I think it’s too early to declare summoning dead. It’s by no means a strategy to build your list around, but summoning a few units of skinks, warriors, terradons, or a replacement priest/starpriest is not insignificant, and having 2 frogs means you have a backup for summoning if one goes splat. We have enough ways of removing models that we don’t have to overwhelm the board from turn 1 with wary fighter skinks, so summoning has potentially become unnecessary/irrelevant. However, you should be able to count on at least one small unit by turn 4, which can often be the difference between winning a close game and losing.
Yes, slann+kroak is possible, but is seems to me a bit suboptimal, compared to other options. But it definitely has some potential. 7 universal unbinds (which you can pretty easily raise up to +3 for Kroak) will shut down any, but the strongest, magicians. You have a chance to deny even some of Nagash's stuff. Also, on average, it is 2-3 bonus CP per turn. Even more, if you bring starseer and brooch. Finally, don't forget realm spells - there are quite a few good ones in every realm.
Which is great and all, but doesn't exactly make it a good, fleshed out mechanic. Summoning 1 or 2 msu of what might well be the worst battleline unit statwise in the game isn't exactly brilliant even if this occasionally can win you a game due to how you score points. To be honest, the most telling fact that summoning is kind of dead is that a single branchwraith has more effective summoning as a simple spell than our faction ability unless we invest to an absolutly ridiculous degree in it. I mean, it's literally more cost-efficient for us to just bring a tree-lord & branchwraith ally than it is to bring enough slann to get our own summoning going.
It IS lot of invested points - really wish the warscroll spell was different for Slann and Kroak for this reason alone (assuming it was a good spell). I guess that’s why you can forgo a spell for CCP - 2 endless spells, comets call, 3 CDs, and 2CCPs between the two. If needed, you can swap in a celestial apotheosis, stellar tempest, etc situationally. Decision to harvest CCP even easier if you are out of range of CD.
This is absolutely true. But the point of bringing 2 frogs isn’t to support summoning. I would bring them for endless spells and MW spam lists. The summoning here is a side hustle that can reap dividends in the end game. I think most agree that a summoning *list* is dead competitively. But summoning (as a mechanic) isn’t dead, it is just night and day from what we needed it to be. It is a passive bonus that builds over time, more in line with Nurgle/Slaanesh than Sylvaneth/Tzeentch. Not that this is in any way meant to be an equivocation of our mechanic to either mentioned, but that’s just how I see it, high-level.
A) I agree with assessment, in situations were it might be too scary for your opponent to get the garrison effects I think it might be worth it. B) Ooof. Showing my lack of experience playing games. My point of view it that in our case it allows our secondary slann (aka Support Slann) to be in an out of the way location to utilize the RE + CCP + Bonus cast lore + endless spell spam. This is assuming a lot of the list, ie starborne + kroak & slann with endless spells. On the flip side this would be out of the way for our opponents so they likely wouldn't garrison it, for the reason you stated it being bad. C) nothing to add :s D) An interesting point I hadn't thought about. It would also cause our opponents to split their forces a bit more into waves, which might allow us to screen or impede them in other ways, right? Thanks for sharing your knowledge and opinion on the RE placement! I think our terrain piece really shines with the idea of a support hero in it. I think it would also have to be specifically included for the idea/intention of having that hero occupy the terrain and being happy with their results if that's all they do. Which is hard as we are pretty tight already with which support heroes to take.
Slaanesh generates a metric ton of points, getting plenty of reinforcements. It's a little more than a bonus As for nurgle, yeah you're probably not going to be summoning hordes of reinforcments with them either (I think it takes like 3-4 turns of just spawning trees before you start generating a good amount of points) but it has several major advantages compared to our "mechanic": 1) It requires no sacrifices; no wasted spellcasts, no pointcosts. 2) They actually have rules that improve their summoning without needing to spend 260 points for a mere D3 extra points... 3) It is quite easy to at least summon a new tree per turn, even if you pay no attention to summoning. Get a model in both territories and an additional D3 for your starting tree and you're already at 6 + D3 per turn. Meanwhile we're stuck with a bunch of D3's that deny us the much needed reliability to actually turn this into something usefull 4) Trees generate more points, so any summoned tree will summon more trees, so it has a nice self-reinforcing cycle. It's also rather thematic. It also makes it much more of a fleshed out mechanic as it means you can at least rely on the trees to make a forest that grows ever faster. If nothing else you can throw some terrain down to box your opponent in. 5) Their basic summons are not amazing, 5 plaguebearers or 1 nurgling base is probably worse than a msu of skinks. However, the trees actually have decent enough effects to actually build a stratagy around. They help with zoning and making your slow army faster. Summoning a forest, spewing out mortal wounds & speeding up your slow plaguebearers, is at least a legitimate mechanic that you can rely on. Compared to that our "summoning" that consists of "after 2-3 turns you get a msu of cannonfodder" is kind of a poor mechanic... weirdest thing is, with our focus on the realmshaper engine & us remaking the mortal realms into jungles we could actually use the exact same basic fluffy-mechanic of spreading "corruption" (or in our case, spreading "ordered" jungle were our various dinosaurs can roam and grow stronger)
I have a feeling that we will summon either 10 skinks or single Salamander. Maybe-maybe, 10 warriors or 5 Guard. That's it. Investing in something that costs 15+ CCP is not worth it, unless things are already going well. EDIT: I feel, like we are going too far from RSE discussion.
I mean. It won't be near an objective unless it is Starstrike or Shifting Objective. So who cares if it is garrisoned by the enemy. They are not scoring points with those units. Unless that unit shoots, has less than 20 wounds, or has a Seraphon Wizard/Priest then they aren't too likely to benefit from it either. Their support units will suffer all the weakness of print increase that we do, except they won't be able to throw out MWs. And most support units in AoS have a short leash to the units that benefit from them.
It must be placed before other terrains. In tournaments more often than not (due to time necessities) you have tables with pre-arranged terrains, so by RAW it couldn't be used.
But in Pitched Battle the Terrain must not be preplaced, so by RAW the tournament is illegal! I am sure, that every org in his right mind will allow you to place it.
I don't think TOs at any large event will stop us from being able place it. I assume it will be similar to how most TO's handle the Bone-Tithe Nexus. If anything it will be an advantage to place the RSE onto a preloaded table, especially if the TO has assigned terrain features from the GHB2019.
A further point to placing onto a tournament table is that the RSE's only restrictions is that is has to be 6" from objective and table edges. You could in theory place it directly onto a piece of existing terrain if the table is preset.
Unfortunately, GHB states, that the faction terrain has to be set up 6" from other terrain pieces. I guess, it is appied to RSE too. But, once again, the org has to decide, what to do.