AoS Summoning: a call to save AoS

[Killer Angel]

@Killer Angel
Yes, if you summon 100 models to add to your 100 models and blow me out with your massive numbers but I manage to keep one guy on the table, I win. That's not fun, it's a consolation prize for surviving the unbalanced one sided mess you had to suffer through.

Well, that depends on PoVs.I see it more as the victory of Spartans, very satisfying. But I'm digressing, sorry.

Using AoS to prove your mental superiority over other people is not a good way to go. Its supposed to be about the models, the hobby, the lore, the enjoyment of the hobby as a whole. The lack of points was designed as a way to flush these people out so that only people truly dedicated to the hobby as a whole would be left. If you want to prove your smarter than someone, play MTG, or Chess, or RTS games, or MOBA games, etc. These all have a long history of balancing support to promote fair competition - AoS has none.

It is not, and I agree on the sentiment, but one the basic concept is that gaming is about "mental superiority". Chess is a balanced game, so you win exactly because you're smarter than your adversary.
It is not, however, the point of AoS / wargames. The point is also to have fun, to enjoy the lore, and so on.
But "fair competition" is not on the table. I'll try to explain my thoughts:
Warhammer was never "fair". In 8th, it isn't fair if I field a Carnosaur with oldblood on it, at the cost of 400 points, and in the first turn, a cannon worth 120 points kills both of them. It isn't fair if the vampire counts's guy field 2 terrorgheists and banshees when he faces lizardmen.
MTG isn't fair, if the guy with the same tactical skills as mine, can afford a deck with power nine cards.
The nature of these particular games, isn't fairness.
Of course, the players must have fun together... that's when the Gentlemen's Agreement comes into play.
That's why summoning is fine: if you play in a competitive playground, it's fun to use it at full potential, if you don't, you will tone it down.
If someone should tone it down, but doesn't... well, it's not a problem of the game, it's a problem of the player, because he's the same guy that was used to bring Banshees against low LD armies.

You want to "rule" it, and put a limit on summoning's power.
As said, You can do it. There are systems that try to do it: currently, Azyr comp says "at the beginning of the game, each summoning army rolls a d6: that's the total number of summoning available for the game".
I don't like it, but you can do it. Heck, it's a system currently used in many tournaments (at least, here in Italy).
The thing is: where do you stop?
Summoning is strong, but if you take away summoning, why should you leave the other unique spells to my adversaries?
Seraphons / undead have summoning. Wood elves got a spell that, in combo with other abilities, let them inflict one mortal wound on each save roll of 3+, rerolling 1s and 2s. If I cannot summon, why wood elves should do that? I cannot certainly inflict mortal wounds on succesfull saves.
The logical ending of the process is: there are only 2 spells available, regardless of the army: "mystic shield" and "arcane bolt".
But that's not AoS.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

You missed out this part: Models added to your army during the game (for example, through summoning, reinforcements, reincarnation and so on) do not count towards the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers.

Therefore, surely as long as you kill the models which were on the field at the start of the game you score a major victory?

This was addressed in the thread. I don't want a major victory i want to play a balanced game and have fun.

Lad, if I want to kill your wizard, you're not going to be able to stop me.

Yes i'm sure you can kill a wizard if you really want to. If I brought Neferata, Nagash, A Slann, Kroak and the Glottkin, you cant promise me that you are going to kill all my wizards. This is an extreme example to prove the point that, "you can just kill the wizard" is in no way a viable argument against summoning.

Yes but don't forget, if you are summoning units, then you are not casting anything else, including mystic shield. It works in our club.Summoning army don't have advantage and will lose 50% of their fights.

This is a good point but summoning is still very good as an ambush technique. As an ambush technique + free models, its broken. I summon all the time as an ambush technique and it works great. Mystic Shield or arcane bolt are nowhere near the power of summoning models. Mystic Shield on skeletons might save you a few, summoning gives you free 10-20 skeletons.

@Killer Angel
Its impossible to balance tabletop gaming, but that doesn't mean you cant have competitive game. 8th was out of whack only because it required you to bring the most optimal list to play competitively. That's why people are doing KoW, Azyr and 9th age in a similar way. People simply bring what they know is competitive. Its the same with MtG, people go to tournaments when they have a competitive deck. MtG has the advantage of having about a billion case studies per day to balance the game. You can go to a tournament without a competitive deck but youre just going to lose, or you could bring some variation on the decks that have been proven a hundred thousand times before you attempt your first game with it.

Warhammer is not a card game. Every unit can represent 100+ hours of someones life and an expression of their art. To treat models like pieces of cardboard or chess pieces would be a shame. Competitive games are not about the pieces that make up the game, its about the competition. Warhammer should be first and foremost about the models. Otherwise we could just dump some junk on the table and call that pile saurus warriors, that thing a carnasaur...

AoS is not just an insane shitshow where nothing matters, it is a representation of war. AoS is a better representation of war than Warhammer has ever been. Both sides don't have to be exactly equal for a great battle to take place, but to make it interesting, you want to think that both sides have a fair shot at the start. At no time in history did a general double his army size by summoning them from the abyss. If possible, the battle would be a slaughterfest. Battles are about tech and numbers. Every army has access to equivalent tech, but when one army can radically increase their numbers, they have an extreme advantage and the games are not in any way fair. Knowing that you are going to lose from the start is not fun. If you think so, check out the attendance for any sport team with a terrible losing streak. Its not exciting, its not something anyone wants to be a part of. No one wants to waste their time for the very small chance they pull it together and beat a superior opponent. In contrast when two teams are matched up it can be an exhilarating and awesome experience to watch.

What summoning does is it optimizes even fewer models than 8th edition did. Nobody is playing non-summoning lists anymore. If you check out the forums for non-summoning armies, they are all nearly dead. The Undead, Seraphon and Daemon forums are the most active. Some have even closed down or announced a discontinuation. Aside from Stormcasts, which is like 3:1 players because of the new box set, all the armies are being strangled out of existence. Some people are playing their 8th edition models until they cant take getting blown out anymore and give up. The few people I know who would prefer to play AoS are simply considering becoming more active with the established 40k groups instead.

Maybe we just need to say screw it and ban all summoning until we can get this under control.

 

[Freddy25]

I think it would be awesome to have ALL the armies able to summon:
Serpahon? Recall memories on the battlefield.
Undeads? Bring people back to "life".
Daemons? Call for more troups praying a Dark God.
Stormcasts? Arrive directly from Sigmar's home.
Free people? Strategically planned future reinforcements.
Orcs? Shout loud and call more orks chilling nearby.
And so on... To me this would be doable, fair and could even be coherent with the fluff or amies' peculiarities.

@Tip4Tap said "As long as you kill the models which were on the field at the start of the game you score a major victory?".
I can't understand if it is a question or an affirmation, but if that was a question... well... it was a good question! XD
Honestly I don't know how to think about it: what you say seems reasonable, even if weird (and a little complicate if the players don't bring their initial army list with them).

 

[WoollyMammoth]

The key problem with that is, the entire game comes down to who was able to cast the spells and who got unlucky. The biggest turn-off for me is, you have to BUY BUY BUY to have enough models to compete (as if the hobby wasn't expensive enough). And a key point is, I don't always have 7 hours to play a game. With one slann being able to summon 180+ models per game, its just insane.

Allowing your opponent to "Ambush" extra units every turn would 'balance' it. Technically Stormcasts and bloodbound do have special rules to be able to "summon" models. I guess GW just wants you to take a Chaos, Seraphon or Undead wizard with you to every game and summon more units. That way you buy more models.

I just don't want to play these kinds of games.

 

[Killer Angel]

AoS is not just an insane shitshow where nothing matters, it is a representation of war. AoS is a better representation of war than Warhammer has ever been. Both sides don't have to be exactly equal for a great battle to take place, but to make it interesting, you want to think that both sides have a fair shot at the start. At no time in history did a general double his army size by summoning them from the abyss. If possible, the battle would be a slaughterfest. Battles are about tech and numbers. Every army has access to equivalent tech, but when one army can radically increase their numbers, they have an extreme advantage and the games are not in any way fair.

I could say that summoning is like a real efficient logistic. There were real history examples of troops deployed in the battlefield from far away, during the same day (starting from Sadowa and train transport).
But I'm digressing again.
The trope of “undead summoning, swarm the battlefield”, is hugely established in all fantasy literature, fiction, RPGs (pc and table). WHFB was already on a similar concept, with spells able to bring back in combat slain models of a particular unit.

Summoning is only a logical step ahead: luckily, it is not limited to undead armies.


That said, I’m willing to forget my position on the matter, and helping to think to a possible solution / proposal. But the global issue will remain: house rules adopted by single meta, will help only that meta (and the newcomers that want to start the hobby in that meta).


What about:
During a game, any wizard / unit, able to summon, can summon models up to the doubled number of their own wounds, or a single unit with more wounds than that.

This would mean: a Slann (5 wounds), can summon 10 wounds or a single, bigger model, so: a unit of 10 saurus, or 2 units of 5 chama skinks, or a Carnosaur.
Nagash would be able to summon 32 wounds.
A beastmen’s Shaman would be able to summon a single Jabberslythe in all the game.

It’s useful, moderately powerful, and certainly not game breaking.
Yes, of course a player can field 3 slanns, but it will still have the ability to summon “only” 30 wounds.
And at that points, it’s less powerful than cannons spam, but it will still leave the ability, to summoning armies, to call for help in a key moment of the battle.

 

[airjamy]

I am really going to feel like the i told you so guy right now, and i am already sorry, but still, here goes.

AoS has a really poor gaming system, it is held together by the bandages and duct tape made by players to make it playable, but as a gaming system, it is just not really good. This problem of summoning is just another sign of a poorly thought trough system, and it's really a shame that it is driving wargamers apart even more then the different gaming systems (KoW, 9th, 9th, AoS) are doing already. If people enjoy this system, all power to them and enjoy it, but the more i hear of AoS, the more i just hear of problems and issues in games. I know that GW has the Most Important Rule for rule issues, but the Most Important Rule gives no lasting solace in rule issues, it is once again just a temporary band-aid to keep the game, and most importantly the money, moving. Because let's be honest, the only reason summoning is so op is because GW wants to sell more shit..

 

[Rekmeister]

Because let's be honest, the only reason summoning is so op is because GW wants to sell more shit..

Nice theory; GW have released 8 phenomenal value 'get started' boxes, and a starter box, all of which can be played competitively out the box. AoS is a cheap game by GW standards. Even outside of prices, I no longer need to buy X amount of core units before being allowed to use an elite unit I actually want. The AoS pricing system is actually far more transparent with the consumer than GW ever has been before; they're telling the player that price and social contract between players are the only things stopping you from using a unit. Just today I bought a small contingent of dwarves to assist my Seraphon army, it's only two units big. That sort of thing has never been legal in a main GW game before.

True, rules like summoning make things dicey, but that just means you talk to your opponent beforehand about what flies before it's unsporting. This filters out the kind of opponent you don't want to play, ensures you will only play the kind of game you/your opponent want to play.

AoS is great, but everyone here on this part of the forum probably enjoys the game, if the collective groan is at only one rule, then you aren't being the "I told you so" guy.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Killer Angel
I love that idea. I would also clarify that its X wounds per game (not per turn). That is a very interesting take on summoning.

@airjamy
I disagree that AoS is not a good game. Its actually an amazing game, just too painfully different from 8th for some people. I know a bunch of intelligent people that love AoS. Almost everyone who says it sucks has played less than 5 games - they hate the idea of it, not the actual game.

I would agree that summoning is a way to sell models but then, why cant anything be summoned? All the new stuff can't summon - The new Fyreslayers cant summon anything. Why cant Stormcast summon? Khorne is classically devoid of magic and thus, summoning. The Sylvaneth can't summon anything. Even the new tome for Pestilines - they only have preists, not mages.

If they are trying to sell models, why doesn't it say ORDER wizards can summon Seraphon? It says Seraphon wizards only, so it seems to be an unfortunate (broken) way to support the lore concepts, rather than some evil scheme to sell models. I think its just another mistake in a long history of GW not understanding its customers. Apparently, they have even done this before - at one point VC could summon all day and they were broken as hell until they finally nerfed it.

Sure, GW prices are high, and they are pushing all kinds of sales techniques to get you to buy more stuff. AoS as a whole breaks the limit on what you can and cannot add to your army, and completely breaks down the gap between being interested in product and actually purchasing some. I used to feel the same way but really, now that I think about it, using summoning as a sales technique just makes no sense. Also the obvious concept that if no one is playing because summoning sucks, they just won't make any money at all.

@Rekmeister
Agreed. But unfortunately there is a fatal flaw with this concept; people. People buy a bunch of summoning units and double their army size because "their army is weak and so this is fair". People take Nagash, Archaon and The Glottkin in one list because "this is cool now". For all its flaws, 8th edition limited people. Now we have to deal with people and dealing with people can really suck.

For this reason AoS is being played mostly between close friends and the social aspect is being strangled out.

 

[Killer Angel]

@Killer Angel
I love that idea. I would also clarify that its X wounds per game (not per turn). That is a very interesting take on summoning.

Glad I've been helpful.
Let me know how it works.

@airjamy
I disagree that AoS is not a good game. Its actually an amazing game, just too painfully different from 8th for some people. I know a bunch of intelligent people that love AoS. Almost everyone who says it sucks has played less than 5 games - they hate the idea of it, not the actual game.

True. It was the same for me, at the beginning, but after giving it a honest try, now I really like AoS.

 

[tom ndege]

@Tip4Tap said "As long as you kill the models which were on the field at the start of the game you score a major victory?".
I can't understand if it is a question or an affirmation, but if that was a question... well... it was a good question! XD
Honestly I don't know how to think about it: what you say seems reasonable, even if weird (and a little complicate if the players don't bring their initial army list with them

This made me think...
As I understand that rule you don't have to kill the actual models which were deployed but only the same amount of models... Meaning if someone is fielding a single slann and summons 150 saurus warriors every dead warriors raises the score another 100%... That makes it impossible to win without objectives... Cause no matter what the slann summons it can only kill 100% of the enemies army...

 

[Freddy25]

As I understand that rule you don't have to kill the actual models which were deployed but only the same amount of models...

Yeah, that is what I've always thought:
I've completely destroyed your army? The game ends and that's a major victory for me.
Both of us survive? We se our deployed/killed percentages and see who can claim a minor victory.

But what Tip said has made a bell ring in my head.

There's this sentence in the Rules (under Glorious Victory) which I've always found a bit ambiguous:
"[...] one side [is] able to claim victory because it has destroyed its foe or there are no enemy models left on the field of battle."

Why is it written this way?
What is the difference between "destroying your foe" and "eliminating all the enemy models"?
Maybe it's just a matter of enphasis, but maybe these are two different things.

(Here come the bell I was speaking about before )

The "eliminating all the enemy models" part is very clear, but the other one COULD mean:
- you win (destroy your opponent) by reaching the thematic objective you aimed at
[i.e. resist for X turns / kill that model / conquest a zone / etc.]
- you win by destroying your foe, who is the army you are facing from the beginning of the battle (so the enemy army originally fielded).
Killing those models would mean to destroy your foe, nobody cares if that army has been able to summon hordes of other models:
you can immediatly claim a major victory and the game comes to an end.



That would be an interesting way to "balance summoning", right?
It would be necessary to note which models have been fielded at the beginning, of course, by the way.

This could simply be useless speculation, or maybe GW intentionally left this part ambiguous in order to leave all the possibility viable for the players...

Spoiler: ... or again

they have always had an evil plan designed to make people discuss eternally, keeping active the forums and the community with endless debates on Age of Sigmar!!!
That would be the ultimate super-evil form of marketing possible

 

[Raptor_00]

"[...] one side [is] able to claim victory because it has destroyed its foe or there are no enemy models left on the field of battle."

I think this is added for something like Chameleon Skinks. If you poof them out in the movement phase and then your army is destroyed your enemy will win because everything was destroyed or not on the table. It keeps you from keeping something off the table or in some type of reserve in order to win a game based on the percentage destroyed, missions to complete, or objectives present. Basically stops your from doing points denial to the enemy, or having it done to you.

 

[tom ndege]

Wanted to give a similar reply like that! Good you already did @Raptor_00 .

 

[Freddy25]

I think this is added for something like Chameleon Skinks. If you poof them out in the movement phase and then your army is destroyed your enemy will win because everything was destroyed or not on the table.

Right: didn't thought about that.
This prevents models to be hidden by players among the clouds (Rippers), under the sand (Tomb Kings) and so on in order to achieve cheesy (maybe Sudden Deaths) victories.
Thanks for the reply!

 

[nine7six]

I"m against summoning, i believe the army you field is the army that should play, I understand it's place in death armies but still... you can get swarmed with zombies and forced to attacked a unit that keeps getting larger and larger.

Also I've been looking at an alternative for the engine of the gods summoning roll, anyone got a good idea for a replacement?

 

[Killer Angel]

The new version of Azyr Comp system, introduces a new rule to limit summoning.

Basically, if you summon a unit, you need to "mantain" it every turn: in you hero phase, you must use one of your spells' slot to concentrate on the summoned unit (rolling again the dices, as if you summon it again). If you don't do it, the summoned unit vanishes.

It's an interesting take: summoning gives you an additional unit, but you must sacrifice a spell each turn.
Sadly, in its current form, you can somehow bypass it:
(I summon a unit. It shoots at you. you cannot reach it but you come closer. In my turn the unit poofs away and I summon another one in a different position. I shoot at you...)
It's certainly a limit to things ala "I summon 2 bastiladons".

 

[pendrake]

Balance Summoning by allowing the other army a way** to get reinforcements.

**The old fashioned way. Send off a messenger. Wait (or roll a dice?) New unit enters from a table-edge.

 

[Bracnos]

Balance Summoning by allowing the other army a way** to get reinforcements.

**The old fashioned way. Send off a messenger. Wait (or roll a dice?) New unit enters from a table-edge.

see this seems like a fine and perfect way

 

[tom ndege]

I think both @Killer Angel's and @pendrake's ideas are a good way of handling the summoning problem...
But somehow I'm curious what gw says about summoning... Might be tempted to visit my facebook account again...

 

[pendrake]

Balance Summoning by allowing the other army a way** to get reinforcements.

**The old fashioned way. Send off a messenger. Wait (or roll a dice?) New unit enters from a table-edge.

...see this seems like a fine and perfect way...

Thanks.
It would not apply if both armies were able to summon using magic.