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Oppenheimer

Varghulf
May 26, 2013
743
There's a few situations which I can see summoning still working. It keeps fragile units in reserve until you need them, such as skeleton archers. It gives you a bit more flexibility to configure your army on the fly once you know what your enemy is deploying. You can also use the harbingers like a fireball that stays around since they will likely still make the charge from 9" due to their 3 dice rule. That helps make up for their so-so movement speed. BUT, all of that might not be worth it because you could fail to cast the spell and can't try again until next turn due to that stupid rule of 1, or could get unbound. If that happens you are actually at a disadvantage because you made your army smaller. So I probably won't use summoning much anymore.

The flesh eaters command abilities cannot be dispelled it fail so I'll still probably use them.

I would have rathered they gave armies without summoning a summoning tome or artifact that let them summon rather than just nerfing it to near uselessness.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
The problem with just giving everyone summoning is games never end. There's no point to setting a limit to how many models people start on the table if there's no limit to how many they bring on every turn after that.
 

Oppenheimer

Varghulf
May 26, 2013
743
The games only don't end when the objective is to completely wipe out the enemy army. That's a boring objective anyway. Even just calculating the number of casualties you did after 5 rounds would work.
 

Count michael

The Undead Sparky
May 17, 2010
813
Timaru
It's quite interesting that they have made summoning more like a deep strike factor than what is was in fantasy I think it is kinda good as it'll prevent summoning spam shenanigans as I have seen AOS games where people have been going crazy summoning an almost unlimited number of greater daemons or undead monsters ( zombie dragon etc) even though I don't use wizards in my chaos warband it still sucks that GW may of went a bit overboard with the nerf. Though on another note I have been highly tempted to run a full skeleton army now since it is possible with the alliance of death book and there is now points to support it xD
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
I think it mostly kills summoning, but is better than what was.

Remember in old fantasy, summoning was generally harder to do / easier to stop, and was done in place of spells that could literally destroy entire units. regular magic is far, far weaker in Age of Sigmar, and in exchange is rather harder to shut down. The difference between dealing d3 wounds and adding an entire unit or monster to the table is pretty huge.

I'm hoping that, as age of sigmar continues, more of the undead summoning spells get replaced with healing spells instead, which are more in scale with magic in the game, and more friendly to the new points system.
 
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Aranei

Ghoul
Oct 22, 2014
184
St. Petersburg
I agree. Summoning in AoS was not balanced from the very beginning.

While spells with casting rolls of 5 could do about 2 wounds to a unit, a summoning spell with the same number could bring in 10 Skeletons or 5 Dire Wolves - 10 wounds total. And many summonings spells had that "if you roll good, the spell is twice as effective" thing, which non-summoning spells lacked.

Some spells (Like Mannfred's Wind of Death) can potentially about 6 mortal wounds, they have higher difficulty (7 or more), and, again, a roll of 8 can summon you 20 zombies.

If I was writing the unrestricted summoning spells, I would make them like this:

Summon Skeletons: difficulty 5 gives you 2 skeletons, diff. 7 gives you 6 skeletons, diff. 10 gives you 10 skeletons.

Zombies: diff. 4 for 2 zomb., diff. 6 for 6 zomb., diff. 8 for 10 zombies.

Wights: difficulty 5 gives you 1 black knight/grave guard, diff. 7 gives you 3 black knight/grave guard, diff. 10 gives you 5 black knight/grave guard.

No summoning for models with more than 10 wounds (monsters).

Since the spells above usually summon 1-6 models, the models should not be set as new units, but instead be added to existing units, unless you roll maximum casting number (so, you can summon 10 skellies, or 5 bk/gg). The only exception I think of is for zombies, since they can merge anyway. But that could lead to lots of summoned units of 2 zombies used as roadblocks, so I am not sure about that.

How do you think, is it worth expanding as a homebrew unrestricted summoning system?
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
I think three casting values is too much hassle. Instead, stick to two casting values for each unit's spell, the lower level restores d3 wounds to the unit, higher level restores d6 wounds?
 

Oppenheimer

Varghulf
May 26, 2013
743
So SDK closed down recently as they said that due to synergy between races points weren't feasible in AoS. What do you think about that when now there are official points?

Anyone compared SDK points to the new ones to see how similar they were?
 

Aranei

Ghoul
Oct 22, 2014
184
St. Petersburg
I think three casting values is too much hassle. Instead, stick to two casting values for each unit's spell, the lower level restores d3 wounds to the unit, higher level restores d6 wounds?

Sound solid, and easy to implement.
Just take the summoning spells listed in the warscrolls, but instead of summoning, heal 1d3 wounds (8 ed VC-style, with raising models) for the usual number, 1d6 for high number (if any).
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Do that, and leave a zombie summoning spell for the inevitable death-alliance spell lore. Basically, revert to oldhammer style magical unit recursion.

As for the SDK guy, he got too wrapped up in a single scene's local experience. And too hung up on trying to have the points be perfect in all situations, trying to charge skeletons separtely when they had one attack, two, or three. It was like if a unit had d3 attacks, and he wanted to charge them separate points costs based on what specific number you were going to roll, instead of just pricing them for two and accepting that sometimes they would be better or worse than what you paid for. He also didn't want to put reasonable unit caps on, the way AoS does.

A unit of skeletons caps at 40. With a bit of ranged attacks, or a pre-emptive melee swing, you can plink them down to 2 attacks or less without much problem - or at least you could before deathless minions & ruler of the night, I'm not sure how overpowered that's going to prove to be. As for zombies, even with good bonuses to hit and wound, they still have no rend, and relatively few attacks, especially if tournaments start insisting on current base sizes that would limit them to 2 ranks at most instead of 3. They are strong and good, but easily countered by armored units or anything that can churn out a lot of damage, even without any rend. ticking them below optimal size is limited by their ability to mob up, which makes them pretty special, but almost everything in this game is special or threatening in some way. Have you ever faced a squad of 40 savage orks with 4 big stickas? Even if matched play caps them at 30 (I honestly don't remember) with 3 stickas, that's a unit that can crunch through huge numbers of zombies like they're nothing.

Points don't have to be perfectly balanced, that's impossible in a dice game anyway. They just have to get you a reasonable starting point so you can stop haggling and start playing. The SDK guy was trying really hard, put in some good effort and I liked a lot of what he did, but I don't think he really got that.
 

Oppenheimer

Varghulf
May 26, 2013
743
Hmmm. So the summoning rules say that whether you add a unit to the battlefield from a spell or ability you subtract it's points from the pool. What about Vlad's ring? When he comes back from being slain does that count? So you need points to resurrect him I wonder?
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
From what I can tell, Vlad's ring (and the generic version in the death artifacts) bypasses the summoning restriction since the ability prevents the model from being killed in the first place, but it's definitely a boarderline case that will require FAQ clarification, as with the zombies' mob up ability.
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
It's interesting watching the development of the points system and what I'm going to call a pseudo force organisation chart. It seems that GW has decided that removing all concepts from Fantasy Battle went a bit too far ;).

I can't really get my head around all the changes, since I'm not in a position to go to buy the rules and I do not expect and do not want people to break copyright rules to post material which will help me. What I've seen being discussed, however, certainly strikes me as being a step forward, even if it's perhaps a little muddled in places.
 

Count michael

The Undead Sparky
May 17, 2010
813
Timaru
That's cool about the app getting points as its so much easier carrying around it all on my phone. Will mean I'll be able to write up army lists on my smoko breaks at work when bored, interesting thing will be if access to points is free or do you still have to purchase something
 

Demian

Vampire Count
Oct 28, 2011
1,245
From the General's Handbook, where you can field in multiples of Minimum Unit sizes, up to a Maximum amount.

In the Zombie's case, it is... 60 models per unit, however they have a special rule that allows them to merge with others, so... we don't know if those restrictions are meant "when you field/pay for the unit..." or "at any given point of the game, the unit can not contain more than..."
 

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