having to give up your move being a much bigger problem than it used to be, it's hard to see what sort of list can make use of it.

Sorry forgot this before but on the plus side summoning might not break “doctrines” for chaos forces. Then you could have daemons and “doctrines” so that is something.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The advantage of summoning Daemons is that you can bring in the right units for the job as long as you make the roll to summon them.

The disadvantage is that daemons don't actually have a huge variety of units that function well without the synergy of their HQs and stratagems.

It really feels like bringing a toolbox full of hammers of different sizes.

You can also use summoning to bring in extra units that don't fit into detachment slots (e.g. get a 4th HQ without losing 2CP).

Summon a couple Feculent Gnarlmaws. need to break a sightline? Summon some terrain.

With the Red Corsairs' ability to gain extra CP from having at least three units of CSM, coupled with their ability to run and charge, having a second detachment of Khorne daemons could be very effective.

 carldooley wrote:
Summon a couple Feculent Gnarlmaws. need to break a sightline? Summon some terrain.

Nurgle-marked Obliterators under the cover of a Gnarlmaw could be very dangerous and difficult to get rid of.

 carldooley wrote:
Summon a couple Feculent Gnarlmaws. need to break a sightline? Summon some terrain.

When you consider that you need to bring on Slimux to summon a Gnarlmaw (he's the only one who can bring one on), it becomes somewhat costly. Much better to spend the CP for the fortification detachment IMO.

The Newman wrote:
The issue is that you can Reserve Deploy them for CP and be certain you can bring them on when you want and the boards are small. And (iirc) a character can't move the turn you attempt a summoning and that's really restrictive.

Basically summoning is kind of a trap.

The problem with reserve deploy and CP is daemons are very CP hungry. Without CP they barely do any damage, or die instantly to enemy fire. A bloodletter bomb is 3CP, 2CP for 20+ bloodletters, 1CP for the banner of blood. Maybe 1CP to reroll a failed charge. Yes, its possible to fail an 8" charge with 3D6. Then you need 2CP for warp surge to keep them alive. A tzeentch flamer bomb needs 3CP to deepstrike, after deepstrike they need 1CP for flames of mutation, and 2CP for warp surge to survive. And greater deamons need CP for the exalted abilities. Nurglings need CP for nurgling infestation. Daemons cant affort to spend CP for deepstriking. When they start on the table they die before reaching the enemy.

I have a buddy who really like to have psykers in his army, but also loves Khorne Daemons. He uses unaligned Masters of Possession to summon Khorne Bloodthirster, or a big pile of Bloodletters to get some nice melee bodies out front. He also uses the summoning psyker power to drop a couple of blobs or their support. I think he over invests a bit in the whole thing, but he enjoys it.

 jaredb wrote:
It's good for Chaos Knights armies, as it's an easy way to get some cheap bodies for holding objectives/screening, without needing to worry about detachments.

This is exactly what I use it for. Since 9th is objective based, I don't like camping objectives with my 500 point unit. Bring in some cheap bodies that can hide. I like using beasts of nurgle, furies of tzeench, Karanak and have a bunch of other options I like to bring in case of an odd scenario. I typically bring about 100-120 points of summoning.

There’s only 4 different deamon units you can summon, right? The unit had to have the deamonic ritual ability

I have a different take on this than most. If you're straight CSM, I would agree that you're probably better off with a patrol detachment if you want demons.

That said, with both my DG and my Tsons, I feel like summoning has actually gotten better. For background, my meta is semi-competitive to competitive. Tsons faired well in the great re-pointing of 9th, but got hit with the nerf-hammer in literally every other possible way. They are terrible now. Borderline unplayable. The nice thing about that is that it's given me an excuse to try some wierd off-meta things and they actually somewhat work.

I've had a lot of success throwing two Vortex beasts upfield as fast as possible and summoning large blocks of Screamers and Horrors (with enough points for some splitting - it hasn't been nerfed as bad as some would think and a lot of top lists are actually still using it). Screamers make Primaris cry as you can use the Vortex beast to buff them to the point that Primaris don't get a save against them, and Horrors are still just cheap enough that you can pretty much ring a deployment zone. Given we have the strat that lets you roll 4 dice and you don't have to worry about perils, it's surprisingly reliable.

For both DG and Tsons, I've also had pretty good success just using summoning to ring an objective I already hold with a lot of points of durable, but disposable demons. Two objectives held by Plague Marines, and ringed with Plague Bearers are a PITA to crack.

Sure, you can do the same thing with a patrol detachment, but I like the flexibility it gives me, as well as the fact that it's less predictable for my opponent.

We have two other Tsons players that summon as well and they've had a lot of success.

There’s only 4 different deamon units you can summon, right? The unit had to have the deamonic ritual ability

Don't have my Demons book handy, but I think literally everything but the Gnarlmaw has this ...

Anything in the daemons codex can be summoned as they all have the ritual ability.

Be'lakor can't be summoned, which is bad since he can't be put into any detachment without breaking it's locus.

I use summoning regularly for my Death Guard. I don’t want to add a patrol etc but I do want to remain Battle Forged with my special rules. As I run a daemon engine heavy list, I regularly keep points aside to summon Epidemius. He buffs the lot of them.

Sure it’s a bit of a risk - the roll could fail, but it’s barely any points for him and the buffs are well worth it.

I've had success using summoning as a means of keeping units off the table T1 to survive shooting. I'll use this in conjunction with strategic reserves/denizens of the warp. It also helps to circumvent detachment requirements. Lastly, I've used it as a sort of failsafe for big models. Instead of running multiple keeper of secrets I'll withold enough summoning points to summon another as a replacement. That way if my first keeper gets punked, I can summon a new one. If, however, my keeper lands into a combat to keep her safe, I'll use those points to summon more daemonettes instead. Typically I use an infernal enrapturess for this role. She gets bonuses to summoning and her ranged attack means moving isnt always that big of a deal. Ritual roll willing, I'll use the daemonic pact stratagem to dump 2x30 daemonettes on the board.

Just a few examples of what can be done.

I think the biggest thing is, if you're going to do it, the plan needs to be baked into the list ahead of time. If you look at the posters here who are advocating for it, we all have a very specific use-case for it. If you're thinking "I'll just save some points for random summoning", then it's not likely to work. If you have a specific plan for not only WHAT you will summon, but also WHY, and WHEN, then you have a good shot at making it work.

Especially if you also have ways to mitigate the dice. Like Tsons with the strat that lets you roll 4 dice.

 chimeara wrote:
Anything in the daemons codex can be summoned as they all have the ritual ability.

Anything in the demons codex can be summoned by a CSM character?

mrFickle wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
Anything in the daemons codex can be summoned as they all have the ritual ability.

Anything in the demons codex can be summoned by a CSM character?

Anything in the daemons codex with Demonic Ritual can be summoned by any CHAOS CHARACTER, regardless of CSM status or what book the CHAOS CHARACTER is sourced from.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

mrFickle wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
Anything in the daemons codex can be summoned as they all have the ritual ability.

Anything in the demons codex can be summoned by a CSM character?

Anything in the daemons codex with Demonic Ritual can be summoned by any CHAOS CHARACTER, regardless of CSM status or what book the CHAOS CHARACTER is sourced from.

Crikey ok did not know that


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It says in the rule “roll up to 3 dice” how do unknown info should role 1 2 or 3?

mrFickle wrote:
It says in the rule “roll up to 3 dice” how do unknown info should role 1 2 or 3?

I believe that that is a high risk high reward playstyle. You only need to roll over the PL of the unit that you want to summon, but rolled doubles results in a MW or if you roll triples, you take d3 MW instead. Say that my Knight Warlord wanted to summon a unit of horrors to hold an objective. They are only PL5, but a better chance of summoning them requires a higher risk of taking damage to get them out.