Summoning: A call to save the AoS

[Woolly.Mammoth]

This is a call to save the hobby. Almost all players are in a range from either angrily hating summoning to generally disliking it. A very few (undead, daemon or seraphon) players like the idea and defend it. There has been 8 months of testing by clubs all over the world trying to figure out how to make summoning work. Most have come to the same conclusion - you simply can’t allow unrestricted summoning as a standard rule for games of AoS.

Summoning has its place, but any and all players should be able to say “I don’t want to play with summoning” or “I would like to limit summoning in this way” and all Warhammer players should be able to respond with “sure, we can play that way”.

With enough wizards, summoning players can realistically double their starting size on the first turn, while players who lack summoning cannot. I don't really need to go into more details than that as a debate against open summoning. Pretty much everyone who cant summon agrees this makes their games one sided, and one sided games are not enjoyable.

All established comp systems are limiting or simply eliminating summoning. Summoning is only allowed when you play:

- Rules as Written: In the standard rules you could deploy a much, much larger army than your summoning opponent in anticipation in order to have a fair game. There are no limitations on summoning, nor are there limitations on deployment.

- Wound Limitation: This way you force non-summoning armies to start with the same wounds, whereas Seraphon, Undead and Daemons wounds are limited only by the number of times they can cast a summon spell.

Here are some facts regarding summoning in general:
- Warhammer existed for 30 years without summoning.
- There is almost nothing like summoning in 40k.
- There is almost nothing like summoning in other popular game systems.

Bottom line, summoning was implemented by GW in order to sell more models, and it worked. Some players read summoning and got excited and went out and bought a ton more models. Many people developed their strategies around summoning, and maybe even painstakingly painted 100 models to be able to summon them.

Unfortunately, the fact is that this is killing the hobby. All the comp systems see this logic and put an end to it. The main problem is that most people are simply not playing AoS because summoning is bonkers and there's some guy(s) at their club summoning all day and they have two choices; join the club and play these kind of games they don’t enjoy, or more simply, don’t get involved in AoS. I don’t know how it is in your area, but the clubs I have seen are still struggling to get anyone, even 8 months after AoS release and there are little to no events. There are at least 8 tabletop stores in my area, and it is still much easier to get a game of Malifaux or Infinity than AoS.

A few people like me are taking a stand and organizing a new club in which summoning is equally balanced with deployment and players can discuss and decide per-game whether they will allow summoning. I am finding like-minded people who are enjoying these kinds of games, and the club is growing.

The concept of limiting summoning really hinders people who want to summon lots of hordes. Frankly, this style of play is borderline unbeatable, and for those doing it, you know this. This being said, we shouldn’t hinder what people want to do to have fun and so, If you want to play this way, simply work out a balanced solution that both sides agree would be fair or fun to try.

Some people claim races need summoning, and that’s simply not true. In fact, Seraphon have some of the most powerful units, abilities and synergy and might even be the most powerful army you can take. Undead lists are filled with hordes and fast cavalry, powerful synergy, spells and menacing monsters. Daemons have Slannesh that can kill you in the first turn, Nurgle that just won’t die, Khorne that have most of the hardest hitting things in the game, and Tzeentch that can dominate magic like no other. And if you truly believe these races are inferior, you can simply make a list mixing other races; AoS does not limit you from taking half Undead and half Stormcast Eternals for example.

Some people say “well you play with your friends and its all good” or “it’s a gentlemen’s game and people won’t do that” but that’s simply not true. I’m trying to meet new people and get new people into the hobby. People are people, we bump heads and piss people off, even without trying to. We all have different levels of social awareness, we can hurt people’s feelings without having a clue. For example, this entire post will be really upsetting the people who have developed their game behind summoning. I don’t want to upset anybody, all I want is to grow the hobby and get more people excited about Warhammer and build a bigger scene, but it’s inevitable.

I know debating summoning to active Undead players is like preaching vegetarianism at a steak house, but just consider this; what is more important to you – offering your opponents summon limitations in your games, or having almost no one to play games with and watching your hobby die?

 

[Sception]

Contesting a few issues:

1) "warhammer existed for 30 years without summoning", "40k doesn't have summoning", etc:

Spoiler

I'm afraid this is untrue. I started playing in 4th edition, and under the magic rules in that edition, and extending most of the way through 5th edition, undead players could indeed summon most of the units in their book. In fact, one of my regular tactics was to take a charge with a big bulky unit fronted by tough heroes, then summon a charriot to the side or rear of the unit and charge it in to tip the scales in the next turn.

Even after the tomb kings / vamp counts split, vamp counts could still summon zombie untis from scratch, while both vamps and tomb kings could heal most of their units with magic, and vamps in particular through most of those editions could heal at least some units above their starting strength. This, in fact, led to the breaking of 7th edition, in exactly the same way that AoS breaks with limited deployment but unlimited summoning, in that the vamp count would double their army (an army consisting of relatively deadly ghouls, not just fodder zombies) by the time combat was joined. Everyone remembers the daemon and dark elf books for breaking 7th harder, but that edition was already broken by vamps before either of the other two showed up on the scene, and the horrific balance of daemons can be seen, in part, as a reaction to how badly they had already botched vamp counts.

Also, 40k does have summoning, it has had summoning since 7th edition came on the scene. There are even army builds designed around maxing it out, including summoned units that summon more units. It has not overwhelmed that game, however, as these spells tend to be much more difficult to cast than in age of sigmar, and total magic phases have limited dice pools (the summoned summoners bring more summoning dice to future turns, but less than the cost of summoning spells, so expansion isn't nearly so swift), AND, with the exception of the greater daemon and daemon prince summons (which eat the summoner, preventing chain summoning), the power of the individual units summoned is also much more limited, where as in fantasy you can be summoning greater daemons and terrorgheists and large units of spirit hosts willie nillie.

SOOO, there are in fact examples of summoning both in oldhammer and in 40k, but they're all much more limited than what currently seems to be allowed in Age of Sigmar.

Unfortunately, the fact is that this is killing the hobby. All the comp systems see this logic and put an end to it. The main problem is that most people are simply not playing AoS because summoning is bonkers and there's some guy(s) at their club summoning all day and they have two choices; join the club and play these kind of games they don’t enjoy, or more simply, don’t get involved in AoS.

This is absolutely a problem, and you don't even have to be "some guy" to do this. Unrestricted summoning in 40k doesn't cause issues, Summoning in the End Times was strong but not overwhelming unless someone was running Nagash, and even then, he's a thousand points, and if you go second he wasn't that hard to cannon off the board. So it was not at all unreasonable in the early days of AoS for a player used to summoning in those contexts to bring a few things to the table. Top off zombies, just like they used to. raise up some spirit hosts. Have their sorcerer call upon the powers of hell. It's fluff, it worked before, but in AoS it ruined games, even unintentionally. I had a friend who tried a game, and was skeptical already, and in my first game summoning through it so far out of whack that he never came back, and I still feel bad about it.

Additionally, summonable / magically replenishable units used to be weaker than other units as a result. Undead crumbled. undead core infantry stats were terrible for their points costs. Undead heroes capable of summoning or refilling units were powerful, but quite expensive, and the entire army fell apart when they died. And, as you point out, none of that is true in Age of Sigmar. Skeletons, with their bonus attacks, are among the hardest hitting 'horde' infantry in the game, while grave guard are up there with any other single wound elite infantry. Undead in general have some fantastic synergies and subfaction buffs. Spirit hosts can be a nightmare. Even the spellcasters don't need to be summoning to be effective, as lich priests are one of the strongest anti-magic wizards around with their scroll and have a powerful buff spell, while necromancers have one of the best buffs in the game AND are blessed with a look out sir ability that makes them among the most durable infantry heroes around. You don't even need summoning to get the recursion theme of the undead across thanks to their banner effect. Lizardmen and chaos demons are quite tough as well. And even if these units were weaker, balance in age of sigmar is entirely arbitrary, point systems are fan applied and can be adjusted as needed.


Age of sigmar works fine, better even, if summoning is removed from the game entirely. But there is something lost. There's a lot of thematic & narrative value to summoning. The chaos wizard who summons daemonic allies with a spell, the decrepit necromancer conjuring spirits, the slaan mage reaching beyond the veil of time to call warriors from a more favorable era, these are all really cool ideas, and the game is a bit poorer for removing them.

Well, what if I told you that the problem wasn't summoning, but rather was the homebrew balance systems, and that there was a simple way to make summoning work without breaking the game?

Frankly, the answer is kind of obvious when you look at vanilla age of sigmar. In vanilla age of sigmar, you can summon whatever you want, but since deployment is unlimited anything you summon could have, at least in principle, simply been deployed at the start of the game instead. Summoning is essentially nothing more than an alternate deployment method. Maintain that, and it works just fine.

Basically, just make explicit that you're going to be summoning, and how much stuff you intend to summon, at the same time that armies are agreed to. This might be during deployment as per typical age of sigmar - in which case when done deploying you just let your opponent know what stuff you have on the side that you might summon so they can keep it in mind with their deployment. Or it might be decided before a game, just both players setting their armies on the table and eyeballing the other side to making slight adjustments until things seem right to both players (my typical system) - in which case you'd just put units you intend to summon right on the table along with everything else. Or you might be using a community-made points system, in which case if you wanted to summon during a game, you would simply deploy fewer than the agreed to points value, then count any units you summon against the leftover amount, stopping when you reach the limit.

Regardless, summoning is treated as an alternative deployment method, not a way to field more units than you otherwise could have fielded, as with vanilla, uncomped Age of Sigmar.

There are two primary arguements I often hear against this:

- Summoned units don't count against your starting army size for sudden death. This is true, but my answer to that is that deploying a small army when determining army size only to deploy a large army via summoning in order to game the sudden death system is just that - gaming the sudden death system. Just like deploying five blood thirsters and claiming to be outnumbered by 10 goblins. Just like deploying a single minimum unit of carrion, selecting endure as your SD condition, and declaring victory without playing a game. The entire point of community comp systems is to prevent people from gaming the SD rules, and if you're going to stop your opponents' methods of abuse but not yours, then you haven't fixed anything, you've just exposed yourself as a big hypocrite.

- This makes summoning bad. After all, if you could have deployed the unit anyway, then why start at a disadvantage and give up a valuable spell cast to deploy that unit mid game, possibly even more than one lost cast if you fail or get dispelled? My answer to that is that summoning isn't bad in this case, it's niche. Most often you're not going to want to summon things, but sometimes it will be useful, such as if your opponent has a key counter to a sumonable unit and you want to be sure it's tied up before you bring the unit out, or if your summoned unit is itself a counter to an enemy unit, and you want to know where the target is before bringing your counter onto the board, or if the unit has a short ranged attack and you want to summon it into firing range to make sure you get at least one shot off before the opponent has a chance to shoot or charge it, or if the summoning unit is relatively slow, so summoning allows you to put it into a location it otherwise would not have been able to reach in the first couple turns.

Again, this usually won't be enough to make summoning better than normal deployment, but that's just the thing. We've already established that nobody is disadvantaged by removing summoning from the game entirely, so if you allow summoning to be better than normal deployment then you've just broken the game.


I strongly believe that this is the only way to go, the only way that summoning can be included in limited-deployment games of age of sigmar without messing the game up entirely. Anything summoned during the game must count towards the same limits as initially deployed forces.


Now, there are some outlier effects that are a bit iffy. What about healing effects like undead banners or the treekin spell? Or abilities that add models to existing units like that thing zombies do? Or abilities that turn enemy models into your guys, like the dread 13th spell? The dread 13th is so powerful that it seems necessary to count that as summoning - after all, if you don't limit it then it can turn a handful of empire soldiers into a handful of vermin lords. On the other hand, vlad's spell that turns an enemy hero into a wight king is so weak, so situational, and so unlikely to proc, that it seems unfair to insist that any wight king created by the spell (likely no more than one every 6 games or so) must be paid for out of deployed armies.

Unfortunately, age of sigmar is a messy game, because the designers simply didn't put in the work to make it a clean one, and these outlier circumstances will have to be handled on an individual case basis.

But it doesn't change the overall thrust of the argument, nor the necessary course of action if summoning effects in general are to be allowed in the game at all.

 

[Woolly.Mammoth]

Thank you for taking the time to craft this amazing response. You are much more knowledgeable in regards to summoning in other systems and historical warhammer, but the point is clear; there is nothing like AoS summoning in these systems. A Tervigon can make a few weak termigaunts, in 8th you could summon an handful of zombies worth their weight in manure, etc. The key point is summoning was properly balanced (or eventually fixed) in most cases as you clearly describe.

I didn't go into too much detail on this forum about how badass undead is without summoning .. but yeah, we don't need summoning to be competitive. I've started to try out other armies because my undead lists have been oppressively strong. On other forums I always get the "oh but what about undead, they are so weak and need to summon small units to be competitive". All I have to say to that comment is, you are clearly making assumptions based on never having actually played with or against a good undead list.

I have come to the exact same conclusion. I use the Age of Balance system, which is a warscroll balance system. The summoning page outlines the positives and negatives to summoning exclusively as an ambush technique (using the agreed upon models, as you describe).

If I cannot summon more units to the game, what's the point?

Well, summoning is actually very potent even without the 'free models'. For example, lets say I have 8 scrolls of Undead. I choose to keep one unit of skeletons (25 models) off the table in order to summon them.

Benefits:

• Summoning is 18"; skeletons move 4". Summoning them gives you a free 18" move for your slow skeletons.
• Off the table: If your opponent goes first they can't shoot at units which aren't summoned yet.
• Bonus models. The summoning RAW allow double models if you roll an 11 or 12 (AoB allows a 25% bonus) If I roll an 11-12, I get 32 skeletons instead!
• Models can shoot on the same turn they are summoned.
• Some models have abilities to increase their chances of making a 9" charge after being summoned.

Downsides:

• Your wizard has a big target on his head if he needs to summon. Your opponent knows that he can ambush your wizard and killing him will prevent those units from ever showing up. (of course you can bring multiple wizards and heartier wizards)
• You can fail the summon and delay the unit from appearing when you need it
• Summoning is at least 9" from enemy units, so you will probably fail a charge and set yourself up to get charged instead.
• Summoning uses a precious spell. You never have enough spells!

In summary, summoning is a tradeoff and a tactical decision for you to make before the game!


If everyone could agree to this limitation as standard, the hobby would no longer be strangled as it is now. But there is not even a "limitation" for which to deploy your armies, so how could you limit anything? But once everyone can get behind a limitation system, I hope this 'ambush' summoning system is part of it. I hope that we are moving toward this point for the sake of the hobby.

 

[Sception]

please note, unless you're playing nagash, you won't be summoning 25 skeletons, let alone 32. Not in a single unit, anyway. The summoning spell for skittles gets you exactly 10, or 20 if you roll big, and 10 skittles is not a threatening unit, mostly just a speed bump comparable to summoning zombies in 6th, 7th, or 8th edition.

Doesn't change the overall thrust, but if you run into resistance from unrestricted summoning fans, it pays to not have any minor errors in your argument that they could latch onto in order to disregard what you're saying altogether.

 

[Cela Shyish]

Okay so can I ask advice on this subject, I've recently been thinking about this as well and I like the idea that the summoning spells are used as alternate deployment, using the concept that you replace the summoned unit sizes with a full unit from your reserves, e.g. if I had a unit of 25 skeletons I'd payed whatever points, wounds, etc for so it counts towards army size then I could summon that rather than the 10-20 listed on the scroll, but the casting on a higher value giving an extra 25% rounded down sounds like a decent idea, since it isn't really game breaking...at least it is nowhere near as bad being able to summon units I've paid no points for. Which is fine for like 99% of the time, or in theory it should be. But how would I handle Nagash's summon double of everything? I don't want it to be double strictly since Nagash can cast so many spells with such a high value that he's nearly guaranteed to cast anything he wants, especially with magic buffing units, so should I just say he's assumed to always be reaching the higher value on any successful casting roll? (so always gets the extra 25% for a summoned unit) or something else.

P.s. I don't really need to worry about the unrestricted summoning players since I have the largest undead army by far in my store, so even people who want unrestricted summoning don't want to play unrestricted against me. (which is good because I find it very broken as well so up until now I've been doing my best not to abuse it by limiting myself to 1-2 units summoned per game but then it feels kinda insulting to the fluff and to the tactician in me to not use a tactical option my opponent agrees I'm fine to use, just because I feel its unfair. This is why I want to find a good alternative that keeps it fluffy and tactically viable without unbalancing the game)

 

[Woolly.Mammoth]

@Malisteen
This is from the AoB Summoning Page. AoB is a set of balancing guidelines based on playing with an equal number of warscrolls. You can 25 skeletons as one skeleton warscroll, which is the reason for the numbers listed. With a decent unit size able to be summoned, summoning works great as an alternate form of 'ambushing'.

Shouldn't matter if you summon 10, 30 or 100 skeletons as long as the armies are balanced to include whatever you are going to summon.

@Crystal
Techncally this means Nagash could summon two of the unit you set aside at once. I pretty much just ignore his summoning rules, there's really no fair way to play Nagash without doing that. For balanced games you have to limit his summoning. Otherwise he is a lot of fun as a scenario .. where your opponent expect to lose to him. Hes pretty hard countered by the Changeling though, so that keeps him 'honest'.

 

[Sception]

I think you'll find it does make a difference, And would encourage you to stick to the set summoning numbers, just pulling them from reserve. Like, have 20 skeletons in reserve, and depending on summoning rolls you might get them out in one batch of 20 or two batches of 10. Letting someone with a single cast get, say, a huge unit of harbingers into charge range could be terrible for games.

Don't mess with the rules for it, just count summoning towards force restrictions if you're going to restrict forces (which is a house rule anyway). It doesn't need to be any harder or more confusing than that, and in fact it's much better if it isn't.

For age of balance specifically, where units of 10 or 20 skeltons don't exist to begin with? Just ban summoning, or do the up or down shift thing to multiples of summoning spell amounts. I don't know, whatever.

Frankly, that system is a fair amount of bother for not a lot of payoff. It doesn't get you much better balance than just eyeballing total armies would, while having to jump through a lot more hoops then that kind of informal system. In general, if you're going to do a comp thing, I think you're better picking one of the more formal ones - SDK or SCGT, perhaps - for your point values, and then if you want to summon just deploy fewer points to start, and summon up to that many points during games, deploying less than the set number of models in the spells if necessary.

 

[Cela Shyish]

Letting someone with a single cast get, say, a huge unit of harbingers into charge range could be terrible for games.

That was actually kind of the point, the group I play with mainly is very competitive but also quite fair. I told my two main opponents about the idea and they told me that I didn't need to limit myself and felt like this would be unfair against me. So after relating the pros and cons, one of them stated its quite similar to stormcast formations that let them deploy anywhere but with different bonuses and negatives. I can't speak for everyone but I know my group for the most part likes that kind of situation rather than finding it over-powered.

By all means do what works for you and your group, but my friends were somewhat offended that I wanted to restrict summoning (considering that only I actually use it) and I know for sure that they would be offended if I avoided using tactics like that if they were available to me and they make no attempt to hold back either.

 

[Sception]

It isn't about holding back, it's about recognizing that summoning is a form of deployment, and should be subject to whatever restrictions you put on deployment, in addition to rather than instead of the restrictions built into the summoning rules themselves.

 

[Woolly.Mammoth]

It isn't about holding back, it's about recognizing that summoning is a form of deployment, and should be subject to whatever restrictions you put on deployment, in addition to rather than instead of the restrictions built into the summoning rules themselves.

Well put. I wish that everyone understood this basic concept, but sadly few do.

Also..
NAGASH DOES NOT HOLD BACK!

 

[Demian]

The only thing that prevents me from believing that summoning is just an alternate form of deployment is the miniatures limit while at it:

Summoning 3 Crypt Horrors is fine, more than 3 would be a bit too much, however... if I was planing on fielding 6 Crypt Horrors as a hammer unit, I can't join them together like, say, Zombies can. It would be awesome that way and THEN I'd consider the option of summoning as an alternate form of deployment. (Because of how AoS manages Units, bigger units have an advantage over multiple small ones, even if the model count is the same, even if it would be double!)

Summoning 5 Grave Guard is... laughable, unless you could join them to other previously-existing Grave Guard units. Sure, you can roll a 10+ and get 10 Grave Guard, which isn't that bad actually, but that's all about luck.

I wish there was a way to meassure how much a summoned model is worth and either, add those to the balance of the game (game only specifies models slain to achieve a victory, so, summoning may work against you, but most of the time, it will just overwhelm your opponent, and even if you lose many models, you end up anihilating everything your opponent has).

On a different note: The AoS mobile App has some new weird symbols next to the download button on the Warscrolls. If you re-download them, you are presented with the traditional 1 sheet pdf view of your model (much like the Warscroll compendiums before) and you may not like it that way! Just a heads-up!

 

[Hellion Nox]

Summoning is worth it for those rare lone models/monstrous/monsters I've found. Because they bring some weight to the table. Other than that its pretty much harassment material.
I usually don't even find myself in need for summoning unless my opponent is raining down all his shooting on my general.. but then they're asking for it if you ask me

Spamming bolt and shield all day here!

 

[Eyeless]

As someone who tried out comps with restricted summoning i agree. while playing like that i felt that so many complicated restriction on summoning to try and balance it out while still failing to do so, thus resulting in an unpleasant experience for both the summoning player and the opponent. I will play a couple of games with the way you're proposing guys =] sounds a lot better.

 

[Oppenheimer]

On a different note: The AoS mobile App has some new weird symbols next to the download button on the Warscrolls. If you re-download them, you are presented with the traditional 1 sheet pdf view of your model (much like the Warscroll compendiums before) and you may not like it that way! Just a heads-up!

The symbol is a link to the GW website where you can purchase said model. The models no longer being sold don't have that icon (such as the Brett's mounted Yeoman).

 

[Demian]

Oh, I see!

Well, I prefer the old version on the mobile app that was easy to read (because information was split in 3-4 screens), rather than the letter-sheet pdf that you need to zoom, but has all the information in 1 page.


Staying on topic, all I ever want to summon is zombies, really. They are self-suficient and if left unchecked, can become a horde (30+ models) and deal quite a lot of pain. They are still quite easy to counter (1+ saves... well, the AoS version of it).

I once proposed the idea of "summon only the wounds you kill" and found it not so bad:

Your opponent's Slain pile serves as reference for your summoning pool. So if you kill stuff, you can then summon stuff. This brings armies closer in melee, you have to make room to summon stuff and you should be engaged in close combat by then, forcing players to avoid spamming early-game summons.

Still think that is too op? make the Summoning Pool half the woulds of the Slain Pile. This means, if you've killed 20 wounds worth of models, you can summon up to 10 wounds. (Things you summon substract from your Summoning Pool, logically).

For me, this is meant to allow a bit more of Attrition to Death players, that was characteristic from previous game versions, while maintaining a sense of lore and, perhaps, add to the logic of how could you summon a Daemon, Seraphon or Malignant unit out of thin air: you've made a sacrifice for it, gained the favour of a dark god or simply used the carnage to lure more warriors to an already-bloodied battle.

Ever try that? (This idea, not butchering your enemies to summon wraiths!)

 

[Infernal Skull]

I think a lot of the problem comes from the way magic works in AoS. Summoning is overpowered because its very easy to hide a Wizard, get an effect to boost his casting, and then make a below average roll on 2D6. And if the enemy Wizard isn't within 18 inches and can't see him, there's literally nothing he can do about it.

It needs to be easier (or even possible) to dispel spells. Then they could keep a lid on summoning a little more and give the opponent an opportunity to stop it in-game.