AoS Summoning: a call to save AoS

[Chrakgar]

Sorry, should have said. We play max 5 spells per turn.

 

[Freddy25]

@Freddy25
I like what you say but some people don't find it funny. Some people find it frustrating and annoying. Why would I ever want to do a drawing without an eraser? I might let my opponent have opening summoning because I want to play an "against all odds" game where I expect to lose, but this is a specific scenario. Normal games should have some restriction on summoning as a default - as you mention "discuss with your opponent before the game".

I like very much your type of writing: clean and organized!
To answer your post: you said exatly what I meant.

Spoiler: This is what I said

"How to deal with Summons":
- use it freely in not competitive matches, or talk with your friend on how to limit it;
- don't use it in tournament matches
- if you want to make a compromise, allow summoning in matches played with not too big armies (1 to 80 wounds per player, circa)
but don't allow the possibility to summon models with the Hero/Mage/Priest/Monster keyword.

By the way, I haven't understood if you got my example about drawing:
it was a metaphore to say certain armies, able to summon, have an extra advantage (pencil + eraser), while others (pencils only) have one less tool in order to achieve victory and, like you do, I find this inappropriate, at least in the competitive scene!

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Chrakgar
5! I have never cast more than 3 spells in any turn. So you can take 2 slann and summon 20 saurus, 20 skinks and 10 guard every turn?

@Freddy25
I got your point, but the key is the difference between "competitive" and "non competitive". I think what you are saying is, people who aren't trying to obliterate you wont summon 3 bloodthrsters a turn, so it balances out. Personally I don't even want the option. This means you have to wonder to yourself "if I summon this carnasaur, I think its fair, but I'm not sure if my opponent would think its fair".

If you agree to a set of 'house rules' then you don't have to worry about it. If you agreed to certain restrictions you would operate within those restrictions, and your opponent would operate within those restrictions. If you are playing with your very best friend then its all good, but that's the point, we should be able to make new friends and be social with this game. We need to develop the game so that we can all play together without having to worry if our opinions differ on what would be 'fair' or even 'rude' in a game.

I have another example for you. How about a club that plays monopoly. Everybody picks a piece. Turns out the iron and the thimble pieces have a bonus rule that lets them double their cash every turn. Sounds fun right? Obviously, these pieces are not as cool as the hat and the battleship, so they need this bonus to win. That's what it feels like when youre playing a game against a summoning army, and that's why people are simply not playing AoS.

 

[Freddy25]

I think what you are saying is, people who aren't trying to obliterate you wont summon 3 bloodthirsters a turn, so it balances out.

In reality what I wanted to say was not this, but "As long as I'm playing a not competitive match (so I'm facing a friend or a potential friend) the aim is FUN, so no problem in letting him summon 3 bloodthirsters!"
But you are right: even in a relaxed environment this might cause useless frustration, and a well-developed game should avoid this.

To me the only 2 things about Summoning people should do are:
- eliminating the possibility to summon a Hero/Mage/Priest/Monster
- find a right number of fielded models/wounds, like 80 wounds. If someone fields more than that number, he cannot summon any other models!
(I have some reasons to say this, but here in Italy it's 40 minutes past midnight and I'm writing from my smartphone, so I don't have enough time/energy to explicate this now! I'll go into details tomorrow or this Friday XD )

What do you think about these limitations?

 

[Crowsfoot]

@WoollyMammoth

Thanks for the brief on how undead can play, I've just started my Deathrattle army and reading your tactics gave me loads of ideas, I was thinking about summoning and do you think a better way would have been,

Resurrection you can call back from the dead "units" and "Heros" you had deployed at the start of the battle?

I'm very interested too hear more on how an undead army would play.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Freddy25
Italy .. very jealous. I'm on the other side of the world.
This seems to be the "soft" way to comp summoning. As I mentioned, being able to summon hordes of zombies is more devastating than summoning a terrorgheist, but it's probably fine, as long as there is a cap on the number of models that can be summoned throughout the game.

The most heartbreaking aspect of summoning isn't when your opponent summons some new free units, but when they keep summoning back what you just managed to kill .. over and over and over.

@Crowsfoot
Undead has all kinds of styles of play. Unfortunately TK just got discontinued which really sucks. The rules are still there but the models are getting hard to come by. Now there is no shooting except for the death shrieks, and no more ambushing units. One of the key aspects of AoS is you have to be ready to punish your opponent for making you go first (usually with shooting and ambushing). Otherwise you are likely to spend your game slowly walking into a gun line, which is a pretty much guaranteed loss. Undeads man priority is to get into slow, grindy combats where the ability to heal and bring back models tips the scales. Undead have lots of fast units now, lots of flying & you can use summoning as an ambush tactic. Probably the easiest thing would be to pick up some Morghast Harbingers and some HE Dragon Knights for "counts as" blood knights for some fast options. The Mortarchs are all amazing with my favorite being Neferata, but you can magnetize to use all 3. Ethereal units are 4+ immune to rending which sounds neat on paper but in the game ends up as being unbelievably strong. Spirit Hosts are some of the nastiest units in the game, my opponents are always freaked out by how effective this little unit is and quickly makes a priority of taking it out. Either of the new starter box sets is a great way to go. For more details on undead, join Carpe Noctem, its a really great board with lots of helpful people.

 

[Crowsfoot]

@WoollyMammoth

Cheers, might join Carpe Noctem

 

[Killer Angel]

The question is complex.
The ways some systems use to "balance" summoning, only enhance the problem: if you give value points to units, and you set a percentage of heroes / monsters / warmachines, then summoning does more damage than vanilla AoS.
What's more unbalanced: the Slann that summons 3 units, when the enemy is already fielding all dwarfs' heroes and 7 warmachines, or the Slann that summons a Bastiladon, an Eternity Warden and a Starseer in the first turn, bypassing any limitation on said percentages, while the Dwarfs' player is stuck with 2 warmachines and 2 heroes?

Imo summoning tends to balance itself, and anyway it's not that hard to make it risky to use. It's fairly simple.
If i field 50 wounds and you field 50 wounds + 30 summoned wounds, if I kill 51 of your wounds, I win.

Or you can try some variations of these simple house rules (not all together!):
1 - if I kill the summoner, the summoned units vanish away, and count as victory points for me.
2 - the summoned units cannot do anything in the turn they are summoned
3 - you can summon only units you started with, and only if they are killed

If the problem is your meta, you should be able to find the solution that fits the tastes of the players of your group.

 

[Freddy25]

Italy .. very jealous. I'm on the other side of the world.

Well, at least you should be enjoying the sunny season, if I'm not wrong!

The most heartbreaking aspect of summoning isn't when your opponent summons some new free units, but when they keep summoning back what you just managed to kill

Really? Honestly I hate more seeing the enemy double his models count, but I agree having to deal with immortal units of zombies could not be such a fun too...

 

[bhollenb]

I only started playing Lizardmen after AoS was released. Before that I played Ogres in 8th and a bit in AoS. Now I know that Ogres have received their fair share of griping mostly because of Ironguts but that's neither here nor there. As for summoning I have to agree with the OP that Lizardmen do not need summoning to be a powerful and competitive army. This is true to the extent that most games I even forget about summoning unless I plan for it beforehand simply because I'm rarely in a situation that I think summoning will help me out of. When I do actually summon its only if I'm clearing losing and so far summoning has been neither powerful enough nor consistent enough to turn the tide. When schtuff goes side-ways in AoS, it really goes sideways.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Killer Angel
I don't use point systems, because of the inherent balance issues they always create (most likely why GW decided to just not do them).
If you do use points, and feel both sides are balanced with the points, you can simply keep some units off the table to summon after both sides have equal points. Summoning is a 15" move for Seraphon. In the system I use, bringing 7 cannons is allowed and, while probably tough is not in any way unbeatable.

Unfortunately summoning does not balance itself, it can only be balanced by people. Even with 1 Slann you can summon 30 wounds per turn, that's 180 wounds through the course of a game. That's assuming you don't roll any high rolls and get double summons. That's one Slann; lists can easily include two or more wizards and then through the course of the game many hundreds more wounds can be summoned.

1. you cant consider killing the summoner. Two Slann can summon 60+ models a turn to protect them. My Vampire Lord on abyssal terror is a natural 3+ with 8 wounds who can cast mystic shield on himself and hide in cover. Neferata has two spells including one that ignores rending while she can be 2+ after cover & mystic shield, and you have -1 to hit her, while she heals herself. The Glottkin are 18 wounds 4+ which heals D3 every hero phase.

If i don't want you to kill my wizard, you're not going to kill my wizard. (Also it would be annoying to try to keep track of what summoned what)

2. I can easily make lists to double my army every turn. You cant kill an entire second army every turn, so many will get to start taking action and non summoning armies will be quickly overwhelmed.

3. Summoning back units that are killed is the worst. You kill a Bastiladon and some Skinks, I bring them back. You kill my Carnosaur I bring him back, and again, and again. This is not balanced and makes you want to tear your hair out when this is happening to you.

The meta doesn't mean anything. Maybe you have a few guys who accepted these rules, and they are not going to summon 60 models a turn. But then one day a new guy shows up, reads your rules and thinks its cool to bring 3 Slann every game, and breaks your meta. Now you have to quit playing or try to find a polite way to tell him hes ruining everyone fun. A lot of people will simply quit playing.

@bhollenb
I have played some games against ogres. Ironguts are great. You can take a ton if you want to just max out on one great unit. But trying to max out the best unit to powergame is a clear sign of someone who cares more about winning than anything else. Also, any army can do this; you could take all Bastiladons, or Necrosphinx, etc. Even so, in all cases, a proper balance system makes it so that it doesn't matter. Nothing has ever gone 'sideways' with the system I use, and I welcome any 'power list' that someone wants to bring. I may lose, but I wont have to watch them double their army or recreate every unit I kill, so it will still be fun.

 

[protector]

If i don't want you to kill my wizard, you're not going to kill my wizard.

Unless I actually want to, seriously @Bainbow said it best before, AoS is all OP. Everything about this game is OP and they purposefully threw balance out the window, if you are having issues getting people to play then it is because they don't like the game, and if you need to change the very core of the game for them then you probably should be playing a different game.

Easy answer to killing summoners is bring a couple thundertusks, almost guaranteed 6 mortal wounds each turn per model, I have 6 so that means I'm putting out 30 mortal wounds on you each turn. I guess all that ignore rending, 2+, cover etc is moot, also halving my wounds caused is also moot because I can easily do more than 24 wounds on you before your turn. And then just for funsies I will field my 4 stonehorns and 14 mournfang so I can beast charge the crap out of the enemy, all those things cause mortal wounds as well.

Or pack a few mangler squids in with your force, I also like having two teams of 3 stormfiends with warpfire throwers because that means I'm dishing out another 24 mortal wounds. Not even the best tank in the game (bastilodon) is going to be able to stop the amount of damage I can put out if I actually want to play competitively, the whole game is designed that way.

If you want new people to play or join the hobby then you need to start off with how stupid the game can get and then show them how much fun it is to play as long as people are more interested in having a good time instead of winning. Also they are now allowed to buy and model they think is cool and play with it, so what if they think carnosaurs and bloodthirsters go well together, AoS thinks they do as also

Limit summoning, limit deployment, limit etc, in the end you have a homebrew game that only your circle of friends is wanting to play, which makes for some great game nights. But you would do better joining 9th age discussions if you actually want to make game mechanic changes that will effect the entire community.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@protector
All this is addressed in the AoB system I use. This is why if you wanted to bring all thundertusks you would get 4 as an entire standard army. I could deploy archers behind cover to block LoS then pop out and greatly reduce your wound potential. Two teams of 3 stormfiends is strong but that's nearly half an army. Ambushing them you are stuck at 9" and so cannot reach first turn, giving your opponent plenty of time to react and charge them while keeping the rest of the army at a distance. Non ambushing they have a very short effective range of 14", which can be easily managed. I wold be happy to see whatever list you can come up with using AoB system. It is very fun and I don't need to switch to KoW or 9th age. I love using bigger models and putting everything on round bases, and I hate the binding restrictions that point based games put on the models you can take. AoS doesn't have to be silly nonsense, it actually has a really awesome core game that can be as balanced as it is fun, we are just left to get to that point all on our own.

Despite the abundance of tabletop games in my area there is no 9th age groups. KoW is all but dead. People are all switching over to 40k, Malifaux, Infinity and Warmachine. I have a better chance of growing an AoS club with house rules than anything else if I want to use Warhammer models. GW is supporting AoS like crazy with constant new books, new models and cheap starter sets. They can all be used and enjoyed with some kind of balance.

 

[Killer Angel]

If i don't want you to kill my wizard, you're not going to kill my wizard. (Also it would be annoying to try to keep track of what summoned what)

Only if you're smarter than me. Otherwise, your wizard/s is/are dead.

1. you cant consider killing the summoner. Two Slann can summon 60+ models a turn to protect them
2. I can easily make lists to double my army every turn. You cant kill an entire second army every turn, so many will get to start taking action and non summoning armies will be quickly overwhelmed

All you do is just to summon victory points for me. as in the rules "a result of sorts can calculated by comparing the number of models removed from play with the number of models originally set up for the battle for each army. Expressing these as percentages provides a simple way to determine the winner.
Models added to your army during the game (for example, through summoning) do not count towards the number of models in the army, but must be counted among the casualties an army suffers".
I can field an army that can kill 60 1-wound models each turn with shooting. Summoned units are counted as casualties. If you start with 10 models, I need to kill 10 models to inflict 100% casualties to you.

3. Summoning back units that are killed is the worst. You kill a Bastiladon and some Skinks, I bring them back. You kill my Carnosaur I bring him back, and again, and again. This is not balanced and makes you want to tear your hair out when this is happening to you.

Au contraire: I deliberately kill the easiest target. You summon it? I kill it again, because it's easy (for my army) to kill it. Again, you're just summoning my victory points.

 

[protector]

@WoollyMammoth I would love to but that website is blocked on my network, same with 9th age forums strangely. So if thundertusks and such are all handled with AoB why isn't summoning? Seems to me if you are going to force a balancing structure on AoS it would go all the way, to include the really stupid rules like greasus goldtooth bribing nonsense. But of course if summoning was handled with AoB I guess this thread would not exist.

My point still stands, what you want is not AoS, it is actually some other game that decided to use lots of the rules from AoS but play significantly differently. If you disagree then how about you build an army with AoB and I will play RAW AoS and see how it works for us both?

BTW I'm a fan of AoS, and probably AoB (Not sure haven't seen it) but I like the idea of balancing AoS so that I can play competitively.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@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.

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.

I love to play competitive games, love to battle whits. I play all these things. But when I play a game of AoS it is to show off all the hard work I put into the hobby, and enjoy the hard work other people have done to enjoy a fair game where both sides will have fun and nobody cares who won or who may be more intelligent than the other person.

That being said, If someone wants to bring a terrorizing powerlist and have a super-competitive game, I'm all for it. But this should be decided before the game and understood by both sides, and the average WH player shouldn't be subjected to this until they have their bearings and know what they are in for.

@protector
If you see an error message, follow the link and send an email and say "I want to view the AoB website". Probably just location security or something.

AoB is a scroll balancing system. Each side brings the same number of scrolls. Summoning is restricted as an ambushing technique for any of your scrolls. Its kept simple because its not a point system or a comp system, simply a guideline meant to be better than the "eye it out and decide what is balanced" concept that most people are going with when trying to play RaW. Unless you know every army and every list perfectly, you can never really eye it out - some giant menacing monsters are pushovers, some little guys are a nightmare to deal with.

If you were to play RAW and I were to play AoB, there's not much difference other than, you would have unrestricted summoning and I would not. If we were trying to make armies of 'equal balance' you would eye it out and I would use the AoB formula based on wounds and saves. In most cases it would probably be similar. There's nothing wrong with RaW except that, you might be walking into a deathtrap not realizing that your opponents army is three times heartier than yours and you need to cause three times the wounds to win. In this case the relative balance is 3:1, where as AoB works to get it as close to 1:1 as possible. There are still wacky rules, and super units, strategy and tactics, good lists and bad lists, but with AoB at least you know that either side has to put about an equal amount of hurtin' on the other to win.

The point of this particular forum is to promote similar systems of balance that allow you to enjoy AoS. As of now, a potential new player walks into the store and says "I love these models and I read the rules online - I am thinking about playing AoS, but I don't get balancing summoning. Daemons can just summon twice their army size? How is that balanced". Then the GW rep tells him some nonsense about how its all good and fair and all you have to do is kill the wizard and everyone loves it. Most people who think like me walk out of the store without buying anything thinking, these guys are illogical nuts.

If we get to the point where someone tells these potential players "actually we have a fair balanced way to limit summoning so that games aren't one sided - you should join our club and try it out". Then these people will buy a starter box and try it out. Then all the people who bought the starter box just to play with one friend will start going to the clubs and checking out how people are playing this balanced & competitive hobby. Then the community can start to grow, maybe even thrive again. Then there can be big events with lots of cool people and awesome models and everybody wins.

 

[Tip4Tap]

If I'm not wrong, I pointed out in that thread already that the sentece you quoted is incorrect. Or at least there's a (very important) part missing.

"If you take out 100% of your enemy's starting forces you win a major victory"
This is correct only if one or more of your models survive till the end of the battle.
Which is not so obvious when both of you start with 3 models and then your enemy summons 100 more!

"SUMMONING WOULD BE ALREADY BALANCED BY THIS" if you could claim a major victory at the very moment you take out 100% of your enemy's starting forces... but for now it seems a victory may be assigned only at the end of the match, which happens:
- if there are no enemy models left on the field of battle, or
- if it has not been possible to fight a battle to its conclusion or the outcom is not obvious
- immediatly when the objective of a Sudden Death Victory is achieved by the outnumbered player.
[AoS Rules, Page 2,Glorious Victory and Sudden Death Victories paragraphs]

(Personal opionion, as always)

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?

 

[Bainbow]

@Killer AngelIf i don't want you to kill my wizard, you're not going to kill my wizard.

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

Unless I actually want to, seriously @Bainbow said it best before, AoS is all OP. Everything about this game is OP and they purposefully threw balance out the window, if you are having issues getting people to play then it is because they don't like the game, and if you need to change the very core of the game for them then you probably should be playing a different game.

Easy answer to killing summoners is bring a couple thundertusks, almost guaranteed 6 mortal wounds each turn per model, I have 6 so that means I'm putting out 30 mortal wounds on you each turn. I guess all that ignore rending, 2+, cover etc is moot, also halving my wounds caused is also moot because I can easily do more than 24 wounds on you before your turn. And then just for funsies I will field my 4 stonehorns and 14 mournfang so I can beast charge the crap out of the enemy, all those things cause mortal wounds as well.

Or pack a few mangler squids in with your force, I also like having two teams of 3 stormfiends with warpfire throwers because that means I'm dishing out another 24 mortal wounds. Not even the best tank in the game (bastilodon) is going to be able to stop the amount of damage I can put out if I actually want to play competitively, the whole game is designed that way.

If you want new people to play or join the hobby then you need to start off with how stupid the game can get and then show them how much fun it is to play as long as people are more interested in having a good time instead of winning. Also they are now allowed to buy and model they think is cool and play with it, so what if they think carnosaurs and bloodthirsters go well together, AoS thinks they do as also

Limit summoning, limit deployment, limit etc, in the end you have a homebrew game that only your circle of friends is wanting to play, which makes for some great game nights. But you would do better joining 9th age discussions if you actually want to make game mechanic changes that will effect the entire community.

All this, I approve.

 

[Chrakgar]

@Chrakgar
5! I have never cast more than 3 spells in any turn. So you can take 2 slann and summon 20 saurus, 20 skinks and 10 guard every turn?

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.

 

[n810]

Hmm.... For Lizardmen...

unlimited summoning: but no bonuses my be added to casting summon spells.

Boom, fixed it!