Fixing summoning

[ClassicFlava]

Since it seems to be part of the game how bout this for a fix. All of these are assuming two armies of similar power are fighting which means there is a balance system in place.

 

.sudden death is removed

-the takes away the incentive to start with a tiny force on the board

.you can only summon from the warscrolls you brought to battle

-this limits what you can actually summon

 

Not perfect but way better than it is currently imo. Thoughts?

[splinx]

House rules i am looking at is that you can only summon successfully once per game per scroll and the unit summoned has a maximum wound count of 24 wounds.

 

I also looked at only having one / two summoning scroll per army but am unsure of weather this would nerf the VC/TC a bit too much?

 

- I do like the fact you can only summon units you actually brought to the game. Something to try out.

[Hobbitron]

I've already stated my thoughts on summoning and what units are available to summon in another thread.... suffice it to say: I agree that you need to have brought the Warscroll to the game to be able to summon from it.

 

As for the other parts...

 

I think it's too early to do too much to fix it. We need games and campaigns, and a general idea of where GW is heading.

 

For that reason, I think a simple fix like this would do it:

 

A wizard may use their spell in the Hero phase to unbind a summoned unit. To do so, the wizard rolls two dice as if they were casting a spell. The value of the dice (plus modifiers) must beat the required value to cast the summoning spell. This counts as casting a spell.

 

Edit: As an addition to the rule, "This unit counts as being destroyed."

[Brother Glacius]

Well first there needs to be some consensus about what you can summon. There are two ideas currently out there:

1) you can summon any unit from your army that is summonable

2) you can only summon units where you have a unit on the table (ie their war scroll is in play).

 

I dislike option 1 because it leaves far too many options open for summoning. Plus, there is nothing saying you can't take a wizard from another army and adding it to your force, now gaining all of their summoning options as well.

 

Option 2 limits you to summon only units that are part of your army. Plus, based on the idea that the spell is only available while the scroll is in play, destroying a unit would remove that spell as an option (as long as no other unit of that same type was on the field).

 

Since we are going for limiting summoning, option 2 sounds like a good start.

 

Now most summoning spells that I have seen already have a set model count, so I don't think they need to be adjusted. And most wizards already have a limit to how many spells they can cast, but perhaps it would be best to limit them to a single successful casting of a summoning spell per turn. Thus the slanns won't be bringing a horde down, nor would Nagash. But if you bring two necromancers, then each could get off a summoning.

 

What this doesn't address at all is the ability to bring on reinforcements, which seems to be extremely abusable.  That ability needs a lot of restrictions and probably belongs in a different thread.

 

I think that is a good set of restrictions to try out without going overboard. Do recall that summonings can be unbound by other wizards within range and the roll can be failed, so there is already a risk involved. Due to the minor victory conditions, there is already a risk to summoning. There would be no point if a wizard could wipe out a whole summoned unit with a simple unbinding attempt.

[Hobbitron]

Now most summoning spells that I have seen already have a set model count, so I don't think they need to be adjusted. And most wizards already have a limit to how many spells they can cast, but perhaps it would be best to limit them to a single successful casting of a summoning spell per turn. Thus the slanns won't be bringing a horde down, nor would Nagash. But if you bring two necromancers, then each could get off a summoning.

 

Wizards can only cast a spell once each turn. Nagash can cast 8 spells a turn (at full wounds). He has access to 4 non-summoning spells. So, he could cast 5 spells a turn?

 

I had thought about this sort of solution, but it seemed to target some wizards, and not others. And needlessly nerfs someone like Nagash. He doubles the units he summons with a single cast, He is SUPPOSED to be summoning.

 

I'd rather not see things fall back into the "don't take special characters" camp.

 

That is why I thought a solution where summoned units are very easy to get rid of might be a better solution, than preventing someone from summoning at all.

[Brother Glacius]

I think you'll see lots of special characters in AoS being played, just because it is the only way to mix up your character abilities now. No more magic items to make one necro different from the other. In most cases, the bland wizards do only get one spell. So summoning isn't going to be horrid from them. It will be the wizards with multiple casting that need to be toned down.

 

Hmmm you know I missed that each spell can only be attempted once per turn. So a wizard with multiple castings would have to cast different spells each time. So that isn't so bad.

 

So maybe if you just play it where they can only summon units that are part of their army, that will limit them quite a bit.

[bkieft]

I waffled a bit on including Special characters then realized that is exactly the point of AoS to take 2 Grimgores on the table at the same time.

 

I do what I want!

[dkieft]

I am fairly certain that the intent is you have to have the unit in play to use the ability. So if you do not have a Skeleton unit in play, then you do not gain the special rule to allow summoning them.

 

I suppose you could make a claim that if a unit was killed in battle, the ability still applies to the summoner, but I didn't not see any rules about when special abilities come into and out of play.