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It seems like most of the summoning spells have been changed or removed so why all of the fuss?

Because summoning gives you free points. Free points means that if you and I are playing a 2000 point game, that the expectation is that I'll have 2000 points and you'll have 2000 points.

But then if I have an army that can easily summon free points you're really playing a game where I have 2500, 2600, or even 2800 points to your 2000 points.

Any examples that make it so bad?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What armies are even considered summoning Armies?

Grind through a unit of 30 or 40 skeleton warriors and kill it, taking a lot of casualties (bonus scaling, command abilities spells, etc). Surprise its back now for free.

Same thing with the sylvaneth and Ironjaw battalions that give you free respawns on units.

Other armies accumulate points throughout the game, some easily others not as much. The big ones like seraphon can really rack up the points.

I think sylvaneth is the only list left with a straight up summoning spell, but thats pretty much all their proactive stuff outside of alarielle who comes with about 200+pts of summoning built in

The worst part about summoning is that it forces you to use it, because the armies have been make more expensive with that in mind. It is not an optional tool in you toolbox, and I can understand that in armies designed from the beginning with summoning, like undeads, but as a Khorne mortal player it has screw me over.

Would you like to play a game where I get 2800 points and you only get 2000?

Thats essentially summoning games.

What armies are summoning? Many armies can summon, though a lot of those are pretty tame.

Nurgle at 2000 points for instance isn't going to be getting too much stuff off that will tip the game grossly.

However... Seraphon can easily whip out free units, Death armies can recycle dead units so if you spend a couple turns killing a 300 point unit, it can then just pop right back out at you. Alas your csaualties aren't replenished but there's are.

Tzeentch can do decent in the summoning game. Sylvaneth can also do ok in the summoning game.

Khorne is so-so with summoning. Slaanesh can do ok.

If you're trying to break the game with summoning, Seraphon or death are your go-to choices right now. Tzeentch could be a distant third. The rest are meh (at 2000 points).

How are skeleton warriors coming back?
Whose summoning what in the seraphon list?

You'll want to pick up a copy of the general's handbook 2018 and have a read through all of it.

The general in a Legion of Nagash...Legion gets a command ability that revives them close to gravesites.

The rest is in the handbook like auticus said

Being able to snipe the Slann/Nagash General is a very big deal in this edition. Come to think of it that meta heavily favors my tourney army, so I'm in luck, in a way.

I guess i didn't read it close enough because i only see most of if not all of the summoning spells being removed.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
I guess i didn't read it close enough because i only see most of if not all of the summoning spells being removed.

The spells, yes. But each army that could previously summon now has a Battle Trait that racks up points that can be used for summoning.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Any examples that make it so bad?


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What armies are even considered summoning Armies?

Legions of Nagash can end a game with exactly the same number of models they started with, even if their opponent killed a number of models equal to the total the LoN player started with.

Nurgle pretty consistently get between 300-400pts per game with no real meaningful way to stop them.

Seraphon get about 300pts every 2 turns so long as their Slann is alive.

Tzeentch, Khorne, Sylvaneth, Slaanesh, and Flesh-Eater Courts are sort of all over the place but can expect at least 300pts per game extra.

Summoning is exceptionally powerful, and while we don't know if it's 'OP' or not yet, it certainly looks like something that runs the risk of needing an emergency patching.

So we argued when you had to pay to summon and now we're arguing when it's free.
I wish they would just eliminate summoning altogether.

Most of it seems fine to me.

Don't kill all 40 skeleton warriors. Boom, negated that entire ability.

The one that seems broken is Tzeentch. They get free units by you and them casting spells. Turn 4, here comes my free lord of change.

 Marmatag wrote:
Most of it seems fine to me.

Don't kill all 40 skeleton warriors. Boom, negated that entire ability.

The one that seems broken is Tzeentch. They get free units by you and them casting spells. Turn 4, here comes my free lord of change.

You have to swing in melee now. And if you don't have a unit that can beat up 10 skeleton warriors in melee then you've already lost.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Most of it seems fine to me.

Don't kill all 40 skeleton warriors. Boom, negated that entire ability.

The one that seems broken is Tzeentch. They get free units by you and them casting spells. Turn 4, here comes my free lord of change.

You have to swing in melee now. And if you don't have a unit that can beat up 10 skeleton warriors in melee then you've already lost.

You can always fall back, or just not go straight ham into the face of skeletons.

And let's start with the fact that you're erasing 30 skeletons before that..

Exactly... People are quick to scream OP at resurrection of skeletons, but let's be honest.

If you go slamming so much hitting power into a block of skellies, with the general still alive right next to a gravesite so the LoN player can just resurrect them in the next turn, eliminating your efforts, it might just be you who has made a tactical blunder.

Having to kill the general (especially if they are undead) isn't exactly a new trope in fantasy wargames.

So far, we've not seen the summoning rules leading to grotesque scenarios here. I've also not seen anybody summon as many points as auticus keeps claiming... The only "fringe" case so far, where my FEC at 1000p. I was able to summon 320p in a 1000p game, which seemed like a bit too much.

The only thing I'm worried about, is engine of the Gods spam... That could get grotesque if the dice are on fire, early enough in the game to have a massive impact.

as many points as auticus keeps claiming.

I've watched it with my own eyes in every one of the seraphon player's games.

What I see is that people saying (Seraphon & Nagash) summoning isn't bad by and large haven't actually played against serious summoning. I can tell because they keep suggesting counter-strategies that don't work in practice.

 Marmatag wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Most of it seems fine to me.

Don't kill all 40 skeleton warriors. Boom, negated that entire ability.

The one that seems broken is Tzeentch. They get free units by you and them casting spells. Turn 4, here comes my free lord of change.

You have to swing in melee now. And if you don't have a unit that can beat up 10 skeleton warriors in melee then you've already lost.

You can always fall back, or just not go straight ham into the face of skeletons.

And let's start with the fact that you're erasing 30 skeletons before that..

That's even more of a tactical advantage than the skeletons coming back. Also, if you just killed 30 skeletons, the rest will battleshock to death just in time to be resurrected. OR you spent multiple rounds killing them, meaning the unit is obviously a difficulty for you and thus a big advantage for the Nagash guy when he rezzes them.

With all due respect, please try to think a bit more before making suggestions because these are just silly. I know that sounds snobby, but seriously...


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 Elmir wrote:
Exactly... People are quick to scream OP at resurrection of skeletons, but let's be honest.

If you go slamming so much hitting power into a block of skellies, with the general still alive right next to a gravesite so the LoN player can just resurrect them in the next turn, eliminating your efforts, it might just be you who has made a tactical blunder.

Having to kill the general (especially if they are undead) isn't exactly a new trope in fantasy wargames.

So far, we've not seen the summoning rules leading to grotesque scenarios here. I've also not seen anybody summon as many points as auticus keeps claiming... The only "fringe" case so far, where my FEC at 1000p. I was able to summon 320p in a 1000p game, which seemed like a bit too much.

The only thing I'm worried about, is engine of the Gods spam... That could get grotesque if the dice are on fire, early enough in the game to have a massive impact.

Have you tried to kill Mortarchs before? It isn't easy. And if you are camping one gravesite they can easily just fly over to one of the other three, or even be within range of more than one from the onset. It's really, really easy. And even then, the tactical advantage alone of forcing the opposing player to block grave sites is so powerful it can be even better than bringing the units back in the first place.

Also, it isn't so much you hitting the skeletons, it's the Nagash player throwing suicide units at you then getting them back for free, just in time for when you try to push back. Keeping forces together to avoid units being picked off? Legions doesn't care. Avoid charging a single unit out front to not overextend yourself? Legions doesn't care. People talk about the raw points being brought back a lot (it isn't THAT much) but what's big in practice is the huge tactical advantage it affords the Legions player. Actually fight against a decent player running them, you'll see what I mean.


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Regardless I want to re-state that summoning as a WHOLE isn't too bad. Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, FEC, and Nurgle at 2k are all OK. Khorne summoning competes with blood tithe abilities, Tzeentch got a lot of point nerfs to compensate for their amazing allegiance, Slaanesh needed the buff, and FEC Ghoul Kings cost a lot of points to bring their free units to the table. Nurgle gives up half his allegiance to summoning, and only has a scaling issue rather than a overall potency one.


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 Elmir wrote:
So far, we've not seen the summoning rules leading to grotesque scenarios here. I've also not seen anybody summon as many points as auticus keeps claiming... The only "fringe" case so far, where my FEC at 1000p. I was able to summon 320p in a 1000p game, which seemed like a bit too much.

Well, you brought two Ghoul Kings on Dragons in a 1000 point game so it's a cheese built from the onset.

I play Legions of Nagash myself... Mortarchs aren't super durable for their points by any stretch of the imagination (11W with a 4+/6++ isn't that insane). In fact, they are quite expensive and have significant drawbacks... With the exception of Arkhan, you definitely want to use their command abilities every turn to get good mileage out of them and that's exactly what you can't do if you just toss sacrificial weenie units at your opponent to lock them... you'll be CP starved in no time. Their mobility for summoning on a "locked down" gravesite is also less of a problem because Endless Legions doesn't have a timing mentioned on it and thus needs to happen in the hero phase. If you have had the misfortune of playing against a LoN player who just zips off to a free Gravesite and summons there afterwards without you being able to respond: you are dealing with a cheater or you've been double turned

The worst case scenario for my opponent, is a VLoZD with the Ethereal amulet. Now that is a tough nut to crack... the mortarchs... not so much. Nagash fighting in Shyish is also all but impossible to quickly kill as well.

As a LoN player, I don't just get to spam cheap battalions either to get all those CP that you'd need to pull off what you are describing. Not without having to buy a lot of them for 50p each, which is tricky to do if you have to set aside 440 or 800p for our 2 "damn hard to kill options"...



I play them and I know what traps to set up for my opponent. It's amazing to see how many people jump into the gak, both feet at the same time and then moan that it went badly....I do agree with you that it's not so much about the extra points being generated (in LoN case, it's ZERO), but it does offer a very difficult new strategic challenge and one that just means "kill the general" even more so than before. It can get very tricky to counter if your opponent brings the right general however. But let's be honest, Nagash or VLoZD with amulet isn't a list you'd run if you want to keep friends...



PS1: Bringing a FEC GKoZD/GKoTG is indeed incredibly cheesy from the onset. I just used Majestic horror (that's the one that shows poor scaling at lower points games). You could take 2 GKoTG in 1k, but then you'd have no courtiers and could summon 480p btw). And like I said, that's the only time I've seen summoning getting a bit "out of hand" points wise (in comparison to the original amount of points being played)

PS2: I do believe Endless Legions could do with an errata that makes it state that resurrected units do not get to move in the proceeding movement phase. In my experience so far, that's the most broken thing about that ability.

auticus wrote:
Because summoning gives you free points. Free points means that if you and I are playing a 2000 point game, that the expectation is that I'll have 2000 points and you'll have 2000 points.

But then if I have an army that can easily summon free points you're really playing a game where I have 2500, 2600, or even 2800 points to your 2000 points.

Whatever you think, IT IS NOT FREE. My Bloodletters were already overcosted at 10pts each, now they went up to 12. Pinkies went from 12 to 20 pts.

To give you an idea. A unit of 5 Evocators (4 attacks, 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, -1 rend, 4+ save, 2 wounds) cost 200 pts, same as my Pinkies (1 attack, 5+ to hit, 4+ to wound, no rend, 5+ save, 1 wound). Both are wizard. 5 Evocators can wipe 3 Pinky units before i get them down, while i can summon only 1 unit per 2 turns, if iam lucky.

To give you and idea about Khorne, they charged with 5 units, DP, BT, Bloodletters, Doggies and Bloodcrushers. All together killed 3 Stormcast models, next turn i was wiped. Ow and i only summon 1 unit after 8 Blood Tithe points (kill or lose 8 units)

Ok. But sylvaneth stuff didn't go up at all; branchwych stayed the same and can generate 100 puts a turn. Alarielle stayed the same and generates 200-240. The battalions fluctuated, with meta battalions going down and component ones going up, but heartwood went down 50 and that has the most opportunity to return whole units.

So some things give you free points at no additional cost, while some things don't

For the OP

Slann (Seraphon grand wizard) can cast 3 spells a turn. Quite easy to get that to 4 with Chronimantic Cogs. Balewind may make it 5?

Then for every spell you DONT cast, you get 3 summoning points.

So there's a sacrifice to be made... you need to bring an expensive HQ then not cast all its (now buffed with Malign Sorcery and Realm Magic) spells.

But in return you can incredibly easily get 10 skinks a turn, if you focus on it maybe a Bastiladon or something scary every couple of turns.

Seems OK to me but I have never played a competitive/tournament game of AOS in my life so what do I know?

There's also a unit called Engine of the Gods. You roll 3d6 and on a... 14-17 I think you get a free instant summon which can move. That's badass, particularly as you can buff that roll easily. With the right units it could be 4d6 discard the lowest, reroll 1 dice and add 1 to another.

3 EotG's will be a thing.

 Silentz wrote:

There's also a unit called Engine of the Gods. You roll 3d6 and on a... 14-17 I think you get a free instant summon which can move. That's badass, particularly as you can buff that roll easily. With the right units it could be 4d6 discard the lowest, reroll 1 dice and add 1 to another.

3 EotG's will be a thing.

Maybe it will be...but it also uses up your Behemoth and Leader limitations in Matched Play.

It may end up being nothing... or something much easier to handle once people figure out which armies work well against summoning. Right now, I think free summoning is a going to make AoS *HIGHLY* unbalanced overall (as in game-breakingly so). Everyone who can't summon is going to be trying to build armies to be able to beat those players who can summon. So, there will no longer be a list that someone can bring to their FLGS or GW that is a take all comers list. It'll have to be honed to either win against those armies that can summon or win against those armies that can't.

Just highly, highly unbalanced.

SG

What do you take to beat summoners that won’t work against non-summoners?

 AduroT wrote:
What do you take to beat summoners that won’t work against non-summoners?

Gryph-Hounds!

Everyone called me crazy for having 36 of the frigging things. The joke's on you all! Bwhahahaha!

WHO'S A CRAZY BIRDCATDOG MAN NOW!

On a more serious note, I really don't know. A lot of it is going to come down to figuring out how to deny placement and things of that nature.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Silentz wrote:

There's also a unit called Engine of the Gods. You roll 3d6 and on a... 14-17 I think you get a free instant summon which can move. That's badass, particularly as you can buff that roll easily. With the right units it could be 4d6 discard the lowest, reroll 1 dice and add 1 to another.

3 EotG's will be a thing.

Maybe it will be...but it also uses up your Behemoth and Leader limitations in Matched Play.

The behemoths one would have brought as part of the list will be summoned in, bypassing the limitation. Leader choices they still have 2 more to bring an Astrolith Bearer and some random Skink if wanted. I will say that going full on 3-Engines seems risky for how much it would deplete the initial lineup. I imagine 2 would be a better choice.


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 Elmir wrote:
I play Legions of Nagash myself... Mortarchs aren't super durable for their points by any stretch of the imagination (11W with a 4+/6++ isn't that insane). In fact, they are quite expensive and have significant drawbacks... With the exception of Arkhan, you definitely want to use their command abilities every turn to get good mileage out of them and that's exactly what you can't do if you just toss sacrificial weenie units at your opponent to lock them... you'll be CP starved in no time. Their mobility for summoning on a "locked down" gravesite is also less of a problem because Endless Legions doesn't have a timing mentioned on it and thus needs to happen in the hero phase. If you have had the misfortune of playing against a LoN player who just zips off to a free Gravesite and summons there afterwards without you being able to respond: you are dealing with a cheater or you've been double turned

The worst case scenario for my opponent, is a VLoZD with the Ethereal amulet. Now that is a tough nut to crack... the mortarchs... not so much. Nagash fighting in Shyish is also all but impossible to quickly kill as well.

As a LoN player, I don't just get to spam cheap battalions either to get all those CP that you'd need to pull off what you are describing. Not without having to buy a lot of them for 50p each, which is tricky to do if you have to set aside 440 or 800p for our 2 "damn hard to kill options"...



I play them and I know what traps to set up for my opponent. It's amazing to see how many people jump into the gak, both feet at the same time and then moan that it went badly....I do agree with you that it's not so much about the extra points being generated (in LoN case, it's ZERO), but it does offer a very difficult new strategic challenge and one that just means "kill the general" even more so than before. It can get very tricky to counter if your opponent brings the right general however. But let's be honest, Nagash or VLoZD with amulet isn't a list you'd run if you want to keep friends...



PS1: Bringing a FEC GKoZD/GKoTG is indeed incredibly cheesy from the onset. I just used Majestic horror (that's the one that shows poor scaling at lower points games). You could take 2 GKoTG in 1k, but then you'd have no courtiers and could summon 480p btw). And like I said, that's the only time I've seen summoning getting a bit "out of hand" points wise (in comparison to the original amount of points being played)

PS2: I do believe Endless Legions could do with an errata that makes it state that resurrected units do not get to move in the proceeding movement phase. In my experience so far, that's the most broken thing about that ability.

Thing is you don't need to bring that many units back to cause an issue. I'm not talking a sacrificial unit of 3 bats or 5 dire wolves, more like a sacrificial unit 20 wolves or 10 hexwraiths. They roll up in front, do enough damage that they can't be ignored, and take effort to remove. They'll be wiped out just in time for infantry blocks to be standing on mid-field objectives, then come back for the counter charge. I will caveat that the strength of LoN is more scenario-dependent than perhaps any other army as there are missions where their tactical advantages are lessened.

For command points, round 1 a mortarch can safely avoid using their command ability, and if you just rammed a speed unit into their front line you can potentially get away with not using it round 2 either, or just have not spent 50 points to net an extra one. That's 2 command points, which is plenty enough to unbalance a game by bringing back two significant units. A mortarch (or VLoZD for that matter) is most likely healing every combat phase, making them much more difficult to kill than their profile would suggest. If they go out front and get surrounded sure they'll die easily but that's any monster. As for shooting that's what the above mentioned fast unit ramming into their army is for; if they had enough shooting to down a mortarch/ZD quickly at long range they are going to have problems dealing with that.

In regards to moving between grave sites, I should have clarified--what I meant was that blocking them off doesn't happen in one turn; you'll know which ones they are moving towards before they get there, allowing a change in position as needed. The other option is if they are close together, in which case it's possible to just be in range of more than one. With a monster base having two grave sites 18" apart allows the general to be in range of both while still having a not-insignificant area to move around in. They could be something like 22" apart but that would lock the general into sitting on one exact spot, which is an unwise situation to put oneself in.

Honestly the most I'm currently looking at is this;

Engine of the Gods (just one)
Slaan
Skink Starpriest (80pt magic dude)
Cogs
Astrolith Bearer

Point investment - 780pts

And that's my heavy, in most cases I'd drop the cogs and the starpriest which drops that 140pts.

But that 780 gets the following;

13 Summoning Points from the Slaan
D3 from the Astrolith Bearer
and a 1/3 shot (maybe higher) of summoning 20 skinks or 10 saurus.

That means turn 2 I'm dropping a bastilladon/scar vet carnosaur plus other stuff down on my opponent. And I'm likely bringing in at least 40 skinks halfway thru the game till the engine goes down. It's a heavy investment but even without summoning but it does come with 4 dispells, 2 teleports, and a decent CC monster/support model that helps without extra friends.

It's a bit over the top once you add in cogs. If you're cool with just banking 7+d3 turn one you don't even need the skink priest but his power is good. When it was possible to not summon a top tier model round 2 it was tolerable. With cogs it's impossible not to.